Ch. 64: Sudden Changes After Continuing
While Loren’s thoughts were elsewhere, Ain and his party continued ahead.
They crushed or burned every slime that was in their way, since one had ambushed them and injured Ain, so their pace was slower than before, but they were still moving forward.
But their situation was getting worse.
Ain still had enough strength left to walk on his own, but since he had burns on his arm and left his shield behind, he wasn’t able to fight to his content.
And for Cloud, who was lending Ain his shoulder, it was already proven that his estoc wasn’t effective at all against slimes, so he couldn’t play his role as a front line properly.
But Al and Feim were able to drive away the slimes, so they could still manage to continue.
But even that was due to them having oil and fire, and even if they managed to keep the flames, they didn’t have an unlimited supply of oil.
The oil was fuel for the lantern as well and they had to leave some for the way back, so they had to use it sparingly.
“This is going downhill.”
Lapis muttered while clinging onto Loren’s back.
Cloud and Ain gave them harsh looks, thinking that they were flirting with each other without considering time and place, but Loren was sensing something wrong with Lapis, as she didn’t let go at all.
At first Lapis continued to dodge his questions, but when Loren kept on asking, she finally told him what was going on.
She told him that her limbs, which were prosthetics, weren’t moving properly.
After she explained that she was clinging onto his body to hide it, Loren immediately decided to carry her on his back.
Loren had experienced a situation where Lapis couldn’t move her limbs before.
She couldn’t move them because a spell that dissipated mana was used, and since her prosthetics ran on mana, they malfunctioned temporarily, and she couldn’t move.
So, Loren thought that the same thing was happening, but Lapis shook her head.
“It’s not that there isn’t any mana. It’s more like it’s not transmitting properly…”
Looking at Lapis not giving him a clear answer, Loren guessed that she wasn’t fully aware of what was going on.
“I can move them if I try really hard, so drop me in the case of an emergency.”
Although Lapis whispered that to Loren, there was a reason why he didn’t want to carry her on his back.
It was because they had no idea where the slimes could attack from.
Slimes were made of mucus so they could climb almost anywhere and crawl into the smallest of cracks.
Whether it be in the trees or inside stone walls, they climbed and crawled into any place they could and attacked their prey.
He had only been against slimes in the battlefield, but he had seen mercenaries and soldiers being killed by slimes that fell from trees, jumped out of openings in baggage, or jumped out from within piles of bodies.
If such slimes existed in a dungeon.
Loren understood that it was a place that was full of places to hide and ambush.
Hanging on the ceiling and dropping on the heads of prey that pa.s.sed below, oozing and reaching out of cracks in the walls, and since there were cracks on the floor as well, there was no telling where they could attack from.
In this situation, carrying Lapis on his back, which was his biggest blind spot, meant that it increased the danger for both, so it made him even more anxious.
On top of that, the students that he was proctoring would keep on looking at him, thinking that they were flirting.
It was a situation which anyone would flinch at, and it wasn’t a good atmosphere.
“Hey, why don’t we head back?”
“Shut up you perverted b.a.s.t.a.r.d.”
They continued searching for a while, and whether they were lucky or unlucky, a short while after they found the dead girl’s body, they came across the stairs to the seventh floor.
Ain and the others were happy at first, but what awaited them at the bottom of the stairs was a denser population of slimes than the floor above.
“Is the sixth floor and below breeding grounds for slimes, by any chance?”
“I don’t think so…”
Feim answered Loren, who sounded fed up as he saw the innumerable slimes on the walls and floor, with surprise in her voice.
“…Isn’t this bad? Even if we reach the bottom, will we have enough oil to get back to the surface?”
Cloud started complaining, but Al pointed to his bag and answered.
“There’s still enough oil in my bag. It’s okay, it should be enough for the way back.”
“Why do you have so much oil?”
“It’s a dungeon. I thought we would get lost. So, I brought a lot more oil than we would normally need. Good thing I did.”
“But if this goes on, wouldn’t it become impossible to go forward?”
Al answered Ain’s justified question with confidence.
“Parme and her group will probably have gotten rid of a bit already, and there’s no reason for us to deal with every single one of them.”
“They could’ve headed back after that girl died…”
“Then they should have b.u.mped into us. We didn’t meet them, so it means that they are still ahead of us.”
Ain and Cloud couldn’t find any words of refute, so they looked at each other, nodded, and started moving.
Feim looked at the three of them with worry, but still chased after them, while Loren watched their backs for a while before he started slowly walking after them.
