Catacomb (2)

"Come forth, ye corpses!"

The scattered monsters wheeled as one and charged Abraham the instant the skill took hold.

The moment the monsters bunched up against his shield, Abraham triggered Physical Enhancement — a skill that let him trade five points of Magic for a single point of Strength or Durability.

"Hrah!"

He dumped every last one of his twenty Magic points into Strength. The result was a staggering eighty-one — well past the 4-Star cap.

He drove the shield forward on that swollen power, and the zombies packed in front of him went tumbling ass-over-teakettle. It wasn't a skill, just a raw-strength shove, but anything that pinned an enemy in place for even a second counted as crowd control in my book.

"Nice work, Abraham!"

Kanisia clapped him on the back as she slipped past his shoulder. Downed enemies were a hard counter's all-you-can-eat buffet, and she was already serving herself. Mana-wreathed spears rained down like falling stars, punching fist-sized holes clean through rotting flesh.

A zombie lurched in from the flank while she was busy perforating the ones on the ground. Her reaction came a beat too late.

I had been hanging back, pinning enemies down with Wind Arrow, but I closed the gap in a sprint and caught the zombie's swinging arm on my shield.

"Getting a little careless, aren't you?"

"Ah! Thanks, Alan!"

I took the thanks and put my sword through a cut in the same motion.

Steel rang. The thing had thrown its arm up and stopped the blade cold.

"Oh? You blocked that?"

I had meant to take the head off in one stroke. Instead I got a forearm that ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was more bone than meat, pale and stripped, and still hard enough that I couldn't ignore it. Even so, my evolved Darkness attribute bit deep — the edge sank into the zombie's arm and stuck there.

"Die, you bastard!"

We wrestled like that for a while. I could hold my own against a crowd, but I couldn't put even one of them down fast.

"Hah!"

It took Kanisia's spear punching through the thing before the zombie I'd been tangled up with finally dropped.

Tch. Did I pour too much into the party's growth?

I clicked my tongue at the corpse. The monsters ran high-level, sure — but I hadn't finished a single one on my own, on time. That was the bill coming due for investing everything in everyone else.

Looks like I'll have to grind my own stats for a while.

Not that I minded. Whatever Growth Stones dropped while we cleared this place were going straight into my pocket. I still ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠had fifteen of the Medium Growth Stones Montblanc had handed me as a "you worked hard" bonus, and I'd already spread the contract-deposit stones around the party. Nobody was going to complain if I hogged the dungeon drops.

With Kanisia tearing through what was left, the fight wrapped up before long.

How many hours has it been?

I slipped a watch out of my inventory where the others couldn't see. One in the morning. We'd been inside for roughly five hours.

Five hours, and we still haven't even finished the first floor.

The Catacomb ran three levels deep. You had to kill the mid-bosses on the first and second floors before the path downward would open. It was already one in the morning; everyone would be moving like they were wading through mud. Pushing on in this condition was a sure way to bounce off the mid-boss and accomplish nothing.

"That's enough for today. Let's head back and rest."

"Huh? Really? What's gotten into you?"

Kanisia knew my dungeon-clearing style better than anyone, and she stared at me like I'd grown a second head. She also knew I never took back a word once I'd said it, so the surprise came paired with something that looked a lot like relief.

"It's a dungeon above our level. No point forcing it from the jump. We've got time — we'll clear it properly, step by step. Check if there's anything left to grab, then we're out."

"Yes, Master."

"Yay! Let's go back!"

The party set to looting with a will. The faster the farming finished, the faster they got to sleep.

Catacomb monsters didn't drop materials worth a damn. If there was a part of a rotting corpse you could sell, that would have been the real miracle. A necromancer or a death-sorcerer might have been thrilled — but Littleberry didn't have anyone of that class, not that I knew of.

No materials. If you got lucky, though, you could walk away with something else.

"Huh? Master! Master! Oralisa found a necklace!"

Oralisa, who had been bouncing on her heels at the thought of a bed, held up a necklace set with a gem of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠respectable size.

"Well done, Oralisa."

"Hehe!"

I ruffled her hair, and she beamed up at me like I'd hung the moon.

The Catacomb was an underground cemetery that had turned into a dungeon. The people of Littleberry sometimes buried the dead with the jewelry they'd worn in life, which meant the drop table here ran to necklaces, rings, earrings — the kind of ornaments you put in a grave. Of course, only a handful of the deceased had been rich enough to take their jewelry with them. Most of the monsters were dead broke.

"All right. Let's go back and rest."

We finished scooping up the Growth Stones and returned to base camp.

Five days into the Catacomb clear. Levels had climbed. Stats had climbed with them, Growth Stone by Growth Stone. And over those five days, we had figured out how to run this place efficiently.

Calling it a tactic was generous. Alan, Aquaril, and Abraham bunched the monsters into a single clump so Kanisia could erase them with overwhelming firepower. That was the entire plan. Give your damage dealer a stage and let her work — basic stuff. It just happened to be devastatingly effective.

