Chapter 399: An Unlikely Camaraderie. [Release Version] (Patreon)

<[Humanize (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]>

“Stew, again?” Tatsuya questioned me over the crackling of the fire and the boiling of our meal.

I glared at this picky eater, annoyed his stupid coffee addiction was showing again. “What do you have against stew?! I’m changing things up, even, so shut it! How about you cook?”

He cowered, sheepishly responding with, “… Uh, yeah, no thanks.”

What a disaster of a dungeon dive this was. But, for Aurora, this was just another day of adventures. Honestly, I felt a bit bad that I was getting used to all this madness, but it wasn’t like I had a choice. The first day of my reincarnation involved me running away from kobolds as a small gecko dragon.

Fortunes and tribulations could strike at any time, so it was best to enjoy the peaceful moments whenever you could. This was one of them. Cooking some stew for everybody while stroking Rajah, who was rubbing his head against my leg, felt relieving. His armor, sadly, was battered to the point we had to remove it, but we were all alive.

I touched my right arm, closing and opening my regrown hand to loosen up the joints. [Miraculous Grace] really was a powerful tool, but this dungeon also showed me that even if you were the best mage around, things could still go wrong. [Magic Breaker] and dungeons being able to set up anti-mana areas was frightening to me. Having no access to my dragon breaths outside of regurgitated molten rocks and [Solar Beam] made me feel incomplete.

Then again, the real question was really why the hell were we still in this dungeon? Why was I cooking not only stew but also some hot porridge in two separate cauldrons? Well, the monster room wasn’t the only damn trap in this hellish place; bloody booby traps were everywhere.

I lost my [Room] runes, Tatsuya’s had his broken in the monster room, and Kyouya’s—our last hope to get out of this place—just had an accident with another of this dungeon’s ambushes and tricks. As in, the moment the monster room was cleared, golems rushed into the room, forcing us to snatch the treasure and run for it, since Vifi’Yok, Rajah, Tatsuya, and Kyouya were all exhausted and were barely holding on.

Thankfully, I still had a bit of gas in my system. I wanted to stall things out by fighting the golems, especially since the anti-mana effect was gone, while the boys opened the subspace portal. Well, another trapdoor awaited us as we were retreating, and while I was fending the monsters off, the boys fell into the depths with the unconscious Vifi’Yok. Since they had [Exhaustion (Minor)], using [Air Steps] was impossible as it required mana and stamina to use.

I rushed after them, jumping into the hole and managed to save most of them before they landed on the floor below… aside for Vifi’Yok.

I stopped cooking and looked over to our injured, seeing Vifi’Yok sleeping peacefully with Kyouya next to her. Our “hero,” Kyouya, jumped after her, shielding her using his shadow armor. He, thanks to his armor, survived the fall with nothing more than a huge concussion and a lot of broken bones. It was just fortunate things worked out for us like that.

If only I could have used [Featherfall] … I blamed myself for not being fast enough with my rocket boosters to save him. Speaking of unable to cast spells, [Magic Breaker] was gone—obviously since I regrew my arm and could cook now—but I also confirmed I couldn’t usurp the damn thing. It acted more like a debuff; I had to touch Yuuko to remove that annoying skill from her.

Regardless, here we were. Kyouya’s runes broke after he fell. I honestly had to tell Grimnir to put the runes on sturdier material. I knew my luck was bad, but this was starting to feel like the world—Hold on, didn’t I have such a thought already? Pretty sure I complain everytime—

“Urrgh …”

Seems like the Miss is awake.

Moans escaped Vifi’Yok’s mouth as her eyes finally opened. She let out a dry cough, prompting me to open my storage and take out some cold water for her to drink. As I reached out to give it to her, her body suddenly jerked away from me, almost knocking the glass out of my hand if I hadn’t reacted in time. She was fidgety.

This alertness caused her to fully awaken, jumping up and readying herself for a fight, only for her knees to give up on her. She fell onto her knees; her face looked baffled as her eyes were trained at us. Years of being on edge, huh?

