Chapter 21: One Simple Life.
Catherine looked between Delvin and the bald man groaning on the floor “That’s it?” She asked, raising her hand as it formed a long spear. She needed to test it out eventually, better now than later. She approached the man, raising her hand to strike and put the man out of his misery but just as she was about to strike, Delvin leaped out in front of her.
“Woah woah woah! Stop.” Delvin said, waving her arms. Once Catherine put her hand down and shooting her a questionable look she continued “I need to you to understand something before you do this, killing this man is more than just proving you can circumvent the leash.” She jumped on top of the man, who groaned against her weight “If you kill him, and don’t burst into flames, you will be in deep shit. All attempts to be on the organization’s good side are gone, out the window, if they ever find out, which they will eventually.”
“I never exactly wanted to be on their good side anyways. “Catherine said, raising her spear to attack “They left me no choice in the matter, and treated me like a fool.” If anything, she wanted revenge, to be rid of them all.
“Good! But, this is also an important toy for me.” Delvin dug her foot into the man’s spine, enjoying his pained groans “A bargaining chip, if you may.”
Catherine sighed, rolling her eyes and lowering her arm. “If he is so important then use someone else… or stop beating around the damn bush and get to the point.”
Delvin waved one of her fingers in front of her with a toothy grin “patience, and we can’t just use anyone for this. This one is the only one I am one-hundred percent sure wasn’t abandoned, he is the only toy I am for certain will trigger that leash if you were to kill him, he is just that important.”
“If he is so important how the hell do you have him then?” Catherine asked, growing annoyed with the imp.
Giggling, Delvin spoke “I am assuming you know of my little stunt when they tried to force me to join their organization?” seeing Catherine nod Delvin held up three fingers and continued “That served three purposes, one to deliver a good fuck you to the organization, two was to kidnap important people in the confusion to solidify my safety, and three… I’ll tell you later if you don’t explode and choose to cooperate with me.”
Catherine gritted her teeth “I am not leaving one organization to join some one else!” She shouted, tired of being everyone’s tool in things she did not give two shits about, she just wanted to kill everyone and be done with it, move on to the next victim but apparently, she kept running into all these galactic superpowers that toy around with her instead.
“Now now, you are just working with me to get back at this organization, if it all works out you can go fuck around somewhere else knowing that, at the very least, this fucking city ship will be gone.” Delvin said but sighed, seeing Catherine unamused “Keep in mind that, even if you find out your little trick works, without someone’s help you’ll be in the dark, less powerful, oh and most likely fucking dead within the week. Do you even have a plan passed circumventing the leash? Do you know the ins and outs of this ship? You don’t even know how to cast magic outside of what you copied from everyone else. “
Catherine opened her mouth to protest, only to get stopped as Delvin continued “I have a plan, one that has been in the making for a very long time, and you just so happen to be in the perfect spot to have a chance to making it all work.” She then huffed, jumping off the man she glared at Catherine “I won’t force you to do anything, but you are much too naïve to do anything on your own. If you want in, then kill this idiot I Have prepared for you, If not then you can see yourself out.”
Catherine blinked, she stayed silent for a few moments “…how much would your plan screw up the organization?” She asked.
“In the grand scheme of things, I can say for certain they would lose this entire ship. They have others but they can’t exactly push these things out a production line, it would be a big blow, They would lose everyone here, all the dungeons they captured, and chaos would fall on this sector of the galaxy.”
‘good enough for me, I guess’ Catherine thought, then stabbed the man in the skull. Her attack did not do anything as her spear was deflected off his skin “The fuck?” Catherine blinked.
Delvin sighed “I’d say this doesn’t bode well but…seeing as this guy is…special… I’ll ignore it.” She then lifted the man’s head up and forced his mouth open “Here, free entry way.” Delvin said, patting the man’s forehead.
