Dungeon of Niflheim-Chapter 102
102 Chapter 102: The effects of a high level potion
Unfortunately, or fortunately in Frost’s case this health potion regardless of its high level didn’t help with poison, disease, or illness otherwise it would have been used on Douglas the moment he became bed ridden.
Frost however, although impressed with the value and power of the high level health potion and filled with gratitude towards Leo for willing to use such a precious commodity was afraid.
‘Low level health potions are bitter enough how bitter is a high level potion going to be?’ Frost dreaded that possibility, but he didn’t have a choice
Luna had already pulled the cork out and moved next to him gesturing for him to start drinking. Since he couldn’t exactly move or grab anything he needed Luna to hold the vial and tip it upwards as he drank, meaning she’d also have control of the pace. If the flavour was diabolical, he wouldn’t be allowed to stop drinking.
His body visibly trembled at the idea, but this was masked by the constant twitching caused by his wounds. This was noticed by Luna given her proximity.
“Hahaha” she quietly giggled understanding his fear. She leaned in close to his ear and whispered.
“Don’t worry Frost-senpai high level potions don’t have a horrible bitter taste.” She pulled back and winked while smiling, promising to keep his secret fear.
Frost’s face paled, not enough blood to blush in embarrassment. What he tried to keep hidden was revealed and Luna’s attitude made him feel all the worse. What Frost didn’t realise was that most people struggled to drink low level potions but were used to such strong flavours due to their eating habits unlike Frost who for his first meal had a juvenile mammoth steak. Eventually he’d just get used to it or become rich enough to drink medium level potions and higher only.
Learning that the potion wasn’t very bitter did bring some solace to him, so he moved his neck toward the vial and opened his lips over the spout before Luna gently started to tip it upwards.
.....
“Umm” the liquid was thicker than he thought, like honey and just as sweet in fact it tasted delicious so much that he glugged it down with abandon, urging Luna with his eyes to pour faster. Which she of course obliged, a happy smile on her face but also traces of envy in her eyes. The taste of such a high level and high quality potion was sometimes referred to as royal jelly, given how sweet and delicious it was. Very few were granted the chance to grace their tastebuds with such a reward.
As Frost continued to drink, he could feel the thick health potion start to meld into his body. It filled him with warmth and comfort, numbing his entire body as it joined with his bloodstream and went to work repairing the extensive damage. The large holes and gaping wounds across his torso could be seen closing at rapid pace, then scabbing over. Once he finished the entire potion the scabs started to fall off to reveal new and healthy skin completely erasing any record of damage, the feeling was miraculous.
‘This feels even better than Maya’s greater heal spell.’ Just a minute ago Frost’s entire body was racked with pain and every movement sent ripples of agony throughout his nervous system. However now he felt as though he was floating in the air, like a cloud. All his pain had vanished, and his skin pinked up once his blood was replenished giving him healthy glow. The wounds under his clothes and armour had sealed themselves up and new fresh skin covered them, smooth without blemish. And thankfully his face was restored to its pristine state, in fact he looked even better as though he came out of a high price spa.
After another couple minutes the warmth faded and he could feel once again, his body was perfectly restored along with his stamina.
Crack Crack
Frost clenched his fists hard causing his tendons to crack yet no pain, he smiled in response before rapidly jumping to his feet and doing some jumping jacks.
‘Amazing’ he was in awe, his initial hatred towards potions was now overturned.
Leo and Luna smiled as they watched Frost test his full range of movement as well as swinging his glaive around. He was back to fighting strength so they could now move own.
“Should I be slightly annoyed that the reason you used such an expensive and rare potion was so that I could be forced into battle once again or should I be grateful for the same reason?” Frost asked with a smirk while facing Leo, causing the latter to awkwardly laugh and rub the back of his neck. He stored the empty glass vial back into his spatial ring once Frost was finished, alone and empty it was still a work of art and a gift from the royal family, he couldn’t just throw it away or even recycle it. No, he’d need to return it to the vault after they finished here.
“Shall we head further in now?” Luna asked towards the two young men, her mana levels had been topped off and she was ready to cast some more magic.
“Ah give me a second.” Frost replied before moving over to Shadow’s corpse before looking back at Leo for a second.
“Do you mind?” He probably didn’t need to ask but Leo was the de facto leader of this expedition.
“It’s your kill senpai, do what you will.” Leo nodded and waved his hand, Frost killed Shadow pretty much alone, so any items on his person were his for the taking, Frost deserved that much at the bare minimum.
Frost didn’t bother taking anything from the earlier goons due to them fighting as a group and the fact that they didn’t carry anything of much value, besides Leo already promised to pay him for his services. Any money carried by these goons would eventually be tallied up and he’d receive a share.
Receiving Leo’s blessing Frost dug in, patting Shadow’s corpse for anything valuable, he already pocketed his abyssal metal daggers as well as his spare pair of duram metal daggers. What he was looking for now was magic devices including storage rings, money, and anything else useful.
