This Bard Was Far Too Cautious

"Haah... haah..."

The tunnel was eerily quiet. As Tang Qi dragged Jackal's corpse along, he could barely hear anything over his own pounding heartbeat.

The first time you killed someone, it didn't feel good.

He'd already thrown up once.

But with Jackal causing trouble over and over, Tang Qi would never allow himself to be put in danger.

So after Jackal had fallen, Tang Qi had forced down his nausea and stabbed him several more times with his own longsword. Only after making sure he was dead did Tang Qi finally dare to relax...

The prerequisite for adventuring was minimizing every possible risk.

Otherwise, you were just throwing your life away.

Tang Qi wasn't afraid to die, but he still wanted to live an exciting life.

"Take his sword. It'll give me something to defend myself with... Forget the armor. I don't want Black Snake getting suspicious."

As Tang Qi considered what to do next, he reached the tunnel entrance before he knew it.

Just as he'd expected, he hadn't encountered any other kobolds along the way.

That wasn't because Tang Qi had some power to foresee the future, of course.

Rather, he'd deduced a possibility from the clues he'd found in the cave's surroundings as he went along.

Using the darkness beyond the campfire's reach, Tang Qi quietly hid himself as best he could.

He struggled to remove Jackal's chainmail.

Otherwise, he wouldn't be able to throw the body.

As he hurled it toward the campfire with all his might, he saw what was happening beside it—

Most of the kobold corpses that had been scattered across the clearing had vanished.

All that remained were small, scattered skeletons, about the size of the one lying beside the fire and the bone chair.

Beside the skeletons, a pool of yellow-green liquid slowly crept along near the firelight.

It looked like old, yellow phlegm that had been stuck in someone's throat for years, or maybe snot—or just a huge mass made of both.

When the corpse came flying, the liquid seemed to react instinctively. It drew in the slime spread across the floor and gathered into an irregular, trembling ball.

Its outline stretched out, forming a long, thin tentacle that lashed against Jackal's flying corpse—

"Smack!"

Jackal's body was sent flying back to the ground. Two or three ribs had probably broken, but he couldn't feel them anymore.

The mass of liquid paused for a moment, seemingly realizing it hadn't been attacked, and that this was instead... a gift from nature. Then it slowly rolled toward the corpse.

As it drew near, the ball opened like a vast, slimy maw and swallowed the body in one smooth motion.

Countless milky-white bubbles formed in the translucent yellow-green slime.

A "gulu gulu" sound gradually drowned out Tang Qi's heartbeat.

When he saw Jackal's skin begin to dissolve, exposing the crimson flesh and bones beneath, Tang Qi finally breathed a sigh of relief.

"As I thought. An ochre jelly."

An ochre jelly was an ooze that lurked in dungeons.

It could be broadly classified as one kind of "slime."

But it wasn't weak.

Its fluid body made it immune to all slashing attacks.

Of the temporary party, Gravel's spiked mace was probably the only weapon that could do even the slightest damage to it.

What's more, it was made up of tiny, living protozoa.

If you smashed it into pieces, the fragments might attract one another and form smaller ochre jellies.

Without a spellcaster present, dealing with an ochre jelly using anything other than physical means would be quite troublesome.

But this was exactly why Tang Qi had figured one was living in this cave—

Kobolds were natural experts at digging tunnels.

The tunnels they dug were narrow and cramped, often leaving medium- and large-sized intruders with no room to maneuver.

For example, when swinging Jackal's standard three-foot longsword, the blade would often scrape against the earthen walls, limiting his movement. A shortsword or a short spear meant for thrusting would be far more effective.

If Gravel hadn't been with the temporary party, all the kobolds would have needed to do was line up in the tunnel and jab at them from a distance with spears, then harass them with arrows.

Even Black Snake would have found himself hard-pressed.

And yet the kobolds' usual weapons were crude bone hammers—simple bludgeons made from the bones of wild beasts.

That clearly didn't make sense.

After all, their trap-making skills suggested that carving bones into spears wouldn't be difficult.

Besides, there were plenty of naturally formed, cone-shaped stalactites above this cave.

Why go out of their way to hang such a huge boulder after all that effort?

The only explanation was that "they needed bludgeons."

And considering that the kobolds had sounded an alarm before dying, while Jackal—at the rear of the party—hadn't been ambushed for quite some time, Tang Qi could conclude that "something was making them afraid to charge out recklessly."

Then there were the small, corroded skeletons he'd seen everywhere along the way.

All these clues left Tang Qi with only one possibility—

As a dungeon predator, the ochre jelly in the cave fed on the flesh of living creatures.

In fact, after adventurers cleared out a lair, ochre jellies often consumed the corpses left behind.

Their soft, malleable bodies also let them seep into tiny crevices and lie in wait.

The kobolds probably knew it might eat their dead companions, which was why they'd been too afraid to venture out of the cave.

Tang Qi didn't want to tempt fate, either.

Judging by the force of that ochre jelly's pseudopod when it had whipped the corpse, two hits would send him to the afterlife right behind Jackal.

Since ochre jellies acted entirely on instinct and had little intelligence, they generally didn't attack while feeding.

He couldn't stay where he was, so he hurriedly took his longsword and ducked into another nearby tunnel.

"It's a shame about that chainmail. I really could use another piece of armor..."

The main reason Tang Qi had fed Jackal to the ochre jelly was to conceal the fact that he'd killed him.

Black Snake knew about the conflict between the two of them, but Tang Qi had no idea what kind of standing Jackal had among the mercenaries.

What if they only acted like they couldn't stand each other, but were actually as close as brothers?

In that case, saying, "He started it," would be a pretty weak defense.

It was safer to claim that an ochre jelly had attacked them, Jackal had been completely digested, and he'd somehow survived.

The chainmail left behind could also help verify the "fact" that Jackal had been digested.

Besides, the chainmail restricted his movements a little.

"I still need to watch out for kobold ambushes."

Holding a torch in one hand and his longsword in the other, Tang Qi explored the tunnels at a steady pace.

But he still wondered whether he was good enough to escape if the kobolds swarmed him.

So as he made his way through the branching tunnels, he not only checked for traps blocking the way, but also carefully peered around every corner—

The ends of narrow passages, little paths leading to side chambers, behind the walls, even the dark ceiling overhead... A sneaky kobold could be hiding anywhere, lying in wait to ambush him.

Tang Qi was too cautious to give them even the slightest chance.

Unfortunately, after a whole stretch of outsmarting thin air, all he found were a few simple traps.

A bear trap hidden in the dirt, a tripwire meant to make Tang Qi stumble, a row of linked iron spikes set into either side of an earthen wall...

He avoided them, but didn't catch sight of a single kobold.

Only when Black Snake's shouts echoed from the end of the tunnel did Tang Qi finally get his bearings.

The shouts sounded frantic, making it hard not to wonder whether Black Snake had run into trouble.

Tang Qi quickly took a deep breath, gripped his longsword, and kept his racing thoughts under control as he made his way toward the exit.

But he found himself in a lair even more spacious than the camp he'd seen before.

By the firelight, he saw Black Snake sitting on a stone step, fiddling with his curved blade as he barked orders at a robed kobold.

"Get your people moving! I want to be back before dark. If you make me late, I'll kill you first!"

The kobold looked terrified. He waved the staff in his hand and shouted at his people in exasperation.

"Quick, quick!"

Tang Qi blinked.

Wait.

Was that kobold...

speaking the Common Tongue?