Syl

Chapter 154: First Rest

"There's another torso above the scorpion head, armed with a trident!" I shouted to the others. "Also, the molten rock is a complete lie; the thing is almost entirely ice!"

"Good to know fires back on the menu," Ian said, squinting above the scorpion's head. "I don't know how to block or fight an invisible second body."

"Can you mark it somehow?" Eliza suggested.

"I'll try!" I shouted.

I shifted my alignment to Lightning and used my last swaps to change a few cores to Fire. Then I coordinated casting [Electrocute] with some helpers and had a second team work on casting [Combust]. Both spells went off directly near the humanoid portion of the monster. I knew it was risky, but since it had shown no apparent casting of spells, I felt relatively safe going against Trixie's teachings.

Both spells went off without a hitch while Ian was fighting off the advancing pincers; the scorpion screeched as its squishy humanoid portion was wreathed in flame, and lightning surged over its body.

"Hey! I can kinda see it a little bit now!" Pelopi cheered.

"Yeah, a little... Shit, the second floor is gonna suck if everything is like this." Ian said with extreme displeasure.

At this point, I had broken through the illusion entirely, so I had no idea what they were seeing. I could only imagine it was floating flames and sparks in a roughly humanoid shape. A bolt of black energy slammed into the monster's humanoid torso.

We continued fighting against the monster, mostly trying to land blows against its extra torso, which seemed far less protected than the rest of it. That didn't stop me from launching a few well-placed fireballs and lightning bolts at its rear, which was now almost entirely unoccupied by the rest of my party.

The monster was definitely slowing down and looking close to death when Pelopi leaped onto its back and started going absolutely feral against the defenseless torso. Tearing through with savage fury.

"I should have jumped up here as soon as the tail was gone!" Pelopi cackled a little maniacally as she became increasingly coated in blood.

The monster had tried to turn to defend itself with its trident, but it could not fully swivel the secondary torso. It eventually dropped its trident, clanging to the floor unceremoniously, and held its hands over its head as if trying to defensively crouch as Pelopi kept up the absolutely one-sided and brutal assault.

I didn't even get a chance to cast [Decay] when the monster suddenly collapsed into a twitching heap on the ground. Its illusion must have dropped entirely as the rest of the party gasped.

"Hell yeah!" Pelopi screamed, throwing both arms into the air.

Ian meanwhile collapsed onto his rear, letting his weapon clatter to the ground. He seemed far too tired to celebrate at the moment.

"We did it!" Eliza cheered, although also a little halfheartedly. She must have blown through a lot more mana than intended when she threw that emergency heal on Ian.

"Good job, everyone," Jet said, giving a simple nod.

"I'm glad it's dead. I still can't believe its illusion was so hard to pierce..." I sighed.

"It can be tricky unless you have [Illusion Resistance] or other special senses," Jet explained reassuringly. "For me, I knew about the torso because I saw its full shadow even through the illusion, but I had no idea it was faking the fiery appearance."

"I do have [Illusion Resistance] and other senses, though..." I grumbled.

"Please share that with us!" Pelopi begged. "I want to see what I'm hitting on the next floor."

"It's not restricted, is it?" I asked Jet.

"Ah, of course. Lisa told you about that," Jet replied. "No, resistance traits are freely shareable, and since they help prevent death, their price is regulated if you plan on selling."

"Regulated?" I questioned.

"If you try to sell it for an unduly amount, the guild will either take it from your savings or undercut you on all future sale attempts. We want as many adventurers to come back home alive as possible." Jet answered. "Not to mention traits in general aren't worth as much."

'I hope Gramps didn't hear that.'

"Hmm... Well, I don't mind sharing, especially if it makes the next floor easier for the party. Anyone got any other resistances to share?" I replied.

"[Fire Resistance], if that wasn't obvious already," Ian answered. "Oh, I also have [Fear Resistance]."

