Heading back to where the group first encountered their first enemies, something had caught Jill’s eyes.

“Wait, come back over here,” she called out to the other two. “Can you raise the torch up higher?”

The short woman pointed at something on the ceiling right above where the ghouls used to stand. Steak followed her finger and raised his torch.

“A hole that leads upward. That would explain why there were armed ghouls down here in the first place,” Lilith said.

“I see how they came down, but I don't see a way up. I don't know about you guys, but I don't think I can crawl up there with all this weight I'm carrying around,” Steak motioned at his stomach.

Lilith snickered. “Perhaps if someone fixes a rope from above. You look strong enough to climb up one.”

“If we had one,” Jill whispered.

Lilith closed her eyes momentarily, in an instant a bundle of rope spawned around her. It looked like it was long enough to reach both ends of the tunnel.

“I received it for doing well in an . I didn't think it would be useful until now,” she explained.

An expression of worry flashed upon Jill's face for a moment.

“And how are we supposed to get the other end of the rope up there? Maybe that demon of yours can fly up and attach it for us,” Jill suggested.

“I would’ve already done that if I could. We share a pool of mana, making it tethered to me. It can’t go beyond a few meters away,” Lilith explained.

“I’ve got no way out of this, huh?” Jill’s shoulders slumped.

“Since me and Lilith dealt with the ghouls earlier, this could be your turn to help out. I mean even Kurt was useful in some way,” Steak glanced at the demon grinning at him.

Jill ran up to Steak and looked up at him.

“You’re really going to make a girl like me go up that dark hole? What if there’s a monster waiting up there!?” She pleaded.

“Girl, I don’t think that’s going to work on him. It might’ve worked on Kurt, but this dude seems more animal than person right now,” Lilith scoffed.

“Smells like one too,” Jill said under her breath as she stepped away from Steak. “Fine, give me the rope,” she said. Her voice sounded normal for once.

Lilith handed one end of it to her. “Place it in your inventory, then bring it out once you’re up there. Should help make your trip up there less of a hassle,” she winked at her.

***

Steak was the last one out of the hole. On his hands and knees, he panted like a dog. He swore that the climb up the hole felt like it took him an hour, though in reality it only took him ten minutes.

“Man, I’ve got to lose some more weight if I have to do more of this in the future,” he complained.

Hushed voices reached his ears. He looked up to see both Lilith and Jill pressed up against a wall. Both of them motioned with their hands at him, wearing concerned expressions on their faces. Steak looked over at the imp beside them with a nasty grin on its face as it rubbed his hands. This only meant that bad things were about to happen.

He crawled over to them in a hurry. The other two grabbed him by the arms and pulled him in. The moment that he was out of the hallway, he heard a loud thud from behind him. Lilith’s imp gave him a disapproving frown.

It was a giant ghoul wearing rotten armor. The way that it was built and its bone structure did not resemble anything human. The giant was the remains of some other kind of monstrosity. The armor that hung from its rotting body had the same colors as the previous ghouls’ they encountered. This dungeon they were in was set in some kind of noble’s castle.

After looking around with its one murky eye, the giant wandered off somewhere else in the halls. With just the sounds of its footsteps alone, it was easy to figure out how close or far away the giant was. However, none of the humans were eager to test how fast the giant ghoul could go. They all remained in the cramp crack in the wall.

“What the hell was that?” Steak asked.

“I don't know, but we have to take it down if we want to go around without sneaking all the time,” Lilith said.

“Are you crazy!? One hit from that thing and we're dead!” Jill hissed at her.

A large thud came from the hallway. The giant was back, catching wind of their whispers. After a few moments of silence, it went back to patrolling the rest of the hallway. It acted as if it couldn't retain any memory, immediately forgetting that it heard an intruder.

“Apart from its physicality, it doesn’t seem to use its brain much. At least what’s left of it,” Lilith said. She had an intense look in her eyes. It was the most emotion she had displayed on her face that the other two hadn’t seen before.

“It doesn’t look like we can talk her out of this,” Jill sighed. “Just so we’re clear this time around. I’m leaving the moment things go wrong.”

“So, uh, you got a plan?” Steak asked Lilith.

“Would you mind explaining to me what your skills are again?” Lilith had a grin on her face.

Steak briefly explained what his two skills did, and how much of it he could use. Since their first encounter with the riflemen in the tunnels, he was nearly at full Mana.

“You basically have a sword and a shield. We can work with that. However, since I’m sharing mana with my imp, my reserves are only half full. I can only afford one shot,” Lilith said.

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“After that display in the tunnels, you should be able to take it down by yourself,” Jill said, still reluctant to put herself in danger.

“It was a dire situation so I went with a spell that almost depleted my mana. Not knowing what other horrors are crawling around here, I’m not taking that chance again. The spell that I plan to use takes a little over ten seconds to cast. You guys are gonna have to keep it still for me,” Lilith explained.

“You're insane,” Jill whimpered.

“Even I think that's impossible,” Steak expressed his doubts.

“Don't worry, you two won't be completely alone. I have a plan for that as well,” Lilith said.

Still in the cramp hole in the stone walls, Lilith explained the details of her plans. By the end of the discussion, Steak’s legs had become numb, forcing him to crawl out on his hands and knees.

***

After doing a couple of squats to get his blood pumping in his legs, Steak called out to the giant.

“Hey smelly!” He shouted.

The giant turned around. Its one milky eye struggled to find him, but the moment that it caught sight of Steak it didn’t waver. He could see the other empty eye socket twitch and squirm as it tried to look at him. It almost looked like the rotten muscle in it popped out for a second when it furrowed its brows.

