“Finally!” Sarah shouted and immediately regretted it. The many snails in her stomach sloshed around sickeningly.
Neil first smiled at her and then went pale. Sarah ran over and pressed her hand on his mouth. “Don’t throw up! Do you want to lose the progress?” They had had to learn the hard way, that throwing up snails would reset the progress one had made in eating them.
Neil’s eyes widened in fright and he took on a look of strong concentration.
Intending to get the reward, before Neil could throw up again, Sarah mentally prompted the system to get ahead with it. But its answer was disappointing.
. . . Error. Reward not specified. . . . Solution. The reward of the dungeon will be enhanced.> Sarah didn’t know if she should be happy or not. They had hoped, that finishing this partial quest would bring them some kind of benefit before they attacked the final enemies. But alas, it shouldn’t be. “Well, at least we get some better rewards in the end. Could be worse.” She mumbled to quell her disappointment and to overtone the sounds of vomiting from behind her. Sadly, it was futile. With a resigned look on her face, she looked at the quest again, but the snail part was still marked as completed. Considering the sadistic humor of the system, this was truly a nice surprise. After Sarah had waited some time for Neil to calm down again and eat a little bit of mushroom, she stepped closer to him. «Are you ready?» Sarah asked. Neil clenched his fists and teeth and cold sweat was running down the side of his head. But he still nodded. “Good boy,” Sarah said with a smile and patted his head. “Now remember. I’ll distract the elite enemy first. It’s most likely able to do some mind magic stuff, so you’ll be done in for, if it attacks you first. I’ll occupy it, and you ambush it. Easy peasy. This will be no problem for us.” Neil looked a little bit more confident now, but he apparently couldn’t help but feel self-conscious about the fact, that he was responsible for dealing the decisive blow to the creature. Sarah’s face became more serious and she grabbed him by his shoulders. “You can do this. We can do this. So now let’s go.” Without waiting for any response, Sarah walked down the dark tunnel. For some reason, nothing was growing in the proximity of the second elite enemy. Coupled with the massive mental signal she received even over a great distance, this enemy was cause for concern. She had also felt it stretch out its mind towards them curiously, so there was no way of making a surprise attack herself. Luckily, it hadn’t made any move on them so far. Their success depended on how far they could go, without it reacting to them. They walked and walked, but the elite enemy did nothing more than keep track of them. This was somehow very disconcerting for Sarah. Whatever its reason was to just ignore their approach, it couldn’t be something good for them. Sarah was so focused on the enemy, that a thought came a little too late. “Wait, Neil. Can you see well?” She asked her companion. “No? It’s freaking dark down here. I swear if something just jumps out from the next corner, I’ll piss my pants.” He responded half-jokingly and looked around in fear. “Shit.” Sarah cursed and fastened her steps. “What is it?” Neil asked while sounding stressed about her reaction. “This place is too normal. You can always see in this weird place, even if there is no light. That the darkness here seems to work normally, in combination with the elite enemy and the completely absent vegetation and slugs, is a very bad sign. It probably… does something to its surroundings. Ever met something that could have such an intense effect on its surroundings?” Neil gasped in realization and started holding the hem of her shirt to not lose her in the darkening surroundings. “Just once. The administrator. Do you think… do you think we are closing in on the dungeon boss? And that it’s on the same level as one of them?” “I don’t know,” Sarah said, feeling quite shocked herself. But the time to think about this was over. “Wait here,” Sarah instructed Neil and started walking ahead. “Sarah wait! We have to go back again!” Neil said with panic in his voice. “And then? Come back another time and then get slaughtered? This thing has already noticed us. There is no telling if it will follow us and attack us with Melissa around. Do you want that? We are neck-deep in shit Neil. There is only one way to go now. And it is forward.” This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version. With these words, she turned around and started running with all her might. By now, she had started to sense an oddity in the ambient magic power. It seemed to flow in the direction of the enemy, which was probably the boss and not just some elite enemy. The steps of her feet and the drumming of her heart were the only things she could hear in the darkness. And after a short time, she saw a dim light in front of her. When she was close enough to see what it was, a primal part of her mind screamed at her to turn around and run away. An enormous blob of pulsating flesh towered in front of her. From one of its sides, a shriveled-up body with thin limbs stuck to it, looking like it had already been dead a long time. The thin skin on the flesh blob was black and slimy, and it constantly oozed some kind of liquid on the ground, which was why it was surrounded by a pool of it. The sight was so wrong and horrifying, that Sarah’s mind blanked out for a split second. And then, the thing attacked. Her mind and body were overwhelmed with pain and sensations, which should only be possible in nightmares. Sarah screamed in fright and tried to defend herself. But it was useless. It was like trying to stop a landslide with her bare hands. Her body fell to the ground and started convulsing. Just when she started to panic, an odd thought came to her mind. ‘It’s…. not that bad?’ while it surely was one of the most horrible feelings she had felt in her life, certain mutations were even worse than that. This realization caused her to laugh out loud, even though her body was still convulsing from the pain. She could feel the irritation through the mental attack, which caused her to