Chương 59: 1-58 Smells like trouble

"Do you think they fought?" Josef asked Bezzo, who was digging through the pile of belongings with deft claws. Aifreed was supporting him, lending a watchful gaze as they analyzed the situation.

"Probably." The lizard nodded, not looking up from the metal cuirass he was currently examining.

"Look here, at the edge of the metal collar." As he turned around and showed the piece of armor to everyone, both Linda and Zippa looked at the thing questioningly. Josef, however, spotted the decisive detail quickly. He had already been in the position of desperately looking for weak points in an armored knight, trying to leverage what little offensive power he had. That's why he had already once contemplated doing what must have happened here.

Someone had shoved a sharp implement between the helmet and mail of that knight, aiming for a lethal weak point.

"Couldn't those monsters have done that? It would be quite unlucky, but their legs are long and sharp." Josef still held doubts about their discovery, though that was mostly because he didn't want to believe it.

"No, that would be impossible," Aifreed added his own analysis.

"Those creatures couldn't get the upward angle needed to get between the pieces. Also, only the endpoints of their limbs are sharp, and the rest is quite blunt and smooth."

"This comes from a dagger, or something similar." Bezzo finalized the verdict.

"These people didn't die from a monster attack." Linda gasped at the revelation.

"You mean to say that there are even more lackeys going around and killing for that dastardly bishop?"

"Well, if the knights were the ones getting attacked, then those attackers must have been awfully unprepared." Zippa chuckled dryly. That suggestion reminded Josef that Vasaj's people were supposed to make a move on Sanctum's forces inside the dungeon. Was this part of their plan? It seemed unlikely, given how one-sided this encounter must have ended. So maybe it was just another loose end they were covering up? As dark as the thought was, he at least felt some peace once he knew that Cana wasn't among the victims.

The nametags they recovered from the satchels told him as much. Clearly, some of his companions had much stronger feelings about the matter at hand. Linda's fists were balled up so tightly her knuckles had turned white, and Bezzo's would likely be the same, if it weren't for his scales. No one was happy about the prospect of knights going around killing people, but those two reacted especially strongly to it.

"So, we will have to expect more of those armored assholes jumping us? Great, as if the dungeon wasn't bad enough on its own." He concluded their findings, hoping to stir his group into moving on before their thoughts could spiral.

"If they dare show their faces, I shall hack them to pieces." Linda promised sinisterly, and Bezzo grunted in affirmation. It wasn't what he had aimed for, but at least those two were getting along just fine. Packing up the nametags and anything immediately useful, they mostly ended up with some extra rations and water. It wasn't much, but allowed them to refill some of what they had used so far. Once they found Cana, they would hopefully still have enough to share with her group.

They must be running low after this long in the dungeon. Going down to the 22nd floor, their not so merry adventure continued onward. Tensions were high, constantly expecting an encounter with armored assailants. What they found instead was something that brought both Josef's and Linda's blood to the boiling point. Living Waste - Level 35 An all too familiar, if much smaller, creature was occupying the canal by the side of their path.

Its bulbous body consisted of the very sewage that flowed through the dungeon, and it had sprouted two limb-like appendages from its body.

"Cut it down, Aifreed!"

"Burn it, Zippa!" Two voices rang out simultaneously, condemning the creature they had encountered.

"As you wish, my lady." The loyal knight showed no hesitation in the face of Linda's demands. Zippa, however, looked puzzled for a moment before understanding filled his face.

"What he said." He finally answered with a toothy smile. The creature would never know what it did to cause such offense, as it was removed from life quickly and unceremoniously. Not that Josef could think of any way such a monster could die in any fashion that wasn't disgusting. Even if Aifreed's cuts couldn't cause any actual harm on their own, his sword still cleanly removed any appendage that tried to get close to either of them.

The efficiency with which he dismantled those limbs was a sight to behold, needing only a single swing each. Josef wanted to complain about how easy the elf made it look, but he knew that even against this smaller specimen, he could not accomplish the same. Then, Zippa exhaled copious amounts of fire, bathing the entire monster in hot orange flames. With its immediate means of attack removed, the elemental could ultimately only await its demise as its body and surrounding sewage began boiling within seconds.

"Ugh.. that's…" Linda's words failed her as the result of the battle spread outwards. Instead, she opted to dash further down the path, everyone else following suit immediately. Except for Pretzel, who promptly unsummoned herself, diving back into Josef's chest, and Dusty, who had disappeared before the first flames could touch the creature. If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

Using heat to kill the elemental might have been effective, but it was definitely among their worst decisions so far. Anyone who has ever smelled cooking sewage would quickly wish they could bleach their mind of that memory. It was a small and elusive group with few members, but all of them had joined then and there.

"That was horrible. Let's do it again." Zippa quipped after recovering from their mad sprint. The only response he received was a slap on the back of his head. Followed by a second and a third shortly after.

