Chapter 118, Kill or Be Killed

Translator: Barnnn

 

Hal stared at Padre Donatham with a look one might reserve for a half-melted slug.

The Padre, flustered, cleared his throat and straightened in his seat. When he looked back, it was with the solemn, dignified expression one might expect from a man of the cloth.

 

“Water,” Donatham began, “is pure in and of itself. People, dishes, clothing, tools — none of it stays clean without water. It’s the foundation of cleanliness in this world.”

“Hmm…” Hal nodded.

“The water granted by the Goddess, channeled through water-elemental magic, cleanses impurity,” the Padre continued. “But some filth can’t simply be washed away with water alone. Stubborn dyes. Stains soaked deep over the years. Beasts tainted by magic.”

“Mm-hmm…” Another nod from Hal.

Donatham leaned forward slightly. “So, tell me. If your clothes are marked by a powerful stain, what do you do?”

“I’d use detergent,” Hal answered without hesitation.

“Hmph. Safe answer. But not wrong.” Donatham gave a dismissive wave, then resumed. “It’s the same with magic. The bigwigs in the church say that to attain holy magic, you need faith and constant prayer. But for an adventurer, that’s irrelevant. What matters is adding something to your water — just like you said. Soap, salt, lime, herbs, oil, whatever works. You mix something in that can strip away even the strongest stain.”

Hal noted down, “Mix it into the water.”

“Exactly.”

 

The Padre gave a nod, then lifted his hand to cast.

 

“By the will of the one who governs light — purify this place.”

 

Light rippled out, sweeping across the room. The air cleared in its wake, fresh and crisp — tinged with the faint sweet fragrance.

 

Ize blinked. “Flowers?”

Donatham grinned. “Recognize it, little miss?”

She sniffed the air, her eyes narrowing thoughtfully. “I might have… smelled it before.”

“It’s a flower that grows all over our village,” Donatham said with a nod. “Good for making soap. That’s the image I had in mind.”

Ize tilted her head. “Wait… magic can have a smell?”

 

At that, Donatham slumped forward onto the table with a groan, his brows twisted into a miserable shape.

 

“Hell if I know. It’s always been like this, from the very beginning. And thanks to it, I’m stuck in this village for life.”

 

Apparently, his imagery was so vivid that it even started to manifest scent.

 

“Still,” he said, straightening again with a wry smile, “maybe because of that, my magic is stronger than those of the bigshots. Pretty damn impressive for a backwoods Padre, eh?”

“I do think it’s impressive, yes,” Ize said sincerely.

“I was really hoping for an ‘Awesome Padre’ to be somewhere in there,” he sighed, “but eh, I’ll take what I can get.”

 

Ize smiled mischievously, her eyes narrowing like crescent moons.

 

“Tch, tough crowd.” Donatham shrugged, then turned back to Hal. “Anyway, the important part is that magic is imagination — Actually, no. It’s delusion.”

“Oh, Hal’s a master of that,” Ize said with a smirk.

“Quiet, you!” Hal quipped. “So, just to be clear… when casting water magic, I should picture mixing in something even stronger to ‘clean’ the target, right?”

“Yup, that’s it.” Donatham nodded. “As you level up your skill with Water Magic, you’ll breeze through to the tenth floor. It might not seem all that effective at first, but keep at it. Past the tenth, light magic becomes more effective, sure, but water can still weaken enemies — and that’ll help the little miss conserve her magical energy, too.” He glanced between Ize and Hal, then jabbed a thumb at Fieda. “And naturally, the big guy should act as the kids’ escort. Keep an eye on their positions relative to yours, and direct the fight.”

 

Fieda gave a nod, evidently impressed by the Padre’s tactical breakdown.

 

“Now, one last warning: don’t you DARE cut them,” Donatham said, suddenly serious. “If any of their guts or rotting flesh get on you, well, you’ll be smelling it through your nose for the rest of summer.”

“I-I won’t! I swear!” Fieda’s expression turned pale. In a comic, sweat would be pouring down his face.

 

◆

 

At the Dungeon’s entrance, there wasn’t a soul in sight — not even Guild staff.

Still, they’d already notified the Guild they’d be entering today. Fieda, seeing no reason to linger, kept moving.

 

“The Magicite here is way smaller than at Jasted,” he observed.

“Wait, where?” Hal asked, looking around.

“Just above the entrance, diagonally. Half-buried.”

“Oh, there is it,” Ize pointed. “About the same size as a Giant Turtle’s Magicite… different color, though.”

