Ch. 65: Meeting Again After Running
Slimes were slow.
That couldn’t be said in general, considering the wall of slimes that was closing in on Loren from behind, but normal slimes were indeed sluggish.
That was why Loren guessed that maybe instead of dealing with every single slime that they came across, running through at a pace they wouldn’t get caught would be the correct way to explore a slime infested dungeon.
That was how fast Loren was running after they separated from Ain and his party.
Of course, the wall of slimes didn’t let him run slower, but Loren slipped past slimes that reached for his feet, dodged ones that dropped from above, and dashed through the dungeon using only the light from his torch as his guide.
“Loren, do you have a destination in mind?”
Lapis asked Loren as she turned back every now and then, checking the distance between them and the slimes, and Loren answered her without dropping speed.
“Not really.”
“Yeah, I knew that…”
The map that they had received didn’t help at all.
Loren was running through the corridors so fast that they couldn’t pinpoint where their current location was.
Since they lost their location, and with nothing but stone walls and floors everywhere, there was nothing to distinguish them and no signs of anything they could use to find it.
On top of that, they couldn’t even use the method of putting your hand on the wall.
The method only worked for the outer wall, but they didn’t know which wall was the outer one.
To put it simply, they were lost.
“What do you think happened to them?”
At first Lapis didn’t know what Loren was talking about, but then realized that he was talking about Ain and the others and sighed.
“Hey stop that. You’re tickling my neck.”
“Oh, sorry about that. I don’t care at all. They won’t be of any help in this situation anyway.”
Just because they went off in a side corridor didn’t mean that they were safe.
A portion of the slimes could have gone after them, or they could’ve run into another pack of them.
But regardless of whether they survived or not, it didn’t change Loren and Lapis’ current situation.
“Rather than that Loren, you’ve been running for quite a while now, but are you okay?”
His bag and equipment, including his great sword.
On top of that, Loren was running with Lapis on his back as well.
Lapis knew that constantly running with such weight on his back would be sapping his strength.
She became worried about him, but Loren didn’t seem to slow down at all.
“The battlefield is a harsh place.”
Wet sounds erupted from under Loren’s feet since he was crushing slimes under his feet.
If he slowed down, he would get caught by the slimes, but if he ran too fast, he could slip and crash onto the ground along with Lapis.
Loren’s skillfulness on his movements and body balance, making him not got too fast nor too slow, made it seem like every mercenary could do so.
“It’s said that the ones who run out of steam die first. That’s why the first thing we were trained on was to continue running. We had to wear equipment and hold bags, and sometimes even other members. Your weight is nothing compared to them.”
“About that Loren.”
Lapis tried to change subject, but her words were cut off by a sudden floating sensation.
When Lapis looked around, wondering what happened, her blood ran cold when she saw that Loren had ran right into a hole in the middle of the corridor.
Running into traps usually meant death, but Loren easily landed at the bottom and continued running.
Instead of being a trap of instant death, apparently it was just a hole that forced victims to a lower level.
Lapis was relieved when she realized that, but her expression hardened again as she realized that they had jumped down to the eighth floor.
“What was that?”
When Loren, who stayed calm, either not realizing they were on the next floor or didn’t care, asked Lapis, she remembered what she was going to say and started to talk, but saw the numerous slimes coming down the hole like a waterfall and tapped Loren’s shoulder.
“They’re coming Loren!”
“They won’t stop chasing just because the floor changed, huh…”
As Loren muttered bitterly as he sped up, Lapis leaned forward, put her lips right next to Loren’s ear, and told him what she had meant to tell him earlier.
“It’s about my arms and legs not moving.”
“Out of mana?”
“No, there’s enough mana in the area. Way more than enough, actually.”
Lapis’ limbs, which ran on mana, weren’t moving, but she said that there was enough mana around them.
Nothing came to Loren’s mind, since he wasn’t a priest or a magician, but he did understand that it was strange.
“What do you mean?”
“Would you understand if I told you that they aren’t functioning properly because the mana around us is too thick?”
He didn’t completely understand, but he did get what she was trying to say.
Anything could be harmful when it was too abundant, and it seemed that in their current situation, it was mana.
“Do you know the cause?”
“No. But if you can buy me some time, I could possibly adjust them.”
“Time, huh.”
Loren glanced back.
The wave of slimes that was chasing after them even after dropping down, was still coming after them without slowing down.
Buying enough time for Lapis depended on how much longer Loren could run.
