Nate pushed aside the urge to give the kitsune a hug. They weren’t that close yet, and he couldn’t treat her as an unthinking beast or animal. She had proven that she was smart and had feelings of her own. He wasn’t the type to force a close relationship to form out of nothing.

She was his companion beast, but they barely knew each other.

He settled for putting his hand on her hand and lightly scratching the area behind her ear. “How are you doing? You feeling alright after getting a little revenge, and dyeing, or was that a little much?”

Aura flopped onto the ground next to him with a huff. “It was unpleasant. A part of me didn’t want to believe that they would truly attack. Even knowing what they had done to the rest of my family, I wanted to believe that some part of their duty remained.”

Her head sank to the ground, and the voice in his head and the accompanying images grew softer. “They tore me apart, piece by piece until only my head remained attached to my body. Then at last they tore that off as well.”

He winced, his hand stopping for a moment. That was eerily similar to how he had died to the first shadow beast he had come across. Which, now that he thought about it, might make sense. It saw him, a human, in the same form the kitsunes could take and simply reacted.

“I’ve had that happen to me as well. It wasn’t exactly pleasant.” He sympathized. “How was death for you? Did you simply wake up again, wander around the dungeon as a disembodied ghost, or something else?”

“I was attached to you. After I died, I left the dungeon and went to your main body to recuperate. I was pretty much sleeping curled up around your core the entire time.” She exhaled and opened her eyes. “I was vaguely aware of what was going on, but that took some effort.”

“What do you want to do now? There are a few of the shadow beasts left inside the dungeon. I can help you take them out if you want. I understand if this is something you need to do on your own though.”

Aura was silent for a minute as she considered her options. “I appreciate the offer, but I feel like this is something I need to do myself. It’s personal, besides I got a fair bit of strength from the ones I did manage to kill.”

“I understand, but don’t forget, I’m here for you if you need me. We are stuck together now, so if it’s personal to you, it’s personal to me. I’ll be on the second floor if you need me. I’ll be trying to farm some rainbow orbs.”

They kept talking about how their days had gone as they started heading for the portal.

Nate had the camera screens pulled up so they could keep track of the shadow beasts that had taken up residence around the portal. None of them seemed to be able to go back through the portal, or at least were interested in doing so. Which made their decision to stick around all the more curious, in his opinion.

However, that wasn’t his concern. It would either make things more difficult or it wouldn’t. If it did, then it would extend the time the dungeon stayed open, which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.

He fell a few steps behind Aura and let her take the lead as she charged ahead. Taking out the gun from its holster, he popped out the elemental core that was currently inside the hopper. He knew he had said he wasn’t going to help her take them out, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to help her, period.

The old earth core was replaced with a metal element core. While the stone darts and their petrification effect would have been useful against the shadow beasts. It probably would have also been giving her too much help. The metal marbles that the new core fired would allow him to simply disable his targets as he went for the portal.

At least that would be his excuse.

Entering the room a few seconds after her, he had the weapon at the ready. Slipping down to one knee, he steadied his arm and took careful aim.

Nate cocked back the hammer, exhaled, and gently pulled the trigger.

Unlike a regular revolver, he needed to cock the hammer each time he wanted to fire. The older guns usually had far heavier trigger pulls when used that way, but it was possible. That wasn’t the case with his gun, and he was fine with that. The weapon was weird and powerful enough as it was. It was silly to ask for more before he was ready to even handle it.

The heavy metal ball rocketed out of the barrel and tore off the front leg of a nearby shadow beast. It was, without a doubt, an incredibly lucky shot. There was no way Nate was that accurate with the odd gun just yet.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

Ignoring his good luck, he cocked the hammer and took aim again. If he was lucky, he might be able to disable another four of them before Aura said anything. He was going to need to act fast though, if he wanted to do something like that.

His exhale was followed by the controlled pull of his trigger finger. The metal ball bearing shattered the shoulder of the beast closest to the portal, sending it tumbling to the ground. The shot was a good one, but also not what he had been aiming for.

Not willing to delay and waste time, he quickly cocked the hammer again while standing up.

Aura was actively fighting the shadow beasts. Her teeth and claws whirled through the air, while occasionally one of her tails would light up in a different color. Whenever that happened, some form of magic or specialized elemental attack would come into effect. He wasn’t sure which it actually was. All he knew was that each of her tails seemed to correspond to another element.

