Chapter 96: Richard found and lost

Karma was not something Simon believed in, however, in this one instance, he believed it had to be some form of karmic intervention.

The thing was, he found his 'partner', Richard.

His fellow Tamer was stuck in a similar to his own position not too long ago. However, unlike Simon who had the sheer essence to pull through his friend sadly did not.

To top that off, his friend had three golems surrounding him as opposed to his one. The young man looked like he had not eaten in days. Muscle atrophy, loose skin, sunken eyes, chapped lips. Simon good go on and on about symptoms he noticed that pointed to essence overdraw.

Upon seeing this, a small part of him felt vindicated. All Richard had to do was wait and Simon believed that the tamer would not be in this situation right now. But the more reasonable part of him was more worried as to why Richard had not already teleported out.

His eyes scanned the dungeon only to find the reason quite quickly. On the ground lay a satchel whose contents were scattered across the dungeon floor, including the monster gems(with monster girls still inside) and the escape crystal.

Simon wondered if his fellow Tamer had forgotten that this was a dangerous excursion and got ambushed. Even the lowest-level dungeon can easily overpower a hero if the man is not careful. That warning is the first chapter he had read about in dungeon delving 101.

In fact, he was a proven example of that fact. He had been tackled and drained in his first real fight with a monster girl.

His ruminations were broken by a hoarse moan escaping Richard's lips. Simon realized that this was not the time to be making observations and that the tamer's life was in real danger.

As if empathic to his shift in mood both Liz, Purr, Bitsy, and Stone tensed. Simon could only feel Bitsy because he was riding on top of her but somehow noticed the shift in others despite not getting any physical sensory input from them.

"Purr, Liz, Stone. Deal with the two golems not riding his dick. Bitsy get me the escape crystal."

As soon as the order left his mouth all four figures blurred, including the one that had him on top.

The jerky motion almost threw him off, but he had been expecting it and as such had braced himself. The end result was that outside of a violent shake, he was fine.

Bitsy was over the crystallin card in an instant, using a sticky string that shot out from underneath her fingernails to sling-shot the object from the ground to her abdomen where it now sat in front of Simon.

With the card in hand, he leaped off of Bitsy and jogged the fifteen or so feet to Richard. In the background, the two golems were being pummeled into rubble by his monster girls even more so now that Bitsy had joined the fray.

He looked at Richard whose eyes seemed to stare at nothing while the golem was sucking him for all he was worth. Thankfully the way she was lying on top of him, only his legs were pinned underneath her stone form. His upper torso was blissfully naked of any monster girl.

Simon and everyone on the beginner course knew exactly what to do in this situation. It was a very very heavily emphasized topic. He kneeled next to the downed tamer's head and shouted at the top of his lungs.

"Richard!"

The feeding monster girl did not even notice him. After all, low-tiered monster girls tended to be too stupid to respond to a threat.

But Richard gave a slow blink to the sound and slowly turned his head to look at Simon.

"Simon..."

His voice was hoarse and cracked and he was barely audible. But Simon heard it, which meant he was not too far gone. It was at this moment that Simon both realized something and breathed a sigh of relief.

If Richard had been too weak Simon would have had to get them both out and in the process fail alongside the other tamer.

He gently pressed the escape crystal to the drained young man's chest and said.

"Here."

Richard did not hesitate even for a moment. He grabbed the crystal with as much strength as his feeble arms could muster and tried to shout the words.

"Escape..."

His voice came out as a pitiful cry but that was enough for the crystal. It glowed in the center of his palms and he alongside the monster girl on top of him vanished in a flash of light.

Simon looked around and sure enough, the satchel including everything it was carrying inside had also vanished.

At the same time, he heard a loud crack and turned his head to see his foes being reduced to their monster cores after being turned into prismatic light.

He breathed out.

"...At least that's over..."

Now onwards to beating the boss of the dungeon.