Ch 138
"No," stated Greg, after Matt shared his idea about scouting. "I understand why you think it's a good idea, and if Bob could discuss it with all of us, I would agree with it, but as things stand, it's too risky."
"Even if this body gets destroyed, I won't die," argued Matt, determination evident in his voice. "I'm not saying I would intentionally try to get killed, but—"
"Learn how to split your current puppet into more puppets," interrupted Greg, his tone firm. "Seriously, you need to guard this puppet as if it's your only self, because who knows what will happen to your real body if you don't have somewhere for your mind to focus right now."
"Excuse me, what do you mean?" asked Matt, frowning in confusion. "Why does it matter where my mind is focused?"
"Can you still perceive where your body vanished into your spatial storage after being shoved in that bag?" Greg inquired, raising an eyebrow.
"It's difficult, but I can sense it," Matt replied, concentrating. "There's not much to see there since I was surrounded on all sides, so there wasn't any light."
"So, tell me what happens when you have nowhere to focus but there, and your mind starts to truly fracture from the lack of stimuli?" Greg pressed, his concern palpable.
"How should I know?" Matt responded, a hint of frustration in his voice.
"That's exactly my point," replied Greg with a sigh. "There are so many things we don't understand, and we can't take risks that offer too little reward. Suppose you're right and you go unnoticed by the instance dungeon; will it change anything about what we have to do, and what useful information will you even be able to gather?"
"I can at least inform you about the terrain, and just because the monsters might ignore me doesn't mean they won't appear," Matt insisted, determined to make his point.
"True, and just because they ignore you when we're all around doesn't mean they will if you go alone," Greg countered. "Again, split yourself, and I'll let you do what you want, but I will not allow you to take any chances when your stats are so low and there is just one of you."
Matt frowned but gave up arguing as the group prepared to cross the final few hundred yards to the water. The plan was to keep fighting until they completed the dungeon, yet Matt felt something was off. The last dungeon he had completed was filled with more gimmicks. So far, this one had been nothing but fighting, and he suspected they were about to encounter their first gimmick. As they moved forward, it was Greg who noticed it first and called out urgently.
"Grab ahold of each other! We have a tsunami coming!"
Sure enough, Matt saw the ocean water pulling back ominously. He didn't know why, but in that instant, he felt a sense of hopelessness as he clutched onto Greg’s shoulder, watching the towering wall of water rise. The others were scrambling to bundle together, but despite their efforts to hold on tightly, the group was eventually split apart as the powerful current dragged them away. Matt didn’t even attempt to swim beyond reaching the surface, desperate to gulp in the precious air above. As he did so, he spotted Zara not far from him, and he quickly swam closer to her. Kal surfaced a moment later, gasping for breath as they regrouped amid the chaos.
Sadly, they were all scattered, and as the wave deposited them at some random location, Matt could tell that while the wave hadn’t inflicted much damage, it might have still doomed them. After all, if they were all stuck in groups of one or two, they would face real trouble trying to deal with foes like sand sharks. Thankfully, it seemed that they were all the way back about as far as they had been from the shore when he first arrived. To him, this meant that they were likely looking at easier fights, but with more distance between the groups. He was just about to reach out to Bob mentally when a fireball exploded about a mile to their left, and Kal spoke.
“My Greg is the best,” Kal boasted, her voice brimming with pride.
“Sure,” retorted Zara, brushing sand off herself with an air of nonchalance. “Let’s just head—”
Zara’s words were abruptly cut off as another fireball erupted, this time in the exact opposite direction.
“We head towards the first one,” stated Matt firmly. “Greg wouldn’t cast the same spell if the dungeon was trying to emulate what he would do.”
“Right, let’s just hope we are heading to safety,” commented Zara with a hint of skepticism. “This dungeon just got a lot more annoying. Matt, can you tell us about the situation with Bob?”
Matt frowned as he reached out to an annoyed Bob and discovered that the bobcat was with Yumiko and Eleanor. They had seen both fireballs heading in the same direction. Matt relayed this information to Kal and Zara and informed Bob about his current situation along with their plan. However, the status of Greg, Apricity, Emily, and Rose remained unknown as they pushed forward through the dense forest. Matt hoped that all of them were together, but a part of him felt that was too optimistic as they encountered their first obstacle. It was merely ten of the crabs, creatures they had previously found easy to defeat. As Zara charged forward with determination, Kal fell back to protect Matt, as instructed by Zara.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
This frustrated Matt, as he felt like a burden. Sure, he was worthless in a fight, but pulling Kal away from helping Zara only added to his own frustrations. Worse yet, he didn’t dare tell Kal to rush in, as he knew that Zara might attack her if she was startled. Kal could see this tension and decided to take advantage of the first opportunity it had truly been just her and Matt since she had been rescued from the safe zone.
“If this body stays after others return to your world, will you work with me to survive?” Kal asked, her eyes searching his for sincerity.
“I don’t know," Matt replied hesitantly. "There are too many unknowns, but if we end up in the same place and I can still control this body, I don’t see why not.”
