บท 13: First Run
Ryo reached the eye of Orario, or rather what was to him an eyesore. Honestly, he didn't know why Daedalus had to be so dramatic in creating Babel Tower and making it as tall as he did. Ryo much preferred the biblical portrayals of the centre of the world than this thing. Ryo had wondered a few times if Daedalus had designed the tower like this just because he was 'compensating' for something.
Considering the old bastard became mad enough to curse his own bloodline in the end, Ryo guessed he didn't miss the mark by far.
But that was not what he was focusing on at that particular moment in time. For he had reached a bit of a crowd that was based around the entrance to Babel tower and it turned out that there was indeed a good reason for why so many people had come there. Well...he'd already been given the answer by the bald little boy just a short while back but Ryo had not connected the dots.
Assembled right before Babel's entrance was a certain gathering of a few certain characters he easily recognized belonging to a particular Familia. These adventurers were gathered around wagons, crates and packs, and stood atop one of these crates was what looked to be a young boy. Some would say he looked no older than a 12 year old human boy but Ryo knew better.
The young 'boy' had short blonde hair and blue eyes, and clutched in his left hand was a spear that looked far too long for him to be able to use probably. Ryo had wondered at one point how long that Fortia spear was compared to his Hiten...as it turned out, Hiten was definitely longer. The boy's other hand was stretched out in front of him in a gesture as he addressed his Familia before him. Had he raised his arm a little higher, Ryo snorted to himself, the kid would be mimicking a rather famous salute.
But as everyone knew, this was no kid. It was none other than the Captain of the Loki Familia, the second most strongest Familia in Orario...and a Familia Ryo couldn't really be bothered about in all honesty. For people that were supposed to be amongst the most powerful in the world, they were fodder to the likes of him. So unlike the other crowds of citizens and lesser known adventurers, he pushed his way through and walked past that gathering towards the entrance to the tower. He had more important places to be than out here listening to the ramblings of a righteous midget.
...
As he passed by, a certain young girl felt a cold chill go down her spine while there was a slight pang in her forehead. The girl lifted up her gauntleted hand, moved aside her beautiful long blonde hair and nursed the strange headache she'd just been afflicted with. To her surprise, her fingers came away with sweat on them and her armour pieces rattled a little as her body shook.
"Miss Ais?" Asked a young elf girl with yellow hair, bearing a mage's staff as she looked at the older girl in concern. "Are you alright?"
"...it's nothing Lefiya." Ais said in her usual monotonous and empty tone. "Just felt a little cold all of a sudden."
"Cold?" Lefiya raised a brow before she leaned over and looked into the Sword Princess's face. "Your face is red. Are you sure you're not hot?" The elf then seemed to reconsider her choice of words before she became ram rod straight again as she waved her arms about. "N-NOT THAT WAY MISS AIS! I-I mean you are pretty hot, at l-least in most people's opinion...BUT BY MOST I DON'T MEAN THAT I'M NOT ONE OF THEM, I JUST-...WAIT NO NOT LIKE-"
"Calm down Lefiya." An older, darker skinned girl with long black hair and outfitted in a pareo under which was a rather scandalous choice of clothing, as was customary of an Amazon. The Amazon then looked at Ais who had tilted her head in confusion about why Lefiya was so worked up. "Ais is just getting a few shivers probably because she'd didn't sleep properly last night. Is that it?"
"I-I don't know." Ais said as she lifted her hand to her neck where the chill had gone down. "I just felt...strange all of a sudden."
The girl known by the city as Ais Wallenstein, or more commonly as the Sword Princess looked around her for any reason she might have felt the way she did. As her gaze passed over her team members, she caught sight of a cloak flap behind one of her 'siblings'. Leaning to the side a little bit, she caught sight of a cloaked person just entering Babel. In that fraction of a second though, the pang in her head returned, only this time it was quite fast like her heart had been replaced with her brain. Her eyes widened as for a moment she thought she'd found the source of her little problem when her captain spoke up.
"Tione, Ais, Lefiya. Are you listening?" Finn asked them as he looked pointedly towards them. "I don't have to repeat anything I just said do I?"
"N-no of course not dear captain!" Tione became ram rod straight just like Lefiya a couple moments earlier and began wringing her fingers as her mood became ten times lighter at the captain addressing her. "We heard everything you said!"
"Good." Finn nodded. "I don't need to repeat myself on this, but you guys are part of the vanguard and we need everyone on alert. Not paying attention when I'm speaking is a poor way to start, alright?"
"Absolutely!" Tione nodded with the fervency of a religious fanatic before she urged the other two girls to nod also.
Ais however looked back at Babel's doors to see if she could catch sight of that cloaked person again. But of course, they were long gone. Still though...what had that been?"
