Chapter 009
Chapter 9. Deadly Poison
‘I’m actually going insane. What on earth is even happening right now?’
I desperately needed the status window’s intervention and an explanation of the current situation.
[▋▋⎕⎕⎕⎕⎕⎕⎕⎕]
[Possess%@ and soul!: self & soul $☆! One★@# $⋯ Issue% $#/>@!. Designated &max#% @ also max※ &% #* body @#& change% ☆ @# ★!? Skill& re#%@.]
But the status window remained stubbornly unhelpful, displaying only the gauge bar and a chaotic mess of corrupted text.
‘At least one more bar filled up.’
Before I could even complete that fleeting thought, the black aura surrounding the villain began to writhe once more.
“…!”
I flailed in a panic, and that damned human—his face already deathly pale—plopped me right back on top of his head.
Then, he spoke.
“If you want to emerge from this place alive, purify the incoming curses and poisons.”
“…”
That was it.
The two earlier “experiments” hadn’t been mere cruelty; they were performance tests.
Tests to determine whether I would be a functional asset in clearing this unknown dungeon or not!
“Squeeeee sque squeeeeeak!!” (You absolute bastard, you’re using me as a living gas-mask filter!!)
I shrieked in fury while reflexively gathering his hair into a white-knuckled grip.
Because normally, until a dungeon is fully conquered, nothing and no one can leave.
Hoo.
I took a massive, lung-filling breath, and the thick miasma of poison and curses clinging to him began flowing into me all at once.
I felt the metallic, acrid liquid seeping into the corners of my mouth.
The volume was overwhelming; it was clearly placing a severe strain on my tiny, fragile mouse body.
But I couldn’t afford to back down.
I wiped my nose with a short front paw and inhaled deeply once more.
‘Fine. If that’s how it’s going to be, I’ll purify every last drop of curse and poison in here and restore that damn status window!’
Once the status window returned to normal, a weakened final boss would be nothing to me. Sitting on his head and puppeteering him would no longer be a distant dream!
‘Alright. Let’s do this!’
I clenched my teeth and hugged an armful of the villain’s jet-black hair.
Thanks to “me,” Calix Neferto was able to maintain his sanity and move with lethal speed.
“Eclipse.”
At his summons, a broken bastard sword tore through the air and materialized.
His beloved demonic sword, Eclipse—the very one I had snapped in half a few days ago.
He snatched the hilt and immediately swung it horizontally in a sweeping arc.
Whooosh.
The powerful sword-wind dispersed the thick poisonous fog, revealing the end of the corridor where white flames flickered.
Calix raised the hand not occupied by the sword above his head.
His massive palm covered me like an umbrella.
‘What the— You shoved poison down my throat earlier, and now you’re pretending to be protective? Too late!’
I sulked and twitched my nose, but he ignored me completely and charged toward the exit at a terrifying velocity, throwing himself forward without hesitation.
The moment we breached the “corridor,” the view expanded exponentially.
But the situation took an instantaneous turn for the worse.
An endlessly vast space lay before us, completely saturated with lethal poison.
Black vapor spewed from the sodden ground; rivers of venom snaked through toxic vegetation.
Poisonous spores from gargantuan mushrooms hung in the air like fog, while snakes, scorpions, spiders, and centipedes—every imaginable venomous creature—writhed together in a chaotic, undulating mass.
“…”
I froze like a statue, paralyzed with horror.
That’s right.
This dungeon was filled with enough “poison” to liquidate the entire world ten times over.
‘Th-that’s disgusting!!!!’
I usually have a strong stomach for hardcore gore, but I possess one fatal weakness: arthropods.
In that sense, this place—crawling with every genus of venomous insect—was on a completely different level of nightmarish cruelty compared to the 66 dungeons I’d cleared before.
I shuddered and attempted to avert my gaze—when a strange ripple vibrated through the air.
【Corrosion】
A sphere of pure darkness, as if woven from the very essence of shadow, touched the ground teeming with venomous creatures.
Pssht.
Everything in the immediate vicinity instantly reduced to ash and vanished.
But that was all.
The dungeon was terrifyingly immense, and the number of venomous creatures within was astronomical.
“Magic is out of the question.”
The villain muttered expressionlessly, tightening his grip on the jagged remains of his sword.
Then, he leapt straight into the horrific, teeming orgy of nameless poisonous insects.
‘W-wait, what the—?!’
…And I, still perched precariously on his head, was helplessly dragged into that living hell with him.
Chunks of sliced insect carcasses flew everywhere; venomous blood and viscid bodily fluids splattered in all directions.
