I kicked and kicked at this lump of meat that was no longer moving or screaming. I continued kicking this thing for making me feel a really unpleasant emotion that made me express anger on my face for the first time in this life till I felt a hand on my shoulder.

They pull me slightly back, which pulls me out of my trance that was filled with deep, slow-burning anger from my past life.

“Nyx, stop; he’s no longer moving.”

I turned to Athrun, who pulled me back, and he stepped back a bit, which I’m guessing was because I still had on my angry face.

Putting back my glare, I took a moment to take a breath to expel the unpleasant emotions in me.

Relieved that I stopped and calmed down, Athrun was about to tell Sarah to go heal Cor, but I did not care because I pulled back my foot again and kicked Cor in the nether region as hard as I could.

Cor whimpered a bit, and I took several steps back, finally calming down.

Arthrun was surprised when he took his eyes off me, then had a wry smile as he was relieved that I finally calmed down and went back to my usual expressionless self, while Sarah looked concerned, and for Nox, he gave me an approving look.

“Ummm… Are you okay? Are you hurt?”

“No, and sorry for that; I tend to react violently to people like him.”

“Yeah… I can see that.”

Turning to look at Sarah and Nox, Athrun asks them.

“Heal him just enough so he doesn’t wake up again, and Nox, could you carry him?”

Sarah and Nox nodded, but Nox looked displeased, which I could understand since he was carrying a lump of trash on his back.

“Fine, but I’m throwing him off when we get into a fight.”

Healing Cor, Sarah's hair started to glow white, as white light shone around Cor’s body, which I’m guessing was healing magic.

After that was done, everyone prepared to leave; we left the tent and went out of the camp to start going up the dungeon floors.

We trekked through the hot desert sand and eventually stumbled upon a monster.

We saw something big swimming through the sand like it was water, but Athrun and everyone else seemed to be calm about the situation, which I guess I should have expected because they are, I presume, high-level adventurers with what I know about them.

Nox stood at the front, readying his shield while throwing Cor on the ground off his back as Sarah’s hair glowed white, preparing a spell. Meanwhile, Athrun's hair started glowing golden, and he took out a pair of knives.

Athrun started first by emitting electricity from his body and to the pair of knives he was holding. He then threw them one by one, and as he threw the second knife, electricity started to come out of his hand and toward the second knife he threw, then to the first knife like a chain.

When the lightning connects to the first knife thrown, it starts emitting a large amount of electricity and hits the monster like a tree, causing it to jump out from the sand.

Coming out of the sand, it was a desert-armored lizard. It was really big, almost as big as the direwolf I had fought back in Farsbarow and had overlapping plates covering its body that made it look vaguely familiar to an armadillo lizard in my past life.

It came running straight toward us, so Nox positioned himself to be the target of its attack as it rammed into his shield.

They are B-rank monsters, as strong as the owlbear boss on the 20th floor.

Thinking that, it really surprised me when Nox stood his ground and actually took the brunt of the desert armored lizard’s attack. He was only pushed back marginally, which he then repelled back instead and bashed its head with his shield.

I was surprised by his raw strength since I didn’t think any normal person in this world would be this strong, especially because he did not seem to be using magic or having any buffs.

Nox skillfully used his shield to guard against the desert-armored lizard, while Athrun took out his sword and Sarah fired her spell.

Chains that looked like they were made out of light sprouted out of the ground and restrained the armored lizards as Athruun ran up to Nox, charging up his sword with electricity.

Athrun then proceeded to cut apart the desert-armored lizard with barely any effort.

Seeing that, when he said I should be careful, I guess he meant it.

When the desert armored lizard started disappearing, Athrun picked up a small, semi-clear, spherical object and tossed it toward me.

I caught it and asked why he gave it to me because the thing I just caught was a monster core.

The stronger the monster you fight, the larger the shard inside it becomes, but at a certain point, the shard inside it will be turned into a core. So selling it could make a decently large sum of money.

Athrun shrugged his shoulders and said.

“We don’t really need it; you can have it.”

He didn’t seem to care about the core; from how they dealt with them, I guess the core was not worth a lot to them, so I said okay, and we proceeded to make our way through the 29th floor and to the 28th floor, fighting monsters as we did.

However, for some reason, we were constantly being attacked by an abnormal amount of desert-armored lizards because, in our last encounter, there were 5 that attacked us. Plus, my pouch, which was holding the desert-armored lizard monster cores Athrun kept on giving me, was already full.

“Hey Athrun, isn’t this an abnormal amount for desert armored lizards attacking us?”

Curious, he asked what I meant by it.

“They usually spawn alone and very rarely work together since they typically would kill each other if they ever met. I read this from a book about the dungeon.”

One or maybe two is fine, but the last encounter, 5, is just weird.

“Oh, I see…”

Thinking about something, Athrun then had an annoyed look as if he thought about something.

“Nox, drop Cor, and Sarah, wake him up.”

