Chương 80: 1-79 Bargain

Josef's tense waiting finally ended when a small furry paw pressed down on his shoulder, dispelling the stillness that had taken hold of him just as quickly as it had appeared. Under the spontaneous onset of gravity, he fell down on his ass, wincing at the abrupt collision. At least he hadn't dropped down far, or on his head for that matter, considering he had no way to prepare himself.

"Thanks, Dusty," he grunted, upset not at his familiar, but the general situation. Unlike before, he was able to hear his own voice, but it echoed weirdly around him, making it sound distorted and far away. Looking around, he had to rub his eyes, disbelieving what he saw. Then, for good measure, he did it again. He found himself inside a safety-zone, a circular room just like others he had entered before. There were even a dozen or so people, all huddled together.

They were practically lying on top of each other in front of the stairs that would have led them upstairs, had the dungeon not locked them all in. Many of their faces were frozen in terror, some in grief, and a scant few only stared lifelessly ahead. No one made a sound. Nobody moved. The entire room appeared almost bleached, with the colors Josef would have expected to see much paler than on the other floors. A condition that wasn't limited to the walls or floors, but also applied to the people stuck inside.

The effect wasn't as drastic, but considering his surroundings, he suspected that their skin, fur or scales weren't supposed to be such a light coloration. Looking down on himself, he barely caught signs of a similar phenomenon, as his hands returned to a rosier color than a moment ago. His clothes, though, were stuck in that washed out state, at least for now. Whatever Dusty had done for him, it didn't apply to his friends either.

Linda and Aifreed were here, the lady sitting next to her knight, head resting on his chest, stuck mid-sob, tears never quite leaving her eyes. Whichever method the bunny had to bring them over, it had not spared them from everyone else's fate. Right next to him stood his favourite reptiles, Zippa and Bezzo. They too were still as statues, the bigger brother holding the younger in his embrace, covering as much of his body with himself as was possible.

Their eyes were closed, as in silent vigil, waiting for a dangerous blow that wouldn't come.

"Everyone…" Even though they were unharmed, the sight of his friends felt like a fierce punch to the gut. Whatever this was, his intuition told him it was bad. Very bad. Looking for the rest of his familiars, he soon received something like quiet reassurance from Pretzel's link. Her presence felt muted and slow, as if she was buried under pillows, but he found her tucked safely away in his chest, having found a way to unsummon herself before getting swallowed by this mess.

The same couldn't be said for Sprout, whose core was suddenly dropped into his hands by Dusty, after the bunny had spat it up like a hairball. He had no way to communicate with his newest familiar, the link too brittle to work under these circumstances, but at least he could put her into a pocket for safekeeping. On the matter of links, he couldn't even feel Nibbles anymore. The distance had made their connection unusable right from the start, but now he couldn't even tell if it was there.

"Please tell me you can get us through this mess, Dusty," Josef practically pleaded with his familiar, feeling unsettled to the core.

"Can't you free the others, just like me? Maybe deal with this weird magic?" He had already begun to analyze things with his manasight, though the muted colors he found led him to believe that even it was affected.

"What if I give you plenty of mana?" He tried to send out streams of his mana to collect more from his surroundings, but flinched back when his attempt utterly failed. The moment the magic left his body, it refused to follow his intent, scattered, and finally froze in place. Worse, he couldn't regenerate what he had used. His reserves were stuck in place, the number in his status refusing to grow. Could he risk sending most of his mana to Dusty under these circumstances? What if it failed to transmit?

He could only give so much before his own body would fall apart.

"Come on, Dusty. Don't give me the silent treatment. Say something." Josef plucked the rabbit off his shoulders, staring him straight in his red eyes. Ever since regaining his free movement, the bunny had been entirely silent, with nothing but some silent static coming from his link. There was no sign of the tangled emotions that usually came with their communication. Touching his fur, the familiar felt oddly stiff and unyielding, not quite like a statue, but close to it. Had he come under the effect as well?

Using his manasight, he tried to find out what was wrong with his rabbit, and found a concerning sight. It looked like there was a battle raging inside his familiar, as his own mana fought against another force invading from outside. Only now, inside the bunny's body, could he distinguish the energy most likely to be responsible for this situation. It was like a pale white haze, so transparent it was almost invisible to the eye.

If not for the background of Dusty's own mana, which was pitch black as tar, he would have easily missed the grainy mist. Comparing it to the outside world, he quickly came to realize that his surroundings weren't bleached, but under a layer of that white dust. Which meant the stuff was somehow visible even to the naked eye, not even requiring manasight to be seen. Was that a sign of how potent it was, or just a natural part of what it did?

He had no time to contemplate its nature because the battle inside Dusty continued, and it didn't look like his familiar would win. The bunny must have used too much mana when transporting his friends and waking him up. That, or he was always acting with limited time, moving about as the stuff assaulted him. The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. Seeing no better alternative, he tried helping by sending over mana.

Starting with only a small amount, he quickly realized that none of it was making it through the link. For someone who had gotten used to draining mana wherever he went, getting pilfered like this was quite upsetting, and Josef clenched his fists trying to think of an alternative. Then, returning to his roots, he instead put a hand on the rabbit's belly and manually shoved a string of mana into him. If the connection provided by his skill wasn't usable, then he would make his own!

