The caves were treacherous to navigate, even with Crudia’s guidance. Her map showed us the path to the giant door she apparently saw in one end, and that was presumably our goal. But knowing the path was one thing, and traversing it was another.

  The corridors were barely wide enough for two or three people to stand shoulder-to-shoulder, but there were smaller passages still, barely large enough that I could fit. Oh, and Crudia was a head shorter than me, as were the Carp men, so even if they didn’t hit their head on the way too short ceiling, I sure did.

  The bones I’ve looted at the beginning were not here, deeper inside the cavern. I’ve managed to loot 5 players in total. 5 players, just dead. I knew I shouldn’t be surprised about the fact - the announcement even said that more than half of us passed away already. But actually seeing the bodies was just different, somehow.

  I touched one wall as I bent underneath yet another low spot, the stone wet and earthy from moss. No Carp men yet. Talisha marked their locations for Crudia on her map, apparently, but we were still a few minutes off.

  And that was if the door was actually the entrance to the boss. Crudia said that she only managed to scout the main path properly, but for every turn of the main corridor, there were one or two smaller paths on the sides. That left us with two choices.

  Either we go into the side-paths, and kill every damn creature in them. Or we just go on forward, and risk getting surrounded.

  “I don’t think it’s a good idea. That’s it. You use your skills, and are left with nothing in the boss battle.” Mark continued his speech.” Plus, there’s a limit to how many health potions you have! We-”

  “Yeah, but that won’t matter if these two can’t kill the boss.” Talisha interrupted. The older woman looked angry at Mark. And scared. “What if they need to retreat, and run into god-knows how many creatures waiting for them, right next to the boss room. Or even better, the sounds make the creatures advance while they are fighting. It’s a terrible risk, Mark.”

  “The mobs don’t attack while a bossfight is going on, guys! That’s basic game info!”

  Well, I guessed that he might have had more experience with these kinds of things than all of us. I could see either side winning the argument, actually.

  Talisha continued before anyone else could. “But that isn’t the issue. This isn’t a game, Mark. You don’t have to fight and risk your life. Neither do I, for that matter, but these two do. We depend on them for our survival, and I’m not going to let you end all of our lives before they have to, just so we satisfy a curiosity about game mechanics.”

  Crudia’s ears were, once again, plastered to her head. “I… I a-agree with Talisha, Mark. I’d rather not risk it.”

  He looked to me for support. To ME, of all people. I grinned, and swayed my head from side to side.

  Mark sighed, his hands on his face. “You guys know damn well that it’s my life on the line as well. But okay. I’ve been outvoted. In the name of democracy, I accept the-”

  How theatrical. I just walked straight through him, heading straight into one of the side paths. “Yeah, yeah. As if you could make me do anything.”

  “Rude!” he shouted from behind me, though I could hear a hint of acceptance in his tone. Us finding the five copses improved his mood somewhat. Or, better said, finding their loot did. Although there wasn’t much - the corpses had worse equipment than I and Crudia did- there was enough gold to satisfy Mark, and the [Guidal dust] would definitely come in handy. Well, handy if we ever found a party member that could use it, at least.

  The path got even narrower, forcing me to crawl at places, then squeeze inbetween others where the walls were pressed too close together. By every passing moment, I was getting more and more envious of Crudia’s more petite frame. Gosh, she was way bigger than I was before we’ve been brought here! Why was I the taller one?

  Although, I did appreciate how my stature made me a bit more majestic. It definitely fit the royalty to be taller than normal people. The thought proved enough of a distraction so that I ignored the unpleasant feeling of moss scraping against my face.

  “Hey, Shrimpie, wait!” Crudia whispered from behind.

  “Umm, I’m a little stuck here. Can it wait?”

  “The moss, Shrimpie! It’s an alchemical compound!”

  “Great. Take it then. Just-”

  “Oh, also. Red dots on the map. Just ahead!”

  Oh, finally. I was beginning to question whether this whole side-path escapade would be completely worthless, and I’d just have to crawl back again after traversing this damned thing.

  I looked ahead, and truly, there were red dots, though my heat vision didn’t really pick up on anything special. Were the Carp-men sleeping? If I looked a bit better, I could see what I thought was rock before, moving ever-so-slightly. The room was larger here - the corridor ended just a few steps away, and a larger, circular cavern opened up, smooth stone walls visible on the other side. This was the end of this path then. Finally.

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  I used [Analyze] on whatever it was that chose to ignore my presence.

  Pike fish dog

  Type : creature

  Level: 7

  Did you think that the Carp men were ugly? Oh boy, you don’t know even the half of it yet. The Carp men are actually kind of nice, as far as Exercia creatures go - they form bonds, live in communities, trade in between tribes… Oh! And of course, they also keep pets.

  Not only do they keep them, they actually take great care of them too! They get the best cuts of meat, train often, and are generally better kept than the actual Carp men. That also means they are usually a bit stronger.

