Balm in Gilead Chapter 9 (Patreon)

The ground shook beneath our feet, and Lili just said stampeded.

It didn’t take a genius to figure out what came next.

“Run!” I shouted.

Turning, I sprinting back towards the staircase to the previous floor. I’d never seen a monster stampede, but I’d heard of them from Eina Tully. When high level adventurers came up from the depths of the dungeon, they drove swaths of midlevel monsters towards the surface as well.

Monster that no level one adventurer would be able to handle on their own. The only option was to run.

Which was, of course, when I realized that Lili wasn’t running beside me.

I slid to a stop with a curse. She was lagging halfway around the last bend, face red as she huffed under the weight of her massive bag. I should have known her stubby little legs wouldn’t be able to keep up.

“Ditch the bag!”

She made eye contact with me for a brief second, shaking her head even as the rumble of the walls continued to grow louder.

I shoved my pick back my belt strap and sprinted towards her. “The things I do for people.” She had just enough time to blink before I swept her up by the strap of her pack and hefted her over my shoulder. Really, the girl was probably lighter than the stupid amount of gear she was carrying.

Then I ran.

Even with the recent advancements to my stamina and speed, I quickly became aware of the massive weight of her bag. My legs burned as I raced up the stairwell. Sure, she made it look light as a feather, carrying it around day after day, but I didn’t have the skills for that.

Instead, I felt my one of my own skills start to activate for the first time.

Weight of the Worlds said that it didn’t combat the effects of physical impairment, but how much of running was just pure drive, pure determination to put one foot in front of the other, time after time after time?

No matter how much your legs burned.

No matter how much your chest heaved.

No matter how much your vision darkened at the edges.

I raced forward, feet beating a staccato on the floor of the dungeon, like a drum pounding in my ears as everything else fell away. I needed to go faster.

Faster, up the stairs even as a misstep almost sent me plummeting back to the ground. I half scrambled up them, metal arm digging into the stone as I hauled myself upwards.

Faster, as stone cracks appeared in the walls and monsters crawled out, trying to bar my way. The dungeon rumbled like a roar, but I raced past them before they so much as turned from stone to flesh.

Hopefully, they’d be trampled to paste by whatever monsters came up from the depths of the dungeon.

My hair was soaked with sweat, clutching at my face as I rounded yet another bend. I caught sight of the stairs to the second floor.

From there it would be nearly a straight shot to the surface. Other adventurers would be coming down to prevent the monsters from spilling out onto the streets of Orario.

Just a dozen more steps.

In all fairness, I almost made it.

I was maybe a hundred yards away, running at a dead sprint, when the stampede of minotaurs rounded the corner in front of me.

Countless red eyes locked onto me in an instant, frothing mouths letting loose bellowing war cry. I had a second to judge the distance between us and decide if I could make it to the stairs and up them before a monster wrapped its hands around my waist and popped my head off like a cork.

By myself I could have made it.

A single thought crossed my mind on the heels of that realization, you could just drop her. Lili was hanging from the straps of her own bag like a limpet, unable to even turn. I could just… let go.

I’d do it differently, if I could.

Hestia’s face flashed through my mind.

The two memories would have driven the breath from my longs, were there any to be found.

The memory of the girl I was.

The reason why I could never be her again.

I planted a foot, glancing back for a single heartbeat. Behind me, there were yest more monsters. No escape.

My legs bent almost of their own accord, my speed carrying me forward as I jumped with all my might.

Even with the extra weight, I rocketed through the air, kicking off the head of the first charging minotaur. Its horn missed my foot by an inch. The wall approached me like a speeding train, threatening to splatter me before the monsters could.

I reared back my metal arm and punched.

My fingers dug into the stone walls with a crack, forming a handhold that I grasped for all I was worth.

Then I slammed into the wall.

My head cracked against the stone. A scream tore free from my lips. My arm jerked tendons and muscles stretched to the breaking point of even my enhanced endurance. I could almost feel Weight of the Worlds activating again, pushing back the onrushing blackness, letting me see, letting me think. It did nothing for the pain.

