Ch.18Shen’s Dungeon (5)

“A scream?”

I sharpened my hearing and immediately began moving toward the source of the sound with Seriya, dragging Rolly along.

“AAAAARGH!!!”

“Well, someone’s got quite the lungs.”

“Could they be in combat?” Seriya asked.

“Not sure. We can only hear screaming, so it’s hard to tell.”

I tightened my grip on the longsword in my right hand as I spoke.

Anything can happen in a dungeon.

It could be someone deliberately screaming to lure monsters, or perhaps bandits trying to entice adventurers like us so they could rob us of our goods.

Whatever the case, the dead tell no tales.

“AAAAARGH!!!!”

“Hmm… that doesn’t sound fake to me.”

“It’s too realistic. They must be injured.”

As the periodic screams continued, accompanied by agonized groans, we lowered our guard somewhat.

Unless someone was truly in pain, it would be impossible to make such sounds.

As we drew closer to the source, we heard not only screams but also something clattering. When we turned the corner, we finally found the source of the screams.

“GAAAAARGH…..!!!”

Squish! Squish!

“Damn it…! The bleeding won’t stop!”

“Where the hell is the arrowhead?”

“Tie it tighter! I’m going to die at this rate!”

Orc and goblin corpses were scattered everywhere, and in the middle, an adventuring party was desperately trying to treat a spell caster who had suffered a severe leg injury.

From their conversation, it seemed an arrowhead was deeply embedded in his leg. Judging by the amount of blood, he had already lost more than two liters.

For reference, an adult male has about five liters of blood on average.

I took out a potion I had brought just in case.

It was a low-grade potion, but nothing would be more useful for stopping bleeding.

“Seriya?”

“…Well, I suppose saving someone won’t kill us.”

She nodded, and I sheathed my sword.

Shhhhk.

“…Huh?”

“Hey! I told you to tighten the bandage more… oh….”

“Huh…hah….”

When I sheathed my sword, two people noticed our presence and froze.

And even in that moment, blood continued to flow from the mage’s leg.

“Calm down. We’re here to help.”

Clink!

I approached them while shaking the potion, and they either let down their guard or had no choice but to do so, making room for us.

“…Is the arrowhead still inside?”

“Yes. He’ll die at this rate. We need to use that potion.”

“Don’t rush. Even with the potion, if the arrowhead remains inside, it’ll only make the pain worse.”

“Then what should we do?”

“…Seriya. Get the lantern out.”

The small lantern was something Seriya usually carried.

When she shone the light, the gruesome sight of blood-soaked flesh was painfully revealed, and I spoke to the battler and ranger.

“We need to remove the arrowhead. Open the wound.”

“But… that will be extremely painful.”

“Painful, yes, but he’ll die if we don’t remove it.”

The two adventurers nodded at my words and spread the wound of the spell caster who was nearly at death’s door.

Riiip!

“AAAAARGH!!!!”

Agonizing screams echoed around us as Seriya lowered the lantern until it nearly touched my cheek.

“Damn it… where is it…?”

Glint!

At that moment, I caught a faint glimmer of the arrowhead in the lantern light, and I inserted my finger to pull it out.

Squelch!

“GAAAAARGH….!!!”

“Got it! Close the wound! Quickly!”

At my command, the two adventurers closed the wound and tightened the blood-soaked bandage as much as possible. I uncapped the potion and poured it into the pale spell caster’s mouth.

“Someone make a fire. He’s lost too much blood; we need to suture the wound.”

At my words, the ranger took out firewood and flint from his bag, and the battler lit a fire, creating a small but warm flame.

“Seriya.”

“Yes?”

“Give me some tripwire. I need to suture the wound with it.”

“Ah. Got it.”

I threaded the thin, tough wire used for tripwires through a needle I carried, then reopened the wound.

“Do you have any strong alcohol?”

“Um… here.”

“Pour it on the wound. We need to clean off the blood.”

While the ranger poured strong distilled liquor on the wound, I heated the needle in the fire, then cooled it to sterilize it.

Normally, I should boil the thread too, but there wasn’t time for that now.

