Chương 61

Hunter Ellen The precision with which the Adventuring Party went through the first floor was a little unsettling to Ellen. She'd come along reluctantly, but really needed to see how the quartet functioned… and they'd allowed it, so long as she stayed out of their way. She'd offered to keep them covered with her bow, even knowing it was of more limited use in the tight confines of the dungeon, and they'd agreed in unison. Yet she hadn't needed to draw her bow back since they had started.

Ellen shouldn't have been surprised. She knew they'd run the first floor six times already, so it wasn't hard for them. The first floor of a dungeon rarely changed, with the only unpredictability being monster behavior. Since all of the monsters had the Bloodline Rival trait targeting the nearest Ellen, their behavior was easily guessed as well. The coordinated group rapidly cut through every chamber.

"Is this how you handle it every time?" Ellen asked, foot nudging the corpse of the arachnohopper. A stab to the base of the neck had cleanly silenced it, and she got the feeling that nobody in the group had been in any real danger at any point. Fighter shrugged.

"Sometimes we miss the first kill strike and have to improvise, but we've gotten pretty good at it now." Ellen knelt down while the others were preparing, setting her knife against the arachnohopper's throat.

"Clean kill, though." She'd never tried taking a pelt from a dungeon monster, but since she had the time… she slid the knife down and started skinning it.

"I wonder if we'd have time to butcher it, or if the dungeon would reabsorb it first?" All four stared at her as she began to cut. Acolyte tilted her head.

"You're skinning it right now?" Scout knelt beside Ellen.

"We have never seen you do this to anything this large during our hunting trips. Do you need help?" Ellen didn't bother to try to address the quartet separately, just continuing to cut.

"It's messy, but why don't we try it? With you four to help, I can probably get this done pretty quickly. Eight limbs will be a little tricky, but we don't have to preserve the meat beneath, so it should be fine. Fighter, can you crack the skull and scoop the brain into my bag? I'm going to need that. Acolyte, if you want to study the venom you should probably extract the sacs." She drew out and handed over her small knife… but Acolyte stared at her, baffled.

Scout had to step in and take the knife, moving to do the cuts herself. Ellen felt a small surge of surprise when she saw that… she'd never seen the Party confused about who would do what before, and that small break in their normally coordinated movement gave her some relief that they weren't truly inseparable. Monster parts were worth money and often valuable to enchanters…

but actually harvesting them required timing and the ability to skillfully extract anything interesting before the dungeon reabsorbed the body. That sometimes took as little as half an hour, and Ellen was hoping this one wasn't quite so fast about it. She wasn't sure what the usual range was, since dungeons were so rare these days. It was fortunate that she worked quickly, because with the help of the other four Ellen was able to get the pelt off and the brain and venom sacs stored.

It was quick work, though it burned through some of the wicks on the three lanterns they carried. A quick trim was all they needed to fix that, but it was unfortunate that the Darkvision circlets were not all complete yet. Smith had prioritized construction with their limited iron supplies. With the materials salvaged, Ellen stowed them—messily—in her sack and followed the quartet down. Now that they weren't split up by task, they all four moved with that same unnatural coordination.

She found it interesting that two of them were mildly squeamish about the work done to get the parts. They shouldn't have many divergent experiences, only Class differences.

"I presume you're all ready for this?" Ellen asked the others. A chorus of affirmations floated her way as they descended the slope to the second floor. According to Anroll, the second floor was made up of larger chambers, but connected by much narrower passages that sometimes sloped up or down. The major enemy was giant centipedes, which were not altered beyond being bigger, but were dangerous due to numbers and the more potent venom.

Ellen was a little worried about this, but Acolyte had assured her that it was largely tissue damage that the venom caused, and she could treat that much more easily than some of the more exotic poisons that the spiders used. The bigger problem was that past the first floor, dungeons would change their floors around frequently. The enemies would probably be similar, but the layout could be more or less complex, numbers different, and in extreme cases new monsters might appear…

and the dungeon was growing very, very fast. Fighter switched from spear to a long knife—they really needed more weapons if they were going to do this regularly. Ellen saw that Fighter had thick leather gloves up to the elbow on, which puzzled her until she realized that the other Ellens had thought about this more than she'd realized. If Fighter was tangling up with the centipedes directly using a knife instead of a spear, she could easily lose a finger or worse.

That would possibly carry over to the next Ellen, too. None of them wanted that. The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. The next chamber was deeper than Ellen had thought… their walk was several minutes long, so she was sure it was far more than a single flight of stairs would cover. Scholar probably knew, but she didn't want to bother her with it. The quartet's coordination was eerie but very effective, and messing up their rhythm could kill them all.

