Mana Devourer/HHS - Book 2, Ch. 6

“You really wanna go back down there?”

Markus had found Abrah not long after retrieving his weapon. The imp was in the middle of scrubbing a large pot when Markus had pulled him away from his duties, which he didn’t seem all too fussed about despite his loud protests at the time. Luckily, Markus had remembered his new proximity-silencing ring and activated its effects before Abrah could cause too much of a scene.

“Yeah, I do,” Markus nodded. 

“What about all of that ‘I’m a monster’ bullshit?”

“I spoke to the creatures who I killed down there,” Markus said, recalling the experience of communicating with the cavedweller core. “They forgave me. I’m gonna avoid killing any more of them, though. We’ll stick with natural-born monsters this time.”

“That’s assuming you can tell the difference,” Abrah noted.

Markus raised an eyebrow. “Well, you can, can’t you? You told me before that you could.”

“And that’s assuming I’m going with you,” Abrah hawked and spat. “Which, by the way, big fucking assumption. I know how tight you are with money, now. I don’t see why I should risk my own ass ferrying you around down there.”

“I’ll give you a better split this time,” Markus promised. “How’s sixty, forty sound?”

Abrah peered at him for a moment.

“Like, sixty goes to me?”

Markus blinked twice, stifling a laugh. “No. Sixty goes to me.”

“Yeah, that’s what I said, idiot. Sixty goes to me.”

“No, six—ugh.” Markus scratched his head. Arguing with this guy was almost impossible.

“Honestly, I don’t care. I still don’t wanna go,” Abrah said. “You know how much mortal danger I end up in scrubbing plates? Not fuckin’ much. I’d rather stick with that, please and thank you!”

“Abrah, listen to me.”

“No! I don’t care!” He crossed his arms. “What, you gonna threaten to explode me again? That how you treat people who don’t dance to your tune? Huh?”

“I can’t explode you,” Markus said.

“Whadayamean you can’t?”

“I’ve got Mana Toxicosis.”

Markus had already resolved to just tell him. Wasn’t like he had a hotline to Randall, after all. “It happened during my last fight. I can barely use my own mana. I couldn’t blow you up even if I wanted to.”

“Really?” Abrah asked, staring at him.

“Really.”

“Because this was all front,” Abrah said, eyes shifting between Markus and the floor. “If you threatened me a couple more times, I probably woulda caved.”

“I didn’t threaten you once!” Markus shouted.

“Well, snooze you lose. Now I want Eighty percent.”

“Forty percent, and I give you one of these,” Markus said, flashing one of the golden writs in front of him.

Abrah immediately shut up. “Is that… is that what I think it is?”

“You know how much these are worth?” Markus asked.

“Yeah. Matter of fact, I do.”

“Then you also know that until I’ve signed it and written an amount on it, you wouldn’t be able to cash it in, don’t you?”

“You’re saying I shouldn’t abandon you in there?” Abrah grinned, looking completely serious.

“I’m saying exactly that,” Markus nodded. “So, forty percent of the haul, and a writ for five grand. How’s that sound for a single day’s work?”

“...alright, I’m game.” Abrah nodded. “Lemme take a piss first and we’ll go.”

Markus waited for a minute for Abrah to wander off and come back. Once he’d done so, he waved Markus over to him.

“Alright, you ready?”

Markus nodded, and Abrah grabbed him by the arm. His hand was wet.

“Ew. Do you not dry your hands?”

“Ah, sorry. Piss went everywhere.”

“EW!” Markus retracted his arm and almost kicked him away by instinct. “What the fuck, Abrah?”

Abrah burst out laughing. “Gods above, you are easy to fuck with. Relax, it’s just water. Hurry up and let me teleport us before we die of old age.”

The moment Abrah was back in grabbing range of Abrah, he started drying his hands on the sleeves of Markus’ leathers. 

“You’re so fucking annoyi—”

He didn’t get to finish the thought until he swallowed the universe and spat it back out somewhere entirely new.

Markus blinked, and he was back in the cave. Abrah was stood beside him, the two of them in a low-lit and wide area that seemed to be relatively quiet.

Too quiet. Markus would have to stay guarded from here on out.

“Powers or not, I’m not jumping in to save you from anything,” Abrah said. He’d lowered his tone some since they entered the cave. “I’ll stick around until we’re done or until you’re dead, but I ain’t gonna be your little support minion. Got that?”

Markus opened his inventory and removed the mostly filled health pot from earlier. He passed it to Abrah. 

“Can you at least throw that my way if I look like I need it?”

