"For a talking wo—hound, he's meek." Berdrogh added first.
Meek? Meek!?
"Only now I understand him, and he could always talk." She repeated Han's words in a rather reserved way compared to him.
"Ah. Like with… Juuka." She said as she remembered. The tone couldn't have shifted into a somber one more quickly. Both of them were acting strangely all of a sudden; Kanade plopped back down while Berdrogh leaned back, letting the moment pass as if she had said something drastic.
"What's wrong?" He asked, but quickly regretted it. Kanade gazed at him with an expression he had just seen before.
However, she didn't have time to burst as a weird, echoey humming faded in from directly above them, from the hole in the ceiling. They darted to their feet, and in that second Kanade had already drawn her bow. With a quick glance back, Han could tell that blue light was creeping from inside each of the holes. Something big was coming.
"Hide." He said, snapping Kanade out of whatever trance she was in. Berdrogh followed. They crouched behind a large root as the light reached its brightest.
—BZZZ!
The blue light was accompanied by a deafening clapping of wings. After that eerily loud buzzing, thousands of huge blue insects spread out into their cave. The sound was nowhere near as loud as it had been before; the sheer number of them and their immense glow practically formed a wave that covered every inch of the ceiling. Han darted back to see the other side of it. It was beautiful.
The ceiling had turned into an ocean. The varying shades of deep blue kept shifting around in a pattern they all somehow followed. Once a bug grazed the bright stone on their backs, it rippled like a wave to every single bug on the ceiling.
"W…ow." Han turned to her, she was still fixed on what was above them. Tiny moths with a blue crystal twice their size were zigzagging upward, giving their all as they made their way to the adult moth ocean above.
"I've never seen anything this… serene." Berdrogh added.
After that light show, they came back up to their spot. The dungeon floor was slowly going dimmer. Berdrogh yawned indiscriminately and quite loudly, notably. Kanade promptly hit his shoulder, though that didn't hinder him at all.
"…What?" He added while getting comfortable. He lay down with his legs atop each other and his fingers interlocked under his head. Surprisingly, he somehow had enough shoulder mobility to manage that. The big behemoth's top-heavy armor gave him an angle where he wasn't completely flat but reclined, as if he had a pillow under his back.
Has to be uncomfortable.
Kanade, though, had the pleasure of taking off her stiff leather chest plate, Han was unsure why. She was still as much in danger as them; at least he was there to take a hit for her if need be. Then it hit him.
I guess the chest plate's cosmetic around here.
Even Berdrogh's layered, compressed or whatever steel armor couldn't really take a hit from a level 50 mob. But then, could he? A non-lethal injury should be fine to tank, but if by chance he got hit in the head, wouldn't he be dead?
"Goodnight." Kanade said, snapping him out of it. He was already used to it, so he hadn't noticed her huddling up against him. She could completely hide away under his thick black fur, but didn't this time. Instead she lay her head on his outstretched front leg and stared at the only light around—the blue ocean above them.
"Night." Berdrogh added after a moment. "You too, Pooch." He hadn't forgotten him either.
"Hm? Yeah." He absentmindedly responded, still staring into Kanade's unblinking green eyes as they reflected the bright blue light. He caught on what Berdrogh had said and smiled.
"He said goodnight." She interpreted something else.
"Guessed so." Berdrogh said, and their conversation came to a halt. Kanade snickered to herself for a moment after she answered him. Quiet minutes passed. The dungeon floor had seemingly gone to sleep as well; aside from the occasional branch pop, the only sound came from the moth ocean. Even then, the pseudo-waves had grown calmer. In that pure, gentle silence a pin drop could be heard across the floor, but this time it was restrained sniveling.
"I… want to go home…" She muttered to Han, her head buried in his chest. He wasn't sure what to do, and Berdrogh clearly heard her but pretended to sleep instead. He carefully lifted his front paw and placed it against her back, following one to one what he had seen in a movie.
"We will, don't worry." He answered calmly, but wasn't prepared for her response.
"I miss Juuka… I don't want to be here…" Her muffled voice reached him, stunning him for a moment. He understood wanting to be anywhere but here. How come Juuka was the other thing she mentioned?
"But she's fine." He answered. She had to be around his level, so leveling up again would be a tad annoying. But then everything paused when blank green eyes stared at him with tears still running down her cheeks.
"What…?" She asked. Berdrogh coughed in the background. Something was wrong. In the span of a second he processed everything and rendered it once more, grasping the situation he had been put in.
They don't know if she will "reincarnate" like the other chosen…
"…Remember what Berdrogh said? She'll be fine. I can promise you that." He added with warm confidence, which was true; he didn't get the feeling she would change classes or appearance. Besides, this was the only promise he could reliably keep.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
He took her silence as a sign she would calm down, though that had to be a big reach on his part. He stayed with her until she fell asleep. She settled back on her side, using his front leg as a pillow like before. He had business to attend to, though, so he tried his hardest to sleep.
A familiar tickle on his nose told him what he already knew. He opened his eyes and stood up. Sitting would get uncomfortable after a while since he could still feel everything here. Instead, he closed his eyes, pointed with one hand while the other was pressed to his left temple.
A bed… a sofa… c'mon! SO-FA!
