Balm in Gilead Chapter 4 (Patreon)

A/N: I've recently learned that many of my 3/5 dollar patrons don't have or use discord. Since I'm not here to force anyone to download software or anything like that, I've decided to start posting early access chapters for those tiers here on my patreon as well as on the discord.

The chapters will, of course, be made available to all patrons at the normal times of Monday and Friday. Hope you all enjoy!

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The man growled at me. “Dumb bitch.”

Still, I only raised an eyebrow as he shoved his sword back into its sheath. “C’mon, slug, we have stones to sell.”

“M-mister… Lili d-doesn’t think that—”

The girl, Lili, squeaked as the racoon-eared man cuffed her across the head. I felt my brow furrow as she staggered, tiny hands coming up to clutch at her scalp.

“I didn’t pay you to think, brat.” His eyes flicked over to me as he bitched at the girl. “I told you to get a move on.”

That’s how he wanted to play it, huh?

I shifted my grip, gloved hand creaking against the rough wooden handle.

The man stalked forward down the stone tunnel, his bedraggled supporter following at his heels.

I took a single step towards a side hall. My boots hissed softly against the stone floor. For a moment, it even looked like we might part ways like that, two ships passing in the night.

Then there was a rasp of steel.

I ducked.

The man’s sword bit deep into the stone wall above me. I was already swinging. My pick looped in a deadly underhand bearing right towards his brick of a jaw.

It rang like a gong when he caught it on his gauntlet.

I hissed, jumping backwards.

The man laughed, yanking his blade from the stone. “Not bad for a crip.” He twirled his blade once. “But I knew you didn’t have the numbers to back it up.”

I bit back a frown at that, even as I slowly backed away from the other adventurer.

“Going so soon?” The man started to advance on me. “Here I thought you were all high and mighty. Gonna put me in my place!”

I swept my pick through the air as he took a step forward. He chuckled, pausing his advance.

“Come on, little thing.” His glower made my skin crawl. “Why don’t you just come over here and show me how sorry you are.”

But as long as he kept running his mouth…

When he took another step forward, I heard the cracking of stone.

Not an ant, it was multiple.

The man’s face cracked into a nasty grin. “Better—”

“Think fast!” I leapt forward, pick first.

His shield snapped up on instinct, but the curved head of my weapon still came over the top.

I swung under his arm even as he jerked back, with a bellow. I felt a jerk as his shield snapped out and I let go of my pick. Rolling back to my feet, I spared a single glance over my shoulder, to see half a dozen kobolds spill out of the walls.

The racoon man had blood streaming down the side of his face.

I broke into a sprint as the men yelled in rage, feet pounding after me.

Shit luck for the supporter, at least the stairs were right in front of her.

Even then, I couldn’t keep the smile from curling at the corner of my mouth.

I ducked into a left fork. The man crashed into the wall with a cacophony of metal.

“Try to keep up!”

“You bitch!”

I gained more distance as he stopped to kill a few monsters, legs beginning to burn. He’d catch up in a few moments with his stat lead, but that wasn’t the point.

They told you not to run in the dungeon, you know.

Monster spawns were triggered by proximity. Run past spawns and they’d chase you, and they wouldn’t stop until someone killed them.

Or until the ever-growing train of monsters killed everyone on the floor.

Hence why this kind of behavior was called ‘training’ in Orarior, and why ‘training’ was frowned upon between experienced adventurers. Even walking through the guild, I’d heard more than a few adventurers talk about how only newbie idiots ‘train.’

“Get back here, you cunt!”

Ironically, and perhaps just as unsurprisingly, this aversion to training was completely misconstrued by said newbie adventurers.

And so, both ‘training’ and a lack of training claimed an inordinate number of new adventurer’s lives.

More relevantly, I was hoping it would kill at least one adventurer, this time.

“Graaah!”

I spun on my heel, smirking back at the man as he bulled through another wave of goblins and kobolds, with the odd worker ant thrown in. “Better keep up!” I spun into another passage, ducking past another startled group of adventurers.

I met the eyes of the woman in the lead, putting on my best Foxy™ smirk.

She just registered what I’d done as I sped past, her face twisting into an annoyed frown.

Right before the first man came bulldozing around the corner and into the second group.

Perhaps I would have felt bad, if those new people didn’t share the same hungry, borderline desperate look that all the Soma Familia shared.

“Get out of my way you bastards!”

“Canoe?”

Really? His name was ‘Canoe?’

“That bitch is getting away!”

I slid to a stop at the next intersection. “Hey, douche canoe!”

The man froze, face going apoplectically red.

I grinned. “Just give up, you obviously need more training.”

He growled, ears flicking rapidly. “I’m going to murder you.”

What could I say? When it came to pissing people off, I’d had the best teacher.

Glenn from PR, of course.

What, who did you think I was talking about?

I laughed; Lisa would kill me if she ever heard me say something like that. But first I’d have to survive this little mess I’d gotten myself into.

Canoe pulled himself from the pile of scrambling adventurers, and I took off down one of the side corridors. His rage filled roar was a good sign.