“Water?” I asked her, but Vifi’Yok still looked like a tiger about to pounce on us. “… Just saying, but I fed you while you were asleep.”

“You what?!” Her face reddened as I stated that as nonchalantly as possible, touching her leathery lips, probably thinking something dirty. “Y-you f-fed me? W-with what?”

Tatsuya and I smirked as we saw the hostile demonkin girl act “normal.” As I could see her gritting her teeth at us, annoyed with our teasing, I decided to elucidate her, “Stew. My favorite dish! Specifically, stew with pork belly, carratas, and a lot of cepillium for the acidity to counter the fatty broth. Putting in some spice, herbs, and good stir, and voila!”

Carratas as carrot replacement and cepillium for onions; good thing I stocked up on a ton of ingredients and water before we dived into the dungeon. My old habits to store everything in my [Storage Magic] came in handy here. Too bad I didn’t store another set of [Room] runes, but a single pair took Grimnir several hours to make, so it wasn't like we couldn’t mass produce them for everybody to take multiples.

In any case, when I answered Vifi’Yok and told her how I fed her by just slipping the stew into her mouth and agitated her swallow reflex, she seemed to have calmed down. This girl actually thought I did something lewd or something! She really was weird and distrustful.

“Fever?” When I explained to her what happened after the fight, Vifi’Yok touched her forehead, probably noticing it had cooled down after I took care of her. She then looked at Kyouya, before sighing. “… I guess … Thanks.”

She then turned around, probably wanting to run away, but Rajah blocked her path. As she wanted to complain, she suddenly lost her footing again, falling onto her knees again. I hadn’t fed her that much, since people who starved for too long shouldn’t eat anything too hard to digest. Refeeding syndrome, as Saori had told me.

At least a full day should have passed, since [Magic Breaker] was now gone from my Profile. I wasn’t sure if a second day had gone by, though, since Rajah’s sleep schedule was ruined after the exhausting fights we faced. It was like three fights or so in a row for him and the boys. I’ve also been only taking naps since I was on constant watch duty.

I stood up, bringing a bowl of light stew and water with me. I tapped Vifi’Yok on her shoulder with my tail. “Do yourself a favor and stop being stubborn; if I wanted to kill you or manipulate you, I would have done so already. Or, if you want to keep a stick up your butt, you owe me and Kyouya, so stay.”

Vifi’Yok’s head snapped around, grimacing at me. “What? Debt? I paid it back by saving your sorry ass from those slayers, dragon! What debt do I—”

“Saving your friend, saving you from dying, and then, Kyouya saving you from dying during the fall just now. Or, if you want to be pedantic about it, save you from dying after we cleared the monster room. You know we could have left you there, or how Kyouya could have left you to fall to your death. Even if you are strong, your body wouldn’t have survived a fall like that.” I pointed at Kyouya. “His body was shattered; we had to keep him alive with potions until I had my spells back to bring him back into shape.”

“He’s an idiot, then,” Vifi’Yok scoffed, causing Tatsuya to shoot up.

“And he’s my best friend, you little fiend. He has enough of a heart to come to your rescue, and that’s all you have to say? Bitch.”

“… You know, now that I think about it, dude, why are you hostile towards me? Pretty sure you’re one of those goons the Princes summoned, so you probably shouldn’t have that bad of an impression of demonkins. But I can feel the venom whenever you look at me. Have we met before?”

W-woah, what?!

“Y-you!” Tatsuya took that extremely personally. “We met before, yes! You nearly killed me back when we fought in Gleisvale!”

“Gleisvale? Estralia, ya mean?” However, while Tatsuya and I were flabbergasted by her cluelessness, Vifi’Yok actually couldn’t remember him. “Hmm, pretty sure I fought a giant wolf, that damn elf Tasianna, and some human who’s contracted with a demonkin. Was that anybody else?”