“There’s no one else, so if I could get my arms and legs moving, I could burn away the slimes with magic…”
“Wait Lapis.”
Loren interrupted Lapis.
As Lapis wondered what happened, she saw someone pop out of a side corridor, and understood why Loren stopped her.
“Klaus!?”
The person that popped up from a side corridor and started running beside Loren was Klaus, holding Ange in his arms.
Lapis realized that she was interrupted because it would’ve been bad if she had been overheard by them. She then looked back and saw that the number of slimes had increased and understood the circ.u.mstance that Klaus and Ange had been put under.
“You two have been chased as well!?”
“Hey! It’s you guys! What a coincidence!”
“Not a good one, I can tell you that.”
Apparently, Klaus and Ange were being chased just as Loren and Lapis had.
It seemed that when they reached the big corridor, they saw another wall of slimes coming towards them and started running in the same direction as Loren.
The wall of slimes had sped up due to merging with the slimes that had been chasing Klaus.
“What happened to the students?”
“We got separated while running away from that. One of them got engulfed by a slime head first, and I couldn’t save her.”
“I came across her a little while ago. Her body was filled with slime, and one of the students in my group got injured from it. Burn it next time and don’t leave behind trouble for me.”
“We couldn’t afford to!”
As he saw Ange, who was stiff in Klaus’ arms, nod at him, he realized that Klaus really couldn’t afford to.
If there were too many slimes that dropped onto the poor girl’s head, they might’ve had to run and not been able to burn her body.
But leaving trouble for other examinees was still out of the question.
“Anyways Klaus. Do you know where we are?”
“Unfortunately, I’m too busy running. On top of that, I’m carrying Ange, so do you think I could run while checking the map?”
“Not much of a difference as us, huh.”
Loren had guessed as much, but he was slightly disappointed when he heard the words come out of Klaus’ mouth.
But since there was the possibility of Klaus being disappointed in the same fashion, Loren decided that the feeling was mutual.
“So, I’m guessing you don’t have a destination in mind either?”
“Same for you, right!?”
“Unlucky…How are we going to lose that thing?”
The wall of slime chasing after them kept at a distance, not coming closer nor falling farther away.
Loren thought that having Lapis burn it away with her magic after regaining control of her limbs, but now that they had grouped up with Klaus and Ange, they couldn’t do anything reckless.
“The floors weren’t like this when I took the exam!”
“Then what happened?”
“How would I know!?”
“We should get to the ninth floor.”
Ange joined the conversation from in Klaus’ arms.
Ange, who had her arms around Klaus’ neck on top of being carried by him, said with a flushed face.
“If we can get to the keeper on the ninth floor, that’s a safe area where dungeon monsters won’t come into.”
“Even if you say so Ange, we don’t have the key to get in there. Only the examinees have the key, so even if we made it, we would be stuck there surrounded by slimes.”
“Wouldn’t it be the same even if we made it to the tenth floor?”
As Loren b.u.t.ted in, Klaus, who had experienced the exam, told him.
“The tenth floor is where Volf’s fortune is stored, but there’s a transport gate to the surface there.”
“Then won’t you be able to take anything you want once you reach it?”
All you would have to do is take as much treasure as you could and jump into the gate.
Loren thought that would be possible, even with a guardian around, but Klaus said otherwise.
“But the guardian is in front of the gate, and the gate isn’t open. If you don’t take anything, the gate with activate, but if you try to take something, you can’t use it until you defeat the guardian.”
“You would have to get to the tenth floor in the first place for either to happen, though.”
As Ange finished the explanation, this time Lapis, who was on Loren’s back, continued the conversation.
“If that’s the case, I’ve got an idea so let’s head to the tenth floor.”
“An Idea?”
“I can’t say right now. Only that there’s a chance for us to be saved. So, let’s look for the keeper on the ninth floor, and access the tenth floor.”
At Lapis’ proposal, Klaus and Ange looked at each other for a moment and immediately nodded.
They concluded that if they didn’t have a better idea, they should stick to Lapis’.
“Then let’s think about our current location and how to get to our destination.”
“Leave it to me. I’ve been down here quite a bit, so I’ll know in time.”
“I think we should focus on getting away from that before we think about anything else, though.”
At Loren’s words, the other three looked behind and saw the semi-transparent wall, sighed, and while Loren and Klaus sped up, Lapis and Ange clung onto their partners, trying not to get in their way.