Ingrid poked her head through the tunnel and found a strange sight.

There were six Tixi Mice, squeaking angrily as they clubbed a weakly moving giant centipede with various blunt weapons. The red centipede was letting out pained screeches as the dog-sized rodents with calico-like fur patterns jumped up and smashed their clubs on the insect’s head area. It seemed to have been paralyzed as the rest of its body was twitching. Lying on the floor around them were a few other mice, breathing their last, no doubt from the centipede’s attack.

“Iohann!!” Ingrid cried. Arthur and Sully scuttled over for a look and squeaked, prompting all of SABER to gather. Cautiously Ingrid’s mice approached while the calicos looked distressed, squeaking pitifully as they tried to tend to their fallen. One calico waddled over to Arthur, who handed his rifle to Brody beside him. Slowly the mice sniffed each other before the calico limped back to the others who were trying to shake the fallen awake.

The felmoon cleric arrived at the scene. Red Crawlers? No, this can’t be good, those mice’s bodies are too small for its potent venom.

“Help them, please!” Ingrid said.

___

A few hours earlier:

Viel’s telekinesis spell worked only on inert non-living objects, however it was able to pick up the carcasses of the sawmouths by clumps, allowing her transport them quickly to the designated pickup spot.

The other blessing in disguise was that it revealed the sawmouths that were still alive. Once both sides of the tunnel were cleared of the really dead carcasses, it was time for the rest of the team to get to work.

“Clean up time!” Ingrid called. Eli, Brody, and Ralph scrambled to get their M-14’s with bayonets, as well as meat hooks. As soon as they leapt out of Cecil’s Room, Arthur and Sully took their place, taking out their drum magazines and handing them to Cecil who quickly got to work refilling them. Cecil’s slime body engulfed both drum magazines and a nearby box of bullets. Inside his body, he was able to refill the two 200-round drum magazines with unmatched speed and efficiency.

Meanwhile, Arthur and Sully grabbed regular magazines from the room, as well as meat hooks and then jumped out. They were in and out in a few seconds.

The raptors that had more life in them were shot in the head by the mice while the weaker moving ones were bayoneted. Taking out their meathooks, the mice then dragged the carcasses into a secondary pile for Viel to deal with later. Kinu and Kvaris stood guard for incoming scavengers while Arek unholstered his porter rig and joined the finishing-off party. Sammy joined in with her halberd, finishing off the near-death raptors with the spear and then tossing them to the pile that the mice made.

Ingrid simply mosied over, one still had the strength to whip sideways and bite her but its jaws got shredded by her beltsander-like aura. Ingrid leaned over and clamped her hand over its spine, ending its life before throwing it to the second pile of now-confirmed carcasses. Siria used her light spear to finish off the creatures, then she added a hook-like projection to the blade so she could drag it over.

Selphie was given guard duty alongside the kobolds, while Iohann went to each party member and recast her spells of protection on them. One scavenger, the same kind of horse-sized gecko that the mice killed last time, came in from the opposite corridor and was shot by Selphie, it’s loud painful screeches as it was painfully converted into a whip-crawler was followed by the sound of several scurrying feet, perhaps its death cry had scared off the other scavengers.

The process for cleaning up both ends went much faster than the last time, thanks to Viel’s superior telekinesis spell. The ability to discriminate between the living and the dead proved to be very helpful, as carefully approaching a huge number of probably-not-dead monsters merited extreme caution. There was no telling how many of those open mouths full of sharp teeth were waiting for a last bite.

While Viel and Siria were now preparing their Item Boxes (they would split up the loot to speed up the casting time) Iroquois regrouped in Cecil’s room, tossing out the enchanted drum mags to Arthur and Sully who in turn threw in the meat hooks. Arek shouldered his pack and traded his spent magazines for fresh ones with Iroquois.

“All complete! Let’s move out!” Ingrid said.

___

“Cecil, next time our kobolds give warning and whatever is around the corner refuses to respond, use grenades until they get too close.” Ingrid said as they cautiously advanced down the corridor.

“Understood.” Cecil replied.

“Arek, how’s the drone going?” Ingrid inquired. Arek whipped out his smartphone and studied it.

“It’s fully charged at Cecil’s room but its system is still glitching out.”

“That’s fine.”

“Something on the left, but it’s faint.” He said. The party advanced cautiously, with Ingrid taking point. She looked both the left and right of the corridors slowly before advancing.

“It’s a giant caterpillar-thing…and it’s going away. Let’s leave it alone. Let it keep the monsters’ numbers down.” Ingrid observed. “Looks weird to me though, it’s purple, suggesting it’s been here for a long while…”

“That must be Cluthas.” Siria said, hurrying over for a look “Oh it IS him! It’s best to leave him alone, he’s pretty indifferent to adventurers.”

“Given how big he is, I don’t think most people can hurt him.” Ingrid shrugged.

“Even if you do…” Kvaris said as he walked over to see the giant creature crawl away. “He’ll flood most of this chamber with poisonous gas.”

“...and why am I hearing about this only now?”

Siria shrugged “Well, we figured that most adventurers when seeing him would think better of taking him down. He’s the biggest monster on this level… After all, just look at him! Besides you, what could really hurt him in this dungeon?”

“Actually the worst thing that could happen is Ingrid trying to tame him.” Cecil laughed.

The group continued onwards, each looking down the corridor as they passed, seeing the great worm make his way to… wherever it is great worms go.

___

The jungle-like ambience seemed to get louder as they moved towards the fourth level. Taking note of the map painted on the wall every few hundred feet, Ingrid signaled they would turn right at the next. Approaching the turn the sounds of grunts and roars grew more distinct, it seemed to be coming further down the tunnel.

But of course there would be an encounter, stupid Murphy’s law. She thought.

