"And that's... How you do it."
Rei finished up by wrapping cloth like a bandage, over just one of her eyes, which was bleeding.
"Thanks... Though I'll probably get infected by how unclean this is, though."
"Yeah... Let's just hope for the best, and we find water somewhere to clean and drink."
Rei was starting to feel dehydrated by now, but he could still last for more.
"You know, you talked some sense into me." Rei smiled, "I would rather die after finding out more about this place."
"Tch, at least you aren't trying to kill yourself anymore." Cherry gets up before looking at the dungeon path and the cavern entrance.
"So, where are we headed to, idiot?"
"Don't call me that."
"I'll call you that until you aren't an idiot."
「This girl, I swear」Rei muttered in Japanese while rolling his eyes.
"Huh? What did you say, huh?"
"Nothing nothing, let's keep moving in the dungeons."
The two began walking right back into the dungeon while whispering to each other so they didn't attract too much attention.
While asking a few things, Rei learned that she was still level 1 and that the wolf she killed was level 2. He also learned about her ability cost. Apparently, the more she wanted it to sting and paralyze, the more mana she put into it. And since she did know how mana feels, at least slightly, that's how she was able to use that in assimilating the mana.
Rei was already thinking about his next attempt and how he should do things. Either he uses it to keep fighting and fighting until he learned how to fight better or save more students from the goblin ambushing them.
They finally took the last path, and quickly found two goblins, taking them down easily, of course, with Cherry's shield and spear, they were no match, but she also did help Rei get a kill.
With a stab of the stiletto dagger, the goblin bleed out excessively, and before it could touch his clothes, he backed off.
'I wonder how this blade does it.'
[Goblin LV0 killed: +5% EXP]
"Of course, it's even lower."
Rei grumbled, but Cherry would go. She saw Rei dissecting the goblin's chest.
"What are you doing?" She whispered.
"Finding out whether they also have... Ugh... Mana shards."
"Why?"
"It could help..." And with an incision on the chest, bloodied hands, and a cut of the heart, he found nothing. But he didn't give up. He tried the lower abdomen, where the core of the body is, and found exactly a tiny shard glowing blue.
"Gotcha." Rei grinned before pocketing it and then taking the other's mana shard and another thing. Cherry watches before asking:
"So, are you giving them to me?"
"Not exactly... I wanna try it too, you know."
"Alright, so we going or what?"
"Yes, yes."
And with that, they continued, Cherry activated a trapped tile, and a few arrows from the side were shot, but they already expected this. Since Rei wanted to help out with a bow, he wanted some arrows.
'Thankfully, it wasn't darts.'
Cherry avoided the arrows by laying down, and also shielding her head, and covering her chest with her arm. Just in case, but it didn't seem the arrows bounced back that close, most stuck to the wall.
"Thank you kindly." Rei began collecting the arrows, now only carrying a short bow he got from one of the goblins and a small quiver on his belt.
"You owe me for this," Cherry grumbled before they both continued and found a wider room, much... wider.
A giant hole in the middle of the room, with stairs on the side going there that can probably fit two people going up at the same time. There were also passages on the left and right of the room, with the ceiling being dome-like on the other side.
A big closed gate.
Cherry: "The exit?"
Rei: "That's definitely a boss room."
Rei shivered as he stepped closer to the edge of the hole. There were tiles around that lit up the hole, though it only lit up where the staircases ended.
'There are... Three floors, excluding this one.'
And the bottom was pitch black, which gave Rei a bad feeling about it.
"Mmm, can't hurt checking if it is the exit, though," Rei said while stepping back towards Cherry.
Cherry has a thoughtful expression, thinking deeply about something.
"Hey? Mind sharing?"
"We still haven't found the others yet."
Rei nods, "We can check the other floors after going through the big door and the two pathways. I wanna check the first floor before going to the three other floors. Not to mention our current situation about food and water."
"I get it. Check the exit and see if we find anything." Cherry begins making her way toward the gate, and Rei follows.
Nothing happened when they passed the right passage. Looking through Rei saw that it wasn't just another tunnel to somewhere, but cells with hanging cages on the ceiling.
'An actual prison, well if you think about it, this whole place is a prison.'
And then they reached the gate, and with a simple push, it opened by itself into a wide dome room. On the other side, another gate was there.
And in the middle...
'Oh great, a guardian.'
Stood a 2-meter high, dark knight armor with a greatsword stabbed onto the ground in front of it.
'What is this? dark-'
His thoughts were stopped in their tracks when he gazed at the glowing red eyes through its visor, sending a chill down his spine as he stepped back.
"Welp, we aren't going through there."
"Yep..."
The two then went to the prison, hoping to find anything other than an intimidating foe. Chains and skeletal remains attached to the walls, inside the cells and cages, mostly humanoid and some either smaller or bigger. On the right of the entrance was a desk, Rei searched it and found absolutely nothing but dust.
"Hopefully, there is actually something here."
Walking around, looking through all the cells, Rei found that some of them wielded duller swords than the goblins had, some leather armor, or some other thing.
And that was then. A hoarse voice called out.
「H... elp...」
Rei found another student in a cage above, speaking Japanese.
'No... It's not her.'
There were no other Japanese students except them, but this one...
He wasn't a student he knew, the uniform was different, and he looked so skinny that he was practically all bones.
"Huh, who the hell?" Cherry looked up at the student, before raising her spear.
"Hey hey, what're you thinking of doing?"
"Breaking the lock of course." And a thrust dented the lock, with more precise stabs, she broke the lock.
"Come down, I'll catch you!"
Rei translated for her. 「Come down, we got you」
Though he never did.
「N... run...」
'Run?'
And it was then, a chuckle was heard throughout the whole place, and the cells opened, with the skeletons coming to unlife.