Chapter 76

Thick brambles grew out of the ground creating a physical barrier between us and the monsters.

"Bella! Leave an opening to funnel them towards us!"

"Okay!"

The air began to smell like ozone as small balls of lightning began to form around Morrigan's staff. Once the walls in front of us were up she began lobbing them into the crowd of monsters. Tarklin drew a long and thin sword and used it to slash and pierce any of the monsters that got near with precise and fluid strokes. I only caught glimpses of Nora as she popped in and out of shadows, stabbing and slashing the demons that got through. Torien was standing on a large crate near us and was using the slight height advantage to cleanly take out the demons that tried to climb over our thorny barricades.

My long two-handed sword slashed through the demons endlessly. I quickly fell into a rhythm with our two protectors, we worked together so none of us would get overwhelmed or run out of steam. The small shadow demons weren't very tough, weaker than any of the demons we had fought before when we were inside the dungeon, but they made up for it in sheer numbers.

When one of my slashes cleaved a crawling demon in half, I felt the knowledge of a new spell enter my mind. I didn't have time to properly read its effects but I could tell it was an enhancement type spell that my [Novice Magic Swordsman] class had alluded to. I just cast it, whatever buff it could give me would be welcome right now.

I felt a huge draw on my mana and the sword in my hand suddenly felt like an extension of myself. I felt the shifts in its directional force more clearly and I could now properly use that force to my advantage. My swordsmanship had probably looked amateurish compared to me now. I wasted less energy with each stroke, each slash using the minimum amount of energy to kill the demons that ran towards me. The only time I used my brute strength was to shove enemies into each other, tripping them up and making them more vulnerable.

We had been fighting for half a bell when the trickle of the crawling demons slowed and one of the Shadow Horrors that we had first come across in the gatehouse of the dungeon began to climb the brambly barricade Bella had first conjured. Long deep green vines burst through the ground and twisted around its backward limbs. The monster kept pulling at them, dragging the vines out by the roots as it continued to climb the brambles. Long bloody gashes covered the monsters limbs as it scrabbled over the barricade.

I jumped forward and lopped off one of its long arms with a graceful slash, my long sword giving me the range I needed to perform the attack and step back without putting myself in danger. Nora dropped onto its back out of nowhere and cleanly stabbed it through the skull from behind. Her long black dagger poked through its eye. Without missing a beat Tarklin lopped off its head as Nora jumped off the monster and disappeared once again.

Rather than be relieved the victory only felt hollow. The gathering swarm of crawling demons now had another path across the brambles. It used the large monster's corpse as a highway to quickly climb over the brambles and attack us from a wider area. Tarklin looked like he was about to make us retreat but Morrigan's lightning magic gave me an idea.

"Bella! Dry out the brambles as much as you can!"

"Got it!" Bella held up her scepter and I could see wisps of her nature magic pull back out of the brambles, making them quickly die and dry out.

I used [Light Scribing] to quickly draw out the spark ritual I had practiced the other day and used my Magic Control to super heat them as much as I could. As soon as I had one circle going I created another and another until I had four magic circles crackling a multitude of hot sparks onto the dry brambles. The entire dead bramble bush lit up and a roar of screams from the shadow demons filled the air.

The three of us now cut down the monsters that scrambled away from the fire, no longer worried about them overwhelming us. Bella grew out and dried more brambles, spreading the fire around the monsters in a large ring. All of the fire apparently gave Morrigan more magic to work with and she was now lobbing sticky fireballs into the groups of demons as well, further spreading the fire like napalm among the monsters.

The other adventurers in the area caught on quickly. The ones that could use magic either helped Bella spread the fire out or buffered the ground around the fiery brambles so the fire didn't spread too far. The adventurers that were still fighting in the ring of fire safely retreated outside the circle that was slowly enclosing the entire dungeon entrance. Something similar began to happen on the other side of the dungeon entrance, completely cutting off the monster's avenues of escape.

It wasn't long until the entire dungeon entrance was a huge fire pit. The heat was sweltering and I could see others drenched in sweat. The fire and heat didn't bother me but I could tell Morrigan and Bella needed to back off a little. Bella looked exhausted now, probably at the dregs of her leftover mana. Morrigan was in high spirits, excited by the battle and perfectly able to keep going.

At some point Torien had switched to different arrows, a large drum of them had been dragged over to her. She continued sniping demons that got towards the top of the bramble fire, trying to find a way out of the inferno. Her stoic and focused face was quite a cute contrast to the pretty maid shooting arrows into a horde of demons.

This kept up all through the night before the screams of dying demons slowed and eventually stopped.