“Anything, Kvaris?” Ingrid asked as they approached. He shook his head, meaning that there weren’t any monsters lurking near the corner, just the ones fighting further ahead. Ingrid signaled the team to jog to the corner and stack up. Meanwhile she and Kvaris peered over the corner and saw what was going on. It was the same kind of humanoids; yellow-grayish skin that looked like rough leather, pudgy muscular bodies and mouths that bisected their otherwise humanoid heads, the same ones they saved Selphie from and they were battling frogs the size of cows. These frogs however had shorter muscled legs that seemed fit for running and not hopping around.

Ingrid touched her earpiece “A lot of bugbears and some weird giant frogs fighting.” she said quietly. “If we start sniping they could run away and we’d lose some good loot.” The frogs were gobbling up the bugbears, but seemed disinclined to move away after snatching one up its cavernous mouth. They didn’t seem that intelligent as after they swallowed one up, it left itself open to attack from the bugbears that assaulted it from all sides. Like a confused drunk the frogs were prodded and pushed around in random directions, occasionally bucking and kicking in pain.

Siria spoke aloud. “Let’s just go down the corridor and pick off whoever survives. Either way they’ll run if they feel like it.” Everyone else made their sounds of assent.

“Fair enough. Let’s go, but watch those corners on the way.”

The team advanced at a walking pace, keeping an eye on anything else that might interrupt them. In one corner a bird peeked out, it reminded Ingrid of a prehistoric terror bird, it was flightless, about as tall as an ostrich but with a much shorter neck. Its body was quite muscular and had iridescent dark blue and green feathers. It regarded the team curiously.

“A Cockatrice.” Siria said. “They’re quite dange- Ingrid! What are you doing!?”

“Doing human things.” Arek and Cecil said. It didn’t strike them as strange that Ingrid had suddenly forgotten the battle that was see-sawing between the two monster factions a hundred feet ahead of them.

“Hiiii” Ingrid said as she slowly approached the bird. It leaned back, seeing the strange creature as it slowly approached.

“What is she doing!?” Selphie said in disbelief. “Th-those are dangerous!”

“Oh, that makes her want it even more.” Cecil said, totally unconcerned.

Arek stepped to the side and unshouldered his pack, letting it hover freely thanks to the anti-grav plates at the bottom. He quickly looked for the rations and then quickly skittered over to Ingrid, giving her some dried meat.

“Here you go.” He said nonchalantly, before returning to shoulder his pack.

The rest of the team watched in disbelief as Ingrid lured the majestic bird out of the corner and hand fed it. The bird made throaty, croaking sounds as it regarded the friendly creature. Tentatively Ingrid reached for its beak and rubbed affectionately.

“What..in the eight hells…” Siria said. The mice came over and sniffed the bird, rubbed its beak on them.

Seeing that the party wasn’t a threat, the bird made nodding motions and backed away.

“See you later buddy.” Ingrid said, rubbing her forehead on its beak. The bird affectionately croaked. “Cockatrice huh? Wasn’t that one of the creatures that petrify you?”

“Yes, it has the ability to paralyze prey. I’m surprised you approached it.” Siria admonished.

“I thought it needed to look at you and that’s it.” Siria sighed.

“They’re smart, what do you think will happen to it if it tried that on us? Some of us will get paralyzed yes… then it gets brutally eviscerated by you.”

Ingrid hmmm’d in thought “Yeah, not letting anyone get hurt.”

The battle between the bugbears and the frogs were still going on. One frog had managed to swallow up a bugbear which got the rest to start clawing and mauling it as the cow-sized frog tried to force its meal down its gullet. Again it was jostled around as the bugbears dogpiled it, trying to get it to disgorge its meal. Eventually it did and then attempted to grab another again, which they managed to dodge.

Crawling down the walls were a few more frogs, which either were drawn in by the sounds or had been waiting and decided these bugbears weren’t as much of a threat at all.

“Iroquois, use the BMG” Ingrid said.

“BMG armed” Cecil answered as he quickly pulled in the large rifle and chambered the first round. He aimed at the thickest of the mob. The high caliber bullet tore through them as easily as paper, another shot rang out, then another. The bugbears saw the adventurers as the greater threat and charged them.

“That got their attention. They’re spreading out now.” Ingrid said. Cecil clicked on the safety latch and joined the mice with their slingshots, since it was enough to deal with them the last time. Selphie joined in, aiming for the frontmost bugbear which turned itself into a distraction as it attacked its former comrades with its newly-minted razor vines.

Predictably, the frogs with their short muscular legs started ambling towards the bugbears, a few humanoids broke off to attack the frogs but with fewer numbers the frogs were having an easy time gobbling them up.

“Frogs coming this way, Ralph, snipe!” Cecil called out. Ralph dropped his slingshot and picked up his marksman rifle. It was semi-automatic which allowed him to reduce the number of frogs that reached the party.

Ingrid dashed forward, attacking the bugbears. Summoning Nemea, her fists were enveloped with the image of holographic lion heads which stuck with explosive force. The energy that went her direction was rerouted by her aura forwards, allowing each hit to make contact with multiple monsters. One of the whip-crawlers’s erratic vines made contact with her, but her aura was able to discriminate between an enemy attack and Selphie’s minions so it merely redirected the vine into a nearby bugbear’s face causing it to howl in pain as it was blinded.

Now the object of their attention, the bugbears focused on Ingrid, making themselves targets for Selphie’s whip-crawler seeds. The frogs continued to amble towards the bugbears, attacking them from behind and taking more of them out of the fight against Ingrid.

Other bugbears broke away and headed for the rest of the team. Arthur and Sully opened fire, Kinu and Kvaris leapt forward to intercept those that were closing in. Sully nimbly dodged one bugbear that tried to grab him, at which point Kvaris leapt in and severed its arm. He then catapulted himself towards the bugbear, tackling it to the ground with his blade embedded into its neck. Another tried to swipe at him and was shot by Sully.