Nox and Sarah were confused by Athrun's request, but Nox got an annoyed look while Sarah looked troubled, like they knew what he was thinking.

Nox threw Cor off his shoulder; Cor hit the ground with a thud while Sarah began healing him.

Nox isn’t really that gentle with him, but from who Cor is, I would do the same.

Wondering what was going on, I asked Athrun, to which he responded.

“I think I know what’s going on; you might want to take several steps back since we’re waking him up.”

I looked at Cor and did exactly what he said and then some more since I didn’t want to be near him when he woke up.

Maybe I should step back some more just to be safe, but as I was thinking that, Cor sprouted up.

Looking at his surroundings, in which Nox’s giant body blocks his view of me, I hear him ask.

“Hey, where is that kid, Nyx or whatever?”

He said it with a bright and cheery tone, which made Athrun stare daggers at him.

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“Why do you want to ask?”

“That thrashing she gave me was something; I want a round two.”

Oh god damn it, I had my hopes up that he would be afraid of me after what I did to him, but he is really like those two idiots in my past life, James and Lupin, who were never able to learn their lessons even after countless beatings. Am I cursed to meet people like him?

“So, where is she?”

Athrun looked at him with a sigh.

“First of all, please call Nyx as a guy since, you know, Nyx is trying to hide her identity.”

“Oh right, I forgot about it.”

Having a look, like he expected that answer even though he told everyone about me, he then asked.

“So, where is she, I mean he? I want a round two.”

Athrun looks exasperated by his response; he then turns to look at me. His eyes widen a bit when he sees me staring daggers at Cor, different from my usual expressionless self, which I could also tell from the muscles in my face tensing to make that expression.

It was the first time I was actually staring daggers at someone, which came as a surprise for me because I didn’t think there would be a person in this world that I would hate this much to be around or in the vicinity of.

Looking back at Cor, back with an annoyed look, he then asks.

“Do you know why desert armored lizards are attacking us?”

Cor put his hand on his chin and thought for a moment, then proceeded to go through his pocket to pull something out.

It was an empty vial of some kind, which Nox snatched away and put up close to his nose to smell. He grimaced, which made everyone grimace as well.

“You've got to be kidding me, not again.”

Athrun smacks his forehead and groans, and I sense something bad is about to happen.

“Nyx, please come over here.”

Hearing Athrun calling me over, I reluctantly ran back to them.

Upon seeing me, Cor's smile grew bigger, and I had to put up my guard and everyone else's too because there was no telling if he would attack me or not, which everyone else seemed to think so even though he was their ally.

I stare at him with an even colder stare, which he seems to be delighted by.

I then turn to Athrun to ask.

“What is it?”

Athrun turns to look at Nox for his explanation, so I also turn to look at him.

“He just used a monster-attracting potion of some kind on himself, but…”

Athrun and Nox looked at Cor with a cold and stern expression that would make anyone shiver.

“Where the hell did you get a potion like that? I don’t recognize it.”

Cor finally did not have a smile on his face and squirmed a bit before telling.

“Ummm… You see, there was a girl in the 19th-floor village who was making potions there; I forgot her name, but she made it for me when I requested it. She said it was special because it only attracts strong monsters and doesn’t have a scent.”

Huh? Girl in the 19th-floor village? Wait… did Maria give it to him? Monster-attracting potions are illegal to have, so why did she make it for him?

Athrun mentioned he had done it before, multiple times, but when he said he couldn’t smell it, I presumed monster-attracting potions have a smell to them. Since Cor got it from Maria, did she use one of the recipes in her book about alchemy to make it?

“I got bored and wanted to fight some monsters but since we were at camp, I used the potion to attract some monsters to fight. I was hoping you wouldn’t notice, but you did…”

Everyone except for Sarah, who had a disappointed look, began staring daggers at him even more until we felt the ground start to shake.

We looked in the direction of the rumbling and saw a small sandstorm coming toward us, with things swimming through the sand.

There were too many to immediately count, but I could tell they were desert-armored lizards coming straight for us.

“Not again.”

I turned to look at Athrun, who said that, wondering what he meant, but after a moment of thought, he told me that they had done a lot of crazy things, and I guess this is one of them, taking on a horde head-on.

Sarah's hair glowed white, and so did Athrun's, with his golden hair, while Nox drank a potion; as for Cor, he just had a smile like he was enjoying this, which made me want to punch him, but I refrained from doing it because that would just excite him.

A glowing mist-like aura that was the same color as Sarah’s glowing hair started to surround Athrun, Nox, and Cor.

Then when the mist-like aura fully surrounded their bodies, Cor, as expected, ran at them first, followed by Nox.

As for Athrun, he didn’t move, but I saw his hair start glowing and disappear into light.

A streak of electricity arced through the air toward the horde, and then there was another flash of light, where Athrun had appeared above.

He extended his open hand to the ground, and lightning started to come out of his hand, aiming directly at the center of the horde.

There was a loud boom, and I saw multiple desert-armored lizards fly through the air, hit by the electricity.

