Chapter 181: Not Halfway
———Karra———
<12: 32 pm>
*Swing* *Splat*
She violently swings her shield down and finishes the last monster off.
“Another quick clear. We’re really on a roll here.” I remarked before checking the current floor we are on, just to be extra clear about our current standings. “How is everyone looking? We're almost on the fortieth floor here. It’d be bad if even a single one of us is out of gas.”
“I’d say I’m fine for a few hundred floors, but I don’t think everyone has the energy to say that.” Terry said while looking at Liss. She is definitely not a physical type, as we already established.
Her highest recorded floor count is thirty five, we’re already past that point and in a harder dungeon. Of course, she also stayed in the backline for the most part in this collab, so she shouldn’t be that fatigued right now.
“I think I can stay in shape for a bit, just so we’re clear.” Liss said, clearly not liking the skepticism from her teammate. It is hard to believe from someone who is mainly relying on spells instead of her fists.
“Fei. Do another checkup, I want to make sure none of us are running out of gas for real.” I said and Edea nodded along.
Another scan comes back with the results shown on a holographic screen. Looks like her mana is about three fourths while the rest of us didn’t spend that much. Obviously seventy five percent is still more than enough for the next floor, but afterward it’s gonna be concerning. Your body does weird things once your mana is depleted to less than half, like expending more stamina and such.
“...I guess we can do a few more floors before taking a break.” I said after a brief moment of consideration. “Let’s go see if it’s a big monster or another army aiming to bumrush us. If it’s the former, then I wanna get a swing at it, if it’s the latter… I don’t know, just eradicate them quickly.”
“Whatever you say. One thing I wanna say though, the monsters here are all so meh design-wise.” Terry said as we moved down to the next boss floor.
“Well, we can’t exactly expect something called monsters to always be cutesy can we? Don’t you get some terrifying-looking ones stashed away?” Edea suddenly remarked.
“Yeah? But at least they look unique and cool. So many of the monsters here are so boring to look at. Even these guys aren’t all that unique.” Terry said while pointing at the three monsters behind her, being a giant yeti-like monster, humanoid golem that almost looks like a normal statue, and a big orange slime.
“...By the way, have you ever tried taming a super large monster before?” I asked, since I just realized that even her current roster is struggling to go down the wide stairways.
“Obviously. I can do it, but during a dungeon stream there’s no point. They took way too much from the screen anyway, and the lack of room doesn’t help.” She answered. I guess that makes sense, but the wording is a bit weird.
We reached the fortieth floor and there stood a giant golem made of large chunks of rock, one big yellow gem on its head that seems to act as its core and eye. It held a giant curved and thick sword in its right hand.
“Alright. Time for me to show off a bit, unless there’s any objection?” I said before pulling out my knife.
“Nothing from me.” Terry said while the others merely nodded along. Looks like it’s just me then. Alright. Let’s quickly end this in only a few attacks.
*Dash* *Swing* *Hop* *Leap*
I ran forward and swung its sword horizontally, to which I jumped on top of the giant sword and used it as a platform to jump straight towards its core.
*Kick*
I kicked it right in the face and caused a chunk of its head to come flying off, the force itself also launched me back and back down to the ground, giving both of us some distance from one another.
*Swing* *Evade* *Kick*
It swung its sword from overhead, easily avoided by just moving a bit to the side and then kicking the sword with a lot of power put into my left leg, causing the giant golem to stagger and almost lose its footing.
*Dash* *Leap* *Sizz* *Swing* *Crack*
I ran towards its right shoulder, jumping towards it with a swing of my knife towards it, causing it to crack slightly.
*Shine* *Blast* *Tumble*
“Ugh!” Its eye can generate an energy blast and that totally caught me off-guard. I was hoping to cut off its right arm entirely, but it does have other means of attack outside of its massive weapon.
*Shine* *Blast* *Clash*
It sends another magical blast that I countered with my own. The power of that attack is nowhere near the top output of mine. Looks like in terms of raw strength, it couldn’t hold a candle to my own.
Still, I should play this smartly and not expend too much energy. It’s clearly a bulky opponent who won’t go down easy even against someone with higher firepower. I can’t just spam magical blasts over and over in this situation without looking like a fool. I want to look somewhat professional and look really impressive for the crowd. We’re at over ten thousand concurrent viewers, now is not the time to be screwing up.
*Swing* *Hop* *Kick*
It swung its massive sword at me so that I easily jumped out of the way and kicked it back to cause another stagger.
*Blast* *Evade*
It shoots another energy blast that I easily avoided as I concentrate energy into my knife and moving around to make it hard for it to keep track.
*Leap* *Slice* *Crash*
I jumped towards its right shoulder again and did another quick swing of my knife to fully sever its right arm and its sword off.
*Swing* *Parry*
It tried to swing its left arm at me in retaliation to which I simply knocked it away with another swing of my knife. It might be much bigger than me, but in terms of power output, mine is still superior.
*Blast* *Evade*
I landed back down and avoided another incoming magic blast. Now let’s end this quickly with a big attack.
*Leap* *Launch*
I jumped high up towards the wall on the entrance-side, then bouncing off it for a massive boost in momentum towards the giant golem.