“Yes!” Tatsuya, his pride hurt, shouted.

“… Oh, yer right! That damn otherworlder girl! She had that fat human pig I was supposed to protect as a hostage! Urgh, if Hee’Rlak and that idiot weren’t captured, I could have mowed everybody down until the dragon came!”

In other words, she remembered Asaka better than Tatsuya and Kyouya, who she had fought along with Saori, Tasianna, and Ellaine. Also, to note, our plan actually worked; we wanted the demonkins to think Ellaine was contracted with a lust demonkin, instead of Klea’Hatma. It allowed her to use her demonic powers during that fight.

But, back to reality, Tatsuya’s looked crestfallen. His expression was frozen in place, realizing Vifi’Yok really only thought of him as some goon. Well, it wasn’t like I couldn’t sympathize with that; with the number of grimgarians I’ve killed, it wasn’t like I could remember all of their faces. No, more like, I didn’t want to remember them.

Vifi’Yok, though, was a different person. She wasn’t me, not even close from the few times we managed to interact.

“Please, sit down, Tatsuya.”

He nodded obediently. I was a bit annoyed that the demonkin thought of Kyouya as nothing more than a fool, but I wasn’t here to get angry. I was here to speak.

I pushed the bowl of stew and the glass of water into her hands. “As I said, can't you just accept our goodwill?”

She raised a brow, looking up at me before looking back at her meal. She stood back up and walked over to the warmth of the campfire. As Rajah and I sat back down, we watched Vifi’Yok slowly eat the stew. She nodded, either liking it or realizing I didn’t spike it—even with her [Abnormal Status Nullification], I could still poison her. In any case, she didn’t say anything as she ate, keeping silent.

It was an awkward mood, and even though it was a rare moment of peace, it wasn't like we could completely let down our guard. We were still in a dungeon, having made camp in a hallway and the moment I noticed a golem approaching us, I killed it with my dragon form to make it quick. I didn’t want to attract any attention.

Once our meal was done, Tatsuya stored everything in his storage and I told Vifi’Yok we needed to go. She questioned us, forcing me to tell her that we were trying to avoid the dragonslayers and the students. The former were guaranteed to come after me, while I wasn’t so sure with the latter.

Based on the information the Ankoran King provided to us, I managed to confirm we were on the 18th floor due to the layout of the place. I thought I wouldn’t need to use the intel they gave us—more like we wanted to keep the suspense of adventuring—but it was helpful that we took the maps they had on hand with us.

Using one of these maps right now, we also confirmed something was really wrong with this dungeon. The traps and monster rooms were wrongly placed, to the point we couldn’t be 100% sure we would be safe. The only thing we knew for sure was where to go for the next floor.

“So we dropped two floors through that hole?” Vifi’Yok noted while riding on Rajah with Kyouya, eating and drinking. “… Why exactly am I going along with ya people again?”

“Why are you being like that, jeez!” I growled at her, finding her constant prattle annoying. Especially with how she was eating up my stew as if she was like Saori or me; refeeding syndrome, my ass! “‘Valeria,’ right? Is that your human name, huh? Oh, you know exactly why I want you around, but you also know you can’t go anywhere else right now. If you go up, the dragonslayers or the otherworlders might attack you for helping me. You don’t have the map of this place, nor any food, so do you really want to continue going around all alone, with no help?”

I was calling the students otherworlders for now to keep up the facade. Vifi’Yok, nor the rest of the demonkins, knew I was an otherworldy reincarnator. Well, the Prince of Envy knew, but he couldn’t have told Vifi’Yok any of that. While I did want to bring Vifi’Yok over, or at least make her into an informant, I had to keep my own cards tight to my chest. Gotta play this right.

“Tsk, lucky void-touched,” she scoffed at me. I did wonder if she somehow overheard us talking about the [Room] runes or how they worked; sadly, I couldn’t confirm it now outside of the fact she knew I could use [Space-Time Magic].

