Chapter 21: Day 4

  “OH sh-crap!” Lily scrambled backwards, in the split second she showed her face between the trees, three things happened simultaneously.

  Millie made the first move, dropping her hands from her robe and placing her elbow on the ground, getting ready to spring forward and end her instantly right in front of the group.

  Marx moved next, whipping his hand out and aiming for Millie to hopefully throw off whatever move she was making, flames wrapped around his fingers as he prepared to fling a ball of fire directly at Millie’s back.

  Then, the fifth and final demon showed up, must've been tailing Lily, and swiped at the tree directly to the left of Lily, causing the tree to explode and the place to combust into smoke. Millie sprang forward next, Marx missed his shot and the demon slashed at Lily, directly to the face.

  “Don’t kill me!” Lily dodged the demon's attack by slipping backwards, holding her body at an 80 degree angle with her feet still planted on the ground, she took a step back and dodged Millie’s strike as well, ducking under a cloud of smoke and into the open area. “Fay needs help! He is going to die from a demon!”

  Millie stopped, as the demon passed her by she brushed her hand against it and a bright light blinded everyone’s eyes, once their sight came back the demon was a pile of pieces on the floor.

  [Event Completed]

  [Rewards Available]

  “Sounds like Fay is okay.” Millie stepped forward, studying Lily’s face, her limbs. “How did you-“ she turned her head and looked over at Marx who was readying up another fireball, “stand down Marx.” She then looked over at Jason who had that same distant look in his eyes, “we both know how that ends.”

  Lily slowly moved back and Millie turned her head again, “fine, you stay.” She held her hands up, “today has been long and tiresome, tomorrow will be a day of rest, stay.” Millie was quite pleased with the group that formed, and how she didn’t really need to keep pretending. Joey was scared and cowering behind Jason, Jason was a nothing person, Marx was neutered. And now Lily had some output. “You all did well, tomorrow we will explain everything.”

  “Explain it now.” Joey spoke a little too loud for Millie’s comfort.

  “I’m afraid you’ll take it the wrong way and make a mistake, restless minds do love to make climbers fall off cliffs.” She looked over at Grace, “we will tell you tomorrow. Sleep.”

  “I won't get any goddamn sleep if you don’t explain it now!” Joey shouted, walking up to her, he was quite tall so he gained confidence by looking down upon her, “now.”

  “Joey.” Millie put her hands in her robes, “the only reason you’re alive is because Grace likes you. I do not.”

  “I don’t care.” Joey leaned further in, “tell me.”

  “Grace tends to mistake arrogance for authority which is why she chose your sinking ship, plenty of holes and warped roots splaying across the bottom deck, plenty of rats and a disease rotting the crew, but oh my, what a big boat, a big sinking boat.” Her voice grew smaller, almost a whisper, “don’t think that I can't hear your heart racing.”

  Joey smiled, “tell me what the fuck this is.”

  “Or what?”

  He stopped smiling, the weapon in his hand may as well be a wooden stick with how little it could do. “Just please?”

  “Joey. Go to bed, I need to find Fay.” Millie poked his cheek and stepped back, “Grace.” She bowed and strode into the forest in a specific direction.

  —

  Well… Lily is dead… Fay stood up from the sand, he had opened up his rewards but got nothing important since he technically didn't kill the demon. He got a nice 120 XP though, Fay was already planning to make a run for it, that dungeon, he was curious now just where those holes led to.

  He wanted to go find Lily, but he pretty much accepted that she was definitely dead or circumstances changed, he hated himself for not putting a recon wager that she would die, but he would learn in time, he told himself.

  He walked around the lake, there was another snake cave that was placed around here, not the one that he was fighting the demon in, which was good, because that place would smell horrible, and smoke likely poured into those snake holes. He wondered where Thomas went off to, since all the demons were dead he might be in the magical forest again.

  It didn’t matter, he was moping at this point, he not only failed to kill the demon but also failed to protect Lily, it was horrible just how bad he was at this. And he didn’t want to go off and meet up with the group because then Millie would start to control his actions again. Am I a bad person? He questioned himself.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  He slipped into the snake cave, walking across slashed rattlesnakes, then down a similar but more wavy tight cave corridor that would take him to the main dungeon. He assumed Thomas cleared this place on day two, with how the snakes were all over the walls and impaled by mana stones. The main dungeon was a smear of red bodies, a lot of them in the corner, including a human, which Fay paid no mind to.

  He looked up at the snake holes and decided he would pass through where the midnight snakes came from. They would be wide enough for him to crawl and since he was surprisingly claustrophobic he didn’t like the idea of having his shoulder stuck against the walls. He picked up some dead green snakes and held one in each hand, planning to use them in a climbing motion.

  He had tried it with sand a while back, how he could freeze stuff midair and then lift himself up, and since he was using snakes, he could pull up quite easily. So he lifted his arm up high, only having a small bend in his elbow and froze the thing twice, pulling on it.

  MP: (44/210)

  He pulled up until he had his chest above the frozen snake and used the other snake in his other hand, freezing it twice and then pulling up as the snake below him lost that freezing momentum, it was the worst ladder possible but it worked.

  He repeated this three more times and cut it just shy of 2 mana before climbing into the midnight snake hole. He was planning to crawl through this for a couple hours, if he could, and then sleep.