---
Ryo pulled down his hood as he stepped off the winding staircase and into the First Floor. Before him lay what he could already tell was a complicated cave system full of twists and turns. Not that he was at all any stranger to a sight like this. His 'beloved' grandfather liked to use his wealth to take the both of them on expensive foreign holidays. Considering the old bastard's cabal-like activities, he was well able to afford stupendous trips like that.
That included caving.
And while adventurers usually brought maps with them on their way in to learn the marked routes towards the next floor while at the same time make their way back, Ryo had no need of those. Looking to the wall, he pulled out of one of the pouches on his belt a small piece of paper with Japanese Kanji painted on them. He pressed it to the wall and it stayed there for a moment, before shimmering and disappearing from view.
A sorcerer could learn to make cursed tools given that they spent sufficient time and discipline to the task. And Ryo had been ever so vigilant in this particular area with one special power of his. A simple talisman to use a homing beacon to warp to whenever he wished to enter or exit the Dungeon was amateur's work at this point.
Satisfied with his work. Ryo squared his shoulders as he moved on into the maze of rocky tunnels, not bothering to keep an eye out for any monsters that would try to get the jump on him. After all, it was not like they'd reach him even if they'd tried. When he'd gone in about a sufficient way, he stopped abruptly as the wall to the right in front of him suddenly started to bubble with rock and a furry snout pushed its way through.
Long arms pulled out a humanoid body with the head of a slobbering wolf on top as it hunched over and turned its gaze towards Ryo. The spirit shook his head and smiled while he closed his eyes, unalarmed even as the monster began running towards him.
"My first monster in this Dungeon is a kobold...well at least it's not a goblin. But all the same. A drooling mutt is nothing more to me..." Ryo looked up again and opened his blood red eyes as he released a significant amount of killing intent. "...than fodder."
The Kobold which had at first been snarling as it tried to have its way with him came skidding to a halt as a wave of pure malice smacked it right down to its soul. It's ears laid back and it whimpered a little as it stopped before a creature that even the dumb monster knew to be more evil than itself. Its hackles raised and its tail bushed up in electrifying fear as it stared into the sharp eyes of the spirit standing before it.
"Get out of my sight." Ryo commanded in visible disgust and the wretched monster whined again before scurrying away on all fours like a dog and rounded a corner before disappearing deeper into the cave system. Ryo stayed unmoving though as he snorted in more abhorrence. "Just because I'm not looking at you, doesn't mean I can't see you."
He flicked his index finger in no particular direction, but a moment later, a decapitated lizard fell to the floor from the ceiling behind him, and he turned to it watching as blood spurted out of the stumped neck while the head's tongue still flickered about, a surprised look forever frozen in the lizard's eyes as it could not figure out how easily it had died. And it never would.
Ryo stared at the lizard before looking at his hand as his eyes flicked back and forth between the two.
"It actually doesn't dissipate when I don't want it to." Ryo looked at the wall with a raised brow. "Binding Vows really are asspulls."
He then crouched by the corpse as he examined the lizard and saw the suckers on its feet which explained how it was able to walk on the ceilings. That made it a Dungeon Lizard...if the name wasn't obvious enough. But weren't those things supposed to spawn only from the Second Floor onwards? Perhaps one had crawled upwards to the first floor while nobody was frequenting it at night and was just lying in wait. These particular monsters did prefer ambushes after all. But that was not what was interesting Ryo at the moment.
"You look much like a Monitor Lizard." Ryo rubbed his chin. "Provided you taste any similar, I'll be able to make some tasty Indonesian Satay out of you." He put a finger on the hide of the corpse and ran it over a section before dipping his fingers in and ripping out a large hunk of flesh which he then promptly tossed into his Item Box. His eyes then caught onto a magic stone sticking out of its exposed gut and he closed his fingers around it before pulling that out too.
"Further on and further in." Ryo muttered before picking himself up and doing exactly that, leaving the monster to further stain the floor with its blood where it lay.
---
Ryo squinted a little bit as he sidestepped a lunging War Shadow while examining the claws on its hand. They were long enough to pierce a person all the way through and they moved with extreme agility, akin to that of a shadow which was perhaps where they got their name. It was little wonder why this particular type of monster was known as a notorious newbie killer. It would be easy for an amateur to be caught off guard.
From looks alone they were intimidating enough. They were tall and and lanky and coloured dark enough that one may as well not be able to see them in the shadows. Given the lighting in these caves, it was easy to see why new adventurers were so easily jumped. And then there was the three rapier sharp claws on its trident-shaped hand that looked like they could pierce steel sheets with enough force. No normal person would ever survive such a thing.