Far less good were the walls.

Just like first group had told me, these upper floors were almost completely exhausted. The dungeon could only spawn so many monsters before the walls went dark.

And that number wasn’t nearly enough to take down a solo delver that was strong enough to take on much deeper floors.

I was frantically trying to figure out a way to extend the chase when I felt a burning line cut across my side.

I grunted, hitting the ground as my foot caught a rock. I rolled again, my one good hand going to my side. It stung when I came back to my knees, skidding to a stop as Canoe rounded the corner half a step behind me.

I pulled my hand away. It was slick with blood.

“Heh, not so high and mighty, now are you?”

I rose to my feet as Canoe picked up his one-hander from the floor. He flicked it through the air, sending a streak of read across the dark stone.

I put on a lazy smirk. “You look tired.”

Canoe spat to the side, but he didn’t bother trying to contradict me.

His armor was scratched up and down the greaves. In addition to the scratch I gave him over the eye, there was a gash running down one arm.

Worker ants were deadly, even to seasoned adventurers.

Canoe started walking towards me.

“Does it sting?” He leered at me. “If I got you deep enough, it’ll be numb. That’s how you know it’s really fucked up.”

Nerve damage, not that he knew that.

I ripped off the hem of my shirt, stuffing it into the gap in my leather armor. “What?” I tilted my head. “Have a history beating up little girls?”

He chuckled. “I do like putting cheeky little bitches in their place. Isn’t that right, Lili!”

I flicked a glance over my shoulder at the words. Behind me, I saw the supporter from earlier. I’d been trying to wind back towards where we started. Apparently, I’d done a better job than I’d anticipated.

Then I ducked to the side.

Canoe’s eyes widened as his blade whistled through the air in a helm splitting blow. This time, when his much-abused sword hit the stone, it snapped.

I lashed out, my blade snapping out of its sheath.

Right into the shattered fissure in his greaves.

Canoe fell to the ground with a scream, my sword buried halfway through his leg. I rolled back, letting a blind fist crater the stone an inch from my head. With a grunt, I pushed myself upright, hand pressed tight against my side.

Not exactly what I’d planned.

I glanced over at the supporter, but she just watched silently as Canoe thrashed on the ground. I kept an eye on her as I walked over to where my pickaxe was. No one had even bothered to pick it up. The pain from my wound flared, but it felt like a distant message, and I felt my lips curling into a weary smile as I scooped up my weapon.

I’d known, deep down, that I’d been missing something in this new life of mine.

The tip of the pick scraped once against the stone, slipping in my bloody grip.

Hestia was a dream compared to my last life, and I could honestly see myself spending my days with her in bliss.

I walked over to Canoe.

But even still, there had been a part of me that—no matter how much I pushed it down—that felt truly, utterly, alive as I’d lead Canoe into a host of monsters.

“Sorry.”

My heart was still pounding in my chest.

Canoe froze, looking up at me. Both his hands were still clasped around his leg. “W-wait.”

You know, I’d asked Eina about this. Even to myself I’d passed it off as ‘knowing the territory.’ But that was just lying to myself a little bit.

I shrugged, raising my pick. “What happens in the dungeon,” I began, “stays in the dungeon.”

He tried to dodge.

Tried.

With a grunt, I pulled my pickaxe from his throat. Canoe gagged for a second, blood spurting out onto the dungeon floor. The stone seemed to drink it happily.

I sighed. I hadn’t wanted to kill him. If he’d just let me go, it would have been fine. But I couldn’t let him rally any more members of the Soma Familia. It was his own damn fault for chasing me down instead of just taking his money and running.

I shook my head, digging my pick into the floor with a sharp clang. The noise made his supporter—or would that be ‘ex-supporter’ now—flinch. She took a step back from me, hands making an abortive motion towards her pack.

I suppose even a tiny thing like that would have a holdout weapon.

I gave Canoe’s body a quick look. “I won’t fight over your pack if you don’t try to take my kill.” I nudged the corpse with my foot. “Unless you want to do a repeat.”

She narrowed her eyes at me. “Lili isn’t going to be… grateful, you know.”

I cocked an eyebrow. “I didn’t ask for your gratitude.” I placed my pickaxe on my shoulder. “I just don’t like Soma types pushing up on what’s mine. I’m sure you feel the same way.”

Her hands came up protectively towards the straps of her massive backpack, as she edged towards the stairs. With her brows furrowed, the girl looked much older. Old enough to make me question if she was really a child.

Or if it was just another act.

Still, I made no move to stop Lili as she turned and jogged up the stairs with surprising speed, not that she’d have managed to keep up with Canoe. But she was still far faster than any four-foot-nothing girl with a backpack four times her size had any right to be.

The moment she was out of sight I dropped my weapon, ripping open one of the pouches I saw on Canoe’s belt. I ripped the potion’s glass cork with my teeth and downed it.

I let out a sigh as the stabbing pain in my side eased.

