NOVEL NEXT Chapter 10 - The Safe Zone
‘This might sting a bit,’ Aki said and pulled out the sword from my back.
It hurt more than a bit but I gritted my teeth through it. I drank another health potion, this was the third I had to take but thanks to this my health was in the green again, or completely white, as the case may be, which is something I haven't seen since I got here. So physically I was fine. Mentally though… I didn't know what to think. Would this happen to me again? Was I a danger to people? Could I hurt Aki?
I looked at the girl. We were sitting on the altar and doing our best to recover from the battle. The girl was looking absentmindedly at the hole we entered through.
Is she worried about more goblins coming?
This was the first time I could look at her in peace and quiet. I realised then for the first time how young she really was. She looked to be in her late teens or early twenties, and already she got almost eaten by monsters. And another was travelling with her. I wouldn't be able to live with myself if my other side… if I ever hurt her. Best I could tell my instincts didn’t register her as prey, but… what if they only work in darkness? I noticed the notification icon blinking. I opened it, hoping it would shed some light on what just happened.
The following attributes have progressed:
Strength: +23% (71% total progress to level 11)
Dexterity: +15% (40% total progress to level 14)
Agility: +64% (94% total progress to level 10)
Endurance: +42% (49% total progress to level 11)
Vitality: +90% (169% total progress to level 9)
Your Vitality Attribute has increased to level 9 (34% total progress to level 10)
Your total health has increased
Your total stamina has increased
Intelligence: +2% (19% total progress to level 17)
Willpower: +26% (75% total progress to level 13)
Resilience: +14% (45% total progress to level 7)
The following skills have progressed:
Bastard Sword - Two-handed: +25% (25% total progress to level 6)
Earth Arcana: +40% (138% total progress to level 1)
Your Earth Arcana skill has increased to level 1 (19% total progress to level 2)
Sense of Direction: +3% (8% total progress to level 11)
The following spells have progressed:
Rock Spikes: +60% (108% total progress to level 3)
Your Rock Spikes spell has increased to level 3 (4% total progress to level 4)
New trait has awoken: Predator’s Instinct
Predator’s Instinct? Was it what took over me?
Trait: Predator’s Instinct
Type: Racial
Level: ???
Effects: ???
Figures. I laughed bitterly.
Aki looked at me confused.
‘Oh, it’s nothing,’ I weakly reassured her. ‘Just… figuring things out.’
She nodded, concern clearly visible on her. I saw her tail twitch nervously. My heart sank.
I can’t let her worry about me. I’m supposed to be the responsible one here.
At least, I could take care of my level up. Now that I have reached level one of Earth Arcana, I’ve decided to allocate both my Perk Points into it. But as I was ready to commit them I put them into Stealth instead.
Your Stealth skill has increased to level 4 (0% total progress to level 5)
You have spent 2 Perk Points (Current Number of Perk Points: 0)
What the fuck? I didn’t want that!
‘Oh, but you did…’ I felt some inner feeling tell me. ‘You’ll neeeeed eeeet.’
I doubted I would in the near future, but I didn’t want to argue with myself over a moot point. Screaming at the voices in my head would be crazy.
We sat there in silence with Aki for a few more minutes. Eventually, she asked:
‘Should we get going?’
I nodded in confirmation.
‘I guess we should.’
I went over to the place where I dropped my sword and retrieved it. Despite the water there being thoroughly coloured red by blood it remained as pristine as ever. I was annoyed by the fact that I was starting to look like an axe murderer, again, despite having just changed, but there was nothing I could do to fix it.
There were five bodies in the corridor leading outside of the chamber, bloated from decay and moisture. The corridor was wide enough for us to walk around them, but I was still concerned by the sight. They were all wearing remnants of clothes from Earth: a t-shirt with a band logo here, a mouldy sneaker there, so there was no doubt in my mind.
