<~> Chapter 118My eyes darted to the ers and to the ceiling. I remembered the shadow horrors that liked to blend into hard-to-see areas. Actually, I'll do oer. I cast a [Light Orb] that glowed bright enough to light up the ers of the room. It was still broad daylight outside but the differen light levels made it hard to see all the dark spots a monster could be hiding in. The loud thumping from upstairs tinued. Walking through the house made my palm feel sweaty on my swrip.

  Once I was sure that nothing was going to surprise us from behind, I walked further into the house. It was a rather spacious house with multiple rooms on the first floor. It wasn't some kind of apartment building like I had been expeg from the size of the pce, it must have been a house for someone pretty affluent and their family. We walked through the kit but there wasn't anything useful there from a ghere were some vegetables but they had bee out and were wilted now. They weren't as rotten as this building was starting to look but also not something anyone would want to eat either.

  After a few minutes of searg, we found the stairs. Like the rotting wood of the walls, they also looked like they were decrepit and falling apart. Not very reassuring for something that o hold your weight. The tinuous heavy thumping of whatever stairs and the sturdy-looking stone supports built into the walls gave me enough fidehey wouldn't pletely fall apart when I climbed up them.

  I peeked up the stairs and into the sed-floor passage. There was light up there, probably from windows, but I couldn't see much else from where I was standing. I g my two party members. Man had small pearls of fire floating arouaff and Bel was tightly holding her scepter in front of her like a mace, ready to defend herself.

  I crept up the stairs, careful to keep my sword in front of me and my hand against the wall to brace myself in the event something decided to run dowairs just as we were going up. When I reached the top of the stairs I peeked around the er and saw what looked like a hugely fat monster with bloated rotten flesh, making the disgusting creature look more like a zombie than a demon. It was obvious at a ghat it was a demon though, it had rge twisted horns and its body exuded the same kind of miasma demons carried.

  I frowned, I wish I had a shield right now. This monster looked like it would be challenging to fight. It was heavy, I didn't want to try to block its attacks head-on but that would make it hard to trol the fight without leaving the irls open. I backed off before the monster noticed me and leaned in to whisper to my party members.

  "The monster up there is big, I'm not sure I hold it in pce. Could either of you stop it from moving?" I asked.

  Man looked around, likely looking for what mana was avaible. Bel examihe wood for a few moments before looking disappointed.

  Man was the first to whisper a reply, "The only mana that's around right now is fire and I don't think I would be able to do much with earth on these floors. I could maybe try to pin the monster ih earth spikes. It's not something I've practiced much but it shouldn't be all that different from using ice for the same purpose."

  I looked at Bel who shook her head. "There's nothing here for my magic to t to. Short of throwing poison at it, I don't think I could do much either. Should we wait for the others?"

  I sidered it for a moment. It seems none of us were well suited to fighting ihese buildings but the monster didn't actually seem that strong to me. Maybe there was merit ione spikes idea, the floor seemed sturdy enough to take it despite how aged the wood was looking.

  "I help!" Mimi's voice was enthusiastic but thankfully quiet enough not to carry. "I help you stop it from moving while we fight it, we attack it from both sides!"

  I wasn't too worried about Mimi but we hadn't practiced fighting in a group before. I had to admit the fidence I was feeling from her through our bond was iious though.

  I decided to trust her. "Okay, let's do it. I'll go in first and try to grab its attention. After that, you try and disable it from behind."

  Bel took a step away from me and Mimi flowed out from her pce around my neck. A moment ter her eyes hardened into the faceted gems they once were and her arms formed dangerous-looking doointed bdes that ected directly to her hands. She reminded me somewhat of a praying mantis, pretty cool but I could tell that it would be really unnerving to someone who wasn't as familiar with her. Maybe it was a good thing Silva wasn't here with us right now.

  Once everyone was ready I stepped through the door. I wasn't making muoise but once I got a certain distance from it the mourned right towards me like it could suddenly sense my presence.

  The monster had a face that looked like it had melted, the skin on its face had pulled away from its skull and hung like a disgusting sheet that pooled into a blob around its neck. Its toothy mouth opened and the thing screeched, thankfully it wasn't near as awful as the banshee from earlier. It began to hobble toward me with loud thumps every step but it was surprisingly slow. I sidestepped the monster and sshed its side, getting a good hit in right at the start. Mimi was now behind it and sshed at the back of its legs. Mimi was fast, making the parison to a praying mantis all the more apt. She was cutting the monster with lightning-quick sshes but the monster's hide was too thick for her to pee more than superficially. The attacks did gather the monster's attention though, even with its melted expression I got the se was pissed.

  The monster roared and flung itself around trying to catch Mimi with its fat arms but Mimi dodged and stepped outside the range of the monster's attacks without any trouble. Mimi was faster than I was, she had probably put a lot of her stat points into speed. I cast [Bde Waltz] and took over the task to disable it while Mimi kept its attention. A quick mental nudge and the two of us were in sync, sing tacti an instant.