Tossing the empty glass bottle aside, I quickly set to stripping Canoe of the rest of his possessions. It left a sour taste in my mouth, but this, no matter how cutthroat, was the law of the dungeon.

You keep what you kill.

With one arm, it took me a bit to get his chest piece off, but at least with my enhanced strength I could flip him over. I stuffed my own rucksack full of the rest of his potions and choice magic stones that he hadn’t entrusted to his supporter, then tied the salvageable armor to the outside.

His sword, of course, was ruined.

As was my own cheap iron sword, after carving my way through the dungeon and burying it in an adventurer’s leg. I clicked my tongue, dragging Canoe’s body around the corner from the stairs; one of the walls was refreshed there.

I left the spawning monsters to their just deserts.

The other members of Canoe’s familia?

Nowhere to be found.

For some reason, that didn’t surprise me. Nor was I surprised by the way the loitering groups of Soma Familia drew back when they saw me climb out of the dungeon, bloodstained pick in hand. I realized what they reminded me of now.

The Merchants.

But even that batch of drug-addicted gang bangers had stood for something, even if that something was ‘fuck you all, get me the drugs.’

Somas, on the other hand, cared about one thing alone—even after a single day I could see that—and it didn’t matter who they stepped on, as long as they got their fix.

Goddess. I shook my head. Here I was slipping back into the mindset of the Warlord. I took a deep breath as I stepped out into the sun at the base of the Tower. Hestia deserved better than me at my worst, no matter who I had to be in the dungeon.

Up here, in the peaceful world above, I got an odd look or two, but adventurers were no strangers to blood. I imagined the gash at my side told a story of its own. I got cleaned up quickly enough, before exchanging my stones for Valis.

I blinked once as the guild official in the booth extended the bank slider with my coins. If this is what the few stones Canoe had pocketed came out to, how much money had Lili been carrying?

With a laugh, I scooped the whole amount into my money pouch. Hopefully, she’d use it to get out of whatever mess she’d found herself in. No girl should have to look at people like Lili looked at me.

Believe me.

“Will that be all?”

I waved a hand at the pointed words. “Sorry for holding up the line.”

The man behind me, another Soma, huffed as she shoved past me. I smacked a wandering hand away from my coin purse, before he snorted and moved on to bargaining with the guild man over the price of the magic stones.

I made myself scarce sooner rather than later.

I couldn’t have made it back home soon enough.

“Hestia!” I called, sliding the door to the church shut behind me. “I’m back!”

Tiny feet came running up the stairs. “Taylor!” Hestia grinned, jumping at me. I caught her around the middle with a laugh, spinning us around in a circle. “I missed you!”

I rested my forehead against my goddess’s, smiling as my worries melted away. “I missed you too.” She snuggled into my neck, and I wished I had another hand, just so I could pet her silky-smooth hair.

I would have been jealous of it, if Hestia hadn’t shared her literally divine hair care products with me. Ha.

I would have been happy if that moment lasted forever—or at least until dinnertime—but of course with Hestia’s legs literally wrapped around my waist, it was only a matter of time before she noticed the tear in my armor.

“Taylor!” She leaned back. “You’re hurt!”

I shook my head. “I’m fine, Hestia. Barely even a scratch.”

“But your armor…”

“Did its job.” I set her down on one of the mostly intact pews, pulling up the side of my leather chestpiece to reveal the unblemished skin beneath. “It was just a scratch, potion healed it right up.”

She frowned, lips pursing in an adorably manner. “Are you sure? That’s a lot of blood…” She folded her arms under her… Hestias… “But still, if Miach’s potions were enough to fix it…”

I just smiled. It’s true, the potions Miach gave me were low quality, the ones his most junior familia members brewed to grind skill levels.

But the one I’d snagged from Canoe had been much stronger.

“Nothing to worry about.” I pulled my shirt back down before Hestia could notice my impromptu bandage. “And I got plenty of Valis today too!” I showed off my money pouch.

Hestia gave a happy little gasp. “Taylor, that’s so much money! We should celebrate!”

I shrugged. “I was just going to save it.”

“No!”

I blinked, as Hestia stood up on the pew, hands on her hips.

I kept my eyes fixed firmly on her face as she bounced to her feet.

“No child of mine is gonna be a giant grumpy-pants!” She pointed at me. “You did amazing today Taylor, so we’re going to celebrate!”

I coughed. I didn’t want Hestia to worry about me, but… “I don’t think I’ve done anything particularly worth praising today, Hestia…”

She pouted up at me, blue eyes sparking.

“You came back to me, didn’t you?” I… Hestia smiled up at me, and I couldn’t find the words. “That will always be worthy of praise.”

I swallowed. “Whatever you say, my goddess.”

She nodded decisively. “Great! So, let’s go! I have the perfect restaurant in mind.” She pulled a crinkled blue coupon from… somewhere, holding it up in the air like a trophy. “Buy one entrée, get one free! Let’s go, Taylor!”

I laughed. “Of course.” I helped her down off her pew. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Besides, this ‘Hostess of Fertility’ place sounded like a nice way to unwind.