NOVEL WEB Ch 46 – In the end… the same
"The fuck in wrong with this helluva place!" Gahan's mind was boiling as he arrived at the place where he and Garth were forced to continue after the ceiling collapsed. A trail of goblin bodies followed him.
"Gahan, please calm down, this is not the time for getting mad at something like this."
"But Garth... Where is he!? Are you really gonna tell me you are fine with him just vanishing?!"
"No... I'm not, but still... We should fall back at once and find help. Notify the country of this dungeon after we deliver the rest of the goods."
"To the hell you and the goods! I'm bringing that bitch back, even if that's the last thing I do." After half an hour of continuous fight with the goblins, much like in the first room, they managed to push all the way back here. This time, however, Gahan did not falter for a single second, mowing down the goblins ahead, while relying on Garth and Lancer to clean those coming from behind. This way, the three managed to pass through the corridors relatively quickly, despite the waves of monsters. But upon reaching here and seeing the cave as if nothing had happened, and Jarred's body nowhere to be seen, Gahan lost his calm.
"Gahan, he's right! It's better if we rest for a bit before trying to dive again." Lancer tried, to no avail, to bring some sense into Gahan. But given the current state of his, he decided to just go with whatever he said after now.
"Nonsense! We are going now! Through this way!" Without a second though, Gahan took the last route, the middle one, which according to Lancer, was the one taken by Marcus. Besides, it was also the path he saw the girl taking.
"Wait..." He halted his step, leaving both others confused.
"What is it?" Garth asked, curious.
"If we go this way, we're gonna die before reaching her."
"Huh!?" While Garth was confused...
"WHAT THE FUCK?!" Lancer was faced to a situation he'd never imagined even once. Not only was his leader reconsidering his own decision, he was spouting scary words with a straight face.
"I'm serious. There's something telling me we should not go this way... Rather, let's go the way we were going before."
"Hm? But didn't the ground collapse?" Lancer was still rather confused.
"There was a pile of rubble all the way to the ceiling of this room when we passed here. We lost Jarred right over there. Do you see any of that now?"
"No..."
"Then when we get there, the ground will be there. I know it for a fact." Gahan was very certain, but Garth was still not completely convinced.
"But Gahan, Marcus went the very way we were before right. Didn't we hear something like screams?"
"But we went there and there was nothing... Right?"
"Yeah, but there was also nothing there when we went through..."
"You mean this dungeon actually chooses when to activate that shit!? Fuck..."
"Huh!? Dungeon? What are you guys talking about?" Lancer was confused. He knew the dungeon started somewhere in this cave and that the corridor he barely escaped from was part of it.
"Didn't you realize it already? This is a dungeon." Garth answered him normally, while Gahan rolled his eyes.
"Yeah, I get it. But where does it begin?"
"The entrance. From the very entrance. This is all a fucking dungeon pretending to be a regular cave." Gahan spat the answer.
"Ah... Shit..." Contrary to Gahan's expectation, he returned to normality rather easily.
"So, let's get going, shall we?" With Gahan's call, all three delved back through the path Gahan and Garth had gone previously. Contrary to Lancer's expectation, nothing happened for quite a long time, surprising even Gahan.
"This is weird, there should've been at least a handful of goblins around." Garth was mumbling to himself, as they arrived at a room they'd never gotten before.
"Oi, people, check this out!"
While all others were focused on following the cave normally, Garth found a small tunnel, where they could only fit by crawling, but that led somewhere else.
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'How long is this....'
Mihara walked through a long corridor. It had already been over half an hour since she began following the three Shamans. While there was no light-source anywhere, she found it strange that she could see normally. Either of the Shamans would sporadically give her a side glance before focusing back on the corridor ahead. She knew goblins were capable of speech... But these didn't utter a single noise all this time. It was strange, considering they even healed her up.
The earraping sound of the chain sliding against the floor grinded her ears every other time she took a step.
'Huh? Why is it?' For the first time, she looked down to her feet, only to see that one of her shackles was missing. 'Wha-! Where did it go? How? Was it loose? I don't think so...'
Confused, she touched her shoulder under the thin t-shirt with her hand. 'Eh-. Why am I this cold? Am I hypothermic?' As she touched her shoulder, she was greeted with a strangely cold sensation, like she had just come out of cold water. In the dark, she wasn't able to realize the changes to the color of her skin, which now looked a slightly bluish shade of white, slightly cyanotic.
The corridor continued endlessly for hundreds of meters. Until at some point, it ended in a room much like the one she'd left hours before.
