Kevin’s ugly face spat out even uglier words. Ugh, such an eyesore. We backed away slowly, never turning our backs to them. A minotaur might swing rabidly and smash us to pieces, but a human could betray us—and I knew that made them more dangerous. I was surprised none of these people had noticed its presence, or were perhaps hoping we would die to it. Either way, they ignored what would happen after it finished us off. I made a mental note on who was in the group. Fighters and their mocking faces made up the bulk of the traitors, but who was in charge of the Skill? It was a [Fortress Ground], so a Knight had to be around.
I looked around the edges of the group. Then I saw her. The golden glow of the Fortress Ground illuminated another figure behind my dear brother. It was the purple-haired, axe-wielding woman from the drinking ritual, silently crossing her arms. That distant, scornful look meant that she was complicit in all of this.
A level 5 Human Knight encounter notification belonging to her popped up on my Plus Menu’s interface. Several other Hunters were encountered too, but they were unaware of our drama here. That explained the golden barrier, I supposed. Like Leah, I believed that the Knights might have Fortress Ground as a default skill. As for my brother and the fatty, there was no way they’d be capable of such power, right?
Well, I thought to myself. I didn’t want to speak with any of those Hunters anyway.
I shot the axe-wielding girl a glare, but my feet didn’t stop stepping backwards. Leah’s hand was tense, protectively wrapping around my arm like a vice. The place had gone quiet, save for faint booms echoing out in the distant darkness. That meant the blind minotaur presumably found an outlet elsewhere in the place. For now.
Thankfully, we were able to back away from that tense standoff in one piece. Whether it was because Kevin couldn’t fire a bolt through the axe girl’s Fortress Ground or he was arrogant, I couldn’t tell.
In the end, we ended up going in the opposite direction where the majority of the goblins ran to. After checking behind us and seeing no one following us, we tentatively started heading aimlessly down the hallway into the impossible light drifting down from above, like moonlight through a window.
The air was humid, thick, and smelled of a nasty acrid ozone scent I’ve come to learn as goblin blood. Rotting, electric, and utterly disgusting. How wonderful, if only I wasn’t the one steeped in its scent.
“Now what?” I asked Leah. “There were other entrances into the chamber, but it didn’t seem like our friends wanted us there.”
“They’re not our friends,” Leah hissed, her fur bristling. I groaned. Her fanaticism overrode her ability to tell sarcasm, I guessed. She suddenly latched onto my arm again and dragged me towards a small doorway. I didn’t resist, but I could tell something in me had changed once again. I was actually letting her touch me. Her pink eyes glistened with a new light in them when she looked me over. “You were amazing back there, blinding the beast with such a powerful Skill.”
Powerful Skill? I refrained from scoffing. I couldn’t believe it was that bright! A preview Status window or something could have helped eased the situation, Plus Menu!
“We got lucky,” I bluffed. Then I scolded her. “Don’t go and think we can fight that monster head-on.”
Leah looked like she wanted to say something, but a rumble swallowed the hallway, carrying with it a thick and cold wave of foul damp earth smog. Cracks began to form beneath my boots. I didn’t know if this place had floors, but we had to move before we found out the hard way. We ran until the hallway quieted down. This section of the labyrinth was a dead end. Only a doorway blocked off by a huge glob of substance that clung to it like a sticky barnacle remained. The Plus Menu placed a tag over the goo.
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— “Dewy” Coagulated Monster Blood [1]. Requires 100 Attack and 100 Wisdom to absorb.
———————————————
“100 Attack and Wisdom, huh,” I muttered. Leah’s hurried steps slowed to a stop behind me. “Wonder what absorbing that will do to me.”
“How is it that you’re leading the way instead of me?” Leah breathed hard as she questioned me. “And why do I sense… New strength pouring out from you?”
“It’s because I leveled up. Multiple times,” I stated blankly, knowing full well that she probably didn’t understand me based on her question. I quickly checked my Plus Menu’s notifications. 5 of them were waiting for me.
———————————————
> Status [+120]
> Notifications [5]
> Host has assisted the Armoured One’s Emissary in slaying 12 Goblins.
> Host has gained 80 status points! [Total: 80 status points]
> Host has leveled up!
> Stunned the Armoured One’s Emissary! Host has gained 20 status points! [Total: 100 status points]
> Host has successfully performed a narrow escape! Host has gained 20 status points! [Total: 120 status points]
———————————————
“Kathleen? Sister, are you alright?” Leah’s voice pierced through the blue translucent screens hovering in front of my retinas.
“Sorry, I,” I started. “I was thinking. About our next move.“
Leah’s concerned face came into view. I felt guilty. We really were playing this game on the hardest difficulty, weren’t we? I turned to this door. It was clear that the minotuar was bound to come after us again, and we definitely did not have the luxury of going back to where it was or to Kevin’s lovely traitorous group. That left the nasty goo covered door before us.
“Do you have any idea what this … Stuff… on this door is?”
