My Danger Sense grew.
We were working our way through the chambers on the 1st layer.
Lanner fought with everything except his wands. I hoped he would improve his other abilities. I might also improve soul skills while observing him with Ozy.
"Lanner, behind me," I said and drew my sword.
Ozy effortlessly eliminated the final monster. As I faced the tunnel of danger, Lanner quickly hid behind me.
Out of the tunnel stumbled a sickly man I hadn't expected. It was Harren, and he was still wearing his armor and carrying his axe, but he looked tired and gaunt. Hunger was clearly affecting him heavily.
The reason he was on the 1st layer was something no adventurer wanted to talk about. If one couldn't exit, the best way to survive for food was on the first layer. The monsters had the least Mana, but it was still heavily damaging to one's soul and body to consume them.
"Harren," I said as he stared at me.
"Justin?" he rasped out as a question.
"Yes. I didn't expect to run into you, but I suppose anything could happen. The beastkin killed Stormy."
"You know? How?"
"I sneaked into the beastkin settlement for food. Found an enslaved human they were keeping for food and freed him. There is soul damage that made him short, but I am training him up. Lanner, this is Harren. A former teammate. Our team broke up once we became siloed in this section of the dungeon."
It was a lie easily seen through, but Harren was weak and tired. He was starving to death as his body tore itself apart.
I tightened my grip on my blade.
"You know what I want. I can't go on."
"And my spatial pouch is only so big. I could be stuck here for years, and I am not going back to that beastkin settlement if I can help it."
He nodded. Unfortunately, there could be no compromise.
In the end, a fight would happen regardless as the food decreased. I had all I would possess until exiting the dungeon. Even though it was cruel, I needed to prioritize myself. I had that lesson drilled into me by my trainers.
Taking on Lanner would cut by food supply by a third, since he ate less than me. Since I ate one fist of food per day, I would reduce the 5,000 fists of food, the unit of measurement the beastkin used, to 3,333 fists. That was a decade worth of food, leaving me more than enough time to find a solution to leaving this part of the dungeon.
Cutting that in half would reduce my time to five years instead of ten. That was too great a risk. While I had hoped that I would find a solution quickly, it would take a long time to level up soul skills and train up more. All in the hope of creating a soul skill based on them to track back a cursed skill.
In fact, ten years was too short for what I wanted to accomplish. As the food became scarcer, tensions would increase. Harren could easily attack me while we rested to take the food for himself. Lanner was too weak to hold his own in this kind of fight.
"Let my family know I died fighting," Harren said.
I gave him a nod of respect as we readied ourselves for a fight to the death.
He let out a roar and rushed towards me.
My wand was hidden behind the hilt of my sword. My left hand moved, ready to use my wand. I set the Tier 4 Explosion at him.
"Lightning Beam. Lightning Beam. Lightning Beam."
I immediately followed it up with a heavy barrage of spell skills. Harren's armor was pierced by the Explosion spell, and blood flowed. My Lightning Beams immobilized his body.
Ozy swooped in behind him and wrapped around his neck while using Empowered Bit to rip out his throat. There was no mercy given in a fight to the death. Harren was a skilled combatant, and if he had time to act, I would likely have been the one to die.
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If he had been at full strength, he could have dodged in time and used his weapon and spell skills to counter mine. Unfortunately, he had low reserves, and his soul was damaged. He was but a shell of himself.
Ozy let go of his neck and flew up behind him as Harren staggered forward. He let out a gurgle of blood and then collapsed dead on the ground.
I didn't even need to fight in close combat.
From a distance, I used my sensory skills to check his corpse. He was definitely dead. I let out a heavy sigh.
I walked onward and came to his dead body. I started taking his gear and armor off his dead body. He had a spatial pouch as well. There were lots of cores in it and other basic traveling supplies, but no food.
After his corpse was stripped, I stepped back, and Ozy used Alchemy to create a flammable substance over the corpse. After that, I cast Fireball to ignite it.
"What was that?" Lanner asked. "Wasn't he your friend?"
"He was a friend. I liked him. Harren was good with his axe and a capable close-range fighter. He was brave, courageous, and loud, but he respected strength. May his soul find peace wherever it may go."