Normally, I’d have fainted ten times over, yet the reason I remained relatively sane…
I hate to admit it, but it was entirely thanks to Calix Neferto.
Shwick. Slaaash.
The demonic sword Eclipse, birthed from shadow, carved perfect arcs through the air.
Wherever it passed, elegant darkness lingered like a haunting afterimage.
His swordsmanship was less “combat” and more “art”—clean, precise, without a single wasted motion.
His long black hair fluttered behind him as he danced with light, graceful footwork.
I couldn’t fathom why those black trajectories stood out so vividly in a world filled with nothing but darkness.
‘Does the Mark of Binding have some sort of visual-enhancement side effect…?’
I momentarily lost myself, blankly staring at the mystical scene he was painting amidst the carnage.
Slip.
The moment my grip loosened and his hair nearly slipped from my paws—
A rough yet careful hand snagged the nape of my neck.
“Purify.”
The short, sharp command snapped me back to reality; I frantically hugged his hair again and buried my face in it, inhaling deeply.
In. Out. In. Out.
…Sob. I feel like a total pervert right now.
Desperate to forget the sudden wave of depression, I forced my mind elsewhere.
Then, a small question surfaced.
‘Wait. He’s the Apostle of Ruin—why the hell is he clearing a dungeon?’
According to the old status window, dungeons in this world were preparations for the apocalypse.
They were tools designed to trigger dungeon breaks on doomsday and completely annihilate civilization.
Therefore, Calix Neferto, as a faithful servant of ruin, should be protecting and nurturing this dungeon, not conquering it.
‘Something’s off.’
I couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that I was missing a crucial piece of the puzzle.
‘What is it…?’
While I furrowed my brow in deep thought—
“…Hah. Hah, huu.”
The sound of ragged breathing brushed my ears, snapping me awake.
The suspicious villain was swinging his sword while gasping, his breath reaching his chin.
I could see the tip of his once-perfectly steady blade trembling with fatigue.
“Tch!” (Tch!)
I clicked my tongue audibly.
‘This guy is exhausted.’
And it was no wonder.
He had consumed the Essence of Ruin to recover, only to suffer a violent rampage as a side effect.
Even without knowing the medical details, his internal organs must be a total mess right now.
‘On top of that, he ran all the way here without a moment’s rest to evade the allied forces, and now he’s attempting to clear a dungeon solo…’
Meanwhile, the dungeon continued to teem with poisonous creatures.
‘He’s killed so many, and yet there’s no visible change—that means they’re being endlessly replenished from somewhere…’
I gritted my teeth and scanned the surroundings.
Sky, trees, rivers of venom.
My gaze slowly swept over the dungeon’s components and finally landed on the earth.
The ground, spewing toxic vapor, rippled for a fleeting moment—then swallowed the scorpion corpse the weakened villain had just sliced open.
“…!”
That was it.
I knew it instantly.
Without a second thought, I leapt off Calix Neferto’s head.
“Wait, you—!”
He reached for me in surprise, but I flipped mid-air, dodging his hand with practiced ease, and landed perfectly on all fours.
Then, I slammed both adorable front paws straight onto the grayish ground.
Every venomous creature charging at me was instantly diced by the suspicious villain, allowing me to focus entirely on the “ground.”
Hoo.
I inhaled deeply, and a tidal wave of pitch-black “deadly poisonous curse” surged into me.
The earth beneath my feet shuddered violently.
Cough.
‘…It seems that trivia about mice being unable to vomit was a blatant lie.’
I smiled bitterly at the tiny pool of blood I’d just coughed up.
I had absorbed far too much curse for my diminutive body to handle.
I think I caught a glimpse of Calix’s face stiffening as he frantically swung his sword to protect me.
But I didn’t stop purifying.
If I didn’t clear this dungeon, I had no future anyway.
Thanks to the Mark of Binding, I couldn’t even abandon this human and flee alone.
I forced down the metallic taste of blood and steeled my resolve.
Being able to “absorb” curses meant I could, to some extent, “control” them.
‘Then I should be able to process them too!’
If the problem was the sheer volume I needed to purify, I could just compress it—reduce the mass.
Compress. Concentrate. Condense. Squeeze, filter, wring it out.
Within the hazy sensation, like wandering through a thick fog, a tiny thread brushed my fingertips.
‘Ah…!’
The instant I grabbed it—
KWAAAAAHHH——!
The ground convulsed as if having a seizure, then split open.
From the fissure, a house-sized snake head burst forth.
And it shot straight toward me.