 

Magicites extracted from Mystic Beasts were usually a uniform, transparent hue. But the ones embedded in Dungeon entrances were a different story — except when a Deluge was imminent, they took on a marbled, chaotic swirl of colors.

At first, Hal had found the marbled look unsettling, even ominous. But he’d grown used to it during their time in Jasted. By now, seeing a single-colored Magicite, like they likely would in Sooryab, might actually be more disturbing.

 

“All right. Let’s head in.”

“”Yeah!”” Ize and Hal responded in unison, tearing their eyes away from the Magicite and following Fieda into the dark.

 

The Undead Dungeon — dreaded by all the local adventurers — was about to greet them with its merciless midsummer baptism.

 

◆

 

The moment they stepped inside, they were hit by a wave of cool air. Hal couldn’t help but breathe out in relief.

Then he inhaled–

 

“Urgh…!”

“Gah!”

“Guhh — cough, cough!”

 

Ize and Hal immediately held their breath.

Fieda wasn’t so lucky — he gagged hard, sucking in more air by reflex… and with it, the overwhelming stench. He doubled over, dry-heaving as a chain reaction of nausea took hold.

 

“C-Can’t — nope — can’t do this–!”

 

He stumbled backward, back into the summer heat. The thick outside air pressed in, but even that was preferable to what he’d just experienced. He braced his hands on his knees, gasping for breath like he’d just run a mile.

 

“Ugh… I feel like my BODY smells now…” Hal grumbled.

“Haaaughk — ugh — guhh — cough, cough!”

“Fieda, I can’t understand a word you’re saying,” Ize said. “Here, let me heal you.”

“Kh-koff… Sorry,” Fieda rasped. “I charged in too fast. Didn’t think it’d be THAT bad.”

“No wonder why everyone hates it in there,” Hal muttered. “Feels like I just wrestled a pile of garbage and snuggled up with a corpse for the night.”

“Please don’t describe it like that,” Ize said, wrinkling her nose.

 

Even now, she could feel the stench clinging to the back of her sinuses. She exhaled sharply through her nose, trying to force it out.

 

“How are we supposed to deal with something like that?” Hal asked.

“Maybe we do what the Padre did — add a scent?” Ize suggested.

“But if we want to cancel THAT, we’d need something intense…” Fieda grumbled.

“I can only see them mixing badly,” Hal grimaced.

 

They decided to take a moment to replan their moves.

By the Dungeon entrance, they set up a small table and poured themselves chilled tea. No one else was around, but Ize kept her Stealth and Perception skills active, just in case.

 

“You know, rather than ADDING a scent… maybe I can try NEUTRALIZING it instead — kinda like an air purifier?”

“That sounds doable, but wouldn’t it be more of a wind-based spell than water?” Ize pointed out.

“What’s an ‘air purifier’ exactly?” Fieda asked, frowning.

“It’s a machine that cleans the air in a room,” Hal replied. “It filters out invisible dust, smoke, and odors — like from pets.”

“Ah, then yeah, that would fall under wind magic,” Fieda nodded.

“Right? But maybe some combination of wind and water would do the trick… although it’s not quite the same as a humidifier. No, wait — what do they call it when you add chemicals…?”

 

Hal trailed off, eyes unfocused as he swirled the cup in his hands, trying to summon a memory.

They already knew that light magic’s Cleanse spell worked well against Mystic Beasts, so this time the focus was on enhancing Hal’s spell mastery.

It wouldn’t do any good to faint from the stench before they even got close to the Undead. With that concern in mind, Ize turned to Hal with a hopeful gaze.

 

“Wait — what was that thing they use in hospitals?” Hal continued. “You know, in the machines that use disinfectant? Was it… hypochlorous acid?”

“Yeah. Makes the place smell like… well, hospital,” Ize said, chuckling. “There’s also that stuff about ozone or ions or whatever, right?”

“Maybe I could try manifesting that. Like an air freshener, but with wind magic to help spread it farther.”

 

He nodded to himself, already halfway lost in thought, and began casting the spell. During the journey from the Capital, Hal had practiced shaping mist into a protective veil around them — a skill he now employed with relative ease. All he had to do now was imbue that mist with deodorizing and sterilizing properties.

He took a seat, palms up, and drew in a deep, steady breath.

With his exhale, an invisible mist began to form, spreading in a thin, filmy veil around the trio.

 

Sniff.

 

Fieda twitched his nose like a small animal catching an unfamiliar scent.

 

“I’ve never smelled this before,” he said cautiously.

“I imagine this kind of chemical tang wouldn’t exist in this world yet,” Ize explained. “Definitely reminds me of a hospital waiting room.”

