92. Dance with the Witch (5)
92. Dance with the Witch (5)
"They look ugly as fuck."
By then, merely seeing a snake bastard made me swear automatically.
Watching the snake heads approach with their tongues flicking menacingly brought back my desperate struggle on the deserted island—the day I had fought the Hydra with my life on the line. Compared with the Hydra, these creatures were little more than grime under a fingernail, but I still could not afford to be careless.
Carelessness was what took human lives most easily.
"W-will you be all right on your own...?"
"Eh, spending that time figuring out what composition to shoot for a photo would be more productive than worrying about that guy, don't you think?"
It wasn't wrong, but something about it still pissed me off. I pushed the voices of the two chatting behind me out of my awareness and glared at the dark-green lizardmen. One carried something like a slingshot, another a crossbow, and three more carried one-handed weapons and shields.
The weapons weren't particularly high-grade, but they looked to be made of reasonably usable iron. No way these guys made them themselves; the setting was probably that they looted them from humans. I remembered the game was reasonably faithful to its setting, after all.
"Sif. Get the Screenshot up."
"Already on it~"
I decided to make my move. As usual, I approached them at a leisurely pace without using my Skills. If I dealt with them using Skills, getting good photos would be difficult, so I had little choice.
I also wanted to get my feel for the shovel back, since I hadn't swung it properly in a while.
If my Skills failed, all I'd left was close-quarters combat.
Anyway, that noise grated on my ears.
I glared at the three Lizardmen charging at me with their shields forward. Orderly movement. Was it the product of programming, or the product of training? I adjusted my grip on the shovel.
The distance, which had been about thirty paces, shrank rapidly.
I waited for the distance between us to drop below five paces. The sight of three bulky Lizardmen hurtling toward me was fairly intimidating. But they were just Lizardmen, after all.
The moment they entered my range, I lay my body back about halfway. A maneuver close to what wuxia novels called the Iron Bridge. The bipedal lizards lowered their heads, tracking me after I suddenly vanished from their sight.
Too late.
Before the snakes could react, I slashed their legs with the shovel.
No, I cut them off.
"...This is why everyone goes on about mithril."
Click.
A scream shook the cavern. Blue blood sprayed. Without even having time to wipe the blood from my face, I rolled aside to dodge an arrow. Then I swiftly cut the head from the lizardman whose leg I had severed and hurled it at the enemy.
Click.
The Lizardman who saw its comrade's head spinning chaotically through the air chose flight. But there was no way I'd let those bastards flee.
"Not much camaraderie among you."
I drew a dagger from my belt and threw it. It was a cheap dagger you could find anywhere, but leather couldn't possibly be tougher than iron. I walked up to the Lizardman who'd collapsed screaming noisily and kindly finished it off.
"Sif. Did you get all that?"
"...That shovel was a weapon?"
"Obviously it's a weapon."
"You're always using Skills so I figured it was an auxiliary tool!"
...Fair enough. I hadn't swung the shovel very often. For low-level dungeons, bulldozing through with the Craft Skill was far more efficient, and I did not have to risk my life fighting like this.
"A-amazing..."
"Put your backpack on again. We're moving farther in."
"Hold up, we've gotta strip the Lizardmen of anything worth money!"
So saying, Sif yanked out a lizardman's eyeballs. She really knew how to make use of everything. I watched her work, then pricked up my ears at faint footsteps in the distance.
...It looked like there would be plenty more for her to pluck out. Sif, of course.
"Sif. Finished pulling them out?"
"All done now!"
"Then we're moving out."
There was no reason to wait, so we went to meet them.
I walked toward the sound of the footsteps.
------------
Second floor.
After descending the stairs into the marshlands, all three of us stared at the swamp stretching as far as we could see and sighed at once.
It was disgustingly vast.
Small safe zones floated between the swamplands, and orcs stood atop them.
There were two ways to break through this marshland.
The first was to sprint at full speed toward the stairs visible in the distance. The second was to reach them by stepping across the safe patches scattered throughout the swamp.
The first method was impossible.
I could have managed it alone, but with Elisa here, moving that quickly wasn't an option.
So we had no choice but to take the second method.
"Whoa, I just got a burning desire to bail out of here."
"Th-the atmosphere's so gloomy..."
"It's a swamp. Of course it is. Craft."
I drew intact soil from a safe patch and used it to make a path. Normally, the answer on this floor was to rush through, since fighting and moving were both difficult, but our purpose was to take photos as evidence of the dungeon exploration. I tapped the path with my foot several times to test its strength.
"The soil quality's poor."
That also ruled out digging straight down to the floor below. In terrain like this, I would only dive into the swamp. The relatively firm patches of ground might have been different... I looked toward a safe patch roughly fifty meters away.
How was I remembering this stuff after ten years?
It really drove home what a hopeless game addict I had been. I couldn't remember my parents' faces, yet I still remembered trivial dungeon details like these. Truly impressive.
Maybe it was some kind of transmigration bonus.
"Yohan? Why're you suddenly spacing out?"
"I was checking the safe zones. We'll head out soon now."
I was the first to set foot on the path I'd made. It was built pretty sturdy, but just in case, I used the Repair Skill every five paces.
"Repair."
The path that had been turning soft hardened again. What a needlessly cumbersome route. I glanced back to make sure Sif and Elisa were following, then landed on the safe patch.
"Were orc hearts used in alchemy?"
Or was it troll hearts? I couldn't remember. Maybe I should have checked a reference book...
I swept my eyes over the bodies of the two orcs slowly rising in front of the campfire and took stock.
Once I invested something, recovering that investment was only natural.
...Actually, if you called it an investment, it was just a tiny bit of food and a few sets of clothes, but anyway, that was how it was.