Kinu jumped onto the shoulders of the bugbear reaching for Arthur and jammed his blade into its collarbone area, causing it to collapse as the punctured its heart. The kobold quickly jumped to another one’s chest, biting its face while his blade went for the neck before backflipping away. A third bugbear rushed for him and he closed the distance, slicing the achilles tendons forcing it on its knees, he ignored it and went for a fourth. As the crippled monster tried to turn on its knees to catch the kobold, a bullet to the head by Arthur crumpled it like a ragdoll.

A third front was heading for the party, going for the team’s center. Siria jabbed her staff at the first monster’s gut, electrocuting it while from its back arcs of lightning struck the rest of the bugbears behind it. As they keeled over an ice spike dropped on their bodies to make sure they didn’t survive. The charging remainder that didn’t get shocked kept going, stepping over the bodies of the fallen. Siria struck the bottom of her staff against the ground and the ice spikes detonated, causing the monsters to keel over from the sheer number of lacerations.

Unknown to the bugbears, Ingrid had a tactic while fighting off the mob surrounding her. The ones between her and her part were struck with powerful blows but did not knock them back or send them flying, instead it merely knocked them out or crumpled them to the ground. By holding back her strength while keeping her speed and reflexes up it gave the mob of humanoids the illusion that if they pushed hard enough they could eventually bring her down. Occasionally, Ingrid would unleash more of her true strength, but still, it only looked like an ability that had some sort of cooldown.

Eventually the bugbears around her had decided to run off, leaving them open to the attacks of The Whales’ shooters. This left Ingrid with the last monster still itching to fight. It was one of the big frogs. She dashed low on the floor very quickly and landed an uppercut right to the chin, flipping the frog several feet into the air backwards. It made a sickening splat on the ground.

Some of the party members blinked.

“I swear its tongue made contact with her,” said Iohann.

“Did she just go through it?” asked Viel, not believing what she saw.

“Ingrid.” Arek said, putting a hand on her shoulder. “I know you’re strong but…”

“Yes?” Ingrid looked up at him.

“Please don’t go near volcanoes.”

___

“That bird’s still following us.” Sammy observed before joining the team with hauling the bodies over. Ingrid took one of the bugbears and threw it down the corridor. The bird looked at it curiously then at Ingrid then it started to feed.

“Would be nice if he could join us, though I doubt it. Would he be mindful enough to know how to work as a team?” Ingrid wondered as she handled the cow-sized frogs. “I mean, the last thing I want is to go ham in the middle of a mob and then tweety over there gets accidentally smacked in the face.”

“Tweety? Probably not, he was watching us from behind.” Sammy said. “That said he’s civil enough, didn’t look like he was making aggressive postures when the fight broke out.”

“Ready!” Viel said as she and Siria closed up their Item Boxes. Ingrid motioned for the team to proceed. They found the ramp leading down to the fourth level not long after. A few ankhegs were scurrying about, heading down the way The Whales came.

“There’s probably a nest nearby.” Cecil observed. “They’re going to be so confused when they come over and see only bits and pieces of frog and bugbear.”

“That’s the Guardian Swarm.” Siria said. “They’re called that because of their proximity to the fourth level. In a way they prey on monsters making their way out. Look for that golden marking on the back of their thorax.”

Ingrid nodded. “Imagine being a fourth level monster, getting beat up, all that blood flowing out, you’ll attract ankhegs like its taco tuesday.”

“What’s a taco tuesday?” Viel asked. A lone frog wandered into view.

“Selphie.” Ingrid said. A single shot went right into it’s mouth and the whip-crawler erupted from its brain a few seconds later.

“It’s like a sandwich but you use a crunchy shell.” Arek explained. “Or it could be soft flat bread. Depends on the region you grew up in.” Cecil answered.

“Which one came first?” Iohann wondered.

“The soft bread type” Ingrid said. “The crunchy shell was a recent invention in my world, it’s made of grain mashed together and shaped in a way so it’s bent like a clam. Then it’s fried in oil and you have a crunchy container for meat and spicy vegetables.”

“Sounds good.” Viel chirped “I wanna try one!”

“Grass is always greener on the other side.” Arek told her “For us, those meat skewers at Galdini’s stall are the best thing we ever had. We could make tacos out of those, what do you think?”

“Want!” Cecil replied.

“Seconded,” Ingrid concluded the discussion. They paused briefly to let Viel take in the giant frog.

“Bullywug” Siria corrected her.

___

They reached the ramp leading down to the Fourth Level around ten minutes later. The downward incline was gradual like the other three but rather than go straight like the first and second level this one gently curved around. Halfway down, the team encountered a door.

It was round and had a gold rimmed frame.

“Huh… Level 4 Vault 1, all belongings inside have been unaccounted for. I’m guessing we’re free to take whatever’s inside?” Ingrid asked after reading the notice.

“Exactly” Siria. “Touch the door anywhere and put some mana through to make it open or close.”

“Sounds easy enough.” Ingrid said. At once, there was a quiet clicking sound and the doors quietly rumbled as they slowly slid open. Ingrid stayed up front in case anything was lurking inside the room, but it was brightly lit like the rest of the dungeon and there was nothing inside except for a set of chests. The room inside was round and bore a large painted-on map. It reminded her of treasure rooms in video games but this one had a more realistic and practical reason to be here, though she didn’t remember exactly who picks up these unaccounted for items and why doesn’t the guild just claim it.

“Why doesn’t the guild claim these things? Siria? They could make a fortune off of it.” Ingrid asked. She waved the group in, indicating she enter last.

“Some Demon Cities do that, they just sell the finds off a dungeon, but here in Teth-Odin they use a way to entice Adventurers to do so. You’d have to pay off people to retrieve these items, clerics to uncurse them, identify them…the works. Rather than do that, they use these to drive adventurers further inside and let them spend their money on the city.” the elf explained.

“But…” Cecil began “How do they get them into those chests?”

