Chapter 93: Ch. 90 – Chance Meeting

Oh my me, I just hope I don't have to do another DDR minigame on the goddamn way...

After leaving that mess behind, we climb the stairs toward the next floor but for some reason, this set of stairs is much longer than usual. Other times it is maybe two or three dozen steps short but this time it just goes on and on.

In boredom, I check my menu, "Hey, Ephran, is it just me or is the time wrong? It says 11:45 but I could swear it was 11:42 last time I checked."

"Is it?", Ephran checks his menu, "Not sure, I honestly didn't pay attention to that but it says 11:45 for me, too. But the time is clearly frozen, none of the hands are not moving at all. Maybe you're just misremembering? We have been here a long time after all."

I've my doubts about that, "Not sure, but it is possible", I sigh, "A lot has happened after all. Wait, your clock has hands? I have a digital time display."

He looks at me confused, "What is this... 'dijitel'? I've never heard that word before..."

"Nevermind..."

So much for everyone having the same setup in the menu.

But am I really misremembering the time? I'm more certain about that than of any memories I have from my last life... But I've also no idea how that should even be possible in the first place. That time is frozen is a well-researched fact of the dungeons' functionality, they are behaving like instanced dungeons in an MMO, even if time moved no one else could enter anyway...

Yeah, it is more likely that I'm just going mad from this place. We really need to get out of here soon...

To distract myself, I check if Lucia has written anything new. No, nothing, the paper in my inventory is just more small talk. Still no signs of any of our other comrades.

...she wouldn't have found someone else and secretly disposed of them, would she? She might unwittingly hold resentment toward Iris for her time at the church

No, it still seems like everyone is safe, the party and familiar menus still list everyone.

After another moment of contemplating, the stairs finally end, welcome to the fourth floor. At this pace, beating this dungeon will take years but the avatar will have found us in the next couple of days...

"I see cramped caves covered in almost transparent, green gas. Do you have any idea what that could be, Ephran?"

He shakes his head, "Not really. But I don't think we have an option but to find out..."

I agree, "Seems like it", and shoot a fire spell into it but nothing happens. It doesn't burn or explode, so there's that at least. No danger of sudden game over through using the wrong element.

"You go first. I want to check your status if the gas does something to it."

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Ephran frowns, "You got it, boss."

A moment after he enters the greenish fog, a status appears on his status screen: narcotic poison (0.1 HP/s). A moment later it disappears and then reappears again. Seems like his regeneration from [Sleepless] keeps it mostly in check.

"It appears to be some kind of sleep-inducing poison. How do you feel?"

Ephran shrugs it off, "Mostly fine. The sleep deprivation before was worse."

"Good, then let's pick up the pace, but when something comes up give me an immediate heads up."

He agrees, "Sure."

I enter the gas as well and check my status, the poison doesn't seem to affect me at all. [Undead] gives me some resistance to poison, so that's probably the reason. So the only one at risk is Ephran and even he isn't affected much thanks to the regeneration from [Sleepless].

It is almost unfair how a single skill can turn a death sentence of a floor into a seeming cakewalk.

While running through the cave system we barely encounter any monsters. Just a single viper, scorpion or other poison-themed creature here and there. I can take out most of them with a single spell thanks to my wide range of available elements so Ephran doesn't get to do much. Not that he could, we have no weapon left he could use and Lucia's [Create Weapon] can't produce a temporary weapon that can be passed through the inventory to him. So for now, Ephran's stuck with untrained hand-to-hand combat. I hope this changes before we run into a tougher enemy.

Speaking of my wife, she wrote that the one-week downtime for Elly and Maria is over, so she could call them back. Couldn't you leave at least one of them for me, Lucia? Well, I'm not even sure if I could've summoned one of them since they rested in Lucia and she's too far away.

The poison cave just goes on. A few branches here and there, but so far we can always see right from the start that one of the paths ends in a dead end. They don't even contain a monster that lies in ambush, they are just seemingly empty for no reason.

A while later, we find a bigger room, and there lie four bodies on the floor.

I recognize none of them. One of them is already dead, [Appraise] doesn't react to them.

The others only seem to be knocked out, they appear to still be breathing at least.

They have a clearly different armor design than the people in my fortress. How can there even anyone be here in the first place? Supposedly, time stands still while we're inside a dungeon, so no one from the outside has the time to enter.

This must be a trap.

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