"But we have food?"
"You are naïve. We have no way to get more. He is not on our team. Betrayal would happen eventually. Settling things like this was for the best. If he regained his strength, then the fight would be much closer and far more dangerous."
Lanner said nothing else as Harren's corpse burnt to ash. I was just left with a feeling of melancholy. That was the last member of my original team. I had hoped that Harren had found a way back. I knew it was highly unlikely, but I had hoped. Now he was just ash in the dungeon, soon to disappear.
I would tell his family he died fighting beastkin if I ever met them and return the axe he carried. While we were no longer a team when he died, it would be rude not to let his family know what happened. I held his adventurer plate. I put it away in his spatial pouch, my spatial pouch now.
"Let's keep moving. You can clear more caverns today."
"You sure? Um, well." Lanner clearly didn't know what to say or understand what had happened.
"We are continuing. Dwelling on the dead is not productive. If I wanted to think of the dead, I would think of my mother. Now let's go before we grow roots."
Lanner took the lead as we made our way to the next chamber, though not the one Harren had come from. Magical slimes greeted us, which meant he would have to use Fireball, his only spell skill to hurt them. At least I had insisted he preserve Mana unless he absolutely needed to use a spell skill.
I spent the rest of the day thinking only of Harren and did not practice my soul skills. My heart wasn't into practicing more. When we stopped for the evening, I made Lanner cook. If he got the benefit of me using a Clean spell skill on him, he could cook. Thankfully, he didn't argue. My overwhelming display of force had probably terrified the gnome.
The stew was decent, but he should cut the vegetables more evenly.
"Good job."
"Thanks," Lanner said hesitantly.
"If you have a question, ask. Don't look all mopey and worried. It is annoying."
"Will we fight with everyone?"
"Anyone in this part of the dungeon. Most likely, yes. There are only beastkin and demons. Neither of which are friendly. Once we get back to the Eldarin Continent, then you can experience a change of pace. But until then, it is unlikely to meet anyone or anything that is friendly," I said while thinking of the gnomes.
"I won't let you down. I will work hard," Lanner declared with fake enthusiasm. He said the right words, but I knew his heart wasn't in the right place. In time that might change, but he was like me from a young age. Determined and hopeful, not realizing the full weight of being an adventurer.
I suppose someone might go their entire life fighting monsters in the dungeon, but eventually something would happen. An Abnormal, other adventurers, a surge of Mana, something would test the adventurer.
There was no such thing as killing monsters to become a legend. I had gotten past the point of basic fights. They no longer worried me. It was the new, the unexpected, and the challenging situations the dungeon threw at me that would threaten my life.
"All done?" I asked Lanner, and he nodded. "Clean."
It really was the most useful spell skill of all time. Learning that alone made things far more comfortable. Without that spell skill, going into the dungeon would be miserable. I had experienced that misery firsthand and never wanted to go back.
Sure, it might waste some Mana but being comfortable while resting would improve the regeneration of my reserves and put me in a better mindset for whatever combat. Or those were things I told myself to justify the Mana cost.
I slowly removed my armor and then checked it thoroughly. Even after using Clean, checking everything for damage and doing daily minor repairs was important. Letting one's equipment go would see an adventurer become like Blood Gore, a former supreme legend. Naked, save for a spatial pouch, running around the dungeon.
While I didn't mind running about naked, I didn't work to get armor skills to fight without an extra layer of protection. I didn't rely on my armor, but it mainly helped with area attacks. I had to evade or shield against any potent attacks with a spell.
I'd been consistently reminded that blocking with armor was a mistake. Armor was not a reliable defense. A catastrophic failure was too risky; the armor could fail, or a weak spot could be attacked.
I not only checked my armor, but also inspected my clothes, performing minor repairs. I don't have Sewing as a skill, though I could acquire it. Not that I had the spare Mind stats for such a useless skill.
I didn't need my stitches to be perfect. They needed to work and maintain things for as long as they could. My spatial pouch's spare clothing needed to last a decade. In that scenario, I'd care more about food than my wardrobe if my clothes fell apart.