*Sizz* *CRASH*
My legs are engulfed in energy that lets off flames, hitting the golem right in its head with my two feet, piercing through it and making me crash-landed into the wall on the other side. I still managed to land back down to the grown gracefully, but it was still a bit undignified.
Oh, the yellow orb still stays intact. Can’t have that.
*Swing* *Crack*
There we go. Depending on how it functions, it can easily reassemble itself as long as its core is intact.
“Alright, boss. You used about a tenth of your max mana there. You could be a bit more efficient.” Edea said jokingly as I returned to the group.
“Hey, don’t downplay my feats right in front of the crowd! Think of how they’re laughing at me right now!” I said before looking at the stream chat hovering near us.
{A tenth!?}
{Skill issue lol}
{fym more efficient!?}
{the heck? That was tenth?}
{could be better???}
Huh. They seemed quite surprised that I could do a lot better. This is about in-line with the other dungeon runs I’ve done. I guess I never mentioned how much power I use each run, and not to mention, these viewers might’ve misjudged how powerful that golem is due to its sheer size. Size is far from everything when it comes to combat.
“Hmm… Well then. I guess we just keep moving.” Cry said, looking rather disinterested in the spectacle. I guess it’s because she wasn’t personally involved.
*Shine*
The loot appeared where the boss monster once was, and Wiina walked over to collect it and give it to Edea to keep safe in that weird bag they have.
“Yep. Let’s not keep our viewers in suspense and keep moving. Remember that we’re gonna have a break period so we can cool off for a while, also Q&A stuff.” I said before leading them all down to the forty-first floor.
Once we reached it, we found a rather… chilly place, to put it lightly.
“We’re gonna need some heating, it seems.” Wiina remarked at the sight. The wall is made of ice and the floor is covered in snow. The area is absolutely massive and looks like we are near the top of a snowy mountain rather than underground. The monsters blocking our path forward are a massive amount of skeletons, or rather…
“Ice skeletons… iceletons?” Terry said, not looking particularly interested.
“...Let’s just get this over with.” Cry said as she moved forward with her massive shield.
*Dash* *Swing* *Crack* *Crash*
She ran in and quickly plowed through a bunch of ice skeletons. Each swing of her shield easily shreds through their bodies and leaves nothing left.
*Slam* *Shine* *Launch*
She slams her shield down into the ground and creates a barrier that reflects everything trying to approach her back, giving her a large amount of space to work with and move around.
“Alright, go and kick some ass, you three!” Terry shouted out as her three monsters were glowing and dash towards the action, dismantling the small army of these ice monsters.
“You’re not gonna join in?” I asked as I turned to look at Liss.
“I’ll… conserve it for the next boss floor.” She answered, looking a bit nervous.
“That’s fine. No need to run out of gas this soon.” I said as I stood here and watched everything unfolding.
*Smash* *Crush* *Slam*
Quickly enough, all the monsters in the area are completely crushed and unrecognizable.
“That was… less than two minutes. I believe that was roughly almost two hundred ice skeletons in total.” Edea said as we walked towards the stairway down to the next floor.
{No way there’s that many}
{can someone check the vod?}
{those things look frail as fuk}
{how strong were those things}
{we sure this isn’t all staged or rigged}
Some skeptics are gonna be here no matter what, just ignore it.
“...Yeesh, this is hot.” I commented the moment we got to the next floor full of… hot rocks? The walls have these chunks of steaming hot rocks that radiate heat. If we touch one of those we’ll probably get a nasty burn that’ll take a long while to heal. “I’m just gonna clean this floor quickly, sounds good?”
“Yeah. My fur can’t take this at all…” Wiina said despite only her ears and tail having any fur. I’m pretty sure she got perfect temperature control anyway.
*Crackle* *Freeze*
I freeze the entire area and the lizard creatures blocking our path. It immobilized them but probably didn’t kill them outright. Need a follow up to that.
*BLAST* *SHATTER*
I send a more generic energy blast that quickly blasts through everything in the room and almost makes one of us fall over from the force of the explosion.
{What the hell}
{So quick}
{okay what was that?}
{total wipe wtf}
…Yep. Nothing left remaining. Time for the forty-third floor.
“Are you sure you’re not exerting yourself too much?” Cry asked before we kept moving.
“Nah. Also, like I said, we’ll have a break period coming up soon. It’s fine to expend some energy. We got some mana potion and such stocked up and ready anyway. We’ll do fine.” I said with a thumbs up, showing some confidence for the team. We already go through this multiple times in the group chat anyway.
{How long is this gonna go on?}
{You said two hours at least we’re only half hour in}
{what floors are you gonna reach?}
“That’s what the break is for. If we don’t take breaks no way we’re gonna reach two hours or however many floors that’s gonna look impressive. It’s not even about stretching the runtime. A dungeon can easily eat your stamina like a light meal.” I said as we moved down to the next floor. “Alright, who’s gonna go next? Liss, you said you’re gonna do the next boss, and both Cry and I cleared a floor each already. Terry, you did assist Cry a bit… but uh…”
“No, I get it. I’ve been idling for a bit too long. I’ll take the next shift.” She said confidently. Good to see her taking it on the chin. Not that she has to worry anyway, she is still in top condition and her monsters still look capable and not tired out. She should take care of the next floor no problem.