DEEP-FLOOR SURVIVAL
This all happened before we discovered the spring on the thirty-seventh floor.
“I’m afraid it’s not looking good…”
While we wander through the depths, hoping for hope, Lyu mutters something, her chin pressed into my shoulder.
“What is it, Ms. Lyu?”
“The dead gave us so much. Equipment, items, and even a little food. But there’s one thing we still haven’t procured…”
We just ate some moldy rye bread together and washed it down with a couple of discolored potions. Lyu leaves a suitably dramatic pause before her next utterance.
“…Water.”
That single word reminds me of how distinctly dry my throat feels. Even superhuman upper-class adventurers aren’t immune to hunger and thirst. Miss Eina taught me that water is even more necessary for the body than food.
In an extreme survival scenario, a lack of water is a death sentence.
I’m reminded now of the uncomfortable scratchiness that plagued my throat while we were fighting horde after horde of monsters.
“If we don’t procure some fluids soon,” says Lyu, “the thirst will get us long before the monsters do.”
“Are there any springs or anything like that on the thirty-seventh floor?”
“No,” says Lyu, dashing my hopes. “These floors are similar to the Cave Labyrinth. There may be a pantry, but nothing more.”
The pantry crystals secrete a fluid that monsters feed on. Unfortunately, this fluid isn’t safe for us to drink, causing heavy blistering and vomiting. Even if we could fight our way to one, which we obviously can’t, only death would await us there.
I never thought I’d miss the Water Capital so much, and I was just there. I gulp, but swallowing my own saliva does nothing to slake my parched throat.
“………”
Lyu’s lips are pursed like she’s thinking hard about something. Suddenly, she lifts her eyes, revealing determination, and begins searching.
“Um…Ms. Lyu…?”
Her keen, blue eyes pierce the inky darkness of the Dungeon. She leads the search, and as soon as we come to a large room of rough, ivory stone, Lyu pulls me into a shadow.
“Found some,” she whispers.
I follow her gaze and see a group of monsters, amorphous blobs, sticking to the walls. If they hadn’t been pointed out to me, I’m not sure I would have managed to register them as a threat.
“They’re…oozes!” I remark.
The ooze is a rare monster that only starts to appear on the deep floors and below. Also known as a slime, it comes in many varieties—such as red, white, and green—but each one has the same mucus body.
“The yellow ones are acidic,” says Lyu. “We’re looking for the blue ones.”
This room seems to be their breeding ground or something, because the walls are covered in them, softly glowing in many different colors.
An ooze’s primary means of attack is the poison or acid stored in its mucus, the precise nature of which depends on the ooze’s color. The worst are those that enter the body through the ears, nose, or mouth. Once inside, they dissolve the victim’s organs, causing a slow and painful death. It’s said to be one of the top five most excruciating ways the Dungeon can kill you.
Luckily, they are slow and pose little threat so long as you spot them first. I heard the hardest part is finding a way to deal damage. Their liquid forms make it a lot more complicated compared to other monsters. Some of the few ways include burning or freezing with spells or magic swords…
Shnk.
…or piercing the magic stone inside their body with a long, sharp weapon.
Spying one of the creatures moving around on the ground, Lyu seizes the opportunity and lunges for it, shortsword in hand. Her blade plunges into the ooze’s gelatinous flesh, its tip piercing the amethyst crystal that serves as the monster’s core.
The ooze quivers, then collapses into a molten puddle.
This is the monster’s drop item—ooze fluid. It’s literally just the creature itself.
What confuses me most, however, is what happens next.
“Huh?!”
As I watch on in abject shock, Lyu marches over to the dead ooze and scoops up its remains using a soot-covered waterskin she picked up off the adventurer corpses.
I feel violently sick as I ponder why. Surely not…
Lyu, meanwhile, silently fills the container to its brim. I get the feeling she’s putting on a brave face. Once she’s done, she tells me, “We’re retreating,” and the two of us exit the room before the other monsters notice us.
“I need fire.”
My fears are confirmed.
We move to another room, and Lyu damages the wall to create an improvised safe zone. After that, she looks me in the eye, completely serious. In one hand, she holds the ooze-filled waterskin. At her feet are a bunch of rocks and kindling we made out of drop items.