"[Poison Resistance] from my noble days..." Pelopi murmured as if looking through her profile; she must have sensed our gazes upon her as she followed up. "What? It's totally normal; any self-respecting noble family trains their child to survive poisons. I was fed small doses until I got the trait."

'Should I laugh or cry?' I thought bitterly.

"Glad I'm not a bloody noble..." Jet whispered.

"I got [Dark Resistance] and [Bleeding Resistance]," Eliza answered, swiftly changing the subject.

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"[Blind Resistance]." Jet nonchalantly. We all looked at him curiously. "What? I don't have [Illusion Resistance]."

"No, I'm wondering why you have [Blind Resistance]," Ian muttered.

"Because everyone tries to flash the shadow guy with a blinding light!" Jet chuckled. "Also, protecting my eyes is important as a sniper, even if I didn't have the whole umbral shadow thing going on."

"I bet there's a fusion with all the resistances." I commented.

"Two, from what I heard: one for damage types and one for ailments," Jet replied.

'Definitely something to consider. However, if I fused a useless [Poison Resistance], would I even gain a single additional level in the resulting fused trait? It seems like a waste of a trait point...'

I ended up showing the group [Illusion Resistance] and got to see [Blind Resistance], [Fear Resistance], and [Dark Resistance]. I already had [Poison Resistance] from the badger profiles, so I was going to give it to Pelopi for free, but Eliza showed me [Bleed Resistance] as well. I was tempted to buy [Blind Resistance] but held off on all purchases for now.

"We were so occupied with the illusions we didn't even see our two loot chests for beating the boss." Jet chuckled as he pointed to two chests that had appeared in the room.

"Treasure!" Pelopi cheered.

Jet glanced over both chests, and I assisted where possible; both were unlocked and untrapped.

"I know we joked about the dungeon hating you, but trapping boss-reward chests would be a step too far." Jet explained.

A cloak was inside one chest, while the other held a belt.

"Ooh. Pretty good." Jet said with a grin.

The belt ended up going to Pelopi; boosting her strength was one of the few ways to increase her damage since she couldn't rely on conventional means such as weapons. The only other candidate was Ian, who had already received his bracer.

The cloak was interesting but not really useful for anyone. The Misfits had suggested I use it in conjunction with [Thunder Step] to glide around until Jet shot that idea down immediately.

"I've spent enough time around Lisa to know if you stay airborne after a [Thunder Step], you might kill yourself," Jet warned, and I nodded in agreement.

We agreed to likely sell it, although Pelopi asked to borrow it for the dungeon just in case. She demonstrated some running long jumps while beasted out and glided across the room, giggling happily while she did so.

"So, where are we setting up camp?" I asked.

"Right here. It's the safest spot in the entire dungeon now." Ian answered.

"Correct. Some extremely big dungeons have safe zones on each floor, like midway points, but the boss room is the safest spot for dungeons like this. There's no chance of something spawning on our head," Jet added.

"Although we must still keep a watch rotation," Eliza quickly said. " Just in case something wanders in from below."

Jet nodded in agreement as he gestured towards the door that was now open.

"So it was a scorpion and some ice elemental or equivalent. What's the lady part?" Pelopi asked.

"I think it's a nymph," Jet said, scratching his head. "At least that's the only thing I can think of that boosted its illusions so well."

"Ugh... Fey..." Eliza shuddered.

"Well... In all likelihood, there might be more Fey on the second floor if the mutation is indeed illusion." Jet admitted.

"Wonderful. I'm setting the room on fire if there's even a hint of fairies or pixies." Ian said with a frown.

I had to keep my mouth shut, even though I badly wanted to defend Trixie's honor.

"I guess I'll set up my tent and begin harvesting then," I said, and I started pulling out my severely underused tent.

Everyone nodded and began setting up their own tents.

"What makes you think there will be more Fey?" Pelopi asked Jet, who was in the middle of setting up his tent.

"Well, they are the type that would benefit the most from an illusion mutation, so I expect at least a few." Jet answered. "That's not to say there won't just be a random spider or something with illusions; there definitely will be some of those. But, if the second-floor boss isn't some type of Fey, I'll eat my hat."