Sighing, she stuffed up her mouth before asking for more, to which I happily obliged. Currently, we weren’t enemies, and I still technically had two debts. I could force her into helping us against the dragonslayers, so I had to make sure she was combat-ready. Even if she ran away later when we reached the surface, it would be worth it if all of us survived.

After I found a safe space to be around, we made camp again and had everybody take a rest until Kyouya woke up. This time, we were hiding in a small room to the side of a hallway. This was one of the secret hiding spaces the dungeon master made for adventurers.

“Hey, otherworlder, why—” Vifi’Yok began after we finished making camp, which she helped by laying Kyouya down.

But Tatsuya snapped at her. “The name is Tatsuya. That is Kyouya. The virigress is Rajah, and she is Hestia. Use them. We aren’t calling you ‘demonkin’ all the time.”

Vifi’Yok, though, just shook her head. “I am not ya friend. We aren’t even supposed to be acquaintances, we are supposed to be enemies. It’s just a mishap of events that led us to this, so do me a favor and don’t try to get closer to me. We shouldn’t be.”

“Says who?” I frowned. “Hmm? You know I’m a Champion of Aurena, but look at me, being nice to you and trying to get you on our side. Demonkins are supposed to be my Goddess’s enemies, but she’s allowing me to do this. Not even a single complaint during this entire trip. Who actually is telling me to not get close to you? You, right? This is what I am saying about not understanding your side of the story. Are you so narrow-minded that you can’t get your mouth to open up and tell me anything?”

Well, Aurena hasn’t spoken to me once yet, so it was still the truth. Regardless, I didn’t need to tell her this.

Vifi’Yok, affected by my words, seemed to have shrunk down as she began to drink some water. Remembering she liked donuts, I pulled one out, showing it to the widened eyed girl. She gulped, looking like she wanted to eat it, but wasn’t brave enough to take it. I placed it on a dish and gave it to her.

While she nibbled on it, picking off a piece here and there to eat, Tatsuya and I sat opposite of her. Rajah was taking a nap, right now. Him and the boys had gained quite a good chunk of levels, to the point Rajah was almost ready to evolve into a rank B. Just needed a bit more grinding, but we couldn’t afford it with Kyouya like this.

“I know you don’t want to speak about it, but you can at least tell me why you’re here, right?” I addressed Vifi’Yok’s sudden appearance. “How you’re surprised to see us, how the otherworlders knew about your human name, and why were you fighting the mercs? I won’t bring up my debt here, if you want, but if you want some payment for the information, I can regrow your arm.”

As I flexed my renewed right arm to her, Vifi’Yok shook her head before taking a big bite from the donut. Her ears perked up, to the point I noticed her demonic features were showing—her eyes and fangs. She cleared her throat, calming herself down.

“The arm is a scar of my failure. I reaped this injury for being overconfident in wanting to fight a rank S, and I reaped it for being weaker than you, your sister, and friends. The arm is the reminder that I’m still weak.” She swallowed her donut before drinking some water, clearing up her throat. She took a deep sigh, looking down at the fire. “… I’m not gonna spill my history, just saying.”

“We want to know why you’re here. We knew you wouldn’t say anything about your childhood or anything,” Tatsuya bluntly stated, causing me to urge him to stop. I still wanted to learn more about the demonkins here.

Vifi’Yok, though, was receptive to it. “Fair. Fairly sure you want to know exactly why you’re here, but you’re asking of the mercs and why I’m here? Good enough for me to answer. But, I want something in return. You, dra—Hmm … Tatsuya. You know we summoned you otherworlder to this world, right?”

We nodded. This was getting interesting.

“Guess so, considering ya somehow removed your unique Skill. Not possible by normal means, just saying. So, whoever did this, either has to be a god, one of the Princes themselves, or … an Edjurl god.” Vifi’Yok raised her chin, noticing how the both of us were attentive. She knew she was feeding us knowledge, but I thought she didn’t want to do this? “That’s the deal I’m speaking, so tell me, who removed it?”