I was leading our party, while Aki with her helpful orb of hellfire was walking behind me, lighting our way. I felt a weird sense of pride when she explained to me how she learned to summon it. I was all for accepting who you were and doing the best out of it. And yes, I was perfectly aware of the irony. Though her heritage didn’t, to the best of my knowledge, involve viewing other sentient beings as prey.
To my concern, the passage must have been sloped downwards, as the water seemed to be getting deeper and deeper. As we entered another chamber, which seemed to be completely empty, we were waist-deep in it. One thing I had to note - the corridor was much shorter than the other I saw before here. The next one looked to be even shorter… and what was that at the end? A spiral staircase?
‘YUS!’ I shouted and pointed the stairs out to Aki.
She joined me in celebrating this find. With renewed vigour we started hurrying over there, but just as we were about to leave the room we were in I felt something nudge my leg. My instincts screamed at me that something was wrong, but before I could react I heard Aki’s scream, a splash and the room went dark.
As my Darksight activated I took a deep breath and dove underwater. Despite my ability, it was hard to see what was going on, but I could see Aki struggling against something large, slender and pale. It could have been an illusion but the thing seemed to have three spindly arms.
Suddenly, there was a yellow flash and the water around Aki started glowing amber. There was a barely audible roar of anger and rivulets of blood started streaming from where two of the creature's hands once were. Aki, now free from the monster’s grasp, pushed herself back to the surface. I quickly followed her and emerged to see her coughing out water. Several nasty gashes covered her torso, blood trickling from them.
I reached for my sword just in time, as Aki’s assailant surfaced soon after, facing the girl. The girl was also trying to ready her weapons, each movement making her cry from pain. I couldn’t focus on helping the girl, however, as we still had a problem to deal with. The “issue at hand” turned out to be about one-and-half metres tall, had the body build of someone who starved to death and had three arms - two in “normal places” and one on its back. The normal ones were currently ending in bleeding stumps, while the back one was missing two of its six clawed fingers. I resolved never to give Aki a hug when she was mad at someone and had that ring of hers. The creature, its hairless body completely white, turned towards me and I saw that its face was an almost completely blank oval, the only feature being a lipless mouth full of sharp, pointed teeth.
Well… that’s a face only… only… I got nothing.
‘You’re one ugly motherfucker, aren’t you?’ I said softly and raised my sword, the runes on its blade once again glowing.
The creature focused its eyeless gaze on me and then moved it towards the sword. I had no idea why, but I felt that despite not having any eyes or ears the winner of “Punchable Monthly’s - The most punchable face of 2024 contest” was still both capable of sight and hearing.
Punchy, realising Aki was outside of its reach for now, decided that I was a better target. I don’t know what it was trying to achieve with only one wounded arm, but I wasn’t gonna wait for that. I slashed my sword at it and its head flew off its shoulders.
Level 4 Sanguine Drowner has been slain.
You have earned 200 experience points (500/2000 total experience points progress to level 4)
I rushed over to Aki, who deactivated the force field and was clearly struggling to stay upright. I took her in my arms, retrieved our last healing potion from her satchel and gave it to her. She drank it greedily and her wounds immediately started closing. I held her until she felt comfortable enough to stand on her own.
‘You okay, kiddo?’ I asked her.
‘Y-yeah,’ she said unconvincingly.
‘Let’s go up the stairs,’ I suggested. ‘We’ll rest there.’
She nodded.
My right arm around her back, we approached the stairs and I helped Aki go up. For once, luck was in our favour as nothing was waiting on the top to eat our faces. We emerged in a small square room, entirely built out of the stone blocks I was seeing everywhere. There were dull-looking green crystals in ornate golden sconces. I was about to lead Aki to one of the walls so we could sit down there, but a message appeared in front of my eyes.
Greetings Aspirant!
Congratulations on making it to the first floor! To reward you we have unlocked a safe zone on the other side of the corridor, where you can rest a bit and resupply! Be on your guard though! Things won’t be as easy from now on!
Good luck!
If that was easy, I’d hate to see what those chucklefucks consider to be hard.
