Chapter 114 114: Unexpected Surprise

The grinding noise from the coffee maker filled the room, bringing a sense of calm and relaxation to Nicky's tensed shoulders.

Taking care of rough adventurers was more tiring than she ever expected. Being an adventurer herself, she knew they can be a bit lax and carefree when they relax in a safe place, especially after a harrowing dungeon dive.

What she didn't expect was the mess and constant badgering they would cause. She looked back at all the times she spent in inns and taverns, not caring a whiff about the establishment as long as she provided the money they wanted in exchange for their services.

I deeply apologize. I will no longer underestimate the amount of effort the working staff put into making the establishment the way it is.

It was a humbling experience, to say the least. Just recently, she had to intervene between two arguing adventurers who were claiming that the bosses they faced were actually weaker than the other party. It became so ridiculously heated that they were planning on fighting there and then to prove some stupid point. Before that, she had to clean up some vomit and other unmentionables one party made from them getting sick by the poison they got afflicted with from an ambush monster before they arrived here. No amount of high levels was able to counteract bad planning and lack of preparation.

She actually had to escape into the kitchen to get started on making coffee while leaving a rowdy room full of adventurers making orders while leaving Bill and Ander to deal with them. She felt a little bad for them, but she needed a break.

She would've quit by now and even perhaps warn anyone else that this place was a madhouse filled with misery were it not for the extremely generous hourly pay. The amount she gained by working here for a few days would trump weeks worth of dungeon diving after finding plenty of treasure to sell for a lot of profit.

She knew Nina was rich, but to think she was that rich. She should've been an underground crime boss than some average adventurer.

Though she knew it was all thanks to Aidan and his cracked up overpowered magic. Being able to teleport others and himself to anywhere he wished would definitely cause the entire market to crash if Nina decided to do anything with it. Instead, she had the insane idea to make a literal hotel inside of a dungeon. A crazy, but perhaps ingenious idea of making loads of money.

Because adventurers would love nothing more than to make a pitstop at the hotel which could provide plenty of supplies on top of resting and services for their sake of adventuring. If Nina was careful, she could easily make a new type of business venture that could easily upend any form of regular business, and perhaps even make new connections to make some sort of monopoly that could rival even against long standing nobles.

That idea almost made her shiver. She knew that Nina would definitely do that as Nicky had the same idea, but knowing her, she might have some more extreme plans in motion. With someone like Aidan by her side, who could stop her?

“Nicky, you here?”

Nicky's shoulders jumped from hearing Bill call for her. She saw him come in, seeing her still pouring the freshly made coffee into the cups for the other adventurers.

“I'm busy here. Still making the coffee,” She tried, hoping that it was enough to give her a bit more time for some peace and quiet.

“It's urgent,” Bill answered. The way he responded made Nicky realize the seriousness behind it. “We got trouble.”

“What's going on?” Nicky asked, putting the kettle down on the counter.

“Our staff recently got accosted by a strange group, demanding answers like if they got a permit for building an establishment here and all kinds of bureaucratic nonsense. I stepped in and tried to diffuse the situation, but they got uppity and started flinging accusations. Before I could even do anything about it, they just left, saying that they'll make us pay.”

“That's… weird,” Nicky pondered. “You think Nina knew this might happen?”

“Better question is, do you think she left us here to deal with them ourselves?” Bill said with a hint of exasperation. “I'll be royally pissed if she did.”

Nicky just cannot assume that was the case. While Nina was a lot of things, she wasn’t the sort to just leave every troubling thing to her lower lackeys. While Nicky hated to admit it, she was part of those lackeys, and seeing how she was paying so handsomely to them for doing the grunt work, she couldn’t imagine leaving them behind to save her own hide.

She was the type to do that to her enemies, and Nicky and her party were nothing but subservient to her. No, this must be something she expected to happen, but wasn’t able to be here due to unforeseen circumstances. Her sister being here and the risk of a cursed relic falling in the wrong hands definitely fit that bill.

But she couldn’t put the idea aside that they were in fact being used as targets for her enemies that wished for her to pay up.

“We’ll just have to wait until then. The next time they come around, inform me and I’ll handle it. If they start leaving, stall them. It’s probably some kind of scam or something.”

“Someone having the balls to try and scam Nina?” Bill suggested. “Doesn’t sound very smart to me.”

“Unless we’re talking about someone with a big backing,” Nicky pondered. “Either way, we’ll just hold the fort for now.”

“Guys!”

Nicky and Bill both turned to find Ander running into the room, sweat pouring down his face. There was a hint of blood in the air, and from Nicky’s experience, it’s blood from a monster.

“There’s monsters… monsters around the safe zone!”

“That’s… not supposed to happen,” Nicky muttered.

…..