“That’s one of the spells in the dungeon maintained by the royal family. It’s a closely guarded secret. Some have rumored they can bring forth an army wherever they want, but that’s just hearsay, there’s no record of the Teth-Odin army doing anything like that.” Siria said.

“If they could, it sounds like they could clear up the dungeons all on their own.” Ingrid remarked “Ah, but where’s the profit in that?” Ingrid stepped into the treasure room as the door started to close. Inside there was a fresh breeze flowing somewhere.

“I wonder how they keep this place clean.” she said, looking around.

“Obviously slimes.” Cecil frowned “you should know that. You never noticed when we first arrived in this world people were surprised that I can talk?”

“Cecil, you’re the only slime I’ve seen and I’ve never seen you clean.” Ingrid said. “Like…EVER.” she glared at him accusingly. “...so excuse me if the thought slipped my mind.”

Viel then looked at Cecil “I wonder if Cecil can talk to them.”

Cecil shook left and right “I don’t know. The ones I’ve seen here that Ingrid barely notices don’t seem to react to me. They probably have lower intelligence. You know, in Ingrid’s world there’s creatures there that look like humans, same thing.”

“Woo-ooh-ooh-aah-aah-aah!” Ingrid made a funny noise that made Viel and Siria giggle.

“Wh-what’s that?” Viel laughed.

“That’s how a monkey sounds.” Ingrid said. “It’s said that millions of years ago some monkeys stopped living on trees and crawling on all fours and decided to walk on two feet. Thousands of years passed and those animals became humans like me.”

“Huh. Interesting.” Sammy said “Siria won’t believe me on this, but it’s said that orcs evolved from elves. They left the mana-rich forests and entered the plains, so all the mana went into our bodies and made us strong.”

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

“It’s the other way for my case.” Siria said “My folks say it’s orcs that entered the magic forests and their mana from their strong bodies diffused and became part of our aura.”

Ingrid shrugged, “Well, it’s something that happened a long time ago, who knows what really happened.” A thought then occurred to her, those chests just standing there looked too good to be true...

“Viel? Just to be sure, can you try opening up the chests? I wanna make sure they’re not trapped or a mimic.”

“Mimic?” Viel tilted her head to the side in confusion

“In Earth’s legends, there’s a monster that takes the form of a treasure chest, or a door, anything that would entice someone to come over so the mimic can eat them.” Cecil explained. Kvaris, who was about to approach the chests, suddenly jumped back.

“That’s just a legend in my world. But considering Viel doesn’t know about it, then it probably doesn’t exist here.” Ingrid said placatingly but Siria held up a hand.

“This is a dungeon.” she began “We’re talking about creatures that come from unknown Rift Worlds here. They could exist. Those bullywugs? They don’t exist here in Terragalia. Their name in old gnomish means “Big Monster Frogs.”

She turned to Iohann who quickly set up a barrier. Gently waving her mace, she conjured a shimmering curved wall. “Viel, if you could…” she said. The cat girl stepped forward and used her Telekinesis spell.

The chests opened up without any problems. Iohann didn’t relax however. She dispelled the barrier then stepped forward, chanting a prayer.

“Is she checking for curses?” Ingrid said. The elf nodded. It took only a few minutes as Iohann went from chest to chest. She held out her mace over them but the white motes floating out of the mace’s head did not change. It was then she was visibly relaxed.

“They’re clean.” the felmoon cleric finally said.

The mice had all disembarked from Cecil’s room and began inspecting the chests. Two of them contained various weapons, with the longer chest holding spears, polearms, greatswords and similar weapons.

A third chest contained what looked like some spellbooks, scrolls and other relevant equipment for magicians, the fourth contained various pieces of armor, from shields, to helmets, to body armor such as gambesons, plates, and even some cloaks.

The fifth contained various utility gear such as ropes, hooks, bundles of plain cloth, and dried provisions and herbs.

Ingrid straightened up. “...and they’re pretty organized too, and look reasonably clean.” She looked at the first two chests; the mice, the kobolds, and Sammy were inspecting some of the weapons that caught their fancy. They looked quite worn and well-used, but definitely not rusty or dirty in any way.

Meanwhile Siria inspected the provisions here, giving some of them a light sniff “these are still good to eat.” She said, “These chests have an enchantment on them that seems to slow the effects of time, but otherwise they’re as good as having been laid here only a week ago.”

Viel took out a small box from the third chest. It was carved with intricate figures with inlaid platinum accents.

“Rosewood, this must be quite valuable.” Viel said as she carefully opened it. Inside were five golden rings set on velvet. They looked rather plain, but many prudent adventurers preferred to have their magic rings disguised as ordinary baubles.

“Are those enchanted?” Cecil asked, hovering over to Viel. The catgirl nodded. She picked up one ring and held it up.

“These are special too. There’s a second enchantment that hide their true nature when worn, so even if someone tries some divining spell to know about you, they won’t know it’s a magic ring. I’ll see what they do.” With that, Viel put down her bag and picked up a blank scroll from the chest.

“I got some blank scrolls myself but it’s better I take one from there instead.” she explained. She took out another scroll from her bag, this one had various runes and words printed on it. She made her aura flow into the scroll and began reading aloud. At once, Cecil knew why she needed a blank scroll; words and magic circles started appearing on the surface, it looked like the paper was going to burn up but the “embers” were greenish in color before dissipating into puffs of blue smoke. At the same time, the rings also glowed the same hue of green. The scroll that Viel read from disintegrated into spectral motes.

“Ring of Apport / Hold with your ring-hand up to three chosen arms / Designate with your seal their place of response / Release with hand and mind to return them whence they came / Hold with hand and mind and your chosen arms will take form.”

The interpretation spell didn’t seem to rhyme well in English but when spoken by Viel’s language it sounded like it did. Upon hearing that, Sammy and the two kobolds looked in her direction.

“Kinu and I would definitely benefit from such rings.” Kvaris said.

