We Can Be Heroes ...?

19

They performed the same trick a number of times and soon the traps were littered with the bones of skeletons. Shion could understand that. After all, skeletons had no other flesh upon their bones, why would they have a brain? Of course, that also brought up the question of how the skeletons moved and sensed her and the others to fight them. Magic. It all seemed to come down to magic and Shion had started to realise she knew less than nothing about magic at all.

None of the skeletons glowed yellow, this time, and Mila urged them all to return to the other side of the traps and continue on their way. The piece of the totem awaited them, along that side street, and they needed that to imprison Nukrambuzer forever. Why the Arch-Necromancer's enemies hadn't used that fifth brazier before, Shion could never understand.

"Be on your guard. This has all been a little too easy, so far." Mila walked ahead, taking a glance around the corner before slipping her way into the side street. "Never forget, this is an S-tier dungeon. We've survived through sheer luck up to now."

If that was supposed to be a stirring speech from a stalwart leader, it had failed on several counts. The eerie silence of the ruined, underground city didn't help matters, either. Shion could hear nothing that she would expect in the world above. No birds flew overhead. There were no shouts and calls from merchants, no passing conversations normally heard in settlements. A silence that pressed upon her, almost feeling louder and more oppressive than any sound could.

The street sloped upward until they came to a landing, of sorts. A flat, wide area that once held a market. Toppled carts sat in various places around the square. Rotting food littered the ground, as though the city had only come to this state weeks ago, but the dust and musty smells gave the impression that the place had resided in this enormous cavern for far longer than that.

A well sat in the very centre of the square, stones broken, the canopy, with its bucket and rope, listed to one side and Shion wondered whether the depths of that well still held water. She hadn't had a drink of anything since leaving the group house, or eaten, yet she didn't feel as though she needed either, which was strange, to say the least.

"Sto'!" Dave rested a hand on Mila's shoulder, pulling her back before she could enter the square. "Somethin' ain' righ'."

His knives appeared in his hands and he sniffed the air, though what he thought he could smell eluded Shion. With his half-blind, milky-white eyes, he glared into the darkness of the shadows at the other side of the square, beyond the well and Shion moved to the side to get a better look. Something sat there, cloaked in shadow, and it looked big.

"Everyone check your food buffs." Even as she said it, Mila swept her hand up to summon her parchment. "There should be boss monsters around and I think we just found one."

Shion watched as everyone consulted their parchments and then, after dismissing them, they all had some kind of food in their hands. Dave held a huge leg of meat, that seemed to disappear as though he ate it, but without touching his mouth. Mila held a plate of something that looked like long, worms intermingling with each other and with some kind of red sauce on the top. Thankfully, they probably weren't worms. They didn't move, at least. Jova had an enormous, long loaf of bread, rippled and notched on the top, which also disappeared as though she ate it.

As they all ate, the red bar appeared above their heads and, miraculously, expanded, widening until each bar was almost half again as big as it was before. Shion wasn't stupid, she had come to understand that the red bar indicated something to do with their health and any injuries they sustained, but other than that, she saw no purpose for it.

"Oh, you poor thing. You have no idea what a food buff is, do you?" Arriving at Shion's side, Jova laid a hand on Shion's arm. "Bring up your character screen ... the thing with the hand."