Dungeon Prowler : One Man Army

Chapter 282: Reflections in camp

When noon had come, Yunan was tired, mentally not physically, he has been able to understand how dangerous it was to be in a floor almost 30 levels above his level, as far as he knew. They had fought a total of 9 times, 5 large monsters and 4 monster packs, the larger monsters were the hardest to kill because of their sturdy nature and healing ability, even if the modest 5% less healing that Yunan could apply helped it was not much in the grand scheme of things, even his toxin flood was only enough to cause them to slow down a bit more and show symptoms of a fever.

The packs of smaller monsters were much easier to deal with, they required all the party to work together and help each other, the most troublesome part was that they could try to run away from the battle and Debauchery would have very little to nothing to do to stop them, a good example was a herd of mountain goats that seemed able to fly, they could jump high from almost any position, and they could jump on anything that could support their weight. There was almost 30 of them and they attacked Debauchery by jumping up high and then falling horns first at the target, but if one was dodged or hit, they would just jump away as fast as they dropped from the sky, Yunan was applauded for his quick thinking when he did catch one thanks to his Dragonborn form, and just simply dangled it by the horn in the sky where the best it could do was try to twist and turn to reach him but failed miserably.

The one Yunan caught was served as lunch in the 80th floor because it was much more dangerous to sit and eat in the 81st than it was to look for monsters. Upon leaving the floor Sapphira seemed like she wanted to take the tiny troublesome bird with her back to her home, it seemed that the three pets have made a deal with the little critter and they were going to show it the outside world, since the bird was almost matchless outside of the awakened island, it was safe to take out with them. There were no rules against monsters leaving the Dungeon, after all many of the current monster nests in the outside world were descendants of monsters that left the dungeon, the only point was to keep it from attacking and for that Yunan forged a communication ring for it to wear on its leg, the ring was a safety to force it to teleport away in case of aggression.

Sapphira wanted to take the opportunity to show Yunan and the other two pets around the awakened island but Yunan rejected her stating that she could take his wives if she wanted to take humans, as for he himself, he would be staying a few more days to try and gain some enlightenment before returning to his own floor, Sapphira did not leave until she got a promise from Yunan that he would let her guide him through her home once he was done with the 50s, something that was going to be extremely easy from this point onwards.

After the pets and their new friend left for the portable home to then teleport to the Pearl and from there fly their way to the island. Yunan sat down and tried to rest while food was being prepared, he saw the usual Debauchery sitting solemn and focused, Balin was repairing armor and sharpening weapons, Leader was casting her healing and nurturing spells on the party, Anne was maintaining her staff, Fae was sulking in the crude tent she had raised for herself and the other ladies, Lucian was dealing with the food and Bai was securing the parameter, meanwhile Dustan was snoring already.

It was the complete opposite of what they did when they were home or having a festive time, even though the 80th floor was a safe haven, Debauchery still took all the measures of safety, it was against other explorers, monsters followed the non aggression rule but explorers did not, Yunan noted that all this morning they didn't meet a single explorer, he knew that it was rare for explorer to meet each other after the 50s, Yunan has been used to not meeting a single explorer for months on end ever since entered the 40s, so he did not find it odd, it was until now that he remembered that there should be a considerable number of old explorers in this floor.

Explorers who reached this place had natural life spans that can be considered long, 10 thousand years and they were hard to kill, there should be a population in this place, even if there were few who reached this place each year, a span of a thousand years would be enough to create a town, an outpost even, but even the guild did not create one, the answer then became obvious, those who reached this place were very keen on reducing competition for reaching the last floor, especially those who were incapable of further advancement, they would act like roadblocks and keep the upcoming generation from going beyond them.

It was fairly understandable at this point why Debauchery party kept their vigilance about them at all times, monsters were the easiest to deal with, adventurers on the other hand were the phantom menace in this place, Yunan decided to go spend his time with Fae, Balin wouldn't let him help in maintenance because he had a certain process to go through, Lucian was not in need of extra hands and was not the most talkative, Leader and Anne would be maintaining their items too after the healing process was done and Bai really hated when his own teammates triggered his alarm so sulking Fae was the only option.

Yunan entered the crudely made tent and hugged Fae from behind, he then brought out some of the cleansing milk and the healing honey and gently applied it to where the phantom scars of the claw were left, 4 faint rosey lines that stretched from her left temple to her right breast, passing by her cheek, nose, lips, neck and clavicle bones, it would have spelled death on anyone who was not being pumped with 3 casters worth of protection and healing magic, although Anne did a marvelous job and no scar tissue was left, the phantom scars were still mentally tormenting Fae.