The three appeared suitably impressed at the feat and Rin's smile grew even brighter, looking like a child proudly showing off to her friends.
“Come on, I’ll show you the weak points and what to watch out for while we have some free time.”
After the impromptu lesson on monster anatomy and self defense, the group packed up the bone blades from Rin’s kill and approached the back of the cavern. This time, there was only one exit and it was a tunnel that led nearly straight down for as far as Adrest could see.
In curiosity, Adrest retrieved an extra magic light he had strapped to his waist and just threw it down. Rin looked incredulous at the few dozen gold he’d just thrown into a pit but didn’t say anything as she watched the light get smaller and smaller. After twenty or so seconds, the light seemed to stopped falling, now only a small dot of light in the pit.
Armed with new information Adrest asked, “Think it goes anywhere? And could you climb out if you needed to, Rin?”
“It wont be a problem!” was all Rin said before taking as step onto air and disappearing from everyone’s sight. The three still up top had to admire the hero’s attitude towards danger and the unknown, she fit right in with the group.
A few seconds of waiting and Adrest could barely hear a muted thunk as Rin landed below. He saw the tiny dot of light shift, the disappear entirely. They waited for nearly ten minutes before the light came back into view.
Then, it started to grow larger while bouncing from wall to wall. Before Adrest knew it, a brightly lit Rin was standing in front of them again.
“Good news! It looks like it’s the right way, after you fall down there’s a straight path forward like before. Now how do you all want to get down?”
Adrest sighed dramatically, “Not all of us are as amazing as you, I’ll just tie some rope to something up here and we can rappel down.”
At the same time Alissa and Rin said in a pouting tone, “Boring.”
They looked at each other and giggled, while Adrest rolled his eyes and looked for a suitable tie off. Thankfully, he quickly found a thick and sturdy stalagmite that would do the trick.
Coming back, he grabbed the huge pile of rope at his feet and tossed it down the hole, then motioned to Alissa, “Ladies first.”
Alissa playful glared at him, “You just want to see if everything will hold, fine I’ll be the test subject. So brave of you Ady.”
She walked to the edge, got a good grip on the rope and effortlessly shimmied down relying on her monstrous strength to control her descent. Quickly at the bottom, she yelled up, “I’m all set down here, send Belle down next.”
Nodding he looked to Belle who appeared nervous, it made sense it was a long ways down after all, “Don’t worry Ali is at the bottom and Rin is at the top in case anything happens.”
Belle quietly asked, “Big bro Ady, do I have use the rope? Can I just go down myself?”
Adrest was confused for a second, but soon remembered Belle was getting pretty skilled with earth magic, so he just shrugged and agreed, not like anything could go wrong with Alissa ready to catch her.
“Go for it, just be careful and yell if you need help.”
Rin was concerned about letting the rabbit climb down herself, especially without the rope, and was about to offer to piggyback Belle down herself, but Belle started climbing down and Rin could see what her plan was.
The edges of the tunnel were fairly even with nearly no handholds, but that wasn’t a problem for Belle. Rin could feel magic being formed in the air and saw holes perfectly fitted for Belle appearing wherever her feet and hands touched. Though a little inefficient in terms of mana cost, it probably was easier for the small girl to do this than rely on just strength to move slowly down a rope.
As Belle was just a few meters away from the bottom a smiling Alissa was waiting with outstretched arms and said brightly, “Jump Belle!”
Looking down over her shoulder Belle was confused on why she couldn’t just go the last few feet, she jumped off the wall where she was and caught by Alissa.
It was as if she’d absorbed all the impact as Belle didn’t feel any sort of jolt form the sudden stop, just gentle hands under her arms that of course had to wrap her in a hug and spin a few times. Only after was she set back on the ground and Alissa rubbed the snow white hair as she spoke.
“Good girl, don’t be afraid to do something differently than everyone else, we all have our own specialties.”
Belle was blushing at the intimacy, pretty sure Rin could see the entire scene with her superhuman eyes. But soon Alissa shifted her attention and shouted for Adrest to climb down.
Adrest had to use the conventional way as he had no affinity for earth magic and like Alissa couldn’t use his wings in front of Rin. He was steadily climbing down the rope relying on his arms and easily supporting himself, not for the first time he was inwardly shocked by his own strength. Just a single year ago, he could’ve never imagined how easily he could support his own body with just grip strength alone. Adrest was pretty sure he could hang around on here for hours if needed and still not be sore.
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Going fast down the rope, Adrest made it down to meet his waiting friends and at Rin’s urging, they all moved a bit further back into the tunnel.
With an acrobatic flip at the end that Adrest was almost positive was totally unnecessary, Rin joined them too and they took in the new but very familiar walls, looking for any new traps or spots for hordes of monsters to come flooding from.
Finding nothing of note after a full hour of slow and tense walking, they soon started to relax, thinking it was going to be similar to the previous floor. This proved true for another 5 hours of walking, they were starting to consider taking a break before getting a few more hours in, but as they walked through a section of tunnel the same as any other, there was a sudden rumbling. It seemed to came from all around them as a few hundred feet on either side the walls collapsed.
The party were tensed with weapons drawn as they waited for an ambush but nothing came even after the dust had long settled. Alissa was the first to relax, "It doesn't look like anything is coming for us, for now lets figure out what to do."