Catherine glanced to the mans back, where Delvin had been kicking him earlier and seeing bloody marks where she had pierced his skin. Not knowing how to feel about that she decided not to think too much on it and sent a tentacle into the man’s mouth where she tore him up from the inside, finding the inside was a lot softer and vulnerable. The man’s pained screams filled the room as she tore away at his insides, eventually falling silent as he died.
Delvin let go of the man’s forehead, letting it fall limp to the ground she smirked. She then glanced at Catherine who was inspecting her body “Nothing so far, good sign!” She smirked, looking back to violet she spread her arms “Violet if you would clean up this mess for me please~” She asked.
The plant girl nodded, roots sprouting from the ground that wrapped around the corpse, pulling it underground and wiping away any blood that splattered. She then gave a thumbs up, smiling at Delvin.
Delvin returned the thumbs up “ok, now the moment of truth!” She then motioned to Catherine.
Catherine nodded, summoning the armor with the leash attached to it, the metal ball attaching itself to Catherine again but other than that, nothing happened, and Catherine let out a sigh of relief before storing the thing again.
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“We are in fucking business!” Delvin cheered, leaping onto Violet’s petal and hugging the girl.
“Good, what now, exactly?” Catherine asked, rolling her eyes at the two.
“Right” Delvin let go of a blushing Violet “So now we set up to stick it to the fuckers, won’t be easy and you will be doing most of the work from now on but before you fucking complain keep in mind all this was set up by yours truly.” Delvin then jumped off from a petal and onto a root that rose from the ground, lifting Delvin up to eye level with Catherine “But before that, without leaving anything out, seriously, I need to know what I am working with here so some fucking honesty will do wonders, fill me in on everything. From skills to how you ended up here.”
Catherine groaned, thinking just what did she get herself into, she started explaining everything to the imp women.
////
Meanwhile, back on the tenth floor Nyoka and Rose were still resting. Nyoka had set up a little bedroll for herself while Rose was leaned up against a wall next to the stairs. It had been a couple of hours and usually they would have left by now, but Rose, after initially yelling for Catherine to come back and wait for them to rest, and after hearing countless traps go off, Rose decided to let the damn slime suffer as she stumbled about in the endless maze that was the next 10 floors.
Nyoka yawned, stretching on her bedroll she looked up at Rose and crooked her head to the side “Should we go now? Been awhile since we heard a trap go off…” In truth it was more then awhile, long has she assumed Catherine either died to a trap or made it to the next floor.
Rose opened one of her eyes to glance at the cat girl, before glancing at her wrist, the holographic panel popping up and showing Catherine was still alive, a bit peeved that it showed the slime’s name as ‘Catherine’ instead of slime. She glanced towards the stairs and sighed “Yeah, boss is going to be upset if we leave that thing alone for too long.” She said and stood up.
Nyoka quickly shot up, gathering her things and putting them in her backpack. She then joined Rose by the stairs “How far did she get?” She asked.
Rose shrugged “Don’t know, If we end up passing her we will wait at the boss room.” She then turned towards the stair but stopped, hearing footsteps and a loud ‘clapping’ noise “Someone is coming up?” She asked herself, guessing it was one of the parties she saw at the totem still in the dungeon.
“Some one is coming up!” A voice yelled back, a blue imp with white skin was leaping a few steps ahead at a time landed in front of rose and saluted in a joking manner “Jill the imp at your service! Along with her team!” She then took a pose, motioning with both her hands towards the stairs but only the sounds of steps served as her answer “I said with her team!” She shouted, again, no one replied “…give them a moment” She said.
Rose raised her eyebrow questionably towards the strange imp “Uhm, yeah…” She said, imps were known for being a bit excitable and eccentric, which is why she didn’t interact with them often, but this one seemed even more so, all she could do was wait and hope her team wasn’t all imps.
Much to her relief Rose saw the remainder of the imp’s team slowly make their way up the stairs, tired and beaten the oni collapsed at the top of the stair case while the dwarf seemed to be standing on pure will power alone “Why, wait what happened?! Why are you guys all beat up?” Nyoka asked, rushing over to the oni and checking up on him.
