Chapter 140: Back To Business

The snake lunged for Timothy and he smashed it in the mouth, at its venom fangs and watched it recoil in shock. The bottle cracked at the impact but it still held to its shape.

He backed away and then slipped on the ground for a crucial moment as he cursed.

The snake recovered and seized the opportunity to pounce at him once again—and he staggered away. His ankle throbbed in pain as he created some distance between him and the creature.

As he escaped, the snake's head smashed on the floor and made a shallow crater. It shook its head and for a glimpse of the time, it appeared to him that the fang wobbled.

It was crazy but it was working.

Timothy ignored the pain for a moment as he awaited the snake to lunge once again—and was quickly thrown further back into the wall.

His head spun as he staggered into the ground, the crash shattered the bottle in his hand.He tried to get up and failed. He didn't think the snake would use its tail to lash out at him but it did. His right hand seared at the shards of glass pricked into his skin as he stayed where he was.

The snake was looking at him? As if assessing if he was truly down. There was an intelligence to it that he hadn't seen in the slime.

His head was too fogged to even gravely consider his position. The snake flicked its tongue at him and hissed. If he stopped moving now, then it was all over. And yet what could he use? The potion bottle… later? Now? The skin would heal up with the shards of glass in it.

That was more problematic later.

Later.

If he survived this thing now that is. Once again he eyed it, its fang was wobbling, probably not from the bottle but its head hitting the wall. The floor rather. Touching it would sear his skin and then some. He needed a glove.

The young man carefully ripped his shirt, his sudden actions made the snake lunge at him once more—and this time he was ready. He couldn't move away so he bent his knees and watched the creature's head meet the wall. He quickly went to work and reached for the fang and pulled.

He pulled hard despite the lashing and the venom dripping into his covered hand. The snake recovered and moved back, he held onto his grip and stood in place until he heard a pop.

One of the fang finally freed from the snake's mouth. The snake shrieked at him and then began to attack at him, haphazardly as he tried to keep himself standing. One more attack. The head? The eye? Inside the mouth?

Did it matter? Timothy moved—

.

.

.

The observer could only watch with mild annoyance as the giant venom snake was finally reduced to its end by this… this boy. They had been focused on securing their chambers when this had occured so it couldn't call the creature back and now it was appalled at the situation.

What else could the observer use now? A golem? That was much harder now wasn't it? Although the snake wasn't the only one unharmed.

Timothy leaned against the wall to support himself, his hands were bleeding. Not out from any injuries sustained from the snake but the potion bottle shattering in his hands as he fought the thing. He felt properly mashed. Its tail had been heavy as it struck him, but he was kind of right, the snake never considered squeezing him to death.

Its nature still triumphed over its head. The young man coughed as he glanced at his right hand still pricked with shards. He ought to take care of this before moving on… although what were the chances of another creature or the slime coming back to finish him off?

The ripped off cloth from his shirt lay on the floor and he couldn't use that—venom was absorbed in it, and so he had to rip another piece of his shirt. The young man cursed himself as his vision blurred and darkened, but he wouldn't fall asleep this time. Not now.

He began to clean up and pull off the shards he could see while biting back from the pain. He felt blood in his tongue. It hurt more than when he had accidentally cut himself before with a knife. Once he was done, he shakily took out the healing potion.

It was time to get the job done.

.. .

She had fought tooth and nail with the slime before she went down due to the effects of the gas. And Ellynn woke up as soon she found herself thrown into a cell, she was treated like some kind of item that was simply chucked. She groaned and sat up to find she wasn't alone. There was a skeleton inside her cell and a—

"Hey! I didn't expect someone to join me so soon."

She whipped her head back and met a young man with a sheepish grin. They were in a place with multiple cells, right beside hers was a young man. And he was accompanied by a cloak. A levitating cloak right behind him. She didn't say a thing as she quickly felt the presence of her own cloak right above her head. It hadn't come off.

"Ah, not much of a talker are you?" The man tilted his head and glanced at his cloak, "My friend is taking a liking to you though—isn't that right… eh, my cloak doesn't say a thing either." The young man had ginger hair and blue eyes as he motioned to his cloak.

He was odd.

Most people she ended up encountering was odd though. Was this the person that the Illusory Mage from earlier was referring to? She took in a deep breath and opened her mouth—

But was beat to it as the man in the other cell moved closer with an inspecting look, he pushed up his spectacles, "You don't look like anyone from my class, and I'd probably not assume you're a senior of mine, because they wouldn't have gotten captured. But only a few people could make cloaks work for them like that."

What was kind of nonsense was he saying?

"Ellynn," She said at last to shut him up. Before this man could identify her, it was better to let him know already of who she is. She prepared herself for the inevitable backlash.

"Yeah, doesn't ring a bell. Sorry, but nice to meet you. I'm Theodore, my friends call me Theo or Dore, like the actual door." He motioned to his cloak that stood still and he pretended to open it. "What brings you to this portion of the Academy?"

She blinked and answered, "A specific title that's supposed to be here."

"Ah, heard the rumors as well." The man sat back down on the stone wall and sighed. "You don't happen to have any food on your person do you?"

"How many days have you been here?" Could it be that the man was in hysterics? It was the only thing she could think of as the reason for his attitude at the moment.

"Er… seems hard to tell, not much sun or moon. But I think it's been three days, kinda starving actually." The man awkwardly laughed while the cloak proceeded to levitate close to him.

She eyed the cloak… it wasn't exactly a relic but she shook her head to focus and then checked her pockets. She pulled out a couple of nuts she'd found in the forest before she met her father and his friend arrived and proceeded to move closer. Unlike the cell bars which had a barrier in front of them—there was nothing of that sort in between them.

"Woah, I owe you a life debt if we ever escape this." He quickly picked out some and then closed her hand, "Save some for yourself." He placed some in his mouth and chewed happily.

The way he said things… she eyed the skeleton in her cell. It seemed to sum things up, but who was in charge of this? She eyed the barrier that was in front of their cells. A strong Mage might be able to break through the cell bars, even an ordinary Warrior could do it—but that barrier made her frown.

"Some kind of barrier that can maintain itself without a Mage's mana or even the mana around us, it was set up properly, I can tell that because I'm an Enchanter." Theodore explained, "Greatest work of art is my friend right here."

The cloak he was with gave a spin and a whirl.

She eyed it with some respect and nodded. Ellynn measured the odds of breaking free… Timothy would wake up and run away from here—wait, he couldn't climb up back to the portal so he had to move forward. And unlike the coward actions of the slime from their first encounter, it had attacked quickly and managed to capture her without any problems.

The Half Elf lost a bit of hope at that.

"Do you know who's behind this?" She still asked. Ellynn was skeptical that this place was a Dungeon, or even if it was, that the Headmaster had simply allowed such a place to be accessed by Students with its inherent danger.

Theodore swallowed for a moment and placed a hand on his stomach, "Er, you don't happen to have a flask of water on you or anything do you?"