Chapter 155
Not for Children
After dealing with the source of the Poison Mist, Connie and Chen traversed through the Dungeon and finally made it to a room leading to a stone door which had partly opened. She noticed that the room had a few other paths that branched to other places. When she got close to the door, she could smell a powerful rotting stench.
“Connie!”
The blonde girl turned around and saw Illumca throwing herself at her from one of the other paths leading to the room. The Dark Elf hugged her tight with a face brimming with happiness, only for it to quickly change when she got a sniff of the air; she jolted back.
“Ugh, that smell?!” she recognized that cloying stench that stuck to the back of your nose and made a disgusted face.
“The stench of decay and death,” Connie said as she gestured towards the door. “Try not to gag. You too, Arryn.”
Wrinkling her nose, Connie stepped through it and saw that it led to a large chamber that could easily fit two houses, dotted with piles of corpses. Old and new.
A lot of them had been picked clean off their flesh, but some were left rotting without even being touched. A few torches had been lit within; their flickering lights made shadows that danced as if the devils dancing over the corpses of the unfortunate victims.
In the middle of the chamber, a few members of their group had gathered in a circle. Caelin, Leyn and Martell was standing behind Bernie and one of his men, who was crying.
Martell’s ears and tail perked up when he caught a whiff of a familiar smell, even in this room.
“Mistress!”
“What are you all doing in the middle of this nauseating place?” Connie asked.
“One of the Bearkillers saw someone he knew in the pile. So, Bernie is now trying to calm him down,” Martell said, devoid of any empathy towards the man’s feeling. “By the way, the Poison Mist’s disappearance, was it any of your doing?”
“It was a beautiful specimen,” Connie said. “But let’s not waste time, the faster we get to our goal, the faster we can get out of this forsaken place.”
“She’s right. We can mourn him later,” Caelin said.
Connie picked up one of the skulls strewn around the floor and noticed scrape marks as if an animal had run their teeth across it.
“Seems like this is where the Demons throw away their leftovers,” Connie placed the skull on top of the nearest pile of bodies with a frown. “Then we should be close to their hideout.” Seeing the wary look on the disabled Dark Elves’ faces, she knew that she was right.
Suddenly, they heard the sound of a something unlatching with a heavy clunk. They quickly dispersed, hiding behind anything that they could find.
A Demon walked down the stairs while making burping noise. In his hand was a bucket whose insides rattled each time it swung. When he arrived at the bottom of the steps, he carelessly threw the contents of the bucket. Seeing this, Bernie – who was the closest to the Demon - could not help but gag.
That small sound was enough to cause the Demon to become wary. “Who’s there?!” He shouted.
The Demon noticed and abnormal shadow behind a pillar and grinned. “Where is that voice coming from?” he cooed, even though he already knew where his victim was.
But suddenly he was taken by surprise by searing hot pain. Undetected, Illumca leaped into action from the shadows behind him and sliced the muscles behind his knees so that he lost support and was forced to fall to his knees.
Before he understood what just happened, a dagger had been stabbed into his throat and dragged across his front neck and he died drowning in his own green blood.
After that quick kill, Connie gestured towards the door where the Demon came from.
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The door led to a dingy hallway lined with iron bars. They could see human figures sitting with blank faces staring at nothing. Here, instead of the smell of death like the one in the chamber before this, the place smelled of waste and blood. Which was another type of smell with equally nauseating effect.
It was torture to Illumca and her sensitive nose.
“Yoja, have you finished with the bucket? I need to piss,” they heard a voice calling out towards them. Fortunately, they were hidden still by the door. “Yoja! I need the bucket!!”
The Demon saw something flew from behind the door and felt his chest becoming hot. He looked down to see that a sword had embedded itself deeply into his chest, followed by another and another. Each hit causing him to back up a few steps. He took four swords to the torso before he fell back and died.
The swords levitated into the air and swung once to get rid of the green blood before returning to Martell’s Sword Box.
“Ungh, the smell,” Bernie pinched his nose.
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“This is a lot of people. How are we supposed to take them out of here?” Caelin asked.
“That voice…is that you, Caelin?” a voice called out to him.
Caelin’s ears perked up and his face lit up.
“Rhoddes?!” Caelin almost slammed his body against the thick door leading to the room where his teammate was kept. He saw his condition through the gap and exclaimed.
“Rhoddes, what in Sud-Ghazid happened to you? Where is Dhani?”
“Ugh. Who’s…calling my name…?”
“Dhani?! You’re okay too? Thank the Gods!!”
“Caelin…? Took you long enough.”
Caelin saw the ring of keys lying atop a table next to the corpse of the recently slain Demon and quickly got to opening the door. The first few tries failed. However, the fifth one succeeded.
“These are your friends?” Martell was taken aback by Rhoddes, whose body was so misshapen he wondered how he could even become a Hunter. How could he even walk?
“Ooh, by Hurgul’s Beard. You look like shit,” Caelin said, “Are you sure you’re both okay?”
“Just a scratch. This isn’t even half of what I usually do for the Annual Ceremonies,” Rhoddes joked to alleviate the burden on his friend’s face.
“Look at you acting tough,” Dhani commented. “At least I can move a bit better now. Those Pills you gave us did the trick.”
“Thank Connie, she’s the one who lead the Raid. Also, Rhoddes, I lent your Mace to one of our members. Is that okay?”
“That’s fine. But that means…you managed to defeat Jala?”
“Yes, we did. But not without sacrifices.”
“I see,” Rhoddes said with his deep voice. Suddenly, he stopped moving when he saw Martell. The runes painted onto the cloth covering his face glowed for a brief moment.