laugh even more. And then, it suddenly stopped. Sarah stood up again, thinking that Neil had hit it with a fatal strike. But he was still some distance away. She looked at the thing in confusion, only to see, that several impossibly large blood vessels had burst open and even ripped open its skin, leaking thick, yellow blood on the floor. The thing still trembled slightly but looked like it would die pretty soon. “Did you kill it?” Neil asked in wonder and looked down at the mess with disgust. “I don’t think so,” Sarah answered and poked the fleshy blob with one of her fingers. But it didn’t react. She hesitantly stretched out her mind and soon connected with the thing. And then she knew why it had so suddenly died. The whole mind seemed damaged and infected by something almost corrosive. And there was only one answer to it: The magic power poisoning which everyone experienced, once they tried to infiltrate her mind. But the effects were catastrophic. “It was my magic power poisoning,” Sarah answered in surprise at her ability. Nothing had ever reacted with more than discomfort and disorientation to this ability. Neil looked at her in awe and then at the beast again. The tremors of its body got weaker and weaker until they stopped completely. “I know I shouldn’t be disappointed but… that was somehow anticlimactic,” Sarah muttered only to receive an annoyed look from Neil. “just be happy that…” He started to speak but was interrupted by the system. Reward: Genetic material (Regeneration) will manifest.> Sarah’s gaze was fixed on the message. “Regeneration.” She whispered, feeling immensely happy to finally receive a chance to get an ability like this. “Sarah,” Neil said and tugged at her arm. But she ignored him. A red marble had started to manifest out of nowhere just in front of her face. Not even her magic power sense noticed something out of the ordinary. It just… appeared. After a few seconds, the marble started growing and just floated in the air. It was reddish, with brown streaks running through it. Sarah grabbed it and immediately contorted her face in disgust. It was squishy and wet. “Sarah!” Neil said with more insistence, but she still ignored him. Not wanting to wait any longer, she ate the gross ball and swallowed immediately. Her whole body shuddered, but it was soon forgotten. Scanning the body for compatible genetic fragments. . . . Compatible genetic fragments found. Enhancing the Mutation option. . . . New Special Mutation option available: Restoration (30 LP): The speed of regeneration is heightened. Magic Power will be consumed if not enough nutrients are available. Heavily mutilated or lost body parts can be regenerated, apart from the brain. A minimum of 60% of the body mass is required, to enable this ability. If the body mass falls below 60%, you will fall into a comatose state, until you are sufficiently regenerated. Only possible with at least 40% remaining body mass.> “SARAH!” Neil shouted and Sarah turned around in annoyance. “What? The boss is defeated. There is nothing else here. What’s the problem?” she shouted back in anger, feeling annoyed by getting pulled out of her revelry. “We didn’t defeat the boss, Sarah! Look at the damn notification!” Sarah opened up the notification again, and her pale skin became even paler. “Shit. We only killed the elite enemy. But where is the dungeon boss?” Neil answered her something, but a new system message popped up in front of her, which blocked out everything else. < Multiple levels gained. Recording of Dr. Allain Becker available. Error. Forced interruption of the recording function due to immediate danger.> “Immediate danger,” Sarah whispered with wide eyes and looked around the room. But there was nothing here. “Neil, we’re in danger. Stay sharp.” She commanded and Neil immediately stopped his nagging and stood back to back to her. They stood there for a long time and Sarah could feel the cold sweat running down Neil’s back. Just when she thought, that the system made a false alarm, something happened to the corpse of the flesh blob. The flesh started to lose its glow and shriveled and shrank together, and got smaller and smaller. The room got darker than before. Or rather pitch black. Sarah noticed in alarm, that the ambient magic power had started to flow again. Faster and faster it flowed, until it was more like a raging river, shooting toward the corpse. “No, not the corpse,” Sarah said in shock, grabbed Neil, and sprang away from it. A few seconds later, an explosion of magic power and kinetic force extended from the flesh blob, and its remains were splattered onto everything around it. Even though they were already some distance away, Sarah and Neil had been flung through the room like leaves in the wind. Luckily, they flew into the tunnel and lost a lot of their velocity before slamming into the soft ground. But even so, it hurt like hell. Sarah immediately jumped up again, but saw, that Neil still lying on the ground. A quick check on his mental activity showed her, that he was only unconscious. A relieved sigh slipped through her lips, and she focused forward. A small, humanoid figure floated in the cavern. Even though it had pitch-black skin, it shined with a bright, grayish light. “A… kid?” Sarah said in shock upon watching the thing for a few moments. Other than the disfigured mutants that they found in the tunnel system, this being in front of her looked exactly like a human child. The child slowly turned around in the air until it was faced towards her. It opened its eyes and she could only see pitch-black holes. Upon gazing at her, its face contorted in a mixture of rage and fear. This wasn’t what she had imagined, but this was the dungeon boss. The display of supernatural power in front of her was just too insane. She had never seen anything or anyone display this kind of power. When Sarah shifted her feet into a fighting stance, the dungeon boss seemed to interpret this as a signal to start the fight. The glow got even brighter and violent streaks of energy streaked out of it and simply disintegrated the stone walls where it touched them. And with another child-like scream, it started flying towards her.