Chapter 24 – Plan Revealed
"Sergeant!"
The soldiers shouted out when they saw the explosion.
"*Cough cough* I'm fine you idiots! I'm not that weak and don't forget that my armor is rare grade!"
Sergeant Hall wasn't even moved by the explosion. He waved his greatsword to blow away the smoke and dust that the detonation caused. When it was cleared out, he looked down. He saw Billy, or what's left of him at least. He was one of the three healers in the squad but now all that's left of him were his four limbs.
"Dammit! Someone give me a report!"
"Sir! We have one casualty and two persons missing. One of them is Sir William."
"Search the back of the room. There should be a small alcove there." Sergeant Hall ordered. He watched as Billy's remains started to turn to steam and be absorbed by the dungeon only leaving behind some of his damaged equipment. He clenched his fist tightly.
At the back of the boss room, two of the soldiers started to approach the alcove. They entered while waving a torch around, prepared in case a cockroach was inside.
"You find anything?"
"Nothing. How about you?"
"Same. Just cave wall. Appraisal doesn't show anything either. I poked around but didn't find any illusory walls."
"Then let's head back and report." Said one of the soldiers and turned around to exit the alcove.
"… Hnng… nnnn… "
The soldier suddenly stopped and looked back. He thought he heard something just now.
"What's wrong?" The soldier that was accompanying him noticed that he was still looking around and asked.
"I think I just heard a noise. It sounded like a little girl crying." He said.
"… You're messing with me aren't you?"
"What? No I'm not. I really heard it."
"… I get scared and run from a Banshee just one time during a mission and the squad never lets me forget about it."
"I'm serious this time! I really heard a small girl crying!"
"Yeah. Sure you did. I'm gonna head back now. Let me know if you find that girl you're so on about."
"*Sigh* Wait for me, I'm coming."
The soldiers talked as they left and headed to the Sergeant.
"I found traces of Sir William!" While they were walking another soldier had shouted out from the right most side of the cave.
Seeing that Sergeant Hall was heading over there, they followed along. At the site, they saw something evaporating. Sergeant Hall arrived shortly after they did.
"Report." He said.
"We found nothing in the alcove, Sir. Nothing came up when we used Appraisal and checked for illusory walls." One of the soldiers who came from there stated.
"For us, we found the tattered boots and leather leg guards that Sir William used. There was also a smashed recovery potion bottle on the floor. A small mud like creature was here but we easily took care of it."
Sergeant Hall proceeded to inspect the items and confirmed that they were his brother's.
"There are signs of an explosion on them like the one I just experienced. He probably got caught off guard. Dammit. I thought this was going to be an easy mission since it's only a low level dungeon. Turns out that they sent us here for a good reason. I was too careless. I'm sorry brother…"
He clenched his fist as he thought of his brother. They weren't that close but they have been through many battles together. William loved to play around all the time and quickly became overconfident during fights because of his skill. But he was always able to accomplish the tasks that he assigned to him. Their lives were constantly on the line and they were prepared for death anytime just like all soldiers who joined the army. However, he never expected that his brother would die in a place like this.
"Continue searching throughout the dungeon. William's sword was quite expensive so whoever finds it gets to keep it! Stick together. We don't want to lose anyone else in a surprise attack."
Despite learning about the loss of his brother, Sergeant Hall knew that he had a job to do. They weren't able to find any of their targets alive, but he deduced that with a Dungeon Anomaly in here, the chances of anyone still being alive were slim to none. Without someone like him who had high defenses and attack power, any party who met the anomaly would become food for it.
After over two hours of searching and double checking, the squad left the place.
"Welcome back, Sergeant. How was the mission?" A guard who had been standing by and watching the entrance to the dungeon asked.
"We lost three men including my brother. We didn't find the targets but we did find a Dungeon Anomaly. The report is going to be a pain to write up. There will be a banquet later to honor our fallen comrades. Prepare to move out and return to base."
"Yes, Sir!"
As soldiers of the army, they knew that they already had one foot in the grave. Losing comrades, friends, and family was no surprise in a world like this.
And with that, their mission ended.
###
Back inside the dungeon.
"Uuuuu… nnnggg…."
"Ruby, stop crying! You almost gave us away earlier. I was so scared I nearly wet myself." Danae told me off angrily.
"Me too. I was clenching my butt so hard, I almost ripped another hole open." Jeff said jokingly.
"Be easy with her guys. We owe her our lives. Especially you Jeff. This is your second time." David said acknowledging Ruby's effort.
