It was the fourth day since Hera came inside the dungeon. She tried sending texts to her friends, but there was no signal here. Still, this adventure was giving her valuable information. First, she learned about Talrill and the blade masters, then about the city and how the room where it was in was massive. According to Asher, it took almost a month to cross the entire room on foot. Mainly because the route was weird, and there were a lot of twists and turns to avoid some of the natural barriers the room had. Hera also got more information about the skills they taught in the temple and a small explanation of how to make a weapon out of stone like Naph did. Even if Hera still had the stone daggers on her, she wanted to be able to create more on her own. Unfortunately, she wasn't able to get the spell just yet.
Everything started like usual. Hera and the Naga talked while having breakfast and joked around. Darni and the others were extremely friendly with her and always were willing to answer her questions. When they moved up the tunnel, Hera quickly noticed some signs that didn't bode well. There were claw marks around the path, and some of the dirt seemed to have been moved around. In the valley, there were also several holes from where the moles could appear, but the Naga didn't seem to mind or even acknowledge that. Chika was the only one staring at the freshly made tunnels before looking at Hera worriedly.
During the past couple of days, Hera and Chika could understand each other very well. Darni explained that the [Naga Poison] skill had an additional effect for those with a high affinity to poison. They would be able to communicate their intentions and feelings to each other. However, that would come with a certain issue. That connection would only work properly when the people involved had the skill for similar times. If someone had the skill for years, people who just got the skill would have more difficulty understanding what they meant. This could be remedied if the person who had the skill for longer focused on trying to convey their intentions more clearly, but it wasn't something that many could do. Darni made the comparison of the skill being like wine. Grapes that just started fermenting were much different from those who already had years to perfect their flavor. For the new grapes, the old ones wouldn't even look like grapes themselves, and for the old ones, they couldn't remember what it was like to be a young grape. Hera more or less understood what the Naga meant, and her thoughts went back to Chika, the real version of the snake. If the creature had lived for thousands of years as she suspected, the fact that she and Hera could communicate even a little was already nothing short of a miracle.
When everyone reached the temple, Asher turned to Hera, "We won't be coming out to eat lunch today. Completing this final step shall take some time, but when we leave, we can have one last meal before we part ways."
"Oh. Already? OK," Hera couldn't help but feel sad. It's been a very long time since she hit off with a group so quickly. Even when she met Blue, it took her a few days before she genuinely felt comfortable around the controller.
"Don't worry. You can eat whenever you feel like it and take care of our sacred beast," Casks patted Hera's shoulder before heading inside.
"Unfortunately, I can't give you an estimate of when we will return. After all, we can only leave after this part of our work is done. You don't need to worry. It's nothing serious, just a spell to make sure that the temple is safe and well maintained for years to come," Darni explained as the rest of the Naga waved to Chika and Hera, "I know you might feel that taking care of a sacred beast is a big responsibility, but please, treat this child as you would any other pet. I don't want her to grow up with that kind of weight on her back."
After that request, Darni walked inside the temple. Hera looked back to Chika, who had the same size ever since she and Darni bonded. Hera asked for an explanation about the whole 'sacred beast' thing and got a simple answer. To the Naga, all snakes are part of their people, but when an albino snake is born from non-albino parents, it is a messenger from the system. A signal of greatness and prosperity for the Naga. Because of that, unless they know the white snake is part of a naturally white subspecies, all white snakes are considered sacred. According to Darni, Chika shouldn't be an albino snake, but since all her pit was killed by monsters, he didn't have a way of proving that.
Being a sacred beast was nothing more than an arbitrary title given by the Naga. It would have just as much meaning as saying that Chika was American or Korean. Hera was expecting something more, an actual title given by the system or that the term 'sacred beast' could explain why the snake was still alive until now. Without that, her only idea was that it had something to do with the ritual that Darni performed since it should be connected to a legacy. The tamer should be the only one who was powerful enough to give something akin to an endless lifespan to a creature. Unless there were some external factors that she wasn't able to figure out yet.