Seeing it was her time to shine, Rin had just the trick, "Leave it to me, I'll get us out in just a minute!"
Rin ran up to the the wall where they'd been heading and started slowly breathing in through her nose, then exhaling. She was carefully relaxing and preparing every muscle to bear the strain, she'll wind up little sore, but she'd be fine in just a minutes. Feeling confident, Rin adjusted her feet, grasped her twin swords with a death grip, and quickly "cut" the obstacle. There was a bright flash of blinding white light and a deafening explosion.
Adrest tucked Belle into himself and turned her away from the danger. It was seemingly unnecessary though as not even dust spread past Rin. They were amazed to see in the hundreds of tons of rubble in their way, there was now a clean cut opening in the center for dozens of feet, revealing the intact portion of the dungeon ahead. Rin motioned to the others to hurry forward and as they made their way through the once wall, she explained.
"A part of my Blessing is that I can cut whatever i can imagine myself cutting, it doesn't work on everything, but it's really convenient for a lot more than people would guess."
Adrest let out a whistle of appreciation saying, "I can see why you were sent off to the Capital to train, that's an amazing skill."
"It's really nothing special, you should see what some of the other students can do, let alone the records of the really reclusive God's Blessings. I'm really not allowed to say much, but some of them are bizarre, like summoning unheard of creatures from rifts, being able to regenerate from even a speck of dust, even reviving the dead is pretty common. But i do think this Blessing is perfectly suited for me. Or maybe I'm perfect for it?"
Rin was soaking up the attention and they continued chatting quietly for what felt like another three hours and decided to settle for the "night". All three guard shifts were quiet and the adventurers felt pretty rested for the dark road ahead.
It was another day of mostly silence, and many miles of endless twisting tunnels, finally there was a change. The tunnel suddenly came to an end and opened to a hallowed out section of mountain that dwarfed anything they’d seen before. The strangest part was a fog that was contained to the cavern, shrouding everything inside with a grey curtain.
Same as before, Rin traveled ahead to scout, and after disappearing into the mist she soon returned with a grave expression. She signaled them to follow her back a few hundred paces.
When she finally stopped she said in a near whisper, “That should be the dungeon’s ruler up ahead. I couldn’t get a good look, but I’m pretty sure it’s an A rank Resha, and a massive one.”
Adrest inhaled at the revelation as he knew there was a quasi S rank lurking somewhere, but it shouldn’t be what Rin had seen. There was such a huge gap between A and S that even something approaching that gap was innately different from one that wasn’t. To showcase this difference, Alissa had previously made both Adrest and Belle face her full aura for just a scant few seconds and even that left the two of them shaking and Belle’s nose started trickling a small trail of blood. To contrast it was an old necklace that one of her older sisters had given her. That sibling had been in the S rank for many, many years and wore the jewelry constantly. When Alissa had gotten it, it had been thoroughly imbued with her sister’s aura of an apex existence.
As Alissa pulled out the silver necklace, immediately the two were forced to the ground so violently the ground beneath was caving in and fracturing. At the same time they both had blood freely flowing from their seven orifices and their minds were shaking as all they could hear was a roar that tore through the very atoms that made up their existence.
Then, it was gone. As fast as it appeared Alissa waved and the two who were straining on all fours collapsed on the cool ground. As they tried to remember how to breathe, Belle and Adrest could hear Alissa’s voice, same as ever, apparently not affected by her sister’s aura.
"Do you understand the difference now? A rank, even at the peak is still just a more powerful mortal. On the other hand, even if something just starts to see the path to S rank, their bodies will start to emit that same overwhelming oppression. It’s the difference between ordinary and perfection, S rank represents an absolute pinnacle of mortality, perfection while anything under it is just an imperfect insect. It’s a completely different realm because while it is the end of mortality, it’s also the very first step towards godhood.”
If Adrest could sit up he’d look very interested, but he was having trouble remembering how to use his muscles, as was poor Belle. But, at least now they wouldn’t underestimate that one letter difference.
Adrest felt a shiver remembering that day’s lesson even now, he was sure Rin should’ve been made aware of the qualitative difference during her years of training as well, but an A rank Resha was still a really bad sign.
Resha were strange things, They weren’t technically born. When there was both enough mana and high quality bone around, they will form and fuse the skeletons in their surroundings. Because of their unusual birth, they were never the same shape and they were hard to deal with as they had no vital or weak spots to speak of, they inhabited the bones they were made of evenly.
It being in the A rank meant it would be a long drawn out fight, and they’d be completely and utterly exhausted afterword. Well, Rin would be anyway.
Rin looked worried, “If we fight that thing I’ll be trying my best to not get crushed, I won’t be able to help you if something happens, and if everything goes perfectly it would take me at least 2 hours to kill that thing. What if something that you three can’t handle gets drawn over from the commotion?”
Adrest raised an eyebrow, ‘Do you really want to give up right at the end? Even if a stray B rank shows up, if we can’t kill it, running away wont be a problem. We trust you to kill the Resha, so trust us to handle ourselves for a few hours. Just stay safe Rin.”
Rin seemed to be looking for something, staring deep into Adrest’s eyes. She held his gaze for a full ten heartbeats, then apparently found her answer as she gave him a big grin.
“Do your best, I’ll be back in two hours on the dot.” And she rushed off back to the misty cave, where upon a huge rattling roar rang out and several earth-shaking bangs were felt.