Chapter 14: Floor 10.

What greeted Catherine on the next floor was a giant door twice her size. The metal door seeming out of place in the rocky dungeon. She slowly approached it, putting her hand on it as she inspected it. “We are on the bosses floor now” Catherine turned around hearing Rose speak, both her and a disappointed Nyoka entering the floor.

“Should of never told her about the crystals…” Nyoka mumbled with her head facing the floor.

“So, what’s in here anyways?” Catherine asked, her focus going back to the door. She knocked on it and figured despite its size she could easily open it without much effort, though something seemed off about it. She could not quite place it but something about the door just screamed “magical” to her.

Rose shrugged “Usually there are three bosses in rotation for the first floor. Hobgoblin, which is just a stronger and slightly bigger goblin. An orc, a really fat but strong humanoid monster, they are common on the next set of floors but if it spawns here then it would be the first orc a party fights.” She paused briefly before continuing “And last would be a Lizardman, the toughest to spawn but its basically a humanoid reptile. They used to spawn on the floors after this set but…”

“After the incident floors after 21 changed” Nyoka finished for her.

Catherine crossed her arms, she would like to see a lizardman if anything for a change of pace. She did not want to fight another goblin, even if it was stronger. She was also indifferent to the orc “So a easy, medium, and hard bosses?” She asked.

“For people like you and me they are all easy.” Rose shrugged, then placed a hand on nyoka “For someone like her… she could solo the hobgoblin and the orc just fine, the lizardman would be an issue.”

Nyoka laughed nervously, looking away from Catherine as she mumbled “even an orc would be…”

“Well then, if it is an orc or hobgoblin, Nyoka will take care of it.” Catherine said with a smirk.

The cat girl’s ears stood straight up on her head, her eyes going wide “W-wait what?!”

Catherine’s smirk widened, then she raised her hands and shrugged her shoulders “Well, I figured we might as well know what you are capable of before we go to the floors where you are useless, yeah? And you did pick up all those crystals…it is not fair you get all that for free.” She glanced over to Rose, seeking approval.

Nyoka snapped to Rose, her ears laying flat as she pleaded “It’s not my fault she didn’t know about it! Come on it’s a bit cruel to force me to fight alone!”

Rose looked between the two, groaning in frustration she spoke “As much as I hate to admit it, the slime has a point, I will end up having to protect you the further down we go. You are a rogue right? Would be comforting to know what you are capable of.” She sighed when Nyoka started to look like she was about to cry “A hobgoblin will be easy and we will step in if you need help.”

“Isn’t this supposed to be a test for her!” Nyoka pointed at Catherine, who simply rolled her eyes.

“Yes, it is her test but, I doubt having the slime effortlessly murder a boss will prove anything.” Rose said, motioning towards Catherine.

The smirk grew back onto Catherine’s face “Just accept it, if it’s a lizardman then I will handle it.”

Nyoka sighed, “Fine…” She said, walking slowly to the door as she drew her daggers.

Catherine clapped “Good good, now then…” She took a step away from the door, before she leaned back, raising one foot in the air she kicked the door causing it to swing open. In the middle of the room sat an orc wearing nothing but a loincloth, a wooden club sitting next to it as it lazed around. “We got an orc!” Catherine cheered.

The orc’s pig ears twitched, looking towards the door it oinked. Picking up its club it stood up, its fatty body shaking as it readied itself. “Just a regular orc…” Nyoka sighed in relief, lowering herself to the ground “You guys better come in if I need help.” She said then vanished.

Catherine blinked “Where did she…” She got interrupted as she heard the orc squeal in pain. Looking over she saw the orc holding the back of its neck, blue blood pouring out of a fresh wound. It turned around, facing the cat girl who had appeared behind it. “Thick skin…” She murmured. The orc screamed angerly as it slammed it’s club towards the small girl, but it was in vain as the girl nimbly avoided it by stepping back.

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The orc growled, lifting its club for another attack but was surprised when it could not find Nyoka, who should have been in front of it. It oinked in confusion, looking around for the girl before squealing and going down on one knee. Looking at one of its legs it discovered another fresh cut. It took Its hand off the back of its neck, the wound it previously covered healed.

Nyoka clicked her tongue, vanishing again. The orc oinked in frustration, turning around rapidly and swinging behind it, hoping to catch the girl by surprised but only squealed again as the back of its neck was cut, same spot as before but deeper.

