Chapter 401: Dealing With Brennan

The people in the King's tent had their eyes shine with either relief or opportunity. The king awoke! His current state didn't seem half bad either, they might be able to save themselves after all!

Brennan's grogginess was only temporary. With the Bloody and W taking his body for a spin, his body got real exercise. Not just that, he wasn't sleeping while Bloody and W controlled him. He was just alone inside his own head. He was with his own thoughts surrounded by endless darkness. It was a nightmare but it all felt real.

It felt real enough that, although he spent no more than a day in the darkness of his own mind, he could hardly handle that much. When he could finally see the rays of sunlight shining on his face past the open tent, he couldn't help but shed tears.

"Your Majesty!" The knights who saw his current state were shaken and immediately approached, causing the tent to close.

They had heard from the rescue squad that the king had been just fine and even walking by himself when they found him.

"Eh, wasn't he chugging a whole barrel of liquor?" Someone said, making all the knights instantly raise their heads in understanding.

"His majesty must be drunk" Someone said having reached the right conclusion with the wrong information. Brennan was drunk on an overwhelming feeling of fear.

"I've got a mons-" Brennan said looking at his trembling hands before immediately shutting his mouth. But this was unintentional.  The shaking worsened and the king's eyes widened with terror and his lips quivered, failing to utter any words.  There were some things he wasn't allowed to say even in a drunken stupor.

The knights did not understand why he suddenly stopped himself and seemed hysterical, but it was at this point Stuart entered the well-guarded tent.

"I heard his majesty is awake" Stuart said to the men standing guard inside the tent. They nodded but their expressions looked troubled. Stuart shot the man a glance and quickly understood why.

"He is a mess" One of the knights said, feeling both pity and guilt.

Stuart agreed with this. He couldn't help but lament it as well. He didn't know what the king had gone through, but it had to be tragic. The thing called sympathy worked cruelly, Stuart was instantly feeling rather crestfallen.

"Sigh… Let him rest, we will be leaving to the outside soon" Stuart told the group of knights in the tent. They nodded and followed him out of the tent.

Their current location was the new camp, they decided not to name it anything this time. The auspiciousness of the previous camp was probably partially at fault for its fall.

"We can't abandon this one but…" Camp Aspiration would definitely be getting the hatchet. With the king in their hands, they could leave the dungeon without too much backlash. 

W wasn't aware of the underlying thought process of Stuart, all that he knew was that they would be getting out!

'We should try to get along' W transmitted to Brennan who was slowly recovering from his mental breakdown.

"Wh- What…" Brennan was of course stunned by the sudden message. Had he really gone crazy? He was even hearing voices.

"Su- Sure thing Mr. Ghost" Brennan replied causing his own eye to twitch. He was actually going along with this, this might not be rock bottom crazy but he was at least at the edge of falling towards it.

'I'm inside your body' W transmitted somewhat dumbfounded. He hadn't considered that removing all of Brennan's senses would turn him into a lunatic.

'Though maybe I should have known…' With the things he had gone through he might not have thought much of it but…

"Inside my body?" Brennan already knew what was inside his body. It was that red slime thing Eon spoke of! But it could speak…? Did Eon mention such a thing even in passing?

"You- You really want to be friends with me?" Brennan was a king. He knew that making political ties and alliances could be important. If the slime thing really wanted to work together with him, all was good in his book.

'I didn't say that…' W corrected awkwardly.

"Oh" Brennan replied unsure what to do now.

'Ahem, I mean, we can of course be friends but we first need to know how to help each other' W just wanted a transactional relationship. Forming a deal with the man was good enough.

'I can't possibly know his memories, mannerisms, preferences, etc' It was unwise to raise any suspicion towards him and Bloody, the near slip up earlier told him it was good to get on Brennan's good grace.

"What we each want…" Brennan muttered. It was good that the knights had left the tent to leave him to rest. Otherwise, they really would be looking at him strangely.