“Depends how far away I am,” Abrah replied. 

God, he really couldn’t count on this guy for anything.

Oh well. He hadn’t come down here to bond with Abrah; he’d come here to fight.

Well, that and something else.

Markus was extremely aware that while Randall didn’t seem to be directly keeping tabs on him via either his new ring or his teleportation bracelet, the most easy and obvious way for Randall to keep an eye on Markus was to keep track of his transactions. 

The writs he’d given Markus required that he write the name of the recipient, a gold amount to be paid, and a description of services rendered. Even if he didn’t write exactly what he bought down, it wasn’t like Randall couldn’t go check if he found any transactions he considered suspicious.

Hence a desire for his own money. But buying commodities for resale using writs would look equally suspicious to Randall and likely give the game away, so finding treasure to sell down here was going to have to do the trick in the meantime.

As for the writ he planned to give to Abrah, he was going to write ‘servant’ in the ‘goods/services’ section and leave it at that. Honestly, he doubted Randall would even blink twice at the prospect of Markus buying an imp’s service. Look at this place he was in. 

Plus, he imagined Abrah’s reaction would be absolutely hilarious when he read the sheet of paper. Hopefully he didn’t teleport him into a lion’s cage or something.

Speaking of lions, something just roared. Markus heard it from up ahead, far enough away that he couldn’t quite determine the direction but close enough that he knew he might have to tussle with an enemy soon. 

Abrah mentioned that animal-like creatures were unlikely to be isekai victims like him, and that the ones to avoid were mainly anything humanoid or bipedal that looked at all wrong. 

That meant that whatever he’d heard up ahead was likely an enemy he was willing to fight, assuming it wasn’t huge and completely horrifying. 

He had to be aware of his limitations. Without access to most of his abilities, he needed to ease his way back into fighting, not find the baddest and meanest monster in this cave and challenge it to a—

He heard another roar again, this time closer.

Looked like he might not be getting a choice in this. Something had heard him skulking around down here and had decided to challenge him, and it didn’t seem like Markus had a say in the matter.

Not to mention that he could hear winged creatures flying overhead. Likely the same cave bats from before. They’d been annoying and difficult to deal with last time. Here was hoping they didn’t collectively gang up on him for a second time.

…oh, who was he kidding. Of course these things were gonna come fuck his day up. What kind of hell cave would this be if they didn’t try their utmost to do so? 

Abrah, of course, was giving Markus a pretty wide berth already. He seemed to not have much trouble blending in with the background, whereas Markus’ presence clearly stuck out, likely due to his size, and perhaps his mana signature.

Roar drew closer still. Markus pulled his glaive out from over his back, glad to finally have it again. He hadn’t had a chance to test it since receiving its newly improved blade, and it sounded as if the opportunity to do so was only moments away now.

Markus took a fighting stance and waited. He kept his eyes peeled for potential threats, but besides the inconsistent flapping of leathery wings on the edge of his vision, he saw nothing that his eyes registered as a threat. He saw rocks, crags, stalagmites, the base of an underground stream, but no threats…

Markus heard a pattering against the stones near him, then felt something slash across his cheek.

He brought his hand up just to ensure that he hadn’t daydreamed it. The cut was superficial, not deep enough to be considered a dangerous wound, but it bled all the same.

Markus wasn’t sure where it had come from. There wasn’t an enemy in sight.

Shit…

Markus was really hoping that what he thought was happening wasn’t happening, but no. Of course he didn’t get an easy first combat. Just why in the hell would he?

Another two slashes, these ones against his arm. Still it was nothing deep, but still his enemy was completely imperceptible. 

It was invisible. That or it moved so fast that his eyes couldn’t keep up with it.

Markus tried to track the sounds of his environment as he waited for the next attack to hit him. His ears picked up a faint tapping, but most of the sound was blocked out by either the thrashing of a nearby stream or the flap of winged bats, which even still were beginning to gather in larger numbers around Markus.

He was less worried about those things. Sure, they were annoying, and yes, they could hurt him, but at least he could fucking perceive the—ow!

This time the attack he took actually hurt. He swung his glaive immediately after feeling claws raking over his shoulder, only for it to find no purchase. He had no idea if the creature assailing him was impossibly fast or impossibly small, but the wounds it left were beginning to mount, and while Markus was used to employing the ‘death by a thousand cuts’ strat on enemies, this was probably the first time it had been used against him.

In a word, it was fucking irritating. He felt sorry for every big bastard he’d ever whittled down in the past. 