The entire cavern on the fifth floor was a wreck. Rivers that once flowed seamlessly were cracked and drained, the water pouring down and drenching the once solid ground. Rocks fell, equaling the size of boulders from the constant shaking of the battle happening around it.

Aidan felt the soul of the dungeon itself crying out in pain. He had a feeling that the longer they fought here, the more the dungeon might retaliate in response to the danger happening within its own confines. Still, he put that idea at the back of his mind as he was closing in on his target.

The nick on his upper chest corroded and began to infect deeper, at least according to the now wailing soul that couldn’t help but show itself to Aidan’s spiritual eyes. It was enough for him to recognize that the Artificer was finally tasting the exhaustion in this battle.

He started getting antsy, throwing out multiple gadgets and tools to try and dissuade Aidan from following up with more attacks with his venom sword. Rather than focusing on trying to inflict more poison, Aidan just made a rain of spells to try and hit him, no matter how many times he missed.

He was actually the reason why the fifth floor was such a mess, but if he hadn’t, then he was certain that the guy would somehow change the poison corroding his body into something else, the same way he did to the fiery smoke that once covered everything and turned it into a personal weapon. Thanks to the poison, that sort of anxious energy was reaching Aidan, telling him that being on the offensive was the worst thing for the Artificer currently.

So he kept going. His mana was draining each time he crafted the elements, but one quick motion of drinking his Soul Mending water was enough to keep his mana from emptying itself out. Of course, as always, constantly casting spells without letting his mind breathe kept banging against his head, but he was more than capable of handling it if it meant finally pinning down the flying bastard that kept running away from him.

“Fuck! Get away from me!”

The Artificer cursed at him as he sent out another drove of machinery that might as well be part of a sci-fi movie. Several metallic insects came flying out, their tiny wings buzzing like clattering metal as they surrounded Aidan. With a forceful flare of his crafted fire, he burned all the insects away, all the while preparing another onslaught of fireballs to fling at him.

The Artificer summoned another row of chains to intercept the spells, but the look of his wincing expression made it clear that the poison took effect. The chains weren’t able to interrupt one fireball from hitting him square in the back, the impact pushing the Artificer and keeping him unbalanced.

Aidan took advantage of that, expanding his Area Field and crafting the wind to make an updraft that pushed the Artificer off his balance further, his rocket boots unable to steer him back to a proper path. Just when he was getting close enough to the guy to pierce him with his sword, the Artificer pulled up a fist and slammed it against his chest.

His body suddenly expanded into a large balloon, pushing against Aidan like a truck hitting him at sixty miles per hour. His body spun like a ragdoll, shaping the wind to catch himself rather than keeping the Artificer down. That got him enough to restore his balance and keep running, forcing them on another chase.

“Why not fight me like a man?!”

“Whose talking?! You fucking poisoned me, cheater!”

Aidan had the grace to accept those words, but if he was being fair, the bastard kept throwing gadgets that kept interrupting him.

On and on they went. The two flying across the cavernous sky like gods that decimated the land around them. One portion exploded and broke apart while another became submerged in earth and soil. Monsters, the poor creatures, were the collateral damage that once slain by their stray spells, were used up with Aidan’s Craft to become swords that aimed to shoot like turrets at the Artificer. In response, the Artificer used the remaining monsters that Aidan wasn’t able to Craft in time to create his own machinations, somewhat similar to his own Craft by transforming the creature’s body into either machine-like beings or actual siege weaponry, either becoming cannons or large ballistas that shot out arrows larger than an SUV.

They were even able to shoot multiple times in one go, carrying the aspect of the slain creature that became corroded in its own particular mana, disrupting the flow of spellcasting every time they swept past him. The entire land became their own creation, and each time they created, disaster struck and chaos erupted.

If it wasn’t for Split Mind and his high Intellect, he was sure he would mess up in his calculations somehow and get hit by the Artificer’s attacks or by his own spells, which would’ve been embarrassing if it didn’t outright kill him. But he was close.

It was clear that he has an overpowered talent just like himself and Miko’s, and he was using it deliberately throughout the fight. He was also sure that the demonic energy wasn’t the only thing he had available, but he was sure as hell using it in droves from how it radiated off of him each time he cast a spell.

Though there was this nagging feeling that kept itching at the back of his head. Every single one of these machinations felt similar, making him believe that this guy knew something that he didn’t. Something that made him question where he came from.

That little idle thought kept bludgeoning his mind, enough to deter him long enough to realize that the Artificer finally stopped flying, facing Aidan straight ahead.

He pulled out a wicked grin, making Aidan feel all sorts of alarms going off.

