Chương 81: 1-80 Chaotic

"Dusty?" Josef's words echoed emptily around him. There was no one to answer him. Was his little buddy gone just like that? One leap and poof, no more bunny?

"No…" he refused, and a little nudge through one of his links agreed. The only presence left other than him was Pretzel, whose consciousness brushed his through their connection. Her mind still felt slow and distant, though it was much improved from before. Almost like her physical self, it protectively coiled up to keep him steady. Holding onto her support, he began to search frantically for any sign of Dusty, no matter how small.

With his initial panic subdued, albeit barely, Josef soon spotted small inconsistencies in his first reaction. Sure, he couldn't find their link anymore, but that didn't mean it wasn't there anymore. It hadn't just disappeared, but turned into an absence that reserved space for something. An empty line that transmitted nothing, but was leading somewhere. He just couldn't feel where to. And observing it hurt his brain. The second indicator was found on his status screen, where the summoning limit remained unchanged.

☆☆☆☆ Summon Familiar(Inferior) | 4/4 Finally, he had received no notifications about Dusty being gone, like during his fight against the slimes on the tenth floor. His nerves were still shaking, but at least he could put aside his initial fear of losing the bunny. Dusty was just temporarily unavailable. For an indefinite amount of time. Probably. For now, he would have to deal with a more pressing issue, because the white haze around him was intent on cutting short whatever time he had.

It began as a faint buzz just beyond his skin, a phantom of a sensation that didn't quite reach. Only now, it had turned into an incessant itch that crawled all over himself, looking for entry. The protection Dusty had bestowed on him was waning, and only the remaining chaos mana inside his body was keeping the invader at bay. If he didn't want to fall into that stillness once again, then he had to figure out how to use his chaos affinity as soon as possible. But how should he picture chaos?

Give intent that was aligned with it? Should he imagine an unkempt room, and the decision to leave empty plates all over his desk? No, that didn't feel right. He wanted chaos, not sloth and teenage hormones. Thinking of Dusty and reading through the affinity's description once more, he tried to get a clearer picture, even if the notion itself was flawed. He thought of the unpredictable movements of his bunny, as well as his intimidating transformations. But those weren't really clicking for him.

Josef didn't want to be transforming in the first place, and he already had a different means of teleportation. He needed to find something more personal, an interpretation that fit with him. Then he remembered one of the earliest descriptions mentioning hunger and growth, something that had now been summarized into a desire to spread. But both of the old adjectives felt a lot more relatable to him.

In fact, he had already felt it before when Cana and her team went ahead into the dungeon, leaving him behind to wait for results. Back then, he really wanted to return inside, fight more monsters, and keep leveling. Maybe it was an instinct developed by growing up surrounded by games, but it surprised him how visceral that desire was. Afterwards, when he finally got his chance, he had thrown himself into combat with nary a thought.

There had always been a part of him that revelled in these fights, no matter how bad things got. When was the last time he had even shied away from any of the creatures haunting this dungeon? It wasn't bloodlust that drove him, that much he was sure of. The gory bits might happen in a fight, but that was not what pulled him forward. Josef could feel his mana hum along with his musings and resonate with the chaos that remained inside him. Looting and leveling.

That's what he had thought about early on, and while the former turned out to be a sobering experience, the latter was exhilarating. Numbers going up would never grow old, not to him, and he didn't care one bit that he was putting his life on the line to do so. Yet when his friends' lives were in danger, he could never hesitate stepping up to help them. Even when encountering strangers in peril, he had fought for them, saving Linda and Aifreed, and he was still determined to save the knight once again.

He had found a way to heal Bezzo after the parasites had invaded his body. When Zippa was lost within his own flames, he marched through literal fire to pull him out. Raising a hand to touch one of his ears, still mangled from the burns he had suffered, he smiled. For some, it might sound like madness that had him act like that, with his mind having unhinged after losing his home and being forced to live in a new world full of danger. But for him, disregarding safety for friends, numbers and battle?

That was his own brand of chaos. And right now, his friends all needed him to get this show on the road. Deep inside, he ignited that fiery feeling that came with taking on the unknown, following goals he alone could set, and let it spread throughout his body, coloring all of his mana pitch black. If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

Immediately, the crawling sensations on his skin ceased, as the invading energy pulled away as if struck, remaining at a respectable distance. This alone wouldn't be enough, though, because his mana was running low, and he needed more of it. He started off small and carefully, knowing he had little room for errors, twisting and braiding some of that tar-like energy into a small tendril, before having it lash at a spot where the white haze was heavily concentrated.

Quickly, he followed it with a stream of mana, taking along the ambient energy he had just liberated. It was only a morsel compared to his maximum, but it was more than he had spent. Barely. Repeating the process several times over, he had accumulated a small cushion in case things went wrong, but his patience was starting to wear out. Something which might have been related to the chaos surging through his body. Whatever the reason was, it pushed him to look for a more effective solution to regaining his mana.