“Throwing axes for me!” Sammy smiled. At that point both kobolds looked at her and nodded.

“Anyone else? Any takers? Ingrid asked.

Kinu, Kvaris, Sammy, and Selphie each took a ring.

The kobolds registered to their rings a spear, a one-handed axe, and another sword. Their original swords they kept worn at their belts. Their ring-swords were considerably longer, and had an enchantment that balanced them well as well increasing their arm strength, allowing them to wield it one-handed just as their usual sword. Like their originals they were double edged. After some practice and light sparring with each other they found them extremely satisfactory.

Their spears would be their default weapon. These were not the throwing variety but were used to engage enemies from a distance as well as serving as effective lances when charging or leaping at an enemy.

For close range, heavy chopping, as well as throwing they had their axes. It also featured a spike at the top so it served as an impromptu stabbing weapon.

Sammy picked up a shorter throwing spear as her halberd and custom-made duregar war-gauntlets pretty much kept her well-rounded. For Selphie, she too picked a polearm.

“Corseca, this takes me back.” She said, it resembled a spear but with a longer blade and a second crescent moon-shaped blade on either side of the spear head. It reminded the earthlings of a trident, with the wider prongs preventing whatever was impaled from moving further.

“It used to be a hunter after all and this was useful against really dangerous game.” Selphie explained.

“Alright, Viel…what do we do next? Your scroll says we must designate a place…how about my room?” Cecil turned his room-side portal around, showing a good place to store the weapons. It was in a corner of the room near the windows. He started moving away some furniture as he continued. “Would this do?”

Viel’s eyes brightened up. “Yes!” she chirped. “Let me get my Magus Inscriptor!” After a few moments she held up what looked like a fountain pen. Leaning into the portal, she touched the Inscriptor on the floor of Cecil’s room while letting her aura flow into the magic tool. “Spin me around!” she said.

As a slime, Cecil had no problem turning around in a perfect circle, keeping the portal level as he did so. Following Viel’s directions, they made a few circles on the floor, the Inscriptor letting out light sparks that reminded Cecil of welding but nowhere close to being painful on the eyes. Next, came her writing various runes on the edges of the circle.

As Viel worked, Cecil asked her “once you designate a ring-weapon, can you change it later?”

“I can’t do that.” she replied without looking up, focusing on her work. “You will need to visit a proper atelier to recalibrate your spell. Well… I could try it if there is no choice, however I can’t guarantee there won’t be unexpected results, you might even lose your finger if not your whole hand in the process. These rings were well-made.”

Cecil thought for a bit. “Will they interfere with any enchanted weapons?”

Viel shook her head “They won’t, that’s one of the prerequisites having atelier-made rings like these, otherwise nobody would want them.”

Cecil regarded her curiously “...and how’d you know they’re made in one?”

Viel giggled “When the identification scroll revealed the rings’ nature they also showed the seal of who made it. These were made in Avelia, it’s a far-off country known for their good-quality magic. No doubt the adventurers who once possessed these came here to try it out.”

“Do you think it’s the reason they died?”

Viel thought for a bit and shook her head again “I doubt it, they simply came across an enemy that was beyond them. In the greater scheme of things, these rings are quite valuable. I imagine they used to be some perfumed aristocrat’s kid who used his daddy’s money to buy them the best weapons and enchantments they could afford but not really having the necessary skill to survive.”

“Alright, that makes sense, say, you really know a lot. Viel.”

Viel looked up to him and smiled “Sometimes a little too much, I get lost in books trying to learn all sorts of magic, other adventurers say I’m wasting my time on them, so I was so happy that Sammy chose me as her companion, and now all of you.”

Cecil extended a tendril and patted the little catgirl’s head “Don’t ever think you’re useless Viel, you do you.”

“Thanks Cecil!” she said brightly.

Meanwhile, the Mice were looking up various weapons they might find useful. Their bayonets on a rifle already gave them a spear-like weapon and they didn’t feel confident enough to fence with a sword. Nonetheless they decided to take a few swords, spears, axes and hammers to put into Cecil’s room later after he finished working with Viel.

For the other chests, they took a few shields and laid them on the pile too, then started looking for any armor that might fit them. Predictably there weren’t any that could fit their bodies. Moving on, they skipped the magic items chest and moved onto transferring the contents of the utilities box onto the floor. As Arek’s pack was already full they planned to bring it over to Cecil’s room as well.

Siria checked the different items in the third chest to see if there were any other enchanted items they could use. There were some spellbooks but these required time to learn and memorize, a few scrolls that weren’t blank contained either spells she already knew or required time to learn in order to use it properly.

Iohann and Selphie also pored through the third chest; the cleric picked up a blue orb the size of a baseball. It was wrapped in a small net made of braided rope and decorative beads and could be hooked onto a belt.

“A summoning stone for a Nyx Fish.” Iohann said in recognition. Faintly seen swimming inside was some kind of fish creature with long fins. Ingrid walked over and had a look.

“How does it work?” She asked.

“It summons the creature from its native home in the south seas.” Iohann said. “It can read the user's intentions, know which is friend or foe. It would definitely be useful in a fight. It attacks at range using its arcane powers.”

“Is there a limit to its use?” Ingrid asked. “I mean it can’t be summoned for free, now could it?”

“It does need to be fed every now and then. As long as we don’t summon it too much it should respond. Otherwise, we’ll need to get another fish, and that might take a while. Let me handle this. The Nyx Fish is native to my homeland.”

“Any objections, girls?” Ingrid looked at the other two spellcasters who shook their heads. Iohann tied the stone to her belt

The team took a break in the treasure chamber as soon as Cecil and Viel finished creating the inscription on the wall. The ring-bearers tested out how quick the process was and was not disappointed. It felt almost instantaneous.

