Everybody who was anybody hung out in the dungeon. There were skinwolves, crocodilian-things, rocks, water, and air. Naturally, Edward was invited to this prestigious club almost as soon as he arrived in Corin. Now, he wasn’t one to badmouth others behind their backs, but there was a noticeable lack of cult members present in the dungeon. And while he wouldn’t directly say anything, the insinuation there was kind of obvious.

  In any case, shouldn’t he feel privileged to be able to loiter around in the dungeon instead of sleeping at night? Cause if you really thought about it, all he did during the day was try to sense his mana, which didn’t work out, and then he ran around for a bit, did some push-ups, that sort of thing. In comparison, here in the dungeon at night, he got to play tag in the dark with dog-type, evil horrors and sometimes there were water-based games with the flipping beasts. And lets be honest, who wouldn’t go for a nice, late-night skinny dip?

  Not that he was too into those types of recreational activities, but as long as he avoided the rather enthusiastic members who did enjoy them, that left him with plenty of time to pursue improving himself. Like right now, he had crammed himself on top of a small rock outcrop, hidden behind some stalactites. Which, honestly, he was a bit hesitant to do at first, as his experiences with rock outcrops in the dungeon were not exactly pleasant up to this point. Still, a good spot was a good spot, and anything that wanted to “play” with him would be hard-pressed to sneak up on him up there.

  Apparently, that was pretty important for training in the Heart technique, as he’d be far too focused to pay any real attention to his surroundings. Which made sense, the portion of the technique he was practicing today was very heavy in meditation. Luckily, according to Gerald, it would use different skills to that of sensing his mana, so he could hold out some hope that he might actually have some sort of talent for the field, unlike how he was with the mana.

  ‘Okay, I think I’m in a good spot now, Gerald. So, its time for you to give the big reveal, what exactly am I supposed to be doing?’

  “Well, once you’ve started your meditation, you have to look deep within yourself. Not your mind, don’t do what you do to enter your mindscape, you got to enter into your bodyscape. Haha, that’s not actually what its called, but essentially, you are going to focus your senses deep into your body and try to feel your heartbeat, as well as the blood pumping through your veins. Once you’ve got that down, we then move onto the next step, which will be sensing the production of your blood, and its purification in your kidneys.”

  Edward only knew what some of those words meant. He knew all about his heartbeat, and the blood pumping through his veins, not as in-depth as Gerald clearly wanted him to, but he had a grasp of the basics regarding those two things. However, he had absolutely no clue what made blood, nor did have any clue what a ‘kidney’ was supposed to be.

  He had two options going forward then. He could either tell the goldfinger he didn’t know what a kidney was, and it might explain it to him properly, or it could feed him false information. Or he could wing it, pretend like he knew what it was, and just hope for the best. The decision did not need to be made immediately, fortunately enough, so he could at least start on the first step without worrying.

  The process to fall into a meditative trance was not difficult for him, it seemed that he had a talent for emptying his mind, which was probably a result of losing himself. Once his mind was clear, and focusing on the task at hand, it didn’t take him long to realize that what he was to do was not quite as simple as the goldfinger made it out to be.

  After all, how does one go about perceiving their heartbeat on command, much less the feeling of blood pumping through your veins? Wasn’t the human body somewhat designed for not being able to notice those two things? Like, both were subconscious efforts, how does make them into semi-conscious efforts?

  Waking up from his trance for a moment, Edward shifted his hands, positioning his fingers over his wrist so that he could feel the pulse there. Then, satisfied that he could confidently feel the pulsing of his blood, he slipped back into a trance to continue his search for the beat of his heart.

  Suddenly, with his pulse to match a rhythm to, his senses felt transformed, as if they had become several times more sensitive. In reality, that wasn’t actually the case, but there was a new, faint sense of his heart beating in his chest. There was a chance he was imagining it, however, as he focused on it more to discern whether it was real or not, it slipped from his grasp.