"And voila!" He said after having the pleasure of looking at the front face of the worst sofa imaginable. Stepping aside revealed it was only the front face of the worst sofa imaginable. Nonetheless, with comfort in mind, he jumped on, not caring if it could lean back. He could only wince when his bottom landed on pure concrete. No softness whatsoever.
"Controlling Po—the dog really made me sensitive." He talked to himself as he got as comfortable as he could, and it made sense. Luckily, spending twenty years walking, well, mostly sitting, was enough to ingrain that into his muscle memory, or else he would be walking on all fours by now. The single most unusual thing was that pain had numbed; he could endlessly poke and prod at the issue without getting an answer. The focus was on something that could impact his whole life. With a thought, a red menu box popped open.
"Alright…" He did a zoom-in gesture with both thumbs and index fingers. The small box quickly spanned his whole field of vision, covering every corner with numbers, descriptions, and data.
"Still hate it, but need to see what I'm workin' with." He leaned back and spread his hands across the top of the rock-hard sofa. The issue with so much information in front of you was being more likely to miss something. "Not me though…"
Everything aside, the important one to look at was this.
[DIVINITY IN QUESTION]
[ALL AVAILABLE(BASED ON STATUS)]
[ADAM, GOD OF WAR]
[EVE, GODDESS OF PROSPERITY]
[Evelyn]
[- 1 … 35 -]
? NOTE: DIVINITY CAN ONLY BE CHOSEN WHENEVER GIVEN THE CHANCE.
This just screamed problems. Out of curiosity he went through all 35 pages. He didn't know any of them aside from the first two, which were, to be fair, very popular back in his world. On top of that, there was this issue.
"The hell do they do?" He hadn't heard of divinity, but quickly connected the dots via paladins, oathbreakers, and other religious classes. He couldn't lie to himself, glancing through every god's name, none really stuck out.
"Who's this Evelyn?" Somehow the goddess of nothing wasn't capitalized or given an identifying title. While he wasn't going to be reckless about this, that alone made him want to stay away from an unknown god. Peculiarity aside, the choice was obvious.
"None! Hehe…" He laughed, quickly noticing how quiet and empty the Phantom Realm was. Realizing how pitiable he looked didn't detract him for long though.
The menu told him nothing about the boon he would gain, or the cost, penalty, or disadvantage. Especially in the dangerous yet beautiful shithole they were in, he was responsible for three lives, and more importantly, himself. What would happen if he chose Adam and gained a taunt?
"Eh… could be good…?" He said after a second thought, but it still wouldn't help them leave. Or whatever prosperity would do to him. This was only a real choice because of the note at the end.
"It meant that I'll get a chance to choose again… sometime." That was good enough for him to dismiss the divinity menu and focus on the rest, starting with his skills.
[HOST — HAN — LVL 20 | EXP: ???????]
[ABILITIES]
? Tickplode(LVL 2) ?
Explode the symbiont, the host’s body or part of either.
? Egstoss(LVL 1) ?
Release a burst of healing scaled to the percentage of the symbiont’s Mana spent.
[PASSIVES]
? Egheal(LVL 1) ?
Enable passive healing by siphoning the host’s Mana.
? Paratance(LVL 1) ?
Grant the host base 25% of symbiont’s stats, plus 1% more every 5 levels.
? NOTE: If by any circumstance symbiont falls under level 20, it would not be usable and would reset.
He couldn’t understand why he would lose levels, but he averted his eyes from that menu before he could face-palm. Out of all of them, the useless one leveled up. He waved his own stat menu, next one up was Pochirin’s.
[HOST — POCHIRIN(JUVENILE) — LVL 20 | EXP: ??????? ]
[ABILITIES]
? Bite of Obliviousness(LVL 1) ?
Apply confusion upon the next biting attack.
? Oblivious Howl(LVL 1) ?
Cause confusion in a howling cone, enables the choice to recloak.
? Forgotten Devouring(LVL 1) ?
Get an attack without breaking cloak, deals bonus damage when unseen and additional if effected by confusion.
[PASSIVES]
? Cloak of Obliviousness(LVL 1) ?
Become imperceivable to any unknowing enemy until attacking, or once spotted, all within a close radius.
Nothing changed, but Pochirin still didn't have a class—technically, neither did he. Even though he had chosen one way back in the crypt, he had nothing to show for it. He gestured the menu away, finally glancing over a practically empty stat menu.
[HOST — ??? — LVL 1 | EXP: ???????]
[PASSIVES]
? Nira(LVL 1) ?
This one was simply incomprehensible. Although he assumed that the host itself was the menu, that was how he was able to have it in the first place. The interesting part was that the host, if it was a menu, had a level, and was close to leveling up. Without overthinking it, as it would be impossible to guess what that could bring, he also saw that Pochirin had gained some proficiency.
[PROFICIENCY]
? Daggers — 2% ?
“At least it’s something.” He ignored it as Zom would have had over 30 percent if he still had him. Finally, unlike that, he saw something actually useful in his titles menu.
[TITLES]
“Therystown’s One of Many.”
Gained after defeating a Hanma Monster in Therystown, making the town prosper once more.
REWARD: +1 CHR
“Pioneer”
Gained after venturing into uncharted locations and unnamed lands, everything is new and fortunate.
REWARD: Upon finding something that has yet to be found, gain EXP based on the discovery.
We’re going to the charred tree, eventually…