・ ・ Chapter 134: Cloud Zone
“Ahem, so I know we had the cores stolen, and really easily at that, but I believe it"s time we move on and proceed to exploring this new zone”
I had on a dead, glazed look as I declared in a dead, monotone expression.
The cores, which could be called our lifeline, were all taken, but no party member had been injured. Thinking practically, we should start moving again so as to not fall behind.
The goma fortress battle had us running around a tonne trying to somehow escape, so we hadn"t gotten any good weapons or parts from there.
I"d personally very much like to have more parts to add to Rem. Since, depending on those, she might become strong enough to fight off Sugino and Ooyama. Rem was, in my belief, the most reliable ally I had, and the stronger she could get, the more at ease I could be.
“C"mon guys, it"s not the end of the world, give me a response”
“It feels worse dude”
Right, I felt the same, my motivation was at an all time low. Like we"d gotten super rare gear after finis.h.i.+ng off a raid boss only to have said gear stolen by small-fry punks.
“I know you feel down, we all do, but we"ve had enough brake time. We should get moving, staying here will only keep us depressed”
“Haah… He"s got a point”
“Ahh, this day f.u.c.king sucks”
Ueda and Nakai stood to leave, despite their irritation. s.h.i.+mokawa followed, and the usual trio was all convinced.
“Yamadkun, you alright? If you"re still not feeling up to it, we can stay a while longer”
“… I"m fine”
He was instKO"ed by Sugino, so the shock of it must"ve been getting to him. He had a dark look on his face. It was probably the first time in a while that he felt pain since his Heavy Fighter Job granted him a lot of immunity to it.
Now the question was whether Yamada will become scared and useless for our battles to come, or whether he"ll use this experience to grow… I wanted to hope positively, but, s.h.i.+t man, it"ll be a problem if our tank can"t tank. I"ll have to make sure he doesn"t go down that path, such a pain.
Hmm, I"ll throw this one at Yamajun.
“Everyone set? Let"s go”
Those h.o.m.o lovers Sugino and Ooyama had left a few hours ago with their stuff, so I didn"t think we"d meet again. They looked like they knew how to get out of this zone while we had to start from scratch. If we did meet again though, I had no doubt it"d become a bloodbath. Let"s try not to let that happen.
But rather than those super strong gays, we should focus on how to clear this zone. We"d literally just gotten shown that we hadn"t become tough stuff in the least. And if our caution and morale also drops, we might really get annihilated by a munch of small-fry monsters.
“Woah, what"s with this place”
“s.h.i.+t"s bizarre, it"s all fluffy”
“Dude, it"s like some kinda theme park”
“Waah~, it"s clouds everywhere~”
Right outside the square, we all voiced our impressions of this area that was completely new to us.
Reina was right, it did look like clouds everywhere. Like some sort of cloud kingdom that you could maybe find in an amus.e.m.e.nt part recreating a fairy tale land.
From the size and shapes of the pa.s.sages and empty rooms, it seemed like a normal dungeon zone was covered by this soft and fluffy stuff all over the walls to make it resemble clouds. I tried jabbing my knife into one of the cus.h.i.+on-like walls and it slipped through easily. The wall had the consistency of a sponge.
“This isn"t the sort of place were used to, and I think we"ll be seeing new types of monsters here too. Keep an eye out”
We advanced through the cloud zone, wary of our surroundings.
Some time pa.s.sed, and we hadn"t encountered anything. I considered if Sugino and Ooyama, who went ahead a while ago, thinned out their numbers, but then there were no signs of fighting anywhere, not one corpse, or any blood. The place was pure white and spotless.
Man, I was kinda getting sleepy with all the soft and white around…
“Khruuu”
When my attention was waning, Raptor gave a cry from beside me. I was going to have Raptor act as proper combat potential for us, so I was not riding on it.
“Rem, what"s up?”
“Oi look, something"s coming out of the walls!”
Before Rem could respond, Ueda who was on point gave the answer. Looks like we got company.
“Oi oi, what"s up with this stuffed costume fella?”
“This cloud thing"s giving me the creeps”
Our two vanguards, Ueda and Yamada, were the first to let out their impressions of these new monsters. Monsters that looked like fluffy costumed people, cloud creatures.
They seemed to be made of the same cloudy stuff that const.i.tuted the walls, and they were around as tall as a short man. With a big head and small arms and legs, these cloud sponge creatures looked pretty deformed despite the overall human shape.
They had no weapons, and moved slow like zombies. But ―― there were way too many.
“Momokawa, do I go up front?!”
“No, they"re coming from the back too, stay here Nakai-kun. You"ll need to help s.h.i.+mok.a.w.kun and Raptor”
“Got it!”
