--- [Leo’s perspective]

“So, this is what C-rank dungeons are like, huh?” – Lexa

“I was starting to think I was getting close to C-rank, but maybe I’m not…” – Victor

“You’ll get there eventually, buddy. Your specialty has a lot of potential; even more than mine.” – Leo

“You’re just being humble. No matter how many times my hits ‘echo’, I’ll never be able to clear hordes of enemies like that.” – Victor

“Maybe mine is better at clearing large amounts of enemies, but yours is better at defeating powerful opponents. I’ve never encountered as many enemies at once as we did today. Usually it’s a few strong enemies, in which case, yours is more effective.” – Leo

“He’s not lying, Vic. Keep honing your skills and you’ll reach C-rank sooner or later.” – Seth

“Your ability isn’t half bad either, Seth.” – Lexa

“True. I wonder how it would fare against Leo’s…” – Seth

“I like mine a lot too. Being able to fight at long range is very nice.” – Lexa

“It is indeed.” – Seth

“I’m the only close-range fighter here…” – Victor

“Haha, that’s true.” – Seth

We continue to chat for a little while.

“Wait, you guys all have younger siblings around the same age, right?” – Seth

“Yeah… That’s right. I never really thought about it before, but we should introduce them to each other.” – Lexa

“As long as you make sure those boys don’t hit on my little sister, I’m fine with it.” – Victor

“Don’t worry, Shin isn’t into that sorta stuff.” – Lexa

“I see. Well then, I guess when they become hunters, they’ll be like a little baby version of our team.” – Victor

“Alex isn’t becoming a hunter…” – Leo

“Hmm?” – Victor

“Being a hunter is a dangerous job, every mission could be your last… I don’t want anything to happen to him. Heck, the only reason why I even went for this job in the first place is because our village is too poor to sustain itself. I just happened to be good at it.” – Leo

“I see… Well, that’s understandable I guess.” – Victor

Suddenly, everything became very awkward…

Maybe I shouldn’t have said it like that…

Lexa tried to break the silence by asking Seth a question.

“You don’t have any siblings, right?” – Lexa

“Nope.” – Seth

“Aha…” – Lexa

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

…

But the awkward silence came right back…

I started this, so I should be the one to end it.

“Anyways, are you guys ready to do the boss?” – Leo

“Sure.” – Seth

“Yeah.” – Victor

“Yup.” – Lexa

“Alright then, let’s go.” – Leo

We get back up and walk towards the door.

It’s a large door; must be at least a few hundred meters tall and wide.

“You guys can stay outside. We’ll take care of the boss. I know you didn’t get to do a whole bunch, but this dungeon is a whole rank above yours.” – Leo

“Just look at this like a learning opportunity.” – Seth

“Sure. I never really expected you guys to let us fight the boss anyways.” – Victor

“I wouldn’t want to even if you did let us! Even I’m not stupid enough to think I stand a chance against a C-rank boss!” – Lexa

“I see… Well then, let’s do this.” – Leo

Vic and Lexa back off, while Seth pushes the door open.

As he opens the door, I immediately shoot a ball of fire in there to light up the room.

“CREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK!!!!” – Spider queen

There’s absolutely enormous spider in there!

It’s hundreds of times larger than the regular ones, and they weren’t exactly small themselves…

The echoes of its screech are almost deafening.

Me and Seth push in.

The boss charges straight at us.

Seth uses both hands to summon a large thunderbolt, and it strikes the spider down.

It falls to the ground but gets up again just as quickly.

It spits out clumps of web right towards us.

“You take care of the webs; I’ll take care of her.” – Seth

“Got it.” – Leo

As Seth continues to shoot an endless stream of lightning at it, I create large fireball that engulfs the webs.

But the webs don’t burn away that easily…

Not only is each string significantly thicker and more durable than the ones the regular spiders produced, but since it’s rolled up into a ball, it becomes exponentially stronger.

I’ll have to increase my output.

I create another large fireball, but it’s much hotter than the last one.

I charge it up as much as I can.

Instead of shooting it towards the webs, I let the webs hit it.

The webs are burned up, and I throw the fireball at the spider queen.

She screeches in pain as it hits her, but she doesn’t go down that easily.

She jumps right at us, and we’re forced to dodge.

Seth gets a clean hit on one of her eyes, instantly blinding it.

This enrages her even more, and she focuses all her attention on him.

It throws a barrage of attacks with its front legs; Seth is just barely able to dodge them all.

He doesn’t have any time to counterattack at all.

I take the opportunity to damage her as much as I can, but she just ignores all my attacks and continues to go for Seth.

I see that Seth stumbles a little and almost falls over.

That slight lapse in concentration was enough for him to not be able to dodge the next attack.

She launches her front leg right at him.

“Shit!” – Seth

I don’t like doing this, but I have no choice.

I cloak myself in my own flames; flames that I’ve turned up to the highest degree that I can.

I quickly dash forward with all my might, and right before she pierces him, I grab her leg.

I push her leg away just enough for it to miss Seth, but her insanely sharp leg hairs pierces my palms.

“Are you okay?” – Seth

“Don’t worry about it!” – Leo

The leg I touched burned off; making the boss lose balance.

I turn off my fire cloak.

I’m for the most part immune to my own fire, but when I cloak myself like this, even I get some minor burns.

That’s why I don’t like using it.

That being said, it’s a very effective technique; especially in close quarters.

Her hairs pierced my hands, but I quickly cauterize my wounds with my own fire to stop the bleeding.

“It’s time to end this.” – Leo

“I agree.” – Seth

While the boss is stumbling around trying to get its sense of balance back, we jump to the other side of the room.

I reach both my hands into the air, and create a massive ball of fire.

I don’t use my regular fire, however…

“Hellfire…” – Leo

The fireball turns into a dark-red flame; it’s almost black.

Hellfire is significantly stronger than my normal flames, but it also drains my stamina a lot quicker.

Seth shoots an unimaginable amount of electricity into the hellfire.

It merges together and forms an entirely new substance.

We both have control over it, so we both push our hands forwards.

The ball goes flying towards the boss.

By now, the boss has adapted to losing a leg, and has already started rushing towards us.

She’s not an intelligent monster; she doesn’t seem to be capable of sensing danger.

She runs straight into the massive fireball, and it burns a massive hole right through her.

Her entire body and head turned into nothingness.

All that remains are her legs.

They fall over and signals our victory.

We defeated the boss with only some relatively minor injuries.