“Alright. I’m going to suture the wound, so hold his leg firmly.”

“O-okay.”

As I began to stitch the flesh, the spell caster started convulsing again from the pain in his leg.

However, with Seriya’s help, they firmly held him down, giving me time to suture the wound. In that tight window, I managed to stitch the wound and tie the knot while sweating profusely.

“Done!”

*

Huff… huff…

Shallow breathing sounds came from the spell caster.

I added more wood to the fire, then put two liters of clean water, five grams of salt, and twenty-seven grams of sugar into a pot and began stirring.

“What are you making?”

“Oral rehydration solution. It usually contains more ingredients… but this makeshift version will have to do. A blood transfusion would be best, but we can’t move him now.”

Before long, the solution came to a gentle boil, and I poured it into a container and handed it to the battler.

“Here, feed this to the caster.”

“Wouldn’t bread or meat be better?”

“Don’t be stupid. Digestion requires blood too. If blood rushes to the digestive organs and deprives the brain of blood, it’s really over.”

“O-okay.”

At my sharp words, the battler carefully poured the solution into the caster’s mouth.

This solution is actually meant for those who have lost fluids and electrolytes through diarrhea, so it’s not ideal for someone with blood loss like the caster… but when you don’t have teeth, you have to make do with gums.

“Damn… saving people is exhausting.”

I flopped down, looking at the empty pot.

Still, perhaps because I had saved someone, I didn’t feel like I had done something pointless, despite being tired.

“Where did you learn those skills?”

Seriya asked, sitting down beside me.

“Self-taught. You can’t survive on the streets without skills like these. See this scar?”

I showed her the scar on my neck.

“I was shot with an arrow a week before my fifteenth birthday and nearly died. I’m lucky now, at least. It’s someone else who got hurt, not me.”

“Haha… I don’t understand how you have so much experience when you’re only sixteen.”

As Seriya let out a hollow laugh, I chuckled as well.

We got up briefly to search the surrounding rooms and gather all the relics, then returned, and so 20 hours passed in the dungeon.

*

“Ugh… thank you for saving me. I really thought I was going to die…”

“Skip the thanks and finish your porridge. If you don’t eat that, you really might die. This is a dungeon, after all.”

“Haha… alright.”

After I woke up from a nap, the spell caster had also regained some consciousness.

I cooked a mild porridge in the pot, adding finely chopped smoked meat for everyone except the caster.

“Are you from the Relief Knight Order?”

“No. I grew up in a port city. In the back alleys, to be specific. I had to learn whatever I could to survive.”

“I see… anyway, thank you. This saved me from having a funeral after my first adventure.”

“…Are you guys Straw rank?”

“…Yeah. The guild staff tried to stop us, but we forced our way in.”

“Things were going well at first, so we let our guard down… we never expected this to happen.”

“Tsk, tsk…”

Looking at them now, their equipment was all worn out, and their bags were small and shabby—they clearly weren’t properly prepared for the dungeon.

Especially the spell caster. He wore no armor and only a thin robe, so what initially seemed like smooth sailing ultimately turned into a disaster.

“We’re all Flint rank. We struggled hard to get this far, and this is no place for novices like you. You know that, right?”

“Yeah….”

“When you get back, start with odd jobs like giant rat extermination and gradually build up experience. That’s how I started too.”

“…”

The three party members couldn’t respond.

They acknowledged they had been too ambitious, so I didn’t press the matter further, and only the quiet crackling of the campfire filled the silence.

Crack… crackle!

“Huh?”

“It’s the dungeon exit!”

Just then, the dungeon exit began to open right in front of us.

“…I see. I thought there were a lot of monsters, but they were guarding the exit.”

“Seriya. Shall we leave now?”

“Hmm… I suppose it’s fine. We’ve gathered enough relics.”

“Alright, let’s go. You guys carry the spell caster.”

“O-okay!”

We quickly packed our things.

The remaining firewood and pot went into Rolly, with the lantern going in last.

The Straw party went through the exit first, and we followed after finishing our packing.

It was the end of our 20-hour dungeon exploration.