That day was the day. Bloody and W were being escorted out by lizardmen. Well, to be precise, the one being escorted out was Brennan. They were being accompanied by 4 lizardmen.
"Get gin boat" One of the lizardmen put in charge of them said in broken human tongue. Nevertheless, his meaning was understood.
Brennan entered the canoe-like boat the lizardmen had constructed under the instructions of Eon. Once they had all boarded, with two lizardmen rowing, the canoe set off from the dock.
The leader lizardman took the liberty to look back at the dock as they rowed away. Eon's divine figure was nowhere to be seen however even as the boat became increasingly distant. The lizardman knew not what to think of this.
But Bloody and W certainly did. Delight! For the old guy to leave them alone meant that they were at least 3x as likely to see the outside of the dungeon. Though of course, they needed to contact Ed first.
'Hm? Wait…' W suddenly thought of a problem.
'We won't run into the cavern lizardmen right?' Var Agus as W believed he was called may or may not accept a human and unknown lizardmen trespassing.
'Maybe we won't' Eon had told Brennan the correct path through the cavern and W did not think it led into the depths of the mushroom caverns. Actually, it hardly even covered it.
Unless the cavern lizardmen were exploring and expanding looking for food and resources and- That was extremely likely.
'The depths of the cavern are dangerous' The lizardmen would not be going deeper into the cavern to search for food as a result.
The only reassurance was that W could always transmit something to the lizardmen. They would most likely retreat even if they wanted to fight. Worst case scenario, it wasn't like they took the whole tribe to hunt for food…
The lizardmen rowed for hours on end, they switched in turns making full rotations so their energy was conserved. Well, not really.
The boat was attacked in several instances by creatures. The lizardmen that weren't rowing would have to arm themselves and fight the miscreants.
They would thrust and stab at the mobs to either fend them off or kill them swiftly. For particularly tough opponents the spear would start to shine faintly with runes and cut through the air or cause the monsters to be singed red all over.
How did W know? Well, Bloody was uncompromising. W had to try to discretely take control of Brennan's arms and have it reached out towards the water. From there he would try to control the blood out of the body and have it be slowly integrated into their body.
It was worth noting however that there was nothing discreet about losing control over one's arm and the arm yanking itself into the water.
"Argh!" At first, Brennan had been very frightened. Once he saw the blood of the mobs start to merge and head in his direction however he had turned as pale as a sheet of paper.
The lizardmen had tried to protect Brennan but it was to no avail, the blood still continued to climb up his body and be integrated through his skin or enter through his nostrils, mouth, ears, etc. to be slowly consumed.
Brennan ended up fainting from shock and fear. By the time he woke up, the lizardmen had docked at a nearby mound of land. Surprisingly, Brennan felt much better.
Through this, they all learned a lesson because they then let Bloody and W "discreetly" suck up blood. They just pretended not to notice and W pretended to also not notice they hadn't noticed.
Bloody ended up being the only one getting an odd sense of ecstasy from the idea of doing something undercover. As W had allowed it to feel this ecstasy, it was now even thinking that maybe W wasn't so bad.
W at least got something out of this.
With these ordeals out of the way, the boat was back on track and reached solid land. A cavern entrance not too far off occupied their view.
Entering, Brennan confidently led the way. He was feeling much much better! That made him happy, but that was not to say he wasn't troubled by this development. There was quite literally a monster in his blood.
If raising monsters was a crime, having a monster in your body was a taboo sin! Just like death magic, anything that had to do with improving the latent weakness of the human body was scorned upon.
Many lawful good or neutral kingdoms focused on finding non-monster ways like alchemy or arrays. These worked but were certainly limited. The main limiter being of course time and the weak body.
Ingesting potions would start losing effectiveness and you could only have so much space for runes. Though before space became an issue you were likely to end up killing yourself from having so many runes on your body in the first place. Weak runes were no problem, but anything moderately useful en masse was no good.
Turning to the dark side was the only way to progress further without some sort of miracle potion. Morality was getting in the way of progress.
"Can I use this…" Brennan muttered. He was going to claim back his kingdom, could he use the monster in him to strengthen his rule?
The caverns were moist and humid as usual. Along the way, they thankfully encountered no cavern lizardmen. W did see signs of their presence but there was none in the vicinity.
That was good because soon enough, the area became more familiar before exiting into a large dome-like area. This was the ogre cavern boss room.
'Th- That was easy!' W was elated and yet confused. He did not think things could go right, especially when you planned them.
But he decided to go with the flow. The lizardmen didn't react strangely to being in the ogre caverns, so W was the only one celebrating. That was not to say that the lizardmen were not eventually shocked.
The sparse shining crystals of the cavern were dazzling but the mushrooms in the mushroom caverns were comparable. The real surprise came once out of the cavern.
There was green. Lots of it.
The lush green foliage and the soft grass. The ethereal Alivio herbs planted around and just the overall air of the place. The 4 lizardmen felt like they were entering a paradise.
Finally, one of them came to realize something.
<"I heard Kurgher wanted new land"> They said in their language. The eyes of the other lizardmen shone with understanding. Yes, this was the new land provided to them by the deity.
He had summoned out one of their own subjects to guide them to this treasure land. How great!
Brennan was confused by the exaggerated reactions of the lizadmen. He had been having an episode of excitement moments ago since the current location was much better than a swamp but it wasn't to the extent of the lizardmen.
Suddenly, Brennan's confusion ceased. To be exact his sight ceased and so did his hearing. Not just that his arms and legs could no longer be felt by himself and he was left alone with his thoughts.
It was abrupt. Brennan was starting to wonder if he had died suddenly but no matter what he thought, thought to do, or thought to try, he was stuck in a black abyss of well... thoughts.
The culprits were not hard to pinpoint. W and Bloody were responsible.
'Hahaha, you should have been faster!' W transmitted to Bloody who was probably mentally pouting.
With the opportunity of Bloody having willingly given up an eye, W quickly reclaimed the eye. He also claimed every other part of the body thanks to the blood integration from along the journey.
Bloody likely thought it was gaining something from those integrations but W had just fooled it into thinking so. He had hidden his parts thinly around the entire body only waiting for this very moment!
He could now see the outside world perfectly fine and not just that but… he could cry. He was human! Erm, sort of!
But he didn't actually cry just because he could. He made sure not to act in any way that might seem sudden and suspicious. The lizardmen never got to realize it even after they finally got down from their high.
They were instead discussing fervently if they had to continue on the trip with Brennan.
<"We need to report his quickly!"> One said but another shook their head. They needed to transport the man out as was instructed by their divinity.
This arguing was starting to make W angry. He was initially feigning nonchalance and normalcy but the lizardmen could not find a compromise!
It wasn't that they could compromise though. If one went back and the divinity thought they failed to follow through with their order they could be killed!
It wasn't Eon they were afraid of though. It was Kurgher. This venture was of course allowed by Kurgher or at least mentioned to Kurgher. The lizard war chief was now a devout believer of Eon and he made sure that Eon's words were followed through.
That wasn't to say Eon did the same for Kurgher.. He didn't trust the lizard as it had already shown it could betray others.