Chương 38: [LD-1] 37. Turn Back

XXXVII Turn Back Everyone waited for me to finish meditating. I was going to repeat putting half of my gained experience into the catafalque, but Kil advised me not to. It'll require more energy and care as you near completion, Master. Which caused me to frown.

'Isn't it supposed to be the opposite?' He shook his head. Think of it as filling a vase with water without spilling. When the vase is empty, you can pour freely. However, the closer you get to a full container— The more careful you needed to be… made sense. The result was that reaching level fifteen would give me a bigger increase in short-term power than pouring energy into my soul sea, and I'd need the increase in power. Sadly, I didn't reach level fifteen. Reaper - lvl. 10 -> Reaper - lvl. 14.

12 free stat points gained. Name: Joy Grimm Level 14 Nox [Reaper] Rank: Neophyte Magic Domain: Death (Special) Class Weapon: Cull the Deathblade (F - 48/10000) Death Core: Dormant Death Fragments: 58/1000 Mana: 220/220 (+ 50) Skills: Ancient Bone Shell (C-1), Summon Ghoul (C-1), Deathbolt (C-2), Arm of Quranq (U-1), Reaper's Condolence (L-1) STR: 11 DEX: 11 INT: 20 CON: 10 WIS: 22 Faith: 20 Free Points: 0 Most of the points went into my INT and WIS, but I put a few into my physical stats as well.

I did a final check, then exited my soul sea. The others were already gathered in front of the entrance.

"You ready?" Alexa asked. Do you want to enter the Third Floor? Y/N. Recommended entry level: 15. Douglas was the first of us who accepted, followed by Alexa.

'Should I summon my ghoul right away?' … No. It only lasted five minutes, so it was better to use it during a crucial combat encounter like I had before. I also wouldn't be able to use the skill more than three times before running out of mana. I phased through the entrance. Because I was entering of my free will this time, I had the mind to study the sensations. The veil was cold and slimy, making me feel like I was breaking through a shell.

Darkness clung to my face as I came out on the other side— A deep, pungent odour, like rotting eggs, but many times worse, slammed into my nostrils. I gagged as the darkness let go of my sight and doubled over. Buzzing entered my ears, which I thought a phenomenon of my own brain in response to the smell. Until I looked up through bleary eyes. Flies roamed through the air, centred around a mass of white, soft-bodied and legless worms… maggots? Yes, they were maggots.

They numbered in the hundreds, if not thousands, and crawled on top of and below each other, forming a pile taller than myself. Only then did I notice the limbs and faces poking from underneath the writhing mass. One of the corpses stared at me, their pupil barely visible through the cloak of larvae infesting their socket. The organ bulged, dilating the wedge of colour left visible in the iris— Fluids and matter burst from the popping organ and splashed the insects, who didn't care one lick about the shower.

Worse, they writhed more fervently in the aftermath. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it. I stumbled to the very back of the central area to create enough space between me and the others, then hurled out the contents of my stomach.

"What in the fuck—" Shota muttered, having also retreated to a corner. He glanced back toward the pile… another fresh vat of bile exited his throat. Seeing him barf induced a second round of vomiting for myself. Alexa covered her nose with the back of her sleeve and swallowed. Kiba, who the smell seemed to hit more than the actual sight of the bodies, breathed through his mouth and looked away. Out of all of us, Emily was the only one unaffected. Physically, at least.

Her face dark, she said: "There's a sign on the side." A wooden post jammed into the ground. Crude, fast work. There was a mark on top. Some kind of…

"Is that…" I heaved.

"A smiley?"

"Smiley?" Emily frowned but shook her head, filing the strange term away as 'the stench made her lose her mind'.

"It's a laughing face." Shota snarled.

"Why would they—""It's a greeting," Kiba interrupted.

"Greeting?" Evans got out.

"This is the only entrance to the third floor," Alexa snarled. She was leaning on her knees now to fight the bile.

"They knew we would come here." I glanced toward the three gaping tunnel mouths. Rhaast had said we'd be free to traverse the floor, but that could be a lie. We could be getting surrounded as we spoke. Which was why Kiba and Emily dragged the rest of us into motion, despite our stomachs protesting. Should I go down a different path, Master? Kil asked. Sending the summon to scout on his own was a good way to have him die. However, I could send Char with him.

