Chapter 86: Paragliding to Sixth Floor

“...Damn…” James cursed as he saw a small lake with another blue portal in the middle. The blue and orange arrow at the corner of James’ view had pointed to a completely different place. This portal was one of those secret portals that did not show on the system.

Nevertheless, the jet-black tar pools stood between James and the portal. James checked his stats—he still had over 1,000 coins remaining. If something happened, he should be fine. Moreover, he was supposed to be immune to poisons.

“No pain, no gain. Fuck around and find out, I guess,” James sighed as he dipped his golem forefinger into the black tar. The black liquid wasn’t as viscous as James thought. It was more syrupy, but not viscous like tar.

“Hm… no effect?” James started feeling stupid for worrying. If this water was just normal water, or some harmless liquid, he would be ashamed for being so paranoid. Of course, the dungeon wouldn’t be so kind.

[Curse Magic level 7 activated. Your body will begin to corrode. Amputation recommended.]

“What the fuck?” James pulled his golem hand back. The black liquid stuck to his forefinger and crawled up to his hand. He felt dread as pain flared intermittently from his golem hand.

“Give me an axe, now!” James screamed. The fellow soldiers quickly gave back his lightning axe. James quickly put his hand on a nearby rock and, with a decisive swing, he lopped off his hand. The quick decision saved his life as the remnants of the hand corroded—the black liquid spread through the entirety of his lopped hand, then it evaporated to nothingness.

[Would you like to repair your golem arm for 100 coins?]

“Huh? Oh yeah. My hands and heart are repairable, not healable…” James frowned. “Yes, please.”

[Your hand has been repaired. You have 1,120 coins remaining.]

White motes of light caressed James’ golem arm. It enveloped him in a golden light. James’ lopped golem hand regrew and was restored.

“Alright. Now we know what the black liquid does. Whatever you do, don’t touch it,” James said.

“Yes, sir. But how are we going to get across? Should we build a boat? But it will take some time to make boats that can float without touching the water,” the soldier said. James glanced at him, admiring his intelligence. He certainly looked smarter than the previous captain. His speech brought James a new idea.

“We can use ice magic to make a boat,” James said. Thanks to his high magic, augmented by his high level and three additional mana cores, James could build an ice boat easily.

The dungeon was not that easy. When the ice boat touched the syrupy liquid, it melted as the black liquid climbed up and evaporated it in black smoke. Everyone stood in silence at the sinking boat.

“No boat then. Any more ideas?” James said.

“We need to make bridges. Erm… can you maybe make one with your ice magic, sir?” the soldier asked. He then further explained, “We would need weeks to make bridges even if we had your ropes. Moreover—”

James had made a pedestal with ice when he was fighting against the landshark in the previous dungeon. But he had never made bridges. He was about to say he could, but his mind told him that a bridge and a platform were different. He still had common sense.

“I could try,” James answered.

He made an arching bridge. But with a distance of over twenty meters, the ice bridge soon collapsed under its own weight.

“...Well, any more ideas?” James asked. He wondered whether he could make some sort of catapult to throw himself into the portal. Or maybe he could use his bow to shoot an arrow to the middle of the lake, with ropes attached to it. However, he dismissed the idea. The arrow would break.

“I do have an idea,” James said. “Let’s make a parachute.”

James was thinking outside the box. He borrowed several of his soldiers’ clothes and stitched them together using his spider’s adhesive. His spider thread was only sticky at the tip, but with some improvisation using knots, the soldiers made it work.

After the parachute was done, James tied himself with a spider rope to a tree. Then he tested his idea. Using his wind magic, he made a gust of wind to float himself into the air. It was unstable, but James could fly.

“Alright, loosen the rope. Little by little,” James said. The soldiers did as they were told, and James floated away to the middle of the island. Once he was there, he tied his rope to a tree while the soldiers traversed it with their weapons using the Tyrolean Traverse method—without a harness, of course.

“Sir, should we leave your mount here?”

“We can’t exactly bring him over, right? That thing weighs almost a ton with all our extra gear. We’ll return here once we’ve secured the main portal,” James answered.

“Yes, sir.” The soldiers saluted.

“I’ll go first. System, buy a health potion,” James said. A black box soon dropped beside him. After tying the glass vial inside to his back, he prepared himself to go through the portal. Survivors couldn’t buy weapons during combat. If they needed to recover from their wounds, they had to buy it beforehand.