 

She remembered the time she’d torn her knee and caught the same sterile scent.

 

“Well… looks like the spell manifested properly,” Hal murmured, examining the result.

“Now we’ll see how well it holds up in the Dungeon,” Fieda said, folding his arms.

“We can only hope,” Ize replied, then turned to Fieda. “So, what’s the plan if this doesn’t work?”

 

Fieda averted his eyes.

Hal and Ize stared daggers at him.

 

“There is absolutely, ABSOLUTELY no way I’m camping out down there,” Ize said flatly.

“I-I know! If it doesn’t work, we’ll just head to Sooryab early and test the Undead there.”

“You promise, right? You, Fieda the Not-Quite-So-Brave-As-Sir-Lancelot, wouldn’t go back on your word, would you?”

“Who the hell is Lancelot!? But okay, look, I swear it.”

“”Good!”” Ize and Hal chorused, satisfied.

 

They stood, nodding in unison, before stretching out their limbs with audible pops — despite having done nothing strenuous — and Ize teleported away the small table.

 

“All right, let’s try popping the spell into the Dungeon entrance. See how it holds.”

“Yeah. It didn’t smell too bad for the first step or two.”

“It was from step three onward that things turned to hell,” Ize muttered.

 

They each took a deep breath of the hot, but mercifully clean, outdoor air, then exhaled sharply, steeling themselves.

Only a few meters left to the Dungeon’s threshold. They approached like brides walking the aisle — each footstep slow and deliberate.

At the same moment, the three ducked under the arch of the Magicite gate.

 

“Okay, Hal,” Fieda said, his foot just across the threshold.

“Got it,” Hal replied, and unleashed the new spell.

 

A fine mist spread around them like a second layer of skin — cool, light, and sterile.

 

“…Let’s move,” Fieda ordered, his voice firm.

 

Ize and Hal gave tight nods, their lips pressed in determined lines.

 

One step.

Another.

A third.

 

“…Hmm?”

“Think we’re okay?”

“Don’t jinx it–!” Ize began.

“We’re fine, Ize,” Hal interrupted before more of the dark words could fully escape.

“But how do you know?”

“I checked the air’s quality. It came up ‘clean.'”

“Oh, thank the Goddess,” Fieda sighed, releasing the breath he’d been holding. He cracked his neck from side to side. “All right. No retreat to Sooryab. Let’s clear this place.”

“”Roger that!”” the other two chimed.

 

◆

 

“Back already? That was fast. The smell get to you?” Donatham, the self-proclaimed Padre, called out from where he was chatting with some villagers by the fields. “Give it a couple days — you go in and out enough, your nose just gives up. I was gagging at first, but eventually I couldn’t smell a thing.”

“No, we reached our target floor,” Fieda replied, brushing off the comment. “We’re heading back in tomorrow to finish it off.”

“Wait, seriously?” Donatham blinked. “You mean you… tolerated that stench?”

 

The villagers looked at the trio like they’d sprouted extra heads. Given they were clearing the Dungeon so Donatham could go back to being a full-time Padre instead of a farmer, this reaction they got stung more than a little.

Ize scowled, but Hal responded with a sarcastic cheer.

 

“It’s all thanks to your advice, Awesome Padre.”

“Mine? Heh, well, of course! My tips on magic helped, huh?”

“They did. Super effective.”

“Really? What’d you do, anyway? The Cleanse spell works on the Undead, but it doesn’t touch the smell. That’s the part that gets you.”

“There’s a disinfectant from my hometown that purifies the air. I based the spell on that.”

“Huh. Didn’t know something like that existed. Can you show me?”

“Sure.”

 

Hal cast the spell again — this time even faster than before. The sterile, hospital-like-smelling mist swept over the ground near the edge of the field.

Donatham and the villagers all twitched their noses.

 

[They look like prairie dogs,] Ize thought, flexing her jaws and core as hard as she could to keep a straight face.

 

“Wow… I’ve never smelled anything like that,” Donatham muttered. “And you say it worked on the Undead, too?”

“Perfectly.”

“Both your spells seem effective, and the stench problem’s solved. You aren’t scared of the Undead either…” One of the villagers said. “Sounds like you’ll have it cleared in no time!”

“Damn right!” Donatham shouted. “You guys are amazing!”

“Hey, good for you, Donatham! Now you can focus on the fields!”

“I keep telling you — I’m a Padre!”

 

Despite his protest, the villagers paid him no mind. Red-faced, Donatham shouted again, but it only made them laugh harder.

And so, the first day of their assault on the Undead Dungeon came to a close — successfully and, perhaps more surprisingly, odor-free.