TM-Chapter 27

Blessing Fountain

Side effect of the status abnormality time reduction scroll.

After a certain time, the status abnormality ‘drowsiness’ comes. And after a certain time, one falls asleep.

Just like Caleb right now.

The adventure is temporarily paused.

The party started camping.

Crackling, crackling.

Next to the campfire, Yernil crouched down and looked down at Caleb lying in his sleeping bag.

Feeling considerable guilt.

At this point, let’s recall the nonsense she spouted in the lobby before entering the labyrinth.

What did she answer Caleb’s question about whether she was nervous?

‘I’m not nervous at all. We’re just going to the 1st floor, right? I went there before. Back then, even though I had nothing, I survived just by doing what Caleb told me to do. This time it’ll be even simpler!’

If experienced adventurers passing by had heard this, they would have giggled. They would have exchanged conversations like this,

Look at her. She says the labyrinth 1st floor is simple.

Is she a high-floor adventurer?

No, she’s a kid who went into the labyrinth 1st floor once and came out. This is her second time.

She’s lost her mind.

Yernil felt her face burn with embarrassment as she recalled that moment.

What did she do in this battle?

When that highly suspicious wizard came running asking for help, Aimus blocked the path to prevent entry, and Caleb pointed his wand and shouted firmly, telling her to get lost.

What did Yernil do then?

Nothing.

Honestly speaking, she couldn’t understand why Caleb was being so wary.

Instead, these words swirled in her head,

Caleb. May I give my opinion? I think we can accept that wizard. She came alone bleeding profusely, so it doesn’t seem like a lie. We might encounter a 2nd floor party too. Let’s take in that wizard and proceed as a party of five!

The reason she didn’t voice those foolish remarks was simply because she was timid.

‘How stupid!’

Moreover, the worst moment was when the party was attacked.

What was Yernil doing when the wizard cast spell disruption on Caleb?

Once again, she did nothing!

This is outrageous!

Honestly speaking, she couldn’t even properly assess the situation.

Because she was convinced that the four enemies rushing from the front were a 4-person raiding party from the 2nd floor.

‘Why is this wizard attacking Caleb when there’s such a powerful common enemy right in front of us?’

She froze up experiencing a kind of cognitive dissonance.

That shouldn’t happen.

Aimus had to handle the front, and since undead Backstab wasn’t much help, it should have been Yernil who protected Caleb when he was hit by spell disruption.

Dereliction of duty.

You could say that.

The moment spell disruption came out, Yernil should have somehow dealt with the wizard and saved Caleb.

But in reality, she even received help from that very Caleb instead.

In terms of incompetence, she was similar to undead Backstab…

Huh?

Wait a minute.

‘I’m similar to undead Backstab?’

With Backstab who can’t communicate and can only chew hair?

Yernil made a shocking comparison.

It’s the match of the century.

Undead backstab vs Yernil.

1. Does it help with rear defense?

Backstab: No.

Yernil: No.

Draw.

2. Did it help in the subsequent battle?

Backstab: No.

Yernil: Hit the dwarf puppeteer with an arrow.

Yernil wins by a narrow margin.

3. Does it help with the adventure?

Backstab: Tracks souls and finds paths while avoiding traps

Yernil: Nearly doomed the party with false information that there were four enemies due to failing to catch the combat puppet.

Backstab’s overwhelming victory.

This is outrageous!

Then the final question.

4. How much maintenance cost does it require within the party?

Backstab: None at all.

Yernil: Eats food and sleeps.

Backstab wins.

The match result is 2 wins, 1 draw, 1 loss – undead Backstab’s victory!

Smack!

Aimus, who was standing guard, turned to look at Yernil at the sudden loud sound.

She had slapped both her cheeks.

“Why are you doing that?”

“To snap out of it!”

“What?”

“I’ve become worse than a corpse right now…!”

“What are you talking about…”

Yernil’s eyes widened.

Right now, at this moment!

Someone died on the labyrinth 1st floor.

That someone was the weak and overly kind Yernil of the past.

The newly reborn Yernil is now a much more cunning and agile real ranger!

Just let someone try to come in!

Just let them get caught!

I’ll shoot them right away! For real!

I won’t show any mercy now!

Regardless of age or gender, whether they’re hurt or alone or whatever! If they’re someone Caleb is hostile toward, I won’t let them anywhere near…

“Yernil.”

“Eek!”

Yernil jumped at Caleb’s sudden words.

Caleb had woken up.

And it seemed he had seen the terrifying expression of the reborn Yernil.

“Why are you putting so much force in your eyes? Did something happen?”

“…N-no! Go back to sleep!”

“It’s okay. I’m fine now.”