"Here Ruby. This is the last magic crystal David and I had." Fran passed me a common magic crystal.
"Uuugh. It's so unfair. How come you guys don't get migraines even with zero MP? I feel like I'm dying… my poor baby... "
I complained while I dissolved the magic crystal as well as the surrounding cave walls in order to regain mana. I've noticed that the walls repair themselves over time anyways.
My plan was actually quite simple. The main goal was to make the enemy think that we were already dead. First, I took out my shoes and socks which were my last clothes. I used my mud as clothes now and with Shapeshift, no one could tell the difference. I also took David's shirt and Jeff's trousers. I gave them Williams clothes as replacement. I then roughed up the clothes a bit and controlled my mud to put them in places the enemy will easily find. This will make them think that we've been here and perhaps died here. I also put William's damaged gear in the boss room to make it more believable.
I wasn't a hundred percent sure they would believe we were dead with just that. So next, I created a large amount of mud. I wanted to use Shapeshift on it to create a terrifying group of monsters that could easily kill guys like William. I also made smaller cockroach monsters as probes to allow me to measure their abilities and hopefully take some of them out. Unfortunately, they were much more capable than I thought. I had to change my plan because of this. I thought they would be as weak as William. Maybe it was because he was a class not specializing in defense and that I did a sneak attack and caught him off guard which was why I able to easily defeat him.
Anyways, I originally planned to mimic many different types of cockroach monsters with my mud to help the dungeon boss kill them. This would convince any survivors that this dungeon was way stronger than it looked and that us newly transported other worlders had no chance of survival here. But they managed to almost completely wipe out the army I had such a difficult time with in one blow. With no other choice, I had to gather all of my mud together and pour in huge amounts of mana so that I could create a single "monster" that was so strong it could kill everything in this dungeon. I even dissolved almost half of my stock of magic crystals to create my baby. But before I could finish the preparations, they started to spread out.
Since that was the case, I decided to pick them off one-by-one. My first target of course were the healers and support units. I was confident in my creation. I was like a certain superhero who used his fear of bats as a symbol to instill fear into his enemies. I re-created the creature that almost killed me to kill my enemies with it. But this time the creature was much bigger and much more threatening.
But to think that only after one hit from the guy in shiny armor, I nearly lost complete control of my baby… All my effort and mana resulted in just one single appearance that didn't even last 10 seconds. It's like I stayed up all night the day before Valentine's Day to make chocolates to give to the guy I liked, but when he took a small bite of it he said it tasted "meh" right to my face.
I was heartbroken. My confidence was shattered. I could not stop the tears from bursting out of my eyes, but thankfully I was able to stop myself from crying out loud.
I had to use up the rest of my mana just to Detonate the remainder of it. The resulting migraine only made me cry harder. My only comfort would have been to see the bastard who murdered my child blown to bits.
BUT HE WAS COMPLETELY UNHURT.
What was left of my broken heart was immediately sucked into an endless abyss. I wanted to rush out and disintegrate the man from existence! But my logical reasoning stopped me. I knew that I could do nothing to even put a dent on his armor.
Luckily, I was able to control a part of my mud baby before detonation to Dissolve and Assimilate the soldier called Billy. After I used Detonate on the remains of my child, I separated the mud which contained some of Billy's items and potentially a skill he had. While the dust and smokescreen was blocking everyone's sight I threw out some remains of Billy and used Shapeshift along with Camouflage to hide the items and mud. Since they've all left, I started to collect all of my mud.
In order to hide our existence, I dissolved part of the cave wall to make an alcove in the alcove. We hid ourselves inside while I used Shapeshift and Camouflage to create a mud wall that perfectly blended in with the cave wall. They couldn't get any results from Appraisal either because I'm of a different system than them, or because my Shapeshift along with Camouflage blocks off their probing. It could also be that any mud I use with Spawn has no status.
We were able to successfully avoid detection and convince them of our deaths all thanks to me.
CHAPTER END.
Name: Ruby Sen Lv. 13
Age: 17
Race: Half-Human?
Class: Half-Magical Creature
Job: - Lv. 13
HP: 10 [25%]
MP: 15 [5%]
STR: 10 (+5)
DEF: 10 (+25)
INT: 17
WILL: 15
SPD: 10
<
Assimilate
Mana Manipulation
Physical Resistance
Weaponized Limbs
Foresight
Shapeshift
<
Dissolve
Body Enhancement
Mind Enhancement
Mana Release
Sensing
Camouflage
Sculpting
Detonate
Spawn
Appraisal Analysis
<
Tongue Enhancement