Chereads / Grail / Chapter 24 - The Dungeon III

Chapter 24 - The Dungeon III

We were already having so much trouble with a D-rank dungeon, we wouldn't be able to clear a C-rank one.

'A C rank dungeon?' Edwina was strong but she was easily scared, I could see her trembling, her mouth half-open, her pupils dilated, and her face full of despair. 'We can't clear that, we'll all die!' She fell to her knees and put her hands on her head, her face full of despair, and I knew why.

Edwina's older sister died in a dungeon a couple of years ago, and ever since she has had an innate fear of dungeons instilled into her. After seeing her brother's corpse, mangled and defamed by the monsters of the dungeon. No wonder she would be afraid, the events that have unfolded ever since we entered the dungeon must've triggered her PTSD. No matter how strong someone is, in the end, they're still human.

Edgar grimaced, 'We can't escape until we clear the dungeon, and who knows what lies ahead of us. Our food rations won't last us forever either. We need to fight and escape.' He's right, we should at least try and escape rather than just sit here and wait for our deaths like fools.

'He's right, we need to fight and live, and our food rations won't last us forever. We can't just sit here and wait for our deaths like fools! Everyone, prepare for battle!' I said that, but everyone other than Edgar was giving me blank stares.

'We can't just go into the next battle blindly, we need a strategy. If we just go in blindly we'll die. We're all not in the best condition as well, I think we should use some of our rations. Half a sandwich each sounds good.' Riley assessed the situation calmly, and he was also right we needed a strategy.

'I don't know about you, but I'm really tired. I think we should sleep.' Octavia was yawning, and rubbing her eyes. How long had we been in this dungeon for? We had only cleared one room, but I didn't have anything I could measure time with. Was it nighttime already? My sense of time was destroyed in this dungeon but I assumed that it was nighttime anyways.

'Goodnight guys, we'll sleep and conquer the next room tomorrow.' I said sternly, they all nodded their head and lay down.

The floor was hard and cold, but worst of all it was uneven, it would be hard to even get a wink of sleep. Or so I thought because soon the darkness of sleep took me.

When I woke up everyone was already up, Octavia was praying, Riley was stretching, Akari was thinking and Edwina was eating. Edgar was still asleep.

'Well, good morning guys.' I awoke with an audible yawn.

'Took you long enough, should we wake Edgar?' Riley replied in a mocking tone. I peeked at Edgar, he looked like he was knocked out asleep.

'No, don't wake him, he needs all the sleep he can get.'

'Anyways, on another note, we need a strategy, we don't know what monsters we'll be facing.' Actually, I knew what monsters would be in the second room of a C-rank dungeon.

And I had a strategy, one that would almost assure us victory. C-rank dungeons have a randomly selected enemy type in their second room. But the pool of enemies that could be there was small, the only enemies that could spawn were skeletons, zombies, ghouls or wights. They were all undead monsters.

Due to them being all undead monsters they wouldn't die unless holy power was what killed them, but in turn, they were weak to holy power. Fortunately, we had a priest with us at the moment, I had to bank on her having a certain skill.

'Octavia, I need to ask you a question.' She looked at me with a ghastly face.

'What is it?' I put my hands together below my chin.

'Do you happen to have the skill Holy Permeation?' she lifted her head.

'Yes I do, but why?' Jackpot! That's the skill that will carry us through the next chamber.

'In the next room, that skill will carry us to victory. Imbue it onto our weapons and we'll have an easy time.' Edwina got up and looked me dead in the eye, her blue eyes seethed with rage. She clenched her teeth and made her hands into fists.

'You really think it's going to be that easy? No, it's not going to be that easy.' She started laughing. 'Kukuku, we've been following you ever since we entered the dungeon. But it could've ended badly in this room had I not thrown that oil. What I'm trying to say is… Don't take our lives for granted Mordred!' she stopped speaking and fell to the ground sobbing. 'Mordred I was nice to you and teamed up with you because I had thought you changed! But I was wrong, you haven't changed at all!'

I didn't know much of Mordred's backstory, so I didn't know how to reply. I just stood there speechless, I didn't know what to say. Actually, I couldn't say anything at all.

