Chapter 151: Power Order
———Wiina———
<1: 49 pm>
“I’m… already sour… all over…” Karra said while reeling on the floor, being a bit dramatic.
*Shine*
“Get up already. I’m not gonna run out of heals. Go apeshit and fight as much as you need to.” I said once I healed her for an extra time. It’s not like she’s out of mana or stamina. “You haven’t even seen anything past the third floor, aren’t you a bit curious?”
“Ugh…” She got back up with her posture still rather shaky. She really shouldn’t be complaining since this is her idea. She needs to get back into shape if she doesn’t want to make a fool of herself on camera. “I’m already near my limit here… I don’t think I can…”
“Don’t worry about that, you can keep fighting as much as you want. I can refill your stamina and mana as much as you need.” I said before walking towards the stair leading down to the fourth floor. “I can supply energy as much as you need, like those kids locked in the basement of the church.”
*Shine*
“...What the hell is that referencing!?” She loudly said as she got up after I healed her one more time for good measure.
“Remember, the tenth floor cleared or you’re not going back home.” I said with a smile as we walked down to the next floor. Her face has gone ugly as she heard that.
“You’re really pushing the whole harsh teacher thing, Wii-
“Navi. Remember, we need to make sure you don’t slip up.” I said while pointing at my fox ears that are twitching. It’d be a shame if she slips up and I need to invent another form for disguise. I quite like this one, so I’d like to keep using it.
“Sure… Navi… It’s not like I’ve slipped up your name in the past.” She complained as we continued going down the steps until we finally reached the fourth floor.
A bunch of giant black lions with really wild manes and each having an… anglerfish light, for some reason. There are also a bunch of black trees on this floor as well. Being pretty full of plantlife… that is all black so this place looks extra dark.
“Navi? I can barely see a thing here…” Karra said while getting up close. She doesn’t have the night vision for this, so that’s understandable. This place is much darker than the usual dungeon floor. The most she can probably see are the lights hanging from their heads.
*Shine* *Groan*
I lit up the whole area for her to better see the surroundings, and that caused the monsters living here to get aggressive. They seemed to hate light from something other than themselves.
*Dash* *Leap* *Dash* *Leap*
A bunch of them immediately try to kill us, seeing as there isn't anyone else who could’ve brought light to their lair.
“Get ready!” I said while raising my katana. Hopefully she doesn’t need much babysitting.
*Dash* *Slash* *Slice*
These things are comparable to her in strength and there are multiple of them. As much as I want to have her handle everything, they all came rushing in at an uncontrollable rate. I need to create a small breathing room first before setting up something that’ll let her deal with the rest on her own.
*Shine* *Block*
After killing off enough of the dark lions, I sectioned the area off with a barrier of light, only letting two through and let them fight Karra.
*Slash* *Evade* *Slice* *Sizz*
Her expression hardened as she tried to avoid the two monsters trying to kill her and get some attacks and slowly whittle them down. Their speed and there being two instead of one means that she can’t just try to overwhelm one while trying to ignore the other.
*Stab* *Blast* *Pluck* *Kick*
She stabbed one with her knife before hitting the other with a quick explosion to stagger it, then pulling out the knife from the first one before kicking it in the face.
While she is struggling with those two, the others are trying to break the barrier I set up so she doesn’t get overwhelmed by all of them at once. Even at this point she is so focused on fighting these two that she probably didn’t realize that I already set up a barrier.
As for the integrity of this barrier itself, it’s doing its job. All those claws and fangs harmlessly bounced off. They might be a problem for Karra, but for me, they are like mere ants.
Hopefully she can hold out. All she had to do was simply keep going, and she’ll win eventually. Use all the strongest attacks you need, all the most wasteful spells you can think of. I’m here to compensate for that.
———Lerim———
<2: 18 pm>
…How are there still signals down here? I’m pretty sure I’ve gone past the sixtieth floor at this point. I don’t even have that much use for a phone down here. Heck, it’s probably best if I left it back at my house. I got tossed around a few times during the fight so it could easily break.
That tangent aside. I got a few more days to prepare. I have no other responsibilities to the local guild or anyone asking for a photoshoot, so this is the only thing I need to focus on.
It’s both annoying and convenient that after a set period of time, if you are still alive, the dungeon will just boot you back to the exit, but that’s only if you’ve been in here for until midnight. I got almost ten hours left of training and hunting time before starting it all over again.
…This sword had been going through a lot of punishment. Hopefully one of the drops will compensate for that. This one is kinda thin and not very durable to begin with, it could end up snapping in half in the middle of the fight.
The big bulky one is unfortunately broken since yesterday. It’d be a bad showing to not have a weapon when we finally meet up for that… Wait. Didn’t Karra allude to something about a payment in tools? Maybe she will give me a weapon? She was quite vague about it.
But enough about that. Time to go further in. Pretty sure that after this point I’ll be seeing a lot of lava, or magma. The temperature range down here gets pretty chaotic.