But Pain was an old friend of mine.

I grunted, feet scrabbling against the rocky wall. Then the rock around my metal hand started to give.

I slipped, jerking. I jammed my fingers deeper into the rock, but I could feel it start to crumble. One handed, it was only a matter of time before I fell.

“Lili!” I shouted. Below, the monsters bellowed and gored each other as they tried to squeeze up the stairs. I could only pray that none of them regained their senses for long enough to look up. “Lili! I need to you climb up onto my shoulder!”

I felt the pack shift in my grip. A moment later, a pair of hands wrapped around my neck. I grunted, tilting my head back to give her a better grip. She leaned into me, breath coming short in fast against my ear, even though I’d been the one running.

“Sorry about your bag.”

Her head jerked. “What?”

I let go of the massive pack at the same moment the rock gave way. For a breathless heartbeat, we hung suspended over the horde of monsters below. Lili let out an aborted scream.

Then my pickaxe sank deep into the rock.

I jerked to a stop again.

Lily started to slip, but I reached back and caught her, giving her a second to firm her grip. “You good?”

“L-lili hopes so.”

I gave a sharp laugh. “Me too.” I pulled myself up. We weren’t out of danger yet, all it would take was a single minotaur looking up, and it a single jump we’d be down in the mosh pit.

Luckily, the areas around the stairs were usually a bit taller than the rest of the dungeon.

Like some demented looking spider monkey, I pulled myself higher up the wall, finding whatever hand and foot holds I could, and making my own when I could not. Time and time again, I stabbed my pick deep into the stone, before a hauling myself up once again.

Do that with a sword, why don’t you.

All too soon, we reached the ceiling. My arms trembled, flesh and metal finger alike, as I locked them around the top of the pick. And there we hung, suspended, over a giant mass of monsters that never seemed to thin.

“There are too many to squeeze up the stairs.” I realized.

Lili nodded slightly, hair tickling my cheek. “The second floor is very small. They must have all gotten compressed.”

A wry smirk crossed my lips. “Just our luck.” She gave a dry laugh. It was the most honest noise I’d ever heard her make.

All that remained to see was if they trampled themselves to death in time.

My head swam, for a moment, eyes fluttering rapidly.

Or if my arms quite literally gave out on me first.

I was about to ask Lili for a health potion, but then there was a single sound, the ringing of a perfect note.

And every monster below was cut in twain.

I could only blink as they fell to the ground in pieces, blood pouring out over the rocks as limbs moved, chests heaved, eyes bulged. The bodies hadn’t even realized they were already dead. A second latter, a woman walked down the hall, sliding her thin blade back into its sheath. She wore simple, steel grey armor over a blue dress. Her boots were stained, but not a single drop of blood had landed on her body, nor on her short golden blonde hair.

Amber eyes looked up at us expressionlessly. “It is safe to come down now.”

I shared a glance with Lili, she shrugged.

Well, if she wanted to kill us, staying up herecertainly wasn’t going to help.

I yanked my pick from the stone and fell.

Two arms caught me. I blinked again as the woman landed, looking at me still with the same bland expression on her face.

“Um.” I tilted my head. “Thanks, but I could have landed on my own?”

Lili hissed. Probably at me talking back to a high-level adventurer.

Well, we all have our flaws.

The woman, more of a teen now that I was looking at her more closely tilted her head as well. “I’m sorry.” Her voice was very soft, as if none of this was really making an impact on her. But then, she also killed maybe half a hundred monsters with a single swing of her sword. “I didn’t know if you were injured.”

I nodded.

She nodded.

I nodded again.

She… did not nod.

“Could you put me down now?”

Golden eyes shuttered like lenses on a camera.

“Yes.”

She did not immediately put me down.

But then, that felt like the way this relationship was going to play out, didn’t it?

*~*~*

A/N: Moving tomorrow morning, so I apologize in advance for any and all errors people find. Hope you like the chapter!