I'll go make some rice, see you guys in half an hour.
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/Around a minute later…/
/CLANG!/
"ARG!" Dix exclaimed as he was sent rolling down the rocky ground
"Haa… Haa…"
'He breathed deeply, exhausted, his face pale, he had lost too much blood.'
'Even though he had used a potion on his arm by luck, that was only enough to close his wound, stopping his blood loss.'
Is there something... Anything?!
'He raised his head slowly, he didn't have that much strength anymore.'
"Shit! BUNCH OF..."
/Grrr…/
'Dix turned to the side, seeing the muscular Gargoyle looking down on him.'
'The gargoyle's eyes were full of anguish and burning anger, without even giving Dix some time to think, it raised its right claw high, ready to rip him to pieces…'
How disgraceful, to die at the very hands of these beasts I once tore apart as Razor…
Perhaps this was my fate, I rather die here in the Dungeon than in the hands of this disgusting Curse.
'He closed his eyes, his expression serene.'
'Dix never regretted his actions, he ripped apart both people and monsters alike, all for the sake of his cruel desires.'
'Something that started as a method for him to keep his Curse at bay evolved into a pleasurable activity… That was when Dix lost all Humanity if he ever had any, to begin with.'
'A monster in Human skin. Perhaps this is what all descendants of Daedalus are.'
/BAM!/
"Stop it Gros, we need him alive." Lyd said as he grasped Gros' hand
"LYD! This is what I've been waiting for! The man behind it all, the snake head, the fucking bastard!"
"Gros…"
"He's right." Silver said as he approached them from the backlines
'He was holding an Amazon, she was unconscious but alive, her forehead bleeding severely...'
'Behind him were the three weapons he collected, floating behind him.'
/Thud…/
'Silver threw her on the ground without a single shred of care, saying:'
"Gros, does it matter if you enact your revenge now or 2 weeks later?"
"For now, we need to collect information, and he can only do that while he's alive."
"After that is done... It's up to you."
I can't promise anything on the Guild's instead, so I'll stop at that.
To me, it doesn't matter if they are alive or dead, I can get information regardless.
However, this isn't the same for them.
"Huh?... I suppose I can… Hold it for a little longer." Gros replied as he calmed down
'After this operation, Gros' perception of Silver finally tipped over, changing completely.'
'He now respects this little Human, enough for him to trust him and listen to him... From time to time.'
'His revenge had been completed, and no one was lost, that was enough for him.'
'When he starts to think about the casualties he would've incurred had he rushed forward… Or if he wasn't here…'
'Simply gazing at the many tools around, he understood that they would've had a bad time without a doubt.'
"Urg..."
'Now that everything had been settled, they started to take care of themselves, many were hurt, some gravely, this included Lyd, who was currently clutching onto his stomach.'
My injuries aren't healing... What is happening to me?
'Gros approached him concerned, Lyd's injuries weren't necessarily serious, but they didn't stop bleeding...'
'Seeing this, Silver quickly replied:'
"You've been cursed."
""Cursed?"" They asked in unison
'Silver thought for a moment before replying:'
"First, sit down and press onto that wound, I'll think of a solution while I explain..."
/Thud.../
'While Lyd sat on the ground, Silver said:'
"Just like there are magic items, there are Curse items, objects that cause debilitating effects on someone at a certain cost from the caster, normally being the destruction of said object."
"The most common form of Curse is unhealable wounds and in the midst of the Chaos, you were probably cursed without noticing it, as I bet a few of the adventurers here had some sort of Curse object or item."
'He grabbed Dix's spear and showed it to them.'
"This is a Cursed Spear, I don't know what'll happen if you get stabbed by it, but better if we don't find out no?"
"Dammit... Is there a way for me to heal? Not only me but everyone else?..." Lyd asked
'He was concerned, not only himself but the others around him as well.'
"There are, special items that can cure minor Curses and people that can do the same via different channels."
"The problem is that for the first option, I can't guarantee that the Curses will be dispelled, while the second option is unrealistic to be performed given... Your circumstances."