He would just have to get a little creative. If he could form a stream of mana without an affinity to send out and bring back more energy for him, why couldn't he do the same while using chaos? The first loop was short and tentative, testing how this energy would react when unleashed in such a manner. It went further than Josef had intended, made two loops, but ultimately returned with a decent chunk of magic, having pierced another hotspot of the white haze.

More than that, the pale haze couldn't fully dodge the attack, a part of it getting dragged along for absorption. Going by the hungry beating of his heart, it was a delicious treat, and the rising number in his status showed it was nutritious as well. After the first success, he quickly ramped up the size and number of streams, spending the mana he recovered to gain even more of it. Soon, his self-replenishing engine was running full throttle once again, stripping his surroundings bare, piece by piece.

The streams themselves were lashing out with a mind of their own, somehow disregarding his own targets, but always coming back with a big haul. Never once did they threaten to hit his friends, though. Pretzel was the first to stir, having already begun to recover after his affinity was fully unlocked. Now that his immediate surroundings were cleared from the threat, she had enough room to summon herself, jumping out of his chest.

She didn't even touch the ground as her body twisted midair, latching onto her summoner and wrapping around him tightly. Nestling her head against his neck she let out a series of small hisses, but none of them spelled any real words for him to understand. All they carried were her fading fears and a sense of safety.

"It's ok," Josef spoke soothingly, stroking her scales. He had already drained mana without directing the streams with his hand, a feat born in the heat of the moment when he defended himself against that sea of worms. Now, it had opened up the wonderful door of casting while petting his snake. Some upgrades were too grand for even the system to spell out. The next to rouse was Sprout, requiring only a little extra infusion of mana to grow a new body of vines around her core.

He only spared a little, being busy clearing the area, so she could barely cover herself and add stubby limbs and a short face. With the acorn inside making her look bloated, she reminded him of a fat pug. He would keep that assessment very far away from her link, undeveloped as it was. Soon, with the air clearing up in an expanding radius, Zippa and Bezzo both stirred, breathing heavily as they regained control of their bodies.

After a moment of exchanging surprised glances, the younger brother noticed Josef's look and quickly pulled himself out of his brother's embrace, looking bashful.

"Welcome back, you two," he chuckled, anticipating the crushing hug that would come his way. This time, he was able to prepare some earth mana to brace himself. It was a valiant attempt, but worthless, as an even greater force overcame his defense.

"What happened?" Bezzo questioned him, looking around.

"Is this a safe room?" The lizard was quick on the uptake, as always. Josef nodded.

"It kinda lost the right to that name, but yeah. And you got stuck in some weird white mana, like those guys." With his arms still trapped in a scaled hydraulic press, he could only gesture with his head towards the frozen, huddled crowd. Continuing his work, soon even the elves were restored, though it made little difference for either of them. Linda barely even spared them a glance, still kneeling next to Aifreed. She gave them no indication of even realizing the current situation, or what had happened to her.

Meanwhile, her loyal knight was still out like a light, though that was not the main point of surprise for him. Somehow, when pushing his magic close to the elf, swallowing the surrounding haze, he had already stirred before he was free of the stuff. How did he do that? Some kind of resistance? But where was it coming from? Was it uninterested in him because of his current state? Maybe Aifreed would have answers to that, but unfortunately, he was in no state to speak with them.

With his friends set free, it was time to expand his efforts to the rest of his room, an endeavor that grew more achievable by the minute. With the white mist of mana coming up solely from the downward stairs, his efforts had visibly thinned the amount left in the room. Even if he wasn't consciously keeping an area clear of the stuff, he expected that it would soon be too thin to cause much harm.

Moving most of his stream towards the source, preventing more of it from seeping into the room, he used only a couple to clean the few remaining hotspots. Finally, the haze grew so dim, even his manasight barely picked up signs of it around him. Then, one by one, the people huddled near the stairs leading back up woke from their stupor. Some screamed as if waking from a sudden nightmare, others heaved and moaned, trying to force more air down their lungs.

A scant few just collapsed, like puppets with their strings cut. The most stable among them didn't need long to notice the figures standing in the middle of the room, ogling them, and mostly Josef, with no small amount of suspicion.

"W-who are you?" One of them finally stammered out. Josef stepped forward.

"I am the independent healer, Adam. I have freed you from the sickness that froze you in place. Now, could you please tell me what happened here?" This time the crowd was small enough for him to not even feel all that stressed about speaking to them. Ironically, it also helped that no one would ever associate his current charred looks with his usual self, feeling almost like a mask.

Something he was grateful for, because the last time he had noticed Vasaj's token in his pockets was way before having all of his clothes burned off. He wasn't getting that one back, was he? Maybe it was for the best, since he didn't trust the man or his gifts as far as he could throw them. Approaching the people to offer healing, many still bore obvious injuries from their own adventures, he noticed a familiar figure in the back.

Seated on the ground was a sleek black cat, cradling an otter that looked no better than their own fallen knight. His brain rattled for a moment, putting names to their faces, and he couldn't confidently identify which of the two otters he was seeing. That cat, though, was Marik.