While Mordecai’s avatar focused on Fuyuko, and his core monitored the dungeon in general, Kazue chose to focus on following Gil and Li while passing along a running commentary to Moriko, who was relaxing while Kazue’s avatar was off communing with spirits. The little ratling had led the large man to the combat path, which just so happened to not have anyone waiting in line at that exact moment. She chose to not follow that path of thought, following Mordecai’s example and his warning about mental health if she thought about Li’s luck too much.
Unlike the god-shard’s normal adventures, this time he was easy to track. This was partially because he was with Gil, but it was also because he was treating it more like most visitors would treat the combat path, and was fighting through the normal challenges. She hadn’t seen him actually fight since the first day he’d arrived, and it was interesting to watch.
Li was fast, and naturally wrapped shadows around himself in brief spurts, but not as deeply as he had that first fight. Attacking broke his cover, rather than remaining effectively invisible in the darkness. From what she could pick out from his endless chatter with Gil, Li saw this as a game, and based on what Mordecai had told her, that meant that he’d be adjusting himself to the challenge. He was a type of divinity, nothing here was more of a challenge to him than he thought it should be.
As for Gil, well, it was more obvious that he was ‘slacking’. The power that he emanated was rather scary, and the way he mowed through their inhabitants without actually slaying them showed his skill as well. They had moved through the first two floors without ever looking like they were taking things seriously; even Zushi found it difficult to cope with Gil’s powerful fists while Li was effectively playing tag with Ryuhoho, and winning. Kazue comforted Zushi who was complaining about how the hits seemed to land past Zushi’s defenses and just ignored his ability to absorb energy in any form.
The only part of the second floor that bothered them was the maze tunnels, and they only bothered Gil. The giant man grumbled the entire time he had to crawl through them while Li led the way, chattering away the entire time. Kazue wasn’t entirely surprised that this part took them an excessively long time, Li wandered almost as randomly as his thoughts did.
As for Hildegard and Crios, they didn’t have the advantage of a raid boss’s power, and the fight ended with Crios retreating after both of his claws were cracked along with several places along his main body. The carbuncle had been tackle-hugged by Li and was now squirming ineffectively as a delighted Li hugged her tightly like a child with a favorite doll, but he eventually let go with a verbal prodding from Gil.
Kazue took comfort in the knowledge from Mordecai that this was the top end of the power they should ever see in an individual, barring things like very, very old dragons. He was in essentially the same tier as Aia and Traxalim, which made her rather glad that neither had challenged the dungeon. Her husband had promised that their raid bosses, and eventually their deepest floor bosses, would eventually be able to match that power, but they weren’t quite halfway there and growth was going to be a lot slower.
She hadn’t realized how powerful Aia was before she had this direct comparison. Sure, she knew that her matriarch had been terrifyingly powerful, but when you have no magic or combat prowess to speak of, that’s not a high bar. But now that she was getting a better idea of how strong people could actually be, she had a better grasp of how large the gap actually was.
The third floor caused Gil to snort with amusement. “Bunny soldiers? I know Mordecai too well to think they are soft, but they are still sort of hilariously cute.” Just for that, Kazue mentally encouraged the bunkin to send as many soldiers as they wanted. Gil tilted his head and then looked toward where her focus’s point of view was, “Oho, we are being watched. By the young mistress of the dungeon, I think. And I would guess that the rabbits are her influence.”
That, that was sort of terrifying. She’d never had anyone do that before. Were Aia and Traxalim capable of doing that too? Had they just been too circumspect to reveal it? Well, Aia had noticed them communicating before, but the way she’d said it suggested that she’d picked up more on body language. Maybe it could be both? Kazue went through several iterations of possibilities before she remembered to pay attention to her guests.
While her thoughts had been running, the duo had focused their attention back on the bunkin troops, and she realized only a moment had elapsed. Time was weird without her avatar to synchronize with. She could think so much faster when she was focused, but if there was nothing she was paying attention to, she could kind of drift, and time would flow by instead. At least she didn’t get the gray head-fuzz clouding her thoughts.
Even with reinforcements, the fight didn’t last a lot longer than the ones above had. Li was never quite where any attack landed, and even explosive spells cleared to find him somewhere else. Gil just seemed to barely sway enough to dodge attacks, and even batted the occasional projectile out of the air with little care if it was an arrow or bullet. He didn’t even seem to have any sort of fighting stance in place as he moved through the battlefield, slinging aside bunkin easily, and tossing the polecat cavalry mounts at the flying dracobits to take them down.
Kazue’s description perked Moriko’s interest, “That sounds like formless form.”