The early twilight of the approaching sunrise lit the sky as the raging inferno of the fire pit we created began to die down and burn itself out. Charred corpses littered the ground and now that the heat of battle passed I noticed for the first time how disgusting the smell of burning flesh was. Bella was resting on a nearby chair looking utterly exhausted while Nora stood guard next to her keeping watch for any other threats. Torien sat on the box she had been standing on, continuing to watch the fire burn itself out and taking a rest herself.

I leaned the flat of my blade against the shoulder of my breastplate. My arms were burning now, tired and sore for swinging my weapon non-stop for so long. I had never been more exhausted than I was in that moment. A large man walked over to us, one I recognized as Yefen once I could clearly see his face. His leather and carapace armor was drenched in black blood now, making him nearly unrecognizable otherwise.

He looked over the six of us. "It's good to see all of you are okay through this shitshow. I don't know what hornets nest those fucking zealots kicked but at least it doesn't look like there are many losses."

I was a bit surprised to see Yefen so agitated. I... suppose the situation called for it but to see the jolly bear man like this was a bit of a shock.

Yefen looked over our group again, "Mellana said one of you was a healer. We're a bit shorthanded on that front, can you help us out?"

I looked over at Bella. She had been resting but still looked exhausted from all of the spell casting she did tonight. "I don't think Bella is up for it right now, she used most of her magic creating the brambles we set on fire."

"Ah that was you? I see, a nature mage and healer. If you're still willing to help I can give you a mana draught. That will help your fatigue and as long as you ration your mana and we triage properly, you'll probably be feeling better than you do now."

I looked over to Bella. "What do you think Bella? If you aren't up for it we can go rest..."

Bella shook her head and shakily stood up. "No. I want to keep helping."

Yefen smiled, a glimmer of the man we met last night shined through. "That's good to hear, I really appreciate it Bella. They have a supply of them in the medical triage tent, follow me."

The six of us stood up and followed him to the medical tent. There were dozens of injured adventurers but none of the people here looked like they were in serious condition. I was surprised to see Bella's mother here as well, she was using some kind of holy healing magic on a canine beastfolk man that had gotten badly burned. Despite all of her normal dislike of them she was efficiently examining and healing him. All of her prior hostility was gone in this situation.

Bella was given a tall and thin bottle and coaxed to drink it. Bella started to drink it before nearly gagging. She barely kept it in and even managed to finish the bottle in front of the intimidating Yefen.

"Good, you finished it all. I would have been livid if you wasted that in this situation," he laughed heartily but Bella looked much less enthused by it. She did look a lot better though, the potion had breathed life into her again. All of the sleepiness and lethargy was gone from her face now.

Tarklin turned to Nora. "You watch over Bella, we'll be in the way if we stay here."

"Are you going to be okay here Bella?" I looked over at her mother, now working with a new patient. Another beastfolk had been next in line for her but she showed no signs of giving them any less care.

Bella smiled. "Don't worry about me, this is what I want to do. Heal people, help people. We'll catch up later. You should go eat, bring me back something too. It's been a really long night."

"Okay," I said returning her smile. I gave her a quick hug, long past caring if the insane church people saw me. After killing so many demons all night I deserved at least that. After a thought, I decided to take off my sword belt with Mimi's sheath and give it to her. "Take this. She can help keep you safe." Bella strapped Mimi around her waist without an argument, gently stroking Mimi's hilt.

The remaining four of us walked out of the medical tent and towards the mess area Yefen had showed us last night. It seemed pretty obvious no one had gone back to sleep after the long battle. Everyone was still on edge and there were plenty of hungry adventurers that had just survived a long and grueling battle.

It felt kind of lonely eating without Bella but Morrigan sat next to me and leaned against me for comfort. I was happy that she was trying to cheer me up, my bond with her wasn't as strong as my bond with Bella but it was really nice to see that she cared. I patted her knee and got back to eating. When I looked up I noticed a raised eyebrow from Tarklin but he didn't say anything about it.

Morrigan sighed. "What a crazy night. I've heard of them of course but I've never witnessed a dungeon break before. It's also insanely rare for it to happen to a dying dungeon right?"

Tarklin nodded. "Yeah it's rather rare. Like Yefen said last night though, nothing that has been happening in this area has been normal lately. A dungeon break is rare but perhaps because this dungeon was such a young one, the demons were more prone to escaping than normal."

I held my tongue. I wanted to ask what a dungeon break was but I could kind of figure it out based on context. I really didn't think this was the place to show off how little I knew about this world. Tarklin seemed like a good person, his karma was pretty high as well, but he was also strong. Even if he was on our side right now, I couldn't be sure that my status as a [World Traveler] wouldn't cause an issue with him.

It had been a long night and I was physically tired. Now that I was sitting a lot of the fatigue from our long fight was hitting me. I felt a bit on edge from being away from Bella right now but I agreed that I would probably just be in the way if I tried to hang around the medical tent right now.

I sighed and took another bite of my food.