Chapter 64 (1/2)

Ch. 64: Sudden Changes After Continuing

While Loren’s thoughts were elsewhere, Ain and his party continued ahead.

They crushed or burned every slime that was in their way, since one had ambushed them and injured Ain, so their pace was slower than before, but they were still moving forward.

But their situation was getting worse.

Ain still had enough strength left to walk on his own, but since he had burns on his arm and left his shield behind, he wasn’t able to fight to his content.

And for Cloud, who was lending Ain his shoulder, it was already proven that his estoc wasn’t effective at all against slimes, so he couldn’t play his role as a front line properly.

But Al and Feim were able to drive away the slimes, so they could still manage to continue.

But even that was due to them having oil and fire, and even if they managed to keep the flames, they didn’t have an unlimited supply of oil.

The oil was fuel for the lantern as well and they had to leave some for the way back, so they had to use it sparingly.

“This is going downhill.”

Lapis muttered while clinging onto Loren’s back.

Cloud and Ain gave them harsh looks, thinking that they were flirting with each other without considering time and place, but Loren was sensing something wrong with Lapis, as she didn’t let go at all.

At first Lapis continued to dodge his questions, but when Loren kept on asking, she finally told him what was going on.

She told him that her limbs, which were prosthetics, weren’t moving properly.

After she explained that she was clinging onto his body to hide it, Loren immediately decided to carry her on his back.

Loren had experienced a situation where Lapis couldn’t move her limbs before.

She couldn’t move them because a spell that dissipated mana was used, and since her prosthetics ran on mana, they malfunctioned temporarily, and she couldn’t move.

So, Loren thought that the same thing was happening, but Lapis shook her head.

“It’s not that there isn’t any mana. It’s more like it’s not transmitting properly…”

Looking at Lapis not giving him a clear answer, Loren guessed that she wasn’t fully aware of what was going on.

“I can move them if I try really hard, so drop me in the case of an emergency.”

Although Lapis whispered that to Loren, there was a reason why he didn’t want to carry her on his back.

It was because they had no idea where the slimes could attack from.

Slimes were made of mucus so they could climb almost anywhere and crawl into the smallest of cracks.

Whether it be in the trees or inside stone walls, they climbed and crawled into any place they could and attacked their prey.

He had only been against slimes in the battlefield, but he had seen mercenaries and soldiers being killed by slimes that fell from trees, jumped out of openings in baggage, or jumped out from within piles of bodies.

If such slimes existed in a dungeon.

Loren understood that it was a place that was full of places to hide and ambush.

Hanging on the ceiling and dropping on the heads of prey that pa.s.sed below, oozing and reaching out of cracks in the walls, and since there were cracks on the floor as well, there was no telling where they could attack from.

In this situation, carrying Lapis on his back, which was his biggest blind spot, meant that it increased the danger for both, so it made him even more anxious.

On top of that, the students that he was proctoring would keep on looking at him, thinking that they were flirting.

It was a situation which anyone would flinch at, and it wasn’t a good atmosphere.

“Hey, why don’t we head back?”

“Shut up you perverted b.a.s.t.a.r.d.”

They continued searching for a while, and whether they were lucky or unlucky, a short while after they found the dead girl’s body, they came across the stairs to the seventh floor.

Ain and the others were happy at first, but what awaited them at the bottom of the stairs was a denser population of slimes than the floor above.

“Is the sixth floor and below breeding grounds for slimes, by any chance?”

“I don’t think so…”

Feim answered Loren, who sounded fed up as he saw the innumerable slimes on the walls and floor, with surprise in her voice.

“…Isn’t this bad? Even if we reach the bottom, will we have enough oil to get back to the surface?”

Cloud started complaining, but Al pointed to his bag and answered.

“There’s still enough oil in my bag. It’s okay, it should be enough for the way back.”

“Why do you have so much oil?”

“It’s a dungeon. I thought we would get lost. So, I brought a lot more oil than we would normally need. Good thing I did.”

“But if this goes on, wouldn’t it become impossible to go forward?”

Al answered Ain’s justified question with confidence.

“Parme and her group will probably have gotten rid of a bit already, and there’s no reason for us to deal with every single one of them.”

“They could’ve headed back after that girl died…”

“Then they should have b.u.mped into us. We didn’t meet them, so it means that they are still ahead of us.”

Ain and Cloud couldn’t find any words of refute, so they looked at each other, nodded, and started moving.

Feim looked at the three of them with worry, but still chased after them, while Loren watched their backs for a while before he started slowly walking after them.

“Hey, this isn’t related to your body part, right?”

As he asked Lapis while walking after Ain and the others, Lapis shuddered on top of his back.

He turned, thinking that something had occurred to her, but when their eyes met, Lapis shook her head over and over.