I squinted my eyes. Even if she deserted the army, she was still trying to gain information. Was she trying to buy herself some bargaining chips in case she ever got captured by the demonkins? To save her life? Well, it wasn’t like sharing would do me any more harm.

… But, Edjurl god, huh? Aurena did mention how my usurpation rights came from the third god who participated in my reincarnation. Who were they? How did they allow me to usurp not only my blessings, but also the blessings on my retainers? I could even remove the unique Skills the students had. Who exactly was the god who participated?

“Me,” I responded. Tatsuya looked at me slightly in horror, but seeing as I was composed, he nodded and went along with my decision.

Vifi’Yok noticed this, eying me suspiciously. “… Aurena really is training her dog well. Can’t believe she’s giving such a boon to you. You really seem like her favorite, at this point.”

I didn’t even need to lie. Vifi’Yok spun the tale for me.

“Good, so this is why you’re working with her, huh?” She looked at Tatsuya. “Smart. All I can say is that you picked the correct straw by staying in the western part of Altrust. The Empire, after all, is practically controlled by us. The pope of the Aurena Church is even our Prince of Envy, as you said, Hestia. Allowed us to slowly corrupt all the individual organizations, bribe nobles, and just break the Folschreck Empire from within. Subterfuge is part of wars, after all.”

She then gave a small chuckle, looking amused as she revealed the next bit, “Fun fact, the blessed candidate thing? Entirely unofficial; the gods don’t announce candidates, but we made it ‘official’ so we can gain favor over certain people and just tell them later ‘you weren’t pious enough.’ Humans eat it up! It’s funny, really. The religion, as in the Church, is so powerful we can even silence the few Saints and Champions who know too much about things. Example: we launched a coordinated assassination attempt on those who wanted to rebel.”

The ‘rot,’ as Aurena called it, is even more severe than I thought. Also, did she mention ‘only a few?’ As in, some blessed don’t know jack? I know Aurena can’t talk too much about mortal events, in fact, she can’t talk with them properly, unlike me. Still, this is ridiculous. I really should check up on the Empire, eventually. My allies were being turned to enemies.

Vifi’Yok then turned to her donut, devouring it whole and beaming a wide smile as she licked her lips clean of the sugar and fat. She let out a satisfied sigh, before continuing, “Me getting here was just a huge coincidence. I, as I said, deserted the army and while on the run, I unwittingly got onto the same train those otherworlders were.”

She told us how she was trying to find work in the eastern most dwarven hold, Hadjuk-Orn. She was sightseeing and took a look at the train station, but got spooked by the Hand of Heaven I met just a day ago. She tried to hide by getting on the train, as that was the only way to escape, but she bumped into the students, a Saintess called Fleindia, and the Hand of Heaven.

From there, she ended up stuck traveling with them to Inkoran-Tazul. Due to a shortage of money, and her cravings for bread, she wanted to take on a dungeon job. There, unfortunately, she got into contact with some black mercs who wanted to use her as a sacrificial pawn to kill off the dungeon’s fifth floor guardian.

Funnily enough, she managed to bring the boss down instead of dying. She had intended to lure out the people’s intention before killing them, but failed spectacularly. Once the boss was down, they moved on, while she just hummed and was having fun as the mercs worried. There, though, things got out of hand when the black merc group targeted some normal adventurers for their loot.

That was when Vifi’Yok was driven to an ultimatum. She decided to kill the black mercs, but that was when they got ambushed by the students who decided to enter the dungeon too. A goose chase happened, and all of them landed inside the floor ten guardian boss. People were slaughtered in all the chaos, until the floor blew up when the Hand of Heaven knight killed the floor guardian.

With her ruse revealed, Vifi’Yok went on to slaughter all the black mercs the moment they landed on the floor, wanting to pay them back for using her. An eye for an eye, I guess. I seriously wondered if she was the type of person who liked to act all weak before surprising people with how overpowered they were.

