Chapter 21
Chapter 21
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 21
Chapter Title: Gold Solis Party
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The thief who received the ointment and bandages from me looked flustered.
His gaze darted endlessly between me, the bandages, and the other crawlers receiving treatment and heading off.
But my expression and demeanor remained resolute.
Most of these people still lacked experience, so they had no history partying with classes like mages or priests.
Their knowledge of mages or priests was limited to fairy-tale images at best.
They thought magic or blessings would just appear like a favorable wind if they asked nicely, without any cost.
But could miracles really happen for free—humans made of blood and flesh firing fireballs like grenade launchers into the air, or wounds splitting open with entrails spilling out healing in an instant just from a flash of light?
Even if it seemed effortless, it consumed a tremendous amount of mana.
To use a Recovery Blessing like the one I'd shown without strain, you'd need to be at least a named crawler who'd earned a title from operating in the lower floors.
You could tell just from how Ellis, who'd harbored faint distrust until moments ago, had been shocked watching me spam blessings.
Potions were treated like spare lives for adventurers, and a priest's recovery spells were just extra coin a party could hold.
To make the most of those limited recovery chances, it was obviously best to use them on the most vital party members in combat.
"Um... so you're not giving me a blessing like that?"
"This dungeon run doubles as training for all of you."
"R-right?"
"You can't start picking up bad habits."
This wasn't because I simply despised the thief.
A thief was a class meant to fill utility roles in the party, not a frontline fighter.
That's why thieves who got injured easily and wasted resources were treated like dead weight.
Miella, the thief from Kaiden's Party on our last dungeon run, had known when to engage and when to pull back.
Even with the whole party buffed by blessings, she'd come out without a single scratch.
"This is punishment for your carelessness. There's no better teacher than pain."
You chose to be a thief. Grit your teeth and tough it out.
I even gave you bandages and ointment.
Despite my explanation, the thief shot a dissatisfied look at Horsdruk.
As if asking if this was really right.
But Horsdruk, stroking his chin as he mulled over my words, seemed convinced of their logic and nodded toward me.
'See? I'm not doing this because I hate thieves.'
It was perfectly reasonable logic that any sensible crawler would have to accept.
"From the look of it, your wound isn't that deep. Treat it yourself—think of it as experience."
"......"
With even Horsdruk siding with me, the thief's lips puffed out like a petulant child.
'Ugh.'
That criminal-short-of-two-steps face pulling a cute pout was almost enough to make me hurl.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
I thought that was the end of it, but Ellis, who'd been watching, must have pitied the thief and cast a blessing to heal him.
The thief bowed to her like she was a saint, glared at me once on his way out, and left.
See that?
I'd kindly taught him his place, and this was the thanks I got.
This was why thieves were such a pain.
Once the last injured person had gone, I let out a small sigh and turned to Ellis. She looked up at me cautiously, gauging my reaction.
"...I thought maybe I needed some practice too..."
What to do with this kind, innocent lamb.
"Miss Ellis. Like I said before, don't get into the habit of granting every demand from your underli—er, party members."
"Yes..."
I'd meant to scold her a bit sternly, but her slightly deflated look softened my resolve.
The method had its issues, but she'd still healed someone—no point being too harsh.
"Still, that was a clean blessing. [Ves]... So you're a follower of the Goddess of Hearth and Embers."
"Yes. The Goddess recently granted me her blessings."
Unlike magic, which anyone with mana, knowledge, and talent could use, blessings were powers bestowed by the god you worshipped.
It was like a fusion of the believer's mana and the deity's authority—a human-god hybrid technique, sort of.
That's why the nature of blessings varied greatly depending on the god's domain. In my case, with the Goddess of Mist and Dew, I used blessings starting with [Thrill].
Just knowing the prefix told you which god the priestess served.
...Of course, most people wouldn't know in the case of our obscure Goddess.
The Goddess of Hearth and Embers that Ellis followed was a major deity, easily in the top twenty across not just the dungeon city but the entire world, thanks to her symbolic domain.
Even someone with just basic knowledge of blessings would recognize [Ves] as a sign of her faith.
"How many blessing lines can you use?"
"Oh, well—"
While others were still rolling around in their "training," we leisurely chatted about blessings.
She was at that eager-to-practice stage, so her eyes sparkled at my explanations of basic applications—unlike her reaction to my earlier golden-rule advice.
"Oh, but from now on, make sure to charge the thieves if they ask for healing."
"......"
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
Time flies in the dungeon.
Without the benefits of civilization, you have to prepare everything yourself.
No one has fully explained how celestial movements and atmospheric activity happen underground, but just as the sun rose daily even before humans understood it, night falls in the dungeon too.
So Gold Solis's party of 32 had to prepare for the dungeon night.
Unlike Kaiden's Party of five including me, the 32 of us split into groups of four to six, pitching tents around to form a campsite that felt like a makeshift army base camp.
We had firewood in our supplies, but the rule was to use on-site resources whenever possible to conserve supplies.
We lit fires with the small branches and twigs we'd gathered steadily since morning, starting bonfires all over the campsite.
Pots and cauldrons of appropriate sizes hung over the flames.
Water boiled with fuel was always precious during camp.
