After saying her piece, Erilin vanished. Jayce was somewhat surprised she had responded to him at all. He figured her words were actually meant for Mize.

“Oh?” Mize, who hadn’t turned around since Erilin appeared, suddenly looked up. “So there is something here.”

Jayce followed her gaze and saw one of the bricks on the ceiling shudder and fall to the ground. A viscous red liquid followed it down, splattering all over the floor. Jayce immediately gagged as a rotten scent filled the room. Under their team’s wary stares, the red splatters crawled towards each other and rejoined. Just before the liquid could pull itself together, more objects fell from the ceiling. The stench grew even stronger as a pile of blood and viscera coalesced into an unholy blob. A handful of eyes pushed their way out of the blob, each fixed on a different member of Mize’s team.

‘Why is the first monster I meet so disgusting!?’

While Jayce was stuck between wanting to back away and needing to retch, Mize’s voice was transmitted into his head.

“Spirit Nail.”

Jayce’s hands moved even while his mind was reeling. At the same time, the blue feathered dragon flapped its wings and a few feathers shot towards the flesh blob. Instead of landing on it, they floated gently in front of the monster. A new source of light spread through the room as the feathers started glowing with all the colors of the rainbow. Even though Jayce was careful to avoid looking directly at them, he still felt his vision blur and his balance falter. As for the monster, all of its eyes were glued to the feathers and its body had stopped moving.

With Spirit Nail in hand, Jayce fired ten shots in rapid succession. Even though the blob was as tall as a person and twice as wide, and it wasn’t moving, he still missed two shots. Fortunately, the blob didn’t have much brainpower to begin with and eight nails were more than enough to turn it into a mindless vegetable.

A mental command from Mize caused the feathers to lose their luster and fall to the ground, and just like that, the battle was over.

The instant Jayce felt Mize’s control over him relax, he couldn’t stop himself from vomiting. The monster’s smell was still thick in the air, repulsing his body and soul. Jayce imagined that if he was alone, he wouldn’t have been able to fire his gun before the monster caught him.

“Hmm, this is a type of flesh construct.” Mize muttered to herself as she approached the incapacitated monster. “Then the mana in this fragment must contain aspects of flesh and hunger. That smell is abnormally potent, so maybe there’s also fear or insanity.”

Mize’s golden eyes swept across the various mosses and fungi that were scattered around.

“…Also possibly joining? That’s quite good.”

A thin and dainty hand suddenly plunged into the flesh blob’s body. Mize rooted around for a few seconds before pulling her hand out. There was an object in her hand that was pulsing and spluttering blood frantically. Mize crushed it and then tossed it back into the pile of flesh, which was now deflating before her eyes.

“It isn’t corrosive. Excellent. Store the body and move on. We’ll start looking for a place to execute plan A.”

On shaking legs, Jayce stumbled his way to the corpse of the flesh blob and stored it in the Star Girdle. Because he knew Mize’s plan, he made sure to modify the container’s temperature so that the flesh blob wouldn’t rot or freeze. While forcing down more bile, he glanced at his teammates.

The feathered dragon looked just as disturbed as he was. The top of its head reached nearly half a meter above Jayce’s while its gorgeous bird-like wings were even taller. The dragon had four thin legs, each ending in four sharp claws. Its feathers were sky-blue with striking white tips and when it was willing, they could glow like a living rainbow. Jayce saw a certain amount of intelligence in its fearful eyes, but it was likely on the level of a cat or even lower.

Since it was large enough and could clearly fly, Jayce felt it was a waste that Mize never tried to ride it.

The final corner of their triangle was held by the centipede. Jayce had no idea what kind of environment could give birth to such a creature. The centipede’s skin was a vibrant green with bulging red veins. Unlike real insects, whose bodies were divided into clear segments, this creature’s legs and body were fully connected. Aside from its spade-like head and bright yellow forcipules, it looked just like a fern that learned to crawl on the ground. This plant(?) was three meters long and its head came up to Jayce’s knees.

Just like Mize, it was completely unfazed by the rancid smell. Jayce had even noticed it eying the flesh blob hungrily when he was storing it away.