“I didn’t see the dragonslayers, just saying. It was just those otherworlders, the Saintess, and the knight. I met them at the train station on the same day I entered the dungeon, but it took me like into the evening to get the job, so maybe they entered beforehand. That dual-blades fellow is not to be trifled with.”

I nodded.

“… So, that’s my part.” Vifi’Yok pouted a bit. “What’s the plan now?”

“You finally want to help out?” Tatsuya became suspicious of her attitude change.

Vifi’Yok nodded. “Trust me or not, but know this, I will do anything to survive. I’ve grown up on the streets as an urchin who was forced to kill and take to live. My … After joining the army, I’ve got more-or-less a moral compass now. I would rather not fall back into my past, but it still doesn’t change how I want to live, so I will help, if that increases my odds of living. Ya happy?”

Tatsuya looked over to me. He looked conflicted about it for an obvious reason, but he also knew our current situation. Vifi’Yok was level 150. If we met the dragonslayers again, then we needed to work with her.

I looked back at her. “We can’t go up; trying to find the dragonslayers is a death sentence, but we need to beat them eventually. But, there is also a secondary escape plan, and that is if we can find the runestones I dropped.”

Vifi’Yok tilted her head, so I elaborated on it, although I kept the details back. “You saw Tatsuya take some stones out, right? Dwarven-made, you get me? There is a trick with them we can do.”

She nodded. She totally didn’t! As if she would know about the [Room] runes! I didn’t even need to lie, again, just weave words like a politician.

“So, we either find a way back to floor 15 and I can get us out, or, if one of the otherworlders or dragonslayers picks them up, we steal them back. However, this is a secondary goal as I can’t confirm things. As such—” I pulled out the map. “—we follow the map. I know how to proceed forward to the dungeon core room. Our main goal is to set up a battle location. In addition, get strong enough to fight back!”

Tatsuya continued, “You know we’re weak, but the original goal of this trip was to get strong enough for us to fight in the upcoming war. As such, we continue. There are two bosses left—the 20th guardian boss and the 25th dungeon core protector. Each will drop treasures and a lot of experience. Not to mention, whatever monster room we can find.”

“The biggest issue is our lack of resources. I have a lot of food, so don’t worry on that front, but we’re missing potions. We have three health, eight mana, and four stamina potions left. Some dragorade and fulinoe leaves, too. However, with you on the team, I think we can speedrun to the bottom before the dragonslayers get to us, giving us the time to set things up!”

In addition, I could use [Solar Beam] two more times. Thankfully for Grimnir’s and Tasianna’s help, my armor and my new catalyst could all store solar energy like my solar core. I just absorbed the energy from my armor, so I still had my new catalyst as a backup. There was also my newest custom spell [Sun, Consume All], but it was a bit tricky to use.

“I like it.” Vifi’Yok, though, didn’t question it too much and accepted it.

“Good, then let’s make the party.” And with that, this temporary party was created.

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Party Leader

Name: Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor Level: 109  Unique Job: Idol Tyrant Fletchling

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Name: Tatsuya Nagata          Level: 90      Unique Job: Overclocker

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Name: Kyouya Ishigami          Level: 90      Unique Job: Black Bulwark

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Name: Vifi’Yok           Level: 150

Main Job: Sharpshooter  Secondary Job: Lightning Sorcerer Unique Job: Locked

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“Unique jobs, huh? Interesting,” Vifi’Yok noted, but I was more impressed by how the boys got up to level 90 from 73 when we started this. Weirdly enough, that monster room was a huge boon to us.

“Why are your Jobs so simple?” I asked, to which she answered she had to take them to hide in plain sight. Smirking, I took my [Crystal of the Divine System] out. “Want to change them, then?”

Her eyes widened for a moment, but she didn’t question me. She just nodded and touched the Crystal.

Hopefully, she doesn’t backstab us. Well, even if she did …