CHAPTER 7 — “Drowned Honor”
The Flooded Ruins smell like ancient death and stagnant water.
Which is an improvement over the Fungal Caverns, honestly. At least this death is dignified.
My civilization, I’m realizing. These ruins are old, but they’re not that old. The style is familiar. The proportions, the symbolic motifs, the way the walls curve to channel mana flow—I designed buildings like this. Before.
Past me really did put a lot of work into this dungeon.
Impressive, Johnson says from his perch on my shoulder. He’s positioned himself carefully to stay above the waterline, which means his claws are digging into my collarbone in ways that are definitely going to leave marks. You built all this?
“Apparently.”
And then forgot about it.
“Also apparently.”
You were either very paranoid or very stupid. Possibly both.
“Thanks for the analysis.”
I live to serve.
The water gets deeper as I move forward—waist-high now, then chest-high. My equipment is going to be ruined by the time I’m done here. The potions are in waterproof containers, at least, but my clothes are already soaked through, clinging to my body in ways that are deeply uncomfortable.
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐│ FLOOR 3 --- FLOODED RUINS │├─────────────────────────────────────────────────┤│ Environment: Submerged architecture ││ Water Depth: Variable (1-8 feet) ││ Visibility: Poor (murky conditions) ││ Temperature: Cold (hypothermia risk) ││ ││ Primary Threats: ││ --- Drowned (waterlogged undead) ││ --- Razorfin (aggressive aquatic predators) ││ --- Currents (strong in some areas) ││ ││ Floor Boss: \[Drowned Knight\] (Level 9) ││ ││ Environmental Hazards: ││ --- Limited air pockets ││ --- Collapsed passages ││ --- Ancient traps (partially functional) ││ ││ "Hope you can swim.
And hold your breath. ││ And fight underwater.
All at once." │└─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
“Hypothermia risk,” I mutter. “Wonderful.”
You should have brought warmer clothes.
“I didn’t know I’d be swimming.”
You’re clearing a dungeon called ‘Flooded Ruins.’ What did you expect? A gentle mist?
“Optimism.”
There’s your first mistake.
The first enemy finds me ten minutes in.
The Drowned are exactly what they sound like—corpses preserved by the dungeon’s mana, waterlogged and bloated but still mobile. Still hungry.
This one was a man once, judging by the scraps of armor still clinging to its frame. A soldier, maybe. An adventurer who came down here decades ago and never left.
Now it’s lurching toward me through chest-deep water, movements jerky and wrong, eye sockets glowing with pale blue light.
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐│ THREAT ANALYSIS ││ \[Drowned Soldier\] (Level 5) │├─────────────────────────────────────────────────┤│ HP: \~60 ││ Primary Attack: Grapple (drowning damage) ││ Secondary Attack: Corroded Blade (infection) ││ Passive: \[Waterborne\] --- enhanced speed and ││ strength while submerged ││ ││ WEAK POINTS: ││ ? Head (standard undead vulnerability) ││ ? Fire (you're underwater, genius) ││ ? Holy magic (you don't have that either) ││ ││ THREAT LEVEL: Moderate ││ ││ "It's a zombie.
In water. You can figure ││ this out. Probably.
" │└─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
The water slows you down, Johnson observes. But it slows them down too. Use the environment.
I’m already moving—or trying to move. The water resists every step, turning what should be a quick dodge into a laborious wade. The Drowned is faster than it should be, that [Waterborne] passive giving it an advantage I don’t have.
It lunges. I twist sideways. Not quite fast enough—its fingers catch my arm, grip like iron, and suddenly I’m being dragged forward toward that gaping mouth.
The cleaver comes up. Down. Through.
The Drowned’s head separates from its body with a wet crunch, and the grip on my arm goes slack. The corpse—the second corpse, the real death this time—drifts away in the current.
I stand there, breathing hard, and realize my arm is bleeding from where its nails broke skin.
Infected, Johnson says grimly. The [Corroded Blade] passive applies to any wound they inflict. You’ll want to treat that.
“With what? I’m underwater.”
You have antitoxin. It’ll slow the infection until we find an air pocket.
He’s right. I fumble for the waterproof container, extract a dose, and force myself to swallow it despite the part of my brain screaming that taking medicine while chest-deep in ancient dungeon water is a terrible idea.
The burning in my arm fades slightly. Not gone, but manageable.
That’ll buy you an hour. Maybe two. Find air, clean the wound, apply a proper treatment. Johnson’s voice is businesslike, but there’s an undercurrent of concern. This floor is going to be unpleasant.
“It’s already unpleasant.”
More unpleasant, then. Relatively speaking.
I push forward.