As for their intrepid leader, her mood had become quite good after meeting their first monster. Jayce imagined it was because this place was well-suited for plan A. A slightly childish smile rested on her lips and her tail was moving in a lively manner. Surprisingly, Mize wasn’t wearing any sort of combat gear. She still had her elegant black and gold dress and, aside from her hair being done up in a ponytail, there was no difference between her current appearance and what he’d seen in that throne room.

‘I guess if you have those protective bands, it doesn’t matter what you wear.’

Mize glanced at her hand, which was still covered in blood from the flesh blob and frowned. A white light spread to cover her arm and it pushed all of the foreign contaminants off of her body. Jayce’s jaw dropped and he realized he had still been underestimating those protective bands.

There were a couple hallways connected to the large, rectangular room that they had started in. Mize picked one randomly and ordered her slaves to move. The hallway was thin, only two persons wide, and it contained a fairly nasty trap. There were two flesh blobs hiding, one at each end of the hall. With their size, they could crowd the entire hall, forcing intruders to deal with an unavoidable pincer attack.

However, Mize noticed them from almost a dozen meters away and so that never happened. It didn’t take much effort to bait the closest flesh blob out of the entrance and into the larger room. From there, it was killed in the same way as the first. The only difference was that Mize told Jayce where the core was likely to be and ordered him to finish it off.

Jayce brought out Seeker, but Mize shook her head.

“Activate Bloodrage and crush its core with your bare hands.”

Even while tears fell from his eyes because of the violent stench, Jayce’s body moved like a robot’s. He plunged his hands into the flesh blob without holding back and after nearly a minute, finally tore out its core. It took another thirty seconds before he finished tearing the core apart. And with that, Jayce had killed his first monster.

He doubled over and started gagging immediately afterwards.

The flesh blobs were neither fast nor strong. They weren’t exactly smart, either. Their greatest offensive ability was suffocating prey under their flexible bulk while their greatest defense was their potent smell. As Mize had guessed, the ambient magic that created their bodies held aspects of fear, which allowed their stench to disgust enemies and prevent them from thinking rationally.

Ultimately, it was best to kill them from a distance.

Mize confirmed all of this while they travelled through the world fragment, but she still ordered Jayce to finish off every flesh blob they encountered with his bare hands.

Bloodrager has reached level 2.

After killing five flesh blobs, that sentence popped into Jayce’s head. His pale face didn’t even twitch as he stumbled forward. Somehow, Mize sensed his change and opened up a holographic blue screen. She nodded and then closed it, not saying anything else.

In another corridor, they met a new enemy. A thick vine clinging to the ceiling suddenly swatted down at the feathered dragon who had been placed in the front of their formation. A white forcefield absorbed the damage and allowed it to stand its ground. Jayce, whose mental condition had deteriorated, wasn’t able to hit the flailing vine with Spirit Nail. Meanwhile, Mize and the centipede didn’t make any moves. They patiently waited for the dragon to tear the vine apart on its own.

Once the dragon dug its claws in, the vine started to bleed red blood. It quickly wriggled out of the dragon’s grip and vanished into a hole in the ceiling.

Seeing this, Mize’s smile grew wider. Their group kept moving and from then on, Mize didn’t hesitate when there was a fork in the path.

Bloodrager has reached level 3.

Three hours and fifteen flesh blobs later, Jayce leveled up again. Their progress was greatly slowed by the vines that kept appearing, mainly because Mize forced the feathered dragon to fight them by itself. Jayce had noticed that the dragon’s body was quite light, and even with Bloodrage its power wasn’t too impressive. Of course, its physical strength was still higher than his.

With two members of their party half-dead and the others fully rested, Mize’s team finally left the maze of corridors and entered an open area. It was a rectangular room, similar to the first one but much larger. Jayce couldn’t see exactly how large it was because the light from the fungi didn’t reach very far. What he could see was that the floor and walls in this area were almost completely covered by moss and fungi.

“Erilin, were you wondering how I knew where to go? Or did you already figure it out?”

No one answered Mize, prompting her to slap the ground with her tail.