  Then, with nothing to focus on anymore, his senses covered that area of his body in a more general manner. And as if by magic, he began to be able to feel the beating of his heart once more.

  Naturally, he once again tried to home in on that sensation, only for it to disappear as he did so, just like before. Thinking that he had the process figured out, he was not dissuaded, as he let himself slip back into generally sensing the area around his heart.

  This cycle that he had formed of barely feeling his beating heart, then trying to focus on it and losing it, then eventually feeling it again repeated for a long period of time. Not that Edward knew exactly how long, as his concentration was fully on the task.

  He still hadn’t gotten a good grasp on how to truly feel his heartbeat, and not the vestiges that he seemed to be feeling. However, it had become much easier for him to start feeling those vestiges to begin with, which made him feel like he was making some form of progress.

  In any case, his meditation stopped, and he opened his eyes. Honestly, he was somewhat surprised nothing had happened while he had gone so deep, it was the perfect time for some creepy critter to have its way with him.

  Perhaps he had spoken too soon, however, as he found a dark purple blob about the size of a fist attached to the side of his right leg. With zero hesitation, Edward wrenched the blob off his leg, and threw it into the opposite wall of the cave. It made a squelching sound as it made contact with the wall, and he was certain that he had killed it.

  Only for it to pry itself off the wall with its many legs, before letting off a piecing, high-pitched screech. Instinctually, he knew that that was a bad sign, so, not wasting a moment, he went to hop to his feet to start his escape.

  If only it could be so simple, though, as his right leg was completely numb from his waist down. Not expecting to have to support his whole body with one leg, Edward tumbled off of the ledge he’d been sitting on, having fallen completely off-balance.

  Landing on his back, the wind was knocked out of him, but at least it didn’t hurt all that much. It still took him some time to get up on his one usable leg, time that he couldn’t really afford to be wasting away like he was.

  Hobbling on one leg slowed him down a lot, and the little bastard that had been sucking on his leg took advantage of that fact by maintaining around a two-dozen foot gap between them. It was also regularly letting off screeches, so he was certain that it was waiting for reinforcements before it would mess with him again.

  Turning around to go grab it to shut it up, he was surprised to find out that the creature was quite agile, as it jumped back half a dozen feet in one quick leap, widening the gap between them in an instant.

  If he couldn’t approach it, or run away, it seemed that it was only a matter of time before its buddies would show up to play. Maybe in their culture, throwing another against a wall was a form of burying the hatchet, and it just wanted to invite him back to its house for a bite to eat?

  He wouldn’t hold out his hopes that that was the case, anything and everything in this dungeon that wanted to eat a meal with him meant it in a way that he was the meal. Not that he was particularly comfortable with such a conclusion, but that was the way things were heading.

  At the very least, he would like to make the situation difficult for the blob and its friends. But with his leg in its current state, he didn’t have many options to make that happen. It wasn’t like he was good at fighting when he was in peak condition, which left him with his only option being to make it inconvenient for the blob to follow him.

  For obvious reasons, that wasn’t a possibility either. What was he to do then?

  Caught up in his thoughts, Edward didn’t realize that there was a wall in front of him until his head collided with it. Now fully aware of his surroundings, and in particular, the wall that he had run into, he looked around, confused that his path through the cave had ended so suddenly.

  As it turns out, it wasn’t as simple as the wall of the cave curving, and him not noticing due to not paying attention. Instead, it was a dead end. Just a sheer, relatively-flat wall at the end of this branch of the cave system, and he had unknowingly walked into it, cornering himself.

  Sighing, he leaned against the wall of the cave. He did not hold any hopes that he would be able to run from the blob and its friends. It would be a fight to the death then. And hopefully the one dying wouldn’t be him.

  Coincidentally, it seemed the blob and its friends, which were just several more, equally sized blobs, arrived, looking ready to do battle. They approached Edward cautiously, with two on the left, two on the right, and two from the front. He was sure that if his back had not been to the wall, there would be at least one coming from that direction as well.

