The Clump's Rhythm
Mouths sprouted across the Clump’s body and loosed a skin-crawling laughter.
“Kee-hee-hee-hee-hee.”
“Kee-hee-hee-hee-hee.”
“Kee-hee-hee-hee-hee.”
Dozens of joints shrieked as they ground and scraped, and the thing came rolling across the stone floor — a nightmare no living world had ever produced.
Minel only muttered, flat as ever.
“Good. I was getting bored of Hounds.”
He slipped the Hundred Gates Almanac back into his inventory and steeled himself in silence. The Clump was a monster he would keep meeting in the dungeon. The more familiar he grew with fighting it, the easier the 5th Floor would become. Sever the limbs and drag it into a war of attrition — that had been the advice.
As the distance closed, the Clump’s twisted arms and legs all surged skyward at once and came hammering down on the spot where Minel stood.
He raised Silence high on the beat and dropped his body low.
Crash—!
Crash—!
Crash—!
Between the limbs slamming out of the air, Minel slid free like water. Silence’s spine skimmed the stone floor and threw off sparks of frost. When the blade, sweeping in a half-circle, changed direction, the Clump’s limbs fanned open like the ribs of a folding fan and then gathered again into a single mass. An eye blinked open at the tip of every arm and leg, fixing on him as if determined never to lose its mark.
Shing—!
Minel thrust Silence sideways into an opening, but two extra legs fused to an elbow whipped out and knocked the flat of the blade aside. Another arm stacked over the first like a shield and shoved the edge away; the force sent Minel skidding backward. Elbows and knees ground against one another in layers of twisted fat, tearing with the wet sound of joints being wrenched apart.
“Kee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee.”
“Kee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee.”
“Kee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee.”
The laughter, low and high at once, crawled along the cave walls. Under the gem-lights, the shadows of countless limbs stretched and shrank in endless rhythm.
Then an elbow shot in from the edge of Minel’s vision and struck him square in the chest.
Thud!
A dull impact drove into his ribs. Breath locked in his throat; he rolled once and slammed onto his back against the stone. The hit should have thrown his whole body, yet somehow there was no damage — all thanks to the leather jacket Balan had given him.
“With this…”
Strategy revised. Take the hits on Balan’s leather jacket first, then use the time it buys to cut the limbs. From action game to turn-based. Change the structure of the fight.
“Kee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee.”
“Kee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee.”
“Kee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee.”
The Clump came rolling again. Limbs rose together and split into three branches, reaching to pin him. Minel deliberately offered his left shoulder.
Thud, tick.
The instant the jacket swallowed the impact, Silence bit cold from the opposite side.
Ssslick—chop!
One tentacle-like arm sheared clean through at the elbow. At once the surrounding dark tried to clot and reattach the limb — but white frost raced across the cut surface, and the flesh froze with a crackling crunch. The darkness could not seep in; it lost its hold.
“Kee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee.”
“Kee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee.”
“Kee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee.”
The laughter stayed the same, but the number of arms had clearly dropped. Minel steadied his breathing and repeated the pattern: allow one deliberate hit, then sweep the blade from the flank and hunt the limbs. Left, right, left again. He shifted the rhythm constantly without ever changing the target.
Crash—shing!
Crash—shing!
Arms and legs hit the floor. Between the clattering falls came the sound of something cracking like ice, and frost settled over the pieces.
Confirming the plan was working, Minel kept the same motion going. Inside the frantic exchange he methodically cut them away, one by one.
“Hah… hah…”
How long had it been? Breath burned raw up the back of his throat. The inside of the jacket was damp with sweat, and a sharp ache throbbed in his wrists. Thanks to Balan’s leather jacket his body was intact, but stamina was draining fast whether he liked it or not. Impatience dulled a blade’s tip. Minel clenched his teeth and fought to keep the sword’s speed from falling no matter how empty his reserves ran.
The one mercy was that fewer limbs meant the fight kept getting easier. The intervals between those repeating joint-sounds stretched like a song slowing its BPM, and into every gap the chill edge of the sword slipped home.
Shing!
Shing!
Shing!
The joints of arms and legs snapped free as if a string of connections had come undone. Sometimes, the moment he cut one, he swung again and took another. Forcing down the breath that climbed into his throat, he swung and swung again.
“Kee-hee-hee…”
“Kee-hee-hee…”
The kinds of laughter dwindled; the lengths shortened. Minel seized the opening and went for the Clump’s core — and found it nothing like he expected.
Thunk—!
The tip of the blade struck something hard as bone and shuddered short. It was the first time Silence had failed to cut. When Minel twisted the hilt, cold flooded along the edge like seeping water; he yanked Silence free in the same breath. Half a beat later, arms and legs came flying from every direction. He realized the Clump had deliberately offered its body the same way he had, baiting him in. If Silence had not been razor-keen, if frost from the cold-injection skill had not already rimed the blade, the hit would have landed past the range the leather jacket could stop.
“Hah… hah…”
He put his back to a stone pillar, caught a short breath, and scanned the space. Severed limbs writhed on every side like a giant centipede. Even so the Clump was still large, still fast, and still had a fair number of limbs attached.
“War of attrition… war of attrition… Don’t get impatient.”
The gem-light flickered for an instant. Minel crouched low and sprang. The moment his feet touched down, two arms scythed in from either side; he deliberately raised his left arm late. The shock hit his left shoulder with a heavy thump — and in almost the same instant he swept Silence through that arm.
Shing!