The next hour is a masterclass in misery.
I fight seven more Drowned, each one a waterlogged nightmare of grasping hands and snapping teeth. The water gets deeper in some sections—deep enough that I have to swim, cleaver held awkwardly in one hand while Johnson clings to my head like a furry hat.
This is undignified, he complains.
“You’re welcome to swim yourself.”
I am a creature of cosmic significance. I don’t swim.
“Then stop complaining.”
Never.
The Razorfins are worse than the Drowned.
They’re fish—sort of. Fish the size of dogs, with scales like armor and teeth like broken glass. They move through the water with terrifying speed, circling, waiting for an opening.
The first one takes a chunk out of my leg before I even see it coming.
Pain. Bright and immediate and wet. I swing blindly, catch nothing, and then there are two of them, three of them, darting in and out of my reach like living knives.
Eyes, Johnson snaps. Go for the eyes. They’re sensitive to light—use your [Alchemical Synthesis] skill.
My what?
Then I remember—the skill I unlocked after Floor 2. I haven’t had a chance to experiment with it, but Johnson’s right. If these things are light-sensitive…
I fumble for my component pouch, find a Glowcap mushroom by touch, and focus.
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐│ SKILL ACTIVATED ││ \[Alchemical Synthesis\] Lv.
1 │├─────────────────────────────────────────────────┤│ Combining: \[Glowcap Mushroom\] x1 ││ Effect: Luminescent burst ││ Duration: 3-5 seconds ││ MP Cost: 4 ││ ││ "First time using this skill in combat.
││ Let's see if you die or not." │└─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
The mushroom crumbles in my hand, and I feel the mana channel through me—awkward, unpracticed, but working. The fragments ignite with bioluminescent fire, bright enough to turn the murky water into a blinding white sphere.
The Razorfins scream.
It’s not a sound fish should be able to make, but they make it—high and piercing and agonized. They scatter, fleeing the light, and I don’t waste the opportunity.
The cleaver finds one. Then another. The third escapes into the darkness, but two out of three isn’t bad.
I float there, bleeding from multiple wounds, watching the light fade.
Effective, Johnson says. Crude, but effective. We’ll refine the technique later.
“Later. Sure.” I’m having trouble focusing. The cold and the blood loss and the constant swimming are taking their toll. “How much further to an air pocket?”
Fifty feet. Maybe sixty. There’s a chamber ahead—I can feel the air current.
“Then let’s move.”
The air pocket is a collapsed section of ceiling, creating a small cave above the waterline. I drag myself onto a slab of fallen stone and just… lie there. Breathing. Letting my body remember what it’s like to not be drowning.
Johnson hops off my head and shakes himself dry, which takes approximately zero seconds because he’s somehow completely dry already.
You look terrible, he observes.
“Feel terrible too. Complete package.”
Your HP is at 41. Your MP is at 12. You have three infected wounds and the beginnings of hypothermia. He settles next to me, close enough that I can feel his body heat. We should turn back.
“No.”
Velthar—
“No.” I force myself to sit up, ignoring the protests from every muscle in my body. “The floor boss is close. I can feel it—the mana density is spiking. If I turn back now, I’ll just have to do this all over again.”
If you push forward now, you might die.
“Might.” I start treating my wounds, using the waterproof supplies I packed for exactly this situation. “Might isn’t definitely. And I’m tired of playing it safe.”
There’s a difference between playing it safe and not being stupid.
“Is there?”
Johnson is quiet for a moment. When he speaks again, his voice is different. Softer.
What’s really driving you? Right now, in this moment. What’s pushing you to risk death in a flooded ruin instead of taking a sensible retreat?
I pause in my wound treatment.
The honest answer is complicated. Layers of motivation stacked on top of each other like sediment. The need to get stronger. The desire for revenge. The fear that Anton’s scouts will find me before I’m ready.
But underneath all of that, there’s something else. Something I don’t want to look at too closely.
“Gorath,” I say finally.
The tank. The one who held you down.
“When I fought the Drowned Knight scan earlier—” I gesture vaguely at the air. “The System showed me the boss. Level 9. Heavy armor. Defensive abilities. Tank archetype.”
And that reminds you of Gorath.
“He was my friend.” The words come out bitter, sharp-edged. “Twenty years of fighting together. I saved his life in the Crimson Wastes—took a spell that should have killed him, spent three months recovering. And when they murdered me, he couldn’t even look me in the eye.”
Johnson is silent.
“Every time I fight something that reminds me of him, I think about that moment. About Gorath standing there while Anton’s poison held me still and Dario raised the sword. About how he said nothing, did nothing, just… let it happen.”
And you want to prove something.