Chapter 142 Volume III - Chapter 63: The Boss Room
As Alex and I continued to eat our meal of bread, the silence in the atmosphere began to bother me. So, I smiled. After all, it was the perfect time to chat.
"You had a good scream climbing the mountain the day after the cliff."
Alex suddenly started coughing, his food stuck in his throat. After a brief moment of relief, he turned to me with sharp eyes.
"Shut up. I can't help having a phobia."
"This is your chance to overcome it."
I took another bite of my bread but we didn't continue talking, at least Alex wasn't too inclined to talk.
"What do you plan to do when you cure your mother?"
Alex stopped chewing his bread and waited a short while. Then he swallowed and sighed but didn't give me any answer.
"Everything you've done so far has been for her recovery. What are you going to do when she gets better? What do you have in your mind? You can't just sit around. You have the highest grades in the academy after all. There must be offers coming from everywhere."
"And threats, the threats they make when they realize they can't use me."
I didn't know what to say for a moment, but then I took a deep breath.
"Once I get what I want, once I'm out of the dungeon and strong enough to fulfill my goals, I'm going to open a research facility."
Alex looked at me with raised eyebrows, but I ignored him and continued.
"I've already convinced Ulka DeLaor to work for me."
He looked genuinely surprised when I said that. Most people knew what Ulka was like, after all.
"Ulka DeLaor? Did you really manage to convince that lunatic?"
I smiled proudly.
"I have more influence than you think at some points. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that once you heal your mother and graduate from the academy, you can work in my research facility. I might even take you on as an intern next year, considering it's only our first year."
Alex waited for a while, deep in thought.
"I'll pay well."
His eyes didn't move from where he was looking.
"I can even give you a nice house."
This time his eyes returned to me, but he looked skeptical.
"I can even arrange protection."
"For my mom?"
"Sure."
"Deal."
He held out his hand without hesitation. I smiled and shook his hand.
"I'll start with the bodyguard first, for the others you'll have to prove your worth. Even though I'm sure of you... I think a week's work should be enough."
"I can do it in two days."
He was suddenly full of confidence when it came to working. When these words came out of his mouth, he unintentionally managed to get on my nerves.
Dealing with people with big egos can be frustrating sometimes...
"Then I'll wait when the time comes."
So, I buried myself in my bread again, and after a while, we finished eating and got into our sleeping bags for one last sleep. Alex seemed even more motivated after our last conversation, which made me feel that I could sleep comfortably too.
I closed my eyes, released my body, and after a few seconds, all my vision plunged into darkness.
*******
First, my hearing came back. Then my eyes slowly opened and I realized that I had thrown off my duvet. As a wiera, even if I wasn't cold, sleeping without a duvet was... strange. Especially since I knew it was 'cold'.
Yawning, I sat up, wrapped myself in the duvet I had thrown off while sleeping, and looked at Alex who was sleeping. He didn't seem to have a problem.
I took a deep breath and realized that for the first time in a long time, I was getting a good night's sleep. I hadn't slept well in the past few days because we'd been changing shifts, and we'd been raided a couple of times, so my sleep was interrupted a lot. Even though we were taking a sleep-enhancing pill, I have been affected by this negatively in the last few days.
Now I didn't dream, didn't get raided, didn't have to wake up early... It was a perfect sleep.
I lifted my arm and looked at my watch, we had slept a total of nine hours.
"Alex, wake up."
Alex must have slept well too because his eyes blinked without me having to call him again. In just a few seconds he sat up and looked at me.
"We're going to eat and get moving, we need to be done by tomorrow at worst."
Alex sighed without saying anything to me and reached into his bag. A few seconds later when he pulled out the bread, he handed one to me and we started eating again, the only thing we had eaten since we arrived in the dungeon.
For a while, we just ate without talking, and then Alex took another bite of the bread, which was still quite small... and spoke.
"By the way, our food is all gone. There are no more dimensional buttons in the food pocket."