"But you don't have a hat?" Pelopi questioned, tilting her head.

"Exactly my point." Jet smirked.

That caused all of us to chuckle, except for Pelopi, who the attempted humor was lost on. So, instead, she came to me and requested the octopus. I handed it to her, and she cut off some tentacles before returning it to me. Then she sat cross-legged and started pulling out all sorts of knickknacks and placing them in a circle around her, even lighting a candle. It was a bizarre sight, and while I wondered if any of that was even required, my question was answered when Eliza whispered to me that most of that was just for good luck and superstition on Pelopi's part.

Leaving the rest of the group to do their own things, I headed inside my tent to start my [Dissection] after requesting Ian to see if he could remove the pincers from the scorpion. I started pulling out all the various monster bits, and after pulling out Alpha as a disguised green slime, I proceeded to work.

That was when I noticed something was wrong. I was gaining slime mass, [Dissection] was happily identifying the rare parts to keep, and Alpha was doing an amazing impression of bonded slime, but [Consuming Osmosis] was not triggering.

"Shit!" I heard Pelopi curse from outside before hearing something cluttering across the ground.

"What's wrong?" Eliza asked.

"My ritual isn't working..." Pelopi said before something else clattered.

"Surely there's enough parts to try again?" Eliza suggested. Clearly, this was a known problem with her druid thing.

"No. It's not working at all. I'm not even reaching that part." Pelopi explained in a huff.

"Maybe the next floors will have something for you?" Ian asked. "What about trying the scorpion?"

"But I wanted tentacles!" Pelopi moaned.

"Hey... We can go to a coastal city next, or maybe try to find an Aquatic dungeon?" Eliza negotiated.

'So it's not just me... Is it because they're merged monsters? [Identify] couldn't even give them a name. If the monsters on the next two floors don't give something, I will be extremely annoyed.'

"I suppose..." Pelopi grumbled.

I emerged shortly after and displayed the results of my [Dissection].

"Bloody hells, Lisa showed me some of your work, but seeing it right after the fact is something else." Jet laughed. "You any good at extracting venoms? I'd love to get a vial of whatever's in that tail."

"Yeah, if you have a container, I can do it. I just need to drag the parts to my tent," I answered.

"Gladly!" Jet said, and I watched the shadows under the severed tail writhe and swirl as if alive. Slowly, the tail was dragged toward my tent.

"Did you expect me to touch it with my hands?" Jet said with a cheeky wink before handing me a few empty corked vials.

I was thankfully left alone to do my work while I could overhear Pelopi dry-heaving. She must have tried to eat some of the scorpions.

Even the boss gave me no profiles. Much to my disappointment, however, it did trigger [Poison Slime], so it was the merged monsters, not the dungeon, that prevented me from adding to my collection. The sad part, however, was that the scorpion's venom was [Neurotoxin], which I had already sampled.

'At least I got a bunch of slime mass... And money, I guess?' I grumbled as I watched my slime carefully, extracting the stabby part of the tail and the inner part of the pincers while dissolving the rest.

'And an especially well-earned skill level! These random merged monsters must have triggered a first-time bonus for every single harvest.'

I obviously got to cheat at extracting the venom; I could just exclude it and watch as it became a fluid floating harmlessly inside of me, which I carefully ejected into the vials. After I handed the vials to Jet, he whistled happily. I also showed off the harvested pincer and tail.

"I swear you could quit being an adventurer and become a professional harvester," Ian commented.

"Yeah, but where's the fun in that?" I replied.

"I just hope it's nothing illegal, or I'll have to dispose of such good work." Jet said as he started into the vial.

"It's [Neurotoxin]," I answered.

"Oh? Nice, that's only restricted and not entirely illegal. Wonderful!" Jet said happily.

Everyone else began settling down as we started pulling out meals and starting a campfire. We had cleared the first hurdle, and our spirits were at an all-time high.

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