Chapter 29 – Learning From Mistakes

Miria’s mind was a little bit fuzzy and the pleasant and warm sensation from the kiss lingered on her lips for much longer than she thought it should be physically possible. A smile just didn’t want to disappear from her face, completely disregarding the horrible scene in front of her eyes. Asterios didn’t berate her for the lack of action or her cold words. Quite the opposite. It felt like a reward. She felt all giddy inside. 

But, thinking about that could wait. She now had three unknown to her enemies to deal with. The hint was to get rid of the stingers and the reason behind that was obvious. They saw pretty clearly what happened to the Priestess, and the Mage lying on the ground most likely received a non-lethal wound from the tail spike.

She knew that Asterios was sure she could beat them on her own or else he would have given her more instructions or support besides a quick Haste rune. Wanting to show him that he wasn’t wrong, Miria returned her focus completely to the underground battlefield as she soared through the air with her boosted lunge, shortening the distance between the fight and her previous position in an instant.

Two enemies were entangled in bouts with their respective targets and the remaining one was heading towards the Human boy from behind. It seemed like the creatures were somehow able to communicate as she saw the first one pushing the adventurer’s guard up into the air and moving its tail back, to prepare for a combined strike with its sibling, which arrived just close enough to send its own stinger at the same time.

Miria activated the Haste rune on her back again and filled her strengthened muscles with more mana. With a loud thump, she appeared by the side of the young man, spooking him a lot. 

There was no time to talk. Two deadly spikes were coming straight at him so Miria spun around, swiping the Human off his feet, and parried both attacks with one hand each. They hit the ground, breaking the flooring in the process. 

The scorpions were strong. Miria felt the weight behind their strikes even though she only lightly grazed the tails with her swords. This encounter was incomparable to their previous battles. She had to finish these two quickly before the last one decided to join or won against the Martial Artist.

She swung one of her swords down at the still lowered tail, aiming to cut it off, but her blade sharpened with mana stopped around one-third into the monster’s flesh. That’s how tough its chitin armour was. The scorpion screeched loudly, announcing its pain, and hastily withdrew the stinger.

Miria clicked her tongue. She should have gone all-in on it from the start. There was no chance that she would let the Bloodfang incident repeat itself again. Closing her eyes for just a moment, Miria reached with her consciousness towards Asterios, requesting for a deeper share of their senses and access to his robust mana reserves. 

She sensed his smile. He was proud of her quick decision and soon the bridge between them widened to the level as high as they could currently achieve. Her own mana mixed with his powerful energy, filling her body with vigour almost to the same extent as that day in the cave.

There was no need for Miria to even open her eyes again as she perceived an incoming attack through Ast’s vision, sidestepping out of its path with ease. She opened them nevertheless. The two opponents were still in front of and behind her. 

Miria didn’t know why she felt like doing so, but she released a loud, ferocious roar, boosted with her spiritual energy into the air, making the whole chamber shake a little bit. The scorpions took a step back and it was enough of an opening for her.

Extending the coating on her blades wouldn’t help here, so instead, Miria drew on the hot energy filling her body and lowered her stance while switching her weapons into a reverse grip. She smiled after sensing elemental particles gathering around them. Without even a thought from her, Asterios knew exactly what she needed and provided her with an adequate enchantment.

Pushing herself off the ground, Miria lunged towards one of the scorpions and made a cross-shaped upwards slash after arriving right in front of it. Her own technique was strengthened by Wind Infusion from her master and two slashes of countless little air cuts tore through her opponent's protection, cutting off its venomous stinger, catching a few of its legs in the process too.

She instantly stepped forward and launched herself into the air off the scorpion’s head, catching the venomous spike in her hands and thrusting it down onto its frame from above with all her body weight behind it. The improvised weapon pierced the armour with ease and sank into the flesh of the monster, poisoning it in the process. It didn’t look like they had resistance for their own venom.

Not wasting any precious seconds, Miria jumped down from the screeching beast and turned around just in time to avoid getting impaled by its sibling. She avoided being hit by stepping forward, but that was exactly what it wanted and the scorpion’s enormous claws swung at her from the sides.

Dodging them with a graceful backflip, she landed on the interlocked pliers. There was a little bit more of the Wind element on her blades so she decided to make full use of it and launched herself forward while positioning her weapons in front of her and initiated a technique called Spiralling Lunge, now enhanced not only with Ast’s scorching hot mana but also elemental power.

Coming at the enemy like a vertically spinning relentless tornado, she flew straight through the monster, ripping chunks of chitin and flesh off the scorpion's top along the way, and dismembering its whole tail completely. She stopped the rotations right after going through it and slid over the floor for three more meters, arriving by the adventurer still lying on the ground.