“Hey, this isn’t related to your body part, right?”
As he asked Lapis while walking after Ain and the others, Lapis shuddered on top of his back.
He turned, thinking that something had occurred to her, but when their eyes met, Lapis shook her head over and over.
“I don’t know what part of my body is here, but no matter what it is, it won’t cause situation a situation like this. Trust me.”
“Well, I’m not that suspicious of you, anyways. But this isn’t normal at all, is it?”
“Yes. a.s.suming the floors below are in a similar state, I’ve never heard of slimes covering half a dungeon.”
After saying that, she went silent for a moment, and opened her mouth again.
“Something I’ve never heard of before. This is very interesting.”
“Don’t be a greedy scholar here. We’re not sure if we can even make it out alive.”
Ain and his party were the ones currently taking care of the slimes, but if Loren and Lapis had to head back by themselves for some reason, Loren was the one who was going to have to deal with them.
Lapis had extra torches in her bag, but when it came to chasing slimes off on the way to the surface, it would become exceedingly difficult the lower they went.
“Even I’m not such a girl that prioritizes her hobbies to satisfy her curiosity in this situation.”
“That’d be fine if it were true.”
Surprisingly, Lapis had a dangerous air about her that she would enjoy her hobbies to the point of ruining herself.
Loren felt so and let out a weak laugh as he realized that if something were to happen, he considered the options of knocking Lapis out unconscious and drag her across the floor if he had to but left out the option of abandoning her.
“What’s so funny?”
“It’s nothing.”
As he answered Lapis and continued walking, Shayna appeared in his sight, batting her wings.
‘It’s okay Onii-san. I’ll use my power as a No Life King to its full potential to get you and Onee-san to the surface if I have to!’
As Shayna declared with her fists in front of her chest, Loren told her that he was looking forward to it, and then realized that due to him thinking, he was quite behind and started to walk faster, but then stopped abruptly.
“Loren?”
Lapis, suspicious at Loren’s sudden stop, called out but Loren didn’t say anything and looked down at his feet.
Loren felt slight tremors under his feet.
Although it was very slight, but if he could feel it across a stone floor, it meant that something was happening in the corridor ahead, and when he looked up, he saw something that he wished that he hadn’t.
It was the sight of Ain and the others running back as fast as they could.
They were running with all their might, without any regards to the slimes that they were crushing under their feet.
As for what they were running from, Loren saw a large wall of slimes that filled the whole corridor, gushing towards them like a flood.
Loren’s face stiffened, and he immediately turned around and started running back the way he came.
“Hey proctor! Why are you running away!?”
“I don’t want to die!”
“Then at least run after we run past you!”
“Can’t afford to do that!”
There was nothing Loren could do against a wall of slime that filled the corridor barreling towards him.
All he could do was run, praying that it didn’t catch up to him.
Even if he tried to burn them with his torch, against that, he could only imagine himself getting crushed by sheer number.
“Where the h.e.l.l did they come from!?”
When Loren shouted, Cloud shouted back.
“We don’t know! They just came from the other side of the corridor!”
“Move your legs if you have the strength to move your mouths! We’ll get caught!”
“Guys! This way!”
After Feim’s cry, Al shouted out, and Loren sensed that they weren’t behind him anymore.
When he looked back, all he saw was a semi-transparent wall of slime, and didn’t see a trace of the students that were running behind him.
“Did they get swallowed!?”
“No, I think they ran into a side road.”
Since Loren was carrying her, Lapis was able to see everything, and told him all that happened.
Apparently, Ain and the others had ran into a branching corridor to wait for the wall of slime to pa.s.s.
“Would you call this getting separated or losing sight of them!?”
“Does it really matter?”
“Of course, it does! Depending on if it’s them getting separated on their own or if it’s me losing sight of them, it would affect the success of the job!”
“You’re worried about that in this situation…?”
“I mean, if I ran after then ran past, we would’ve gotten caught…”
Even as he spoke, Loren’s speed didn’t falter.
On top of Loren, who was running at a distance from the wave of slimes, Lapis looked back at the wall of slime crashing towards them and said with a sigh.
“I’m sure you can worry about that once we get out of this situation, don’t you think?”
“Definitely.”
Loren felt that she had a point, so he shelved the problem and continued running through the corridor with all his might, at a speed that seemed impossible to reach for someone with a great sword and a person on his back, without tripping on the slimes beneath his feet.