Shadow’s robes looked to be fairly nice, but they were torn to shreds in too many places to be worth anything now. They didn’t have a self-repair feature like his which he activated after his jumping jacks.
Frost simply slid the two storage rings he found onto his fingers; he’d search through them later. He recovered a few smoke bombs, a small coin purse, and an unusual blank sliver plaque which he couldn’t make heads or tails of. He deposited them all within his storage ring along with the only piece of clothing undamaged in their battle, Shadow’s leather boots clearly made out of some monster skin, too small for Frost to use but certainly sellable.
The coin purse held around 2 gold coins worth, a great score and that was only one he held on his person, whether there was another within the storage rings he’d find out later. He didn’t bother searching for any more poison needles and left the ones stuck into the wall alone. He wasn’t a fan of poison after his initial experience, only holding onto the wyvern poison needle for the sake of revenge.
With his search done Frost dusted his hands and walked back towards Luna and Leo.
“Thanks for waiting.” Frost was a little annoyed that the throwing daggers were all quite badly damaged otherwise he’d have stored them to use as a ranged weapon shame but not the end of the world.
“No problem, find anything useful?” Leo enquired, hopefully something on Shadow’s corpse would help in their next battle.
“Not really, other than his daggers which I can’t use, there was a few smoke bombs as well as his storage ring but there’s not enough time to check that.” Frost shrugged while replying, not finding Leo’s query to invasive.
“Shame, but you’d be able to get a few coins for those daggers at least.” Luna said soothingly, Frost fought an incredibly dire battle against Shadow and really deserved a fruitful reward.
“True, I’ll most likely do that then.” Frost nodded agreeing with Luna, Maya had no need of low quality weapons such as these so best to sell them.
“Shall we go find your uncle now Leo?” Frost smiled ready to launch himself back into the thrill of battle.
“Yes, that bastard’s time has come.” Leo frowned while replying through gritted teeth. The three were ready to move on and the faster they did the better. Ryuu and Bastion were still fighting their high level opponents and occasionally they could feel the entire floor vibrate, likely from a large spell cast by Ryuu or Bastion smashing his axe upon the floor with extreme force. Meanwhile on the surface the 14 adventurers were still battling while severely outnumbered. The sooner they took care of Adam the quicker they could bring this grand battle to an end. Would the goons, bandits and paid off guards continue to fight when their backer had already perished, not likely.
Once again Frost took the vanguard position and led Leo and Luna through the final couple areas. The next few rooms where smaller in size and appeared to be either holding areas for items and or quarters for smugglers to rest and wait. There were also several accessways that would lead to ‘safe areas’ but they weren’t interested in them no, Adam would be at the very heart, his vault.
Frost continued on until they came across a large, well decorated door. It was closed shut and looked to be made of sufficiently strong material, getting through such a monstrosity wouldn’t be easy. Just the front door to the manor itself was strongly fortified and required Bastion to expend a fair bit of strength to break through. How well enchanted would this one be, the door that likely guarded Adam’s most important area.
The three frowned and looked at each other, confused in how to proceed.
“Well might as well try.” Getting nothing back from Luna or Leo, Frost decided to give it a bash, literally.
Bannnnnggggg! 𝘧𝓇𝗲𝑒we𝙗noѵ𝑒l.𝐜o𝘮
He smashed down his glaive with incredible strength but all he got in return was a large dose of vibration running up his arms and his fingers going numb. Looking at the door there wasn’t even a scratch, they weren’t going to be able to get in through force. They’d need a battering ram made of at minimum 3 star material and several hours of powerful ramming if they wanted to make their way through. Obviously, they didn’t have access to that, so they needed to figure out another way.
“To be honest I expected some defences given his personality, but this takes the cake. I thought he’d be all gung-ho for killing me since I walked right into his lair but no, he’s still hiding in his shell.” Leo spat in disgust, annoyed by his uncle’s cowardice.
Funny thing is that thanks to his cowardice Frost and the others were stopped in their tracks unable to proceed.
The three of them looked at one another and fanned out looking for something, anything to get them inside but would Adam be that careless to leave a key hidden under a barrel, rock, or something similar, surely not.
Luna since she was the most knowledgeable studied the door trying to find a chink in the enchantments whereas Frost and Leo looked around for that theoretical spare key.
After 5 minutes of frantic searching and quick studying, they regrouped to report on their findings.
“I got nothing.”
“Same”
“I also got nothing.” The three of them sighed in disappointment. The enchantments were far beyond Luna’s level, she couldn’t even tell which ones or how many were in place and the boys obviously didn’t find anything helpful.
“It needs a specially enchanted key to open which needs to be placed in the recess in the door’s centre otherwise we’d need a whole lot more manpower to force it open.” Luna shook her head, she was powerless.
“Knowing my uncle, he’s probably got a super-secret escape route that no one but him knows in there. At this rate he’ll get away.” Leo clenched his fist in anger and punched the nearby wall causing dust to trickle from the ceiling.