"At the very least, I no longer feel the urge to kill these abominations in increasingly violent manners." Linda let slip, forgetting all sense of decorum. Then, before she could process what had left her mouth, Josef added, "Yeah, it made way for an entirely different kind of trauma. You don't have a way to purge memories, do you?" He was only half joking, not expecting an answer. Aifreed, however, helpful as always, provided an answer.

"There are magics and tools that can achieve such a result, though all of them are highly illegal. Even should you find someone trustworthy enough to allow such mental intrusion, most consider the side effects too unpredictable to be worth it."

"Uh, noted." With that unpleasantness behind them, they continued on, making short work of most monster groups that barred their path. That wasn't to say that the dungeon wasn't still dangerous, but with their group size and composition, they could deal with it better than most could ever hope to. The presence of a healer alone was an invaluable boon, allowing them to push for fight after fight with next to no recuperation between encounters.

If they had to stop and rest up every time they got injured, praying they could stave off poison and disease with whatever ointments they had brought along, things would look a lot worse. Which also explained why groups usually took much longer to reach as deep as they had.

"The first ten floors might be practically free, but after that, things slow down quickly," Bezzo had once explained when Josef asked him about the length of their previous dungeon dives.

"When we first pushed beyond that, I usually planned a whole day for every two floors. Even after we got used to the stretch to floor twenty, it usually took us an extra day, just to account for any breaks related to injury." Josef didn't hold them back when it came to slaying monsters, either. The newest Rachse were still a bit hit and miss, often landing a blow before he could take one down, but hopefully the Dexterity he would earn from all this would fix that issue.

The elementals, rare as they were, soon learned to fear him as well. Not that they displayed much emotion, or had an opportunity to spread the word, but that's how he imagined their final moments whenever he sucked away all of their mana. The big one might have been immune to such an approach, but these didn't fare much better than the royal slimes from before.

On top of his magic, they had both Zippa and Aifreed acting as immovable units in close combat, taking anything they encountered head on, while retaliating in kind. Their methods of doing so varied wildly, with the knight using evasive footwork and quick retaliatory swings, where the reptile just met force with scales and monsters with fists. While Zippa's method relied mostly on being healed up more often than not, none could deny the effectiveness of his approach.

Linda wasn't far from that in her own approach, though she still maintained a defensive stance that her knight had drilled into her. But while she didn't rely on her body to take the damage for her, she was equally relentless in returning the violence. Add into that mix an opportunistic rabbit, who gleefully jumps at any downed monster with savage teeth, and a danger noodle that shoots water bullets to create said opportunities, and their party made a slaughter of any skittering Rachse they encountered.

Sometimes, the last sounds of battle were from both the elf and the reptile whacking their barely alive opponents with wild abandon. They would usually wear a slightly deranged smile, unbothered by the blood spraying them. If it weren't for the obvious cosmetic differences, Josef would have suspected them to be siblings separated at birth. As for the actual sibling…

"Fuck this!" Bezzo hissed, taking an ugly stab to the shoulder when his patience finally wore thin, and he aimed for too small an opening to try taking out his opponent. He was able to push through, slicing his opponent open, spilling the horrifying spaghetti living in its bowels, but the damage was done. Not the physical kind, as that was easy to fix with a simple cast of Regeneration.

Gnashing his teeth in annoyance, Bezzo watched his brother torch what remained of the monster, as Josef pulled him from the danger zone before he could get hurt worse.

"Come on, Bez. This isn't like you at all," he tried to broach the topic with the upset reptile.

"I hate that nickname." He didn't, as a minor tail flick gave away. Where Zippa was an amazing example to learn reptile body language from, his younger brother had the exact same tells, only much smaller and more subtle.

"You are frustrated because these creatures counter you, right?" He was more stating the obvious than asking.

"No luck creating a new technique to handle them?"

"We can't all have your adv-… ability to make new spells." He barely stopped short of spilling the beans about Josef's heart.

"Some people never figure out a single one without a teacher." Frustration was oozing out of him by the end, and no one would blame him for that. Having just pushed into the 23rd floor, the enemy variety they encountered hadn't expanded since the first elemental. Neither of them was a good match for the poor lizard, whose poison caused not a single reaction in either creature.

"Maybe I could help with some new ideas? Your poison is still a fluid, right? Maybe some stuff translates between them. Or I could come up with some mental images to feed into your mana."

"Mind your own damn business. I can take care of myself." Bezzo barked back harshly. Even when his brother walked up and tried to put a hand on his shoulder, he shrugged it off and paced away. There he remained, close enough to remain in the safety of the group, but far enough for privacy.

"It's alright." Zippa instead consoled the concerned human by his side.

"He sometimes gets like this. Whenever there's a problem, he wants to carry it all alone on his shoulders. Then he gets snippy when anyone tries to help."

"Is there anything we can do for him? Something we should do?" Josef wondered.

"Nah, just let him work through it. That usually helps. The surprising thing is that he often succeeds in fixing whatever troubles him, if he keeps at it stubbornly."

"And if he gets stuck on an issue?"

"Last time that happened," Zippa chuckled, "I had to knock him out and carry him home."