“It’s not an entirely accurate name, but anything accurate would be too long. The grand master of the monastery has mastered it, but I’ve only seen him demonstrate it in spars against other grandmasters. It’s more accurate to say that it is the compilation of all forms, mastering them so completely that you are always in a stance without actually having to be in the form of a stance. I can’t explain it better than that. But the way you describe him doesn’t sound like a monk otherwise. Didn’t the wolf girl describe him as a weapons master?”
“He’s both,” Mordecai interjected, “Or more accurately, he diversified when he couldn’t find a way to directly improve his swordsmanship and general battle prowess. This makes him more of a true weapons master than most who claim the title, but it’s a little unfair to compare against someone who has limited himself by the refusal to become a demigod.”
“Wait, what‽” Kazue and Moriko exclaimed together.
Mordecai’s amusement was clear in the tones of his mental voice, “I suppose I should have mentioned it before, I was rather taken off guard by him showing up. But yes, he has turned away from that path. He could have promoted his own legend, built himself up more, and started gathering hero worship and then true worship. He would have been able to take on that sort of faith. But he didn’t think he’d make a very good god. And to be honest, I agree. He was not a great king, from what I know. His battle prowess was great on the battlefield, but diplomacy, well, let’s just say that this is a more mature and wiser version of the man than when he was a king.”
“So, we have a nigh-demigod just wandering our dungeon?” Kazue asked incredulously.
“Aia and Traxalim are touching that edge as well. Traxalim has already turned away from immortality, but I suspect that once Aia does abdicate and is certain her heir has solidified her rule, Aia will become a wandering immortal too. I think she enjoys life in this world too much, and I don’t think she has the same level of longing to join others who wait in the afterlife.”
That was a lot to think about. But perhaps when the immortal in question wasn’t so casually leaving a trail of half-broken inhabitants in his wake. Judging by the way the mana flowed, Gil was putting in more effort in not actually killing them than in defeating them. Wait, “Um, Mordecai?”
He’d apparently noticed where her attention was focused, “Yes, he’s doing that deliberately. He’s not really gaining anything but entertainment by being dragged along, so expending the effort to not kill them both ensures that we retain the resources to host other delvers properly, and gives us more mana by his expending more effort.”
That was rather considerate. Kazue wondered how much of Mordecai’s gripes with the man was just the result of being old friends who feel the need to complain about each other. She’d never seen this side of him before.
The battle with Betty and Umbrowl was strange. Gil actually shifted into a stance to match Betty’s own and he gave her pointers to improve herself. It was the painful sort of pointers, to be sure, but Betty didn’t seem to mind. As for Umbrowl and Li…
“Ahhhhhhh!” Screamed the little ratling as he ran from the cat-owl hybrid and disappeared into another shadow. Umbrowl seemed a little confused but game to keep chasing the god shard through the shadows, though no matter how fast Umbrowl flew or dove, Li was somehow always just a little out of reach.
The boss fight for the floor ended when Gil plucked Umbrowl out of the air and held him up by the scruff of the neck. Betty was sitting on the floor, panting and bruised but grinning widely. Li appeared from a shadow and attached himself to Gil’s calf. “Oh, thank you thank you thank you, you saved me from the cat owl monster thing.” He glared up at Umbrowl and stuck out his tongue.
It was kind of appropriate that a little ratling would be scared by a combination of two major predators of rats and mice, which seemed to be how reality often tended to work around Li. And she knew that; Mordecai had said as much, but it was still weird to see it in action sometimes.
By the time they reached the library, the group that had been down there before had already cleared out. Kazue didn’t even have to tweak anything on this level, Gil’s own booming voice and laughter brought down the wrath of all the bunbrarians on his own, and he seemed amused when a biting word tried to chew on his finger, “Oh, Mordecai, having fun with the puns again already?” A bookwyrm swooped by to blast him with paper flechettes, but Gil flicked his hand, deftly breaking the animated book’s grip on his finger and sending it into the dragon-like construct.
The library boss fight was just sort of odd. The interaction between Gil and Biblios was a pretty straightforward battle that left damaged reams of paper everywhere, as the man demonstrated his strength by throwing the reams back at the paper dragon hard enough to make the reinforced bindings explode on impact. But as for Horace and Li, well, Kazue would judge Horace as having won that ‘battle’ if it was just the two of them. Li was humming happily as he messily colored in outline drawings that Horace had provided, having hemmed in the little ratling with lots of coloring and painting options.
Once Gil had subdued Biblios, he made his way over to Li to observe what was going on. Horace just shrugged and held out his hands, palms up, “Ook.”
Gil snorted, “Yeah, that works. Alright Li, I think it’s time to go. Other people need to be able to play too.”
Kazue was really curious about how the mushroom kingdom was going to go with these two running through it.