Chapter 110 The Mimicking Tail
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Lily walked on with the rest of the group, with my fireball guiding the way. As she walked on, she was met with another tunnel leading to the sticky oil area. The deeper dungeon seemed to be a mishmash of the previous dungeons, inconsiderate of time and place.
"Another one? We seemed to be going in circles." Lily moaned.
"Don't worry. I properly remember the path. We haven't gone in circles." Lhorne replied as Nora walked beside him. They exited the enormous hall with a lake when they reached the exit. The lake was devoid of life, just like the boiling lake. Lily knew for better that she should not go anywhere near the water. Even now, she felt anything could jump out from the lake and attack them. Little did she know that this hall with the lake was the same hall Edelweiss stumbled upon.
"Should we go to another route?"
"No, there is no other route. I think the other route was filled with sticky oil." Lhorne said. After a few moments, the water in the lake splashed only to reveal several of that hydra, but they were a lot smaller and only had five tails and two heads. A few moments later, the colossal hydra rose up, complete with the wounds we had inflicted upon it.
"Lily, that monster is…."
“No need to tell me Lhorne. Let's leave. I think we should risk the sticky cave for now." However, before Lily turned around, she noticed a strange figure above. It was Edelweiss. She was waving around from the upper levels.
"That's Lord Edelweiss, isn't she?" Lily pointed towards her. Lhorne's eye snapped to her at once. He managed to stop himself from calling her out, but his thought of leaving this hall suddenly vanished.
"But there is that dragon. What should we do?" Nora asked.
"Let's just try to sneak past them. And if worse comes to worst, we could just make a run for another exit from this hall." Lily said. They were in dire need of help now. They haven't eaten anything since yesterday.
"We need to save her! It was very odd that she was alone without Joseph or Alistar. If she was not with them, we could only assume they had already perished. The high council decreed that she at least must survive this expedition!" Lhorne said firmly.
After a few minutes, Lily and the group decided to tiptoe the hall to try to reach Edelweiss. There are no stairs that lead to other levels, but we hoped there would be tunnels where we could meet each other. In the worst-case scenario, Edelweiss could simply make a pathway using her earth magic.
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The hydra didn't even see us tiptoeing to the edge of the hall. I extinguished any visual cues, including my fireballs, in this room in the hope of not attracting them. As we were near one of the exits, Alistar popped up and motioned us to enter the cave.
Lily and the group cheered soundlessly as they practically skipped their steps. Tension was released as their smiled with hope. Their steps hastened. I didn't forget about the massive hydra currently sleeping there. I wondered if we could take it by surprise and kill it together. That thing has been an enormous pain for us lately.
I gained a new appreciation of my appraisal. It proved to be valuable when detecting the abyss worm earlier. As I spammed it left and right, I got hit by this announcement.
Mimic
Dangerous monster with Low combat ability. Its inability to speak is its distinguishing feature. Its modus operandi is to lure its target into a trap.
"Hmm?"
"What is it, Shiro?" Lily asked me, but I just swung my tail confusedly.
"That hydra was different than the one before."
"It is a different hydra?"
"No, it is a different monster entirely. It says that it is actually a weak monster that mimics others."
"Really?"
"That's what the appraisal says. Let's attack it and see what we got." I summoned several fireballs. Alistar was aghast when he saw me, but I trusted my appraisal. The hydra didn't even move, nor did he recognize my attempt at creating a fireball which is oddly suspicious. I shot it and motioned my tail so Lily and the group could flee at a moment's notice.
"Lily! What are you?—" Lhorne shouted but stopped himself when the hydra disappeared soundlessly with just one fireball. The scene is distorted, and the distortion spreads out to the juvenile hydra and the entire room. The lake was then distorted and changed into bare floors with several rocks decorating it. The glowing clean caves changed their texture to be mossy, and the glowing blue turned into green instead. Several small black twigs ran around and hid in the shadow of boulders.
"Monster habitat?" Lhorne said.
Monster habitats were the place where monsters gathered and reproduced. It was a place that was not unlike home. Lhorne was familiar with this because many spiders in Edenthal's dungeon had similar places. But the main difference here is that the monsters didn't try to attack them. They just fled, but they didn't travel farther than the edge of the hall and could only see us with a fearful look.
Lily looked toward Alistar and Edelweiss, and they turned into the same black stick as the others. The stick also didn't attack, and unlike the other fretful little monsters, this one seemed to taunt us into following it. My confusion only grew each time I see them.
"Lily? Should we clear them out?" Lhorne asked
"No. Let's just go to the exit we originally intended." Lily deflated. She looked at the delicious exp in front of her, but her motivation was extinguished the moment she looked into the scared-looking twig. She keeps reminding herself that their goal was titan ore, not to level.
The twig looked at us, baffled as we walked through the other exit, and ignored them. As I looked back at their behavior, a thought ran over me.
"Is it okay to treat them as monsters, for exp?" I thought while we continued on the cave.