Chapter 351 - Hubris VIII

109833 - 3 - 1 - 1

Dear Diary,

We’re now officially halfway through spring. We’re in Skarnia now and I hate it. It’s full of merchants, and no one ever eats anything but chicken. They’re just as mean and greedy as the merchants back home, and they made Lina buy a sword. Master and Ms. Olga were mean as heck too. They watched them rip us off and didn’t tell us until we wasted all the money we just earned! Isn’t that really messed up!?

Master said it was a good life lesson, but that’s clearly a lie. We’re going to get him back soon.

Lia

___

The second day of exploration was hardly any more interesting than the first. The party shuffled its way through the unchanging fields, unhindered and practically unopposed. The few monsters that challenged them were mowed down without mercy, decimated by little more than a wave of the hand. The only entertainment they had was conversation; they chatted idly about random topics of little importance as they made their way into the depths.

They cleared roughly twenty floors before lunch and another thirty or so by dinner. Their progress could have been much quicker, but Claire continued to task Chloe with every boss they found along the way. The training itself was somewhat effective, especially with the whole party critiquing her possible areas of improvement, and compatibility ensured that the fights were completed at a decent pace. The bosses, like all the dungeon’s other monsters, were flightless birds that fought with a focus on speed and agility.

Claire had tried to convince the half-vampire to eat the creatures’ souls, but she refused. For sex demons, intercourse was a necessary part of the process, and though belief in the claim was shaky, Chloe insisted that her chastity was yet preserved.

Day three didn’t go by quite as quickly. The monsters started getting tougher and tougher; the mutant chickens, dodos, ostriches, rheas, and emus suddenly spiked in power around the two-hundredth floor. Their defences were still lacking—each individual could still be taken down with just a few well-aimed hits—but they started attacking in much larger groups, and they grew swift enough to threaten the party’s backline.

Surprisingly, they found that there were still a few other groups holed up within the dungeon’s depths, perhaps even more than had populated the space in between. Most of the groups were heavily armoured and relied extensively on their purchased equipment. Their metal shields stopped the birds in their tracks, allowing them to counterattack with practiced ease.

By contrast, the Vel’khanese brigade was scantily clothed. Ace was the most heavily armoured, and a simple breastplate was all the lizard had. That was likely why they earned as many looks as they did. The other adventurers skeptically cast their eyes towards them, with some of their members even spreading the rumour that the newcomers were looking for death. Claire was really the only one to hear it, however, and she couldn’t be bothered to make any corrections.

And so they continued, all the way down to the point where the dungeon finally changed.

They had long lost track of the floor’s number. There were no markers, nor any other signs of the location they reached. The only thing they knew was that the monsters were level six-fifty and that the exit was replaced by a giant, swirling gate.

“What a strange portal,” said Arciel.

“Mmmnnn, seems pretty normal to me,” said Sylvia. “It’s just a shortcut that lets you get out of the dungeon super quick. It’s kinda like the one we set up at the bottom of that one dungeon.”

“Are you referring to the Ironclad Abyss? The one where we mistakenly placed Claire in charge?”

“Mhm!”

Ignoring their gossip, the lyrkress examined the doorway, only to groan aloud. The vectors made it immediately apparent. The portal led back outside, and there was nothing, nothing, on the floor that had made the journey worth their time. The boss monster was a level seven-hundred, nine-headed turkey that exploded as soon as a very frustrated Claire looked in its direction. There was nothing it could do before the forces that tore its body apart.

Its death came with a minor distortion in spacetime. A wooden block dropped out of the tear and fell right into Claire’s hands. It was inscribed with a poorly drawn sketch of a thoraen warrior flexing his bulging arms. There was a six-legged ostrich collapsed in the frame behind him, drawn with Xs in place of its eyes. Flicking her tongue in annoyance, she stepped on the wooden block without a word and crushed it, only for another to fall from the sky in its place. She destroyed that one as well, swiping at it with her talons and shredding it, but not before she saw the story told by its ink. It showed the man that had stolen her prey, sound asleep with his belly full and a happy grin plastered across his face.

It was the cheapest kind of provocation. But that was exactly why it worked. Everyone’s eyes were on her, their brows raised at the strange behaviour.

“We wasted our time,” she said. “Our enemies beat us to it.”

“Are you certain that this portal does not simply lead to it?” asked Arciel.

Claire nodded. “That leads back outside.”

“How curious.” Arciel began walking towards the portal, but Claire grabbed her by the scruff and reined her back in. “It’s one way.”

“Let me guess,” said Ace. “The Cadrians are waiting on the other side.”