Catherine, who was watching the fight from afar spoke “How is she vanishing like that?” She asked Rose while keeping an eye on the fight, Nyoka vanishing and striking the orc in it’s blind spots, unable to deal a decisive blow yet because of the orcs natural healing and vitality.

Rose smirked “You can’t see her?” she said, sounding highly amused “It’s a rouge skill, causes them to hide in plain sight.”

Catherine twitched ‘oh so you can see her?’ she thought. Watching Nyoka vanish again, only to appear behind the orc slightly later cutting into its bloody shin. ‘must be some trick to it…’ She then watched more closely as the girl vanished “ah…” She let out, noticing the blood on the floor be displaced and sure enough Nyoka appeared. ‘I don’t think that will count as seeing her but…’ she then continued to watch the drawn-out fight.

She figured that if it was an opponent that didn’t regenerate, or if she had a longer weapon to do more damage, hitting the weak points would be vastly more effective. Which made Catherine question how the organization ran things. So far what’s taking Nyoka a few minutes would only take one second with a well placed shot from a rifle, and yet they insisted on using swords or other means. True it was cost effective, with rifles apparently taking a lot to make with an apparent downside of the batteries but…

As if answering her, Nyoka appeared in front of the now kneeling and panting orc, bleeding cuts that had stopped healing. The orc oinked angerly as Nyoka readied her weapons, a faint glow surrounding the blades as she jumped towards the orc, spinning in the air and with a burst of speed she cleanly decapitated the orc, its large body falling to the ground limp as its head bounced off the ground behind it. “I did it!” Nyoka raised her hands up in the air with a cheer.

Catherine smiled, giving her a sarcastic clap. “Good job! Good job!” She said, walking over to the head and hoisting it up “What was that last move?” She asked to a bowing Nyoka, who quickly perked up and presented her daggers.

“These suckers can cut threw flesh like it was moving threw water.” She said happily “It isn’t smart to use the charge in em that allows for that when the orc can just heal the damage, they might get stuck on regrowing flesh.”

Catherine chuckled, shoving her hand into the orc’s snout to gain access to its brain “so you just cut away till it spent all its vitality huh?” She asked “Speaking of which, that’s a skill right?” She added, as she started absorbing the brain.

Nyoka flinched at the gruesome sight “Uh, yeah, that’s usually how you deal with orcs if you can’t one shot em…and yes, it’s a racial skill…”

Catherine smirked, she got to see plenty of examples of it and after absorbing the brain she felt…different… as if something changed in her bodies make up. She dropped the head and brought her hand up to her face, trying to see what was different before she flinched, jumping back to avoid a sword that cut threw where her arm used to be. “What the hell!” She yelled, facing Rose who had just attacked her.

“You absorbed the orc’s skill didn’t you?” She asked, readying her sword again “I’m curious to see what’s changed, so stand still.” She then dashed towards her.

Catherine was about to move to dodge it, but gave up. Thinking this was the quickest way to tell she braced herself as Rose’s sword cut cleanly threw her arm. “You just wanted an excuse to attack me…” She sighed, raising her cut arm up to get a look at it and straight away she noted something was different.

Usually how her regeneration worked was she used stocked fluids to replace any missing mass. Now without even doing that she could see her arm slowly reform as she felt something be drained from her. She tried the old way and her arm reformed instantly and she smirked, it wasn’t a drastic change, but she was interested in how this interacted with how morphable her body was.

“So what if I did?” Rose said, watching the whole process from start to finish “So what changed? You were reforming it slower there for a sec.”

‘perceptive bitch’ Catherin groaned internally, noting Nyoka who had lost interest and was extracting the mana crystal from the orc’s corpse “Nothing major, just passive healing.” She walked over to Nyoka as she just extracted a fist sized mana crystal from the corpse.

Nyoka noticed the girl looming over her and quickly backed away, putting the crystal in her backpack “I earned this one!” She yelled in protest.

Catherine frowned, but then shrugged. If orcs were common, then she would get plenty from the next few floors. She looked around the room, finding the stairs leading down she started walking towards them.

“Hold up, we are going to rest here for a bit.” Rose said.

Catherine waved her off “You guys go ahead, I am going to continue heading down.” She said, taking her first step “Catch up if you can~” She taunted, before dashing down the stairs, laughing when she heard Rose yell after her. “Let’s see just how far ahead I can get…”

When Catherine entered the next floor she stopped “Oh, this is new” She said, unlike the previous floors instead of an open room with monsters in it, instead what greeted her was a stone hallway with no monsters in sight. With no where else to go she shrugged and walked forward down the hall, onto her next fight.