'No,' I thought. Char was better served helping Douglas on the front line. We chose a path at random and went down the middle tunnel. No matter how many steps I put between myself and the bodies, the smell stayed just as strong and declined to let me go.

'This cannot be a test.' My mind refused to accept it. But if all of this was real, if we truly had been transported to a dungeon during our Initiation, then someone had murdered almost a hundred students in cold blood. How could a person do such a thing? They couldn't.

'A devil.' There was a devil in our midst. There was no other explanation. Shota spat on the floor.

"Disgusting…"

"You're all making it worse than it really is," Kil huffed.

'You don't have a fucking nose, Kil,' I glared him down. He jerked and laughed it off. I turned away with a sigh. In front of us, rock replaced patches of earth until the entire interior of the tunnel had turned to stone. No side tunnels. No noise beyond anxious breaths too heavy to be hushed.

"There's really no one," Evans whispered. We'd been travelling for ten minutes now and hadn't run into so much as another soul.

"Stay vigilant," Alexa said.

"They could be trying to catch us off-guard." But the doubt lessened with each step.

"There's something up ahead," Kiba said. I peered. Slowly but surely, the road gave way. A solid block hovered at the end of the. It was…an elevator. There was something beyond it, but I couldn't see what it was.

'Kil, are you…' I'm using Black Sight, Master. It was a stupid question. Otherwise, I wouldn't have been able to spot the platform. But what I was seeing was so jarring I couldn't help but ask. Or, I supposed, not seeing.

'Are the shadows so deep that we cannot see through them?' …The level of my skill is low. Perhaps that is the reason. But he sounded entirely unsure. Beams spat from Shota's technos and lit up the end of the path for the others. Evans cried out. Alexa sighed.

"I think I'm avoiding these for the rest of my life." Which drew a half-hearted chuckle out of Emily. We stopped right outside the elevator. There was a raised button in the centre of the machinery.

"Are we going down?" Kiba asked. He glanced over our group.

"There may be an ambush down there." I looked out past the edge of the platform. My head spun merely attempting to gauge any sort of distance. Alexa bit her lip.

"No, let's head back. We confirmed what we came here for." Namely, that there were no enemies for us to fight, and so no experience to gain. All of us turned back to the tunnel… and grimaced. I almost puked right then and there. Once we came within running distance of the corpses, all of us took a deep breath and dashed for the exit, looking only straight ahead. I couldn't accept the system's message to leave fast enough. Once outside, we quickly gathered our bearings and retreated to the cafeteria.

Lily and Roland had returned from their hunts about an hour earlier.

"You look like you saw a bunch of devils," Lily said. She wasn't wrong. The smell had taken refuge inside my brain, following me even now. Alexa rubbed her temples.

"There's a not so… pleasant sight on the third floor. We'll need a few students with fire abilities to take care of it." Lily tilted her head at that, but didn't question it further. We shared what we found, which had the others frowning. Roland sighed. Of the entire class, he'd been the most outspoken against the president and Lily's innocence in this entire matter. The ones in his group followed his mentality.

From what I knew, he'd even challenged Lily this morning, saying that his team would slay the most monsters. It'd created a rivalry of sorts. Alexa hadn't commented on it other than bidding students to be careful.

'It will motivate the others,' she explained to me. [Razor - lvl. 9] [Earth Caller - lvl. 9] Guess it worked.

"So, what now, President?" Roland said.

"Any other grandstanding plans?"

"We'll continue as we are," she said.

"According to Kiba, there's a Matron on this floor. Our groups will hunt it down together."

"The Matron is level twenty," Kiba said.

"Has a bunch of smaller targets around her, too." Alexa nodded.

"That'll be enough to get Joy and Evans to level fifteen." To be honest, I couldn't bring myself to feel any excitement or fear at the thought of facing a level twenty—not when the orc lord was an ever-present threat in my head. Killing the Matron will be easy, Master! No doubt. Kiba was freaking level sixteen! The amount of solo killing he'd done in a single day had really boosted his experience gain.

"And afterwards?" Roland asked.

"We take our strongest," Alexa whispered, "go down the elevator, and face whatever's waiting." Her tone was grave. Understandably so. My gaze went to the windows. It was somewhere late in the afternoon, so the moon wasn't out, but I could imagine her filtering through the windowpanes.

'We're in the last stretch.' I could feel it. With the certainty of the moon and sun rising and falling together to shower the world with their love. Tomorrow, our struggle would come to an end. One way or the other.