“Sure thing, dude”
“Rem, arrows, Yamajun, some sagittas please”
We"ll start off with ranged. They looked like arrows wouldn"t affect them at all, but let"s test out how much punishment these cloud creatures can――
“Moaaaaahhh!”
Rem"s arrow and Yamajun"s bolt of light each struck a different cloud creature. And as they did, the creatures let out low-pitched, sort of pathetic sounding groans as they collapsed.
“Wait, they"re weak?”
“Let"s round up some kills”
“After Yamajun"s second shot, go for it!”
I put down Rotten Bog behind us while casting support for the vanguard duo. I also had Rem switch out to Nonomiya"s lance and join them.
“Now, GO――”
We finished off the cl.u.s.ter of cloud creatures in a matter of minutes.
They didn"t heal if damaged, couldn"t revive when killed, and hadn"t shown any ability to get super strong or fast after a certain point. They were simply defeated, nothing more or less.
“They really were weak. Weaker than skeles”
Their slow, dawdling gait made them seem like matango but without the poison. Like, I could beat them in melee, and that"s saying something. They were by far the weakest monsters I"d ever seen in the whole dungeon.
“f.u.c.k, not one d.a.m.n core drop”
“Not really unexpected, these things are weak as kittens”
“Literally too weak, my dudes”
We hadn"t sustained a single scratch, but then again, hadn"t attained anything either. We couldn"t hope to get any level up bonuses beating these either, it just felt like a waste of effort.
Wait, what if we somehow arrived at a noob zone of the dungeon?
That"s what I began thinking as we monotonously BTFO"d the occasional collection of cloud creatures coming our way as we carried on walking.
“… Well, this doesn"t look suspicious at all”
We arrived at a large hall made with the same fluffy cloud stuff on its walls… But inside, it was filled with this pink smoke.
I"d seen a bit of fog in the basilisk"s acidic swamp zone, and we"d seen it for days in the goma jungle zone, and every time, it looked like naturally occurring fog. Meanwhile, this not so thick, but clearly pink substance in the air was in no way not suspicious.
“Oi, what is this even”
“It"s gotta be something every time”
“Hmm, doesn"t stink at least, seems alright dudes”
“Ah, r.e.t.a.r.d! Why"re ya smelling that s.h.i.+t!”
I couldn"t believe my eyes, those three idiots just waltzed in there.
“Come back!”
“Don"t be such a wuss man”
“Yeaah, this pink stuff"s got nothing on us”
“Momokawa, dude, chill a bit”
It apparently didn"t smell, and the trio seem to be fine walking inside. I"m just glad it wasn"t some instant kill smog like the stuff that basilisk released.
“You three would be dead if this was poison gas. Even if you don"t feel anything now, this might be the slow-acting kind. You never know right? It just might. Ahh, I"m so sorry, I don"t have any meds for this. You"ll probably die very painfully in the next half day or so, so I"ll hear out any last requests if you have them”
“Haah, quit that bs”
“You trynna give us a li"l scare?”
“Maybe you forgot, I have a little thing called Intuition Pharmacy ”
“AH!!”
“Eh, wait no, really?”
“Haah… I don"t think it"ll help, but you wanna have some antidote anyway?”
“Oh, no… dude, Momokawa, dude, you"re, kidding right?”
“I am”
“You little f.u.c.k!”
“f.u.c.k you, Momokawa!”
“DUDE, I thought I was gonna DIE!!”
“Yeah, sorry I lied, but please try not stepping inside weird smoke from now on, alright? If it"s some new kind of trap, we"ll all be done for”
And so, after convincing those three to not rush in blind, we stopped and started thinking on how to make it through the pink.
“So, you"re sure this fog isn"t poisonous, right Momok.a.w.kun?”
“Donno, quite honestly. Intuition Pharmacy isn"t reacting and well, those guys just proved that it"s at least not the fast acting sort”
Now, what ever to do. My lie could actually be a truth and it might just be slow-acting poison gas, but I didn"t buy it. It wasn"t Intuition Pharmacy telling me, but my plain old intuition.
That said, I couldn"t believe it"d be just harmless, colored fog. It might not directly cause death, but could have any number of other effects on us.
At times like this, I"d really appreciate if we had Takanas.h.i.+ Kotori, the Sage"s, Mana a.n.a.lysis skill. That really was the better version of my Intuition Pharmacy, wasn"t it? If the thing had mana, whether it be spells, items, or even phenomena, she could get all the info she wanted.
“I"m actually more worried about any monsters that could be hiding inside than what the fog itself might do”
“True, I can"t see that far inside, it"s thick”
“s.h.i.+mok.a.w.kun, can you?”
“I can only see through the one my magic makes, dudes”
Well, can"t say I didn"t try.
“This place looks too risky, you guys want to try another way?”
“No, I kind of feel like every path in this zone will lead to a place like this”
“Ok… So we go in?”
