บท 29: Chance
This dungeon truly was broken, it did try to spawn monsters to defend its randomly placed cave systems but whatever was supposed to come out lacked half on their limbs in the best of cases.
The group of four had been making steady progress without any problem, this dungeon appeared to have been quite dangerous before, it expanded on an enormous area and the remnants of loot left were quite precious.
Although it appeared that even this had started to degrade, it really must have been a recent event that caused this dungeon to break like this.
Walking through what must have been the one hundred and fifty seventh corridor this place had to offer, Superstes was moving as per usual, appearing aloof but always looking around with uncommon intensity.
When suddenly, the wall she had had her eyes on changed appearance, all of them looked the same but the mine aspect of this dungeon made them all appear as dug out by people, making each have their own patterns.
Looking around, she was completely alone in a more circular environment compared to before, wooden pillar, cracked and rotten pushed against the ceiling, preventing it from collapsing or perhaps it was just decorative, this was a dungeon after all, no such thing should be necessary to prevent the place from collapsing.
She wasn't seeing any door, only a few lanterns still full of light and some sort of construct in the center of the room.
It was like a pedestal or altar, on which a single, minuscule, dark shard was sitting.
After checking the walls a bit to make sure there wasn't a hidden passageway before getting close to the obvious thing of interest in the room.
Carefully moving closer, she realised the shard was actually some sort of beaten up blade, a dagger whose blade was quite thin and long, the guard was nowhere to be found and the handle looked nothing like one, appearing as nothing more than a single less rough continuation of the blade.
She poked the thing with her spear, after making some verifications, such as if the place was wide enough to accomodate swings with her spear.
The blade slightly moved, grating against the rocky pedestal and clattering like a normal piece of metal.
Nothing seemed to be rigged or trapped about it, she slowly reached with her hand.
Placing a single finger on it, she swung her hand back and moved backward, having received a shock when she touched it, but that wasn't what was more surprising but the fact that she wasn't the only one to have reacted to it.
*Shard of Misericorde*
The system, completely unprompted, decided to tell her about it for some reason.
'Since when do you show up without being told to?' she wondered, indeed, the system was everywhere, in every single being one could think of but it didn't appear or behave the same with everyone.
For some, it was just text appearing in their vision like for Superstes, some also heard a voice or just the voice.
The system most common usage was the status window, which presented the 'stats' of the individual, this was where the system variated the most.
At the rarest, it would show clear numbers or just not show a window at all, Superstes got to have recipients that filled up as her stats increased, it was understandable enough, at least she didn't get some random language no one could read.
The system casually telling her about something she had touched wasn't something she had heard of happening, she had always thought one needed to have skill or ability partaining to it but skills and most of abilities were managed by the system, so it wasn't too out of the realm of possibilities.
'Hum, would you like to tell me more?' she thought, testing it.
*A dagger variety first created by the Pure Undead, high affinity with death, high prejudice against life*
'Holy shit! It really is speaking and in length!' she marveled, wondering if it was just for that particular item or if she had just somehow upgraded.
*Created by the dungeon in an attempt to give one of its summons an edge, however, the source of power used for both was seized by an apostle while in the process of creation*
'Heh?'
'What's an apostle?' she wondered as she continued to step back from the altar just in case.
*Not realising the loss of the source of power immediately, it tried to use energy it was no longer allowed usage of, reducing the core of the dungeon to utter nothingness, still, the Pure Undead approved of the summon lack of ego*
Just as she finished reading that last bit, the ceiling cracked and something fell down from it alongside some rubble.
A bony hand covered in webs of cracks, emerged from behind the altar, grasping the misericorde with it before climbing atop of it.
Revealing a skeleton appearing on the verge of crumbling down, lacking a pelvis bone and everything beneath, its lower jaw barely hanging on as well as missing its left arm.
By all means, it shouldn't be moving at all and certainly not with the speed, it launched itself at Superstes the next second after showing itself.
Thankfully, having only one limb for all tasks made it quite easy to predict what it was doing, the half-skeleton crashed into a pillar and then the wall, crawling out of the cloud of dust like nothing, stabbing the dagger into the ground to drag its broken body forward, ignoring the rocks falling from the ceiling.
'I guess the pillars are important...' she thought as the undead once again pushed itself off the ground but this time, she knew how fast it was.
Handling her spear skillfully, she slammed the end of her spear into its skull before it reached her, changing its course toward the ceiling instead.
She saw its lower jaw and few of its teeth flying off from her hit but didn't stop and relentlessly struck it as was in the air with the blunt end of her spear, shattering some of its ribs and making a hole through its forehead.
The skeletal undead didn't seem to mind much, only making sure to protect its remaining arm.
Managing to stab into the ceiling, the undead escaped the dreadful combo with even less of its body that it had started with.
It looked at the worn out dagger, its thought unknown to the blonde girl but it was trying to make use of its abilities but finding out that all of the body parts it needed to accomplish such feats had already been lost.
With no other options, it attempted to rush the living again, doing its best with one arm to not go in a straight line.
Its attempts at subversion weren't hidden enough and all its got was the wooden handle of spear impact its skull, the handle striking in the center of it, from the lowest to topmost part of its skull, cracking it in two and sending its body flying into another pillar.
With bits of its head falling off faster than it could not breath, it tried to see what the living would do next but she didn't move, letting the rocks falling from the ceiling due to the now lack of pillar supporting the place, one pinning the undead's arm to the ground while the rest finished grounding its body into bonemeal.
Just as Superstes received the confirmation from the system that the undead was dead, a function she was used to, the dagger absorbed a deep purple smoke that had suddenly appeared and bent onto itself before reforming into a perfectly, ordinary-looking short sword.
'Now, what's this?' wondered Superstes, receiving one last answer from the system, albeit an oddly mysterious one.
*Slaughter Lord's Mastery*
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