"Sif. What parts of an orc's body are worth money?"
"Nothing besides the heart, probably?"
"Gweek?"
The orc that spotted us got up from its spot making a grotesque noise.
"Gwee-eek!"
"Shut up."
I smacked the charging orc over the head with the shovel.
With a crisp, light sound, the orc's body staggered. I'd hit it at full power, so it was surely concussed.
I soccer-kicked the next charging orc in the groin and forced it to its knees. Tough as its body was, apparently even an orc wasn't sturdy there; it couldn't put up any meaningful resistance as it dropped to its knees.
"...Elisa. Come this way."
"H-huh?!"
"We need a picture."
"Gwee-eeek!"
"Noisy."
I held two fingers behind the kneeling orc's head in a V and adjusted the trembling Elisa beside me so the two-shot would come out well.
"Elisa. Strike a pose. It's safe, so no need to be too scared."
Standing between the kneeling orc and the dead orc with its head split open, Elisa raised two fingers in a V, her face on the verge of tears.
So they used the V-sign here too.
"Sif, take it."
"...What on earth is this nonsense. Seriously..."
Along with a grumbling voice, I heard the shutter click. The instant the photo was taken, I ripped out the heart of the orc foaming at the mouth, then rolled it into the swampland. The swamp turned red. It was a familiar sight, so no particular thought came to mind.
I shoved the unpleasantly pulsating heart into a pouch I'd brought along beforehand.
"Did the photo come out well?"
"Uh... maybe?"
Why was she looking at me so uncertainly? I walked over to Sif and checked the developed photo.
A photo of Elisa standing between the orc whose head was split in half dead and the orc foaming at the mouth. Elisa, making a V-sign with a tearful face, looked pitiful.
It was a photo so grotesque that even if someone claimed it was a composite, it would be hard to refute.
"...The professor will be shocked when they see this."
"Take this to the Dungeon Exploration Guild and it'll probably make Screenshot of the Month! Because you're the only one who tells people to shoot scenes like this!"
"Don't yell."
"Mreow?!"
Did this girl only meow when she got hit? Come to think of it, despite being a cat beastkin, she didn't add “meow” to the ends of her sentences. Was she the unusual one?
"Sif."
"Quit hitting me!"
"Is there a reason you don't add ‘meow’ to the ends of your sentences?"
"Suddenly asking weird stuff... Hey, do you think I'm a little kid? I'm an adult, you know?"
"Uh... C-cat beastkin only d-do that when they're little, and I h-heard they t-talk normally once they b-become adults..."
"Thanks for the explanation."
"N-no problem..."
Maybe thanks to the compliment, Elisa's expression eased a little. With enhanced Insight, I could pick up on that fact with ease. It was a good thing I'd raised it.
"Then let's set out again."
We continued across the safe patches. Dealing with the orcs was my job. Since they only appeared in groups of two or three, I mixed Skills with shovel work, harvested their hearts, and approached the stairs to the third floor.
"Pulled out a whole twenty of them, so we'll probably get about 10 gold coins~ Shame the lizardman eyeballs were only a silver coin a pair and not much money."
"Supply must be high, I see."
"Since thousands get supplied daily from a dungeon called Istarim Sea of Trees, they're bound to be dirt cheap."
Istarim Sea of Trees, huh...
I didn't know it by name alone... Well, it seemed to be a dungeon that mainly spawned Lizardmen.
"Is the supply of orc hearts low?"
"Dungeons that spawn orcs are rare near the academy. If you report this dungeon, supply will increase, and the market price might drop, won't it? There'll be a new source for fresh orc hearts."
Sif's point made perfect sense. Then it wouldn't be bad to strip as many orc hearts as I wanted here.
The more money, the better.
"If we do well, we could earn a few dozen more gold coins..."
"Really? You can earn that much? Then you can set aside a little more for my trouble too, right?"
"I did all the fighting."
"But I took all the photos. I also pulled out every lizardman eyeball on the first floor! I've been working hard on these pictures! Wouldn't paying me for my trouble be basic business ethics?"
I considered smacking Sif on the head for shamelessly demanding extra pay, then nodded. I was not an exploitative boss. I couldn't ignore the rights of a thieving cat who had done honest work and wanted to be paid for it.
"I'll add five more gold coins."
"Can't you make it seven?"
"Fine. I'll make it seven."
"Wow, that's our great sponsor—no, our employer!"
I smirked looking at Sif, who was happily perking up her ears without a clue about anything.
She was happy for now. For now.
"But remember. Once we go downstairs..."
"Don't worry! I've just got to keep taking photos well like now, right?"
That was a little worrying. I looked away from the overconfident Sif and down at Elisa, who was holding my sleeve and glancing around. She was calmer than when she had first entered the second floor. We'd been at this for two hours, so she seemed to have adjusted.
"Elisa."
"...D-did you call for me?"
"No need to be too afraid. It's going to end soon anyway."
"Huh?"
"The third floor is the last one."
"Don't tell me you have a Detection Skill too?"
"...Yeah."
Actually, I was ascertaining it from my pre-transmigration knowledge, but I agreed with Sif's words.
When I nodded, Sif grumbled, "Just how many Skills do you have? It's unfair."
"Quit grumbling. We've got to enter the third floor now."
I stared at the stairs leading down to the third floor a short distance away. No one was around. Other dungeons would certainly have had monsters blocking the stairs, but considering the third floor's gimmick, that was only natural.
"We'll set up camp after descending to the third floor."
At my words, the two nodded with relieved expressions.
Third floor.
The place that would serve as the highlight of the assignment.
"...I hope it's the same as it was in the game."
I stepped toward the stairway, which yawned open as if waiting for us.