White rime bloomed like a flower. Then, with the crisp crack of breaking glass, the arm fell away. As long as he didn’t get greedy and attack the body to end the fight early, the Clump had nothing left it could do. Resolve settled; Minel’s footwork lightened. Fatigue was stacking, but the conviction that real danger was actually shrinking made his body feel freer.
Cut one, and an opening for two appears. Cut two, and a chance for four opens. Acceleration took hold. The tip of the blade carved the Clump along shorter, cleaner lines.
Shing!
Shing!
Shing!
Even shorter, even lighter swings now sheared off more limbs in unbroken chains than before. At last the Clump lost its center and listed hard to one side. Minel was not fooled. Like a machine pruning branches, he simply kept cutting the awkward limbs off the body.
“Kee… hee…”
The Clump’s voice had shrunk to a child’s. Minel was merciless. Like a predator that gives a rabbit its full strength, he showed only the barest motion and calmly hunted whatever limbs remained. He was riding the rhythm now — the Clump’s rhythm. He no longer needed to think through how to fight the next Clump he met; his body was learning the answer on its own, and he began to toy with the thing.
“Hah…”
In the end, all that remained of the Clump were several short, twitching piles of flesh and a torso curled in on itself at the center. It could no longer roll; it only staggered in place, making a thin, grinding kee-ing sound. Minel drew one last deep breath. By the final stretch the fight had grown so easy that his stamina had actually recovered.
“I think I’ve learned enough. Time to finish this.”
He showed no flash. Slowly, he counted the rising and falling of the core as it breathed. On the third count he drove Silence straight down.
Thunk—!
Hot darkness and cold steam burst upward together like fireworks. Frost raced outward in concentric rings like the rings of a tree. The mounds of flesh froze solid piece by piece, and the mouths that had been laughing their filthy laughs hardened one after another. When Minel had given it enough time to freeze through and drew Silence free, ice shards split and scattered in every direction. More than fifty Blood Crystals dropped through the glittering spray, marking the end of the long fight.
“So at least fifty people died to this thing…”
Minel stepped back and shook Silence clean. Ice dust drifted away like morning frost. He looked over the leather jacket. It had taken dozens of blows that should have powdered bone, and there was not a single scratch. Coldly put, without Balan’s leather jacket he would never have won. For a high-grade monster to push him this hard — it drove home all over again how absurd it had been to kill a Shocker.
Minel sheathed Silence and flicked his fingers once.
Ting!
The clear chime of opening and closing the inventory scraped along the cave walls. He stored every Blood Crystal, then walked toward the tavern. Far ahead the tavern door came into view; when he stepped inside, every gaze swung toward him. The blood and scraps of flesh clinging to his clothes told the whole story of what had happened. He had no interest in their stares. The only thing that mattered was that Hina and Chori were nowhere in sight.
“Jacques.”
Minel spoke only the name, but Jacques already knew the question and pointed to one side.
“They rented a private room and went in. Same party, so the place will let you in on your own.”
Minel nodded once in thanks, walked the way Jacques had indicated, and opened the door. A short corridor led to another door; the plaque in front of it read Room 1921304. A number that could only belong to the Backrooms. Had that many people really taken rooms at the inn by now?
He stepped inside and closed the corridor-side door; the opposite door opened. The structure was like an airlock on a spaceship, built for passage to the outside. Room 1921304 looked like a medieval inn chamber with three beds in a row. Chori was sitting on the middle one.
“You’re back already?”
Minel had felt the fight drag on forever, but in truth it had taken little more than ten minutes. Compared to cutting down Hounds in a single stroke, of course, it had lasted dozens or hundreds of times longer.
“You didn’t use the house skill?”
“There were too many people. I couldn’t.”
“What about in here?”
“It doesn’t work. Maybe because we’re already inside a house.”
“Is that so?”
So the house skill couldn’t be used inside another house? Inside the Backrooms, “house” seemed to be treated as a specific type of space.
Chori looked him up and down and asked carefully,
“Did you fight a monster?”
“Yeah. A Clump.”
“Oh, really? What kind of monster is that?”
“A grotesque mess that looked like dozens of people mashed together. Where’s Hina?”
“She’s washing up inside.”
Minel put the leather jacket into his inventory and took it back out clean. A moment later Hina stepped out of the shower. She asked the same question Chori had, and this time he explained in a little more detail. Hina nodded.
“With fifty Blood Crystals we should be able to buy items without pinching.”
“What kind?”
“This is a firearms-banned floor, right? The weapon that suits me best is probably a bow. Jacques said not to just buy any bow and use it, so I haven’t purchased one yet.”
“Where’s the shop?”
“Apparently pretty close. Reliable information. I was going to go with you when you got back, but it looks like we’ll be able to buy something better than I expected.”
The 5th Floor ran on a quest system, so monster hunting was the main work. That made Hina’s role as support combatant all the more important.
“Let’s collect the quest reward first.”
The three of them went back out and spoke to the bartender. As the quest reward they received information on the rare monsters that appeared on the 5th Floor — five kinds in all, and nothing beyond names and habitats.
“If you want more detailed information on each rare monster, you’ll need to clear harder quests.”
“…”
Minel had no need. Among the five rare monsters was one far too familiar.
“There’s a Shocker.”
“That’s a real stroke of luck. The habitat is even ridiculously close to where the merchant is. We can check it out. Things are really going our way, aren’t they?”
Hina spoke as if she were enjoying herself, but Minel’s brow would not unknit. As expected. Luck this good was unnatural. No — frightening.
He hid the thought and answered quietly.
“Let’s go now.”