Chapter 125: Lizzie & Eli! [1] [Bonus]
[Eighteen Hours Earlier]
Eli landed in the savannah already straightening his vest, because that was simply how he preferred to arrive places, composed and unhurried.
The hell gate had deposited him in tall golden grass under two suns, and in that moment, the only sound was the wind moving through the blades around him.
It was quiet. Too quiet.
Then, from somewhere to his left, a distant explosion lit the sky orange. He looked at it and smiled. "I wonder who that could be," he said to no one and moved toward it.
She was standing in a blackened circle of scorched grass with Betty in one hand and something that had once been a raptor in several pieces around her feet.
Her hair was still smoking at the tips, but she looked pleased about this. "Fancy seeing you here," she said, without turning.
"Indeed." Eli surveyed the cleared perimeter around her, the scorch marks, the methodical radius of destruction. "How long have you been here?"
"Like four minutes." She holstered Betty and looked up at the two suns with the squinting expression of someone doing math. "Hmm... maybe five."
She jumped over a piece of intestine laying on the floor to close the distance between her and Eli. "The lizard-turkey tried to eat me so I introduced it to my girls." She patted Betty affectionately.
"And the explosion?" Eli asked, still uncertain at how a B rank healer could take down a low tier B rank monster by herself.
"That was just for fun." She answered. "Betty here did most of the work. I just fed it some explosive when it fell to the ground."
Eli adjusted his collar and said nothing, which was the only appropriate response. Then he scanned the horizon once more. There was no movement. No signatures. No sign of the others.
Lizzie followed his gaze, then shrugged like it wasn’t worth worrying about. "So," she said, rolling her shoulders, "guess it’s just us."
They established quickly that they were alone. No Kurt, Cassandra or Morra, and equally quickly that the hell gate had distributed them separately.
"Okay." Lizzie looked out across the endless grass. "Which way?"
"South-southeast," Eli said. "The dungeon core’s pressure sits heavier in that direction. We follow the gradient."
Lizzie stared at him. "You can feel that?"
"Can’t you?"
"No." She paused. "Is that a vampire thing or a butler thing?"
"None of the above?" Eli answered, his thin smile still maintained.
She looked at him for a moment all serious, in such a way that made even Eli uncomfortable. Then grinned widely and started walking south-southeast.
As they moved, the ground changed underfoot gradually, grass giving way to softer earth that pulled at their boots with each step.
"Swamp," Eli observed, stopping at the edge where solid ground met murky water.
Lizzie looked at it, looked at him, then grinned. "Race ya to the other side?"
"Miss Lizzie, I would strongly advise—"
She was already running, and in seconds the mud swallowed her, pulling her down past her knees. And once she sank to her waist, her grin faltered. "Okay. Slight miscalculation."
"I can see that," Eli replied calmly, his crimson eyes already scanning for solutions. However, the swamp was quickly becoming the least of their problems. "You appear to have company."
Ahead of her, three gigantic alligator-like monsters, at least fifteen feet long, circled slowly through the murky water, their armored bodies barely visible above the dense sludge.
Only their glowing yellow eyes and the occasional ripple betrayed their positions as the beasts moved with lazily, clearly used to the swamp claiming easy prey.
Eli dissolved into red mist, reforming on a thick root at the swamp’s edge. He ripped a vine free with one effortless yank and tossed it towards her like a lifeline. "Grab on."
Lizzie caught it one-handed, the other fumbling with a grenade she grabbed from her fanny pack. "I can handle this—"
"Miss Lizzie," Eli said calmly, pulling steadily, "now is not the time for explosives while waist-deep in mud."
"You’re no fun," she grumbled as she shoved the grenade back into her pack and grabbed the vine with both hands.
And in one fluid motion, he hauled her out just as one of the alligators surged forward, jaws wide enough to swallow a person whole.
She was out of the mire now, and mud dripped from her clothes and hair, but her grin returned. "You’re one of those people they call a Kill-joy aren’t you?"
Eli ran his gloved hands through his red hair, restoring the picture of perfect composure. "I would advise caution with the terrain next time," he said, adjusting his tailcoat with meticulous care.
Lizzie’s grin widened. "Lighten up, Butler Boy." She gave him a playful shove on the shoulder.
Eli raised an eyebrow. "Butler Boy?"
"Well, you won’t tell me your actual name and you’re dressed like a butler, so..." She shrugged. "Butler Boy it is."
"My name is Eli, Miss Lizzie. I introduced myself earlier."
"Yeah, but Butler Boy is way more fun."
Eli sighed and bowed his head slightly. "As you wish."
Lizzie pulled her hair back into a ponytail as they walked, getting it out of her face. "Plus, ya know, whatever damage we take, I can heal it later, so have some fun for once, will ya?"
She rubbed sludge off of her arm and slung it to the ground. "This place is basically begging us to blow shit up!"
"I must admit, your definition of ’fun’ remains deeply concerning," Eli replied, but his small smile suggested he didn’t entirely disagree.
Eli stopped talking when the noticed the swamp monsters persisted. They might have been out of the swamp, but alligator monsters didn’t give up easily.
One surged forward without warning, jaws snapping wide enough to swallow a man whole and Eli blurred forward immediately in a red streak.
One gloved hand caught the beast’s upper jaw while the other pushed down on the lower, forcing its mouth shut with a wet crunch.
"Allow me," he murmured politely, then twisted. The snap of bone echoed across the wetlands, and the monster thrashed once before going still.
The other two saw this and quietly retreated back into the swamp. "That’s right ya scaly bastards!" Lizzie yelled out. "Ya better run!"
"Do you still have that explosive?" He asked.
"Does a one-legged duck swim in a circle!?" She pulled out the grenade and handed it to him without waiting for an answer.
Eli grabbed it and tossed it with an absurd level of accuracy. The grenade landed right in front of the retreating monsters and it blew up, sending them rocketing upwards, out of the swamp.
"That’s more like it!" Lizzie said as she punched him playfully on the arm.
After leaving the swamp behind, the terrain opened again into a stretch of broken earth and low ridges that interrupted the otherwise endless grassland. Because of that, visibility improved, but so did exposure.
"You know," Lizzie said, still pulling out sludge from her hair, "for a fancy butler vampire dude, you’re not half bad in a fight."
"Your standards are refreshingly low, Miss Lizzie," Eli responded.
She grinned. "That’s the nicest thing anyone’s said to me all week."
Then she walked ahead, kicking at a loose stone and watching it skip forward. "So," she said, glancing back at Eli, "what’s the worst thing we can run into here?"
"Given the environment?" Eli replied, eyes still scanning the horizon, "Something adapted to open terrain, high mobility, and sustained aggression. Preferably something that—"
The earth shook, cutting Eli short, and Lizzie tilted her head. "Did you feel that?"
Suddenly, the ground split as a jagged fissure tore through the dirt ahead of them, and from it, something forced its way upward in a violent surge of displaced earth and shattered stone.
Lizzie’s grin returned instantly. "Ya mean like that?" She pointed at the massive creature that emerged.
