Live Dungeon!

“Guh…”

Xeno had been holding on by a thread, nausea clawing at his insides with every breath. His mental stamina was nearly spent. But still, he chugged another Blue Potion and kept on blasting [, dragging the Corroded Elder Dragon’s aggro back to himself.

A torrent of blood weapons of all kinds rained down on him, and worse, from the fountain of gore that poured from the Corroded Elder Dragon’s ruptured heart, blood clones had formed. Among them, one in particular mirrored Hannah: instinct-driven, reckless, and devastating in close quarters. Compared to Diniel’s precision archery or Leleia’s synergy with the Spirits, this clone was a nightmare. Xeno staggered like a boxer on the verge of a KO, barely staying upright as he fended off a hail of savage punches and kicks.

A three-pronged spear shot down from the sky, aiming straight for his chest. Xeno raised his silver shield just in time to deflect it, but as he caught his breath, a blade slashed in low and struck the back of his knee. His stance crumbled, and he hit the ground hard.

The breath left his lungs. Every inch of his body screamed. His guts felt like they’d been churned with a whisk, and the iron taste of blood flooded his mouth. For a split second, the idea crossed his mind, [Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to just lie here. Just for a moment…[]

“Damn it…!”

He forced the thought away with a roar, wrenching himself to his feet just as the Hannah-clone dove from above with a spinning heel drop. He rolled aside, the attack slamming into the earth with a thunderous crash. A cloud of dirt and shattered stone erupted into the air, but Xeno crawled clear, gasping for breath.

“You can scream all you like,” came Leleia’s voice from the side, her tone razor-edged as always. “It won’t stop the attacks.”

She parried a stream of blood weapons with her slender rapier, enhanced with the Sylph’s wind powers.

“I was just getting fired up!” Xeno snapped back.

“If you say so,” she replied flatly.

With Korinna’s [ taking effect, his battered body started to respond again. Planting his feet, Xeno raised his silver shield and lunged back into the fray to face the blood clones head-on. Watching his fiery persistence, Leleia let out a sigh, then sent a concentrated gust of wind to disrupt the clones’ movements, buying him a moment more.

“[, [, […”

Korinna was barely holding everything together. While she kept Xeno from the brink with a generous supply of channelings, she was also dealing with two other crises, both of them urgent.

“Gah…! Ow, ow, ow, I didn’t think it’d hurt THAT much…”

“Hot… too hot…”

“Do NOT let your fingers fall off!! Otherwise, we’re in serious trouble!”

Moments earlier, Hannah and Diniel had been devastating the Corroded Elder Dragon with absurd levels of firepower. Now, both were on the verge of collapse.

Three of Diniel’s fingers: her index, middle, and ring; were necrotic from drawing her bowstring far past the limit. The skin had blackened, and the joints looked ready to snap. Hannah had gotten cocky, charging her Magic Fist with a Lightning Magic Stone despite repeated warnings; she’d electrocuted herself into cardiac arrest. Her soul had nearly been pulled toward the light.

And Korinna had to patch up both of them and keep Xeno alive. The deluge of emergencies would have broken a weaker Channeler, but Korinna lived up to her title as the city’s finest. She spared no time to hesitate, moving Hannah’s oversized chest out of the way and cracking a rib as she administered old-fashioned CPR to save mental energy, and then carefully restoring circulation to Diniel’s ruined fingers until they twitched again. She even found time to cast resurrection skills for Xeno, just in time before he fell to the Corroded Elder Dragon’s blow… then barely a breath later, for Leleia, who went down while covering for him.

It was a whirlwind of triage, and yet somehow, she kept her party alive.

Her intuition let her detect death’s shadow seconds before it claimed her companions. That precognition-like gift and her raw ability as a Channeler had saved their lives more times than they could count. Normally, in the face of such chaos, Korinna’s skin would have been prickled with nervous tension, like the day she passed her Royal Capital Academy entrance exam. Not this time, though; her expression was blank. She already knew exactly why everything had gone to hell.

