Gacha Harem System

Lukas dashed straight at the nearest bear without slowing down.

His sword flashed through the air, opening up its chest before it even realized that it had been attacked.

In the same motion, he jumped to the side, using the dying bear’s body as a shield, putting it between himself and the second bear’s swipe.

The claws raked across the corpse instead of him, and he used that moment to shove the body into the bear.

This bought him half a second, which he used to spin around and slash, taking the third bear across the throat.

Two down, two to go.

The second bear threw the corpse aside and zipped through the air at him.

He rolled under the bear’s swipe, feeling the wind of it pass over his back, and came up with a snarl, driving his sword up through the underside of its jaw.

It went limp on the sword and he pulled the blade free before the weight could drag it down.

Three down.

The fourth bear was the problem. It had hung back as he fought the others, and now it attacked him at full speed with no hesitation, covering the distance before he had fully reset his footing.

One paw caught him across the shoulder, the [Dread Cuirass] absorbing most of the impact and returning a fraction of the force back into the bear’s paw.

The bear’s arm recoiled slightly, its momentum broken just enough for Lukas to plant his back foot and stab forward.

His sword went in deeply at the neck, and he kept pushing until the resistance stopped.

The bear went down.

He straightened, breathing hard, and looked at the four bodies around him.

The whole fight had taken under thirty seconds.

His shoulder ached where the paw had connected, and his side still stung from the wall earlier, but nothing was slowing him down anymore.

He stepped over the nearest bear and kept running.

The cave network opened and closed around him as he moved.

Sometimes, the wide passages narrowed without warning, and some with low ceilings forcing him into a crouch as he ran.

Those weren’t even the worst ones. Suddenly, some paths cut off into sudden forks that he had to dive towards in a split second, sometimes missing hitting the wall by a hairsbreadth.

The next bear he encountered came out of a side tunnel without warning.

He instinctively dropped to one knee, let the bear sail over him, and drove his sword up as it passed. He was back on his feet before its corpse landed.

The next two were together, blocking a narrow passage side by side.

He went at the left one fast, baiting it into thinking he was going for its head, before dropping low and slashing through its legs.

He skidded over the bear, and as the second bear turned to follow him, he stabbed his sword into its neck, and with a snarl, severed its head from the rest of the body.

He kept running, and the ceiling kept getting progressively higher.

Then a bear dropped from a hidden ledge above him and he sidestepped purely on instinct, the displaced air warning him a half second before the impact.

He caught its arm on the way down, used its own momentum to redirect it into the cave wall, and finished it against the stone.

He grinned at the sight. He was getting faster at killing the bears.

He was slowly getting used to fighting beasts this fast in such an enclosed space, and each bear he faced taught him something small about the next one.

Like the fact that their speed slowed whenever they had to turn around.

He rounded a long curve in the passage and emerged into a familiar place.

He skidded to a stop with a frown, recognizing the four openings.

’Isn’t this the entrance hall?’

Was he getting farther away from the boss room, or was this the way the dungeon was designed? He had no idea. All he knew was that time was running out, and somehow, he’d gone full circle.

Then he blinked in surprise as two bears walked out from every opening simultaneously, growling at him.

And now, he had a total of eight Zipper Bears standing between him and every exit.

He didn’t bother waiting for them to organize.

He picked the two closest bears and went straight at them before they had fully emerged from their tunnels, using the narrow opening to prevent the others from flanking him immediately.

His sword took the first one across the face before it could raise its arms, and he drove his shoulder into the second, using his strength to slam it back into the tunnel mouth and pin it momentarily against the doorway.

He finished it fast and stepped back into the hall.

The remaining six had already spread out.

He dashed straight at the middle of the hall as they attacked him, and just before their claws reached him, he dashed through the legs of one of the bears, getting out from their enclosure.

The bears slammed into each other, unable to stop themselves in time.

He took advantage of their momentary state of vulnerability, spinning around and beheading the same bear he’d slipped through from behind.

As the severed head spun through the air, he kicked it, sending it slamming into the chest of the bear closest to him.

The bear stumbled backwards from the force, the head turning into paste. This bought Lukas space to face the other two bears in front of him.

He leapt straight up into the air, clearing both swipes, and came down between them with a wide swipe that moved from left to right, severing the head of the left bear, and tearing through the shoulder of the other.

As he landed, he dashed upwards with a slash that cleaved the injured bear into two.

He rolled forward, just in time as a bear’s fist slammed into where he’d been standing, shattering the stone.

He pushed himself up the ground, stabbing in the same motion. His sword speared through the bear’s jaw, emerging on the other side.

The two remaining bears had stopped rushing in individually.

They circled him cautiously, each on opposite sides, forcing him to watch both directions at once.

He tracked them, waiting for the one that committed first.

The left bear jerked, but he didn’t take the bait. He knew enough now to not fall for it.

The right bear made the actual attack, and he turned to meet it, his sword already swinging through the air.

His blade tore across the bear’s chest, sending blood spraying through the air. The wound was deep, sending the bear staggering back.

Then the left bear, the one that had feinted, hit him.

The attack slammed into his torso, both paws carrying the weight of its full force.

It was clear the bear had been waiting for this exact moment.

His [Dread Cuirass] took the impact and returned twenty percent of it.

But the remaining eighty percent was enough to send him flying across the entrance hall.

He hit the far wall, the impact sending him sinking almost an inch into the stone. He coughed, the air driven out of his lungs, and slammed into the ground.