With nothing separating them, the energy burrowed into the familiar with no resistance, unimpeded by the swirling white haze around them. The stuff already within his body tried to interfere, but he decidedly pushed through it by sending more mana into his cord, stabilizing it forcefully. Finally, as he reached the core of the familiar, something began to tug on the line, pulling the energy inwards on its own.

The process wasn't as quick as his own heart's digestion, but it looked similar enough for Josef to know that it was working.

"You can do it," he quietly cheered for the rabbit.

"Beat it back, buddy." Finally, as his own reserves reached the halfway mark, the tide turned, and a ballooning mass of black finally took over Dusty's body, pushing out all the intruding energy. The bunny in his arms looked up at him with eyes that were more expressive than ever before. There was a wet sheen on them, and he couldn't tell if the familiar was sad, thankful, or both. Their link had reignited into a jumbled mess of emotions, so the exact feelings were anyone's guess.

"I don't have much more to spare, not if I can't even regenerate my mana. Please tell me you can fix this, somehow." He gave his familiar a strained but hopeful smile. But there was no way, was there? He didn't know how much it took out of Dusty to shield someone from this influence, but if saving only him had put the bunny in peril, then he could never do the same for everyone. If they even had enough to keep him safe. It wasn't as if he could just walk out and prepare a new approach.

He was stuck down here like anyone else. Would the strange mana disappear if he went down a floor? His manasight quickly squashed that idea, confirming that it looked more like the stuff was wafting in from below to begin with.

"The reason you are safe is your affinity, right?" He settled down, crossing eyes with his familiar.

"Would it help if I could use it on my own?" To his utter shock, the bunny tilted his head and nodded. It was the most straightforward answer he had ever given. Trying to suppress his surprise, he continued, "The system said I need you for a final analysis. Can we do that now? Actually, can you also answer some questions? About how we met and what happened to my memories. You know something, don't you?"

Now that his first familiar was more responsive than ever, he finally had a chance to plug some holes in his past. Dusty locked up at the questions, dropping his gaze to the floor, ears splayed in shame. Before Josef could ask him about the reaction, though, his eyes snapped back up, glowing with a new intensity. A■︎sw♏︎❒︎s o❒︎ Pow♏︎❒? The message slammed into his head, not unlike those he received from the boss encounters. Where those dug in like nails, this one was more blunt, but no less forceful.

He remembered something similar from his first night on Aurum, when he had tried to inspect his familiar for the first time. Something he hadn't been able to replicate afterwards, as the skill simply didn't work on the bunny ever since. He had almost consigned the red box to a hallucination caused by exhaustion, but now he finally faced another one. Straining his eyes, he squinted at the shifting letters, trying to decipher their purpose.

Unlike the last few times he encountered these cryptic messages, he could make out at least some of it, allowing him to guess the remainder.

"A… answers?" he muttered, settling on the first word. Going by that assumption, filling out the rest was simple enough.

"You want me to choose? Either I get my answers and we're stuck and doomed, or I get the affinity, and you'll keep me in the dark?" Josef wasn't usually one to raise his voice, because shouting didn't solve anything and would only give him a headache, but this was one of those rare exceptions.

"Are you kidding me? After everything? This isn't even a choice! Do you just expect me to lie down and die peacefully after learning about my past? I don't just want this affinity, I need it! Now, more than ever!" As if waiting for him to admit it, the moment those last few words left his mouth, Dusty launched himself straight at his chest, dissolving into a violent shower of black sparks. For the first time ever, the bunny had unsummoned himself, merging himself and his mana into the human's body.

The process was far more violent than when Pretzel did it, sending jolts of pain through his entire body. Josef's breath caught in his throat, and he lost all control as his body spasmed on the ground. It wasn't as painful as being on fire, but not too far off from it either. And going by the wounds breaking open all over his skin, it wasn't much less dangerous either. Whatever the System was doing to analyze Dusty, it was wrecking him from the inside.

If not for the progress to his Constitution, his body might have given out already. Had he known it would come to this, he would have placed Regeneration on himself, mana scarcity be damned. Then, as abruptly as the process started, it finished, leaving him crumpled on the ground. He was breathing hard and drenched in sweat and blood, but otherwise fine. His wounds were already beginning to scab over, and filling his internal mana with the intent to heal was enough to speed that up manifold. Embrace C? AO?

(me) -> ★ ☆☆☆☆ Chaos (Moderate) A new and untamed affinity. The key to saving dragonkind. An energy that refuses to remain still, always moving, ever changing. On its own, it seeks to spread and interfere with other affinities. Warning: Behaviour is similar to reports of <redacted>. Isolate at once to prevent further contamination of <redacted>. The itch that had always entered his mind when reading about this affinity had finally disappeared, leaving behind only clarity. So it was chaos all along, he mused.

What was that supposed to mean? Did he transmigrate to become a demon king, or what? No matter its name, hopefully it would get the job done. He had to break out his friends after all. There was also a dragon waiting for him once he could get back into that special skill-choice space.

"And don't you think I won't squeeze you for answers, anyway." Josef mumbled towards his own chest. He was a grown man, who said he couldn't have his cake and eat it too? But when he checked for his familiar's reaction, he found nothing. No emotions, no static, and no link. Dusty was gone.