Ellen drew her knife as she entered the chamber behind the others. This one was larger than previous ones… almost twice her height, roughly rounded, with numerous holes that varied from half her height—requiring crawling—to almost half again. She could see why Uncle Anroll had cautioned about getting lost… it wasn't technically a maze, but for humans it was close enough.

"This way," Scholar announced confidently. Considering the others were already moving in that direction, Ellen had the feeling the words were for her benefit. She barely hesitated before following, pulling up the Settlement Interface and realizing that it was now allowing them to map the dungeon as they explored it. Was this an effect of having a Delve Weaver in the community?

Brushing away the experience notification for reaching the second floor—which was unimpressive compared to what she was getting otherwise—Ellen fell into step and ducked her head. She knew now where they were trying to go, at least. She just didn't get a chance to ask about it. The explosion of burrowing monsters was… actually anticipated. Even Ellen felt the quiver of the stone shifting in time to throw herself to the side.

Her blade swung in a quick arc, biting into the base of the centipede's head as it skittered along her side. She felt a burning gash open up along her arm, just above her protective bracer, and flinched as the venom made the wound flare in pain. NOTICE Damage Mitigation Activated. Another flinch, this time for being the one that had to spread her damage out among the others. The Lifebind effect was shared by all five, but she worried about how it would injure people who hadn't even been hit yet.

She felt a few draining tugs at her life force as some of the others took bites, but the quartet was fighting in that same eerie silence. Three more were hacked apart in short order, and Ellen let out a deep breath. She dismissed the few thousand experience she'd gotten, a little dazed at how quickly it had come. The fight had been vicious and short… but they'd taken damage, and she was still bleeding.

"I'm not sure that—" Dirt and rock showered her head as Ellen's worries were interrupted. She had just enough time to look up and see a centipede the size of her arm burst from the ceiling. Dust caught in one eye, forcing her to blink rapidly as she jerked back and tried to lift her knife in time. She knew it was too late. The mandibles touched her forehead. The centipede's head exploded.

It all happened so fast, Ellen barely had time to realize she wasn't dead, nor did she register the centipede's body tumble across her shoulder and thud to the ground. She felt ichor dripping from one cheek, and some part of her silently thanked whatever gods were watching that it hadn't gotten anywhere else on her face.

"You are welcome," Acolyte said mildly, shaking Ellen out of her stupor with the simple statement. The Lifebind. Of course. Ellen blinked a few times to finish clearing the dirt from her eyes, only to see all four of the other Ellens staring at her, spattered with ichor from their own fights. A few had blood seeping through their clothing, but none of the injuries looked threatening by themselves.

Blood would be a pain to clean out, too, Ellen thought to herself, drifting to those domestic worries that dominated her mind lately. She was a hunter, and had no trouble butchering animals, but dungeoneering like this was… not something she enjoyed.

"Thanks," she muttered belatedly.

"Are we going to push on to find that tunnel you want to deal with? I'm not fond of this dungeon, but I think I get what you're trying to do, and I do want to help. I'm not sure how much I can, though." Scholar stepped forward and answered for the group.

"Not today. We are learning about the enemy, and would avoid the floor boss anyway, but we must be careful for Uncle Anroll's sake. We already have four more Ellens than he wanted, adding another five would be even worse." Ellen nodded, then shivered. The way the Lifebind had worked had been… frighteningly effective. She now understood how the first time she'd seen it in the cave had been so effective.

If it had been able to transfer the wounds instead of just mirroring them, it would be an even more terrifying power. Her own was far less impressive in battle. Her Trailblazer ability just allowed her to make paths that others could traverse more easily, and only in the wilderness. She'd thought it a little weak at first, but the ability to limit who could use it was powerful. The path to and from the village was significantly safer and easier now, but only for Ellens.

"I agree," she said aloud.

"We should probably not push ourselves. I'm not sure I want to do much more in the dungeon, but if you need a fifth I'm willing. Village might be better but I doubt you'll convince her."

"We do not believe Village should ever be asked for this," Acolyte said quietly.

"She is our peace." Ellen waited a moment for Acolyte to clarify that, but no explanation was forthcoming.

"We should go," Scout said suddenly, moving toward the exit.

"More of them are coming, and we are wounded."

"Thank you for coming with us, Hunter," Fighter said as she started to follow.

"We knew you would understand," Scholar added. Ellen did. Surprisingly, she did. She understood both why they were attacking the dungeon this way, and why they'd invited her. They were determined to do something incredible for the settlement. And they wanted her to know they were not being reckless about it. Ellen had to admit… she approved.