“Good,” Kal said, nodding thoughtfully. "Then help me convince Greg to give me one child before he leaves.”
“Excuse me?” Matt blurted out, taken aback by her unexpected request.
“You want this world, right? Then let me breed an army here in the dungeon and—”
“No,” Matt interrupted firmly. “I want this world intact, not after goblins have infested it.”
“Not goblins," Kal clarified. "I plan to try to birth a half-goblin.”
“What does that matter?” Matt questioned, skepticism evident in his voice.
“They're rare," Kal explained. "They have better minds and can still breed quickly, though not as quickly. It will take a year to be ready to strike.”
“We will end up being hunted down the moment our activity is noticed,” Matt retorted, his voice laced with concern. “Plus, I still don’t think it will end well for anyone.”
“Then what do you think I should do while waiting for Greg to come for me?” Kal asked, frowning deeply as she sought an alternative.
"How about trying to find a way to reach him?" suggested Matt, giving Kal a stern look. "No one says that you have to wait for him. In fact, I would argue that doing so would be a bad idea. I don’t know how teleporting between worlds works, but—”
“It is unlikely that Greg will ever be able to return here,” Kal interjected. “He doesn’t plan to; he plans on trying to find a way to summon me to him.”
“I take it that he is referencing a TV show or something.”
“It is actually something he came up with after talking with Emily. She is even willing to try to help.”
“If you two are done talking, we should get moving,” Zara interrupted, looking fatigued after finishing off the last crab monster, its shell cracked open like a walnut.
Matt nodded as he replied. “Right, but next time don’t send Kal to protect me.”
“I won’t. We will be trading fights,” Zara responded. “Our styles don’t work the best together. It’s why she is always on Greg guard duty, as she does best when not having others swinging weapons around her.”
“It’s an instinct thing,” Kal explained, addressing Matt’s unasked question. “I find myself blocking their attacks rather than focusing on the monsters.”
Matt just shook his head as they began to move, and sure enough, when ten birds started targeting them, Kal took the lead in fending them off. This time, Zara found herself also actively needing to defend, as the birds weren’t only targeting Kal. Despite the chaos, Zara wanted to talk with Matt, so she did just that while keeping the birds at bay.
"So, what's the plan after we get out of this dungeon and you're back to full size?" she asked, dodging a swooping bird.
"I thought I made it clear that I am still figuring out—" Matt started to reply.
"Not if we are going to rush the surface or anything like that," Zara interrupted, swatting at another bird. "What are you going to do with Rose and the rest of us?"
"I don’t know," admitted Matt, glancing at her between his own defensive maneuvers. "I would like to say that we can resume the dating schedule, but this body isn’t really me."
"It’s not as attractive as your real body," Zara admitted, "but your mind is connected to it, right?"
"That’s what we think, but we aren’t 100% sure. Greg and I think that my main body could wake up and remember nothing," Matt explained, a hint of concern in his voice.
"Unlikely," retorted Zara, fending off two birds attacking in quick succession. "If that was the case, why would you know anything about what happened since you left us?"
"I am not sure I am following you," Matt said, trying to understand her logic.
Zara took a moment to respond as she dealt with another bird diving at her. "If you need to be present to know anything this body does, then you wouldn’t know anything about what your real self has been through since leaving us."
"That is a good point," Matt acknowledged, considering her reasoning.
"Great, so for the record," Zara added, glancing at him with a determined look, "I’ll take dating this puppet over never getting a chance, but I’ll respect your decision either way."
Matt simply nodded, realizing that Zara was probably correct about his ability to remember every detail of his puppet experience. However, as soon as she made that observation, the birds fell silent, depriving him of the opportunity to respond before they were on the move again. A flash of lightning illuminated the sky nearby, quickly followed by another streak in a different direction. Matt smiled with determination as they pressed onward, discovering Greg and Rose, both in distress and bleeding as they fought the bird like monsters. Instinctively, Matt switched into healing mode, while Zara and Kal took charge of the battle, swiftly bringing it to an end.
From there, it was only another 30 minutes before everyone was back together, and Matt felt relieved that none of them had died. However, they were pausing once more as Matt worked to add bulk, while Greg and Emily discussed what they thought was going on. After what felt like a few hours, during which Apricity had been diligently keeping monsters at bay, the two of them reached an agreement, and Emily addressed the group.
“We think there is something that needs to be done before we head to the water. It is likely that until we figure out what that is, we will just be pushed back to the starting area every time we get close to the water. Worse, we don’t know if it will spread us out even more or what exactly we need to do. So, we are going to start snaking our way forward until something catches our eye as a possible answer to what we need to be doing.”
“So, what happens if we find nothing?” asked Eleanor, raising an eyebrow. “Not saying you’re wrong, but I think we would have seen something to at least hint at such a requirement.”
“Then it's likely a speed thing,” Greg responded thoughtfully. “Meaning we will need to rush forward right after being swept away next time, as the timer would likely reset after that. It could even be that we fell just short of the time limit last time, but I doubt that, as it happened right after we started to move after a break.”
Matt frowned as he pondered what he could do to help, all while chewing thoughtfully on another mouthful of food.