They had a picnic of freshly grilled sausages and pre-made hamburger patties. An alien solar-powered refrigerator was among the items sitting outside the balcony in Cecil’s room, taken from Kaguya’s storage. Arek figured that these “luxury” items would best be with Cecil while he carried the more spartan rations to save weight.

“Wait, how did you fit that?” Ingrid asked.

“Oh right, turns out we can expand the window” Cecil said, demonstrating until it was large enough to fit a car.

“Would be good if you could split up the window’s size.” Ingrid said in thought but Cecil shook his head.

“Unless you got some kind of spell that can manipulate portals’ that’s not gonna work. Also, enlarging this portal slows down the movement and puts a drain on our mana, though you probably didn’t notice it but I do.” Cecil said. “Guess we’ll have to put that airforce idea on hold for now.”

“Oh, now that you mention it.” Iohann remembered. She picked up a totem from her pile of notables and handed it to Cecil. “Keep this in your room.”

Cecil took the proffered charm and looked at it. It was a little heavy and unwieldy but it probably had something that made it worth carrying in someone’s bag. “What is this?” He said it was a statue of a robed figure with a wand.

“Rejuvenation Ward, It’s normally used in healer temples, this one is a much smaller ward. Its restorative effects are minor but every bit helps for our party. It also has quite a considerable radius.”

Cecil looked up at her “Do I need to put it into a bag and keep it?”

“To answer your question, the condition is that it ‘must be with you’, you keeping it in your room fulfills this condition, allowing you to tap into its powers.” the cleric replied. At once, Cecil engulfed the token into his body and climbed one of the shelves, placing the Ward there.

“There we go!” Cecil said. “And now we should be a little more chipper.”

“Anyone else found anything interesting?” Arek asked.

“Watch this.” Sammy stood up, she made several swings with her halberd. What caught everyone’s attention however, were a pair of flying longswords that appeared and lashed out along with her. The blades looked like they were plated in platinum, with gold inscriptions running along its length. Most peculiar about the sword’s design was the double swept-hilt handguard which rendered it impractical for handling. Ingrid after seeing it, thought it was a longsword cosplaying as a rapier. That said, the impractical hand guards were a moot point as the weapon was apparently being controlled telekinetically.

As Sammy performed different strikes, the swords would appear afterwards, she showed that they could follow through with her strike, or swing the opposite way, or swing in a completely different path. In one instance, she thrust her halberd forward, and the swords performed a scissor-like cut after her thrust followed by a cross-slash as she pulled back her weapon.

“Guardian Swords!” Siria said in wonder. “That’s wonderful, Sammy!”

“Where’d they go when you’re not using them?” Arek asked, wondering if Sammy used a slot in her Ring of Apport. In response, Sammy somehow phased through her halberd’s handle, bringing out a shorter arming sword that looked too beautiful to be used in a fight. It looked better off in a museum.

“It works by imbuing its magic into a weapon. It cannot be used with a shield, so as long as I don’t bring mine up, they will come. Also the swords will only strike after I strike, so I can’t use it to parry an attack.”

Ingrid clapped her hands. “Looks like you have the best of both worlds, Sammy! Nice thinking!”

“Well it’s mostly luck that we found this room.” Sammy shrugged “besides, the fact that this weapon is found in this room, tells us a lot about the fourth level.”

The party grew quiet as they let that sink in.

“New magic weapons or no, we need to use this” Sammy said, tapping her head with her finger. This wins more fights than this.” she shook her halberd for emphasis. Everyone nodded. They looked at Siria who shrugged.

“The things I can use will take time to learn.” Siria said. Viel also shook her head.

“Everyone ready? Let’s go!” Ingrid called.

The mice had finished transferring all the extra melee weapons, shields, utilities and consumables to Cecil’s room while Viel and Siria transferred the rest to their boxes. The kobolds switched to their spears and together with Sammy they stood by the door.

“Let’s go.” Ingrid said as she touched the door. As it slowly opened they found a familiar figure.

“It’s that bird again.” she said. She was expecting the bird to follow them into the fourth level but it didn’t. At least it was smart enough to know there were dangerous monsters in there but at the same time, that also meant more perils for the group ahead.

___

The fourth level of the dungeon was much quieter, Sammy’s mention that even the Guardian Swords’ previous owner didn’t save his life had everyone tense, but rightly so.

“We head for one of the big chambers, and see what’s in there, or another treasure room if possible. Judging from the quality of what we found there, that should give us a good amount of money. Siria, what do you think of the soul stones we have so far?”

Siria pondered for a bit “Those bugbears and bullywugs combined with our previous encounter with the sawmouths should give us quite enough to spare for Kaguya.”

“Let’s get more so we can fly around as we please.” Ingrid said “Everyone be cautious but don’t let the fear control you. If I have to, then I’ll hold them off.” With that she flared her aura briefly. It made the team visibly relax.

“Something’s up there,” Kvaris said quietly into the earpiece. He pointed his spear at the left side of the corridor.

“Get ready.” Ingrid said. “Iroquois, no messing around. Use the big guns.”

“BMG Loaded” Cecil said in his earpiece. The mice squeaked along too, as if to indicate they’ve picked the higher caliber rifles.

“Sounds like bad news,” Arek said. “Or a good payout.”

“Or.” Cecil said quietly and sarcastically “Another thing for Ingrid to pat on the head.”

“The bird’s following us again.” Sammy said. Ingrid looked surprised, that gave her an idea. Other monsters ran away, but this one didn’t.

“Bird’s friendly. Everyone focus on the front.” Ingrid said. At once the kobolds and Sammy took their places Selphie took point so her floramancy can disrupt the enemy’s enmasse charge.

A red foot came into view. It was easily fifteen feet tall. Red skin, and it looked like someone frankensteined various monsters together. It’s feet were humanoid and its skin chitinous and segmented like an arthropod, except for its scaly arms. Embedded in its chest was some gross cockroach like creature, with its multiple legs waving about. Its head was a lion but its mane was medusa's head full of snakes.