“Fuc–”

He uttered before it was too late. Suddenly his arms and legs became encoiled and wrapped, stopping him in his tracks in the middle of the space above the broken cliffs below. Monsters were rampaging down below, either trying to run away or to try and reach up to the bastards that kept messing their floor.

Aidan grunted and tried to pull free, but he felt his skin getting eviscerated from the effort. Blood spilled from his forearms and legs, making him see the faint traces of lines that wrapped ever so seamlessly around him. Steel wires so thin that they may as well be invisible to the naked eye revealed themselves from the blood, and his eyes managed to see them entangled all around him.

They were everywhere, all across the large cavernous space that they used for their constant spell slinging. He cursed and raged as he tried to pull his limbs apart to no avail. He got caught in such a simple trap that it pissed him off to no end.

“Like it?” The man said cockily. He flared his arms wide. “Took a while thanks to you, but it was totally worth it.”

“Motherfucker!” Aidan groused.

“That’s right, keep bitching. It’s music to my ears.”

This entire time, the Artificer was prepping the entire floor to use a trap that finally took effect when Aidan’s focus became lax. It was also probably due to casting so much magic that it caused his head to ache, making his concentration wane. He could make as many excuses as he wanted, but in the end, he got caught in the dude’s trap like a pinned animal, which only pissed him off even more.

Without any more preamble, the Artificer prepped his daggers and his rocket boots roared, bluish flame blasted outward as he rushed in for the kill. Aidan noticed that the man was wrapping his daggers in sharp demonic energy, enough to nearly sting his eyes from the potency they were putting off.

He could just use Phase to get himself out, but that was the first thing he tried. Unfortunately, somehow the steel wires kept his body from casting any spell, as a debuff showed itself in his vision.

You are interrupted by the Wire Destabilizer Pro-Max. The wire interrupts your channeling, disabling any spellcraft that affects your body to an atomic level.

The bastard must have used some fine materials if he could make the wires powerful enough to actually interrupt a mage’s spellcasting. Right when Aidan’s brain was making up a desperate plan, the daggers pierced right through his abdomen, the man’s face getting right up near him.

Aidan groaned and wailed in pain, not because the blades were quite literally digging into his stomach, but because the demonic energy that soon affected his insides once again. He felt his mana getting wonky, the demonic energy filling his channels like rotting sewage funneling down his throat.

“Here’s some special service for ya,” The man whispered, an evil chuckle escaping his lips. He was clearly enjoying the fact that he managed to inflict Aidan with something devilish like he did.

Aidan looked down at the man’s goggled face, letting out his own grin. “How sweet. Here’s mine.”

The man instantly frowned before cursing aloud as something cut right down where he was. His goggles and part of his face were cut up in response to the suddenly emerging sword that appeared out of nowhere, falling straight down between the two.

As the Artificer managed to back himself away before getting straight right from above, the same sword uprighted itself before shimmering with intense light, enough to practically radiate intense waves of mana. The blade became sharper, more pronounced as it sliced through the steel wires, cutting them apart and freeing Aidan.

In return, the sword that glowed so brightly cracked and broke apart, the incredible amount of Infusion that Aidan cast on it being too much for the simple metal to take. He had to empower it to the point of making it break in order to actually cut through the steel wires, which was an easy choice to make.

Casting Vanish on his sword was also another good plan, as apparently this guy can’t concern himself with finding invisible entities without some form of lifeforce. Back at the hotel, the man was able to perceive that he was around, but he wasn’t able to do the same for either his fireballs or his magic weapon.

Unfortunately the sweet victory was marred with the bitter bile taste of demonic energy raiding through his insides. Like before, it coiled inside of him, trying to infect important parts that needed to channel mana to cast magic properly. In a sense, it was the same poison that was currently infecting the Artificer’s body.

In a way, the both of them were riddled with status debuffs, which either one needed considerable time to get rid of. Aidan faced his opponent, ready to get started on his mad dash to pin the Artificer down when suddenly his eyes picked up something flaring from within him.

As though some filter was finally taken down, he could finally see the Artificer’s soul for what it was, and the shifting tones and melodies caught him by surprise. Unlike so many other times when he met other people’s souls, this one, despite the alien nature, felt so familiar to him that it boggled his mind. It was like suddenly finding an icon or picture throughout everyday life that instantly brought out a set of memories associated with that image.

For Aidan, these memories were the cornerstone of who he was, all the way back in his old world. The melody played like returning to an old concert that he always enjoyed, only after begging profusely for his family to buy him the tickets to enter. It was the most memorable moment of his life, something that was pulled up straight into his head at that very moment.

When he looked at the man whose face now became uncovered, the goggles and helmet pulled off in anger, his mind blanked out for a second. He looked so familiar, which only made his soul flare a lot more in that familiarity.

Until finally, it clicked.

It was his brother. It was Evan.