However, these monsters didn't appeared to be quite used to getting caught off guard themselves. Surprised by Ryo's superior speed, the War Shadow stumbled a bit before furiously turning around again and attempting to stab out with its claws. But before it could even put an arm forward, it's body was brought to a sudden halt as something pierced it's chest. Looking down, it saw the clawed hand of another War Shadow, but as its gaze travelled up the arm, black flesh turned into pale white skin as the appendage was wrought from Ryo's own arm.
The War Shadow croaked in confusion at the sight before it exploded into dust, leaving behind its core in Ryo's palm. He pulled the morphed arm back and undid the change as his flesh twisted back to its normal appearance and the three long claws transformed back into his fingers again.
"Extra profit." Ryo mumbled as he tossed it into his inventory before looking around. There were slashes embedded into the walls here and there, above the corpses of non-dissipated monsters whom Ryo had been carving up before the Slim Shady looking mf attacked him, or at least tried to attack him from behind.
He patted the dust off of him before reaching down with a bloody hand and slashed off the last of the frog legs from the knot of Frog Shooters...not a knot as in tied together, but for your information, a group of frogs are called a 'knot'.
Ryo didn't bear any favourable opinions of the French but he could admit that he did like some of their foods and while some parts of their cuisine was questionable, he'd never been disappointed with frog given how much like chicken they'd tasted.
Ryo liked his poultry most of all when it came to his carnism palate.
He walked up to the next stairwell to the next floor and withdrew another talisman and stuck it at the entrance. All the way through, he'd been sticking down talismans at the entrance of each Floor so as to give him better focus when warping. The appreciation of practicality had been drilled and beaten into his head in his old life, and old habits died hard. As customary of all the ones he put down, the talisman shimmered before disappearing. It was still there but was unseen so that none could be tempted to take them off.
"One more floor, and let's call it a day." He muttered to himself before loud noise reached his ears from the same Floor he was in and judging by the volumes, the owners of those voices weren't far. But there was no need for concern on his end. Ryo simply wrapped his cloak around himself and walked backwards into the darkest part of the cavern he was in and activated his third CT. The shadows monetarily became liquid like and swallowed his body. They returned back to their normal state, but if one had been watching this, they would no longer see him there, as if he had just disappeared.
Right on time though, as the procession that had been assembled outside of Babel not long ago were now coming through. Them catching up to him so fast could easily be explained. The Loki Familia were well used to travelling these areas and had probably gone through the correct pathways over a thousand times by now each. While he'd been exploring the caves for more monsters, they'd cut right through and caught up.
They paused however at the scene in front of them as they were met with a cavern full of monster corpses, corpses that should have been dust by now but for some reason were not disintegrating even with their clearly deceased state. But there was no look of surprise on their face...Ryo had been doing the same thing the whole way through in his journey down here.
"This again?" A scruffy dwarf with an axe and a shield grumbled as he kicked a decapitated corpse's head. "The hell is going on around here? Why are these things not disappearing?"
A green haired elf stepped past the corpse and ran her fingers over a gash in the stone wall, pulling it away as she rubbed the collected dust between her fingers. She put her tongue in her cheek in confusion as she turned around to look at Finn.
"There's also these gashes again in the walls Finn." She said.
"Up there too. Riveria" The Pallum said as he looked to the ceiling and saw another gash in it. Conveniently on the floor beneath it was a Dungeon Lizard who looked like it had been slashed clean in half. "I don't get it. Are they waving around some abnormally sharp sword or something?"
"I don't know what idiot would be swinging around a sword like that in the walls and up there, however they got there." A grey haired werewolf sniffed with his hands in his pockets. "You'd be doing more damage to the sword than the monsters."
"Doesn't explain why the bodies aren't poofing though." Tiona said as she poked the head of the dead lizard. "Yucky."
"Perhaps it's some cursed weapon that prevents the normal process?" Riveria, the green haired elf offered. "Maybe it drains the magic from the magic stone upon contact?"
"Wouldn't explain why the stones are gone though." Finn said as he looked inside the gut of the lizard while Tiona kept poking it. "Whoever is doing this is killing them first and then harvesting the stones."
"What's the point of that then?" Tione asked as she pinched her nose. "They already smell bad enough when their insides are turned outside. But just think about when these monsters start rotting."
"It'll create monster hotspots." Finn said. "The smell of the meat will lure other monsters near, most likely a Killer Ant colony who will collect the carcasses for food. The newbie adventurers will be at risk of severe danger. Gareth?"
"Hm?" The dwarf with the axe replied.
