Chimera Tunnels (4)

A faint wind blew throughout the camp, spreading the smell of burnt flesh, the acrid scent of vomit, and the stinging bite of alcohol.

The grating sound of snoring could be heard despite the small size of the sleeping figures.

As the bonfire continued to die, shrouding the pixie camp in a darkness illuminated only by dying flames, Cyril snapped the thin restraints on his wrists, stretching his strained shoulders before using his pen to cut through the bindings on his legs.

As blood rushed into them, leaving behind a prickly sensation, he glanced at the man beside him, who had remained silent for the past several hours while his cold eyes stared at him like prey.

Meeting the dark eyes, Cyril blinked before grabbing the small pile of darts pushed up by the earth before whispering.

"Good luck on your escape."

Without waiting for a response, he slowly tiptoed to the closest pixie that had fallen over from overdrinking and promptly stabbed three darts into its face.

As its breathing stuttered and slowed down as it started gasping, Cyril flipped it over carefully, forcing its face into the ground with a gentle push and stabbing in more darts until its breathing finally stopped and it lay still.

About 6 darts? 7 without the additional help in suffocating, and about 10 minutes until death.

Noting the number, Cyril removed his shirt from the pixie, grabbed the darts and vials it had on its person, and continued to move to the next collapsed one.

One.

Two.

Three pixies died like that.

Their colorful wings fluttered faintly in their final moments before falling still and losing their luster.

As Cyril prepared to put another one into permanent sleep, his eyes met the man who had continued stalking him silently before he made an offer in an exasperated tone.

"It takes about 6-7 darts to kill them. As you can see, coins don't pop out when I kill things, and probably won't pop out if you kill me, so let's team up for efficiency's sake. If I stick five darts in, and you finish the job. You can get a lot of coins, and we can finish the job faster. All I want is to leave safely and get my stuff back. What say you?"

The man stared at him in silence for a while before spitting out two cold words.

"Get moving."

Cyril moved.

He tiptoed as quietly as he could, collecting and sticking darts into the pixies while retrieving his clothes from those who had them.

As he paused to catch his breath and stretch his cramped legs, he couldn't help but watch the man dressed in black, who seemed to be a shadow of death.

He seemed to be teleporting from body to body, quickly sticking the darts in and absorbing the crystals that popped out before appearing next to another pixie and eliminating it.

He was moving so fast that at times, he shoved Cyril out of the way to eliminate the pixie before moving on.

Seeing that he was moving so efficiently, Cyril didn't bother touching any more pixies.

Instead, he stood by a crude tent which was almost double his size and quite large, opened his employee store, and tried to exchange the whole tent.

It was technically made of dungeon flora, so he didn't see why it wouldn't work.

Placing his hand on it, he activated the exchange.

The employee store seemed to be buffering for a bit, but eventually the entire tent disappeared, leaving the dead bodies and items behind, and 20,000 life energy coins were added to his total.

Not believing his eyes, Cyril repeated the process, gaining only 18,000 life energy coins on a smaller tent.

He then separated the materials he wanted from the two pixies and tried to exchange them.

Their bodies quickly disappeared, and a singular life energy coin was deposited in his account.

So it could work like this? Or was this just an unfixed glitch?

Hiding a laugh that wanted to burst out, Cyril began roaming around, exchanging the tents and dead bodies for life energy coins.

Feeling happiness at finding a low-effort way to grow his account balance, Cyril even smiled generously at the man who kept throwing him strange looks.

By the time the "sun" began rising, Cyril had collected an impressive array of blow guns, vials of poison neutralizers, and quivers filled with darts, all stuffed into a surprisingly nice leaf satchel.

Additionally, the grove was completely clear of tents and pixie bodies, leaving behind the bonfire, barrels containing alcohol, and other miscellaneous items.

The most prominent structure standing in the suddenly open clearing was a giant tent, into which the large, muscular pixie had entered with several female pixies at some point during their revelry.

Now the only thing that could be heard from the tent was a ground-shaking snore.

Cyril and the man in the black body suit ended up near the tent, almost as if they had agreed to it.

The man was dressed like an assassin in a movie. He was in all black and had numerous blow darts, knives, and swords strapped to his body.

In comparison, Cyril, dressed in his usual white clothes with his compact leaf satchel, looked like he was in a different movie genre.

As he walked past the last tent, Cyril didn't know what the man was planning, but he still hadn't found his shovel.

Although it pained him to lose the multi-tool, he would just take the loss and leave.

He had more than accomplished what he set out to do, and anything more would be greedy.

Let's properly get out of here before the big boss wakes up or anything else comes back.

"Aren't you going to store this with your subspace ability, too?" a low voice called out to Cyril as he was pouring an antidote down the throat of a woman.

Cyril glanced up at the man, watching as he circled the tent with a short sword out.

The man seemed to have mistaken the exchange with the employee store for a subspace ability.

Since he didn't plan on correcting him, Cyril shook his head before dumping the antidote into the mouth of the last person and cutting them free.

"Nope. Thanks for your help. Goodbye."

Without looking back, Cyril pulled up his map and began sprinting as fast as possible in the opposite direction of the large tent.

He was completely uninterested in what the man planned to do.

If you want to attack, please wait until I am a hundred miles away or in a different dimension.

Unfortunately, before he could leave the large grove where the pixies lived, he heard a furious scream, and then the plants that surrounded the grove began quickly growing inward and upwards. As if they were trying to cage something in.

Cyril briefly tried to use his landscape skills to move them, but it felt like trying to move a brick wall, so he gave up.

"Nope, nope, nope. Let's turn around."

Smoothly pivoting on one foot, Cyril made a U-turn and started browsing the employee store for something that could help him out while running back the way he came.

As he headed back and was about to duck behind a large barrel of alcohol, his eyes saw the giant pixie flying in the air while holding a vicious-looking two-pronged spear.

The spear was made out of a bamboo-like material, and what looked like sharpened green wing pieces that shone with a deadly light.

The yellow wings sparkled and refracted the light in a way that was blinding, and as Cyril watched, the spear struck the man wearing the black body suit, launching him across the clearing and slamming him into the ground before it turned toward him.

"Grahjkdhkjsajsdhahdjasjasda!!!!!!!!!!"

As it screamed gibberish at him, Cyril could only understand that it was cursing him while questioning where its people had disappeared to.

As if he were being arrested, Cyril put both of his hands up before replying.

"Uhh, I come in peace? It had nothing to do with me. I just got here."

The large pixie's eyes glanced at the pack strapped across his back and the elaborate blow gun loaded with a dart in his hand; no words needed to be said.

With no shame on his face, Cyril tucked the blow gun into his back pocket and gave as sincere a reply as he could manage.

"What? I can't have a souvenir I found on the floor? Don't be stingy."

Grahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!

A wordless shriek was the only response.