A couple of minutes after the temple doors closed with the Naga inside, Hera noticed some movement coming from the holes in the area, "I guess this is the boss fight," she sighed. Even if she was someone who enjoyed fighting, having this many openings from where monsters could appear wasn't something good. Not to mention that she had yet to see what her attacks would do to the moles. There was no guarantee that her weapons or spells would be effective against them.
The first two moles that popped out of the ground were quickly dispatched by Chika, who could feel Hera's worry and was already ready for battle while Darni and the others were entering the temple. A third one appeared coming from the opposite side, and Hera threw a poison needle at it. The spell hit, and Hera got ready to trigger her poison control spell, but first, she wanted to see how much damage that basic spell would deal. As if nothing had happened, the monster started moving towards the explorer, who got ready for the attack. She jumped to the side, forcing the creature to slowly turn around, and stabbed with her new rapier. Unfortunately, she wasn't used to the type of attack, and the blade of her rapier couldn't pierce through the hard skin of the mole. Pulling back her weapon, Hera jumped around, being careful not to trip in the holes, and brought down her handaxe on the creature's neck. This time, the impact worked as she expected, slicing all the way to the creature's bone. Looking at the exposed flesh, Hera realized that her poison was spreading fast through the mole and an idea popped into her mind. Poiting one finger at the wound, Hera created a small stream of fire that touched the blood and seemed to ignite part of it. It wasn't enough to make the entire monster burst into flames, but the attack was more than enough to kill it.
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Looking up, Hera saw another mole heading towards Chika, who was engaged in a fight. In a quick motion, Hera pulled one of the daggers Naph had given her and wrapped it around mana before throwing it at the monster. However, the attack just hit the ground near her target, and the stone blade was still there on the ground. Because of the noise the rock made, the mole jumped to the side and started charging towards Hera. Since she had a clear shot, the explorer decided to try again. This time, after coating the stone dagger in mana, she thought about activating the weapon break skill and threw her weapon. If anyone was watching the fight, it would just seem like Hera made a clumsy long-ranged attack aimed at the mole, but the instant the weapon touched the creature, it exploded in a cloud of shrapnel. With a loud cry, the creature fell to the ground, already having trouble moving around. That gave Hera enough time to reach it and put it out of its misery.
She looked around and saw more moles appearing, "Chika, stay close to me. You watch my back, and I watch yours."
In response to her request, the snake moved around and stood right behind Hera. More and more moles appeared from the ground while the two fought against them. Hera only had four daggers remaining, five if she could count with the one that was on the floor a few meters away. Not wanting to waste her ammo, she was focusing on long-range spells. If one of the monsters got close, she would slam with her handaxe or try to use her blood rapier in the softer areas, which were basically just the eyes and mouth. There wasn't anything else that could be considered a weak spot in the mole's body.
Chika was following Hera's lead, despite preferring to fight in close quarters. The snake could understand that it would be easier for the moles to surround her if she was going too far away. After about half an hour, Hera started to notice a pattern in the attacks. The moles would come in waves, and each wave would be bigger than the last. Between each wave, there would be a small one-minute break before the next group would arrive. Unfortunately, Hera couldn't find any pattern in the number or strength of each wave. It seemed completely random. A wave had several strong moles that gave the duo some trouble, but the next one had a single weak mole that was quickly killed off. There was one more thing that Hera managed to figure out. The waves came in groups of six. When the sixth wave was over, there would be a pause of around five minutes.
This part of the dungeon felt much less natural. It was hugely unlikely that the moles were following this pattern only because of the dungeon and not because of what happened for its creation. Unless the Naga were doing something inside the temple to trigger this, it didn't make much sense. During one of the longer breaks, Hera set up a large ring of fire using a mixture of the stone walls she could raise and her grease fire spell. With that, she created an arena without any holes on the ground and only a single opening that she could defend better with Chika by her side. Seeing that it was working, Hera doubled down on the setup and created another three layers of fire and wall surrounding them.