  With both hands on my sword I had enough leverage to cut deeper into the monster's legs than Mimi could. I was searg for a tendon to cut and hag away at the flesh and muscle hiding them from me. Mimi seemed to be a master of holding its focus. Each time I would ssh through its leg while looking for a way to disable it, Mimi sshed and stabbed into the monster's body, taking its focus back from me in an instant. While we were fighting the small pearls of fire exploded into hat shoved into the fat monster and faded to nothing before they could catything else in the room. I know magic fire was more trolled and wasn't likely to burn the building down uionally but that knowledge didn't make the fmes that spshed off the monster any less reassuring. I trusted my party though, Man knew what she was doing so I didn't spare it ahought.

  I got a particurly good ssh in and it caused the moo stumble and fall to one knee. Mimi reacted to the opening by trying to skewer the monster's eyes with her bde arms but the monster was quick to protect its face with the thicker skin of its arm. The monster had a much worse time proteg itself from me while blog her attack though and I took the opportunity to shove my sword deep into the back of its neck, severing its spine and killing it instantly. I received the kill notification before I could even pull out my sword.

  [Your party has defeated a hungering corpse]

  The monster slumped forward dispersing inte burst of miasma that quickly faded away. On the floor where the body had slumped was another miasma orb about half the size of my fist. Maybe the size of a rge marble? I picked it up and looked at it. There was a lot of miasma ing off of this ooo.

  "Mimi, is this something you could eat?" I turo her in time to see her bdes flow batur hands and her faceted eyes soften bato her normal red ones.

  Her brow furrowed as she looked at the orb. "I don't know why but my instincts are telli to eat it. I have a feeling it could make me sick, or worse..."

  I nodded and looked at it again. Why was it giving off so much miasma? The normal elemental orbs that Mimi ate didn't leak mana like crazy this way. This felt like something different.

  I turan. "Have you ever seen anything like this?" I held the orb out to her, she hesitated but decided to take it.

  After a moment of intensely looking at it, she eventually cocked her head to the side. "Strange, I haven't seen anything like this before. It looks like a demon core but it shouldn't be leaking this much miasma. I was worried I would absorb some of the miasma leaking out of it but it's burning off into the air like a dle instead."

  "What do you normally do with demon cores?" I dug through my pack to find a small bag to store the two demon cores. I didn't want them mixed in with my other stuff.

  Man scratched the back of her head. "Churches usually purify them and use them as foci. Even the churches that aren't as focused on hunting demons take them so it's pretty well known. I don't know how they would react to this ohough. It could be because of the other weird stuff happening with the demons in the area but I don't know. Normally finding something like this wouldn't be too w but things have been quite straely." She looked at Mimi who smiled and waved back.

  I put the two orbs away and stood up. "Let's keep looking around a bit more. Most of the miasma has faded here but we should still be thh."

  There was one more floor to check so we tio look around. The top floor was littered with blood stains but I didn't see any bodies. With a name like hungering corpse, I guess where they may have gone.

  While we were looking around the top floor Bel suddenly stopped and turned her head towards the wall. The motion caught my attention but I didn't see anything. She was just staring at the wall.

  "What's wrong Bel?"

  She paused but shook her head after a few moments. "I don't know, I think I heard something here. I think there's someone oher side of this wall."

  Man walked over and put her ear to the wall befently knog on it. "It is hollow. There could be something back there. Do you think it's an enemy?"

  Bel hesitated before shaking her head. "No, I'm not sure why but I think whoever is in there is hurt and needs help."

  I nodded. "Okay, let's look around and see if there's a passage or something."

  The three of us split up and started searg for a secret door or a hole or something. There wasn't anything obvious like bookshelves or ets around but I traced the edge of the wall in one dire while the girls looked around the other way.

  "Lilith! I think I found something," Man called from the other room.

  Her firaced a thin line in the wall that was behind a couch. We pulled it aside but didn't see anything that looked like a lever or button. Pushing against it didn't seem to do anythiher.

  I turo Mimi. "Do you think you could tear through this wall? Maybe by eating through it?"

  Mimi tilted her head and smiled but before she could reply Man appeared from around a er. "Hey look!"

  I walked over and saw her holding a thi of wood with writing on it. There was a diagram with a caption that described the order you traced magic along the door.

  "It looks like it's written in some kind of code. Do you think this could be reted to the door?" Man asked me.

  I froze. "Wait, you 't read this?"

  Man's brows furrowed. "You ?"

  I took the thin piece of wood and focused on it. Just like when [Sightspeak] transted nguages for me, I could read both versions of the caption. The cipher as well as the intended meaning.

  "Well shit..." Looks like I'm a codebreaker now.

  Saine

  Hello! Mimi gets some experien! Everyone was worried about the group going without Torien and Silva but they fot the Mimi is here too! ime we'll get to see what's hidden in the walls, hope you're curious! See ya ime!

  I almost actally posted the Patreon chapter here, it would have been fusing to suddenly see chapter 128 instead of this one. Good thing I caught it!

  Here's a link to the unity Discord: https://disc/XsNwYuZp6s

  If you would like to support my writing on Patreon, you read up to 10 chapters ahead there!

  Please leave a favorite so I get my story in front of more eyeballs! I would greatly appreciate it!