  In times like these, there was really only one thing that he could do. Out of the corner of his eye he could see it, a decent-sized rock positioned far to his right. Inching slowly in that direction, bit by bit, it was a race between his crawl and that of the blobs.

  However, this was a race he was not meant to win, as the blobs shot from the ground in unison, speeding towards him through the air. Reacting quickly, he dove to the side with his one good leg, reaching out towards the rock. His landing was rough, and did not put him anywhere near close enough to grab the rock, but scrapes and bruises were preferable to the maws of hungry blobs.

  Behind him, he could hear squelches, as each of the creatures extricated themselves from the wall they’d leapt into. Adrenaline coursing through his veins, he threw himself to the side once more, not even bothering to rise to his feet. Once again, his quick reactions saved him, as he flipped out of the way of yet another charge of the creatures.

  Only that was where his luck ran out, as his dodge had left him in an unbalanced position, one that he was not able to throw himself from to dodge the next attack of the blobs. And in but a moment, he found himself covered in six more sizable lumps as each of the many-legged blobs tore into him.

  It wasn’t painful, as they must’ve had some sort of poison that acted as a numbing agent, but the mere sight of what they were doing to his body was mentally damaging in its own way. He desperately wanted to rip each lump off of his body, however, as he raised his hands up to get ahold of one of the creatures, he found that he could barely move his arm, as if it had no strength to it.

  Panicking, he attempted to get up, only to find that neither of his legs worked anymore. Then, he tried to roll over, to use the rocks on the ground to scrape the creatures from his skin, only to find himself unable to summon the strength to do even that. And soon after that, before he even had an opportunity to think of another plan, he found himself stuck lying there, paralyzed from head to toe.

  It didn’t take a stroke of genius for him to realize that he was a dead man lying. There was painfully little that he could do, and soon enough, his once deep breaths became shallow, as his ability to breathe slowly petered out. Not long after, although he could not be too certain, as he had yet to fully develop the sense, his heart stopped beating as well.

  Truthfully, by the end, he wasn’t even trying that hard to survive.

  Interim

  “That was kind of shitty way to die, huh? Couldn’t even put up much resistance, especially after letting the first one sneak up on me. Guess this run’s a bust for training, can’t feel my body for shit with those things toxins running through me.”

  There was little for him to do at this point, outside of wandering the caves for the remaining time, and perhaps fighting with the blobs or any other creatures he encountered. Not that he expected to see anything outside of the blobs, as, for whatever reason, he’d only really encountered one or two types of monsters at a time in the dungeon.

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  ‘Still,’ Edward thought to himself as he began walking, ‘Surely the dungeon has more to offer than what I’ve seen so far. This is my fourth night here? And so far there’s been three types of creatures that have killed me.’

  ‘It’s sucked to go through, but I’m no knight, or even an average warrior, and I’m sure either of the two could handle most of the threats I’ve encountered up to this point. If what I’ve seen was the worst of what the dungeon could throw at me, nobody in the kingdom would think they’re that big of a deal.’

  Thoughts coming to a conclusion, there was only one remark that Edward could make, “Fuck! That means its gonna get so much worse, doesn’t it?”

  Forgetting his surroundings, Edward screamed out loud, cursing the gods, the heavens, his uncle, the kingdom, the king, and countless different species of people and animals, including seven different types of ducks. The curses continued with such enthusiasm, spirit, and mirth that an inevitable result naturally occurred, he attracted a whole entourage of blobs, fresh and ready to tear him to shreds.

  And this time, even though he, once again, did not put up much resistance, he continued to curse anybody and everybody who might be responsible for the wicked fate that he was to go through.

  Interim

  Lightheaded, Edward frantically gasped for air. His mouth tasted of iron, he could smell blood in his throat, and yet he would not stop running. He didn’t know what he did wrong, but somehow he had gathered the blobs into an almost-wave of amorphous flesh behind him. The only thing keeping him from being caught was that the many creatures inhibited the movements of their companions, saving him at critical junctures time and time again.

