Chương 79: 79, loop 2 33

The stairwell ended in a wide-open basin cut into a wide-open field. Which I could only see because I had [Wideview] active. If I hadn't known better, I would've honestly sworn we were in a really peaceful little valley. It was maybe twenty-five feet deep and at least a hundred feet wide, with gently sloping sides covered in fifteen-foot-tall grass. Oddly, the grass had survived being covered in water.

White, blue, and gold wildflowers were scattered throughout the fields, giving the whole place an almost beautiful appearance. Beyond the edge of the basin, the field continued in every direction beneath that same poisoned green sky from the first dungeon room. Idly, I looked at the timer. It said we had eleven and a half hours left. Had we really only been in here twenty-four hours? It felt more like a week than a single day. A lot had happened since we first saw that sky.

The basin itself had been full of water until Finn turned the crank just a few minutes ago. The ground was still wet. Wherever there wasn't grass, silt and dirt combined into a dark, muddy texture that would have clung to our boots were we not floating above it. It was oddly serene for what I knew was taking place just beyond the flowers. And then I saw the tree. I would have focused on it more, but Finn started to approach from the rear.

"So, where's the boss?" Finn asked. I stared at him.

"Dude. Come on. Really? You're gonna say that?"

"Say what?"

"You're gonna ask a question like that, man. Don't you know the rules?"

"The rules?" He looked at me funny.

"Since when have you been superstitious?"

"It's not superstition. The dungeon can hear us. So you asking, 'Where's the boss?' is basically a signal for the dungeon to have the boss suddenly appear and squash us."

"You don't know that."

"It's how dungeons work."

"And you, the patron saint of laziness, know that because…?"

"I read things."

"You read a Dungeon Studies textbook?"

"I was bored in Mela's class." He rolled his eyes.

"I'm pretty sure asking where something is won't summon it."

"That sounds exactly like the kind of thing someone says right before a boss fucking squashes them." At that exact moment, a loud crack echoed through the area. Finn looked up in a panic, his eyes wide, but nothing else happened. Neither of us could find the source, which finally calmed Finn down enough for him to say, "See? Nothing happened." He paused and scratched his head.

"Now you've got me being paranoid. Cut it out. There's nothing here. No bosses or enemies."

"I don't know where the boss is, but it's clearly just up that hill." I gestured before floating forward. Because of [Wideview], I could see the war on full cinematic display. Hundreds of spider treants were fighting hundreds of living, winged ape men. If Finn knew… well, he'd want to pick a side and head straight for the battle.

'Well, no, sir, I say, no, sir.' I said to myself, I was just gonna float here and let them deal with each other, because the less effort I put in, the better. And hey, it looked like the apes were winning. But it was clear they weren't doing it without effort. Appropriately enough, the field already looked beyond devastated. Treants charged against the apes on crooked wooden legs while the apes came at them from both the air and the ground.

Dozens of corpses already littered the area, and friend and foe alike climbed over them to reach whatever they were trying to kill next. The larger apes kept tearing treants apart and using their corpses as weapons.

"Motherfucker, that's brilliant." I laughed. It was brutal but effective. Still, the treants were giving as good as they got. It seemed like for every two treants that died, at least one ape went down with them.

"Well, well, well. Look what we have here. Yet another battle designed to wear us down before the boss so we get our asses handed to us," I said.

"Laz." Finn drifted up beside me before realization finally struck.

"Wait, what are you talking abo…" He trailed off.

"Isn't it obvious? A war between the treants and the apes." He leaned sideways, trying to see around the grass.

"I can't see a thing."

"I know." He gave me a look.

"I just like trolling you."

"So what are you really seeing?"

"Didn't I just tell you? That was serious. Winged apes and treants are having a fucking battle. Just like the ones we saw down below, except these apes haven't, you know, died yet. It's pretty cool."

"Pretty cool?" He didn't think it was cool. Or maybe he was still confused. Dude needed sleep. Ah, sleep, how I missed sleep. The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. We settled into the grass, giving ourselves just enough space to watch the war without being seen. The nice part was that [Wideview] let me watch everything perfectly anyway. I had a real hiding spot. With full cover, and enough room that there was a real chance I could start relaxing soon.

The cracking sound stopped our conversation in its tracks again. Finn flinched before hugging himself close to the side of the hill. But it was clear we weren't about to draw any attention. He started talking again, quieter.

"We should help, Laz."

"Not a chance."

"Why not?"

"Because whichever side wins, we still have to finish them off."

"That's only a maybe." I gave him a look.

"No. Whichever side wins is definitely gonna try and kill us." Finn glanced toward the winged army.

"What if they don't attack us?"

"Finn, they're dungeon monsters. They're, you know, made to attack us. Do I need to remind you what they did to my chair?"

"Just because we're in a dungeon doesn't automatically mean everything in it is hostile."

"Oh, good. I'm glad we're considering the possibility that these are friendly winged murder apes." Finn sighed.