“They might be,” said Claire. “I’m not sure.” She contemplated opening another portal with an identical destination, but she was stopped before she could.

“Well, ain’t that convenient?” The lizardman drew his sword and pointed it straight towards her. “That’s enough out of you, Miss Augustus. The jig’s up.” Three of the others immediately prepared for combat in time with his provocation. Sophia raised her fists, Krail lowered his stance, and Jules grabbed a wand from within his shell. Each had already taken a position prior to the lizard’s announcement—they had her completely surrounded.

Arciel, Matthias, Chloe, and Lana took seats on the sidelines, the first three because they knew the lyrkress personally, and the lattermost to declare her nonparticipation. Sylvia soon joined them; she was floated off her favourite chair and into the monarch’s arms.

“You’re an idiot,” said Claire.

“You ain’t wrong. You played us for fools for a good few weeks,” agreed the lizardman. “Intel’s clearly been leaking like a broken faucet. They always know where we are, and we always walk straight into their traps. Now, like you said, I ain’t all that smart, but it’s looking an awful lot like we’ve got a rat in the mix.”

“And you think it’s me?”

“I don’t know what you want me to say, Miss. You’re the only Cadrian here. The story writes itself.”

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

“It is suspicious that they always know where we were.” Boris appeared in her left hand as she spoke, his shape in its usual default. “But it wasn’t me. And even if it was, this is just plain stupid.” Her face was as blank as usual. “You don’t stand a chan—”

Her words were cut off by a dozen explosions. The spot where she stood burst into brilliant flame. Claire, however, remained unbothered. She stood in the wildfire without the slightest hint of care. She took no more than one point of damage each second—far less than what her regeneration restored. Her resistance certainly played a part, but it came second to the caster’s intention. The spell was never meant to damage.

Its role was to distract.

Krail was chanting. Quickly. The words rolled off his tongue twenty at a time. His mana surged like water from a spring, and he even reacted and backed away as soon as she looked in his direction. But his cast still ended in failure. She pulled on his tongue, using just enough strength to inconspicuously butcher his chant and shatter his spell to pieces.

The two close-quarters combatants closed the gap in the meantime. She could have easily strung them up with her vectors, but she decided against it. It was the perfect chance to work off her stress.

Sophia, she met with her fists. Handing Boris off to her tail, she matched the kelpfin’s punches tit for tat, parrying each hand perfectly with her own. A strange magical force pulsed through her bones each time they clashed, but Claire was unaffected. Her casual dress was the only thing to take damage, and it was quickly restored.

Ace, in the meantime, she parried with her tail. She did the exact same thing she had done to the kelpfin and mirrored each of his blows with a swing of the lizard; Boris had been configured to perfectly reflect the shape of his sword. With two fighters on one side and one on the other, they were evenly matched. Until she suddenly changed up her approach.

Her tail wrapped around both the kelpfin’s wrists, while her lizard was shifted to her hands. Rather than moving to parry Ace’s blade, she delivered a one-handed swing whilst lightly pushing on his forearm and moving his weapon out of her way.

He immediately shifted into a dodge, but it was ineffective. Claire tightened her grip on his body and pulled him back into her strike. She blunted Boris at the very last moment. The man didn’t die, but his lungs were winded and his ribs were bruised

Jules was their only saving grace. He conjured up a series of explosions and forced the lyrkress to release the shark. Krail, on the other hand, was interrupted yet again. She cancelled his grand magic in much the same manner as she had before. The clam’s explosions kept coming in the meantime. He conjured them at such a rapid pace that they seemed impossible to dodge, but watching his eyes, Claire danced between them, lightly skirting from place to place like a skater in the rink.

The dance lasted until he grew tired of her predictions. And switched his magic from red to blue.

The combination of water and arcane was not quite as well-known as that of arcane and fire, but it was every bit as rare and potent. He crafted a hundred glowing balls with a sweep of the hand, each of which fired a thin but deadly projectile. They almost resembled lasers, but any light involved was purely coincidental, a result of the raw energy that the process entailed. Every single tiny blade was one of pure mana, altered to embody the properties that water held. Just as how red magic was configured for fiery explosions, blue magic could wash all matter away.

Any object or person unfortunately struck would be subject to accelerated erosion. Flesh would be peeled, bone dissolved, and stone quickly washed away. The wave of incoming projectiles looked almost impossible to dodge. The orbs appeared in every direction, pelting her with attacks from all around. There were only two exceptions; the attack was perfectly constructed to avoid the clam’s associates.

It would have been a serviceable plan had her agility not risen fivefold.