Caleb got up and rolled up his sleeping bag.

“Let’s set off again.”

***

While he was asleep, Yernil and Aimus had organized the corpses and belongings of the raiders.

“What should we take?”

Aimus asked.

The human warrior’s steel heavy armor had become scrap metal level due to flesh sticking to it. It would still be worth money if taken, but they discarded it due to weight. Let’s just take a few pieces of equipment like the two-handed sword, helmet, and gauntlets.

From the puppeteer dwarf, we’ll extract just one big thing. Even a puppeteer with nothing has a combat puppet core that’s worth quite a bit. We extracted a fist-sized glittering core and put it in the bag.

The wizard bag was with the dwarf, and when we opened it, we hit the jackpot.

Along with five healing potions.

[Raise Up Dead Body Scroll]

[Cooltime Reduction Elixir]

Two quite useful consumables came out.

Next.

I picked up and examined the magic wand the wizard was using.

[Sally’s Magic Wand♥Telekinesis]

It seems she carved it herself at the end of the wand. Normally you wouldn’t know without item appraisal, but seeing that she named it ‘Telekinesis’…

“Move with invisible hands.”

Right. When I tested it, telekinesis came out.

Now I have the basic wand distributed by Magic University, the Lightning Shock wand I purchased myself, and the telekinesis wand.

Three wands total. Am I becoming a wand collector again today like last time?

“Let’s put everything the canine beastman had on Backstab.”

The physique is appropriate, and thanks to Aimus killing cleanly, there’s almost no equipment damage.

We took flexible light armor, boots, leather gloves, a dagger, and bombs from the beastman.

I’ll keep the dagger and bombs, and we need to put the light armor, boots, and gloves on Backstab…

“I’ll do it!”

Suddenly Yernil raises her hand.

***

Yernil is acting strange!

Why does she have so much tension in her shoulders?

After somehow managing to dress Backstab while struggling alone, from then on she moves incredibly enthusiastically whenever something happens.

“Caleb, rest in the back!”

When Goblin mobs appeared, she forced me to rest and took the lead, shooting arrows frantically.

“You just woke up. What if you collapse again from using too much magic!”

There was reasoning behind it.

“Caleb! Give me the bag too! I’ll carry it for you!”

“No, you don’t need to go that far…”

“Oh! Dangerous!”

She shot out in front of me like lightning and fired an arrow. At a mouse running 30 meters ahead.

“Phew. It was a mouse. I heard some sound.”

No, Yernil, you’re really scary.

“Dangerous!”

This time she grabbed me and jumped. Thanks to that, we both fell to the side together! Crash!

“What are you doing!”

“Something flew down from above! Is it a trap!”

“It’s bats.”

Aimus pointed to two bats flying away behind us.

After mice, now bats?

“Ah!”

Yernil jerked her head up again.

What now?

“I hear squeaking sounds somewhere!”

“Squeaking? Usually that kind of thing is either a trap or a timer bomb…”

“Dangerous!”

Before I could finish speaking, Yernil tackled me to the ground. Climbing on top of me and tightly embracing my head to her chest.

“Can’t breathe!”

“Huh?”

“Calm down! Even if it’s a trap or bomb, if it’s only audible to Yernil’s ears, it’s probably not near us.”

“Caleb!”

She released my head and looked up.

“Now that I look, the squeaking sound is coming from Caleb!”

What?

Wait. Could this be?

I took out the compass from my bag.

“That’s right! It’s coming from here!”

Even when she said that, I couldn’t hear it, so I pressed the compass right to my ear and focused quietly.

Beep. Beep.

“It really is.”

“The sound is coming from here! Right?”

Tremendous satisfaction appeared on Yernil’s face.

“This compass is something I received from Professor Meldini. He said it finds treasure chests.”

“Treasure chests?”

Aimus also showed interest.

“Yes. If we follow the direction the compass points, we should find one. But…”

The compass making sound is good news, but if the signal strength is this weak, the distance is quite far.

“Let’s revive Backstab first.”

We have many things to do in this adventure.

“And Yernil.”

Let me talk to her.

“It’s good that you let us know when you hear sounds, but you don’t need to overreact to small sounds.”

“Ah…”

“If you react even to mouse footsteps, our progress will be too slow.”

“I’m sorry…”

Yernil’s head drooped.

Why is she acting like this?

Did she develop a debt of conscience because she didn’t do anything properly when we fought the raiding party earlier?

“Yernil.”

“Yes.”

“Just keep doing what you were doing before. You’re doing well enough.”

“But I failed to catch the combat puppet and gave wrong information that there were four people, almost destroying the party.”

Yernil spoke as if ashamed.

That’s what was bothering her.