  Yes, you’re looking at one. No, they aren’t the types of puppies you can pet. With a sleek body of a Pike fish, four legs that are almost as stupid as the Carp men’s, and the personality of your local Karen when she spots skateboarders, these are actually kind of dangerous!

  Maybe one pat would be acceptable, though. Aren’t they a bit adorable?

  Great. Another kind of fish that smelled. No, actually, this one didn’t smell, which was surprising. I would have noticed by now otherwise. The description was mostly spot-on though. They looked like mutant dogs that someone left half-sculpted.

  Their bodies were just the shape of a hot-dog, their legs muscular but not overly so. Their heads, however, were definitely fish. Fish with quite long, white and sharp teeth, that is. And prolonged snouts.

  They were asleep still, but something told me that would not be the case for long. I motioned for Crudia to follow, and stepped into the room. She stood right behind me in our most common formation, and we both readied our weapons. Our guides glided into the room, and that was when the dogs finally awoke.

  Five pairs of eyes opened, staring straight at us. Whatever they were feeding these things, it obviously wasn’t enough, cause these things were salivating in an instant. Honestly they’d probably look pretty scary, if I didn’t fight the Archwolfs with twice these guys’ size.

  The first ran at me, darting at a much higher speed than I expected. So fast, in fact, that I didn’t block properly, and its teeth sank into my calf. Pain rose in my leg, my muscles severed in an instant. I brought my shield down, but the thing was already moving, and my shield hit the ground instead.

  Two of them circled me, going for the smaller target, but I didn’t let them have their way. I kicked out at the dog on my left, the body left the ground with such speed that the sound of it crashing into the wall reverberated through the small chamber. Trusting Crudia to defend herself from the other dog, I focused up ahead again.

  And another shot of pain shot through my other leg, bringing me to the ground. I didn’t notice this one. It was already leaving, but it’s done its job. My legs were more red than blue, much to my horrification. Pain, I could take. But making me ugly? Oh, boy.

  “Potion, Shrimpie! Use one!”

  Right. I had those. I commanded to use one of the potions, its text blinking in front of me. It said something about cowardice, of course, and how healing was not the way of battle. Oh, and it also had a 200 second cooldown, which was kind of long, but it wasn’t that bad compared to my skills.

  My wounds closed in an instant, my HP regenerating at an unprecedented rate. The dogs did not realize that. The three were rushing at me in a sprint, my death definite in their eyes. Oh boy, did I have a surprise for them. I pretended I was hurt, failed to get up on purpose. They were about 3 meters away now, and I readied to strike.

  And that’s when Crudia jumped over me, desperation in her eyes. No, Crudia! I had it under control! Did she not hear Mark?

  She met one of the dog’s jaws with a dagger, caught it on the cheek and slid the dagger further. It only left the body when it reached the hind leg, and the dog collapsed. The last two dogs, confused and shocked, changed their target now, but it was too late. Crudia ran at them before they could scramble, her attacks quicker than anything I’d ever seen except bullet strike. She pushed one dagger into the eye socket of a dog that bit down on her leg, the body going limp, and then she just… disappeared. Was stealth supposed to do that? I thought it only worked on things that didn’t know she was already there. Maybe it was something else?

  The dog looked as confused as I felt, and decided that it would just run at me since its second prey disappeared. And then Crudia crashed on top of it, bringing it to the ground.

  Crudia stood up, panting from the action. And then she beamed at me.

  “I saved you! I saved you, Shrimpie!”

  I laughed. How unseemly. “I was actually fine, the potion healed me. I was just baiting them.”

  “Oh. So I didn’t save you?”

  “You did, back on the first day. The fight with the Tengus, remember? Anyway, where have you been hiding those fighting skills this whole time? You’re a menace!”

  “She’s like that when she’s not scared.” Talisha smiled at me, levitating in the room. “Seems like she really wanted to help you this time. Good job, you two.”

  Crudia smiled sheepishly and hid behind Talisha. Did she not get the memo that the guides were see-through?

  “Yeah, good job!” Mark agreed with Talisha for once. “You two seem mostly unharmed as well.

  “Mostly doing some big work there, Mark.” Talisha grinned.

  Mark opted to ignore her jab. “This took a minute, but we should still have enough time. Take a breather, and we go on?”

  Was that a question instead of a command? Who was this man?

  Not that I was going to complain.

  We looted the bodies, chatted for a bit more, and then crawled back through the same damn small corridor that we entered through. One down, who knows how many to go.

  Actually, Talisha did. Twelve side-paths, apparently.

  We got going and continued the slow clear of the cave. Each path was almost as long as the first one, and definitely not any wider, as if to add to my misery. A few were just dead ends, but most of them ended in a chamber with some Carp men or Pike fish dogs, sometimes a combination of the two. There were a lot of the creatures. The small chamber we entered at first was surely the smallest and least populated.

  We took some damage, but we kept leveling up and the things just didn’t pose enough of a threat by the time we arrived in the last chambers.

  And soon enough, we stood in front of the big door, our most threatening enemy just behind.