She appeared behind Ace in the blink of an eye and slammed Boris into the back of his knees. She wasn’t as fast as the subpar cottontail that had previously removed his arm. He could still follow her with his eyes. But the rest of his body was not quite as capable. He was unable to keep her from escaping the box where the mage’s spell would tear her flesh asunder.

Jules was next. Unlike Krail, he didn’t chant his spells. The time it took for him to cast them was short enough that they couldn’t be interrupted from anything but point-blank. And that was where she aimed. He blew up his surroundings the moment the lizardman fell, but Claire charged right through the bursting flames. He closed his shell as a last-ditch defence. He prepared and unleashed a torrent of blue magic for when she forced it open, but not even that was enough. She dodged the spraying pellets, ripped his wand out of his hand, and kneed him in the face.

Krail finally managed to finish a spell right as she incapacitated the other mage. He chanted even faster than he had before, spitting out three pages of words in no more than two seconds. From the way his eyes and nose were bleeding, it was clear that he was using another spell to crack his limits open.

To her surprise, the attack he launched was not a wave of arrows, but rather a burst of his race’s signature wood magic. Every single plant on the floor suddenly angled its tip towards her. They grew and blossomed, draining power from the dungeon’s soil before taking their respective actions.

The grasses were like blades, sharp enough to cut through steel, while the flowers were inhibitors, filling her eyes with a storm of dense pollen that made it impossible to see. Falling back on her ears, she deployed her vectors as quickly as possible and wrenched the individual plants from the earth that contained them.

Claire punched the elf in the face while he stood with his mouth agape, before turning to Sophia, who only raised her arms in surrender.

“Don’t give up,” said Ace. His legs weren’t broken, but they were wobbly enough that he struggled to stand. “Buy me a few seconds. I’ll take her down right after.”

“Orders received.” Sophia placed herself between them, perhaps expecting the lyrkress to charge, but Claire did nothing. She simply watched the bipedal lizard as he went ahead with his preparations.

The man grabbed his own tongue and ripped it out of his throat. It seemed like a silly, pointless act at first, but she quickly recognized the runes engraved on its base. They were some of the few that had stuck with her through her study. Because they referred to the gods and the sacrifices that they demanded.

Setting down his tongue in front of him, Ace held it to the sky and muttered a series of incoherent words. The lyrkress was the only one to understand them. Because while his lack of a tongue certainly impeded his speech, the motions of his lips were as they had always been.

“O goddess of half-truths and broken vows. Master of secrets hidden and exposed. I beseech to you to release the fetters that I myself imposed.”

Claire had always had questions about Ace’s strange lack of ability. His senses clearly outstripped his body by far. It always felt like there was something missing from his kit. He certainly had a few interesting tricks sequestered up his sleeve, but almost seemed too weak for a soldier as clearly trained and disciplined as he was. She had assumed that he was hiding his strength, either that or he had only been educated much later in his career.

And from the way that things were looking, it seemed that the former theory was more correct. He didn’t have four warrior classes like she had initially suspected. The sheer amount of faith-based energy that exuded from his body revealed his status as one dedicated to the gods above. At least one of them had to be priest or priest-adjacent, and it couldn’t have been his race on account of his non-caustic blood. And that alone changed his classification entirely. Ace was not a warrior. He was one of the enlightened few who spread the word of the truly divine.

He was a paladin.

And his goddess was by his side.

That much was clear from the way that his equipment changed. The shoddy weapons strung across his waist and back had transformed into brilliant, blessed blades. The cheap cloth that always adorned his person had been replaced by a suit of holy armour. It shone vividly in Altea’s colours, green and black, with the goddess’ symbol painted in the former, and everything but the edges dyed in a shade of the latter.

He charged as soon as his tongue returned, rushing her down with all the vigour that the goddess had bestowed. He was much faster than he was before, and significantly stronger as well. In his suppressed state, his ability scores had rested at half their true values.

His holy blade extended as he swung it, performing an almost Boris-like behaviour as it grew into a claw that left no route of escape.

The symbol in his armour shone right before impact, further boosting his speed to a point even greater than hers. It was the effect of his faith. In exchange for this faith, his zealotry skill ensured that he was not left behind. A week or so prior, it likely would have worked. He might have overwhelmed her with a barrage of fierce blows.

But Claire lightly pulled on his wrist in the middle of his swing and directed it entirely off course.

A puzzled look appeared on his face. He didn’t seem to understand—a brand of confusion with which she was intimately familiar.

The lyrkress gave him no time to think. Another yank later and he was on the ground, her foot placed over the back of his neck and her blade buried right next to his face.

He was confused and unsettled, but the caldriess’ mood was fixed. She could, without a doubt, affirm that her training had produced the results she wanted.