Chapter 43 – Future Plans.

“W-we made it!”

Exclaimed an out-of-breath man, clutching his chest and clearly exhausted. He was not alone; his friend was curled up on the side, clutching onto something entirely different. His gaze fell on that item, a small monster cage used for transporting milder species. Inside was a small white ant, twitching around.

“You still took that thing with you? There is something wrong with you…”

Eugene sighed. During their escape, he had abandoned the cage, prioritizing his own life. Alanna, on the other hand, insisted on bringing the monster with them. Now, they were certain that this ant was not born in the dungeon. A monster could not leave the dungeon it was created in, and even the strange armor that had chased them could not break this rule.

Alanna, despite the exhaustion etched on her face, cradled the small cage gently. The Gleaming Ant inside twitched, its silvery-white body reflecting the moonlight. Eugene shook his head in disbelief and looked around to make sure that they were truly safe. Four adventurers were with them but some guards had also spotted them and began to approach.

“We can’t rest yet. We need to get to the guild and report what happened,”

Said one of the adventurers, his voice steady despite the fatigue he was feeling. The group knew that the armor inside the dungeon was dangerous, it needed to be subjugated. With the darkness skill around its body, it could not be killed by low-level adventurers like them.

“What’s going on here?”

“Glad that you asked.”

One of the guards sprinted over to the adventurers to ask about the problem. However, before they could answer a high pitch screech erupted around them. Everyone found themselves covering their ears. Alanna took the brunt of this audible attack as the source was the cage with the Gleaming Ant inside. The small creature was giving out a spine chilling sound as it had awoken inside of a cage it didn’t want to be in.

“Calm down, no one is going to hurt you.”

Alanna shouted while quickly pressing one of the magical symbols on the cage. In a flash, the piercing sound was gone and even though the ant continued, no one was affected by the skill it was using. The group of people turned to her with puzzled looks. The girls responded by laughing nervously.

“Everything is under control now!”

She assured them while the ant continued to rattle inside the cage. It was clear that the creature didn’t want to be there, but it also couldn’t escape. The strange magical symbols around it seemed to be draining its stamina, and it was already injured. Soon enough, the monster tired itself out and slumped forward, its insectoid eyes glancing at the entrance to the dungeon from which it had been forcibly taken, as if longing to return.

*****

“I can’t…”

Within the same dungeon a lone living armor stood, slamming his fists at a strange invisible wall that it could not cross. He had chased down the humanoid beings that abducted his friend but was forced to stop, right before he could cross the threshold of the dungeon’s entrance. Rusty, as the armor had come to be known, pounded against the unseen barrier with a sense of desperation. His friend was right there but there was no way of progressing any further.

“What can I do? I need to think…”

Rusty retreated a few steps, trying to get a grip on the strange emotions he was feeling. He wasn’t sure what to do; his friend was now gone, snatched away right before his eyes, and he had been powerless to stop it. During the chase, he had constantly used up the mana crystals he had taken from his previous lair, and only one remained. The swirling darkness around him could only function with the aid of magic doping, a state that would not be sustainable in the future.

While thinking, he recalled a scene from the past. He had shot an arrow at adventurers on the second floor and missed. Once they were gone, he thought nothing of it, but they called for help from stronger people. It was now quite probable that after making such a huge scene, people would be after him. Staying in this location was dangerous, so he needed to retreat first and then think of a new plan. His aim was to save Gleam, but to do that, he needed to survive first.

“Don’t worry… I’ll find you Gleam…”

He glanced at the dungeon stairs that he couldn’t approach, then finally turned around. The swirl of darkness emanating from his body subsided as he decided to conserve the rest of his mana. Soon he was making his way back into the dungeon that had become quite chaotic. A lot of monsters had followed after him and the adventurers he was chasing and now they had caught up.

It had been a while, but Rusty had been created on this level. Navigating them was rather easy, and even though the monsters here were now aggressive towards him, they didn’t pose much of a threat. A few skeletons charged at him, but even after their blades connected with his body, they didn’t cause any damage. His durability exceeded the attacking power of these low-level F-rank monsters and wouldn’t even cause him to lose a single hit point.

“They are really weak… weaker than those insectoids…”

With just a single hit, the skeleton was defeated, and its friends followed suit. Rusty could see how much he had grown, as dispatching the other living armors could be done with a few shoves and strikes to their body parts. Normally, he would be feeling ecstatic, but without Gleam around, it didn’t feel the same. The other adventurers were luckily also busy with these monsters, which allowed him to head back down to his previous hiding spot on the first level.

“I hope they will have an answer…”

Rusty found himself at a loss for what to do. The situation had taken a turn he hadn’t predicted, but all hope was not lost. While Gleam was not here, there were two other beings he could turn to for help. The Hero and the Demon Lord had experienced this world for longer than he had, and perhaps they could show him the way forward. Thus, after making sure that he was alone, he activated the skill that would call both the guides here at once. While he knew that this would cause his mana to run dry fast, he was desperate.

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“Well well, if it isn’t Rusty, that was quite the spectacle, are you perhaps trying to become the next demon king?”

First appeared Aburdon, the fallen Demon King, in the form of a black orb of light. He seemed rather amused by the predicament Rusty had found himself in and couldn’t stop himself from silently laughing. Next, the orb of white light appeared, representing the betrayed hero Alexander, who showed a bit more concern about Rusty’s situation.

“It’s not easy to lose a friend, you could at least try to show some empathy.”

“Empathy? Friend? Hah, none of those are needed to become a king of demons!”

Just like many times before, the two started arguing with each other about things of the past. If Rusty were a being of flesh, he would be sighing now. However, this was not the time to listen to these two bickering around. He needed knowledge about how to proceed, and he needed it now.

“Enough, stop! I didn’t summon you here for your squabbling. I need your help,”

“Oh, how forceful? Did you really care about that little ant that much? You can just make another bonding contract later, what’s the big deal? How about you worry about yourself instead.”

The black orb replied and tried to shift the conversation in a different direction – survival. It was clear to everyone there that once things settled down, another party of adventurers would come to flush him out, just like before. And this time, they would likely do more than just toss him down a chasm.

“I am but… I have to save Gleam first, but I don’t know how to do that…”

His metal head dropped as if he was at the end of his wits. He had thought that he had evolved enough to leave the dungeon by now as the voice wasn’t affecting his body anymore, and even the other monsters saw him as an outsider. However, for some reason, he was still unable to leave.

“Well, there are a few ways of getting out of the dungeon. You did leave it already once, right?”

The hero brought up this point, and Rusty realized that he was right. After falling into the chasm, he miraculously left the dungeon and the voice behind. That approach had many problems, though, as he would be attacked by shadowy spiders, and there was no way of knowing if any of those caves and tunnels led outside of the dungeon.