Belida let out a rough snort. His right arm muscles, thick as tree trunks, tensed up violently.
The giant knight tried to lift Garrick's burlap sack from the stone floor. His face turned red. That sack was purely filled with first grade iron ore chunks, red crystal shards, and hundreds of stolen gold coins. It easily weighed almost two hundred kilograms.
"Crazy," Belida cursed quietly. He dropped the sack back onto the floor with a loud thud. He was panting.
The wound on his chest had indeed closed up thanks to the high tier potion earlier. But lost blood couldn't come back in a matter of minutes. His strength wasn't fully recovered yet.
Kanos, who was leaning against the stone wall, turned his head. The guy sheathed Garrick's serrated blade onto his belt. He had finished checking the fake guide's corpse.
Turns out Garrick hid two high quality monster cores in a secret pocket inside his leather jacket. Kanos snatched all of it without leaving a single thing.
Kanos walked closer to Belida. He stared at the giant sack in front of them.
"Let my pet carry it," Kanos said casually.
Belida raised one heavily scarred eyebrow. He turned toward the shadow wolf monster that had been sitting quietly in the corner of the room this whole time.
"That monster is made of pure smoke, Nos," Belida reminded him. His tone sounded doubtful. "Its fangs might be able to tear steel. But its body doesn't have the physical density to drag a sack this heavy."
Kanos didn't answer. He just let out a soft sigh.
Kanos's brain immediately went to work. He activated his Structural Analysis lens. The dim room was once again filled with neon blue grid lines.
Kanos stared at the empty space next to his shadow wolf. His left index finger pointed up.
Leftover smoke ink from the gargoyle bat core was still sticking to his fingertip. Kanos started drawing lines in the air. One long horizontal line. Two curved lines underneath it.
His movements were incredibly fluid and precise. He wasn't drawing a shield or a weapon. He was drawing the anatomy of a simple wooden sled. Like a snow sled, but completely stripped of any decorations.
It only took five seconds. The air in front of Kanos vibrated violently. Dark purple smoke gathered, solidifying quickly following the frame of lines he drew.
Clack. A one meter wide sled dropped onto the stone floor. It was pitch black, made of solid shadow material. Complete with a thick harness strap at the front.
Kanos turned to his giant wolf. He gave a signal with a tilt of his chin.
The savage monster instantly stood up obediently. It walked closer and slipped its own head into the shadow sled's harness. A perfect fit.
Belida stood frozen stiff. The giant's mouth hung open slightly. He stared at the sled, then stared at Kanos with a look like he was seeing a madman.
"Lift the sack onto that," Kanos ordered while pointing at his sled.
Without saying much, Belida lifted Garrick's burlap sack and placed it on top of the sled. The shadow wolf didn't even look like it struggled to hold the weight.
"Let's move," Kanos said. He started walking into the dark ascending corridor. "I don't want to sleep near Garrick's rotting corpse."
Belida grabbed his black steel sword lying near a pile of rocks. He sheathed the heavy weapon on his back, then walked to catch up with Kanos. The sled pulling shadow wolf walked calmly between the two of them.
The journey up to the surface began.
This secret corridor was incredibly narrow and steep. The smell of sulfur still stung the nose, making their chests feel tight every time they took a deep breath.
The first hour passed in total silence. There was only the sound of their boots stepping and the scraping of the shadow sled against the stone floor.
The combat adrenaline in Kanos's body slowly started to recede. Once that adrenaline was gone, the real exhaustion came crashing down like a sledgehammer.
Kanos walked with slumped shoulders. His legs felt like jelly. The stab scar on his right palm throbbed painfully every time it touched the cold air.
He remembered the moment he fell to the bottom of the abyss. He remembered the darkness of the dungeon's lowest floor. And he remembered the metallic smell of Garrick's blood on his own hands.
Kanos looked down, staring at his palm in silence. The knife blade shaped scar pattern was incredibly ugly. His hand would never be smooth again. He would never forget who made it like this.
"That monster," Belida broke the silence. His deep voice echoed softly in the stone corridor.