Its eyes weren’t the only thing horrific about the creature. The moment that it clicked in its mushy brain that Steak was indeed an intruder, it let out a guttural and hoarse scream. Hopefully for the living humans, that sound didn’t call more of its monster brethren.

“Yeah, that’s it, come on over to me,” Steak called out to the monster. Though in truth, he didn’t want that monster anywhere near him.

After another monstrous scream, it charged at him, stomping its rotten bare feet on the ancient ground. The one saving grace for Steak was that the giant was unarmed. However that didn’t mean much when the rest of its body was more than a weapon already.

Steak observed the giant closely. It wasn’t going as fast as he expected and it looked somewhat clumsy because of the missing muscle. Hope started to fill his heart when he found out that the giant was manageable. Lilith’s plan might actually work, he thought.

The giant had both of its arms at shoulder level, it planned to dive at him and grab him. Then, it finally went past the hole in the wall. Three figures dashed out of it the moment the giant went by. Jill, Lilith, and her imp.

Jill went after the rope that they left on the ground after climbing up, putting it in her inventory, while Lilith and her imp ran opposite of the giant.

With the giant only a few strides away from him, Steak ran toward it, keeping his head low. The giant tried to swipe at him and snatch him up, but Steak was too low on the ground for it, making it only swat at air.

As he ran in between the giant’s legs, he used on both of his hands and slashed at its ankles. It went down on one knee for a moment, but the damage wasn’t enough to completely prevent it from walking.

Before Steak could call out to the others, a figure dashed past him. Jill sprinted at the sides of the hallway, avoiding the giant’s gaze due to its deteriorating perception. She was already behind it the moment it turned around to face Steak. Now that Steak failed to completely immobilize it in one strike, it was time for their second plan.

He sent a quick nod at Jill, confirming if she was ready to go. She replied with a curt shrug. They were as ready as they could be in that situation. Steak quickly glanced behind him, taking note of the manhole and Lilith’s positions.

“Intruder!” The giant somehow gurgled through its rotten vocal cords.

“I would’ve liked it better if I never knew that you guys could speak and think. I have a feeling that’s going to trouble me later,” Steak solemnly said. Something tugged at him deep in his mind. This somehow felt different from taking a beast’s life.

“You better lock in and stick to the plan!” Lilith shouted from behind him. “It’s already lived a life. And now we’re just trying to live ours!”

“Protect!” The giant screamed and charged forward.

Steak retreated, making sure not to fall into the manhole. Then, before the giant could go past it, Jill hopped on its back. She stabbed and clung onto it using two daggers. As if she was scaling a wall she stabbed and pierced her way up to its shoulder. Though it did little damage, the giant was bothered by it just enough to stop before the hole.

The giant raised its hands, trying to swat Jill off of it. Attempting to lessen the burden of her task, Steak went back into the giant’s range and swiped at him from below.

It was successful as they managed to divide its limited attention and brain power between the two of them. After a few failed attempts, Jill managed to tie one end of the rope around one of its wrists.

“Steak!” she called out.

She threw the other end of the rope back into the manhole. Without a second thought, Steak jumped in and grabbed the rope. <95/110> He didn’t need to be told, he knew and felt that his hands were on fire and the descent down the hole wasn’t smooth. He bumped and scraped his head against the walls until he reached the bottom.

He looked up and couldn’t see anything, which meant that the giant’s arm was inside the hole. Now, all he had to do was prevent it from lifting him back up again.

He tied the rope around his torso and used on his arms and legs, making sure to make it as large as possible. This was his big moment in Lilith’s plan. To become a very large drain plug. He could feel the pressure on the rope and on his body as the giant attempted to free its arm, which meant that it was working. It was time for the final part of their plan, which was to wait for Lilith to finish her spell. Steak waited in the darkness.

***

Back up in the hallway, Jill hopped off the giants back and stood by Lilith and her imp. Both of them stared at the with unblinking eyes. Jill was about to say something and complain, however she saw that the tips of Lilith’s middle finger and thumb gave a faint orange glow.

Lilith snapped her finger, the glow dissipating from her fingertips. Not long after the same glow appeared on the giant’s face. Then slowly, like a house fire, it turned into fire and the giant was set aflame. As it failed to put out the initial embers, the heat ramped up and engulfed its entire body. In less than a minute, only ash and a skeleton remained.

“That was a bit different from your earlier move,” Jill commented.

“Well it’s less of a spell and more of a curse. And a weak one at that. First, it only works on one target. Then, you could spit on it or slap it away and it would go out. It only starts doing real damage if the target somehow manages to ignore the initial heat,” Lilith gave a quick lecture on the spell. A hint of childish excitement in her voice.

“I’ll admit, it’s quite impressive how you already know the limits of your skills,” Jill said.

“Not my skill, it was the imp’s. I only borrowed it,” she replied.

Jill sighed. “Even in the afterlife, inequality still exists. Here we have someone who not only has a face that both men and women want, but they are also blessed with a beautiful mind,” she praised her in a mocking tone.

“Fair, I may have shown off too much with that explanation. My apologies,” Lilith said in her usual monotone voice.

“Oh, and she’s humble too!” Jill feigned surprise.

Lilith said nothing and proceeded towards the manhole to recover Steak.

***

After hanging around the ceiling of the tunnel for what felt like minutes, Steak received a notification from an old friend that used to fend off his loneliness back on the island.

“We actually did it,” Steak sighed in relief.

“And it looks like I still got Mana to spare,” Steak rejoiced.

But that happiness was short-lived when the rope that kept him above the murky water disappeared. Lilith had placed it in her inventory before the rest of it fell into the hole. Steak landed face first into the unknown matter, somehow becoming even dirtier. At least he didn’t have to climb back up with the support of a rope.