Chapter 65 (1/2)

Ch. 65: Meeting Again After Running

Slimes were slow.

That couldn’t be said in general, considering the wall of slimes that was closing in on Loren from behind, but normal slimes were indeed sluggish.

That was why Loren guessed that maybe instead of dealing with every single slime that they came across, running through at a pace they wouldn’t get caught would be the correct way to explore a slime infested dungeon.

That was how fast Loren was running after they separated from Ain and his party.

Of course, the wall of slimes didn’t let him run slower, but Loren slipped past slimes that reached for his feet, dodged ones that dropped from above, and dashed through the dungeon using only the light from his torch as his guide.

“Loren, do you have a destination in mind?”

Lapis asked Loren as she turned back every now and then, checking the distance between them and the slimes, and Loren answered her without dropping speed.

“Not really.”

“Yeah, I knew that…”

The map that they had received didn’t help at all.

Loren was running through the corridors so fast that they couldn’t pinpoint where their current location was.

Since they lost their location, and with nothing but stone walls and floors everywhere, there was nothing to distinguish them and no signs of anything they could use to find it.

On top of that, they couldn’t even use the method of putting your hand on the wall.

The method only worked for the outer wall, but they didn’t know which wall was the outer one.

To put it simply, they were lost.

“What do you think happened to them?”

At first Lapis didn’t know what Loren was talking about, but then realized that he was talking about Ain and the others and sighed.

“Hey stop that. You’re tickling my neck.”

“Oh, sorry about that. I don’t care at all. They won’t be of any help in this situation anyway.”

Just because they went off in a side corridor didn’t mean that they were safe.

A portion of the slimes could have gone after them, or they could’ve run into another pack of them.

But regardless of whether they survived or not, it didn’t change Loren and Lapis’ current situation.

“Rather than that Loren, you’ve been running for quite a while now, but are you okay?”

His bag and equipment, including his great sword.

On top of that, Loren was running with Lapis on his back as well.

Lapis knew that constantly running with such weight on his back would be sapping his strength.

She became worried about him, but Loren didn’t seem to slow down at all.

“The battlefield is a harsh place.”

Wet sounds erupted from under Loren’s feet since he was crushing slimes under his feet.

If he slowed down, he would get caught by the slimes, but if he ran too fast, he could slip and crash onto the ground along with Lapis.

Loren’s skillfulness on his movements and body balance, making him not got too fast nor too slow, made it seem like every mercenary could do so.

“It’s said that the ones who run out of steam die first. That’s why the first thing we were trained on was to continue running. We had to wear equipment and hold bags, and sometimes even other members. Your weight is nothing compared to them.”

“About that Loren.”

Lapis tried to change subject, but her words were cut off by a sudden floating sensation.

When Lapis looked around, wondering what happened, her blood ran cold when she saw that Loren had ran right into a hole in the middle of the corridor.

Running into traps usually meant death, but Loren easily landed at the bottom and continued running.

Instead of being a trap of instant death, apparently it was just a hole that forced victims to a lower level.

Lapis was relieved when she realized that, but her expression hardened again as she realized that they had jumped down to the eighth floor.

“What was that?”

When Loren, who stayed calm, either not realizing they were on the next floor or didn’t care, asked Lapis, she remembered what she was going to say and started to talk, but saw the numerous slimes coming down the hole like a waterfall and tapped Loren’s shoulder.

“They’re coming Loren!”

“They won’t stop chasing just because the floor changed, huh…”

As Loren muttered bitterly as he sped up, Lapis leaned forward, put her lips right next to Loren’s ear, and told him what she had meant to tell him earlier.

“It’s about my arms and legs not moving.”

“Out of mana?”

“No, there’s enough mana in the area. Way more than enough, actually.”

Lapis’ limbs, which ran on mana, weren’t moving, but she said that there was enough mana around them.

Nothing came to Loren’s mind, since he wasn’t a priest or a magician, but he did understand that it was strange.

“What do you mean?”

“Would you understand if I told you that they aren’t functioning properly because the mana around us is too thick?”

He didn’t completely understand, but he did get what she was trying to say.

Anything could be harmful when it was too abundant, and it seemed that in their current situation, it was mana.

“Do you know the cause?”

“No. But if you can buy me some time, I could possibly adjust them.”

“Time, huh.”

Loren glanced back.

The wave of slimes that was chasing after them even after dropping down, was still coming after them without slowing down.