"Besides, both options would take a while to..."
'Silver was suddenly interrupted.'
"You all want some tips? I can give it to you… For a penny." Dix replied with a bloody smile
'Gros' expression soured, he was the last one he wanted to hear, so he grabbed his collar and replied in an angry tone:'
"You think you can negotiate with us?"
"Wow there, I know my position very well… But man… I wonder if you know yours?" He mocked the monster
"You…"
"Stop it, don't fall for his weak provocation." Silver replied
'Dix turned to face Silver, his eyes narrowed for a moment before he let out a sigh with a defeated smile.'
"Ahh… The reason why everything fell apart… One of the recent rising stars… I didn't expect to meet you like this, to be honest." Dix said with a sly smile
"Is that so? I would've preferred to never meet with you."
"How cold… But are you sure…"
/THUD!/
'Instead of hearing him spew shit, Silver raised his index right finger and blasted his face with dark smoke, sending him to sleep.'
'The others were taken aback from this action, and Lyd was the first to question him:'
"Did you?..."
"No, I just sent him to sleep because he was starting to annoy me…"
"In fact, we should get ready, we need to move as soon as possible." He said as he looked around
"Move?" Lyd asked as he scratched his head
"Are you satisfied with just these people, when just above us there is another group?"
"!"
'Both Gros and Lyd frowned.'
"We need to be fast, as soon as the other group comes, we'll move."
'Gros replied with a nod, saying, "Right, there are still more bastards for me to beat up." as he clenched his fists.'
"For now, we need to keep these people alive, so start patching them up before they kick the bucket." Silver said as he pointed at the adventurers fallen on the ground
'Silver waved at Lyd and Gros.'
"Not only that... We need to do something about your state, if we leave you all like this you won't last a day."
"Although you're right, how do you plan of fixing us?"
"For now, let's do this..." He said as he pointed at Lyd's chest wound
/Freeze!/
'The wound on his chest froze, it wasn't bleeding anymore, but that was but a temporary solution, one that would cause more harm than good in the long run...'
"Ouch!" Lyd exclaimed as the coldness reached his bones
I want to cry!
"This will have to do, first, let's clean this place, I'll think of a solution."
It's too dangerous to play around with these people nearby...
'Everyone nodded, they started to grab the adventurers, healing them with weak potions or with Silver's healing magic.'
'He also used this time to heal all of the Xenos to full power, or at least, the most he could since some of them had been affected by some sort of Curse.'
'After this, as he did with Dix and the Amazon girl, he threw a black dart towards each adventurer, incapacitating them for the next few hours.'
'This black dart was filled with a potent paralyzing toxin he developed, a lethal Plasmid that he normally didn't use as it wasn't very useful in direct combat.'
'In general, he would want to fight his enemy by using his body and maximize his gains, or the fight would end too quickly for the venom to work at all…'
'It wasn't an efficient Plasmid...'
(N1)
'And albeit doing all of this drained him quite a bit of Mind, he had a few Mind Potions available from the Ikelos adventurer's stash.'
'In total, from the 34 adventurers inside and outside of this cavern, 12 died, 10 suffered heavy/fatal injuries, and this included Dix who lost his arm and was slashed in several parts of his body violently.'
'While the rest received mild amounts of damage, such as Gran that had his leg snapped in half by Silver and the Amazon that hit her head a tad bit too hard.'
'The survivors would be taken to the Guild for investigation; what the Guild would discover with this wasn't exactly Silver's concern, although he would try to keep himself informed nonetheless.'
'Lastly, they recovered quite a lot of Curse items and objects, some of which Silver discreetly kept to himself…'
'Lyd asked Silver about these items, and to it, he further explained what he knew about Curses and the likelihood of the Ikelos Familia having access to a Hexer.'
'A Hexer is like an Item maker, or better put, a Magic Sword Maker.'
'They apply Curses onto objects, like how Blacksmiths create Magic Swords, thus creating a Curse item.'
