Chapter 67: The Floor of Cursed Jellies!

Chapter 67: Chapter 67: The Floor of Cursed Jellies!

A Guild official manned a small checkpoint just outside the portal, magical crystal humming with a PC on the desk in front of him.

"Party name?"

"Rika’s party," Rika said. "Five members."

"What the hell, you named the party Rika’s party?" Kael questioned Rika.

"Yes."

"Couldn’t you name it something cooler, also why does it sound like we’re you’re sidekicks or something."

"Right guys?"

"I don’t see a problem, no point wasting time on it." Vex said.

"Sorry big guy but I don’t mind it either." Zalor laughed at Kael as Lucien agreed with Zalor.

The Guild official scanned their cards one by one.

"Rika, C Rank. Kael, C Rank. Vex, C Rank. Zalor, C Rank." He paused at the last card.

"...Luc?"

"That’s me." Lucien said raising his hand.

He scanned it.

[Guild License: C Rank.]

"Your party’s cleared for Floors One through Five," he said, stamping a form and typing something on the keyboard.

"Deeper entry is restricted at your rank, so don’t mistakenly go deeper, had a few idiots who tried and now they are stuck there with rescue parties on the way." He said shaking his head.

"Honestly can’t figure out how thay thought it was a good idea to go deeper as C rank’s."

"Dont worry that’s the plan," Rika confirmed.

"If you encounter mutation signs, boss movement, or anything exceeding the expected floor rank, or anything new retreat immediately and notify the Guild."

"Understood."

Kael leaned toward Lucien, whispering. "Think they’d notice if we accidentally wandered a little deeper, for better loot?"

Rika smacked him without turning around. "We’re not going deeper."

"I was just asking!"

Rika checked everyone over one final time. "Ready?"

"Born ready," Kael said.

"Ready," Zalor said.

"Ready," Vex confirmed.

"Ready." Lucie agreed.

"Let’s go," Rika said.

They stepped through the portal, and the world reassembled itself around them.

Not a cave, not stone corridors nor was it a forest like the Bloodmoon Wilds from where they entered.

It was a vast crimson grassland that stretched to the horizon, red grass rippling in a breeze that shouldn’t have existed underground. Strange flowers bloomed in patches, dark rock formations jutted from the earth, and overhead, a sky the color of a bruised and red sunset hung motionless despite there being no actual sun.

"This is a dungeon?" Lucien said, genuinely thrown off guard as it was nothing like the Goblin dungeon from before.

"Yes, dungeon sizes and types increase with their ranks and this is a A-Rank Floor type one, every floor’s got its own ecosystem and monsters," Rika said, pulling out the Guild-purchased map.

"This is the first floor so this one’s dominated by" she checked "Blood Slimes."

Kael’s face fell instantly. "Slimes?"

"Yes, and they are all atleast C-Rank, though nothing to worry about individually."

"Those?" He pointed.

Something bounced through the grass toward them.

BOING.

BOING.

BOING.

A small crimson blob, roughly a meter tall, semi-transparent, a dark red core pulsing gently inside it. It looked, against all odds, cute.

"Officially," Vex said, "They are called Crimson Jellyfiends but everyone just calls them Blood Slimes."

"Qonder what the person who discovered was on, naming them Crimson Jellyfiends, look at them, not fiendish at all." Lucien shook his head and said.

"They look kinda cute, maybe I could keep one as a pet for this dungeon run?" Kael murmured which Rika caught.

SMACK!

"Don’t think stupid stuff, no way it lasts past thus floor."

The Jellyfiend bounced closer, wobbling adorably.

Then it launched itself directly at Kael’s face.

"I’ve got it!" Kael swung.

BOOM.

His weapon tore straight through the jelly’s body.

Silence.

Kael grinned. "See?"

SPLAT.

Crimson jelly exploded across him head to toe.

Everyone froze.

Kael looked down at himself, dripping.

"...Oh."

"Don’t hit the body blindly!" Rika snapped.

"HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW?!"

Zalor doubled over laughing. Vex pressed a hand to his mouth, failing to hide a smile.

"You look delicious," Lucien said jokingly while smiling evilly.

"Don’t you dare, you’re creeping me out, man."

Vex crouched beside the remains, pointing at the surviving dark-red core sitting untouched in the wreckage of red jelly.

"The core," he said. "The body is resistant and likely absorbs blunt force, so you got to hit that and destabilize them."

Kael wiped slime off his face. "So I have to hit the tiny thing inside the giant jelly."

"Yes."

"I hate this floor already."

Another jelly bounced toward them. Zalor stepped forward without hesitation, daggers in hand.

CRACK.

Straight to the core, the slime collapsed under the impact to its core, no explosion this time making no mess.

Zalor picked up the core, unbothered. "Easy."

Kael pointed accusingly. "You had the advantage of knowing what to hit!"

"That’s called learning."

Lucien watched each of them work through a few more encounters, tracking their comvat styles rather than the enemy.

Rika fought with clean, economical precision waiting for a jelly to expose its core mid-bounce before a single decisive swong of her axe ended it.

Kael, despite two more splattering incidents, was slowly adapting, brute force redirected toward the core instead of the whole body.

Vex barely moved at all, letting the jellies come to him at the back, timing every arrow at them the instant they leapt.

Zalor simply stabbed whatever got close, treating every core like an unusually satisfying stress ball.