But in terms of just the strength of the enemies, it’s still within something manageable. It’s only after the hundredth floor does things get spicy.
I don’t think I have ever told anyone I’ve gotten that far. There’s really no need to even mention it in the first place. No one is gonna believe me, and I doubt there’s any way for me to prove it aside from dragging someone into the dungeon and sticking to me until then.
Alright, time to get moving. I’m still full of energy and there isn’t a need to bring out the sleeping bag right now.
So, what was the next floor like again? Let’s go down and check…
…Ugh. You can really feel the heat from the next floor just from the stairway alone. Hopefully I don’t end up losing anything to the flames. It hasn’t happened so far, but that doesn’t mean I can be complacent.
Let’s see here… Just some lava flowing in the background. The main path is straightforward with a few golems blocking the way. Should be easy enough to rush through.
This shitty sword might break just from all of this alone though, and if at all possible I want to keep it intact for something tougher than some mooks.
…I almost cast a fire spell on instinct. I shouldn’t do that when these golems are resistant to it if the last time is any indication… Hmm…
*Swing* *Flow* *Crash*
I controlled the lava flowing out of the holes in the wall and threw them right towards the golems and pushed them into the lava pit on the other side of the room.
I’d say it’s nice that there are elements in these rooms I could manipulate without using much mana, but the monsters are really naturally resistant to it, so it’s not like I could utilize it for more than pushing them out of the way.
Alright, onto the next floor… A few giant squids living in a pool of lava with a few platforms as a way of getting across.
They taste pretty good when cooked. I don’t really know what exactly is up with the biology of these things, but when killed their ability to resist heat quickly goes away and they are immediately charred by the lava they reside in.
…I could go for some fried squid. I need all the calories for the dungeon run anyway.
———Kenni———
<2: 35 pm>
“I could be considered an anti-therapist when it comes to my qualifications, but hey, better than nothing, right?” I said while shrugging my shoulders.
“In that case you could just leave. I think I can listen to her troubles just fine.” Gregori butted in. What a killjoy. Let me torment her at least a little bit!
“Come on you guys, I’m not thinking about trauma dumping.” Jennla said with a rather nervous expression. Is she really sure about that? “I just wanna talk a bit more. I have never told anyone close to the full story, and some bits I’m still confused about.”
“Really? No deep-seated trauma and buttons I can push? That’s kinda boring.” Just recounting a story isn’t that interesting by itself. Where’s the angst and a hundred layers of psychologies and ideologies? Also psychosis?
“Enough with that. Anyway, what do you want to talk about?” Gregori said. Does he really have to antagonize me at every turn? What did I ever do to him?
“Yeah! Tell us!” Jeff said, not really caring for the banter.
It’s kinda rare for us to have a gathering without Useph to pay our tab. Then again it’s not like this diner is a frequent gathering spot since this place is usually super filled up.
Seriously, if this place wasn’t always so busy we’d probably be hanging out here a lot more often. Fast food isn’t even really cheap nowadays.
“Okay, guess I’ll talk about…” She doesn’t seem to be sure about what to really talk about. Does she have a lot on her mind or what? “I guess since I was traveling to the past and not a different world. I was wondering if there is any trace of what I did still around.”
“Oh! That sounds cool. Do you even know where you were?” Jeff said. What, does he actually think about going along with that? If the legends of the elves are accurate, then they should be on the other side of the ocean.
“Don’t know for sure, it should be in the area where those myths are prevalent.” She said, clearly unsure. “I don’t think there were any monkey-related myths around that part, right?”
“I haven’t seen anything like that. Though I am far from an expert in that field.” Gregori gave a non-answer.
“Well what field are you good at, smartass?” I asked since it never looks like he’s aiming to be smart in any area, just kinda spouting random trivia and being good at math.
“One that you aren’t, so most of them.” What the hell is that answer you little shit!
———Wiina———
<6: 39 pm>
“That whole thing was… terrible.” She said with her face looking absolutely terrible. “Are you sure that was the best way we could’ve been training?”
“I could think of a more efficient way, but I don’t think you’ll be up for it, personally speaking.” This is probably one of the faster ways to get stronger without absolutely destroying her body and mental. All kinds of shortcuts tend to have a very bad side effect or two. “Anyway, just rest up. You play hard and long, so rest up easy and… also long.”
“Yeah, okay…” She said while she looked like she could barely keep her eyelids open.
“You earned up after that fight at the end. Didn’t think you would do the whole ‘killing it from the inside’ strat. Those are pretty risky.” I said while she quickly undressed and lay down on the bed.
“If it won’t work, then you’d stop me before I even get close…” She said before already tucking into bed. “Turn the lights off already.”
“As you wish.” I said before covering the area around the bed in a shroud of darkness. I still have stuff I wanna do, so I can’t go into bed with her right away.
Now as for what I am gonna do… Just playing some games. I don’t have any serious obligations to follow through today outside of helping her catch up to the others.
Alright, gaming time!