Chapter 11 — Back into the Dungeon

Editors: PROCRASTINATOR & GREETER

 

[Ei’s POV]

 

The Adventurers' Guild is in an uproar.

 

“What was the dungeon like?” “Did you complete it?” “How far did you make it?” “Why do you look so depressed?”

 

The finder party returned from the dungeon and are getting swarmed by people. Hey, why didn’t this happen to us? Was it because of my nickname?

 

“The dungeon is a nightmare… we barely made it to the second floor boss before having to retreat. That damn skeleton is too strong!”

 

That skeleton? Haha… give me a break. You’re kidding right? One of you even died… I bet it was the mosquitos but you just won’t admit it.

 

“Ei!”

 

“Luna!”

 

“Ready to go dungeon diving again? This time we can go to the final boss!”

 

“Yep. Let’s get some good loot this time. Also, I’m handling the first boss if it is as strong as last time.”

 

“Alright!”

 

It’s been about a week since we finished scouting. In that time, I had some more adventures in the forest, and thanks to that, rumors of a “red assassin” have been floating around. Haha…

 

We paid Guard-san the entrance fee then entered the dungeon. Time to clear it. According to the guard, around 20 parties were in the dungeon currently. I wonder how they are doing.

 

First floor: We saw a party get ambushed by a mimic. Then, we fought that Banananana guy, but it was the 8th, not the 1st. Much easier.

 

Second floor: We saw a few parties being swarmed by mosquitos. I feel bad for them. When we got to the boss, the skeleton tried to run away from us, so I smashed his skull in.

 

Third floor: We saw five or so parties get ambushed by zombies and another party getting attacked by ghosts. They ran away again when we got near. I blame it on the great spirit. What was her name again?

 

Fourth floor: I think we saw someone get betrayed. They were falling off a cliff with the rest of the party watching. I think I saw some vultures picking at a dead party too. The golem smashed a few people who got there ahead of us, but we beat it up.

 

Fifth floor: I saw 40 adventurers strung up in the nest. Seems like this floor is killer.

 

 

Well, we’re at the final boss door now.

 

“Has anyone cleared it yet?”

 

“Nope! The door’s eyes are still glowing. They wouldn’t be if someone cleared it before!”

 

“I see.”

 

We passed through the door and were greeted by a chimera in stone armor. Its goat, lion, and dragon heads are all staring daggers at me. This is going to be fun. Don’t let me down, chimera. Also, how the hell does a chimera appear? Shouldn’t they be science experiments? 

 

Maybe they are escaped science experiments…

 

““ROOOOOOAAAAR”” “BAAAAAAAAAH”

 

“Hahahaha”

“Ei! Why are you laughing already? The battle hasn’t started yet!”

 

“N-no.. haha.. That’s not… not it. Haha… the goat… hahahaha!” 

 

I think the chimera broke me. Well, I’ll snap out of it once the battle starts. Go on, Luna. Do some of your fancy ice magic. Luna is glowing again! And this time it’s pretty strong.

 

“Luna is shining…”

 

“Eh? A-ah yeah.. I. uh, came up with a new ice spell to, uh, enhance my powers!”

 

“Okay!” 

 

I know what you really did. But I’ll pretend I don’t know. Hehe… this will be fun to watch.

 

“[Ice Shard Storm]!”

 

Luna sends a good 30 or so ice spikes directly at the chimera.

 

“GURRRAAAAAHHHH!!”

 

It got stabbed in the back. I bet it thought the ice would shatter.  (P/N Yea Luna + Vadina is kinda strong)

 

*fwoop* *fwoop* *fwoop*

 

Oh, it’s flying now. Ah… I wish I could fly after it.

 

“Luna! Look out, it’s about to breathe fire!”

 

“Eh?!”

 

I pulled out my shield and commanded it to protect Luna. It split into 5 pieces and formed a pentagon in front of Luna from which an energy barrier formed. Huh, I didn’t know it could do that. 

 

*fwooooooooooooosh*

 

Hahah! My shield is absorbing your fire! Take that! Well, mostly at least. While the chimera is distracted breathing fire on Luna, I jump up on the wall, kick off it, and go flying at the chimera.

 

*SLAM*

 

It used its goat head to block me. Smart. Unfortunately for it, I have more tricks up my sleeve. I bounce up off its head and stab my glaive downwards into it while Cthulhu uses his sabres to slice off the horns. Your goat head is now useless, if it is even alive. 

 

The remaining two heads turn to face me, and the dragon head is about to breathe fire again, when Luna comes up behind it and slashes it.

 

She used the shield as stepping stones. That’s an interesting tactic. She’s still glowing, by the way.  

 

“Eat this! [Create Ice]!”

 

Luna makes an ice cube and shoves it into the chimera’s dragon mouth. We both fall back as the dragon head is hit with an explosion of its own fire to melt the ice.

 

“”GRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!””

It’s mad now. Too bad. Well, I have a spell I want to try. I’ll have to tone it down, because last time I used it I destroyed a mountain. I hope the locals didn’t need that mountain. Well, it was in the middle of nowhere, so it should be fine.

 

“[Call Meteor]!”

 

“Call what?!”

 

“A meteor.”

 

“This is order!!”

 

“What?!?”

 

“Just wanted to say that.”

 

A giant flaming boulder comes crashing down onto the chimera, knocking it out of the air. (G/N: Roof where?) (A/N: shhh)

 

*BOOOM!!* (P/N They… should all be dead)

 

Ha… maybe I overdid it.

 

“SKREEEEEE!!” “GGGGAAAAAAAAHH!”