Kanisia had walked in at level sixty-six. Five days later she had jumped eight levels, and she had earned every one of them. Experience split according to damage dealt, and she was the one putting the biggest numbers on the most bodies. Of course she ate the lion's share.

"Kanisia. How's your condition?"

"Best it's ever been. Whatever crawls out of there, I'll just carve it up."

She grinned like she meant it. Two hundred-plus monsters in five days, and she didn't look even slightly tired.

"Good. Everyone get ready. We finish the first floor today."

"Yes, Master."

"Yep! Oralisa is ready!"

"Hah..."

Thanks to Kanisia's rampage, the mid-boss that owned the first floor was standing right in front of us.

"Then I shall open the gate, Lord Alan."

"Do it."

I nodded, and Abraham set his shoulder to the sealed stone door. The cavern filled with a grinding roar as the slab gave way. The second it cracked open he brought his shield up — every so often you ran into a bastard that started swinging before you had even stepped into the room.

A low growl rolled out of the dark, then swelled into a bellow. Fortunately, the thing waiting for us was not one of those preemptive-strike assholes.

"Ugh... Master, that thing is so fucking ugly! It's filthy! I think it even stinks!"

It just happened to be an asshole that looked like one.

Among the army of zombies and skeletons, one monster threw a presence that blotted out everything else. It stood roughly four meters tall, its skin sloughed away so that the pink muscle beneath shone wetly in the dark. In one hand it held a blade a full meter long, shaped for all the world like a Chinese cleaver. Rotting scraps of flesh and old blood caked the edge — a record of every corpse it had ever carved.

That was one of the Catacomb's mid-bosses: the Butcher. Put it down, and the second floor would open.

"Way more adds than I figured. Everyone remember the plan?"

"Is this not dangerous, Master?"

"What, you don't ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠trust me? Relax. I'll buy us all the time we need."

"But..."

"If you're that worried, wipe the adds fast and come bail me out. Simple, right?"

"...Yes. I understand. I shall do my utmost."

I patted her on the head, and resolve settled over Aquaril's face like a blade sliding into its sheath.

Same as every other pull in this dungeon: the Fairies would build Kanisia a stage, and she would sweep it clean. While they deleted the trash, I would keep the mid-boss — the Butcher — occupied by myself. That was the plan.

At my current level I had no prayer of killing a 6-Star like that thing. Buying time, though? That I could do all day.

I had dumped every remaining Potential point I had — all ten — into Agility for this exact moment.

The Butcher outranked me by a mile, but speed was a different conversation. I was faster than that monster, and the slack gut hanging off its frame was going to do my work for me.

"Let's go!"

I lit the boss room with Firefly and broke forward alone.

Zombies groaned. Skeletons clattered. Every rotting head and bare skull in the chamber turned toward me at once, and the sight of that many dead things looking at me in unison was genuinely disgusting.

"Hup!"

I took a running start, launched myself up, and used the nearest skull as a stepping stone. The zombie toppled a half-second too late, arm swinging at empty air. I skipped ahead the way you'd cross a creek — zombie head, skeleton head, zombie head — and never let my feet touch the floor.

"Bring it on, you corpse bastards!"

Abraham was still in the doorway. He loosed Taunting Cry again, and every monster that had been chasing me wrenched around toward him instead.

By then I was already standing in front of the Butcher. A high-rank abomination stitched together from corpses — the stench rolling off it was enough to make your eyes water.

"Geh! You really do stink like a motherfucker, don't you?"

Whether it understood the words or was simply running on a dead thing's hatred of the living, the Butcher hoisted that giant cleaver high enough to split me in half.

Do not try to take that hit.

Its forearm was thicker than my waist. The power coiled in that arm wasn't strength — it was a natural disaster with a wrist. The ranker I used to be said it plain: the second I tried to block, the shield and I would come apart along the same line.

So I rolled.

The cleaver came down where I had been standing and the flat stone floor shattered, cratering under a single blow. Yeah. That was a problem.

Sword and shield are just going to get in the way.

I dumped both into my inventory and snapped a Wind Arrow together on the draw, loosing it in the same breath.

The shots punched into the Butcher's hide. Skin warped and twisted along the spinning air — and that was as far as they got. Not one of them broke through the meat.

They did, however, piss it off.

Every time Abraham's Taunting Cry went off, the thing had been twitching, its head starting to turn that way. Now it was looking at me and only me.

The Butcher came on, determined to butcher me properly. A body more than twice my height closing the distance felt less like a charge and more like a wall deciding to fall on you.

"Heh... heh heh heh heh! Hahahahaha!"

I could feel how badly it wanted me in pieces. And I laughed. My body didn't lock up — the opposite. A situation where I had to put my life on the line had me so wound up I couldn't keep the sound in. The brawler that had been sleeping somewhere under my ribs came climbing out with its teeth bared.

I put another Wind Arrow in its face and moved.