“A Lord Abomination!” Siria yelled. “It’s not alone!” The bird squawked loudly in surprise. The colossal creature stepped into view, already looking at the party.

“And it’s not friendly!” Ingid said as she met the monster's charge. They both dashed at each other at blinding speed and traded blows, sheer impact made everyone feel a light shove to their chests as their fists met, sending both back skidding on the ground.

“You’re pretty goo-” Ingrid said when the abomination lord was right in front of her and swiped her in the face with his claws. As soon as the claws touched her defensive aura, her Automata precept kicked into gear. She turned with the blow, her aura gripping the monster’s beefy arm and accelerating it too fast for it to react to. As she did, the precept pushed her further towards the monster, magic circles appearing around her joints as she automatically performed an aikijutsu-styled shoulder throw.

Now fully enveloped in Ingrid’s aura, the abomination lord was accelerated downwards just as it was vertical and upside down, creating another loud THUMP it left a crater on the floor. The abomination lord buckled and went limp, allowing Ingrid to quickly put it into a headlock. The monster roared with rage, trying to push itself off the ground, but the leverage failed it, as if Ingrid weighed thousands of tons. Then, Ingrid lifted it up, its legs flailing in the air while it’s arms tried to hold itself up in a handstand before Ingrid turned and dropped on her back towards the thickest of the mob, accelerating the fall as she did so. The monster howled in pain as its back smashed against many bodies, some sporting spikes, as well as howling in anger as Ingrid caused it to end up squashing its own minions.

Again and again Ingrid wrestled the abomination lord, using its body as a giant flyswatter. Countless of its minions tried to dogpile her but her defensive aura mangled their attacking limbs or were cut down by her teammates.

Meanwhile, as soon as Ingrid performed her reversal on the abomination lord, its minions’ a motley group of monstrosities also looking like randomly slapped together creatures rushed into the attack the whales. Selphie put several stones together and fired a spray at the frontmost line, stemming their advance as the whip-crawlers began cutting down the abominations behind them.

“I’ll take the left!” Sammy yelled, she hurled her ring-spear first, punching through a couple of abominations before leaping into the fray. Her guardian swords protected her as she swung wildly at the mob, driving them back as the enchanted flying blades covered where she didn’t strike.

Meanwhile, Kinu and Kvaris charged the right, throwing their ring-axes before calling in their ring-spears. They found that as soon as they released their spears and thought of it, they were able to recall it in their hand, allowing them to strike multiple times. Stepping back little by little they were able to keep spearing the mob before the brothers called in their ring-swords and fought as one. Like Sammy, their rapport honed from years of training and sparring together allowed them to cover each other’s blind sports and now with their ring-weapons they were able to make combination strikes in unexpected ways. When nobody was in reach they used their spears or throwing axes to score a hit and when a monster got close enough they used their swords. The brothers alternated between spear duty while the other rushed in with their sword.

At the same time, Iohann summoned the Nyx Fish, it appeared above the mob. It resembled a large arapaima fish but with the beautiful, colorful fins of the siamese fighting fish. It was encased in a wobbly bubble of water from which it shot off several magic missiles. Where physical impact didn’t kill the monsters, the damaging of their aura to incite mana burn did. Occasionally it dipped into the crowd, carrying an abomination in its jaws which it did in by performing a crocodilian death roll.

As soon as Sammy and the kobolds split up, Arthur and Sully opened fire at the sides not covered by the melee fighters and Selphie, squeaking like enraged rats.

Meanwhile for team Iroquois, Eli and Brody alternated between shooting down monsters that were approaching Selphie as well as assisting Arthur and Sully. It seemed that the mice were doing their own call outs, preventing the on-the-ground mice and Selphie from being overrun. Ralph and Cecil focused on crowd control, the former using piercing rounds on his sniper rifle to cut through multiple targets while Cecil multi-tasked by shooting into the crowd with automatic fire while throwing grenades.

“Hailstone Fusillade!” Siria cried, throwing her staff upwards. It hovered in the air and began creating several stalactites on the ceiling above the abominations’ formation. As each spike dropped, it detonated a second later, with devastating effects on the abominations around it.

Drawing both wands, Siria used Wind Lance to drive back the monsters that managed to push through, drilling them back whence they came. Walking further so she was now between the shooters and melee, she made herself the target for those that broke through. The first set of abominations that charged her she used Gale Prison, a small whirlwind that sucked them in before dealing multiple severe lacerations from the razor winds. Two slipped through and made it’s way to Arthur, but they got easily gunned down. She turned her attention to another abomination that Sully seemed to be ignoring.

She was ready to shoot an ice spike at it when suddenly the bird behind them screeched loudly and pounced the abomination. It’s razor sharp talons digging into its chest as its beak ripped off its head. Quickly swallowing its meal, the bird threateningly unfurled its wings and tail, making itself larger to intimidate any other abominations.

“The bird’s helping us!” Cecil yelled. “Watch your fire!”

The team’s coordinated effort and Ingrid’s repeated DDT/flyswatter had decimated most of the abominations. The bird leapt at another abomination and tore off it’s head too, then another, and another… helping itself to five in total.

Finally, Ingrid twisted the abomination lord’s neck.

“Your winner and…STILL! UNDISPUTED! BURGERWEIGHT! CHAMPYAAAAAN AAAAV THE WUUUUUUUURLD!!!!” Cecil roared, floating down and raising one of Ingrid’s arms. Kvaris let out an exhilarated howl while the bird squawked loudly.

“I’d like to thank my sponsors…” Ingrid said in a mock-celebratory role. “The WHALES as the best team in the world, bar none! And of course to Cassie!”

“Who’s Cassie?” Sammy asked.

“The bird.” Ingrid said. “He reminds me of a cassowary in my world, so I decided to name him Cassie.” As if liking the name, Cassie waddled over the Ingrid, croaking gently as he rubbed his beak on her face. “D’awwww, thank you Cassie!”

