We ended up spending the night in the cathedral. Lydia did her best with the rations I provided, but they were pretty bland. I told her it was delicious anyway. After all, it was made by a pretty girl, so it was naturally better. The food might improve when Cook reached level 2, but she’d probably have to make a few meals first. Wait, did a Cook job even work that way? That job might just allow someone to cook more complex foods, rather than make normal foods taste better. More research was needed. I might need to take up cooking. I was used to cooking for myself anyway.
I gave Lydia my bedroll, but she absolutely wouldn’t take it, insisting that she had to sleep on the floor. Had I more guts, I might have offered to share the bedroll. I didn’t think she would mind. However, after the ear incident, I didn’t want things to be awkward between us anymore, so I chickened out.
We woke up the next morning, ate dry food, and then carefully opened the door. It was time to start working on our escape. It was very unlikely that the adventuring team would work their way down to this floor any time soon. Rescue could be weeks away. Therefore, we had no choice but to continue forward. We found the stairway down before we found the stairway up. It took a while to realize where the stairway up was because it was surrounded by zombies and skeletons.
Up until that point, we tried to avoid encounters, and if we did fight, it was usually only one. After the most recent kill, Lydia’s Swordsman job leveled to 5 and my White Mage job leveled to 7. This could be considered an incredible rate for normal people, but we were seriously putting our lives on the line here. Without Divine Aura and Lydia’s speed, this dungeon would have been impossible for the pair of us. Even then, if we were seen by more than two enemies, we had no choice but to run until they lost track of us.
That was, at least, until I leveled. At level 7, the spell I got was Harm Undead. It did a bit more damage than weak heal, and it used a lot less mana. It also cast quickly with good distance. Suffice it to say, I grew a lot more confident after earning it, and we started fighting groups of two as well. However, we finally reached a point where the zombies were just too congested to do anything like that with them. Any attempt to attract a zombie’s attention led to four or more chasing after us.
“We’re going to need to kite them,” I said. “We’ll attract the four and lead them on. I’ll cast the spells I can to take them down until there is two left. Can you take out the other two?”
By this point, we had been fighting all day, and Lydia had grown used to being face to face with a zombie. Her movements were a lot more confident as she grew used to the sword. We had only run into one other skeleton on this floor, and their sword wasn’t as nice as the one she acquired, so it was still the same one from before. As for Divine Aura, I needed to cast it about once every ten minutes to maintain the light shining from it and its extra damage.
Like that, we steadily whittled down the zombie menace. Levels came harder and harder the higher up we got. As I didn’t gain another level in White Mage, I considered other options that could increase our suitability. Near the end of a few fights when Lydia was taking care of the last zombie, I switched to Hero so that it would get the experience instead. After a few kills, it leveled up by one.
{You have unlocked the Hero skill: Switch Position.}
And the skill was a bit useless. I practiced it a few times with Lydia, who clapped excitedly by what was essentially a teleportation spell. The skill allowed me to swap positions with anyone in my party. It could be cast instantly, but it locked our feet in place for about 2 seconds after, making the spell exceptionally bad. If I was an actual hero, I could use it to take a hit for someone in danger. However, as a support, I could only throw my party under the bus and flee before I was hit. Since there would be no warning for them, they would assuredly be hit in my place. It was the ultimate in douchey skill if I was the one to use it. I decided to return to White Mage and hope I got more spells that could aid in killing the undead.
We had finally cleared out the corridor with the zombies in it. We could now progress to the 4th floor. That’s when I noticed that the staircase only went up about three steps. Wait, why was there rubble there?
“S-seriously?” I said in disbelief. “Can a dungeon even cheat ?”
The stairway had collapsed. Giant boulders now barricaded our way out of the labyrinth.
“This must have been… other Masters doing.” Lydia said as she put a hand on the stone. “He’s used similar tactics before to stop enemies from chasing him.”
“That noble really left us for dead,” I moaned bitterly.
“The dungeon will heal itself in a few days,” Lydia explained. “What shall we do, Master?”
“We may be out of food by then. We have no choice but to keep going down… and hope that we get a spell that takes up back up to the surface.” I responded regretfully.
If we could land on a trap like the one that sent me to the 5th floor in reverse, that would be the best.