  He could tell that this chase would end soon, and he wasn’t just referring to his lungs and legs finally giving out. No, this was something subtle he could smell in the air. Not literally, but small details he was starting to pick up on now that the run had gone on long enough.

  The blobs seemed to be corralling him in a certain direction. Obviously he couldn’t tell exactly where they were leading him, and he wasn’t even sure they were doing so at the beginning, but there could only so many times where the situation seemed hopeless, and a path emerged before him, before he realized that there was something fishy going on. Perhaps though, it was the fact that it seemed like he was getting lucky for once that really clued him in on the strangeness of the situation.

  Huffing and puffing for what felt like hours, it was only when Edward finally collapsed to the ground, practically foaming at the mouth, that he finally got his answer as to where he was being led the entire time.

  With faint and blurry vision, impeded even more by the ground his body was glued to, Edward watched as someone walked out from the darkness of the cave. Much like himself, the person before him was naked. Of course, he didn’t have some sort of magical nakedness-sense that told him this information, it was his eyes that did that.

  Whoever was walking towards him had an unsteady gait, as if they were drunk and lacking all forms of balance and coordination. It was soon apparent why this was the case, as whatever was before him, much like everything else in the dungeon, was no human. To be honest, he’d been expecting a skinwolf, but as the boy’s body walked further out into the light before him, he realized what was standing before him. The mother of all blobs.

  While a humorous description, it did not do the beast before him justice. This blob replaced the head on the boy’s body, but not in a one-to-one manner as one might expect. No, this thing did not try to blend in at all, nor could it, as it was undoubtedly a size or two bigger than the boy’s head would have been, should it have still been on his body.

  Much like its smaller cousins, or children, or whatever the relation was, this blob possessed many appendages, only unlike its fellow, it used them in an almost more grotesque manner. He could see several of them, probably three or four, reaching out and around the boy’s body and along his limbs, no doubt being used to puppet it.

  It did not bode well for Edward, but he was certain that the giant blob before him was missing several of its limbs. Or more aptly put, he was not able to see those several missing limbs. The conclusion from this information was obvious, that the blob had to be hiding its several missing body parts somewhere.

  And as the creature took yet another unsteady step forward, even more details became apparent to him. Covering the possessed body was what could only be described as pustules, or boils, or warts, or tumors. There were growths and lumps, coming in many shades and sizes, with most of them being a red, or a purple, or a purplish-red. Although quite similar in color and size to the many independent blobs that were standing guard behind the mother blob, Edward felt that it was unlikely that all of the many lumps were more blobs.

  In any case, he was quickly running out of time to come up with a plan. Not even necessarily a plan to escape, as with the sheer numbers working against him, that was likely impossible. No, this was a plan that would determine how his death would happen.

  There really was only one answer to that question, to go out swinging.

  Interim

  The disciplinary committee had doubled down on their work in tracking down the missing first year student. They kind of had to at this point, as while they’d managed to capture him on the first day of classes, it took nearly killing the kid to do so. Which meant now, they had a kid, who the last time they saw him, was hovering near death, just freely wandering the city.

  Even with all the healing he went through, it was likely that he still had a concussion, and that wasn’t something that was just slept on and would be fine the next day. Well, at least not at the level he was operating at. Some of the students in the warrior class had good enough passive recovery that they probably were able to sleep off a concussion.

  That, however, was not some untrained, first-year scout. All the same, it did explain how he was able to avoid detection for so long while still dealing with all of the effects of a concussion.

  To be honest, this was the worst timing to figure out that the boy was something of a prodigy in terms of the scout archetype. It should have been more apparent when he had dodged their attempts to track him down prior to the first day of classes, but they’d all figured he had some degree of training. And it wasn’t like it was easy to get the jump on a determined and alert scout.

