Loud cheers could be heard as the men toasted once again, making it the fifth time so far if I had counted correctly. I had received some ale myself, free of charge even, but I didn’t straight up down it within seconds like the others did.
It was easy to see what Aspen tried to do. He had originally brought the booze to celebrate a successful raid, but now that we had failed so miserably, he used the very same alcohol to boost the morale of his men instead. And it was desperately needed, despite us losing only a single man during the whole disaster. The defeat had just been too shocking for us who had been briefed that we would face a few evolved goblins at worst.
Most of us were still trying to get used to the fact that we had lost our equipment and even our humanity when Aspen had decided to break open the casks to make us forget it all, personally handing out both drinks and rations that should have lasted us for days.
While the men were getting drunk in record time, some of them even dancing and boasting about their newly gained ears, tails, and attires, I watched all of this happening from the entrance of my tent. I didn’t plan on joining them anytime soon, especially with Jona still being out of it.
The water magician was sitting in her own tent, shaking even to this very moment. We had covered her body in several thick blankets in a poor attempt to fix things at least a slightly bit, but that couldn’t possibly help to make her overcome the chaos of feelings she was surely experiencing in these very moments. Maybe the hard alcohol in her hand would help her do that, should she decide to finally drink it, though that would honestly surprise me.
With a sigh I decided to prepare my makeshift bed, pushing aside my singed backpack. I didn’t dare to take a look into it just now, as I feared some of my work may be ruined, but I would need peace and quiet to get things back in order; and daylight, as my vision seemed to be more reliant on it now.
My ink magic still worked in perfect darkness, but that was only one of my eyes, with the other one heavily favoring the light instead. It would take a while to get used to that. Still, I was thankful, as even now, as only campfires and magical lights were illuminating my surroundings, I could make out colors that weren’t magical in origin. I was especially enchanted by the stars above me, although the nearby fires made it slightly hard to see the weaker ones. The Lovers, however, had almost made me cry, as it had been far too many years since I had seen any of the two moons, let alone both of them at the same time. Seeing them kiss was a sign of good luck, one we desperately needed right now.
I was still trying to get my things into order when I heard voices call out for Marisa, Cilia’s champion. The woman in question was making her way out of the dungeon in these very moments, as a quick glance of mine confirmed.
Even in this darkness, Marisa stood out like a rainbow in front of heavy rain clouds, with way too many colors of elemental mana circulating through her body. I even noticed a new one, a shade of blue similar to that of water magic, though this one felt entirely different. It was only when she came closer that I recognized it as some kind of advanced fire magic. If my hunch was correct, she would need to avoid dwarves with all of her might in the future, as she would otherwise be treated as a national treasure of some sort and never let go again.
Marisa seemed to notice my gaze even in this darkness. She walked up to the two of us, all the while greeting the celebrating men and women she met on the way. Seeing them drinking and cheering seemed to confuse her, who had missed Aspen’s entire speech, but she didn’t stop to ask anyone what the celebrations were all about.
Once she had reached us, Marisa checked on Jona’s condition. She fell silent seeing the water mage’s disheveled state, but she couldn’t do anything about it with the magic she had. While she could use the healing of water, there were no wounds to be found on Jona’s body. There was white fire magic to be found inside of her as well, which I almost mistook as holy attributed mana, but this magic would possibly not work in her favor either, should it be similar to the white fire monster’s magic. Sure, it had made me feel rather comfortable and had even helped me accept my grim fate, but it had ultimately proved fatal. And with Jona’s body being far less accepting of fire-attributed mana, she would likely die within seconds.
Marisa seemed to realize this too, as she reluctantly raised up, leaving Jona alone to deal with her feelings. I couldn’t blame her for that, as she simply wasn’t trained on how to deal with the survivors of such horrible incidents. Sure, there was illness and death in Abervale as well, such as in any other town or city, but like every other lower-ranked priestess, she used to always be accompanied by a priest tasked with dealing with grieving family and friends when doing work within the town. And with the monsters surrounding the town being rather weak in comparison, there wasn’t a real risk of encountering death when accompanying adventurers either.
Despite me only making the occasional trip into the forests surrounding Abervale, our ways had crossed several times over the years, so I was on more or less friendly relations with the former priestess. And while she had never been the best healer thanks to her affiliation with a supposedly weak or straight-up lost goddess, she had been good enough for most of the tasks tossed at her. It kind of hurt that she was kind of on the opposing side this time, although her heart was still with us, as she had openly shown during the raid.
Marisa gave me a wry smile as she sat down in front of me, seemingly happy she had found somebody not participating in the activities or too shaken to even say anything.
“How are you doing,” she asked me.
“Better,” I answered as I took a single sip from my mug. “My eyes will need some time to get used to, but I think I will manage.”
Stolen story; please report.
“Maybe an eyepatch will help?”
I shrugged. Depending on the thickness of the fabric used and the thickness of said material, an eyepatch crafted from it could very well help me somewhat. But that would mean living with half of a life’s worth of colors again, and I didn’t really want to go back to that. And who knew, maybe I would even get used to it somewhat over the next few days or weeks?
“I think I will manage.”
“And… the rest?”
The rest, that meant the tail I now had, a deep black with a white tip that, according to Aspen’s words made me look like ‘the child of that bitch’ he fought. He had said it in a joking manner, and I didn’t take offense, but that comment had still left me somewhat speechless.