"Oh... I was thinking we could have one more meal."
"If we're done by tomorrow, it's no big deal."
Silence filled the air.
"Whatever... I'm already sick of eating bread."
I popped the last piece of bread into my mouth, gathered up the duvet, and stood up, and Alex did the same. We didn't have to talk. We just did what we had been doing for days. We made the resting area as good as new and took a deep breath before moving on.
Alex turned to the door.
"How do we open this?"
"We don't need to open it. Just... be careful."
Alex looked at me blankly, but I didn't say anything to him, I just smiled and approached the door. Then I put my hand on the huge door and closed my eyes. I poured some mana into the door, and as soon as I did, the mana in my body was suddenly drawn toward the door.
The door didn't consider the mana I was transferring to it to be enough and tried for more. My mana was forcibly pulled out of my body, but something strange happened in the process.
Cracks suddenly appeared on the door. The mana, which had been transferred to the door and trapped there for who knows how long, suddenly shot out through these cracks, and the whole corridor was suddenly illuminated.
At first, a sound echoed along the corridor. I was thrown backward and that's how I realized what the sound was.
The door exploded loudly and majestically. I quickly crouched down to protect myself, I heard the shattered pieces of the door fall to the floor and then the bright light that had blocked all vision along the corridor slowly began to fade.
When it was all over, Alex was lying on the floor, pale as a sheet. He was fine, and I knew he wasn't going to get hurt. He was in the safe zone. But the light, dust, and shockwave of the explosion had reached him.
I shook myself off and went to him, then smiled and held out my hand.
"See, I told you."
Alex looked at my hand and then at the shattered door. For a moment I could read anger in his face, but it faded as quickly as it came and Alex sighed deeply.
"You're an asshole."
"Thank you for the compliment."
He took my hand and stood up. I was actually surprised he wasn't angry, I guess I could say he was getting used to it.
After I picked Alex up, I looked at the exploded door. It was almost completely destroyed and behind it was total darkness. A darkness that felt infinite, with no way to see what was inside.
"Do you have everything ready? Make sure your potions are within reach, as well as your needles and arrows. We're in for a tough fight."
"I have everything ready."
Alex approved of me with great determination. I smiled back and returned to the darkness with the same determination.
"Then let's go."
We started walking together. As soon as we passed the level of the door, the darkness enveloped us. The dim light from the corridor behind us disappeared and we found ourselves in a place where we couldn't see anything.
"You're behind me, right?"
"Yes."
"Good. Follow my footsteps and don't turn on the flashlight. Just do as I say."
"Okay."
Alex didn't even question me. He trusted me completely, he was used to it.
I couldn't help being happy, but I had other things to consider.
We kept walking in the darkness. I listened to the sound of Alex's and my footsteps echoing through the darkness. And after a while, a light appeared at the end of the dark corridor.
We walked toward it, the light spread quickly as we walked toward it and eventually, we realized that it was coming from a rather large room.
The closer we got to the room, the more its shape became visible. It was completely covered in ice. The walls, the floor, and everything... Everything was like ice.
The room resembled a throne room, majestic as befits the splendor of the palace. The source of the light in the dark corridor we passed through was the open top of the room. Snowflakes slowly drifted down through gaps, large and small, in the ceiling. In some places, there were frozen corpses, even things that seemed to be trapped in the ice.
I say things because they look like people, but they are not very human. They look more like... giants. Giants who, for all their ancient 'civilized' appearance, look quite barbaric.
"So that's why the palace is so big."
"Yes, this is a place for giants."
"And the thing on the throne must be the boss."
At Alex's words, I finally stopped examining the room and focused on the throne in the distance.
There was someone on the throne. Someone almost five meters tall, maybe six if he grew a little taller. Someone wearing armor that was far more eye-catching than that of the frozen knights. A giant with a crown on his head, his eyes closed, his hands clasped on the huge sword he had thrust into the ground in front of him.
The king of this place, the last creature of the dungeon.
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