He was shocked. Stupefied. In his eyes, a girl of no different posture than him suddenly appeared out of nowhere and literally mutilated two King Scorpions in a flash while he was holding onto his own life against just a single one. Her movements, her posture, her way of fighting, everything seemed so… ferocious and beastly. And then he noticed that her arms were covered in blackish fur and she had cat-like ears and a tail. He shuddered, realizing that her roar might not have been a taunt spell.

A female scream brought him out of stupor. The last remaining scorpion caught his friend by both hands with its pincers and pulled her into the air. “No!” he shouted.

Miria knew she didn’t have enough time to close the distance between them and channel anything that would allow her to cut off the scorpion’s pincers no matter what she wanted to use. 

~Underside.~ Another hint from Asterios arrived in her mind.

She trusted it wholeheartedly and focused her all on the Haste sigil, almost teleporting in front of the monster. Without losing the momentum she gained from using it, she broke into a slide and glazed over the floor to get under her opponent. The moment she arrived under its belly, she drove both of her blades into it and they penetrated the surface with ease.

Still sliding, she sliced through the whole length of the scorpion's body, leaving deep cuts in it and impressive trails of blood behind her, and flew out from under its rear end. It was a success. The monster threw the girl away in its pained jolt and loud screech. It wasn’t dead yet though.

Now aware of its weakness, Miria quickly pushed herself off the ground again, threw away one of her shortswords and jumped back under the beast. She was sure that Asterios would warn her if its blood was highly acidic so she didn’t pay attention to the waterfall that descended upon her when she did so. 

Drawing on a little more of her mixed mana, she put it all in the sole sword, enlarging the coating coverage, and thrust it into the monster’s abdomen in the spot where she assumed its brain should be just above. And she was right as after her now longsword-length blade passed through its whole body, piercing the crucial organ, it surfaced on the other side, accompanied by a small fountain of blood and a complete freeze of the scorpion’s movements.

“Fueeeh?!”

*SPLOOSH*

The now lifeless body didn’t have any strength remaining to stay lifted on the limp legs and came crashing onto her, pinning Miria to the ground with a loud splash. She got painted in the monster’s blood even more. The carcass was heavy and the ground was slippery as hell from its fluids. She had a hard time doing anything.

Asterios ran up to her and stood in front of the scene with his hands on the hips, looking down at Miria’s head and shoulders poking out from under the carcass. If not for all the blood she had on her face, he could clearly see the embarrassed blush rising on her cheeks from the situation she got herself into.

He smiled, shook his head and crouched to get a grip on the monster, lifting it up just enough for Miria to wriggle out of the bloody trap. Letting it down, he offered a hand to her to help Miria stand up.

She received it and then glanced all over herself. She was completely covered in the scorpion’s fluids. Even her face and hair were full of it. The smell was horrible too. Miria quickly stepped away from Ast so that he didn’t have to suffer it. He definitely wouldn’t want to—

*SMOOCH*

—… kiss her?

Despite her horrible state, Asterios pursued her withdrawal and left a quick peck on Miria’s lips while she thought that he wouldn’t even want to stand close to her, getting some of the blood onto his own mouth.

“Great job. You were amazing.” 

To her surprise, he also plopped his hand onto her head and started patting it, ignoring the fact of how sticky her hair was.

“T-thank you…” she said shyly, getting all warm from realizing that even this much wouldn’t be able to stop his affectionate caresses.

Asterios brought out a piece of cloth and dampened it with some water created with Livelihood Magic. Then, he proceeded to softly wipe Miria’s face out of all the blood. She enjoyed his gentle brushes with a contented smile. 

Her body shivered a little when Ast switched to her ears, cleaning them with even more delicate movements. She couldn’t help but moan softly as he did so, but she was truly grateful for that. All the rest would have to wait for later. They still were in the middle of a dungeon.

The duo looked around and spotted the boy by the body of the Priestess, crying with her in his arms. The Martial Artist girl was pretty roughed-up and she slowly limped towards him too.

Asterios sighed, making Miria glance at him curiously. He walked towards the group and she followed on his side. 

“What the hell are you doing weeping over the dead while there are others on the verge of joining her soon,” he coldly stated.

The boy raised his tear-covered face and his eyes soon widened. 

“Mona!” 

He placed the Priestess back on the ground and ran towards the paralyzed Mage. Miria understood where Ast’s sigh came from. They also went to the spot where the girl was lying. She was still alive but the venom was circulating through her body for some time already and her strained blood vessels were clearly visible to the naked eye.

“Mona! What do we do?! We don’t have any antidotes!” the boy started shouting in panic.

“First of all, calm down.” 

Asterios kneeled by the magician's side and examined her arm. He brought out his dagger and placed it against her wrist.