This time, before he felt the slash across his right arm, he heard a snarl. The creature wasn’t silent. It announced its presence before sinking its claws into Markus’ arm, but it never committed long enough for him to grab at it. 

It clearly knew that quick attacks and a swift retreat were the way to go. It wasn’t stupid enough to stick around and find out how quickly he could crush its neck. God knew he wanted to at this point.

Markus started to prepare to deal with an attack on his left side. There’d been a pattern so far. Right, left, right, left…

There. He heard that same sound of pattering on the stone ground an instant before feeling the air around his face move, and arched back and slashed with his glaive as he attempted to dodge the attacking creature’s strike.

His blade hit… some part of it, and he saw a streak of red as the creature hit the ground, still invisible.

He tried to stab at where the blood dripped, but before he could find his target, it had vanished entirely once more.

It wasn’t too tough for him to hurt. That was a positive. Despite the fact he’d wounded it, it didn’t seem to be hurt enough to give up just yet, and while he angled himself to the right in an attempt to block its next attack, he felt a gust of wind slam into him, attempting to knock him to the ground.

He was barely able to maintain his footing through the onslaught. He looked up, and there were at least fifteen of those fucking bat things, all performing their annoying little trick at once.

To make matters worse, he was passively absorbing G-Grade Wind Mana from the attack, and that was only making him feel more dizzy. As he planted the handle of his glaive into the ground and tried to maintain his balance, his invisible opponent took the presented opportunity and barreled straight into him, smashing him to the ground and attempting to sink its teeth into his neck.

Markus could feel the enemy’s weight on him. All the while, he could feel the wall of wind still slamming into him from the bats overhead, and he could more than anything feel the all-too-familiar sensation of hostile teeth attempting to sink into his flesh.

But, somewhere beyond the dizziness, past the malaise, Markus knew that this creature was wounded. He also knew that if he seemed off-guard enough, even something as cautious as this might swoop in and try to claim the kill on him.

He’d managed to cut it, and that meant he could drain it.

Markus found the creature’s wound, pushing past slick scales. He shoved his fingers inside, eliciting a howl.

He felt the creature bite down upon his neck. Its teeth hovered just next to his carotid artery—a few more chomps, and he’d spill blood like a fountain.

Markus activated his Essence Drain, simultaneously pushing as much Frost Mana as he fucking could into his neck, the pain of the moving his mana even stronger than the feeling of being bitten.

It helped to slow the creature down, and even as he began to initiate the drain with his right hand, he took his left and used it to try and grab around the back of the creature’s head.

He was eventually able to make its jaw unlock, pulling it off of him and slamming its head into the floor below. The creature stirred, dazed after a single collision; it was some kind of reptillian monster that almost resembled a komodo dragon, Markus could tell as much now that part of its body was illuminated by its splattered blood. 

Markus only knew one thing about reptiles, and that was that he got a damage bonus against them. He maintained his Essence Drain until he’d managed to heal the damage in his neck, then picked the creature up by the head and once again slammed it into the rock beneath. 

Then again, and then again. Markus wasn’t willing to take any chances. He gave that thing all the strength he could possibly muster, not stopping until he was holding pieces of its head in two separate hands.

All the while he was being continually bombarded by wind. Even as he attempted to rise to his feet, cave bats began to swoop down on him, some attacking him and others trying to attack the body of the fallen reptile, which even in death was translucent at best.

Markus recalled finding chameleon potions down here before. He wondered if these things’ scales were one of the active ingredients. 

The thought didn’t last long in his mind, as he was all-too-quickly preoccupied with smashing bats out of the air. At one point, he even picked up one bat and aimed it at a group of his allies.

It was like sky bowling. Well, sky bowling with cave vultures that made him feel so dizzy he wanted to vomit, but same difference.

Markus just about thought he was getting a handle on this whole cave situation when he felt a very familiar slash against his right forearm.

Worriedly, he checked to make sure the invisireptile on the floor was still dead.

Even more worryingly, it was.

That meant there was another…

He was slashed again. Then another time. Then another.

Jesus. Ever this one was way faster than the previous or there was—

Fuck. There were two of them, weren’t there.

This wasn’t remotely good. Even if these two would fall for his playing possum trick, he wasn’t sure he could overpower both of them at once. Two of them going for a kill move on him at the same time sounded like more of a challenge than he could handle.

Markus attempted to use [Rend] on the corpse before him, trying to pull blood from its body. Maybe if the mana being used wasn’t from inside his own body, then his Toxicosis wouldn’t affect him?