Hmm, I really don"t want to jump in without any plan first. Although, speaking of other things we could try…
“I got it, we can send in Rem to scout”
“Sounds good, nice idea, Momok.a.w.kun”
No, c"mon don"t flatter me so. Actually, you could even blame me for being slow in the head and not thinking of this first.
That aside, in addition to being immune to poisons, it didn"t matter if Rem died physically, so she was perfect for this sort of job.
“Go for it, Rem”
“GUGAGA!”
And once she dashed away inside, we endured the task of waiting, for a whole minute.
“GUGAGA!”
“Wow, back so fast”
I had no reason to doubt Rem"s diligence, which just meant that the hall wasn"t all that much inside.
“Is there a way out?”
“GAGA”
She nodded and made a circle with her hand, the sign for ‘yes".
“Only one?”
“GA”
She shook her head and made an X. There was 2 or more exits, meaning multiple paths could be merging here.
“Fork in two?”
“GA”
“Three?”
“GAGA”
“Any obelisk or object of interest?”
“GA”
“Any trees or cover that monsters could hide in?”
“GA”
“Nothing at all?”
“GAGA”
“Is it bigger than a forest dome?”
“GA”
“Less than a dome, but double a fairy square?”
“GAGA”
“You see any boss rooms ahead of the three exits?”
“GA”
“Ok, got it. Thanks a bunch, Rem, attagirl”
I gently stroked her skull top while summarizing the earlier conversation.
“We"re gonna find exits on 3 directions after we enter, there"s nothing of note inside, and it shouldn"t be a big deal―― I think we should go for it”
No one seemed particularly opposed.
I decided our current destination to be the exit opposite to where we were. We should reach it by just walking straight.
Just for extra rea.s.surance, I had Rem go and make sure. Yup, we just had to walk in a straight line.
“Okay, since I said it"s fine, I"ll go in first”
“Are you sure, Momok.a.w.kun? You might get attacked suddenly, so maybe we should start with Yamada”
“No it"s fine. I know you"re all feeling nervous. Besides, I trust Rem”
I claimed, as I straddled Raptor, leaving the worried looking Yamajun, and the fidgeting-as-they-await-their-turn others, behind.
Since I"m on Raptor, I won"t lose my way or stray from the straight path. As for Rem, it"d be her third time going, so there was one more a.s.surance.
“Aand were here… literally, nothing happened”
“GUGA, GAGAGA”
Rem nodded vigorously to that. Now the three of us, Rem, Raptor and I, had safely traversed across the pink room.
I figured they could all come over together, but we did say we"d go in turns, so let"s stick to that. I couldn"t be sure there wasn"t a trap that triggered if there was two or more of us going at once.
“He~y! whoever"s next, you can go ahea~d!”
It felt like I was calling the next in line to a rickety old rope bridge. The distance wasn"t very big, so they should hear me if I shout.
“Got i~t! I"m ne~xt!”
The reply was from Ueda. Now that he knew I"d crossed over safely, his voice didn"t hint to any nervousness.
“…”
He was, taking a while. The path should"ve been a straight line, but Ueda still hadn"t arrived.
I confirmed on my G-Shock watch that we"d gone past a whole minute already. Strange, this was too strange. The path across wasn"t any more than 50 meters.
There was a trap, something happened. But I couldn"t hear anything indicative of that. Dammit, I"ll call him myself then.
“Uedku~n! You alri~ght?!”
“Got i~t!”
In spite of my worry, he"d responded immediately. He didn"t sound particularly in trouble; he"d replied normally, like the first time.
“Did you get lost in there?”
“Got i~t!”
“Alright, but I"ll send in Rem to get you, wait where you are, kay?”
“Got i~t! I"m ne~xt!”
My spine instantly froze over. That wasn"t Ueda talking!
The voice was just like his, but he kept saying the same thing. The exact same thing, in fact, that he said in reply to my first call. It was as if, his voice had been recorded and played back――
“s.h.i.+t! Rem, we gotta go!”
I got on Raptor again and went back inside the pink room. Maybe Ueda was attacked by a well hidden monster.
I"d gone in ready for the fight of my life but…
“What the!? Th-there"s no one here!?”
I"d made it back to the pa.s.sage I started at. And no one, none of the people who were supposed to be waiting their turn were there.
“Why, how did they… HE~Y! GUYS! ANYONE!!”
My yelling only echoed on the walls, uselessly.
But there was one thing. As if it was reacting to my voice, all the pink gas in the hall dispersed.
“s.h.i.+t, s.h.i.+t, we"ve been had… No one"s there anymore…”
The fog gone, I could confirm with my own eyes that the room was exactly as Rem said. I could confirm that there wasn"t any form of cover, so my party wasn"t hidden anywhere in the large hall either. The place was empty.