BOOM!
With a concussive blast, I unload two condensed air bolts right into the demon’s chest from close range, providing the force needed to knock the demon backward, but not quite far enough. Hit him again!
BOOM!
Unable to correct his balance in time, Anga is blown back, slipping over the edge. For a moment, I can feel the aura of murderous glee rising from the demon before he slips out of my sight. With a powerful snap of my mandibles, I sever the spear that still connects us and wait to see if I get a notification for the monster’s demise.
None comes. Dammit.
He had to have known he wouldn’t be able to defeat me, as wounded as he was, so why bother making the attempt? I get the feeling the demonic mindset is going to be very different than what I would expect to see from a normal sapient creature. Still, we learned a few valuable things from him, such as the name and location of the closest demon settlement to the Colony.
We’ll need to scout it out in more detail in the future, since I’ve little doubt we’ll be conquering the place as our first port of call to extending the territory of the Colony into the third stratum. I glance out to the vast terrain that is laid before me from this high vantage point. Won’t all this be better when it belongs to the Colony? I look to the teeming hordes of demons down below. Just think of the farming possibilities…
“Alright, everyone,” I call to my bodyguards. “Time to go!”
[Pack it up gang, we’re retreating to the nest.]
Hopefully, the way back up is easier than the way down.
46. New Recruits
“Fall! Fall, you interlopers, invaders, and unbelievers! You are the nutrients provided by the Dungeon to grow something greater! Your Biomass will be the building blocks used to construct the new Path! The new way! Go in peace, under the mandibles of the Colony!” Beyn orated, his sonorous voice rolling through the tunnels like wind.
“Give it a rest, would you?” Isaac muttered, relentlessly working his spear alongside the soldier ant next to him.
Why he wasn’t back on the surface patrolling the quiet streets of Renewal and enjoying the new ale being brewed up there, he still didn’t know. Instead of relaxing and putting his feet up, here he was in the Dungeon, fighting alongside the Colony and several other surviving members of the town guard, getting an earful from the mad preacher while they were at it.
After another five minutes of fierce battle, the rush of shadow beasts was finally put down and Isaac gathered his people to rest. He pulled off his helmet and wiped the sweat from his brow, the others doing the same, patting each other on the back and sharing any Levels or Skill improvements they might have gotten.
“Friend Isaac!” came a voice from behind.
“Ah, plops,” he cursed before turning with a smile to see the one-armed priest approaching, hunched over due to the weight of the shield he bore on his back.
Isaac pulled a face.
“I’m not sure you really need to be carrying that thing around,” he said. “Do you even get a strength bonus from your Class?”
“I do not,” the priest said, breathing heavily. An hour of yelling hadn’t winded the man in the slightest but carrying an oversized shield for twenty metres knocked the air straight out of him. Classes, what a thing. The vagaries of the System were nothing new to Isaac, he was born and bred in it, had never known a life without it. “But the burden is light, as I am strengthened by my faith. The shield of righteousness is my burden to bear, as decreed by the Great One directly.”
“Did the ‘Great One’ really decree that?” Isaac asked sceptically. “That’s not exactly how I remember it.”
“One must allow some interpretation of the Great One’s actions,” the priest said defensively. “Would you rather I bother them endlessly with questions about everything they do or say?”
“Don’t you do that already?”
“That’s not the point!”
Beyn’s face turned a touch red and Isaac had to take in the whole man for a moment. It was more than a little unusual for him to be this flustered. Beyn looked tired, worn out by some internal struggle. Though every instinct in Isaac’s body screamed in warning, he gripped the insane priest on the shoulder.
“Are you alright, man?” he asked. “You don’t seem like yourself.”
Sometimes it was easy to forget how young Beyn was. He normally moved and spoke with such purpose and determination that the normal hesitance and vulnerabilities of youth were invisible in him, burned away by the heat of his conviction. In this moment, Isaac was reminded that he was, in fact, the older of the two of them. The priest was a young man, fresh out of church training and settling into his first post when the last wave had occurred, catapulting him from that humble life into something entirely different.
“I-I’m fine,” Beyn replied, blinking in surprise as the anger and frustration just seemed to leak out of him, leaving him appearing more like a confused young man than Isaac had ever seen him. “I think… I think I’m just tired. There has been so much to do.”
“It’s not Mana sickness, is it? Have you been back to the surface recently?”
Beyn slowly shook his head. “No. No, I’m fine. I’m being careful.”
“So, what is it?” Isaac tried to encourage him to open up.
The priest spoke hesitantly at first, then with growing passion as he went on.
“There is just so much to do. The Antmancer Class is a brand-new revelation, but the speed of our progress, our Levelling, has fallen dramatically since the siege ended. I have tried to explain to the faithful that a Class such as this is hard to train, and likely powerful as it advances, but they hunger so desperately for the next improvement, the next chance for the System to illuminate this glorious path. They take risks, they push too hard and no matter how I warn them, their eagerness and enthusiasm overtakes them. Several members of my church have been sent to the surface for healing and extended rest over the last week, their own actions slowing rather than speeding their progress. I find it hard to blame them, since I too share their desire for that next great leap.”
“The Antmancers have been joining in on all the patrols,” Isaac protested the idiocy. “Every single one of them. In terms of hours on duty, they exceed every guard, even the trainees we took in from Rylleh.”
What a pain in the plops that’d been for Isaac. As the citizens of the underground city had grown more and more accustomed to life under the ‘rule’ of the ants, they had increasingly grown to like it. To the poor and working people, the Colony were liberating heroes. When Isaac had formerly opened the ranks of the guards to volunteers after the siege, there had been a flood of applicants. It was a good thing the Colony decided to foot the bill, since Isaac wouldn’t have the first clue how he would even attempt to pay them all.
Here’s hoping the Colony never actually found a use for all the gold they’d found.
“Yes, but to them, this simply isn’t enough,” Beyn said. “And the new members of the flock are often misguided and need a great deal of teaching, lest they do or say something that tarnishes the image of the Great One and undoes our work spreading the word. This has been a nightmare to manage, and it has been some days since last I slept.”
The priest rubbed his eyes and Isaac got a clear look at how lined and webbed with red they were.