‘Good thinking with those potions,’ I told Aki. ‘Assuming by Löwe’s reaction they came from his stash?’

‘Yup. There are still some left there, though there is one I think we shouldn’t take.’

‘What’s that?’ I asked with a raised eyebrow.

I didn't want to forego any possible advantages.

‘Something called “Sarin”.’ Aki replied with barely contained, and fully justified, disgust.

Correction: some advantages should be foregone.

Was there no end to this man’s depravity?

‘Show me.’

Aki led me to Löwe’s alchemist’s table and pointed to a bottle with a colourless liquid.

Item: Sarin

Type: Chemical

Rarity: Terran - Extremely Rare

Effect: Unleashes deadly chemical fumes. Handle with extreme caution.

That's going to be a problem. I can't just leave that here.

I pondered what to do about it. I could ask Aki to incinerate it, but if that was the wrong way to go about it, she wouldn't survive the process.

Won’t the chemicals eventually go inert?

That was a thought.

Where to hide it, though?

I remembered the flooded corridors we’d gone through.

Yeah. That could work.

‘I’ll take care of it,’ I told Aki and explained my thought process.

‘Are you sure it is safe?’

‘Probably much safer for me than for you. I don’t think my new body would be affected by it.’

I waved my hand around my torso and realised that in the excitement of things I didn't notice the front of my shirt being gone, courtesy of Löwe’s green fireball, exposing my stomach and boobs to the world.

Well… that's not how I would want someone to see me naked for the first time.

The problem was… I’ve already gone through three out of four sets of clothes I got from Ereshkigal and I’d rather keep the last one in reserve for Aki. Was I now in for an experience from an Adult Game?

Wait… Don’t I have some hoodies in my backpack? I remembered.

I would need to retrieve one of them from the bag I left in the corridor outside, once I was done handling nerve gas and walking around blood-filled water, that is.

This place really fucking sucks, I thought once the full implications of reflexively accounting for being knee-deep in blood hit me.

Why couldn't I have ended up in someplace nice, like Stalingrad in 1942?

Not wanting to touch the bottle with my bare hands, call me excessively careful, I went to retrieve the remnants of Löwe’s uniform jacket, grabbed the container through it, and carefully wrapped it around the flask. Quite happy with the results, I wanted to set off but Aki approached me and kissed me on the cheek.

‘Be careful out there, Lil,’ she said a bit shyly. ‘Come back to me in one piece, okay?’

Lil?

‘I’ll do my best,’ I said and put the bottle on the table.

I embraced her and kissed her back. Aki giggled and pushed me away.

‘Just go, silly’

I noticed her tail was curved into a question mark.

My route to the staircase was, thankfully, uneventful. While I couldn't help but feel that yet more horrors awaited on this floor, we still haven't found a functional exit after all, it seemed like all residents of this particular sector were pushing up the dungeon floor. As I passed by the corpses of the undead we re-killed with Aki, I briefly wondered whether it would be right to give them some kind of a burial, but decided against it. The only thing we could do for them is a funeral pyre, and we’d need Aki to cast her hellfire bolt to do it, and I’d rather she saved her mana for more useful purposes. Like using that spell on our enemies, or maybe firing that gun of hers, at least I assumed it used mana.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

And speaking of burning things to death, when I decided to check out the room we never entered on my way back. The stone looked to have cooled off, and while crossing past the charred corpse of the Sanguine Lurker was a bit of a bummer, what could you do?

To my pleasant surprise, the staircase didn't collapse during the cascade failure. As I wanted to start descending, I remembered I had my greatcoat on. It was slightly charred from my earlier misadventures, but salvageable. The remnants of the shirt I was still wearing still somehow had some durability on them, meaning they would eventually regenerate. The same couldn't be said about my bra. It was a goner. Anyway, I took off my greatcoat and put it on the floor. It’d get slightly dirty but it was better than it getting exposed to the water down below.

I slowly descended the steps and immediately noticed the water level was higher than it was a few hours ago. The best I could see it wasn't visibly rising now, which likely meant there was another partial cave-in. Less than ideal, but ultimately irrelevant. It’s not like we would have to traverse this place to get anywhere.