The imp laughed triumphantly “These two couldn’t handle keeping up with me! And I wanted to get home fast and prepare for my new friend.” She huffed.
The oni sat up quickly “Don’t make it our fault! The traps all reset halfway threw the floor when you rushed ahead! Me and Don had to work around all those damn traps and to make things worse a bunch of magic wielding mobs came out of nowhere! Only then did you come running back cause you were in trouble!” He said then collapsed on the ground.
Jill laughed him off “Its fine, we all came out ok in the end.’
The dwarf nodded towards Donni “Should have been on guard after seeing that slime, knew they would of tried something.”
Rose perked up “Slime? You passed a slime on the way here?” she asked.
The dwarf huffed “You the keeper of the damned thing?”
Rose nodded “Unfortunately, I let it run ahead to get lost. Name is Rose and this is Nyoka.” She motioned to the cat girl treating The oni’s wounds.
“Donnavindorundo” The dwarf said, puffing up his chest and ignoring Rose’s face as it squinted.
“Just call him Don.” Jill said, causing the dwarf to sulk “And the corpse over there on the floor is Donni.”
“Don’t kill me off!” Donni shot up briefly before collapsing again. Nyoka, not knowing what do to simply patted the man on his head.
“…anyways, we did see the slime.” Don said “It was setting off every damn trap it came across. Glad we passed it before it got further down and triggered a petrification ward or a wrath ward.”
Rose crossed her arms “It got further then I expected, without a map.” She cursed, figuring it would just get lost on the next floor till they came to rescue it or recalled it back. She turned to Nyoka “Lets head down after it.” She said.
Jill perked up “Oh if you are going down be careful!” she said, jumping up and down.
“Oh? How come?” Rose asked.
“A lot more special mobs, way more then usual, and all the traps the slime triggered have reset.” Don said, then nodded towards Don “Why we ended up like this.”
“There were five orc generals stuffed in one hallway.” Jill laughed “I thought we were going to die…”
Nyoka gulped “Great…Wouldn’t Catherine of killed them all? With how murder happy she is?”
Rose crossed her arms “She would… and they wouldn’t have spawned back by now, or at least, not in that number.” Something was up, the slime leaving anything alive that it could kill was proof of that, unless all the orcs hid from it or she was so lost she simply passed them. Either way, there was no point in delaying “Lets go Nyoka.” She then walked towards the stairs, but stopped and turned around to the group “By the way, did you see any other parties while making your way up?” She asked them.
Jill perked up “oh yeah, we did pass one group heading down.”
“Heading down? Even after a return order was issued?” Rose asked.
Jill nodded “We didn’t receive one either, that’s why we were still in there.”
‘Still, heading down deeper…’ Rose thought for a moment “Did you catch their names or anything about there party?”
Jill rose her hand and opened her mouth to speak but stopped, her mouth held agape before she crossed her arms, deep in thought “Actually, no… I can remember it was two people? Maybe?” She turned to Don who shrugged.
‘strange…’ Now sure something was up she grabbed Nyoka by the back of her collar “Thanks for the info and I apologize if the slime caused you any stress. We best be going.”
“H-Hey! I can walk by myself!” Nyoka yelped.
“Wait, you are going down there? Just the two of you?” Jill asked.
“Yes, we will be fine.” She raised her arm to her chest, the holographic screen popping up and showing her guild rank “Anyways, good luck leaving the dungeon.” She said then dashed off, dragging a protesting Nyoka with her.
A few minutes after they left, Jill snapped back to reality “That was…she was an S rank?!”
Don shrugged, now with only his party left he slumped down against a wall “Told you that slime was nothing but trouble.”
Donni lifted his head “Ah, forgot to…complain about it to her…not looking forward to the slime floors…” He then collapsed on the ground again.
Jill stared at the two before rolling her eyes and taking out a bed roll from her own backpack before laying down to rest, guessing they would be here for a while.