"Look, all I'm saying is, if we help the side that's already winning, things will go faster and we can get out of here sooner." He paused before adding, "It's not like we're underprepared. We have Flag and his clones, Axe, our golems, and both of us are full on mana."

"Yeah. Exactly. And if we wait, all of those things will still be true, except there'll be way fewer apes left for us to kill." The only time I ever argued was when I knew the result would end with less effort. Thankfully, Finn didn't push it. Even with our seemingly superior firepower, especially that of Flag and his clones, I did not like our odds if we actually joined the fray. The second we started attracting attention, we'd be in it.

Or I could just wait, maybe get a quick nap in, and we'd have much less of a forced fight.

"Dude, why are you so happy?"

"I'm not happy."

"You're practically grinning ear to ear."

"Well, can you blame me? I get to take another nap. Our enemies are killing each other. And we're almost done with this stupid dungeon."

"So your plan is to sit here, let them take each other down, and just wait."

"Pretty much."

"How long do you plan on waiting?"

"Until they're done." I shrugged.

"That could take hours." My smile widened. Finn just stared at me.

"Oh, you fucking bastard. That's why you're so happy."

"I don't know what you mean."

"You just want to take another nap."

"I might rest my eyes a little bit."" Laz."

"Look. Our enemies are killing each other. We're almost done with this stupid dungeon, and there's currently nothing I could do that would improve the situation without putting us all in harm's way. It would be irresponsible if we didn't rest."

"Irresponsible."

"Yeah, exactly. It would be irresponsible not to take this opportunity to regenerate our mana."

"You know, if we tried to clear them out instead of sleeping, you could get out of here sooner and sleep in a real bed."

"Yeah, but then I'd have to stay awake now, and I wouldn't get to sleep until later."

"Yes. You're right. That is how time works."

"Okay, but hear me out, Finn. If I sleep now, then I get to sleep now." He closed his eyes for a second. I could practically feel his will to keep fighting breaking down.

"So how long do you plan on doing nothing?"

"Wake me when one side loses, and we can go finish off the victors." I laid back, comfortably suspended in the air, and closed my eyes. Only to be immediately interrupted by Axe shaking me. I sighed dramatically and opened my eyes.

"Commander, let me join the battle. Please let me kill the trees."

"Dude, didn't you get enough downstairs?"

"No. Someone," he shifted his axe head toward Flag,"killed the rest before I claimed my victory. I am distraught. I want my victory."

"Dude, you killed a ton of trees today."

"I did not kill nearly enough."

"There were hundreds."

"And I still want more."

"Look," I said, "I promise that if we wait, I'll let you kill as many of the survivors as you can handle."

"All of them?"

"Yes. If you leave me alone right now, all of them."

"Thank you, Commander." I turned around and went back to sleep. - Somehow, that nap wasn't accompanied by nightmares. Instead, when Finn shook me awake, I felt at peace. The feeling I always craved from naps. A world where nothing was wrong, or painful, or causing problems. My [Subtitle] and [Wideview] were off. They'd worn off while I was napping, so I recast them, which made me realize how much time had actually passed. That had been a very, very good three-hour nap.

Honestly, I felt as refreshed as I would after a full night's sleep. I looked around, [Wideview] back in place, to find that the apes had indeed won. The peaceful field from before my nap had been utterly destroyed. Huge patches of grass and flowers had been ripped down to the soil. Long trenches where treants had dug in their legs scarred the battlefield. The surviving apes were spread out among their dead.

Some looked shell-shocked and lay motionless in the grass, while others wandered from corpse to corpse, making sure the treants stayed dead. There were so many bodies. Though not as many as I had hoped. But it didn't matter. I still had plans upon plans ready to protect us, should things go sideways. The battlefield was covered in assorted pieces of slaughtered treants. Some hadn't been properly killed and were limping across the battlefield, trying to escape to safety.

Others were still attacking maimed apes as though their side hadn't already lost. But it wasn't much of a battlefield anymore. Closer to the stairwell, all forty-six copies of Flag were still staring off into the distance, doing nothing. It would have been frustrating if it weren't so fucking creepy to watch. But then I finally noticed something. Instead of staring at the stairwell, or even the battle, they were staring at the tree. In my rush to take a nap, I had barely noticed the giant arboreal feature.

The trunk had to be at least thirty feet across. Its canopy started high above the battlefield and spread outward, eclipsing a huge portion of the sky. It was massive and haunting to look at. But from this far away, I couldn't really make out the delicate carvings the rest of the tree had. Or maybe they were just gone. Then I heard that cracking noise again, like another door was being split open. It was getting louder. More frequent. And faster each time it appeared.

"Laz, do you hear that?"

"Yeah."

"What do you think it is?" Which was, of course, when the answer presented itself. The tree burst open. Four seams split down from the treetop at once, dividing the upper trunk into quarters. Each section peeled backward like the layers of an onion. The wood bent in a way that seemed so unreal that if I hadn't been watching it happen, I wouldn't have believed it. And then something inside the tree stood up.