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Chapter 13

Several hours later Lock had yet to experience another level up. Either the corpses of Angry and Potato had not been enough for all the cyclops, or they had been enough, and they'd all simply died by now.

He glanced over at Grandfather from his position guarding the entrance. The older man had been sitting silently on a tree stump, mulling over the skill Maw of Marmortius for the past hour or so after Lock had told him about it.

He glanced at the sun. It had reached beyond its peak, signifying that it was noon. They didn't have much time left if they wanted to explore the dungeon today. It was unwise to do so with a tired mind. Although... it was quite exhausting standing guard for such a long period of time as well. Maybe some rest would do him good.

“Do we want to enter the dungeon today or tomorrow?” Lock asked. He received no answer and turned around, saw his grandfather wasn't sleeping, and repeated the question, this time louder.

Grandfather looked up at him. “Today. The faster the better. You haven't gained any levels in the past few hours then, I assume?”

“No, only some experience,” Lock answered. He now had six levels in the Assassin class. It wasn't unexpected that he wouldn't go much further than that from one dungeon. The experience requirements for levelling up rose in five-level increments, after all. To a point where older adventurers weren't that much higher in level at all. Grandfather was only a level 33 warrior after several decades of continuous adventuring. Although to be fair, Grandfather also wasn't the best example of a successful adventurer. From the ranking of Bronze to S, he'd only ever been up to Gold-rank, which had depreciated to Silver due to his retirement a dozen or so years ago.

That description made Grandfather sound weaker than he actually was though. A gold-ranked adventurer was still in the top 20% of all registered adventurers. Not a mean feat for someone who entered the profession without any significant backing in the form of a family or an institution.

“So how do we do this?” Lock asked, rubbing his deadened by inactivity hands. “Go in guns blazing or take a more sneaky approach?”

Grandfather raised an eyebrow at him, right, guns didn't exist here. “I'll be in the front, trying to take up all attention, while you stay in the back and try to avoid being seen.” Grandfather answered.

Alright, Lock could get behind that plan, he was a level six Assassin who hadn't even trained in the usage of the skill and attributes he'd just gained, he had no illusions about how useful he would actually be.

Lock jumped up and down a few times, waiting for his grandfather to get up so they could start the adventure. He was doing it quite slowly, befitting of his age, although not necessarily befitting of the condition the cocktail of potions he'd imbibed left him in.

Lock's thoughts were interrupted by what he could only describe as killing intent, if not sheer malice erupting from his Grandfather. He took a conscious step back and gazed at the phenomenon. While the aura was intimidating, it wasn't like Grandfather would ever hurt him.

The aura surrounding the old man seemed to be almost palpabl-, scratch that, it was, Lock noted as Grandfather walked past him towards the dungeon entrance. Gravity itself seemed to be affected, trying to push him ever so slightly harder than usual into the ground, the visual spectrum being distorted around Grandfather's form, wisps of hair flowing upward and eyes shining, leaving a behind a slight trail of light whenever they moved.

Lock wondered what skill Grandfather was using, he hadn't drawn his weapons so it wasn't a weapon aura skill. Intimidation aura?

“Intimidation aura.” Grandfather confirmed.

He'd apparently been talking out loud, good to know.

Grandfather unceremoniously hopped into the dungeon, and Lock scrambled to follow, taking a slower approach by shimmying over the edge of the entrance and letting himself drop.

The dungeon was, more roomy than he'd expected. He'd thought it would be a series of small interconnected rooms, but the space they found themselves in was already double the size of the dungeon Lock had been imagining.

A large, almost arena like cavern with gray stone walls and stomped flat earth. Boring all in all Lock thought, as he did his best to blend into the wall. Thankfully the ground was simple dirt and not something like gravel, which would have been unconductive to trying to move stealthily.

Grandfather moved slowly towards the only exit of the cavern they were in, a hole flanked by two totem poles with cyclops skulls planted on top of the feathered wood. Lock followed along, trying to avoid causing the same echoes that Grandfather's footsteps were creating. Usually there would be more monsters present in the dungeon to create sound, therefore dulling their own in comparison, but it was not to be.

The first room they entered after wandering through a corridor corresponded with the first corpse they found, allowing Lock to finally gaze upon the vaunted cyclops. It wasn't much. An adult-human-sized beast with a hanging gut and one milky eye surrounded by dark veins. The only impressive thing about it was its muscle, but even that small bit of intimidation was offset by the foam at its mouth and the bloody scratch marks at its throat. A common reaction amongst less intelligent animals when they were under the effects of the constrictor. The poison shut down the brain's capacity to contract the muscles necessary to operate the lungs, leaving the target out of breath, with a numb feeling around their throat as air refused to enter it.

It wasn't the only poison he'd smeared the corpses in, but the symptoms of the constrictor, as self-inflicted as they often were, were some of the most noticeable symptoms of his particular batch.

Determining if the heart stopper had worked was quite annoying, one would have to cut open the chest to touch the organ, to see if it had frozen up properly.

Well, it was unimportant, and Grandfather had started walking on after kicking the corpse once, so Lock abandoned that train of thought and continued following.

They came upon more corpses in the next area, every one of them received a swift kick from Grandfather, probably to check if they were simply faking unconsciousness. Or he simply enjoyed giving literal meaning to the phrase of kicking someone when they were down. Now that Lock had thought about it, he gave one of the beasts a good kick in the ribs as he passed by it.

He did not repeat the action upon the next corpses, one glare from Grandfather had been quite enough thank you very much. The monotonous rhythm of Grandfather's steps echoing off the ground, interspersed with the occasional thump of boot meeting flesh was interrupted by the thirteenth corpse, not being much of a corpse really. Although the cyclops did not look like it was going to be in this world for long, the blood surrounding its mouth was simply less pronounced than with the others, and the obvious status of it as the runt of the litter indicated that he had just gotten less of the flesh, and was therefore dying more slowly.

Well, still alive enough to weakly raise his head at Grandfather's slow march towards it and utter a weak “Ohawaaha.” Just because it was uttered didn't mean it was coherent mind you.

Suffice to say its plea went unanswered and Grandfather signalled Lock to slit the thing's throat as he walked steadily onwards. The cyclops wasn't able to put up any resistance and thus found his neck quickly divested of any blood.

Grandfather suddenly halted in his until now uninterrupted march forwards, pointing at his ear the old man shot a questioning look backwards at Lock.

Lock strained his ears as commanded and after a minute or so was able to make out a faint bleating coming from the distance. He walked towards Grandfather and whispered the word sheep into his ear, Grandfather pointed backwards and they retreated several caverns back.

“So,” Grandfather started, “sheep, what does this mean?” he asked.

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