  Now that he was concussed, he should’ve been far easier to track down, and he should’ve had difficulties getting away from the medical wing in his condition to begin with. Of course, once again, that was operating under the assumption they were dealing with some normal student, not a freak of nature.

  It was rude to insult someone you’d almost accidentally killed, but things changed when you now had other scouts, that were more trained, more experienced, and older. And not only could you not manage to track down the half-conscious boy, somehow nobody had even found the slightest clue about where he might be.

  The city was finite, and the boy was almost assuredly within the walls. Literally the only way he could have stealthily left them, is via the teleportation of an archmage, which was entirely not a feasible option.

  Thus, with little else to do, Kyle, along with the other disciplinary committee members, were forced to shamefully canvass the city, asking the citizenry for sightings of a boy with a not-very-unique look. The worst part of it all, Kyle could almost guarantee that one of them had spotted the boy already, and just not realized it.

  Kyle rubbed his eyes as he let out a yawn, he hadn’t expected his errands to last this long into the night. All things considered, this punishment was rather light for what he had done to the boy, albeit accidentally. Still, having to inspect and reconcile the inventories of the school’s canteens was a rather large amount of work for him to complete by himself.

  Fortunately, his disciplinary committee work had some overlap with this punishment of his, after all, unless the boy didn’t like to eat or drink, he had to have stopped at a well or the canteen at some point in time. While their coverage of the city’s wells and sources of food obviously had some gaps, Kyle found it hard to believe that the boy was capable enough in his current state to perfectly pick at those gaps to survive. But once again, based on the fact that they still hadn’t found him, maybe that actually was the case.

  Of course, most of those gaps were during the night, which obviously, was not a period of time that the disciplinary committee could really cover, and even if they could, a scout under the guise of darkness operated on a completely different level. The point was, was that conducting their search at night was pointless, and not feasible to arrange to begin with.

  And sure, right now he was out at night, and he could be looking around for the missing boy. But he was tired from his long day, and couldn’t wait to be back at his dorm in his bed. A drop of rain hitting Kyle’s nose cut off his train of thought, as a new thought flashed through his mind, ‘Shit. There’s no way I’m making it back to the dorm without getting soaked.’

  Glancing at the sky, Kyle only now noticed that the moon had become blocked by clouds. It was no wonder why it was raining then, he shouldn’t have been so caught up by his thoughts that he didn’t notice as they moved overhead.

  A high-pitched voice rang out in the night, “Well, well, well, what do we have here? A little student of the academy, all alone so late at night. And how unfortunate for him, for the rain has just begun.”

  Hairs stood up at the back of his neck, as he spun around, looking for the source of the voice. Maybe with a little moonlight, or if his eyes hadn’t been so accustomed to the torchlight, he might’ve stood a chance, but as it stood, there was an enemy at an unknown spot within his vicinity.

  One might ask him, how did he know it was an enemy? The answer was quite simple, who else but an evil person talked that?

  He needed intel and fast, or else his opponent would be able to easily take him out from the darkness. For right now, he assumed he was dealing with some sort of roguish-type, which meant that his eyes and ears would never be able to catch a hint of this lurker.

  Sending out pulses of mana through the ground, Kyle engaged a pseudo-tremor sense, which would hopefully catch the scoundrel in its web. It took a moment to kick in, but he immediately felt a ping from his rear left. Not even bothering to turn his body, he fired a rock in the direction.

  Listening carefully, he didn’t hear the thud of the rock hitting a body, or even an impact with the ground or a wall. It was silent.

  That wasn’t a good sign, some sort of sound-dampening magic was at work here; he wouldn’t be able to expect anybody to hear the sounds of battle and come running to help. In fact, all he could hear was the soft pitter-patter of rain. Clearly this was a water-based spell at work, and the rain probably only boosted its effects.

  Once again, that wasn’t a good sign. This was a premeditated attack, coordinating someone with a water-affinity with the coming rain.

