Thraisly bandaged Symantha’s wound as quickly as she could, which took a few minutes.

Little known fact: I think medical aid is cool.

I know, it doesn’t fit me all that well, but one of my neighbors was super good at it, and I just found the topic interesting. Besides, learning how to perform first aid is an invaluable skill for the road! I wasn’t very good at it, though, so I tried to learn something from Thraisly, volunteering to help.

Once Symantha was bandaged up, we got a move on. We all agreed that it would be best if we left the dungeon as quickly as possible since we didn’t know what sort of dangers could creep up on us.

I worried, though, about how Reco and the others were doing. Were they safe? Had they already found their way out? Were they even together?

We all just had to hope things were going fine for them and proceed on.

“You know, I’m beginning to regret not taking health potions,” Reco said, holding a squirming Julius over her shoulder.

Reco and Ritta ran through the tunnels, chased by a pack of blood-hungry white tigers with fangs made of ice.

“You know, you could just keep him on your back instead,” Ritta insisted. “You’re making a fool of him like that. Oh, and Asher has health potions if we find him.”

“Damnit, I can walk on my own!” Julius yelled, unreasonably angry.

Reco shook her head. “Tut-tut, not sure if you noticed, but you have a serrated needle in your foot, and it seems to be spasming. Just relaaax, we’re only chased by tigers! Now be a bro and throw down some ball bearings for me, will you?”

Julius pouted, flailing in Reco’s grip. “Why don’t you just kill them all yourself? Your whole class is about doing that!”

“Nope, if I did that without some preparation, they would run past me and kill you two. Speaking of which, since you’re facing towards them, how many are there?”

Julius looked from behind Reco’s back and counted the mass of wolf-sized tigers by fives. “About twenty-five. DODGE!”

Forming above eight of the tigers, sharp icicles formed, then shot at the runners as fast as arrows. Reco glanced back just in time to sidestep one in a twirl and swung her flail around to smash another to pieces, only to be forced into ducking another, narrowly dodging it for Julius. Another one managed to hit her in the calf, carving a nasty scratch in her skin, but getting deflected by her impressive constitution.

Well, she wasn’t exactly sure how high her constitution was, but against that many enemies(the formula was rather specific and confusing, and she was kinda bad with numbers), she probably had... +15 to the constitution or something.

Considering how little base constitution she had, though, it probably amounted to 27, or 2.7x her physical constitution, making her biceps practically steel walls! Well, she wished, but those tigers would still rip her to shreds if she went in without a plan.

After all, running in without a plan was what got her into this precarious situation in the first place!

To block the barrage of icicles shot towards him, Ritta put one hand into a bag of tinder to cast [fire bolt], destroying one icicle thrown his way, then sliced through another with his sword and cleanly moved his head so perfectly out of one’s path that it scratched his cheek, and finally trod to the side to avoid a last one.

“Nice one!” Reco said, holding her hand up to the young [noble] for a high-five.

Ritta glared and didn’t reciprocate the notion. What a party pooper!

The sound of thousands of metal bearings clicking on the floor behind her caught Reco’s attention, and she looked back to see Julius had unloaded his trap, his [trapper] class temporarily enhancing the balls’ slipperiness.

“Thanks a lot, Juli!” Reco said, suddenly flinging Julius into the [noble]’s arms.

The poor tigers slipped on the bearings, and many of the ones that succeeded on their sure-footedness were thrown backward by the ones that hadn’t.

“Get ready to fight, yall!” she said, bursting backward into the fray with her increased strength from [into the fray].

It was a slaughter. The instant she got in range of the stumbling tigers, they began leaping over their comrades, hoping to catch her off guard, only for her to spin in a circle, hitting two in the face so hard that their dislodged eyes bounced off the ceiling. Reco became a twirling flail of death, wreaking havoc through the pitiable tiger’s forces, not unlike a wrecking ball.

She slammed wolves into the wall, caught some trying to bite her with her bracer, only to throw them into allies with enough force to break their neck, and extended her leg in and outward to alter how fast she spun as she needed to, or just to kick a cat in the face for fun. That wasn’t to say they didn’t manage to hit her, though, as she was rather unprepared to handle magic and got hit numerous times by the icicle magic once it got off cooldown, but that might have just been because she was having too much fun to care whether they hit her or not. It was difficult to tell.

Some of them did manage to make it past her and ran at Ritta ravenously, but they were quickly met by either a bolt of fire or a crossbow bolt.

In just a minute, Reco, who might affectionately be called ‘the blender of gore’ had reduced the horde of tigers to an icy-blue and red smoothie.

Ritta looked disgusted when she walked back to him with a bright smile, covered in gore from head to toe.

