Abyss crawling part 11: A mistake?

After an hour Iliriendil and Ilirielth's group reached a dead end. Before they were just walls but then the female giant raised her fist. She made a light punch to the wall and it disappeared like an illusion. And a pitch black cave appeared.

" Common."

The giant waved its hand to them as it step into the hidden cave. Ilirielth hesitated. Why did this creature always lead them into such suspicious places? But still, she decided to follow its steps. Just as her foot passed, Ilirielth felt it was harder to breathe. There was a clear difference in the atmosphere due to the density of mana in the air. Normally when one came closer to the entrance of a dungeon the mana should become more sparse. She stopped and asked the giant.

" Are you trying to trick us again?"

" What do you mean?"

The female giant looked genuinely surprised.

" The place we're heading to will be a higher level area."

" So?"

" So? Why we're going to a place like that if we're going to get out of here?"

Ilirielth got into her defending stance. She silently buffed herself to prepare for a fight. But nothing happened, the female giant just sighed.

" We have a contract and yet you still doubted me? If I tried to harm you by any means wouldn't I'm already dead by now?"

' That made sense' - Ilirielth thought. Maybe she was just too sensitive. This place was not a normal dungeon. Normal stuff might not be applied here. She followed the female giant but slower her speed. She won't take any risk just to catch up with this thing. If there was anything wrong, she would immediately retreat. Seeing that, the female giant also slower its speed. It took a pretty short time to exit the cave. There was nothing in there, except a few minor earthquakes. The female giant told them had they walked toward the north during that time they would have to deal with those earthquakes more seriously.

Before they exited the cave the female giant told her to do something strange.

" Could you turn into… a less ugly appearance."

Ilirielth looked at the female giant with a blank face. Did this ugly creature just tell her that she was ugly? Did it blind? But after thinking a bit more a strange worry arose in her heart. Could it be that Mordox had its own beauty standard and she was considered to be ugly? She suddenly remembered a question she asked Iliriendil a few days ago. Could it be this was the reason for his answer at that time?

Like he could feel her insecurity, Iliriendil told the female giants.

" Ilirielth was the second most beautiful girl I've ever seen."

The air became silent.

" What!"

Ilirielth seemed pissed for some reason. She pouted and stared at Iliriendil. He had no idea what he did wrong. Didn't he just give her a compliment? The female giant also gave him a sad look.

" I see that you have rather a unique taste, the great one. Sorry for not being clear but that's not what I mean. What I mean's that her look's a bit too human, that's gonna cause some trouble."

" What do you mean?"

" You see…"

Exit the cave, they were standing on top of a high mound, below them from far away were shadows of a giant structure. She didn't think a thing like this could exist in this place.

" A castle? Is this a dream?"

Ilirielth's eyes were wide.

" Hah, you'll be surprised to know how many of the creatures in this place are far more intelligent than you."

" What you're trying to imply here?"

" Nothing ~ Oh talk about the devil. They're always fast huh."

Somethings were coming at them at high speed. Those looked like giant metal boxes, they reminded Ilirielth of the weird thing the dwarves invented. Those strange boxes surrounded them, the sound they made was so noisy that her head hurt. Hadn't the female giant warned them beforehand, they would have attacked those things. A group of soldiers stepped out of the mental boxes. Their look was no different from a human except for pale skin and red eyes. ' Vampires' was the first thing that came to her mind but no, she could still hear their heartbeats. The soldiers wore heavy armor made of unknown material. But just a glance Ilirielth could tell those were extremely well-craft. Their quality might be even better than Mythril's. They held strange short tubes seem to be their weapon. In Ilirielth 's System, the info these creatures showed up. They were called " Mutated species 115." with an average level to be surprisingly low: 213.

( An mutated 105 organ and 2 unidentified subjects. How did they get here?) - Mordox language

They pointed the strange weapon at them.

' With this distance, is that thing something similar to an embedded wand?'

Ilirielth had no idea what those weapons could do but it looked like a ranged weapon. The female giant knelt down and raised her arm up, she signaled Ilirielth to follow. The soldiers looked at each other in surprise. They discussed something then one soldier stepped near the female giant. A 'Click' was heard and the female giant collapsed. There was a syringe-like object on its arm. By how it breathed it was probably alive. The soldier then turned to Ilirielth and Iliriendil, its strange weapon was pointed at her arms.

A while ago the female giant told them exactly what to do in this scenario which was just lie down. They would be brought into the castle which was the only way to avoid dangerous battles in this area.

Ilirielth hesitated, her mind told her that she should lie down but her instinct told her not to. Just then there was a thought flashed through her mind. Would this consider a violation of the contract if that thing was unconscious? Probably yes but what if it could rely on something else to...? Would she trust it that much to let her life lie on its hand? The answer was no.

' Click' the soldier pulled the trigger but to its surprise, the target was not there anymore, on the ground were only broken shards of the syringe. Then came a sharp pain to its chest as it received a powerful kick, the soldier was sent flying dozens of meters away. The remaining soldier intended to fire their weapon but they all looked dumbfounded as their weapon mysteriously disappeared at the same time. They became dazed like deer before the headlight not knowing what to do, after a few seconds they all ran not even thinking of fighting back.

" What? They were super weak."

Even though they were higher level, even higher ascension than her but their stats were strangely squishy. Ilirielth easily knocked out more than half of them before they could even get back to the metal box. But there were 3-4 who still manage to escape on their foot. Ilirielth could chase them but since she knew nothing about this area, chasing would not be a good idea. She picked up a weapon of an unconscious soldier. She didn't know what these could do but since it didn't look that hard to use and the soldier didn't cast any spell or poured mana into this thing either. Took a good hold of the strange weapon, Ilirielth imitated the previous soldier's stance and pointed it at the running soldiers, she aimed at one's leg and pulled the trigger.

The result was not as she expected. She just wanted to shoot it in the leg but the whole body of the creature she aimed at convulsed and drop dead. Its corpse started to burn. The remaining soldier looked at Ilirielth in horror, they ran even faster.

" No. I didn't mean to…"

Ilirielth said with a sad voice, a small ding resounding on her system to confirm the creature was dead. She immediately threw the horrible weapon in her hands to the ground just as then an annoying voice came from behind her.

" [Sigh]…. Pick that thing up. You might need it."

Behind them, the female giant did some muscle stretch, it looked completely fine.

" You… you faked it?"

" Yeah. And you stupid worm just have to ruin it!"

The female giant said angrily unlike its usual teasing tone, it threw one of the strange weapons at Ilirielth.

" The only thing you need to do was to pretend and lie down a bit. Was it that hard for you? Stupid fck head! Now we gonna have to deal with a real dip sh*t!"

" Are you saying that I have to lay down for those things to do whatever they want?"

" Did you throw your brain out during my explanation?"

" Go to hell with your explanation. Did you expect me to place my trust in something that ridiculous?"

" Enough! Something's coming." - Iliriendil

Sweet started to drop from Ilirielth's back as she felt an abundance amount of mana like a whole army coming their way. The female giant smiled at her mockingly.

" See what you get our ass into sh*t head human? Now pick up those things and hope that we could get out of here in one piece."

Ilirielth silently picked up the gun on the grounds. No time to think. They immediately followed the female giant and left the area.