With a surprising speed, the man rose from the ground and placed a massive hand over Martell’s shoulder. The span of which was enough to cover his shoulder and the top half of his arm.
“W-what is it?”
Martell was taken aback by the sudden movement of the gentle giant.
“Young one, I see traces of a Demon’s Curse on your soul. It seems you are the one the Dark Mother spoke of. Ungku Nadi. Fated Child. I am Rhoddes Mugandi. An Anukaran Nankhudi. What is your name?”
“What are you talking about? Get your hands off of me!” Martell panicked. The sudden touch by a stranger had made him panic.
“Forgive me,” the giant man withdrew his hand apologetically. “Child, I have received a prophecy from the Dark Mother Anukara that I was to wait for a sign. The moment I saw you, I see it. I saw the sign. She must have meant for me to help you,” he said calmly. “Would you like me to cleanse you of your curse?”
The offer that came out of the blue caused Martell to stand there agape. It was the first time he ever lost words ever since he met Connie.
“We have at least eighty Daydreamers here, and none of them are non-responsive," Bernie said as he walked back towards them. “We can’t possibly bring all of them out like this.”
“Did you try the medication?” Illumca asked as she turned to Connie. “You said the ingredients for the cure is here, right?”
“The one I made was for those in the early stages. For this one, we are still lacking the crucial ingredients. The ones they use in Azure Dream.”
Hanad is in charge of creating Azure Dream. The stock of items used for it should be in his Grafting Chamber. Leyn wrote.
“No, even if I can make it, they are all too weak to move. Long terms of sedentary lifestyle had atrophied their muscles so much that even standing is hard.”
“Then what do we do?”
“We move on with our main goal,” Connie clapped her hands together. “We erase all the threats to the town. Then we can take our time moving them to safety.”
Then we should head to our Quarters first. We should be able to persuade them to help us if I tell them what we are going to do. Arryn wrote with gusto.
“Alright, Caelin and the rest of you, stay here and guard the captives. Illumca, Martell, and you two Dark Elves lead the way,” she ordered. She then looked at Caelin. “Lock the door after us. After that, only let members of our group to enter, understood?”
“Best of luck to you, Connie. I’m sorry I cannot help more,” Caelin said.
“Say those things later, Caelin. We still have a lot to do,” Connie folded her arms behind her back as she walked forth. “Are you coming, Martell?”
“I – uh…”
“We can speak about this after all this is over, Ungku Nadi,” the Anukaran Nankhudi gave him a kind nod.
“May you greet death with rejoicing.”
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Along the way to the Dark Elves’ Quarters, they relied on stealth to avoid alerting the Demons. As for erasing their existences off of this Dungeon, there would be time for that later.
While hiding in the shadows, Connie took a glance at Illumca. Although she could still sense her wariness towards Arryn, she had lessened her hostility toward her quite a bit. Perhaps something had happened while they were alone.
Not long after, they arrived at an oblong chamber with weapons on racks scattered around the place. Three young Dark Elves that looked as young as Sen were cleaning them with rags.
A Dark Elf with faded grey hair was sitting on a wooden stool, focused on making poultice. Arryn tapped on his shoulder and he started. He looked at Arryn and joy filled his face. He hugged her tight and signaled.
Arryn! I thought you were dead! And Leyn!
But the moment he saw Connie and the others he quickly became wary. The younger Dark Elves had also noticed the newcomers and quickly hid behind Benua.
Relax Benua, they are here to help. She wrote so as to not agitate both sides. They are here to kill Bet-Zebek.
The old Dark Elf looked between Arryn and Connie’s group, then at the unfamiliar Dark Elf that was looking at him with a conflicted look.
Are you insane? He wrote after he took the slab from Arryn’s hands. There is a reason that Chetkusa is an Ur-Nagud! How many of our warriors died fighting him? And you say that these people can kill him?
They defeated Jala. And that young woman with blonde hair killed the Vorzennian Hero. She answered. This earned them looks of astonishment.
Then suddenly, the door next to Benua fell with a thump as a Dark Elf clad in black slammed against it. They could hear shouts and sounds of weapons clashing inside.
“W – what in Sud Ghazid?” Martell exclaimed.
Without waiting for permission, Connie and the group walked over the fainted Dark Elf and came to a scene where a number of Dark Elves had been incapacitated and thrown around like rags. In the middle was Akula, Nick, and an extremely bewildered member of Bearkiller who wished he had not taken this job.
“Stay on your toes!” Nick yelled.
“Are we supposed to kill them? Are we not supposed to kill them? Connie did not tell us what we should do!!” Akula complained as she punched an attacking Dark Elf into unconsciousness. She was getting better at holding back after training with the members of the Town’s Guards. Normally her punch would have exploded the opponent’s head.
“Oh, thank Junnaveil!” Nick exhaled when he saw the distinctive robe of his Lady. “Milady!”
“Illumca!! Do something about your Clan members!”
Hearing that name, the Dark Elves stopped and looked at the tall figure stepping over the unconscious body of their brethren. Her sharp, hostile gaze as she scanned the room caused the back of their necks to shiver.
“These pieces of trash are not my Clan members.”
While Illumca was controlling the room, Connie ordered Martell.
“Martell, close the door please. And make sure no one comes in.”
Martell looked at Leyn with a shrug. The two then pushed the unfortunate Dark Elf aside and repositioned the door so that it more or less covered the entrance. He then stood in front of it and sat down to take a brief rest.
One the younger Dark Elves tried to peek but Martell put a finger on his lips and smiled mischievously.
“This is not for children to watch.”