“If you heard footsteps of four people, it was right to say that. I made the wrong judgment, it’s not that Yernil’s information gathering was wrong.”

“…”

“Let’s go. Just tell me when you hear sounds from now on too.”

“Yes.”

“You don’t need to mention really unnecessary things though.”

“Like mouse footsteps?”

“Yes.”

“Goblin shaman voices too?”

“Not necessary right now.”

“What about water sounds?”

“You don’t need to mention all such trivial… Wait. What water sounds are you talking about?”

“There’s a sound of water flowing gently. Like a stream or fountain.”

What?

“Where is that!”

That’s really important information.

“Let’s stop by there first.”

***

The Blessing Fountain.

In the game, it’s how several classes like rogues, warriors, etc. acquire skills.

According to the setting, skills aren’t excellent athletic ability or weapon techniques, but a kind of superpower.

For example, look at the rogue’s Leap Ambush. Instantly teleporting behind someone’s back isn’t movement within the realm of common sense and physics.

According to the setting, skills are like blessings bestowed by gods.

Just as a wizard’s magic comes from the god of wisdom.

In ancient times, many other gods existed, but they were all devoured by the labyrinth. They now became part of the labyrinth and share bits of their superpowers with adventurers traveling through the labyrinth. That’s skills, and this place is where you acquire them.

“It’s a fountain.”

I approached and examined the fountain.

In the center of a huge circular fountain 6 meters in diameter, a stone statue modeled after a lion’s upper body rises up.

A glittering purple waterfall pours from the mouth of the lion statue 3 meters high.

“Well done, Yernil.”

I turned to praise her, but…

‘She’s extremely pleased.’

Yernil grinned with a very satisfied face. I don’t know why she keeps glancing at Backstab though.

“You two, would you like to receive skill blessings from the fountain?”

Wizards aren’t applicable, but these two should be able to learn skills here.

“I’ve encountered fountains several times before, but I’ve never gotten a skill even once.”

Aimus said.

The reason is because his agility is low and his strength is high. To learn skills, your stats must support it. And one more thing.

“You’ve never tried it with an iron staff.”

The fountain analyzes weapon proficiency.

It looks at the weapon held by the adventurer who came for blessings, evaluates their proficiency with that weapon, and if their status is also above the threshold, it gives skills.

“That’s true, but.”

The monk looked uncertain holding the iron staff, but I was confident.

Brother Monk.

Your strength is 15 in pure value.

And monks already have basic proficiency with staves.

So you just need to stick your face in the fountain.

“…!”

Aimus’s shoulders twitched as he submerged his face in the fountain water like diving.

A skill is entering.

What can he learn?

The monk’s level is even higher than ours at 11.

Probably because he has a lot of experience even though he only went around the 1st floor.

If he put all those stats into strength alone, he would have drawn a 2nd-grade staff skill with pure strength 20, but unfortunately Aimus also has some points in agility and health.

Health isn’t exactly a loss in ability points, but agility is a bit wasteful.

Can’t help it.

Min-maxing (stat distribution pursuing only efficiency in TRPG genres) can’t work as well as Yernil’s. This isn’t even a game.

Instead, if we give him a bit more agility to get the 1st-grade skill ‘Strange Evasion’ for bare-handed monk combat techniques…

Hmm.

Would that be mediocre?

I don’t know. Originally, new builds are revolutionary if they succeed and scrub characters if they fail.

“…”

The monk raised his head.

“Skills really do appear.”

Aimus has strength 15, agility 3, health 2.

The skill he probably learned is…

“Smashing Gaia.”

Good. It’s as I know.

“Now Yernil, try putting your face in the fountain too.”

Yernil approached with a nervous expression.

Thanks to subduing the raider party earlier, Yernil and I leveled up too.

Now both our levels are 6.

Yernil’s agility is 13.

Go Yernil!

“Hoooop!“

Yernil took a deep breath and submerged her face in the water like diving.

“I, I learned it!”

And shortly after, she came out with a very excited expression.

“I learned a skill.”

Very proudly.

“3-Point Shot!”

Now Yernil has truly been reborn. Have confidence, Yernil!

“Caleb, you try looking in too.”

Yernil recommended the fountain to me.

“Wizards can’t get anything here.”

Why is that?

Is it because the god of wisdom, Wizards, who bestows magic, wasn’t devoured by the labyrinth?

So they directly share magic through Memory Book contracts?

“But you never know.”

I am curious.

In the game, you just click on the fountain to learn skills. If there’s only one you can acquire, it’s automatically learned; if there are two or more, you select one.

I don’t know what the inside of the fountain water looks like or what’s beyond it either.

Should I take a look?