“……”

“…I-I’m sorry.” Hannah muttered, the guilt quite visible on her face.

In the heat of battle, elated by her coordination with Diniel, she had tried to push the envelope… again. She had used the volatile Lightning Magic Stone to charge her Magic Fist, even after Korinna warned her not to. The death-aura had been thick around her, but Hannah had dismissed it, claiming she could beat the odds.

Korinna’s predictions were not infallible; sometimes it was a false flag. In fact, it had recently been treated as mere superstition among the more practical Dungeon Maniacs crowd.

But most of the time, she was dead right. Her foresight had saved the party from doom on more occasions than anyone could count. Tsutomu himself, who understood Healers better than anyone, had vouched for her instincts without hesitation. Thus, the rest of the party trusted her judgment implicitly.

Even Leleia had eventually moved to physically stop Hannah. This was something she rarely risked doing. But Hannah, burning with a reckless confidence no one could explain, had shoved her aside and gone through with the attack.

And the result… was a glorified suicide attempt.

If Xeno had been even a moment slower at reclaiming aggro, Hannah would’ve been crushed. And THEN Diniel would not be able to hold the line, leading to her death as well.

Korinna was angry. Genuinely, unmistakably angry, which was rare enough to be notable. Though she tried to suppress it, her expression had warped into something not unlike a mother discovering that some neighborhood brat had trampled her carefully tended vegetable garden. Her silence only deepened the weight in the air as she rummaged through Hannah’s pouch-shaped Magic Bag, pulling out Magic Stones one after another.

She already knew, of course, that Hannah barely had the skills to wield a Lightning Magic Stone even under ideal conditions, let alone in the middle of combat. She had even checked beforehand; there had been no such stone in Hannah’s bag. And yet, Hannah had used one. Which could only mean that she had hidden it.

“Ah, that’s, uh… I must’ve forgotten to take it out,” Hannah said with an awkward laugh.

“…”

“Uh, and that one, well…”

Each time Korinna pulled out another dangerously unstable Light or Dark Large Magic Stone, Hannah offered another flimsy excuse, but Korinna’s expression never changed. It did not change even as she continued channeling recovery skills for Xeno between each motion. She methodically removed the remaining dangerous stones and transferred them into the party’s shared Magic Bag. Only once the last stone was secured did she let out a long, a tight-lipped sigh.

For once, she could not contain her anger. She had warned Hannah repeatedly not to take reckless risks and had been ignored. Worse still, Hannah had taken it upon herself to sneak in not just a Lightning Stone, but others as well.

And yet… she could not deny that Hannah had contributed significantly to the party’s progress in this fight against the Corroded Elder Dragon. Her role as an evasion-based Tank had been crucial, and it was not as if Korinna had not agreed to this strategy from the start. Blowing up in anger now would only jeopardize their chances further. If Hannah lost her edge under the weight of guilt or fear, their run might end in failure.

“…I am a little upset that you hid them, but I don’t have any complaints about the results so far. Just keep doing what you believe is right. I’ll support you.”

“S-seriously? You’re really not mad anymore?”

“…Not anymore. Now come on, let’s get those wings healed.”

Before the guilty-looking Hannah, who resembled nothing so much as a kid who had just broken someone’s window, could respond, Korinna let out an exasperated laugh and began channeling some healing.

“I mean, it really hurt,” Hannah admitted with a sheepish grin. “So this helps a lot. I owe you big time, seriously.”

“I think I heard you say the exact same thing when Amy was doing your debt settlement paperwork.”

“H-Hey! That’s totally different! I meant it like, heartfelt thanks, not financial!”

Korinna ignored the flustered defense, downing a Blue Potion before shifting her attention to Diniel.

“Diniel, you got a little too heated as well,” she said, now speaking in her usual tone. “I can’t tell the exact condition of your fingers during combat, so please speak up if something’s wrong, alright?”

“Mm-hmm.”

Diniel, flexing her newly healed fingers to test the feel of the bowstring, gave a short nod. She deftly switched her grip and raised her bow once more, turning to rejoin the battle and provide support for Xeno.