James sighed as he realized he had already spent more than 400 coins on health potions and repairing his golem arms. He hadn’t realized that injuries were so expensive. James was glad he hadn’t spent all of his coins on unnecessary stuff.

Of course, what met him after he went through the portal was an empty forest, without even a single bird chirping in sight. Danger never came when you expected it. The hateful fortress that had trapped him and killed the previous captain was within sight. James sighed as he returned to the portal.

“It’s safe,” James said flatly. He then returned to the sixth floor.

James could feel how malicious the dungeon was. This path was too easy. There were no birdmen watching this side of the wall, and a door was conveniently placed—and even open.

James drew his bow. At first, he was wary of traps at the door, but after nudging it with his ice magic, he confirmed it was safe. Still, James could feel his blood boiling. How could this back door that led into a fortress be safe, while the portal shown by the system wasn’t?

James drew his bow again. There was no use complaining to the system. All he could do now was kill every single bird monster here. When he heard footsteps from birdmen down the hallway, he and his soldiers began to prepare. James aimed down the empty corridor, nocking an arrow to his bow.

As soon as a birdman came into view, he released a volley of arrows. The golden light flew straight to its head, killing it instantly. The monster died without even knowing what had happened. Another monster appeared, but before James had the chance to nock another arrow, a soldier fired James’ crossbow, striking it in the chest.

“Charge!” James ordered. Unlike James, with his inflated stats and level, the soldiers couldn’t kill it in one hit. The birdman drew its spear as the soldiers charged with axes and swords. They might have been low level, but they were trained and worked well together. After a few stabs and hacks, the birdman fell.

“Continue. We will clear the building,” James said.

“Yes, sir!” the soldiers responded. They began opening doors, ambushing unfortunate birdmen who happened to be bathing or unarmed. While the soldiers were busy with the mobs, James headed to the center of the fortress, where the hateful portal was located. There, the birdmen engineers and captains squawked, looking far less intimidating than they tried to.

“Come here, you little shits!” James cursed as he drew his halberd. He hadn’t learned any martial arts, but with his stats, he easily overpowered the birdmen and destroyed the siege engines, securing the field.

“Sir! The fortress is secured!” a soldier reported to him a few moments later.

“Any injuries?” James asked.

“One minor laceration, sir,” the soldier answered. James nodded.

“Did you find the other portal? The one that leads to the next floor?”

“Yes sir, it’s inside an officer’s room.”

“Want to rest here, or should we go to the next floor?”

“I believe we should rest here and treat the wounded first before leaving, Mr. James.”

“Then we shall do so.”

“We also found three treasure chests, sir.”

James’ heart leaped at the news. He understood that he might not be able to keep all of the weapons, but opening a treasure chest was synonymous with happiness now. After all, that’s where all the riches and priceless treasures were kept. Something magical and unknown was kept inside those chests, begging him to open them and use their treasures to their maximum potential.

“Don’t forget to ask your system to do manual claims. If the treasure has coins and scrolls, we can divide the loot that way,” James said.

“Yes sir.” James then walked to the portal, glancing at the corpse of the previous captain that lay there with a ballista arrow stabbed into his back.

“If you want to carry the corpse, that’s fine by me. We can carry him once I bring back my metal raptor,” James said.

“Thank you, sir.”

James then returned to the fifth floor, picked up his raptor, and came back to open the chests.

After performing his usual ritual, one of the chests spat poisoned arrows and the other spat out a snake. But since James always opened them from a distance, the traps hit nothing, and the snake was quickly roasted and skewered with James’ magic.

There were 1000 coins, a dagger, and a golden sword.

[Sword of Marking.
The sword shall mark any that it slashes.
The bearer of the sword will always know where the sword left its mark.
This sword can have up to three marks at the same time.]

James noticed the soldiers had disappointed looks on their faces. They all wanted guns. Nevertheless, it was not that easy to find a gun in the dungeon. Reality hit them. James left all the treasure for the soldiers to split among themselves, only taking 100 coins with him.

“Alright, rest up. Try to bandage the one who was wounded. Sorry, but we don’t have any first aid here and I’m not willing to spend 100 coins for scratches. We shall depart tomorrow,” James said. The soldiers nodded.

As night came, James reorganized his belongings in the courtyard. He lay down on the stone wall—his fur and stats kept him from feeling any discomfort. There, he looked up at the sky, pondering the mysterious twin blue moons that adorned the heavens. Several stars of blue and red dotted the night, making it glitter.

James then dozed off as the soldiers took turns keeping the night watch.