The room was silent, nobody uttered a word nor made a sound. What have I been doing this whole time? Edwina's right, I can't put anyone in danger anymore.

'You're right, I've been putting you in danger because of my faulty plans. If it weren't for your oil we could've been in danger. That's why that's why!' I couldn't get them to trust me, there was no other choice. This is a stupid decision, but it's one I need to make. I can't clear the dungeon without them, so to regain their trust I will! I walked towards the door to the next room until I was standing just before it

'Octavia, buff my sword with holy power.' She looked surprised.

'Wait, what are you going to-.'

'Just do it!' I yelled at her. She looked nervous but reluctantly put her hand together and closed her eyes.

'Oh Goddess permeate my ally's sword with thy light and aid them in battle.' Clarent suddenly started glowing a warm yellow.

'Mordred what are you going to do?' Edwina looked up, her expression was grim. Her entire body was trembling, her voice weak and frail.

I turned my head away without replying, I looked straight at the obsidian door in front of me. I put my hand on it, it was cold and rough. I heard shuffling from behind me. I hoisted my bag up onto my shoulders.

Akari cried out. 'Mordred you can't possibly be thinking of doing that!' I didn't look at her either, instead, I pushed forward and opened the door. A brilliant, white light blinded me as soon as I opened it. Then immediately after darkness.

I awoke in a dark room. The only light in the room was the one torch that was lit up behind me, it only illuminated maybe 2 metres in front of me. The rest of the room was completely dark, blacker than the night sky.

And just like the night sky, I saw tiny dots in the darkness, but they weren't stars. They were eyes. There were all kinds of eyes, white eyes, blue eyes, green eyes and yellow eyes. I recognised all these eyes. White eyes were skeletons, blue eyes were ghouls, green eyes were wights and yellow eyes were zombies.

Notification: If the torch behind you gets put out the strength of the enemies will double until it gets lit again. Likewise, monsters in the illuminated area are slightly weakened.

Walpurgis Flame would be extremely useful in this situation but I couldn't use too much mana. I took a mana potion out of my bag and downed the entire flask in one draught. I exhaled and wiped my face with my sleeve, then I unsheathed my sword. Cleansing Light! I held Clarent with both my hands. 'Clarent Eclipse Mode!' The hilt closed in onto the blade itself.

At this point, they had started moving towards me. I could hear the groans of the zombies and the rattling of the skeletons. Then out of the darkness, a skeleton jumped on me and thrust a dagger into my face.

I blocked it with Clarent and punched it. I broke some of the bones off of its ribs but then the bones started to float towards the skeletons and reconnect with it. But before it could I jumped at the skeleton and bashed it with the flat side of Clarent's blade.

Then an arrow came flying towards me and hit my shoulder, luckily it was blocked by my pauldron but I wouldn't always be so lucky. There were archers in the back that I couldn't do anything about, if I tried to kill them not only would they not be weakened, there was a high chance the torch would be put out.

The other monsters started coming into the illuminated area, a ghoul jumped on me and was able to latch onto my back while I wasn't watching. It gnashed its teeth as it was trying to bite me.

'Walpurgis Flame!' The ghoul was launched off my back by the flames but it wasn't dead.

But as it was getting up I slashed at its neck with Clarent and it died. At that same time, an arrow was shot into my arm.

I howled in pain, that whole area was bleeding. I pulled the arrow out but more enemies were coming. I pulled a healing potion out of my bag and poured it all over the injured area. I needed to deal with the archers no matter what.

I rushed forward through all the enemies, I lit a fireball in my left hand and held Clarent in my right. I saw a skeleton archer right in front of me and slashed at it and it crumbled. I then saw more and kept slashing at the archers. Some wights had tried to latch onto me but I was able to nimbly evade them by teleporting.

I was able to kill all of them. There were only skeleton archers, there were no archers for the different species of undead. But when I killed the last archer a notification popped up.

Warning: Torch has been put out, and enemy strength has been doubled.

I didn't know where the torch was so I ran around looking. Then right in front of me, I saw a figure maybe 2 metres tall. It was a skeleton knight.