'Such information is extremely important as Hexers are 1000 times rarer than item makers, perhaps in all of Orario, there are less than 10 if not a single active Hexer.'
'Besides, deeming this quantity and the quality of the Curse items, he was bound to be a very proficient Hexer…'
'With this conclusion, the Xenos revenge could be said to have been closed with a golden key…'
'The plan had been incredibly successful despite the great risk they suffered there.'
'Why? Because if not for Silver's support and intervention, the moment Dix activated his Magic, the tide of the flight would've changed in their favor…'
'Originally, the plan was very simple.'
'Silver would scout ahead and determine their position before they found out theirs.'
'With that, he would teleport a group close by and take out the guards silently and quickly, this was probably the most important part of the plan as if they were discovered early, they would lose a massive chunk of their advantage.'
'In the end, Silver ended up leaving this for later, doing the next step first…'
'According to his plan, after eliminating the guards with the help of the Xenos, he would scout inside and determine the number of enemies, the location of their supplies, and where the hostages were located.'
'With that noted, he would notify the Xenos inside so they could prepare to escape amidst the chaos, but that was changed when he realized they were incapacitated…'
'Still, Silver gave each of the Xenos a potion secretly via teleportation so they could heal and burst out while the chaos was let loose.'
'Following this, he would teleport another group inside the cavern, causing chaos as the adventurers would try to figure out what was happening, while in the meantime, the outside group would rush inside and pick off on however was on their way.'
'And this was where his plan came to an end… At least the one he told the Xenos.'
'He knew very well that Dix would forcibly use his Curse, and he told the Xenos that it was likely that they would use their hidden cards and that they should be ready…'
'Silver took this chance to attack Dix, but failed as the latter evaded to the side, losing his arm in the process.'
'He then stopped the Ikelos Familia from using their Curse items while forcing Dix to retrieve his Magic as if he didn't, he would die.'
'There were many holes in this plan, but it was flexible enough.'
'Silver considered being extremely sneaky and using his abilities to conceal all of their movements…'
'He considered poisoning everyone.'
'He considered simply teleporting inside and taking the hostages first, basically trapping the Ikelos Familia inside with no cards.'
'There were many ways to approach this scenario as his abilities allowed him to do so, but he is satisfied with how things went.'
'His only regret was not being able to property clash with Dix, fighting a High Level 5 adventure would've been quite the experience, especially if the one he is fighting is a murderer...'
'But he had to concede and perform his tasks, there'll be many other criminals for him to stomp over.'
'This leads us to the final section of the plan, and that was taking out the reinforcements of the Ikelos Familia on the 18th floor.'
'There was nothing that said to Silver they existed, but he was over 90% sure there was one such group there, considering how cautious and thoughtful Dix was, he was bound to have several plans ready for action...'
'Perhaps there is an entrance to Knossos somewhere around here, albeit the maps he read so far didn't have any clue to that at all.'
...
/Sometime later.../
"Okay!... It worked." Silver said with a smile as he saw Lyd's wounds heal
"ARGH!"
'Lyd exclaimed painfully as his scales were removed and regenerated...'
"B-But it hurts!"
"Just clench your teeth, here, have this cloth."
'Silver shoved a piece of dirty cloth onto Lyd's mouth, making him tremble...'
'MUGH?!"
'After a few tries, Silver found a way to cure the Curse, and that was to completely remove the Cursed area... Via an operation very similar to surgery...'
'If it was on the skin, he would remove its surroundings and even a part of the muscles, and heal the rest with potions...'
'Of course, this only worked due to the precise control of his Plasmids, otherwise, they would have to stop and wait for a solution from the Guild.'
"... Thank you... Adventurer Silver." Gros said in a slightly gentler tone
"No worries, now, come here, you need to recover too."
"..."
"Ha! Are you afraid Gros? Go on!" Lyd replied with a sly smile
"I'm not afraid! Do it!"
"Ah come on it's just a flesh wound... It'll end before you know it."
'Silver rolled his eyes and started the procedure while the other Xenos retreated in fear...'