For the next five hours, Hera and Chika kept fighting off the constant stream of moles. Both were already exhausted and hoping things would end soon. There were so many monsters attacking that a small pile of loot was forming on the entrance of Hera's structure. One weird thing the explorer noticed was that only the moles that she killed could drop gold. The ones that Chika dispatched only dropped their claws and always the claws. At the tail end of the fifth hour, when they defeated a sixth wave. Hera quickly gave Chika some water and food. She has been doing that ever since she realized that they wouldn't have a chance to stop and eat. As a way not to lose track of time, Hera had a timer on her tablet to let her know when the next wave would start. When it rang, she and Chika got ready to fight. A minute passed, then two, then three, with both Hera and Chika trying to hear any creature coming to attack.
Instead, they heard Casks' voice, "Hera? Are you there?"
"I'm here. Can you see any monsters?"
"No, there is nothing around."
Hera gestured for Chika to come with her and carefully went out of the stone ring. After stepping over the pile of loot, she looked around. Even the holes that covered the ground were gone, and when looking at the temple. Casks was alone in front of it, wearing some sort of heavy armor. Another difference was that the temple seemed older. There were some markings that revealed the structure had been battered by the elements for some time.
Hera and Chika got close to the Naga, "Is everything OK?"
Casks gave Hera a sad smile, "Not really. We are in trouble, another kingdom is trying to invade our home, and we are going to fight against them. The good part is that we finished the temple, so we can focus on that. As for Chika, she isn't strong enough to help, not yet. So I ask you to keep her company here until we return. It should be just a few days, maybe a week. Darni wanted to come, but I knew that if he did, he would have stayed back with her or eventually brought her along. Unfortunately, this will be risky, and I can't allow him to put himself at risk just to protect her. I hope you can understand."
Hera nodded, "Sure. Just try to be safe. We'll be here when you get back."
Chika nodded as well, despite being very sad about the situation. Casks thanked them and went back inside. Thinking that this would be the end of the dungeon, Hera opened the quest tab on her tablet, but there was no change. She still had to keep Chika company. Suddenly she felt an unbearable sense of dread and pain. It hurt more than when she was rejected by the guild, and it was deeper than when her father took her mother's side in an argument. It was worse than a surge of depression on steroids, as if her entire world had just been shattered.
Looking around, Hera noticed that all those feelings weren't coming from her but from Chika. The snake was slamming against the ground in pain, not a physical one, but emotional and spiritual pain. Without making any noise, the sacred beast started to run, trying to outrun the agony she was feeling. Hera followed her right away, tears already coming from her eyes. How could someone be in so much pain? Could this be the pain of losing someone with whom you bonded?
Chika kept running until it reached a ditch at the end of the valley. It looked just like a dried-up river, and the snake kept going, following that path. Hera was right behind her for some time, not noticing how this ditch was becoming deeper and deeper. What she noticed was how the riverbed was starting to show some red markings. Looking back at Chika, Hera noticed that the snake was bleeding, and those marks were created by her. The sacred beast didn't mind, and as it kept running, the entire room started to change. The ditch became deeper and deeper as more and more blood was splattered on the ground, all while it was still going mad with pain and grief. All the blood in the ground turned black, becoming that floor that would absorb even the light. For what seemed like an eternity, Hera followed Chika until she stopped running and tried to leave the ditch, only to realize that it was too deep for the snake to climb and that she was stuck inside this place. Chika had also grown. The snake was already bigger than Hera, taking the size of a full grown python. However, the pain that it was feeling was still there, raw and unbridled.
After trying to climb up a couple more times, Chika turned around and saw her caretaker. It slithered over Hera, who gave her a hug as the two cried at the bottom of the abyss.