Chapter 9: Chapter 3.2

With trembling legs and my heart threatening to burst out of my chest from fear I ran.

My first throwing dagger hit the Vouivre on the shoulder and the second dug into its neck as I circled the beast to get a better angle, it wasn’t enough to get it to release the limp form of Mord from it’s coils but its remaining eye glared my way as the beast took another bite of the man.

The sheer amount of rage there, seeing the boiling hate on its eye, I knew even visual contact enhanced by the mangekyo wouldn’t be enough to affect it so, more or less on instinct, I activated my trump card, Kotoamatsukami.

In an instant I felt myself being drawn into its eye, felt myself fall into an abyss of darkness only sometimes illuminated by scenes of blood and carnage, the only feelings this creature felt were rage and a very muted amount of pain, it didn’t even take pleasure on it’s kills, not really.

Grasping at its consciousness I desperately tried to find a way to influence it, to change the rage it felt, every time I tried a wave of red hot hate washed over my work tainting it back into incoerent, bestial madness, there was something controling the beast, a sinister influence permeating its mind and filling it with the irrational desire to eliminate every intruder.

Feeling a mind down coming and knowing Mord didn’t have enough life left on him for me to take my time I flailed around desperately.

Wielding my power more like a hammer than the delicate instrument it was supposed to be, I felt something give, the influence inside its mind snapped, breaking the connection it had with the creature but the backlash disrupted my technique and I didn’t have enough mind to fight back.

In desperation, my only thoughts to shift the beast’s attention from its current prey, I managed to send it two imperatives, the first telling it that Mord wasn’t important and the second that I was.

I came back to myself with a scream of pain, I had the worst headache of my life and I felt like my right eye was about to explode as a flood of blood ran down my face but it worked, the draconic woman released Mord’s body and lifted itself up to stretch its wings.

Blocking another arrow with the stump of an arm the beast found me standing there and narrowed its eye.

“Oh crap” I said as I cursed myself for my stupidity, why the hell didn’t I just make it ignore me too.

The beast would then have turned towards Guile or Scott, both of which are far more likely to survive it’s attacks, but nooo I had to be the hero and now I was gonna get murdered by a half dead monster.

Stumbling once from the pain I managed to get my feet under me and ran towards Guile’s discarded spear as the Vouivre released another roar that shook me to my core and charged.

Dropping my sword I ran as if my life depended on it, I ran with everything I had expecting the creature to bite me in half with every step I took.

I reached the spear and slid down on the moss grabbing for it’s shaft, turning around I briefly registered Scott’s body thumbling away from the monster holding one of its amputated wings, making sure I planted the butt of the spear on the ground like I had seen the warriors do yesterday I braced myself to receive the beast’s charge.

Unfortunately a Vouivre was not a boar, seeing the spear pointed its way the monster twisted aside flowing around the spear with ease, only the fact my mangekyo were open saved me as I managed to follow its lightning fast movements.

Releasing the spear I cried out and tried to protect my head and neck with my arms.

It hit me like a truck, its hook like fangs biting down on my forearm and crushing my bones before its body slammed into me and drove my back into the ground for several meters, then it trashed its head wrenching my arm out of its sockets and lifting my feet off the ground and slamming me back down driving the air out of my lungs.

Opening its mouth the beast released my arm only to bite into my shoulders sending another wave of pain through my body.

I screamed in fear and, with a desperate drive to survive, I managed to grab its face with my left hand. The beast ignored me until I dug my thumb into its eye sockets.

Screeching in pain the Vouivre pulled its face away from me before striking blindly at my arm biting off my pinky and ring finger together with some of my hand, it pulled its head back to finish me off.

Opening its mouth impossibly wide to show a row of bloody fangs the Vuivre reared back for a new strike, looking at it I saw my death bearing down on me in slow motion.

The large mace hit it on the side of the head with all the strength Guile’s arms could muster sending the creature’s entire body away from me, releasing a whimper of relief I managed to turn my head enough to see the vouivre’s serpentine body twisting uselessly at the ground.

Even blind and with half its head caved in the monster still seemed to be trying to get to me until Guile laid a boot at its back and used his mace to pulverize its head against the wooden floor ending it once and for all.