  Fay found himself crawling at a slower pace than he’d like, the further he went in, the less light passed through, but also the colder it got, which was nice after how exasperated and tired he had become. His muscles were burning with a full day's worth of work and his lung was working overtime. He felt the dust pick up as he shimmied further, it was pitch black by the time he felt a curve and had to twist around and fit his body in an L shape to head in another direction, the thought that all these entrances were connected somehow confused him, where did those snakes come from?

  He crawled further, and further until he felt a downward slide, since the ground was rocky it was uncomfortable on his stomach as he slid down along the slope. He felt heat caress his face as he got lower, and lower, until he felt a cool blast of air hit his face and light finally came back at the end of the hole.

  His eyes adjusted quickly, he could see it was more mana crystals, more cave. He slid out the final part of the hole and rose to stand, he bent his knees slightly to avoid cutting himself on the bright jagged roof of the cave.

  The place was narrow, there were two walls that were lined with multiple holes, it felt like a hallway, Fay only saw one way to go, ahead, so that's where he went. He saw no end in sight, in fact, the constant shimmering of the roof crystals made it hard to see anything at all, he felt a migraine coming on and had to press his thumbs against his eyes to stop it.

  I just want to sleep… he repeated in his head, walking further down until the mana crystals stopped, and the cave opened up. It looked like a dead end, it should be a dead end, except for the small door tucked away into a corner, wooden and warped by the elements. It looked handmade, like someone was living here before.

  “Urgh…” Fay walked forward and pushed against the door, smelling a very odd, sweet smell, like stew, or fruity stew. He stepped in to find a rotting body in a makeshift home, a bed on the floor with clothes used as fabric, then a desk that was just a rock with paper on it, notes and whatnot. There were maggots crawling across the body so Fay made it a point to starve this place of oxygen soon.

  The space was similar to his stables living, actually, quite comfier than that. He leaned down and checked the notes on the rock, seeing that they were dated the 76th rotation, and a rotation happened every year, Fay was in the 83rd rotation so it didn't make much sense that this body on the bed was the body of the person who wrote these notes. Unless they survived years and then died suddenly a few days before Fay arrived. It was someone recent from his rotation, likely.

  The notes were of daily activities, it kept mentioning a growth in their ear that kept talking to them, how the walls were growing snakes and how this was all a farmhouse. It also, more interestingly, held a couple secrets that Fay was not aware of. Of course there were these snake dungeons, but apparently this person noted that someone found an underwater cave in the lake that lead to items, and also, in the magical forest, there was a lower layer under the ground that held a couple of lower level 4s, but even that was boring compared to how apparently in this very room was a crawlspace to the second part of the snake dungeon, which this person attempted to clear but ran away at the sight of level three snakes.

  Fay decided to rest for the day, finally, and tomorrow morning he would take on whatever that second part of the dungeon may entail. He rolled up the body and took it out of the living space, walking it for ten minutes and leaving it in a hole. He wasn’t too excited about flies so Fay picked each maggot off and squashed it, then left.

  He was already falling asleep by the time his back touched the cave wall, he pressed his eyes closed and hoped that he wouldn’t be tracked somehow. He didn’t know what that woman was capable of, after all.

  He wondered why he never even thought about going for Lily, why he sent her off and made her risk herself, and couldn’t retain the courage to repay it by at least attempting rescue.

  “I’m a coward…” he whispered to himself, finding it to be true in his head, at least for today. He was so afraid of dying right now, because he knew he had gotten strong enough that dying couldn’t be painless, he couldn’t get hit by a big boulder and die instantly or drop into a big pit and break all his bones, it would hurt, and take a while.

  With that thought, he went to sleep and had a dreamless night. Not one touch of lucidity as he drifted through the night hours, he couldn’t tell whether he was awake or asleep as he kept opening his eyes and finding he wanted to rest some more.

  He woke up at who knows when, he couldn’t tell in the cave. He didn’t want to waste any more time, he had a paranoid ticking clock in his mind that told him he was constantly in danger, and whether it was true or not that state of existence was beneficial to survival, better be excessively anxious than not in a place like this. Fay took some spare food, what might've been boiled snake, and ate it quickly, he then licked some condensation off the mana stones, his tongue made a gross scratchy sound against it, like fingernails on paper.

  [Congratulations on your fourth day! 3 remaining]

  [Rewards: 1 accessory stone (59% COMMON, 40.5% UNCOMMON, 0.5% RARE), 1 weapon stone (COMMON)]

  He opened them up but found nothing of use, like always. Only commons this time, same with all his skills, he was starting to think maybe he was cursed in some way to continue being unlucky. He threw the stuff on the ground, smelling the sweet air of rotting corpses that wafted in. The items, a cheap iron ring and a small butter knife, were stepped on as Fay made his way to the crawl space that supposedly held the new dungeon.

  He wasn't too excited about entering a place flooded with level three’s as the notes had suggested, but if they were at least snakes then he would find it a breeze. Maybe he’d even pass to level ten on the profession, which would supply another skill. He got onto his stomach, the crawlspace was a thin gap under the wall beside the makeshift bed, Fay had a pretty skinny frame from living on the island so he could slide through quite easily and make it to the other end. Being able to stand and see more mana stones that led down a deep downward slope.