Brennan was starting to mutter out different cravings and yearnings, he was trying to come to a conclusion on his dearest wishes.

'I'm not a genie…' W complained inwardly while hearing some requests from Brennan.

They started simple. Things like getting him out, then reclaiming his throne, then finding a nice queen for himself, finally conquering some new territories, and now to having a pet dragon.

'I don't even know where to find a dragon!' W interrupted just as Brennan was about to suggest a dragon sword to go along with it. 

To ride a dragon while using parts of another invoked that cool seriously bonded feeling. Like, if your partner was cool with you using human bone armor or something of the like, there was some chemistry for sure.

"You don't have any connections with other dungeons or something…?" Brennan asked, feeling confused.

'F*ck I must be in a prank show' W said cursing. It was at this moment Bloody suggested eating Brennan and finding someone smarter.

'Eh, wait's that's not actually a bad plan…' Just as W was starting to get some twisted thoughts, Brennan let out an awkward chuckle.

"Those were jokes, just help me leave this dungeon and sit back on the throne" If more was necessary they could definitely discuss it.

"Hm, good' W was going to do that anyway. He wanted the power that came with it.

'I want knowledge, you have a library, right?' W asked Brennan, who nodded vigorously. If that was all W wanted, there would definitely be no problem getting it for him.

"Reading books is good, that's easy to arrange" Brennan was almost surprised it was this easy to befriend a monster. He was secretly looking down on W now. Humans were the only smart ones after all.

But W knew better than to ask for mere books.

'They are definitely valuable but I can get those easily' The knowledge in a royal library would just require him to take over Brennan's body for a bit. This was something Brennan was forgetting about.

Although this was a deal on the surface, the only one really winning was W. He could now stay hidden with the help of Brennan himself.

***

Much later, in the dark and moody crypt, the shuffling of feet could be heard everywhere.

"Nothing again!" The dungeon had been ransacked by increasingly larger groups of people. Even exploring new areas, the people were not finding any better loot.

"Hey, I heard there is a fort about 6 halls down" An adventurer told another. These were people from another party.

"Really?" He asked skeptically.

"Yeah, we are forming a large group to attack it, the loot has to be good" With the lack of easy loot, all that was left was getting the challenging ones. The only problem was that the popularity of the dungeon had not spread far enough for B-classes to flock over.

There were multiple reasons for this, but the most prominent was that only C-class equipment was found inside the dungeon. It was still possible to make some good money from selling it, but B-class adventurers tended to have better ways to make money.

One was through medium-term contracts with organizations, and another was from selling B-class monster materials. While the price of raw material was lower than fully crafted gear, the quantity of it was practically infinite. If they got a drop item from a boss, the money would be making itself at that point.

The people who were currently hunting for items in the cave of myths had proven that relying on such weird events was unreliable. Now, they had to attack forts found and marked by some risk-takers.

"Hey, are you sure we can take on this place…" A C-class knight asked a magician wearing glasses.

"Hehe, of course!" The magician replied.

"Worse comes to worst, I have a plan" They continued pushing up their glasses with great confidence.

There was currently about 20 C-class adventurers present. All that stood in front of them was a portcullis and some weak skeletons. This was no challenge Plus, if they ended up losing anyone, that would just be fewer people to distribute the loot with.

Adventuring was a dog-eat-dog world. Samuel Oakley was disgusted by this fact and wanted to do something about it, but there were many others who embraced this side of it. These were that folks that even with better alternatives would still dare to venture into these dungeons.

The group of 20 was the amalgamation of 4 parties, they weren't evenly distributed and their teamwork was bound to be poor. For some reason, they all seemed rather confident facing the locked portcullis in the creepy dungeon corridor.

"Let's go!" With their C-class equipment from that very dungeon, these adventurers, most young and reckless, felt prepared to even conquer the dungeon entirely.

"Blast open the gate" The portcullis was made of earth, all it would take was a spell or two.

But before they could blow a hole in the portcullis, the gate screeched and rose up from the ground. These adventurers were being welcomed in.