“It will take a while to get used to it,” she confirmed, waving her own, blonde tail. “But I think I start seeing a certain appeal to it.”
I nodded. Just looking at that tail was making me want to hug it till I fell asleep. And the fact that I came with my very own, slightly too lively plushie now wasn’t exactly the worst outcome I could have hoped for.
“The ears are harder to get used to,” I replied, as I was experiencing the full brunt of the celebrations with every shout and cheer. “I could possibly hear mice squeaking in the forest even over all of this noise if I really tried to.”
“It is slightly overwhelming, isn’t it?” She asked with a knowing nod. “But you will get used to it quickly, I promise.”
“I see.”
“Will you be fine? Your magic, I mean.”
This was slightly harder to answer. While my main way of income was certainly painting, I had lost most of my mana pool and strength today, which was seemingly the downside of receiving a blessing with such life-changing effects. It would take me years to get back to my level, even with my knowledge and battle experience. The paladins maybe hadn’t realized how heavy the burden of the blessing was on their bodies, but the mages? They would surely have noticed within moments of them waking up.
“I will probably travel around, trying to find a new group to party up with and gain some of my strength back.”
“You could do it here,” Marisa offered.
“I would likely end up with fur all over my body before I ever reached my former strength,” I protested with a laugh.
“This raid has been a wake-up call for Kiomi as well,” she explained with a sigh. “She is already thinking of ways to make her dungeon easier to delve. Only… she doesn’t really have an idea how to do that other than moving most of the monsters she has deeper into the dungeon.”
“The avatar wants the dungeon to be easier?”
“Kiomi couldn’t hurt a fly if her life depended on it. Which is why most of you are still here.”
“I see…”
That made sense. No dungeon would just hand out free chances like that as it simply did not benefit them in the slightest. More challenging dungeons were known to grow faster than those that were almost riskless to delve, meaning that killing adventurers was an important growth factor for them, up to a certain limit, of course, as nobody in their right mind would delve a dungeon knowing it would result in the likely death of his friends and comrades if not their own.
You could say there was a perfect difficulty curve for a dungeon, determined by both its location and the strength of those delving it. And this dungeon, being so close to the boring town of Abervale, which was mostly filled with mere farmers, merchants, and a small variety of artisans, had clearly overshot the golden ratio, becoming way too deadly for its own good. Making the two-tailed monsters and their avalanches of molten rock and death far less common was a great way of dealing with the issue, it seemed, especially when combined with other minor and major changes the dungeon avatar would need to implement sooner or later. But luckily, it was not my task to break my brain thinking over possible solutions to these very obvious issues.
“I guess she is new to this as well,” I agreed after a moment of thinking about all that I had seen and experienced.
“As for Aspen,” she continued. “I will talk to him about a more diplomatic solution.”
“A diplomatic solution?”
“He needs you to map out the dungeon,” she explained. “And he wants to test the strength of the monsters that are living in it. One can be achieved by simply asking Kiomi about it, as she will surely accept, the other thing can be done by dueling them one on one like the commander has done. It won’t be perfect, but it will be accurate enough, and nobody has to die for it.”
I felt a movement at my back end upon hearing that but decided to simply ignore it for the time being. “She will really let me paint those foxes?”
“Maybe in exchange for a painting or two. Or a flower she doesn’t have yet,” she suggested. “She also thinks about building a small town within the dungeon for herself, her boss, and the monsters that are too nice to fight adventurers, so maybe you can help her with that one?”
“I have seen those water foxes try to save a guy…” I replied, before realizing what she had just said. “She has a boss?! You mean that black monster Aspen has talked about?”
“It is a girl about her age, maybe a little older.” Marisa denied my idea. “She has blue hair and four tails and is apparently a fire mage of some sort. Oh… and she apparently loves to craft things. She is a little distant and rough, but I think the two of them can become friends sooner or later.”
“I see… still… a town?”
“She needs some more materials before she can dream about that, as she doesn’t even have iron or a proper bed yet. She spent the past month sleeping on the ground!”
“I guess we can talk Aspen into handing her everything that we can get our hands on. Shouldn’t be too much trouble for him and the dungeon will surely give it back in some way or another.”
“Will you help me talk to him tomorrow? I don’t think he is in the right state of mind to make decisions like that right now.”
Hearing her comment, I couldn’t help but take another look at the groups that had gathered around the campfires, still busy working on their future hangovers. Some of the men were proudly showing off their new clothes in a dance, all of the pieces seemingly woven using pure holy magic, while others were cheering them on. One of the men had already drunk himself under the table, having lost the fight against the alcohol, and was now happily hugging his tail, not minding the busy atmosphere surrounding him.
Only a handful of guards were still performing their duty. Most of these were watching the nearby forest for danger, two others were guarding the entrance of the dungeon. Not to prevent monsters from coming out, but to prevent drunkards from making themselves unhappy and disturbing the dungeon avatar at this time of the day. It was considered good manners to let even dungeons rest, after all, as they would need the time to strengthen and rebuild themselves for the delvers to come. And nobody needed more useless deaths.
As for Aspen, our leader? He was still handing out drinks and toasting with anybody that walked up to him. Some of the men even stole a few touches on his new ears when he bent down to fill their cups, but the commander didn’t seem to mind this one bit. He was either too drunk to care or had simply decided to let it slide just for today.
Marisa watched this very thing happen with a wry smile, as she was in a very similar situation before if the rumors were to be believed.
“Tomorrow,” she decided with a sigh.
“Tomorrow.”