Which meant that at the moment, she had access to four elements. It was no wonder all the other beasts were so jealous of them. At this point, even Nate was jealous of the species.

Disregarding that, he fired a third time as he began walking for the portal. The shot went high, scoring a bloody line across the lower spine of a shadow beast. Its back legs stopped responding as the connection was cut.

He risked one last shot before stepping through the portal. That was all the help he was going to give Aura, any more than this, and he risked stepping too far over the line.

On the second floor, Nate found the crowd across from the bridge smaller than he was expecting. The new traps appeared to be working and were slowly trimming down the number of new beasts that made it to the end.

The only reason there were still as many beasts as there were was because they were scared to cross the bridge. They were taking turns and acting rather well-behaved at the moment. None of them wanted to take a dip into the acid bath down below.

It was rather too bad for them that Nate was about to upset everything.

He exchanged the metal element core for the earth core that he had been using previously. There were only around five shots left in the core and he wanted to use it up now. After seeing the few cores that he had left, Nate really wished he had mentioned everything to his parents earlier. If he had, then he could have gotten away with grabbing a few of the cores for his own use.

As it was, when the last four in the bag he had grabbed from Jace were gone, the gun would become useless. After that, it would be time to go back to using his kukris.

It was a daunting prospect, but one he was fine with. He needed the practice. However, he needed the items in the new dungeon more. He couldn’t afford to use all the cores here. With that in mind, he separated the metal element core from the group and then closed the bag. The last three cores would be saved for use in the new dungeon.

Stepping out onto the bridge, all the beast’s eyes snapped to him with a loud combined snarl. A rat-faced, jiggly marshmallow, of a rolling ball of unwashed fat and stench wobbled its way onto the bridge. Little insignificant legs dragged the behemoth-sized monster towards Nate, one inch at a time. A layer of sweat, dead skin, and slime was left in its wake where its jelly rolls had dragged along the ground.

The arrow trap went into effect after it had taken another couple of tiny steps. The wooden missiles slammed into its side with a vengeance, causing its rolls of fat to ripple for several seconds after each attack. Unfortunately, the beast was just too big and heavy. While it was clearly feeling the attacks, they just didn’t have the power behind them to knock the behemoth off the bridge or do more than tickle it.

Nate waited a few seconds for the disgusting blob to get peppered with a dozen more arrows before he took a shot.

A stone dart blasted out from the barrel of his gun and hit the disgusting rat right in the eye. For the first time since it had appeared, it actually showed a real, physical reaction. Its head reared back as it screamed in pain. The orb was empty and leaking a jelly-like fluid. A stone substance crept out of its eye as the petrification from the dart went to work.

He really didn’t want to waste the four shots he had left in the core. If he didn’t get rid of the big ugly first, then he wouldn’t have a chance at any of the other beasts behind it.

With that thought in mind, Nate aimed at its other eye and pulled the trigger.

Before it could even think of reacting, the eye had been pulped. Within seconds, the petrification effect from the second eye connected with that of the first and they combined. The stone began to spread faster around its face, climbing inside its whiskered, twitching nose, and buck-toothed mouth.

A soundless scream gurgled out of its throat as its tongue turned to stone and began to thrash inside its mouth. A minute later it collapsed, suffocated, as its insides slowly turned to stone, no longer able to see what was happening around it.

It took another minute for it to die and sink into the dungeon. The entire time, its side was being pelted with arrows.

When it finally vanished, Nate saw a rainbow orb left in its wake. It hadn’t been a particularly hard fight, thanks to his overpowered weapon. However, if he hadn’t possessed that, he sincerely doubted that he would have been able to kill something that blobby. Cutting through that many layers of fat with his kukris would have been next to impossible.

He still had the kriegsmesser that he could use. He just didn’t think it was a good idea to use too many weapons at the moment. As it was, he was still learning how to use the kukris. Throwing another bladed weapon into the mix would only further delay him from mastering them.

With that thought in mind, and the battle replaying through his thoughts, Nate stored the odd-looking gun. He would fight the remainder of the night with his blades. The gun would be reserved for enemies like the giant rat that he for sure couldn’t kill normally.

Picking up the rainbow orb, he welcomed the rush of energy and let it seep through his body. Then, opening his eyes, he unsheathed his kukris and charged across the bridge. It was time to truly get some practice in now.

He had a long way to go if he wanted to catch up with Angelica and Lindsay after all.