With a sigh, I entered the water. I realised I should have also taken off my shoes since they had dried a bit from the last dive and now my feet would be all soggy again, but what could you do? Hindsight is 20/20 as they say. I’ve decided a corner in the altar room would probably be the place to stash the bottle since no one likely would look for anything there. Maybe there were enough loose rocks there to cover it further. As I waded through the water, I noticed that part of the wall in the corridor between the room where we met Punchy McPunchface and the altar room had collapsed, revealing a side passage there.

Why did they block it off? I wondered.

It would take me some effort but after I was done with chemical weapons’ disposal I could probably squeeze myself through the hole in the wall and check it out.

The altar room was just as we left it with Aki. Nothing appeared to have taken interest in the corpses of the goblins, but they sure began to stink. I looked around and ruled out using either of the corners by the entrance from the river canal. Someone could wander in, try to loot the corpses and accidentally find the bottle, or worse: break it.

Ultimately, I went with the corner to my left. It was the furthest from the hole in the wall so, I assumed it was the least likely to be searched. I unwrapped the bottle from the uniform and, still holding it through the cloth, placed it on the floor.

‘Good enough, I guess,’ I muttered.

Just as I was straightening myself up my darkness-enhanced senses told me something in the room had changed.

‘Hello there, cutie!’ someone giggled from behind me in a singsong voice sounding like a violin.

I turned around as quickly as possible and saw that an alabaster-skinned slender woman was standing on the altar. She was maybe one-hundred-and-eighty centimetres tall, though it was hard to tell exactly as she was slightly leaning on a glaive, and the black leather high pumps she had on her feet clearly added an extra five centimetres to that. She wore thigh-high fishnet stockings, a black mini skirt and a frilly shirt. Her eyes and shoulder-length hair were blood red; her nose was straight and she had dark lipstick on. Three long pale horns were protruding from the woman’s forehead and a pair of crow-black-feathered wings were on her back. I noticed a matching set of obsidian bracelets on her wrists and a choker on her neck.

‘You’ve got some nice assets there on display,’ she continued to my great discomfort. My ‘brother would love to see them.’

By instinct, I summoned the Blade of the Black Rose into my right hand and did the best I could to cover myself with my left arm.

‘Duly noted,’ the woman laughed. ‘I guess this is unintentional then.’

‘It is,’ I answered with a mix of anger and vulnerability present in my voice. ‘One asshole burned most of my shirt off, and I didn't want to put on a new one, given where I was planning on going down here. If you haven't noticed this place isn't exactly… sanitary.’

‘I’d ask maintenance to clean up here, but I think the last staff member died five hundred years ago, so it might be a while until someone answers that request.’

Five-hundred years? I thought, shocked. What the fuck?

‘I don’t know why you are hiding these. They look great!’

I realised that to my surprise I uncovered myself.

‘Who are you?’ I asked, desperately trying to change the subject from my breasts.

I decided against covering myself again. I would need to use both of my hands to fight, and if she was distracted by my boobs, maybe it would be an advantage for me.

‘Oh pardon my manners, cutie. My name is Caeileera. Pleased to meet you!‘

She did a small curtsy.

‘Lilyth. We’ll see if this meeting is a pleasure or business.’

‘Such hostility!’ Caeileera laughed. ‘We’ve only just met!’

I pointed to the corpses of goblins.

‘Those things tried to murder u… murder me despite being freshly acquainted.’

The woman briefly smiled at the correction.

‘Don’t worry, Lilyth. I just want to talk.’

The way I stared at her after that must have told her everything because she quickly added.

‘Let me prove that to you.’

Caeileera extended her hand, making me assume a defensive stance immediately. Instead of attacking me, however, the woman just stood there. After a few seconds, I heard a quiet splash behind me. The place where I hid the fucking Sarin, I realized.

I turned around and saw the bottle encased in some sort of a translucent orb floating upwards. I reached for it, but my fingers harmlessly bounced off the energy field.

The bottle started quickly flying towards Caeileera.

‘Oh, you fucking bitch,’ I shouted and started advancing towards her as quickly as possible.

Before I could even make two steps, however, the flask landed in her outstretched upwards-facing palm.

‘Such a dreadful thing…’ Caeileera muttered with sadness in her voice.

A gout of flame shot out of her palm and completely incinerated the bottle, glass and all, in a matter of seconds.

Notice: You have assisted in destroying a forbidden substance. You have received 1 perk point for this action. (Current Number of Perk Points: 2)

I guess they don’t like chemical weapons here either.

‘Now do you believe me?’ she asked me expectantly.

I sighed.

‘Talk then.’