I counted roughly 10 or 12 that got hit, which was almost half of them.

Falling, Athrun landed on a desert-armored lizard that seemed to be paralyzed from his spell and dispatched it with his sword.

I watch Athrun proceed to kill each of the armored desert lizards he paralyzed one by one while dodging each of their attacks as they climb over each other to attack him.

Turning my attention to Nox and Cor, I saw Nox accelerating with unnatural speed, passing Cor, likely from whatever spell Sarah cast.

With his shield up, he ran straight toward the horde of desert armor lizards and plowed through them.

It was like an actual car or truck was gliding through the horde, not a person.

When Nox was at the center, he suddenly stopped and started fighting the desert armor lizards, focusing their attention on him instead of Athrun.

Jumping past Nox was Cor, who jumped up high in the air with the same unnatural strength I saw from Nox; he landed on one of the desert armor lizards, stabbed it through with his sword, and then jumped to the next one.

I wonder why he did not finish it till I saw blood coming out of its eyes and then its body.

Oh, I see, it was poison. I’m kind of surprised he would use poison since he is a battle-crazed lunatic, but I guess… Wait! Didn’t he use that sword on me when he attacked me without warning?

Looking at how fast the desert armor lizards fell to the poison, that is more than lethal enough to kill me a hundred times over.

I walk up to Sarah and ask her.

“How the heck is he in your party?”

She looked at me confused but realized I was talking about Cor, so with a wry smile.

“Well… it's because of his instincts and intuition.”

Huh… Instinct and intuition, I guess that makes some sort of sense because there are times when you have to rely on them to make decisions, so I guess his instinct and intuition are good enough to have around despite the trouble he brings.

However, guessing what I was thinking, Sarah corrected me.

“More specifically, we do the complete opposite of what he says. He had an unusual ability to go straight into danger instead of out.”

… I honestly didn’t know how to think about that because are his antics really worth it?

Sarah's wry smile turned to a normal smile, and she asked.

“If you don’t mind, is it fine to call you by your real name?”

Hearing her request, I guess it’s fine since nobody is around, especially since no one would want to go near a horde, so I say okay, wondering why she asked.

“Thank you, I want to say sorry about earlier. I’m sorry, Lady Rita.”

Hearing what she said as she bowed in apology, I told her to just call me Rita and also asked what she was apologizing for.

“We should have expected him to attack you in the back of the tent, with how you say, his personality.”

The thought of why they allowed him on the team started to fill up my mind again, which Sarah could guess by my expressionless face staring at her, which made the air around us awkward, so she hurriedly said.

“Other than his instinct and intuition to go straight into danger, he really has saved us a lot of times and more than made up for his quirks. We won’t have it any other way.”

I honestly don’t understand their logic because I would have just kicked him out or left the party since beating the daylight out of him would not work on him and definitely make him want to fight me even more, but I could see some sense of comradery with her. I guess he’s like one of those friends that you can never get rid of.

“That is… how do I say it, commendable.”

Sarah happily nodded at my response, and we continued watching everyone fight the horde.

They all were skillfully fighting the horde without breaking a sweat, even, begrudgingly, Cor too.

I saw them take out half of the horde while I was talking to Sarah, and eventually, they managed to finish killing all the desert armored lizards.

Coming back, I saw everyone running back, but I went on high alert because I saw Cor not slowing down and was running straight toward me with a smile on his face and sword still drawn.

Oh, you have to be kidding me, not again.

Athrun and Nox, seeing what was going to happen, tried to stop him by trying to tackle him to the ground, but he moved out of the way without looking back.

I turned to Sarah with a glance to tell her to restrain him because I really didn’t want to fight him if I could, in which she hurriedly cast a spell, but when I looked back to Cor, it was already too late.

He swung his sword at me, and I immediately jumped back. I dodged each of his swings, and I felt anger start to swell up inside of me.

I took out my dagger to guard against the sword he was swinging at me. Then I swung in a feint, followed with another feint, and finished it up with a kick to the nether region.

However, that did not work because he expected that. Oh, great, he is learning; of all the things he learned from the previous beatdown, why can’t he learn to stop fighting me?

He counters, and I move to the side and then try the same thing again, but when he dodges my kick to his nether region, I jump forward to punch him in the gut as hard as I can, followed by poking his eyes, and then I grab the collar of his shirt and use all of my weight to drag him to the ground.

When he was on the ground, for a slight moment there was a pause because I was staring at him and was beginning to see red, in which I moved in to kick him in the balls continuously until Athrun caught up and pulled me back away from him.

“Are you okay? Did he hurt you?”

Athrun looked at me to see if I was okay, ignoring Cor next to us.

I told him that I was fine, and we looked at Cor.

I glared at his unconscious body, and my body started to move on its own again, but Athrun stopped me from kicking him any further.

I continued glaring at him, and Athrun placed a hand on my shoulder as Sarah began healing him because this was going to be a long and annoying trip up the dungeon.