No, it was still painful to cast this, and the spell seemed to be slower to react than usual, but he was still eventually able to pull a stream of blood from the dead reptile’s body and make it swirl around him in a slow rotation.

Simple idea behind this. Once the others next attacked him, they’d get covered in blood paint. Then he’d be able to see them just fine.

Well, that was the idea, at least. The constant aerial assault from the still increasing number of bat fucks in the air was dissipating his blood barrier at an alarming rate, and even when one of the creatures stepped through it and managed to cover itself, the consistent strong breeze only ended up washing the fresh blood away right after.

This wasn’t working. Not only that, but he was still getting hit. Not only that, but he was losing energy and focus the longer he kept up [Rend]. 

Markus needed to change the game somehow, but he couldn’t simply run. How was he supposed to realistically get away from invisible enemies, let alone fliers?

He was still fairly durable, and he was pretty sure he could deal with a couple more minutes of attacks before he really started to feel the effects, but he didn’t have sufficient counterplay here. This environment was bad for him. It wasn’t giving him any leverage or any opportunities.

He briefly considered throwing in the towel and having Abrah teleport him somewhere else. Starting again on another part of the cave and trying to work his way through it. He knew there were easier enemies.

He quickly gave up on that prospect. If he couldn’t deal with the threats standing right in front of him, then he’d be relegating himself to only fighting weaklings from here on out. To running every time he faced a challenge he couldn’t effortlessly conquer. That wasn’t who he was, and it wasn’t going to get him to where he needed to be. 

He might’ve been slower and disadvantaged compared to these monsters, but he had the advantage in intelligence. So it was that when he tried to make a break for it and heard the patter of feet against stone as the pair of monsters gave chase, he knew that he was making the right choice.

Or a terrible one. Either way, he was about to find out.

He ran over to the nearby stream and threw himself inside. The water was icy and horrible. He fought the chill as best he could as he swam his way to a shallow area and began to walk himself through it, waist high, stopping at around the halfway point of the river and using his glaive as a walking stick to stay on-balance.

As he’d expected, after a few moments, he began to see thrashing around the edge of the water, close to where he’d dove in. They’d both followed him, unaware that in a surface like this, their movements would easily give them away.

Markus watched the two creatures swim through the cold lake, witnessing the ripples and splashes against the water as the two of them drove closer to his position, circling him.

The one on the left struck first. They were still fast even underwater, but the stream took some of the momentum out of the creature’s attack, and compared to Markus, it wasn’t as heavy. Try as it might to attack him, the first reptile was caught by the head as it attempted to slash at Markus’ shoulder, and Markus promptly stuck the reptile’s head underwater and started to drown it.

The second monster joined in on the attack, hitting Markus repeatedly with slashes along his side and belly, but Markus was already halfway through drowning the reptile’s comrade, and once the creature was dazed enough from being waterboarded that it couldn’t try to resist anymore, Markus felt around the invisible space until he found the creature’s neck, and then twisted until he heard a sickening snap.

The sound echoed through the cave as the second monster disengaged. He watched the water ripple as it circled him, then saw it splash more heavily towards the edge of the stream as the reptile’s companion assumedly took off and fled.

Markus grabbed his glaive and began to trudge his way through the unpleasant water, feeling his cuts sting as he waded through the depths.

All in all, not a bad outcome. He’d apparently picked up a bit Light Mana in his recent draining, and when he attempted to consume the core of the drowned reptile, he found that his [Devour] ability still seened to work just fine, not giving him any dizziness or anything.

It seemed his Mana Manipulation skills were protected from the effects of his Toxicosis. Markus wasn’t entirely sure what made them stand out, but he wasn’t complaining. He chose to run with it and be glad he could still perform his best party trick.

Now he just needed to go and find the one he’d killed earlier, and he’d have two new cores in his possession.

Plus whatever bats he could manage to wrangle. Fuck, he hated those things.

That last one had changed its mind pretty fast. Why had killing one not been enough to deter them, but two was a game-changer? Was Markus really that fearsome that it backed down so easily?

Markus got his answer far before he got out of the river.

The answer to his question was, in fact, rather simple.

The remaining reptile between the two that had attacked him hadn’t been scared of what a wounded Markus would do to it once it was finished with its comrade, and hadn’t chosen to run simply due to a sudden burst of realisation that it might be outmatched here.

No. It’d chosen to run because it’d sensed something else in the water.

And that thing had sensed Markus.

And that thing was fucking huge.

Markus was just about to pull himself out of the water when the mother of all giant walruses flopped out onto the cave floor just before him and roared in his direction.

It then began to all-out charge at him.

Since when could walruses run?