Ryan stumbled down the steps of the basement. He was bleeding from his arm after the fight against the vampire, and probably broke his finger while being punched by that gargoyle. His ankle also felt pretty rough, though it was unsure if it was because that zombie that broke through the floorboards and grabbed him, or the giant spider that got his foot trapped in its web in the study.

  "It's fine, don't worry about me. There should just be five or six more monsters, and then we're good to go," Ryan said, trying to calm down Maximus. The knight was looking at him a bit anxiously, since Ryan was getting more and more beat up, "Just stop looking at me like that. It's not like you're looking much better. You're all dented up, too."

  Maximus looked down at his body and shrugged. Clearly, he didn't quite care. Of course, it wasn't totally the same, since Maximus could be 'healed' pretty easily as long as Ryan just polished up the armour a bit, so there was no need to worry all that much. But Ryan's recovery would take a lot longer, and they didn't have the healer on call anymore. Then again, he really didn't feel like going back into a dungeon anytime soon after today anyway.

  But for the time being, he just had to push through. Almost all the monsters, beside the one in the attic, were about the same level of strength. They just had their own gimmicks that made them a bit harder to deal with than others. After killing all those other monsters so far, it was clear that they would be able to make their way out of here. Sure, he might get a bit bruised up, but that shouldn't be an issue in the long run. Actually, Gregor was levelling up a good bit in here too. He was close to getting to level 10 already.

  Hopefully, by the end of the haunted house, they would get him there. That would be at least a slight reward for what happened here today.

  Ryan looked around when he got into the basement. There wasn't anything here. Every room had to have a monster in it. Technically it was random which ones you got, but there still had to be something in every room. So... Ryan was a bit concerned.

  "Oh no, please don't tell me..." he said to himself. As he spoke, he could see his own breath. The room was cold; freezing. He had a pretty good guess as to what they were dealing with now, "It's a ghost..."

  Usually, this would be an incredibly tough opponent for Ryan right now. Ghosts were immune to physical attacks, and could only be taken out by magic. Magic that they couldn't use right now. Jester did have some magical attacks in his repertoire, apparently, but Jester couldn't use magic right now. Even Maximus' elemental attacks didn't work, since those effects were based on aura, and hence counted as 'physical' in these categories. But there was one exception. And that was the holy energy that was imbued into Maximus' attacks now that he was wearing some of the paladin armour.

  The only issue was that it was going to be tough to find the ghost. He quickly squatted down and gathered together some dust into his hand. Ryan could already hear some creaking around him, and the air picking up and rushing toward him. And so, he stood up and threw the dust into the air. The spectre just so slightly pushed the dust to the side, showing its outline. Maximus jumped onto Ryan's knee and right at the ghost. He cut through the disfigured face's outline.

  The ghost screamed; it was ear shattering. Ryan pulled back to try and dodge it, but that was barely even necessary. The outline already faded away, and simply passed through him.

  While ghosts were immune to physical attacks, they were extremely vulnerable to attacks that could hit them. And so, the combination of Maximus' nemesis and attack skills layered on top of the holy energy, was enough to take down the ghost. Ryan let out a relieved sigh, "Thank the gods that we got you that paladin armour beforehand."

  [You have killed the level 18 -Ghost Maid-]

  He said with a smile on his face, watching as a few coins and an extra item, a small key, were being created in the place where the ghost once floated. The key was the item that he was looking for right now. The position was completely random each time, but one of the monsters would be carrying a key that was needed to open the lock on the attic's door. Of course, since Ryan was planning on killing all of the monsters in here anyway, he would find the key sooner or later, but it was still a bit nerve-racking.

  That being the case, it was time for him to make his way back upstairs. Just a couple more monsters to go before they faced the next area boss.

  "I hope Modak and Silvia are holding out well..."

  "Your aura? What's going on? Why would it..?" Silvia asked, concerned while Modak struggled to enter a proper rhythm.

  "Mhm... I think the... uhm... Okay, my aura is 'flowing' sort of, ever since Ryan unclogged it," he said, flinching slightly, straining himself to continue "And now, uhm... those electroshocks were like ripples on the aura... And there were so many ripples that they turned into... Urgh, waves, I would say?"

  "And what, those waves are tearing you apart from the inside?"

  "... Basically?" Modak strenuously forced out a laugh, "I just need to... I need to try and calm them down a bit."

  "Is there anything I can do? Do you need anything to help you with that?"

  Modak shook his head, "No, I'm fine, thanks... Just let me concentrate for a bit..."

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  Silvia nodded, taking a step back to directly give the orc a bit of space. He closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths. Though, dungeon air was filled with so much mana that it made it even harder for Modak to try and control his aura. The mana that he breathed in was trying to push its way out through his lungs, really just making the waves of aura inside of him stronger.

  But maybe... maybe he could take advantage of that. Right now, he was at a rhythm where he was just making the waves stronger. Instead, maybe if Modak introduced mana to his body at just the right moment, he could interrupt the waves instead of strengthening them further. Like a rhythm game inside of his own body.

  And so, he held his breath for a moment, looking into himself. Ever since the mass of aura lodged in his chest was pushed out, Modak had been able to feel his aura to some degree. It wasn't a lot, but it was hopefully enough for him to do this much at least. The waves were pushing out from so many parts of his body, like there was still something causing them. The orc focused on his arms, and could feel slight tingling emanating from there.