"URGGG!"
"..."
'The only sound in the cavern were the Xenos' cries of pain...'
'When they were done, they sat down and healed, resting their fangs as they waited for the backline group to arrive…'
…
/A few minutes later…/
'Silver raised his head, stopping his rest.'
"They're here."
Took them long enough.
'All of the Xenos in the room reacted as well, some by sound, others by smell...'
/Fwoosh!/
'The wind moved, the sound of wings flapping echoed all around.'
'It was Ray, and as soon as she saw everyone, she let out a breath of relief.'
'She opened her mouth to say something, but Gros intervened:'
"Not now, we need to move, there are still some left."
"Wha…?"
'Ray was confused, she barely even arrived, yet she needs to leave again?'
'But to that, Silver gave her a quick debrief:'
"We successfully rescued the hostages and captured the Poachers, but there are still many out there, we were simply waiting for you all to arrive."
'Ray was still slightly confused, but she nodded, she understood the gist of it.'
"Ray, wait for us here, we'll be back soon." Lyd said as he got up from the ground
"Let's go!"
'He exclaimed loudly, rallying the same group as he ran outside of the cavern.'
"What are you doing?" Gros asked as he saw Silver stay behind
"If you take so long, I'll take them all for myself." He said as he left the cavern
"..."
'Ray smiled slightly, but she didn't say anything.'
'Silver looked at her and shrugged slightly.'
"You heard him, duty calls me."
"Be careful."
"Always been." Silver said with a small smile as he teleported out
"..."
Good luck...
Albeit I don't think you'll need it.
'The other Xenos could only watch as their friends left, they didn't know if everyone would come back, but from the bottom of their hearts, they wanted to believe so.'
'For now, they occupied their minds with the unconscious adventurers on the ground.'
…
/In front of one of the many entrances to the 18th floor…/
"It's here." Lyd said as he looked at the dark stairs
"According to the map we reassembled, this is the secret entrance they were planning on using, their reinforcements should be here."
"..."
'He seemed tense.'
"Is something the matter?" Silver asked
"I've never been this close to the surface before." Lyd replied as he crossed his arms
"Really? That's surprising."
"It's too dangerous, the concentration of adventurers keeps increasing the closer we get to the surface, especially here on the 19th floor, we never know when we'll meet with a team descending from the 18th floor."
"Tread lightly everyone, we'll be retreating if anything out of the norm happens…"
'All of the Xenos nodded.'
'They started to carefully walk, Silver right behind them.'
'He offered to go first like before, but Lyd said that they wanted to resolve this themselves.'
'They couldn't rely on him to solve their own problems, especially a matter they started out of their own accord…'
/Shine…/
'As they reached the other side of the stairs, a bright light shone on their face.'
"It's… So big." Lyd said as he looked around
"I've only heard of stories… Ray would've loved this place…"
"No, she would've hated it." Gros replied with a frown
"Seeing all of this open space yet being forced to remain hidden…"
'Lyd shook his head, agreeing with Gros.'
"You're right, Ray would've… Felt really conflicted."
'The hidden entrance led them to a forest, so they were pretty well hidden, no signs of adventurers so far...'
"Someone's coming." Gros said as he turned his face to the side
'Everyone tensed, could it be who they were looking for?'
"?!"
'But when they saw who it was, all of them stopped, confused.'
"You?!" Lyd exclaimed loudly
…
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Notes
N1
Honestly, Silver has stronger toxin plasmids, you would think that given what he can do, doing something as simple as imitating a pufferfish would be a simple matter no?
However, a puffer fish poison would likely be able to kill a Level 4 and below adventure depending on their Status, but this isn't by far his strongest toxin.
On earth, the strongest toxin is unironically made by anaerobic bacteria.
Botulinum toxin is so strong, at most 1 nanogram per kilogram can kill a human.
How much of this substance would you need to take down... Let's say, the Level 6 peak Gareth, someone who maxed their Constitution value and has Abnormal Resistance G?
And what other forms of potentially killing forms can you think off?