 

Ha, take that chimera. It’s still alive of course, but the armor is gone. I must say, that armor was much stronger than I thought it was.

 

Oh… Its wings seems broken. How sad.

 

“[Ice Mist]!”

 

Luna made the entire room cold. Not as cold as I can make it, but still, really cold. Good thing I have my clothes. Well, the mist should slow the chimera down.

 

*fwooooosh*

 

Or not. I guess it can get rid of it with fire. Well, let’s try copying Luna’s movement from earlier. I order the shield to form footholds beneath me and start running.

 

This is actually really fun. Well, time to come crashing down on the chimera.

 

“Hey buddy! Look up!”

 

The two living heads look up. Fools. 

 

*fwooooshh*

 

The dragon head breathed fire again, but I moved the shield in front of me. 

 

*fwoop* *shing*

 

I slice straight through the head and land beneath it. I think the dragon head is dead now. Only one left. Luna has been dealing with the head and tail, so that should keep it distracted while I go for the kill.

 

“Luna, step back on my mark.” 

 

“Alright!”

 

Magic isn't very effective against chimeras, but I think I can brute force it. [Chain Lightning: Implosion] is pretty good for dealing continuous damage, but I could use a burst right now. So, let’s try messing with the weather. Locally of course. 

 

I imagine black clouds swirling around me. Why around me? Because it looks cool. I imagine the rain pouring down, so much so it’s almost deafening. Then, I imagine lightning in the clouds, arcing around before making the ground explode.

 

“[Summon Thunderstorm].”

 

It manifests perfectly. I now look like some evil entity at the center of a hurricane. That was the point of course. The wind is howling so loudly it’s almost deafening.

 

“LUNA! GET BACK!”

 

“OKAY!”

 

Luna falls back to my position by creating ice under her.

 

“Now then chimera, die. [Storm Fury]!”

 

The lightning in the clouds begins flowing together as one, arcing in circles around the eye of the storm. The spectacle is almost as bright as the sun. Then it all gathers in the eye. Everything goes silent.

 

***CRAAA-CRAAACK***

 

**BOOOOM**

 

A massive bolt of lightning shoots out from the eye of the storm and arcs towards the chimera.

 

It’s raining chimera bits. I practically vaporized it. I put up a barrier to block said bits because cleaning would be a hassle.

 

“…”

 

“Well, that was easy.”

 

“. . .”

 

I broke Luna again.

 

“LUNA!!! Snap out of it!”

 

“Eh? What?! Oh… right. You did something ridiculous again!!”

 

I suppose I did. But the treasure is more important right now.

 

“Let’s just get the loot. Oh wait… don’t we need proof of extermination?”

 

“Yes…”

 

*splat*

 

*splat* *splat*

 

Three heads fell onto the floor in front of me. Talk about a deus ex machina. 

 

“Well… I guess that works.”

 

The chest this time looks really fancy. It’s got gold inlaid all over it, with the same patterns as the door. Around the lock there are five symbols, one for each boss. Well, let’s see what we get.

 

Inside the chest was a single platinum coin, some potions of healing, and another sword.

 

Item: Frostbite

Durability Score: A-

Enchantments: None

Abilities: Frost Aura: Allows the sword to give off a cold aura with a thought.

Description: An item stolen from a certain tabletop RPG. A normal sword with a blue grip, silver guard, and dark blue blade. It has an elegant feel to it.

 

I think Luna will find this useful. I wonder if she can dual wield?

 

“Luna, can you dual wield swords?”

 

“Yep! I haven’t been recently since my old swords broke though.”

 

“Take this.”

 

“Oooo! A Frostbite! This will make an interesting combo!”

 

“Yeah. Well, let’s head back.”

 

I shoved the slightly burnt heads into my inventory. Well, the necks are practically charred black, but the rest are in good condition.

 

 

On our way back, we noticed the number of dead adventurers on floor five had increased by around eight people. These tarantulas are killer. We decided to take a rest right before, or after if you were going down, the third floor’s boss.

 

The door opens. It seems like another party has made it to the fourth floor. Let’s see… They have two men and two women. One carries daggers while two carry swords. The fourth person doesn’t seem to be carrying anything. According to their info pages, they’re a party of C rank adventurers. A member of their party walks up to us.

 

“What are you two ladies doing here?”

 

“We’re on our way back to the surface.”

 

“I see. Two people is small for a party, did you lose some people? Need any help getting back to the surface?”

 

*slap*

 

One of the party members slapped him.

 

“Oi! Don’t go barging into other peoples’ business. If they lost someone, do you really think it's a good idea to bring it up? Besides, that elf is carrying some pretty expensive equipment. They’ll be fine.”

 

“Eh? How do you know that it wasn’t from a dead party member?”

 

“Call it an adventurer’s instinct.”

 

What an interesting party dynamic. 

 

“We’re fine! And it’s just us two, we haven’t lost anyone!”

 

Well, I’ll give them some advice.

 

“Well, you four should be careful. We’re on our way back from the fifth floor and we’ve seen at least 30 dead adventurers on it alone. If you can’t handle massive tarantulas, head back.”

 

“I think we can. Ah, and the name’s Toya by the way.”

 

“I’m Senia,” says the woman who slapped Toya.

 

“I’m Mel!”

 

“I’m Jade.”

 

Hahaha… this reminds me of a certain bear.

 

“Nice to meet you. I’m Ei. She's Luna.”

 

Nothing else notable happened on the way back.

 

Azure_Fog Next chapter is the last one in this arc. What happens next? I wonder…

Please leave feedback, any misspellings/typos, and impressions in the comments :)