  It felt like he was still being hit with periodic, weak pulses of that electrical mana from earlier. Like tiny spikes were stuck in his skin. The waves were starting from those points, pushing outward and bouncing around inside of his body, tearing apart whatever they came across. But if that was the case, then he at least knew the main source of these waves and could figure out the rhythm. He was able to beat that super hard rhythm game in the arcade earlier, so this should be easy.

  At exactly the right moment, Modak took a single deep breath. The air flowed into his lungs and the mana diffused in it escaped out through his body, breaking through some of the larger waves of aura. After this, Modak pulled in some short, light breaths that were just enough to whittle down on the rest of the waves that were assaulting him from the inside.

  At some point, it felt like he had managed to calm everything down enough, but as soon as he relaxed, he noticed the waves starting up again from his fingertips. Without the pain of the stronger waves distracting him, he was able to really pinpoint the parts where the mana was flowing into him from. It looked like he was right; there were some residue 'spikes' in his skin that were constantly creating weak pulses of electrical mana. His hands were so numb that he hadn't been able to feel them physically. Modak just had to try and push them out, and he would be fine. But until he did that, those spikes would just continue creating waves in Modak's aura that would soon become worse and worse again.

  But as Modak was focusing on himself and his own body, Silvia was focused on what was going on outside. She was hearing voices. Peeking out through the boarded up windows, she tried to see who or what it was.

  A gnome in a pitch black suit was walking around, followed by a half-dozen robots and a man carrying numerous weapons. Silvia was scared. She had somewhat learned how to handle a gun from Yamada, and while she was a great teacher, Silvia wasn't exactly the best at it. She just had a small handgun. Sure, it was magically strengthened, but it definitely wasn't strong enough to defend herself and Modak against the threat outside on the road.

  Holding her hand in front of her mouth, Silvia tried to make as little noise as possible. She stared outside, and then felt her heart skip a beat. One of the robots turned its head toward the gift shop's building.

  Richard stopped and looked at it as well, but didn't seem all too interested. Just waving his hand, it seemed like he told the robot to check it out alone. Which, frankly, wasn't any better.

  Silvia and Modak couldn't beat one of those! Even Ryan had a tough time, so how could they ever hope to do this? Not to mention, Modak wasn't even able to move a lot right now.

  With every step that the robot took forward, Silvia grew more and more anxious. What was she supposed to do? Would her gun be able to even pierce the robot's protective plating? Even if she did manage to take it down, Richard would immediately come running in here and finish her off. She knew that he wasn't scared to kill.

  Anxiously, Silvia took a step back, hitting a table on accident. It made a loud thump. The robot definitely heard that, didn't it?

  "Oh gods..." Silvia whispered. She could feel her heart almost stopping out of fear. Pressing her hand against her chest, as if trying to check that it was still beating, Silvia backed away over to Modak. But instead of feeling her own heartbeat, she felt something else. It was her brush. The one that she got from this very gift shop they were hiding in right now.

  Something sparked into her head. An idea of sort - an inspiration the source of which Silvia couldn't pinpoint. She grabbed her brush and pulled open the three pigment jars. Silvia knew that it shouldn't work like this, but her body moved on its own. The dark room was slightly lit up by the glow of her eyes, shifting with purple, pink, and blue.

  Silvia dunked the tip of the brush into one of the pigment jars. The pigment soaked into the brush, colouring it a deep yellow. She then dunked it into the red, and it turned a deep orange, mixing together. And then, with some more blue, and some more yellow, and just a slight amount more red, the bristles of Silvia's brush had taken on the colour of the old, dark wood that made up this entire shop.

  She had seen how Ryan's uncle drew runes into the air. If he could do it, then why couldn't she? Quickly, she held the brush into the air and started to paint. Silvia didn't even know what it was she was trying to paint right now. Her body practically moved on instinct.

  An image of shadow-covered wood was painted into the air. Board by board, detail by detail. Silvia kept dunking the brush into the pigments to adjust the colour bit by bit. Before long, Silvia was looking at a new wooden wall in front of her.

  They were in the corner of the room already, and were now hidden by another, fake wall. Silvia could hear the door open up, and the light footsteps of a Roxie unit walking around the space. It was getting so close that Silvia knew that it was standing just on the other side of this fake wall. To make sure it couldn't hear them, she pressed her palm onto not just her own mouth, but also Modak's to stop both of them from breathing for a short while. He was startled and confused, but he played along when he realised that something weird was going on.

  It felt like an eternity that they were stuck behind the fake wall. But soon, the footsteps made their way back over to the door and left the space. Just to be certain, Silvia and Modak stayed still and silent for a little while longer. Just a couple more minutes. And when they were finally sure that the Roxie unit was absolutely, surely gone, and that Richard would be too far away to hear them talk now, Silvia finally relaxed, breathing heavily.

  "What happened? What's going on?" Modak asked, straining himself as he tried to get his breathing under control. Though, he was already feeling a lot better, at least for the time being.

  Silvia didn't quite understand it herself. She looked down at her hands and the brush she was holding, feeling a little woozy.

  "I... I don't..." she explained, slowly looking in front of herself. The fake wall that she had drawn into the air was falling apart into dust, almost like when a dungeon monster did. But beyond that wall, she was seeing a system message that she hadn't noticed until now.

  [Congratulations! Due to extenuating circumstances and extreme stress, you have awakened a new skill! You have learned the -Artist's Incarnation- Skill!]

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