’It’s a good team,’ Lucien thought. ’Everyone’s got a lane and nobody’s stepping on anyone else’s toes, though we are missing a few more member roles like a mage, a support, tank and a healer, we all basically damage dealers here.’

"Your turn," Rika said, nodding at an approaching Jellyfiend.

Lucien reached back and drew his weapon.

The Reaper’s Twin Crescents unfolded, chain stretching taut between the two curved blades.

Kael squinted. "What is that?"

"A scythe?"

"That’s two scythes and they are connected by chains too, kinda cool."

"Technically, but a chain-scythe is still a scythe."

Rika’s eyes narrowed slightly, recognition dawning. "You actually changed your weapon, I thought you were a sword user?"

"Yep, the sword was just temporary, now I’ve got my real weapon."

The jelly launched itself. Lucien moved, first blade sweeping wide, chain snapping taut as the slime shifted its mass mid air, Lucien caught the chain and pulled rhe first blade back as he threw the second blade at the jelly.

SLASH.

The core split clean in two, the jelly collapsed before it even finished its arc.

Lucien caught the core out of the air before it hit the grass.

Silence.

"...That was actually pretty cool," Kael admitted.

"Very practical," Zalor said. "Youbcan attack multiple angles at once."

Rika studied him, curious. "Where’d you learn to use those?"

"As they say practice makes perfect."

"That’s not an answer." She eyed the weapon further. "Weren’t you using a sword before and you were quite good at it too?"

Lucien shrugged. "What can I say. I’m just a genius."

"I suddenly hate him again," Kael muttered.

They pressed on, and the jellies kept coming, one, then five, then a dozen, bouncing across the grass toward them in a wobbling crimson wave.

"Oh, come on, do we have to kill them?" Kael groaned.

"Formation!" Rika called.

The fight that followed was chaos in the best possible way. Vex dodged everything with irritating grace as he launched volumes of arrows. Zalor turned the encounter into target practice, jelly after jelly popping cleanly. Rika cut through with practiced efficiency and Kael was splattering all the jellies in front of him.

"Does he a grudge against them?’ Lucien thought watching him splatter one more.

Lucien caught two jellies at once, redirecting one mid-flatten with a last-second angle change SLASH before the next followed suit, both slimes destroyed before sidestepping a third entirely.

It sailed past him and hit Kael square in the chest, mid swing.

SPLAT.

"WHY ME?!"

"The slime likes you," Lucien said.

"I’M GOING TO KILL YOU, I SWEAR!"

They found a pile of what looked like already-dead jelly remains a while later.

"Looks dead," Kael said, approaching.

"Don’t," Vex warned.

"Why?"

"Pay close attention, it’s moving.."

Kael looked down, the puddle twitched.

"...Oh."

BOING.

It launched directly into his face.

"*AAAAAH!*"

Everyone burst out laughing, Zalor actually sitting down in the grass from the force of it.

"I warned you," Rika said, wheezing.

"WHY DOES THIS DUNGEON HATE ME SPECIFICALLY?"

"Maybe you have a bad blood with it," Lucien offered.

"Hahaha, bad blood with it!" Zalor burst out laughing even more.

"You’re supposed to be my friend!"

Once the chaos settled, they collected what the jellies left behind, mana cores, blood jelly, mana corrosive fluids, their membrane material, small and uncommon enough that finding even a handful felt like a minor win.

Lucien quietly pocketed several blood samples alongside the party’s official haul.

’They’re not particularly powerful,’ he noted, running Sanguine Perception over one vial discreetly. ’But there’s something good about it, it’s really mana conductive, wonder if that’s a trait. Worth studying properly later, not right now with an audience.’

’Analyze it first and extract it later.’

They continued following Rika’s map, jellies attacking with predictable regularity, enough that the party had fully settled into a rhythm by the fifth or sixth encounter.

"Core," Rika called out, slashing.

"Core," Zalor echoed, crushing.

"MINE," Kael announced, swinging

SPLAT.

He looked down at himself for what had to be the sixth time.

"...I keep doing that."

"At least you’re consistent," Lucien said.

"That’s not a compliment."

"No."

Vex paused near a rise in the terrain, looking out across the plains.

"That’s the actual danger of this floor," he said. "Not any single jelly. It’s the numbers. And their ability to split and multiple by consuming tons of mana, get careless, and you accidentally double the fight."

Rika nodded. "It’s why the Guild recommends full parties instead of soloing this floor."

Far in the distance, hundreds of tiny crimson shapes bounced across the grassland in a slow, undulating wave.

BOING.

BOING.

BOING.

"...A hundred is dangerous," Vex finished.

"Let’s never fight a hundred," Kael said immediately.

"Agreed," Lucien said.

"Maybe that’s why they’re called Crimson Jellyfiends, imagine if they were placed somewhere saturated with mana, and with their ability to devour mana and split, they would become countless." Zalor said analyzing them.

Eventually the terrain shifted, red grass giving way to an stone staircase descending into the earth, dark rock etched with faintly glowing crimson runes.

The pulse of mana grew noticeably stronger the closer they got to the opening.

Lucien felt it settle against his senses, deeper and heavier than anything on the surface floor.

’Mana Density is higher down there.’

Rika checked the map one last time. "This is it. Floor Two."

Kael wiped the last smear of crimson slime off his shoulder plate. "Please tell me the next floor has something less disgusting."

"No promises," Rika said.

Lucien looked down into the darkness, expression settling into something quieter, more focused.

’The dungeon’s just getting started.’

He followed the others down the stairs, and the crimson light swallowed them whole.