“It’s the plants. The mana in this place definitely has aspects of joining, which I confirmed when I saw those flesh roots. Where the plants are sparse, pure flesh constructs will spawn. Where the plants are common, hybrid flesh beasts will spawn. Plant hybrids won’t act as stupidly as pure flesh constructs. They’ll look for areas where mana is more concentrated. If I want to find the perfect place for plan A, I just have to follow them! How’s that?”

Once again, no one answered.

Tail drooping, Mize glanced at Jayce. He stared at her blankly, since most of what she said had gone straight over his head. Despite that, Jayce noticed his hands moving on their own.

Faint sounds of clapping echoed through the large room.

This only lasted for a few seconds before Mize lowered her head. As his hands stopped, Jayce thought he saw some red on Mize’s snow-white cheeks.

“…Forget that ever happened. Let’s just go.”

Jayce shut his eyes for a moment before opening them and sighing in relief. Apparently, Mize couldn’t actually control his memories.

The four of them walked through the room in silence. Glancing back, Jayce couldn’t see the walls anymore. In the dim light, he noticed several coiling roots and flesh blobs, but Mize didn’t order them to attack. When some of the monsters started to follow them, the entire party sped up. Monsters that didn’t notice them were struck by bits of stone that Mize had picked up at some point. Enraged, they joined the chase.

Soon, Jayce saw the flat ground curve upwards as a set of stairs came into view. These stairs were spread out in a large circle that housed a platform some thirty meters up. Jayce guessed that platform was likely the center of this massive room.

Mize’s golden eyes could apparently see much further than his, because she wasn’t surprised by the stairs nor by what was on top of the platform.

Sitting on the platform like a king atop a throne was a closed flower. It was a behemoth nearly five meters in length and had purple petals with white spots. Beyond those five meters, it also had several pulsing roots that dug into the stone platform. When Mize stepped onto the top level, the flower shook and a few of its roots rose from the stone.

“Your level is very low, but your life order is quite high.” Mize said, grinning. “At least, compared to the other monsters in here.”

Mental orders reached her three slaves and they sprung into action. Jayce placed all of the flesh blob corpses and bits of vines that he’d collected onto the platform. The feathered dragon released an exhausted cry as it spread its wings. Feathers flew out like a storm, covering both the giant flower and the monsters that were swarming the platform. As for the centipede, it let out a jubilant screech.

“Sprout here.”

As soon as those words left Mize’s lips, the centipede dove into the corpses. Meanwhile, Mize and Jayce closed their eyes as the dragon’s feathers lit up the area like a seven-colored sun.

While he waited, Jayce thought he heard some vines break through the feathers. A few heavy smacking sounds rang out across the platform, but no harm came to Jayce. After that, Jayce didn’t sense any monsters coming close.

For the next half minute, the only thing he heard was the sounds of the centipede tearing into its mountain of food.

Suddenly, Jayce felt something rush by him with frightening speed. Jayce reflexively opened his eyes and saw the long body of the centipede stretching past him. It grabbed a flesh blob and pulled it onto the pile with the others. Jayce gasped. Even though Mize had described this process in detail, he could still hardly believe what he was seeing.

The centipede had planted its head atop the mound of ‘soil’ that Jayce had carried around. Without its spade-like head, it truly looked like an overgrown fern. However, a change had occurred while it was devouring corpses. The leaves of the fern had grown longer and sprouted spade-like heads of their own. They even grew their own legs, though they were still attached to the main frond. Currently, out of the centipede’s original sixteen legs, five of them had grown heads of their own and were attacking the horde of monsters around them.

As he watched this alien scene, Jayce recalled something Mize had said in that hazy blue room.

“The faster we can clear out a room of monsters, the stronger you guys will be by the start of the death matches. With regards to that, I have a few plans. The one I’m most excited about is plan A. Try to guess what it is.”

“L-Leaving it to the A-Rank, or something?” Jayce muttered, cringing. He wasn’t allowed to say ‘I don’t know’, so he said the first thing that came to mind.

“…”

“…”

“Yup. That’s basically right.”

Jayce sighed internally while Mize’s tail patted his head.