Laying there on the floor with a pool of blood starting to spread from my wounds I could only stare at the dead monster, the tip of its tail still twitching about before I burst out laughing.

I had survived, despite the incredible stupidity of what I had done I survived, then the adrenaline started leaving my system and the pain hit me.

You are reading story Dungeon Delving is Damn HARD (danmachi / kinda SI) at novel35.com

Sucking in a breath I dared look down at my shoulder to see a large piece of it just missing with bite marks left on my exposed bone, I couldn’t move my arm and was barely hanging on to my consciousness as the pain continued to increase.

I wanted nothing more than to give up and pass out, the only thing keeping my eyes open was the fear I wouldn’t wake up if I did so I focused my sight on Guile and watched as he released his mace and walked towards me.

“Stupid kid…. haaa…. haaa…” he said as he approached me his shoulders dropping from exhaustion “Should have ran”

“I… argh! I’m telling myself the same thing” I confessed.

Kneeling down besides me Guile took out several vials from the pouch at his side and opened the first pouring it down on top of my shoulder, my muscles contracted as the potion felt like alcohol being thrown on my exposed wound but the bleeding immediately stopped, throwing the vial away he opened another and poured it at my arm with the same result.

“Ugh… so tell me doctor… huff… will I live?” I tried to joke but it came out with far too much truth to be funny, I had lost a lot of blood.

“It’s not gonna be pretty… haaa…. and you’re gonna have to see a specialist to fix this mess on Oratio but you’re gonna make it” the large man said still trying to recover his breath “Hopefully we’re all gonna make enough that we won’t be in debt after this”

Guile Helped me drink a third potion vial, I felt my wounds all close leaving me with an odd tingling sensation over them so, of course the headache from overusing my eyes came back in full and even the potions couldn’t stop the bleeding from my right eye.

Turning my head away from Guile I closed both eyes to see if the pain would go down but it was no use.

For a few minutes I laid there breathing hard while Guile ripped my shirt and used it to wrap my arm against my body then he got up and kicked my leg lightly “Come on get up, we don’t want to tempt the dungeon into sending a monster party after us”

Remembering the place I was laying on was actually a semi sentient thing hellbent on killing me I opened my eyes wide and pushed myself up as fast as I could, it was not a good idea as Guile had to hold me up until the world stopped spinning and I regained my footing.

Note to self, blood loss and exhaustion did not allow for fast movement.

Finally managing to look at my surroundings I saw that Mord was actually alive if in an even worse situation than me, he was sitting against a tree pale like a corpse and with a chunk of his neck missing and one of his legs bent into an odd angle while his armor had to be discarded, his shirt absolutely soaked with blood.

Surprisingly there was an elf laying beside him with a pair of amputated legs by his side, the male wasn’t awake but his chest was moving and his stumps were already healed.

Finally I found Scott forcing a potion down the throat of the elf woman leaning against a root as she tried to wave him away to check on her remaining companions, she didn’t seem ready for a fight as she constantly missed his hands or fell back down as if drunk.

He finally lifted her in a princess carry and laid her back down besides her companion before coming to stand with Guile and me.

“So they were alive after all” Guile commented as Scott came closer “what’s up with them?”

“They’re Loki familia, it was their leader's first time leading them on the lower floors and as far as I could find out from the girl they had shitty luck” Scott explained before turning to me and looking over my limp arm “You alright? think you can continue walking?”

“I won’t be fighting anything but I think I can make it back to the town if we stop to rest once or twice” I gave him my best guess, it wasn’t the time to act proud since our lives were still on the line.

“Good… good” he trailed off while looking towards our wounded, all three of them didn’t look like they were gonna be walking anytime soon “Alright Guile you carry Mord, I think I can carry the crippled elf without much trouble and you newbie watch the girl, she hit her head but is mostly alright you just have to keep her awake and walking”

“You sure?” asked Guile with a lifted eyebrow

“Shit I don’t want to just leave them here man” Scott sighed and covered his face with his hands while releasing a long sight “Look if we travel carefully the both of us should have enough time to lay them down and kill any monster we can’t avoid but if things look bad we abandon the elves and ran for it alright?”

Without a better idea we both nodded and got into action.