Leah shook her head. “I read this while preparing for our written exams. It’s Monster Blood. The more that die, the more power the Rift loses. The Rift’s very blood gathered in one spot. When someone consumes monster blood, it is said that they become one themselves. We must slay them where they—“
“So it’s the Rift’s blood,” I cut her off, hovering my hand above a certain postule-like bump on the splatter. Something under its gelatin roiled towards my palm, like it was reaching for me, but it couldn’t break through. Fascinating. “‘Fraid we have no other option other than breaking this gooey door down and get through it.”
“You— Sister, surely we can go through another way?”
“Well, it’s either fight the big blind guy wrecking the place, or the fat kid with the crossbow.” I turned to her. Whatever emotion, or lack thereof, she saw on my face silenced her. “Or we get through here.”
Leah nodded. The trust in her eyes made me feel a little uneasy, but we needed to keep moving. If we stood in one place waiting for the boss to die, then we’d get killed by something here, be it the minotaur or that Invader who might be lurking around.
“I trust you, Sister,” Leah murmured. She drew her sword and stood guard. “Do what you must.”
I barely knew what to do. In fact, using my status points was only thing I knew. That was painfully obvious. I had been wondering what else Wisdom was for, and it seemed like it was for these nasty blood slime gatherings. Well, here goes. 85 status points into Wisdom, the rest into Constitution.
This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.
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Kathleen Ravenclast
Human Healer, level 8
Attack Power: 180 (F)
Magical Power: 135 (F)
Constitution: 359 (F)
Wisdom: 100 (F)
Movement Speed: 40 (F)
———————————————
A new notification popped up. No, I realized that it was the tag on the Coagulated Monster Blood that had updated itself. “Dewy” was a tier, probably tied to the [1], I guessed. It had turned into an ominous prompt.
———————————————
— Conditions met. Absorb Dewy Coagulated Monster Blood [1]? Y/N
———————————————
While I was busy pondering whether or not I should, something loud shook the entire cavern again, like a lane of cars piled up and crunching up together. Leah’s stance tensed, but she readied her sword for anything. She still was a level 2 Human Knight, bravely standing off against a shit storm we both could barely comprehend. I looked at the globs of crimson and grey goo stuck to the door again, then at the prompt. Ah, how much worse can it go from here? My eyes rested on that prompt, and I hit yes mentally.
My world instantly went red, and became filled with a deep agonizing tearing. My insides screamed; my hands reached out towards the postule I was inspecting by themselves. That’s when I saw the entire blob slowly begin to shoot directly into me. Tendrils of slurping noise reached out, plunging my being into an ice cold. They wrapped around my wrists, coiled around my calf, and pressed into every pore of my skin like needles.
Every inch of me felt like I was getting kissed by a jolt of static. I tried to gasp, but the alien feeling had scraped away at my throat. I felt my knees fall to the gravel, but the pain didn’t come. I looked inward, and saw the white world had transformed into a canvas of red threads and violet strands, like I was in an eyeball’s pupil seeing the capillaries connecting directly to the blue mana orb in my core.
The goo wasn’t just being absorbed into me, it mapped every part of me. I was forced out of my inner magical world, only to see the veins on my arms expanding and writhing, glowing in crimson fractal patterns. My body was being read by this strange Dewy Coagulated Monster Blood, arching from the sharp stabs. It felt like it was being intimate, physically learning my body from the inside out by the strange substance.
“Fuck.” I breathed, gasping.
The sound came out wrong, my vision fractured, and my insides felt like I was an imbalanced cup full of liquid. Tilting slightly gave me a huge headache, and I was completely aware of the texture inside of me rapidly changing. Then, after a final threading needle lanced inside my stomach, the alien feeling and the pain were both gone in an instant. My hand shot out to steady myself, and felt stone.
“Kathleen?” Leah’s voice came from behind me. “Are you— Are you alright?”
“Y-Yeah, give me a second. Used a lot of my magic,” I moaned. The residual shock rippled through my body, straight to the stone slab I was leaning on. A red dot awaited me right above the plus symbol in the bottom corner of my eye. I supposed that was what it meant by absorb. I didn’t feel like a monster, and nothing in my Plus Menu said otherwise.
———————————————
Notifications
> Host has successfully absorbed Dewy Coagulated Monster Blood [1]. Host has gained 350 status points. [Total: 350 status points]
> Host has leveled up! [Level 9]
———————————————
Crazy work for this big payout, I thought. Absorbing that thing hurt like hell.
“The blood, it’s gone— You—” Leah faltered. It felt like she was fishing for something heretical. Her sword was tilted slightly at me, ready to clear its scabbard and she was looking at me with an odd, unfounded hint of suspicion. “Did you heal it?”
“No, I— I think my magic cleansed it.” I lied.
The sword subtly pointed away, allowing me to breathe again. Damn bird and your unwavering devotion. I really didn’t want to be the slayer of my entire party on my first outing, though it appeared to be commonplace here. I didn’t even realize I had my hand on Kieron’s dagger on my hip. I pressed my hand against an exposed slot on the clean door.
A tiny shift rumbled underneath us, and dust shook off from the stone slab as it began to vibrate. Clicking noises scuttled within the walls. It was the intricate tiny mechanisms that pulled the door’s slab panel into the wall, revealing the chamber ahead.
