Exhaustion Comes with Battles

As the minutes turned into hours I wanted to curse whoever came up with the idea for this dungeon floor. The first floor was straight forward, but this one was an unending nightmare.

I could tell the extra weight of Callie was exhausting. It did not matter how light the weight was, Mat would not be able to keep up this pace for much longer. However, the goosebumps on my arms told me we were being watched with more interest by the second.

"Mat, we are being flanked by at least two."

His eyes widened as he glanced behind us. Just the barest of bumps peeking out from the water could be seen. The monsters on this floor were masters of camouflage.

I did not feel it was a good sign that they would show their presence now. Perhaps they could sense that we were nearing the point of where the floor exit was. Or maybe they sensed that we were easy prey now that exhaustion was setting in.

I desperately wanted a potion from my previous life that relieved exhaustion, but it did not exist yet here. The ingredients were hard to find and were only located in Medium Difficulty dungeons.

It was often found in dungeons like this that required you to trek long distances in unfavorable conditions. If I had the energy and stamina I just might find it here.

Despite the danger behind us, I found my eyelids feeling heavier and I wanted nothing more than to just close them and come what may. I shook my head and tried to wake up a bit more.

I focused on the pain in my legs and feet. Stomping my feet a bit to stir up the stinging pains. I wanted to jump up and down as well, but that would only alert the monsters around us and waste what little energy I had.

"Callie, wake up." Mat whispered behind me while pushing at the sleeping girl.

"Mmmph…"

"Callie, wake up or we are feeding you to the alligators."

Her eyes opened wide at my threat as she looked around frantically.

"Alligators?"

Her face was pale as she covered her mouth.

"Callie, I'm going to set you down now so that I can fight."

Despite the situation Mat was gentle as he explained to her what was going on. Callie clutched her staff in between her hands and started surveying the area we were in.

"You said if we stopped they would attack."

"It seems that we look tired enough to qualify."

Callie bit her lip and tried to look brave. As she was the only one of us to have gotten any rest she at least didn't look downtrodden like Mat and I. It's not that I resented her for that. She would just need to work extra hard today.

"Hold these mana potions just in case."

I shoved a few bottles into her small pouch, before pushing her behind me and against the invisible wall. This way I could make sure that we, at least, would not have any enemies behind us. It was a small blessing.

Mat lifted the enormous shield from his back and stretched. We were both tired, but that was no excuse to be lazy.

As if to answer our preparations the slight bumps in the water became the tops of what looked like an alligator, if not for the much larger size. I could feel my heart beat faster in my chest as I realized what had been trailing behind us.

Two sets of glowing eyes that formed slits stared into our very souls. I felt adrenaline set in as the exhausted state I was in suddenly vanished. It was like the state watching a horror movie put you in.

The sound of the water filled my ears as their mouths came up out of the water. They had moved to the semi-shallow area around our ankles showing most of their bodies.

I wanted to flee. However, I was frozen in front of these monsters. It would do no good anyways. All we could do was fight. The exhaustion had left me with a gift and that was that my legs felt like lead.

An unforgivable condition since I usually relied on speed to attack. I doubt the arrows I had in my pack would do much good either. I would have to land perfect shots on their eyes and I had not practiced with them in a very long time.

Then what did that leave me? I was tired, so the deftness of using knives was probably out. My short sword? It would have to pull the weight in this battle. Oh, how I wanted to just take a nap.

While I was thinking, one of the alligator monsters launched an attack with its massive teeth against Mat. There was a resounding clang that drew me away from my thoughts.

"Use support magic to back him up!"

I could tell that Callie was still half-awake so I shouted orders to her. She realized her mistake and raised her staff to cast a spell. A light blue glow extended out of Mat's skin and shield.

I pulled out my short sword and worked my way aways from the two, attracting the attention of the second alligator monster. I really hated to leave them alone, but this was the best strategy I had to get us out of this mess.

The water was the most shallow a few feet away from where Mat and Callie were. We had been following the wall, so we took care to stay as close to it as possible. My guess was that this floor was a giant circle.

I dodged a lunge from the alligator monster. The force of lunging with its full body weight caused the water to splash everywhere, fully drenching me. I pushed my wet hair back and glared at the monster.

"I am really not in the mood for this."

Complaining to the monster seemed to help me focus as I narrowly missed the powerful tail that followed after my comment. I flipped backward, but since I was already wet it did not bother me that much.

"You are not going to make this easy, are you?"

I sighed. Not only would I have to walk through this miserable climate and in water, but now I was fully drenched. Water had soaked into my boots and that uncomfortable feeling of wet socks in your shoes made me want to vomit. I vowed to never enter this tower again. At least not without a wetsuit or something.

The alligator had fully turned around now and seemed to glare at me for avoiding its attacks. I understand, it really sucked when your prey wouldn't just die, or let you get a nice bite in.

The problem is that I really needed to avoid its teeth. I had heard that alligators rolled when they bit into something, causing all sorts of problems. I would most likely not survive such an encounter.

There was also no point in trying to stick my hand in its mouth to damage it for the same reason. Plus this thing had a strong tail and tough claws. I would like to fire the person that created such a creature.

"I wonder if you will taste good?"

There was a chance that meat would drop. Wasn't alligator like a delicacy? Maybe I was just hungry. The alligator monster tried to close the distance between us, but I was careful to keep it just far enough away that it wouldn't turn around to target Callie or Mat.

I began to test if my short sword could penetrate its scales. I thrust my sword at the alligator monster for it to only make a clanging noise. When I attempted to slash the monster sparks flew up in the air.

"Why are your scales so strong?"

My options of attack were now slowly dwindling. Since I required speed and swiftness to attack, my already low energy levels were running on fumes. If it were not for that, I probably would have suggested we just run from these infuriating monsters.

It was true that Dyno had improved my weapons, but it did not make a difference. Their scales were like iron or some stronger metal. If I had magic, I could probably burn them or boil them.

However, water took an excessive amount of energy to boil. So even if that was an option it would be a huge waste of energy. I glared at the monster who was attempting to lunge at me once more.

I began to wonder if it regretted attacking us so early. It should have waited a while longer when we could not even muster the energy to fight back. I pushed the despairing thoughts away.

This time when it lunged at me I flipped over and landed on its back. I held out my arms to balance myself as it tried to toss me off. It seemed I was out of reach of its tail here as well.

I think what unnerved me most about these monsters is that they did not make any noise other than the splashing of water. I lowered my body and jumped off of it as soon as it tried to head towards deeper water.

Despite the quiet nature of the monster my act of taking a ride seemed to enrage it as it doubled its attacks. My thoughts were only on how I could dodge its attacks. I only wanted to take a nice long nap, preferably somewhere dry.