“What are you—”

The Warrior wanted to protest, but he went silent under Miria’s low growl and a cold stare. Ast continued his work and made a very shallow cut on one of the veins. He looked at the blood that slowly poured out and then pressed the point to seal it again with a bit of weak magic.

“Nothing I have will be able to get rid of all this venom,” he spoke. 

The Warrior’s and Martial Artist’s faces turned pale.

“Master… Can’t you heal her with your magic?” Miria asked hesitantly.

Asterios shook his head. “You should already be aware of how it works. You are the only one I can heal.”

What spark of hope the party had after hearing her question, was instantly crushed by his answer and the boy started falling into despair as he looked at his slowly dying friend.

“But… I can slow down its spreading a bit. The rest will depend on the help she gets later. If she survives long enough that is,” he added.

“That’s more than enough! Please, help us! We’ll do anything!” The other girl finally joined the conversation.

Asterios nodded and threw a vial at the boy. “Make her drink this. All of it.” The adventurer uncorked it hastily and began moving it closer to the Mage’s mouth. “Stop. Her throat is obviously not working properly. Administer it mouth to mouth.”

“What?” The boy looked at Ast surprised and hesitant.

“Would you rather I do it? Time is running away.”

The Warrior shook his head and followed Ast’s instructions. Miria smiled to herself. Even in this kind of situation he still was considerate of them. And her. Not like she would blame him. It was a necessary thing to do. She knew that from experience.

Asterios handed the other girl a low-grade regeneration potion and they began preparing to leave. Miria quickly got the monster cores out after asking him about their location. Every minute was crucial now so the party recovered as much strength back as they could.

The boy took the Mage onto his back while the other girl struggled with the dead body of the Priestess, having a hard time just looking at her deceased friend. He approached Asterios.

“Could you… help us carry our friend?”

Ast glanced at the beat-up Martial Artist and back at him. “And with her in that state who will protect you guys on the way back? Monsters didn’t suddenly disappear. The two of us need to be fully mobile.”

“Master, I—”

Asterios raised his hand to stop Miria, knowing well what she wanted to suggest. He would not let her bring a dead body of a stranger into her own room and store it there. It was this party’s responsibility to take care of the matter and face their mistakes. He didn’t want to go completely soft on them. Things like this happened all the time. They needed to push through by themselves.

They finally departed and the duo guided the injured party back through the maze of corridors. As Asterios said, the monsters were still present, but Miria dealt with them all as they didn’t encounter any strong ones. King Scorpions were pretty much the worst of the first floor. And Miria had Ast’s support all the time now as they didn’t want to risk anything with such a big group.

Since they were pretty much running all the way back, following Ast’s mana handprints, they reached the entrance chamber in under half an hour. The girl was starting to look really bleak. 

There were fewer adventurers here now so it was easy to run through the room. Many noticed them, but it looked like it wasn’t something rare as barely anyone reacted. They didn’t bother to search for a healer here, the more skilled ones would be resting on the lower floors for sure.

Ast and Miria helped them climb the stairs and the party instantly started screaming for help after getting outside. Their escort wasn’t necessary now so they slowed down and let the adventurers run towards the gates to the outer ring by themselves.

The duo stopped, looked at each other and smiled. Asterios started patting Miria’s head and she let herself enjoy his pleasant touch. Her whole body shivered and then she suddenly froze, her eyes wide, staring into nothingness somewhere above his shoulder, ears and tail standing at attention.

“Miria?” Ast spoke confusedly.

“It’s nothing! I just… ummmm… I... I have to leave... Like now.”

He could feel the growing uneasiness not only from her voice but also through their connection.

“I see.”

“I’m sorry, Master. I know this is sudden, but… I just remembered I promised my mom something,” she explained herself while avoiding his eyes.

Asterios could tell that she really was in a rush. “Hey, hey, it’s fine. I’m not holding you here hostage. Go, I’ll be okay.”

Miria smiled awkwardly. “I… don’t know how long it will take. Maybe a day… or three… I won’t be able to come here during that period... Ah! Of course, I’ll come right away if there’s an emergency!”

He chuckled and kept brushing through her hair. He had a weird feeling that Miria started avoiding his fingers with her ears though.

“Just go. Take your time. As much as you need. Tell me if there’s anything I can help with.” He smiled at her again.

Miria nodded quickly a few times and took a step back. “Thank you. I promise I will be back as soon as possible. See you later, Master.” And she hastily dived into the crimson portal in front of him.

Asterios sighed. That was… weird. But Miria certainly was distressed about something she just remembered at that moment. He took a deep breath of fresh air, turned around and gazed up into the starry sky. It was pretty much the middle of the night.

“What a beautiful full moon…”