Kanos didn't look back. He kept his focus on the rocky path ahead. "What about it? My pet?"
Belida glanced at the Shadow Wolf walking beside him. Dark purple smoke kept billowing from the beast's body. Its cold aura was a sharp contrast to the heat of the sixth floor.
"I have fought in a lot of places before being thrown into this city," Belida spoke in a formal yet serious tone. "I have seen top tier ice mages. I have seen master level spirit summoners."
Belida paused for a moment. He stared intently at Kanos's back.
"But I have never seen magic breaking the rules of logic as severely as what you just did. Creating a living creature from a dead core stone... that is an anomaly."
Kanos let out a small laugh. A laugh that sounded incredibly dry and sarcastic.
"The rules of logic in this world have been absolute trash from the start, Belida. The system gave me a crippled class with a name full of question marks and error letters."
Kanos stopped his tracks for a second. He looked back, staring straight into the knight's blue eyes.
"Besides, when I fell to the bottom of that pit, not a single god or system cared. So now I am making my own rules."
Belida swallowed hard hearing that. He could see the emptiness in the young man's eyes. The Kanos standing here right now was completely a hundred and eighty degrees different from the panicked painter he met a few days ago.
"If the Marrath gate guards see this monster, you will be arrested immediately," Belida warned seriously. "The Sensors from the capital will definitely step in. They are the kingdom's tracking dogs specially assigned to hunt down system anomalies like you."
Kanos started walking again. He didn't look intimidated at all.
"I will melt this wolf down before we reach the main gate," Kanos replied casually. "As for the Sensors... just let them come. I need a lot of new ink materials to experiment on."
Belida could only shake his head slowly. The giant knight pulled another faint smile. His choice of alliance had apparently landed on the craziest person in all of Yomalvara.
The journey continued past floor five and four. The further up they went, the more humane the temperature felt. The cave corridors gradually became brighter thanks to the blue glowing mushrooms on the walls.
They started running into packs of mid tier monsters. Ten shell wolves and a few cave bats blocked the main path on the third floor.
In the past, Kanos would have definitely ordered Belida to step up as a meat shield while he trembled in the back.
But now it was different.
Kanos didn't even bother to lift a finger. He just kept walking.
The sled pulling Shadow Wolf behind Kanos let out a low growl. Just one soft growl. But the mana pressure from that level 60 mutant monster instantly swept through the entire corridor.
The pack of shell wolves in front of them instantly howled in terror. Those low level creatures immediately scattered, crashing into the cave walls just to avoid Kanos's group.
Belida didn't need to draw his sword at all. Their path was blown wide open without a single drop of blood spilled.
Kanos smirked slightly. It felt incredibly satisfying seeing the monsters that nearly killed him before now running in terror just from seeing his shadow. The power scaling in this world was finally starting to side with him.
A few hours later, the rocky incline finally started to level out.
A cold wind carrying the distinct smell of firewood, cheap booze, and horse shit began to hit them clearly. Slightly greenish morning sunlight pierced through from the giant gap in the distance.
Kanos and Belida picked up their pace. Their leg muscles screamed in protest, but the view ahead was too beautiful to ignore.
They finally stepped out of the giant cave mouth.
The deafening noise of thousands of merchants, the clinking of blacksmith hammers, and the shouts of drunk adventurers immediately slammed into their ears. Hundreds of giant iron chains hung from the crater's rim toward the stone pillar in the middle of the city.
The iron gates of Marrath city stood strong not far from their position. Four heavily armed guards could be seen checking the cargo carts of returning adventurers.
Kanos stopped walking. He closed his eyes and took a very deep breath. Enjoying the fresh air that finally entered his lungs.
He survived. He was actually alive.
Kanos snapped his left fingers. The shadow wolf and the sled behind him instantly melted into black smoke, then faded completely into thin air.
The burlap sack full of treasure dropped to the dirt with a loud thud.
"Lift the sack, knight," Kanos said, smiling at Belida. He pointed toward the city gates with his thumb. "We are renting the most expensive inn today."