How to Get Eaten By Monsters: A Guide by Harold Part 5

 Harold didn't know how long he had been falling. He only knew how much it hurt when he landed.

 "Ack!" He screamed in agony and rolled over. The place where he had fallen through was luckily still open. The downside was that it seemed that he had fallen through several layers.

 "Argh!" He struggled to his feet and looked at his body. His arms were, by some luck, still attached to his body. The only downside was that only one of them was in a usable condition.

 "Potions. Did I bring potions?" Harold just remembered he had stocked up on some potions and reached to his back only to touch empty air.

 'Shit, I lost them too.' He cursed and looked around. The spiders that had dragged him along with them were nowhere in sight and his Perception wasn't telling him anything. For now.

 He took in the state of his body and smiled bitterly. Even without any monster killing him, he would probably die at any moment.

 Wounds from falling, fractured bones and gaping holes in his left arm was purple and swollen. Probably from the spider's venom, he reasoned.

 'I wonder what the chances of me making out of it here alive are.' He laughed and reached into his boots.

 As a person who was naturally unlucky, he knew not to just trust into the bag he carried. He had stashed small amounts of bandages in his boots.

 'There we go.' Harold used his functioning hand and removed a handful of five-inch-long bandage.

 'I really should have stocked up on more.' He thought and ripped off the wrappings and applied them to as much area as they could cover.

 Just as he was done, his Perception rang several bells in his brain and his body stiffened up.

 'Status.'

 [Harold

 Level: 5

 Job: Thief

 Race: Human

 Status: Alive (Lethally Wounded)

 Strength: 10 Speed: 13 Perception: 24 Vitality: 12 Intelligence: 11 

 HP: 40/120

 MP: 30/110

 Skills: Dissect Disarm Trap Hack Slash Unlock Stealth Hide Breath

 Dash Perseverance Concentration

 Titles: Reincarnator

 ]

 'Only 30 MP left.' From the sounds, he knew it was the spiders that dragged him down approaching. He didn't know why they left him alone for a while but he wasn't going to waste that chance.

 'According to the Appraisal I carried out on the bandages; they recover 1HP every ten seconds for a maximum of 50. So long as I don't lose any more, I should be able to leave the red zone.' Harold breathed in and calmed his nerves as he activated two skills with his remaining MP.

 "[Stealth], [Hide Breath]" Harold decided to use the only two skills that could possibly get him out of there alive and crawled up to the wall and pressed his entire body against it.

 The large bodies of the arachnids which were classified as insects lumbered into view. Harold reduced his breathing to the point that even he could not feel it.

 "Grrr…." Despite being spiders, sounds similar to that of predators leaked out from their mouth.

 'I'd like to escape without drawing any of their attention but that would be impossible. No matter how, I'm going to have to take them out. But can I really do it? No! This is not the time to be second-guessing yourself.'

 Thoughts and ideas ran through Harold's head as the spiders slowly, but surely approached him.

 One meter… two meters… the distance the creatures covered gradually increased until there was only a mere thirty centimeters separating them.

 'NOW!' Harold took a glance at his MP and after being assured it was enough for one more round of [Concentration], he leaped out with his weapon in the air.

 And that was when he saw it. The mocking expression on the faces of the spiders. The next moment, his vision disappeared.

…..

 "Ugh…"

 "Good, both of you are awake." Liam glanced as Floria and Jasmine woke up from their lack of MP induced sleep. At some point in the fight, they were barely conscious and were just casting the required spells on default.

 When the spiders went down with Harold, they promptly collapsed with the final moments of the battle eluding them.

 "We're… out of the dungeon?" Floria looked around and felt the familiar heat of the sun on her skin. Around the spot she was, she could see countless other parties shuffling around with the majority of them wounded.

 "The sleeping princesses are finally up? Y'all slept for quite a while." Jade said as he walked over with two bottles in his hand and a red liquid in them. A healing potion.

 "Catch." He threw one to Floria and she floundered around and just managed to catch it. She glared at jade who laughed and shrugged his shoulders.

 "Where's Harold?" Jasmine called out and the atmosphere froze as the two men present looked at each other.

 A bad feeling pierced through Floria's heart and she took another look around them. Wounds, that she assumed were just from an ordinary adventurer suddenly seemed a lot worse.

 "During the fight, jade was knocked out. Harold grabbed his weapons and joined me in facing off against the spiders. I thought we would actually stand a chance with the movements he was pulling off. But it was all just an illusion crafted by the spiders. They were doing nothing more than playing with us and when you get hurt while playing, you stop." Liam said calmly but the way his hand was shaking and his lips quivering betrayed his true feelings.

 "A second one appeared and was about to kill me when Harold sacrificed himself by pushing me out of harm's way. The spiders did something to the floor and took Harold with them to the lower floors. I managed to wake Jade up and the both of us carried the two of you here." Liam finished and Floria sprang to her feet.

 "I have to go." Floria said as she started running but was stopped by the pain in her body and a hand that held onto her left shoulder firmly.

 "And what? Just follow in his footsteps and die?" Jade questioned as his grip tightened, hurting her a little.

 "You don't know that!" Floria snapped and flung his arm off and was about to take another step when Liam stepped forward.

 "You are precisely right. He may be alive and waiting for rescue as we speak." He nodded and bluntly said.

 "Then why—"

 "What if he isn't? nobody is in any shape to go anywhere. Even if we were to go looking for him, we'd only add to the number of dead; we won't change anything!" Liam's voice gradually increased until he screamed the last part out and Floria knew that she had overreacted.

 "Sorry. It's just that I have bad memories with being abandoned so I just, you know." She left it unsaid but most could guess at what she was saying.

 "Your name is master Liam, I presume." A young man wearing a suit approached them and asked and Liam nodded.

 "The information you ordered on Harold is here." He handed over a folder to Liam and gave them a light bow and headed off.

 "What was that about?" Jasmine who had remained silent spoke up.

 "The reason why Harold joined us. It turned out that his parents had fallen ill so he wanted to earn a bit of money to heal them." Liam said calmly but the hand he used to grip the paper began wrinkling it as tears started dropping from his eyes.

 "It's all my fault." He whispered as he tried to stifle the tears but they just kept leaking out.

 "At that time… if only I had decided to grab his hand. Why didn't I?" Liam was not the only one is sorrow. They may not have known each other for long, after all, the party was just formed recently.

 But adventurers usually become close due the life-and-death struggles they face constantly. And none of them were coldhearted enough to simply shrug it off.

 If only, two words that often predate the lines of people. One that speaks of regret and sorrow. Liam and his party used it too, not knowing that their former party member was about to begin his new journey.