Chapter 117 – Vermintide

Chapter 117 – Vermintide

Although that encounter left John with many things to think about, he deemed it unnecessary to do so at this time. He was to level up and then kill Thana. THAT was his primary goal. Prophecies and words of gods be damned. Rolling over, he began rising from the stone floor. His flight out of the Secret Room had not been a pleasant one.

“Master, I think you should-”

“I don’t care, Aclysia!” John didn’t even let her finish, pushing the hand that was trying to help him up aside. Quickly he got up. He had no time to be reasonable. Logic boiled into nothingness whenever he considered what torture his girlfriend must have been going through at that very moment. He ignored the exhausted burning in his eyes.

For once, Aclysia did not ignore being interrupted. Her lips quivered, as she bowed deeply in apology.

John felt the sting of regret so he sighed. “I am sorry, it’s just...these are long days,” he mumbled that apology before ordering her to take the lead again. It was a weak apology but all that he could muster right now. At the same time, the Possessed Bee spotted the boss room. A promise of progress.

Confusingly, when they arrived, the boss room was empty. That was not to say that it was a blank room. On the contrary, it was a large banquet hall with wooden desks filled with food and drink of rather measly quality but a quantity that made John unsure how any of the Skaven could be that malnourished.

He took a step into the room. Nothing happened. Perhaps he was in the wrong area? No, that was unlikely, the big wooden door at the back of the hall looked exactly like the ones he had used to get down here.

He grabbed one of the plates and inspected the food further. The silence was unnerving. Only the sound of the stone plate grinding over the table echoed through the hall and it was swiftly muffled to nothingness. Even his breaths and Salamanders constant crackling were somehow unable to cut apart the silence. On the plate lay a small ensemble of differently sized mushrooms as well as parts of some sort of light meat he couldn’t identify.

Carefully he put the plate back down. It really didn’t help that he didn’t get notifications for bosses in floor based dungeons. He walked deeper into the room, Aclysia, her new dagger in hand, following him closely just like the four elemental girls did.

Suddenly half his vision was gone. That was to say, he could no longer watch through the eyes of his bee. He could still feel it but he had no idea where it was, just that it was not there. It had happened so suddenly and he had paid so little attention to his second body that he didn’t know where in the room it last was. Panicked, he looked around, carefully, everyone going into a defensive position. Then, at least, he looked up.

Under the ceiling hung hundreds if not thousands of rats. They were of the normal size for such vermin, about the size of his own feet. The sheer number of such small creatures made them more threatening than any other rat monster he had faced so far.



Just as he finished looking over Observe the rats let go of the ceiling. There was a moment where John was certain that he was done for. What was descending unto him was a solid wall of writhing bodies, the impact alone would burn away his mana. However, as he remembered, he was not alone here.

‘SALAMANDER!’ He screamed mentally, pouring more than half of his mana into the Elemental. He thought he heard an anarchic, satisfied giggle but that might have been his imagination. Salamander unleashed a pillar of flames towards the ceiling.

‘Even if it hurts like hell, I can endure it,’ he decided and deactivated Mana Protection and poured all of his mana, every second of regeneration, into Salamander.

The rats instantly jumped at him.

-3 HP -3HP -2HP -1HP -5HP, every bite of the vermin stung. They started at his feet, repeatedly ripping small chunks off and then finding Gamer’s Body to have replaced them. Many of the beasts started to climb up his body. He did his best to brush them off, but the rats were much nimbler than he gave them credit for. They just jumped on the hand that was trying to swat them away and climbed up his arm instead.

He was roughly aware of the fire meeting the Vermintide, as Salamanders powers, red and burning hot, filled the room. ‘The strategy is working, that’s all that matters!’ John thought to himself, just as tiny teeth began gnawing at his neck.

The pain wiped his mind for a moment. When he came back, the teeth of a rat appeared before his eyes. In a panic, he stepped backwards, stumbled and fell. That threw the rats off his head for a moment, but the carpet of them he landed on made sure to replace it moments later. The gnawing at his neck was next to nothing to the sensation of teeth ripping into his oculars.

Gamer’s Body kept restoring his sight between bites. His entire world was filled only with rats. They swarmed on his body, ripping to shred his clothes and devouring his meat. There was their skittering and their munching and their excited squeaking and nothing else.

-4HP, -8HP, -3HP, -12 HP, -1HP, -3HP. It continued and continued. All he could do was keep pouring his mana into Salamander as his HP-bar dwindled, entering the lower third. He had the Wisdom not to scream despite the pain. The rats would gladly eat his tongue too.

Bit by bit, the pain became less. John soon realized that the rats were torn off him like they were overgrown leeches. His face was freed last, simply the furthest away from a hurriedly working servant.

‘Thank you, Aclysia.’ John sent as he looked at his Artificial Guardian. To his surprise he received no answer, no ‘You are welcome’ or ‘Certainly, Master’ just cold, dead silence as she crushed the last rat in her hand. Before guts could stain her hand, the monster turned into dust.

Every other person would have died of blood loss or infections but thanks to Gamer’s Body the wounds just closed. All he was missing were most of his clothes and HP.

The Vermintide had been almost entirely defeated by Salamander. Most of the room had been painted black by the soot. A few rats were still about, charging with the typical mindless aggression of NPCs. Gnome squashed them underfoot until none remained. Afterwards, everyone turned to John.

Aclysia was still silent, Salamander, despite the glorious inferno all around her, did not laugh, Gnome kept her distance and even Sylph was not uttering a single sound. John tried to get up. His HP had fallen to a mere 40 before Aclysia had managed to rip the last rat off him. There was no hand extended to him but he still managed to get up. On shaky feet he stood. He had never felt this way before. Normally, when he had low HP he was healed almost instantly by a level up and the one time that hadn’t been the case, a high dragoness had kept his senses occupied otherwise. Now he felt tired, burned out.

He needed to keep going.

“Let’s do the next dungeon,” he mumbled in a half-dead voice and raised his hand. They were brought back to the black in-between dimension that lay behind the gates Magoi opened. John kept his hand in the air, contemplating which dungeon to summon next. Aclysia grabbed his arm and dragged it down. He growled at the Artificial Spirit, “What?!”Vissit novelbin(.)com for new novels