“Well, now that that’s done we can power on through,” I shuddered, shaking the last vestiges of the monster blood absorption clinging to my bones. It felt like my body was tighter, stronger, and leaner. But that could be from the level up as well.
“There’s other paths to the Boss’s entrance,” Leah said, nodding. “Sister, we’re nearing the end.”
Before I could tell her to not jinx it, the ground quaked right as we were about to hurry down the path. A resounding boom, like a firework just exploded, flooded the hallway ahead. A chorus of screams, sounding oddly musical and haunting like a discordant opera playing, tore through the halls. An unprompted Plus Menu screen appeared in the middle of my vision.
———————————————
— Rift ID: [E|E|L|A|N1048AB] Boss has been defeated. —
—Warning: The Mutation seeks you out with new fervor. —
———————————————
I swore again, hefting my staff up. That minotaur is after us even after the boss was killed? Salty bastard. I grabbed Leah’s shoulder and nodded with a warning.
“We’re not safe yet, that minotaur monster is still chasing us. We gotta go.”
“How do you— Hey!” Leah cried out as I dragged her forward.
A second later, the ground began to tremble even more intensely. The weight of something large and very angry was suffocating the air of this hallway, and it had seen us. Leah was a smart girl, so she took off running with me. The Plus Menu tag on the great shadow behind us revealed the minotaur’s strength to me.
———————————————
— The Armoured One’s Emissary, level 12 [Frenzied] [Rift Dilation]
———————————————
We ran into the wider hall. It was an open space, double the size of the corridors we’ve been running around in. Archways spanned above them, with pillars supporting them. Leah used her [Ravenclast Slash] on the pillars as we passed by, smashing them like mailboxes. I chased after her shining blade, weaving through the wreckage and considered adding more points to Movement Speed. The hall was soon collapsing on itself, but it barely slowed the minotaur. How did it have a lock on me? Was it literally smelling my blood?
An involuntary shudder shook through me as I slid under a falling pile of stone bricks. The labyrinth twisted cruelly into another corridor full of broken columns. A faint blue light was filtering through a narrow crevice along the left side wall. It had to be the Boss entranceway. We were close. I risked a glance over my shoulder. An enormous rock was sent hurling at us, followed by the gutteral, gurgling minotaur’s roar.
“Watch out!” I shoved Leah to the side, just in time.
The rock slung by, crashing into a stone pillar. I staggered, nearly letting go of my staff. The beast’s muscular hand shot out from the darkness like a viper, smashing down on the archway from above. The shockwave knocked me over completely, my feet leaving the ground as I slammed to the ancient stone. Pain and breathlessness hurled through my body. Leah yanked me, hauling me to my feet. Her face was bloody from a rock fragment.
A puff of air jetted out from its grotesque, ugly head as it crawled towards us. It had a triumphant look on its face, its “eyes” full of nothing but murky blackness. It thundered towards us, a massive tidal wave of brown fur and grey clammy muscle. Its horns gouged through the columns effortlessly.
“Move it,” Leah hissed, her voice raw from screaming her skill name repeatedly. My ribs were on fire, and I looked down. My uniform was shredded up, and a lovely bloody wound slashed across my chest. The roar came again, and I stumbled to a full sprint.
The light that filtered through was indeed the Boss entranceway. Even through the cracks, I could see a Portal, undoubtedly the exit. Our salvation. I found the narrow crack in the wall. It was going to scrape us when we got through, but it was a way out. Leah skidded to a halt after me.
“Come on, Leah, we get through here and go.” I turned to drag her, only to have a glass vial thrust into my hand. A potion. “No. No, Leah, you—“
“No time,” Leah smiled a terrible smile. The Fortress Ground activated right under our feet. “I— I can’t fit through that gap.”
“Just smash through it!” I cried over the furious roars of the minotaur. Leah shook her head, raising her sword and taking a defensive, yet futile, stance against the darkness.
“Make it out alive for me, Sister. And tell Lady Emily, I never forgot her kindness.”
I weakly let go of her wrist, and nodded. She stood facing the entrance where the minotaur was, looking defiant. I tossed my staff through and squeezed myself in the crevice, tearing at the wound on my chest, but I didn’t look back. Something slick wet my eyes, as I heard her let out a war cry. I slipped through, only to hear a deafening crunch behind me. Through the crack, I saw Leah turn to a bloody mess, instantly gone. Her name became a silent scream in my throat.
———————————————
— Temporary Party Member “Leah Ravenclast, level 2,” has been slain.
———————————————
You poor, stupid bird! I found myself shaking. And the world twisted into shadows and greyness. She was my only friend, and now— I was alone again. What was new with that except everything? I didn’t hear or feel the glass from the potion cracking as I gripped it tightly. The ground shook, forcing me to move.
As I turned to rush to the portal, it began to glow red, before fizzling out into an inactive stony construct, suspended high in the air. You have got to be kidding me, I groaned. Does the Rift want me to face the minotaur? As if the universe heard my inner complaints, pounding and roaring came from the other side. Fissures began to spread along the wall and then it collapsed completely in a cataclysmic explosion of stone.