  The sharp voice rang out once more, “Kehehehe! That was a close one. I didn’t know I’d be meeting up with a student of such hard work and dedication. Tremor sense is such a hard spell to learn, isn’t it?” The voice sounded out directly from his right, and before it even finished speaking a rock was flying in its direction. And once again, nothing.

  “Tut, tut, tut. Did you really think it was going to be that easy? I might not have gone to the Combat School, but I’m no fool. Many people say sound-magic is a waste of time, too much work relative to the payoff, but combined with the right skills, it can be quite effective, no?”

  Once again, Kyle fired off a rock in the direction of the voice. Regardless of whether the enemy was there or not, it did not matter, he couldn’t listen to what they were saying, as they could be tricking him.

  But as the next taunt emerged from the darkness, he could almost feel as they wiggled their finger at him, as if saying with their body language, “Such a foolish boy.”

  However, that is not what they said, instead, it was, “Such a smart boy, not listening to your enemy’s advice. I am a bit tricky, after all. But what are you to do? Your tremor sense hasn’t picked up on me for a while now, or am I wrong?”

  It was true. The one and only time it had picked up anything was at the very beginning. That one ping was all he had managed to get.

  “Maybe I should give you a little help then, hmm? Throw a bone your way, and give you at least a tiny chance of defeating me.”

  A small, minute ping rang out from directly in front of him, which was naturally answered with another rock. Then to his left, another ping, another rock. Next was somehow to his right, then his left again, front, left, back, right. And then back and right at the same time.

  He stopped shooting his rocks off at the pings as he realized that he’d fallen for the one of the voice’s tricks. It wasn’t giving him an opportunity, nor had he picked up on a slip-up of theirs. They were doing something to trigger and confuse his tremor sense. And as the seconds ticked by, the number of pings and directions they were coming from only continued to increase as a fog began to roll in around him and the rain intensified.

  This time the voice felt as if it was a whisper into his ear, “It seems you’re fully caught in the storm now, but don’t you worry, your suffering will not last much longer~.”

  Every moment that passed made the situation worse for Kyle. His only saving grace up to this point was that the rogue seemed to want to play around with him for a while before finishing him off. Still, that was a minor thing when he had no way of fighting back against them. If he could at least sense them in some way, he might be able to do something, but all his tremor sense picked up was the light pings of the rain and—

  —A single spot that was utterly void of any pings. That was it, the opportunity he’d been waiting for, and likely the only one he’d get. That meant he had one shot to pull this off; he’d have to take this guy out in a single attack.

  Without any more deliberation, Kyle strengthened the pulse of mana he was sending through the ground, shaping it into the form of a spike as it went.

  Kyle couldn’t help but scream out in excitement, “Hahahaha! Fuck yes!” The feedback from his spell combined with his tremor sense told him that his attack had pierced through something. Calming himself, and being careful to not drop his guard, he cautiously approached the object, or hopefully person, that his rock spike had pierced through.

  And as he caught a glimpse of the tall, thin man he had skewered, his guard naturally dropped. Letting out a sigh of relief—

  —“That was a close one, you almost had me. Clever boy, watching carefully for where the rain wasn’t hitting the ground~! It would have gotten me, too! That is, if my friend wasn’t here to help me~.”

  Dread instantly filled his body, as Kyle was forced to listen a new, deeper voice joined the one that had been taunting him.

  “That’s enough of that. I’ve let you have your fun with the boy, knock him unconscious already before he pulls off another surprise and kills you.”

  Before the words even finished leaving the hidden figures mouth, Kyle felt a sharp impact launch into his chest, sending him careening through the air. And in the next moment, he felt his back, neck, and head make impact with a wall, as he crumpled to the ground and began to lose his consciousness.

  The last thing he heard before passing out was, “I know, I know. I was surprised myself, getting hit not only once, but twice by a measly second year~. It seems like the students at the Combat Academy are getting more dangerous every year~.”