Some transferred it to personal cups, stirred in coffee grounds for coffee, and softened hardtack biscuits in it.
Others made thin gruel with salt-cured meat or dried fish that had a unique funky smell and turned rock-hard without moisture.
Those with extra leeway added sausages or eggs to make poached eggs.
Bulky, hard-to-preserve items weren't usually in supplies, but on short expeditions or early sections, they were often consumed quickly before spoiling.
-Sizzle...
A gaze fixed on the golden-roasted sausage skewer in my hand.
But I ignored it, popping the sausage into my mouth and chewing.
The taut sheep-intestine casing snapped under my teeth, flooding my mouth with oil and juices.
"...Looks delicious."
The young man—Yohan—stared blankly before looking down at his bowl of thin gruel with a wistful mutter.
"Should've bought some sausages too."
'Already getting greedy with food, newbie.'
I shook my head at Yohan, who shoveled gruel nonstop yet kept eyeing my sausage.
In this world, before achieving great success, three jobs suffer if you're picky about food: traveling merchants, soldiers, and crawlers.
All involved long periods away from home, so a finicky palate wouldn't last.
Well, watching Yohan massacre the gruel, it seemed less like pickiness and more like the sausages just looked too good.
But not everyone could eat thin gruel with such gusto like Yohan.
"...The dungeon is cold."
Another young man stared at his gruel bowl with a complicated expression.
No matter how nicely you spun it, thin gruel made from salt-cured meat, mystery fish, and biscuit crumbs boiled thick with its musty smell wasn't exactly appetizing.
"Not that again. No pickiness allowed this far in, Lucas."
Ellis stared sternly at Lucas, who was glaring at his gruel.
Her gaze was like a mother watching her son pick out bitter melon.
From her attitude, this Lucas was probably the childhood friend she'd come with that morning.
"......"
"Sigh. Look, Yohan over there eats it just fine."
*Munch munch.*
"It'sh good too, Mish Elish."
"If you don't eat properly, you won't have strength tomorrow, you know?"
*Crunch crunch.*
"Tashdish! We crawlersh hash ta eat thish shtuff ta sheleet our parshies!"
*Slurp slurp slurp.*
"Yohan's right. But Yohan, don't talk with food in your mouth."
"Ah! Shorry. Got carried away eating."
Lucas scowled as he watched their exchange, then grumbled sullenly before grimacing and scooping up his gruel.
Ellis watched approvingly, while Yohan, unperturbed, ladled another bowl from the pot.
I'd finished my sausage and started on some gruel myself.
"What's that look for?"
"...No, just surprised."
"That you'd touch this food?"
Ellis and Lucas said nothing aloud but conveyed agreement with their eyes.
I swallowed my gruel and smirked.
"Looks can be deceiving—I'm a street rat at heart. Nothing's too lowly for my palate."
"Ah... Sorry."
"No need to apologize."
Thinking she'd touched a nerve, Ellis apologized, but I didn't mind.
Surviving as an orphan was harsh enough that I'd cursed the world plenty, but I never developed a victim complex over it.
"Besides, picky eaters don't last long in the dungeon anyway."
Not so much in the upper floors, but mid-layers often required foraging ingredients—including some grotesque stuff that made you question edibility.
I didn't care much, but Ellis seemed to regret her words as insensitive and clammed up. For a while, the only sounds from our group were Yohan's munching and clinking utensils.
"Floor adaptation... when do you think it'll happen?"
The silence dragged, and Ellis broke it with a new topic, her voice laced more with worry than excitement.
Floor adaptation brought permanent physical changes from the dungeon's influence.
Mana increased, physical abilities rose.
Still, since the dungeon's mana embedding remained unexplained, some felt uneasy about it.
"You took adaptation potions to speed it up, so some might wake up adapted by morning."
"...No issues, right?"
"It's your first time, so you're nervous, but it's nothing major."
"I'm actually looking forward to it!"
Yohan, having scraped the pot clean, chimed in with sparkling eyes.
"Today's fights matched what I practiced in some ways and differed in others—it was fun! Floor adaptation has to be a great experience too!"
Yohan had shown real promise among the novice package crew.
Most froze up in their first real combat and underperformed, but he'd moved with extra vigor.
He'd trained hard, and his fundamentals were solid.
Above all...
"I think you'll make it as a crawler, Yohan."
He was still this chipper after his first battle.
My honed senses covered not just the three in front of me but the whole campsite to some extent.
...Ugh.
.....Haa.
......
After scrambling desperately, brushing death, filling their bellies, and resting in safety, their bodies spat out the fatigue they'd forcibly ignored.
Physical or mental, it didn't matter.
Staring at the bonfire under the night sky and silence like that dredged up all sorts of thoughts.
That the dungeon wasn't some fairy tale.
And doubts about truly embracing this kill-or-be-killed slaughter as life.
By journey's end at floor 10 and back in the city...
How many would step into the dungeon again?
'Not my problem.'
Endless posers flocked to this dungeon city dreaming of overnight riches or heroic tales.
I'd just stick with the ones who made the cut.
No need to dwell on those crumbling on floor 1.
"Thank you!"
Watching Yohan beam at my assessment, I thought:
This guy's going places high up.
Unless his spirit breaks like some around the camp,
or he dies.