I told Aki about the safe zone and she brightened up. Then, unexpectedly, the crystals on the wall started flickering to life like an old fluorescent lamp. They started to give pale white light that made my skin uncomfortable.
No matter. At least we’ll be able to see.
I led Aki into the corridor and the crystals there started to light up too. First, a pair surrounding the doors, then next another, and another, until one of them didn’t. The crystals briefly flickered and went dark. After a few heartbeats, they tried to light up again. They reached the maximal luminosity. Went dark again. Started getting bright again. And then they exploded. And after them all the other crystals. I threw Aki to the ground and covered her with my body. When the crystals closest to us exploded I felt white-hot shards pierce my skin and embed themselves inside me. It was the most intense pain I have ever experienced.
Must be the fucking… Light Arcana.
Still… for Aki’s sake, I endured.
The explosions continued in the distance, occasionally interspersed with sounds of rumbling and crashing. Once these finished on this floor, I could still hear them above us and down below. I started praying the whole place wouldn’t collapse on us. Finally, there was a giant explosion down below, very loud rumbling above us and finally silence. We stayed still for a moment, and once I was sure the ceiling wouldn’t be collapsing on us, at least not immediately, I slowly rolled off Aki and climbed to my feet. My stomach still felt like someone stuck a hot poker inside, but the pain was slowly subsiding. I checked the paper doll and the spots were only dark pink, meaning that the shards didn’t do too much damage. I looked around and saw that the corridor was now partially lit by small green fires in places where some of the crystals were, though they seemed to be going out due to lack of… whatever was fueling them.
Aki slowly climbed to her feet, shaking from fear, and asked:
‘Wh… what happened?’
‘A cascade failure of some kind,’ I guessed and quickly explained. ‘Some of the crystals exploded and that caused the others to explode. As to why or how I don’t know.’
I shrugged.
‘I saw a very large crystal below, which I assume was the big explosion towards the end? As for the rumbling at the end… hopefully not the exit.’
Aki didn’t find this particularly funny. Neither did I, to be honest. I wanted to say something more but a message box once again appeared in front of my eyes.
Quest Cancelled: The Trial of the Champion
Cause: Connection to the quest source lost. Attempt to reconnect unsuccessful.
.
.
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New Quest Acquired: The Ruined Tower
Type: Dungeon (Legendary)
Difficulty: ???
Description: The Tower of Trials has at least partially collapsed and whatever magic brought you here has run out, with fairly spectacular results.
Objectives:
Find the exit
Rewards:
2000 experience points
Your life
Oh… Oh my… Well… On the upside: no more of this champion business! Whatever I was supposed to stop… not my problem anymore.
‘Let’s go to see if that safe zone still has anything of value,’ I suggested.
I opened the door and saw a large square room on the other side. Like the skeleton room below it was covered in pieces of broken furniture. There was a dust-covered skeleton wearing tattered rotten remains of clothes sitting against the wall opposite us. Next to it, there was a small cache visible in the wall. I could vaguely make out some bottles and ration bars inside.
Another lucky break,’ I thought, but then my eyes fell on the skeleton. I signalled to Aki to wait and slowly approached the potential jumpscare with my sword drawn. I put the tip of the blade under its chin and flicked the skull off the spine. It landed on the floor and clattered away.
Try rising now, you sonuvabitch.
The clothing on the skeleton has mostly rotted away, so it was hard to tell who it once was. As I was turning towards the cache I noticed something glittering on the floor.
It was a tarnished silver coin. I could easily recognize the person whose profile was on the obverse. The almost-bald head wearing a laurel crown and the handlebar-moustache-and-sideburns combo were a dead giveaway. It was Franz Joseph, the first of his name, Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary and the ruler of buncha other places. I picked the coin up with a trembling hand and turned it around. There was a crown there surrounded by more laurels and the unit of value of one in whatever currency it was. There was also a date: 1893.
How long has this been going on?