A bead of sweat works its way down my face.
“…What are you going to do with fire?” I ask.
“We’re going to boil the ooze.”
“…What are we going to do after we boil it?”
“Drink it, of course.”
I feel faint.
The mere thought of eating monster flesh fills me with primal revulsion, as it should any right-minded person. It’s the same kind of aversion to tasting human meat.
“What are you so afraid of?” Lyu asks me. “You know the potions you drink are created using ingredients from monsters, right?”
I mean, you’re not wrong, but doesn’t that feel different? It’s one thing to drink a colorful liquid that technically contains some ground-up blue papillon scales or whatever but quite another to consume monster meat as is!
And wait…fire? You mean…Firebolt?
Wait…I can’t…I’m not…!
I admit, we don’t have any flint on us. And I admit, my spell does create fire. But my magic was not made for cooking up monster stew!!
“Just do it.”
“M-Ms. Lyu, I really do think—”
“Now.”
…She looks angry.
…She’s not joking.
Lyu’s on high alert for any monsters, and she knows that every second counts.
The problem is, Firebolt won’t just start a fire—it’ll blast our stove apart and fling us both halfway across the room.
I need to cast the weakest Firebolt I can muster. Oh dear. There’s a first time for everything, I suppose…
“F-Firebolt…”
There’s a disappointing squib, and a tiny flame falls from my fingers, setting our bonfire alight. Lyu says nothing as she sets the waterskin atop it.
Such is life on the deep floors.
…Is it? I can’t help feeling this is a different matter entirely. Dammit, I don’t know what’s going on anymore.
And I also can’t help feeling that all this chaos is making me moodier than usual, but whatever. I can’t be bothered to fix that right now.
At last, Lyu seems to think that the ooze has boiled enough, and she lifts the waterskin from the fire and hands it to me.
“Drink.”
Why do I feel like I’ve seen this somewhere before? Like something about a moldy old potion…?
She’s not just using me to make sure it’s safe to drink…right?
I’m sure it’s because I’ve had to exert myself the most recently and, thus, am most in need of hydration. Her kindness truly moves me to tears. Seriously, I’m crying.
I steel my nerves and take the flask in hand.
“Urg…”
The gel-like substance struggles to make it down my throat. The taste is awful. So much so I’m hard-pressed to say if I hate this or the potion more! “My Immunity ability will save me…” is what I wish I could say, but I don’t have that confidence!
My eyes wet with tears, I somehow manage to choke down the much-needed fluid and pass the remainder of the flask to Lyu. She hesitates for a moment, then downs it in one gulp and breaks out coughing just like I did.
“…Did you have to do things like this when you were down here with Astrea Familia?” I ask.
“Of course not. One of my former party members once lent me a book she’d borrowed from the Guild library. It was written by an adventurer who became trapped down here like us and used this method to survive…That prum wanted to try it herself, but it turned out so bad that she came at us, tears in her eyes, going, ‘Taste the hell I tasted!’”
“And what happened?”
“We fought her off.”
Figures.
I do wonder if Lyu is starting to lose her mind down here as well. She even did different voices and everything.
She smiles as if that one recollection brought back a wave of nostalgia.
“But thanks to her, we’ll make it through this…”
Still smiling, she brings the canteen to her lips.
Then she freezes.
She eyes the rim. The very same rim I drank from.
“Oh…”
I realize it, too, a little too late.
“…Erm…are elves concerned about that sort of thing…?” I ask.
“…Mr. Cranell. We are on the deep floors. This is neither the time nor the place.”
“I-I’m sorry.”
She’s right. I let my shoulders fall in apology.
Lyu drinks from the waterskin like it’s nothing, then gets to her feet and beckons me onward.
Of course we’re concerned about it…!
As Bell carried her, Lyu did her best to hide her reddening face from him. This was a matter of life and death. It was hardly the place to be acting like a blushing young maid.
What an embarrassment. She couldn’t allow Bell to see.
And so, battling with the humiliation in her heart, Lyu did her best to keep her long ears from overheating.
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