Chapter 335 Volume V - Chapter 53: With a Hope Still Not Lost
?"-e'll wake up, right?"
Huh...? Is someone... talking?
"Yes."
There were indeed two people talking, whose voices I could hear more and more clearly as time passed.
"He wasn't even hurt, he just... used his mana too much and too fast, that's all. He is an elf, even if only half, so I think he'll be fine... hopefully."
Lucia... it was Lucia talking. Then it must have been Sue who she was talking to.
So... I made it. I survived the night.
Opening my eyes as well as my ears, I tried to sit up, but... realizing the fatigue and pain in my body, I inevitably paused.
I felt fatigue and pain every time I used my ascension skill, which... at least for me, was quite normal. After all, even though it belonged to me, it provided a power that my body couldn't handle. Mana Ascension was a skill that took something from me every time I used it.
That's why I only used it when it was most necessary. In fact, because I had been sealed for years, I had hardly ever used it and was afraid to do so.
Now, even though I had decided not to care too much about such things anymore, I would only use and deactivate it for a few seconds to minimize the damage to my body.
But this time, I used it for more than a minute. Which is probably why the side effects are more severe than they should be... probably.
"Look, he's awake."
Ah, right... I got lost in my thoughts.
I opened and closed my eyes a few times, and when I could see my surroundings more clearly, I looked at the two girls in front of me.
We were in the pit where I had left them. They must have carried me in after I collapsed. Updated from novelb(i)n.c(o)m
Sue looked a little worried. Her dark blue eyes were looking at me skeptically. As if... as if I might collapse again at any moment. But unlike her, Lucia was calm, as always.
Really, now that I think about it... I've never once seen her completely frightened. Lucia is someone who always keeps her cool. I realize it now, but... it's interesting. Even in that dark street, she was the one who brought me to my senses.
"How do you feel? I think... something happened outside."
I sighed deeply at Lucia's words, pushed my thoughts aside again, and answered her question.
"Well, I'm fine, but... I think I need some rest. I pushed myself too hard. And yes, something indeed happened..."
When I remembered what had happened last night... I couldn't help swallowing. Now, when I thought about it rationally, it was absurd that there were thousands of wolves surrounding me. It was probably because of their howling and my dizziness that I saw them several times more numerous than they actually were. But even if that was the case... they were scary.
"I'm not sure about a day, but in two days, yes."
"Then we will rest for two days without fighting. If the creatures are even a little scared of you, they will keep watching before they get close to here. But they'll be on us before long. I don't think they have much patience, and I don't think we want to take any risks."
Both Sue and I found ourselves nodding involuntarily. Lucia... had a strange air about her when she spoke. I don't know if it was her charm, but she was... logical and pleasant to listen to.
"So, let's leave here before night falls again, and find a new place to hide. We will never spend a day in the same place. At the end of each night, we will move out and look for the dungeon boss. And when we find it..."
This time, her eyes looked at me with great hope. As if... as if she was leaving everything to me. Yet she didn't speak individually, she continued for all of us.
"I hope we will be strong enough to kill it."
She didn't follow up, she didn't say anything else. But she didn't need to. Everything that needed to be said had been said, at least for today.
So... the first thing we did after this conversation was to eat. Sue had brought two sandwiches just in case. She thought she was going to be alone with Lucia, so that was all she had for a snack. So we split the sandwiches.
If there was one thing I learned from eating these sandwiches... it was that Sue is a really good cook. I don't know why, but even a simple sandwich tasted pretty good. Maybe it was because we were in a dungeon where there wasn't much distance between us and death. Maybe the sandwiches were really delicious in a meaningless way... I don't know, but I wasn't going to complain.
After we had eaten our fill, we got ready to go outside to find a new hiding place, as we had decided. It didn't take long. After making sure we had left nothing behind, I went out first, followed by Lucia and Sue.
Lucia often grimaced because of the asymmetry of her hair as she climbed up through the pit, constantly straightening her hair. But there was nothing she could do.
Eventually, we came out of the cave too. The lush green sky greeted us. It was as if nothing had happened here yesterday... the dungeon was quite calm. The greenery, the trees, all the plants... everything was in its place. This huge plain had become a paradise once again.
"Haaa..."
When Lucia let out a deep sigh, I raised my eyebrows and turned around. Then I noticed the blue glow shimmering just in front of her and was even more surprised.
Lucia lifted the sword from her dimensional inventory and brought it to the back of her head. Then, without giving it much thought, she cut her hair in a single stroke.
I was genuinely surprised as I looked at her hair as it slowly fell to the ground. Lucia... always made me feel like someone who cared about her hair in general. Or I might have assumed that she took care of her hair because she was always too beautiful... but I was really surprised to see her cut her hair without hesitation.
Lucia glanced at her hair, which had fallen to the floor, and sighed again. But... I couldn't even focus on what she was doing. Her hair was still a bit asymmetrical because she hadn't cut it properly, yes, but it only fell down to her shoulders in its new state, and... it felt very strange.
The hairstyle suited her, of course... It didn't look abnormal at all. Lucia was still stunningly beautiful. But that didn't change the fact that I had seen her with long hair for months.
"Come on, let's go."
I shook my head from side to side, angry with myself, tearing my eyes away from the tufts of hair on the ground.
She was right. We had to be fast. The last thing we wanted was to be left in the middle of the plain when night fell.
"Yeah, let's go."
And so... for the first time in the dungeon, the three of us made our way side by side.
One of us with a tiny bit of hope clinging desperately, one of us with a will to survive that was hard to miss in her eyes despite the composure she maintained no matter what, and me... with both the desire to get out of here and my first goal, to find a way to heal Aiden.