“Can you tell where I’m bleeding?” she asked, feeling pain just about everywhere after being clawed, bitten, and stabbed with icicles.

“Please get your bloody hands away from me, vagrant,” Ritta retorted, holding his hands up in defense.

“Fine, then can you at least use [create water] to wash me u-” Reco was suddenly assaulted by a hose of water, which cleaned off some of the gore.

“Well...” Reco said in a crestfallen manner, “I guess I got what I was asking for...We ought to get going, then.”

“I can’t see a freakin’ thing,” Thraisly complained, walking through thick, dark mist with her torch out

“Please just deal with it, I was stabbed a few minutes ago and I’m not in the mood for two complainers,” Symantha complained.

“A-are you talking about me!?” Keen asked, offended.

“No, Keen. You should know I would simply never imply that you’re a handful,” Symantha said sarcastically.

Keen clenched his fists and grumbled at his [maid] in annoyance.

We had found the next set of stairs and recently entered the next floor since there wasn’t any alternative path. As if the darkness surrounding us didn’t restrict our vision enough already, this floor was covered in mist so thick that I could hardly see the other side of the wall under the torchlight. We were forced to light another torch, which we gave to Keen, who was walking on his own now that Symantha was injured.

Dota had asked Thraisly if she could heal her with her ritual, but she insisted she was suffering from mana loss after using her spells so often and that using it again would both make her exhausted and potentially defenseless. So, Symantha just had to handle the pain on her own.

We kept walking, but after some time walking, I realized that we had entered a room -the mist had made it difficult to tell. I put my hand in front of Milo and dota, and the rest of the group stopped at about the same time, realizing we were in a dangerous spot.

“Kwahh...”

I frantically swiped my sword forward as I heard a noise eerily close to me, only to realize I had cut thin air.

“What’s wrong?” Dota asked.

I looked back at him with a conflicted expression, unsure of what I wanted to communicate.

“Kwahh...” It sounded like breathing in my ear.

Again, I swiped to another side, thinking something was there, only to make a fool of myself.

A drop of water plopped on my head, making me jump again. It wasn’t anything strange -that had been happening every so often since I walked into the misty caves, but it still caught me off guard.

“Kwahh...”

I looked to and fro, searching for the source of the sound, only to find nothing on all s...ides?

Where was everyone?

I realized too late that I was disoriented again. Damnit!

Behind us.

I sliced backward, swinging at a see-through [dwarf] shambling towards me, pickaxe in hand, only to realize too late what I was fighting.

Then my blade phased through it like it was nothing.

Hell, it was a [ghost]!

It swung its pickaxe at me and I tried to block it, but the attack passed through my shield just before I got the sense in my head to back off. The pickaxe bruised my arm, but nothing more.

I stumbled backward, away from the [ghost], only to hear it speak in my ear, somehow. “Pollution...”

How could I fight a [ghost]?! I hadn’t prepared for that sort of fight. Holy objects were typically the only good way to harm one, but I didn’t have...

Oh, right, I had two.

I sheathed my sword as I psychically untied my [soul cushion]. That would undoubtedly be able to affect a lost soul, but my other holy object, my seraph’s robes, was a bit of a grey area. Sure, it was woven by a holy [monk] and was a symbol representing Seraph herself, but did it really have holy properties?”

The [ghost] powerwalked towards me, holding his pickaxe out horizontally, readying himself for an attack so obvious that calling it ‘telegraphed’ would be like calling the Mudmule ‘big’.

“He killed us...”

As if confident I couldn’t defend myself, the ghost swiped at me. I gripped my [soul cushion] between my two hands, like a measuring tape, and intercepted the pickaxe with it.

The [ghost] looked surprised when the ribbon caught the phantasmal pickaxe so I used the time I had to wrap the [soul cusion] around the weapon and disarm him, sending the pickaxe flying away, and...through the floor, for some reason.

“I died sick.”

It threw a slow punch at me, so I sidestepped it, then tried to counter with my own punch, hoping my robe would empower my attack.

Well, I guess it did impact, but only the robe did. Punching the [ghost] was a fast way to roll up my sleeve, it seemed.

I took a few steps back as it tried to kick me, failing miserably. Perhaps it was just a low-level ghost?

“I won’t let you end it...”

It pounced, arms out in an attempt to hug me or something, so I skipped to the side. I wasn’t exactly sure how to kill anything with a...ribbon. I tried to find some weak spot on the [dwarf]’s body, but he was as sturdily built as a normal person. The thought came to my head that my [life cushion] was invincible, so I could probably choke him out with it.

I shivered at the thought.

W-wait, can you even choke out a ghost?

Seeing it was slow, and I had rendered my attacker disarmed, I made the smartest move I could have.

I ran the Hell away!