"Run back a little to Raul, and have him send a runner back up to the Guild. We need to inform them about this, and see if they can determine the culprit or at the very least keep an eye out for them. What they're doing here is beyond irresponsible." The Pallum captain said grimly. The dwarf nodded before turning and walking back the rest of the Loki Familia who were catching up to them.
"We still haven't found the bastard yet." Bete said as he walked past all of them to the stairwell. "Maybe if we keep going on, we'll run into him and beat some sense into him."
"Diplomacy first Bete." Finn said. "Every adventurer knows about dangers like these. Leaving injured monsters around is highly frowned upon because of how they become an easy target for other monsters in the area. Most likely it is some newcomer using some sort of special tool or weapon mindlessly to do these things."
"I would agree usually." Riveria said as she continued inspecting the gashes in the walls.
"Usually?" Finn raised a brow. "Why not now?"
"There's something about these splits here." Riveria said as she bent a little and ran her eyes over the edges. "Each side off them is much too fine, much too precise...much too straight. Even a sharp weapon would be hard pressed to not create some jagged edges in pure rock...and then there is the depth of these incisions as well." The elf stuck her hand in. "It's the same from one end to the other. If a weapon had been swung sideways into these walls, you should at least be able to determine which side they swung from and see how it had gone in. One side should be less deep than the other in these schisms. I would almost swear..." Riveria looked back at her Familia. "...that somebody is using some sort of projectile to create these."
"What kind of projectile?" Ais stepped up and tried to see where Riveria was coming from with this. "It has to be very sharp."
"Not just sharp."Tione said as she inspected the place where a monster had been cut. By a normal weapon, the skin would still have to have some tear too it even with a sharp blade because of how the weapon would pull the skin in when cutting through flesh and bone. But no, there were no tears or uneven severances. It had been smooth cuts the whole way through. Not even a hot knife through butter would be able to accomplish this effect.
"Hm." Ais blinked before she twisted her head while closing her eyes and put a hand to the back of her neck as she stood upright.
"Ais?" Tiona questioned as she stopped poking the lizard corpse and stood to watch her friend. "It's not happening again is it?"
"It is." The blonde haired girl answered.
"What?" Riveria questioned. "What's going on?"
"Ais was getting cold sweats outside the Dungeon." Tione waved her hand. "We thought maybe it was because she hadn't slept enough or something."
"Ais. You're not sick or anything are you?" Riveria looked back to the girl in a little worry.
"I'm not." Ais replied as she pulled her hand away and looked at it to see trembling a little. She could feel something. The same way she was sure she was feeling something when it happened outside of Babel. She looked around for a bit, hoping to catch a sign of a fluttering black cloak. Her gaze fixated on a particularly dark corner where the light from their lanterns didn't quite reach.
She cocked her head a little and began approaching it, and the sweats started to increase as did a seeping cold feeling and her head began pounding again as she drew closer to it. She stopped just before the shadows and narrowed her eyes, trying to see anything there.
"Hey." Bete grumbled. "You're being weird you know."
Ais ignored him as she continued to study the corner before she pulled out her sword and began poking around in it for a couple of moments. She then took it back as she frowned a bit, still confused.
"You okay Ais?" Finn asked as he walked up to her side. "Bete is right for once. You are being a little strange."
"...I feel like there's something in there." Ais pointed to the shadowy corner.
"Hm?" Finn raised a brow and looked to where she was pointing. "There's nothing there Ais. I don't see anything." Pallums were very good at seeing in the dark, and as such, Finn had no problems looking into that shadowed corner and seeing absolutely nothing there. It was no different to him than as if he were looking at it in daylight. Finn reassured the Sword Princess again. "There's nothing there Ais. Come on. We have to keep moving if we want to stay on schedule."
"...Okay." Ais conceded as she took one more look at that corner, still feeling that strange sensation before ultimately ignoring it and just walking away.
"What do we do captain?" An adventurer asked as he pointed to the corpses. "With these I mean."
"Same as the previous floors." Finn said. "Last ones through have to throw them down the nearest pit. If we can throw these bodies down to the lower levels, the newbie adventurers are put at less risk."
"Aye captain." The adventurer said, saluting before disappearing to do his task that Finn set him.
And like that the Loki Familia carried on through their expedition, the wagons rolling by Ryo's hiding spot as the last of the adventurers picked up the corpses and took it with them, probably to the next level which may have been where the next pit was. When the coast was clear, the shadows shifted and out stepped a frowning Ryo as he stared after them, contemplative thoughts running through his head.
"Inconvenient." He mumbled. "Her senses aren't as dulled by human blood as I thought."
With this new revelation, Ryo decided that enough was enough today and that he had already spent more than enough time down here. He clasped his hands together, and the next moment his form blurred before vanishing out of sight, letting silence settle into the cavern once more.
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