“Actually, that’s not why you started seeing things,” I said.
Diego cocked his head. “What do you mean?”
“You know how I vanished earlier? Turns out, I was transported somewhere else.”
I proceeded to explain my encounter with the mysterious woman. Not all of it, of course—I kept the fact that I was a monster hidden, as well as any information that might have led to someone figuring out that little fact. In the new version of the story, the woman had noticed that I was seeing a vision in the water, and she had saved me from drowning. It wasn’t all that different from the truth, and I was pretty sure I hadn’t introduced any contradictions into the tale.
Still, Diego wasn’t an idiot. His expression made it clear that he knew I was hiding something, but fortunately, he was tolerant enough to overlook it. Besides, the most central part—the vision—had been the same for both of us, so he would know that part wasn’t a lie, at least.
After I’d finished my story, Diego nodded. “So you’re saying what I saw really happened?”
“Apparently. And she told me that if we continue with our delves, we might experience more visions. We’ll have to be careful.”
“I’ll say. Suddenly losing consciousness isn’t exactly the safest thing that can happen to you out here.”
He could say that again. Actually, if it were just Diego and me, Capitan would be able to cover for us, but the woman had made it sound like we all might see visions. If we all blacked out at once, we could all very well end up as monster food.
“Well, he only lost consciousness for a moment,” Capitan pointed out. “A few seconds, at best. I suppose that’s still enough to be the difference between life and death...”
A few seconds, huh? That was indeed short compared to the length of the vision I’d seen, but it would feel like an eternity in the middle of a fight. If you blacked out for a few seconds while a sword was coming at you, for example, then that would be that.
It seemed the whole vision thing might have been a harsher drawback than I’d anticipated. Not for me, particularly, since I could recover from physical injuries quite easily. I figured I could stay passed out for ten seconds or so and still come out of the average fight mostly fine. But as for the others...
“If we let this get to us, we might as well give up on the dungeon entirely,” Diego reasoned. “So perhaps it’s simply a matter of courage. And I’m sorry to say that I have no intention of giving up just yet.”
I’d known that Diego had his reasons for wanting to come here, but his resolve was even firmer than I’d expected—not that I had any objections. That just left Capitan...
“One way or the other, I need those sea spirit herbs,” Capitan said. “Maybe it’d be a different story if there were other parties delving this dungeon, but right now, those are few and far between. Took a lot of effort finding and securing Mazlak’s boat, even, so I’m not about to quit that easily. Still, we can’t just ignore the danger, so we’ll need to be a little prudent about this. We’ll see how we fare on the shallower levels for a while and only head farther down if things look promising. How does that sound?”
It seemed Capitan was in favor of continuing onward too. Though, he knew about my true nature, so maybe that was why he didn’t seem particularly worried—especially since he probably had his own way of counteracting the visions if need be. I’d heard that masters of spirit could even maintain their channeling while they were sleeping. Capitan was probably confident that he could keep his defenses up for the few seconds that we were knocked out.
I nodded. “I’m with you two,” I said. “We’ll have to keep a close eye on Niedz and the others, though. I brought them here to atone for attacking me, not to consign them to their deaths. It’s my responsibility to see them through this.”
It would’ve been easy to abandon Niedz, Lukas, and Gahedd, saying they’d only reaped what they’d sown, but I’d become rather attached to them. Besides, I’d promised to help them improve, so the idea of pointlessly sending them to their deaths didn’t sit right with me. Diego and Capitan seemed to share a similar opinion.
“At the very least, we need to get them to a point where they could make it back here on their own power,” the beast-folk said.
Capitan picked up where he left off. “This is a safe area, more or less,” he agreed. “And Mazlak will be waiting above come evening. So long as they don’t aggravate the behemoth swimming outside, they should be able to handle the journey back even if we’re not around. So overall, they need to be strong enough to handle the shallower levels, and quick enough on their feet to get away from any stronger monsters lurking in the depths.”
It was no guarantee, of course, but monsters were often unable to catch up to a human who was sufficiently dedicated to making a run for it. Partly that was because of a simple difference in speed, but people also had the smarts necessary to hide somewhere or shake the monster off their tail by rounding a series of corners. Once in a while, you did get the persistent type of monster that would try to sniff you out, or a quick type that would catch up to you, but there were fewer of both than one might’ve expected.
If an adventurer and a monster were fairly evenly matched, running away wasn’t a foolish move—in fact, it was perhaps the greatest, most indispensable survival technique one could master. I couldn’t even count the number of times I’d run from monsters myself.
After all, the adventurer that got away in one piece was the adventurer that lived to dungeon delve another day. Some adventurers ridiculed their fleeing colleagues when they crossed paths in a dungeon, but I figured dignity didn’t do you any good if you were dead. It sounded simple, but knowing when to run away before a monster could do you in really was the key to survival.
“The question is whether we’ll be able to train them up to that point,” I said. “To start off, we’ll need to see how well they can fight—their general skill level, and any habits they might have.”
Diego and Capitan both nodded.
“In that case, let’s start out in the shallower levels,” the latter said, glancing at Niedz and the others, who were a short distance away. “We’ll see if we can’t find them their first fight.”
The trio looked like they were enjoying themselves sightseeing, gawking at the dungeon’s interior like country bumpkins freshly arrived in the big city. It seemed they had no idea what they were in for. We’d just have to hope they mustered their courage and put their backs into it, because it seemed we’d be putting them through a tougher training gauntlet than even we’d expected.