Kinu suddenly barked. “We better gather the bodies fast, we got scavengers already.” He pointed at a few red giant centipedes shyly peeking from corners.

“You’re right, let’s…” Ingrid began, and then she heard the loud shrieks of tixi mice.

“SABER!?” Ingrid quickly looked around. Arthur and Sully were fine, looking around as well, the mice of Iroquois had peeked out of the Dialogue Window as well, squeaking anxiously.

Kvaris sniffed and then pointed two intersections ahead. “That way! Let’s go, Ingrid!” Without hesitating, Ingrid, Iroquois, Arthur, and Sully followed suit, accompanied by Cassie.

—

Ingrid poked her head through the tunnel and found a strange sight.

There were six Tixi Mice, squeaking angrily as they clubbed a weakly moving giant centipede with various blunt weapons. The red centipede was letting out pained screeches as the dog-sized rodents with calico-like fur patterns jumped up and smashed their clubs on the insect’s head area. It seemed to have been paralyzed as the rest of its body was twitching. Lying on the floor around them were a few other mice, breathing their last, no doubt from the centipede’s attack.

“Iohann!!” Ingrid cried. Arthur and Sully scuttled over for a look and squeaked, prompting all of SABER to gather. Cautiously Ingrid’s mice approached while the calicos looked distressed, squeaking pitifully as they tried to tend to their fallen. One calico waddled over to Arthur, who handed his rifle to Brody beside him. Slowly the mice sniffed each other before the calico limped back to the others who were trying to shake the fallen awake.

The felmoon cleric arrived at the scene. Red Crawlers? No, this can’t be good, those mice’s bodies are too small for its potent venom.

“Help them, please!” Ingrid said as she, Cassie, and Kvaris attacked the red crawlers attempting to take advantage of the situation. One centipede was leapt on by Cassie, his claws sinking past its armor. It tried to snake around and sting Cassie but the bird’s reflexes were lightning quick, his scissor-like beak taking its head off.

Kvaris’ spear made easy work of another centipede, then another, then he was throwing axes at the rest of them approaching. Combined with Ingrid bouncing around like a pinball, squashing each giant centipede with a flying kick, the frightening scavengers scuttled away in fright. They would have to find dinner elsewhere.

“Ingrid! We have to return to the surface if you want to save them!” Iohann yelled. “Right now I can only slow the poison.”

The nine mice lying on the floor were beyond hope, however four of the six mice that were still alive have been bitten. Anger and adrenaline alone had preserved their strength and it was wearing off quickly.

With the help of Ingrid’s mice, the four of them were placed into Cecil’s room, Arthur directed one calico onto Ingrid’s shoulder and the other to Iohann’s. Nodding, they quickly headed back to the team.

There were shots of gunfire as Arek scared off the centipedes coming their way. Viel was hurriedly moving the dead bodies along with Siria, Kinu, and Sammy.

“I’ll do my best but please hurry with the carcasses!” Iohann said, concentrating as she channeled more of her mana towards the four injured and poisoned calicos. Quickly, SABER got to work with carcass disposal. Brody was the last to leave and handed the two unhurt calicos spears to help with finishing off the weakly-moving carcasses. The newcomers caught on with their job quickly.

Arek’s shots were accurate, which should have come to no surprise to Ingrid and Cecil, but after seeing him in a support role most of the time, only now did it become noticeable.

“What happened back there, Ingrid?” he asked, seeing new mice join them.

“They got bitten by giant centipedes, Iohann's trying to stabilize them now.” she replied as she focused on dispatching the carcasses, stomping on their heads then kicking them over to the pile. As she spoke, Iohann laid down her pack and rummaged through it. She produced a small leather pouch, which contained a dry paste-like substance which she brought to the mice’s noses.

“Eat it, it’ll help.” Iohann said urgently, hoping they’ll understand. Eli, who was nearby, scampered over and sniffed it. Eating it so show that it was harmless, the injured calicos followed Eli’s example before laying back.

“That should help keep them stable.” Iohann explained.

“I guess there really isn’t a spell for curing poison.” Cecil said, patting the heavily breathing mice.

“There are.” Iohann said as she applied dressings on the mice’s bites. “A lot of cure poison spells, but it depends on the type of poison being used, Red Crawlers are poorly studied so I’ll end up doing more harm than good trying a spell at random. It’s impossible to prepare for all sorts.”

“You’re doing great Iohann, don’t worry about it. I mean, I’m a slime myself but I can’t suck out the poison without damaging myself.”

“Don’t!” Iohann frowned. “Only certain types of slimes in this world can do that. Unless you’re absolutely capable, don’t get any ideas!” she said, patting Cecil’s jiggly body.

“I know we’re in a hurry but you two do this Item Box spell carefully and correctly.” Ingrid said calmingly. Having completed the dispatching work, SABER quickly scampered back to their places, moving the injured mice to the sunlit balcony of the room. The two calicos sniffed around.

“Let’s head back to the surface!” Ingrid said as the Item Boxes closed. As they jogged back, she whistled “Cassie!”

The bird jogged ahead so it ran alongside her. He didn’t resist as Ingrid quickly took off her scarf and wrapped it around Cassie’s next. Tapping his chest she said “That way people know you’re with us.”

Cassie craned his neck sideways and kept squawking, slowing down till he was right beside Iohann.

“Me?” Iohann said. The bird squawked. Ingrid motioned for the team to stop.

“Will you let Iohann ride you?” Ingrid asked, the bird impatiently cawed, snapping his beak.

“Iroquois! Follow Cassie and Iohann!” Ingrid said, the calicos hopped on as well. Cassie let out a piercing shriek and ran as fast as he could, his mana flaring all around him.

“I think Cassie can outrun you.” Arek jokingly said.

“Oh he’s on… tomorrow or something.” Ingrid said as she and the rest of the team jogged back to the surface.