The sharks had yet another new device strapped to their backs in place of the wrecked rocket array. Just one cannon again, this time with a very wide barrel. Three sharp metallic rods stuck out of the barrel and pointed just in front of the barrel, making them almost look like a claw.

I could only imagine what kind of crazy sci-fi weaponry this was supposed to be.

The sharks were happy to answer my question, seeing as they separated and one of them faced me.

Once again, I considered firing my gun before them, but I spotted one of my doppelgangers right behind the damn shark.

Argh!

Then the giant cannon began charging. Unlike the first cannon, a ball of light with sparks of electricity running around it, began growing right in front of the cannon between the claw things.

I ran to the side, hoping to get a better angle for my shot before it shot first.

Unfortunately, just as I found an acceptable spot and aimed my gun, the glowing ball of electrified energy shot out with an odd pwoof sound and began to slowly fly in my direction.

Its slow speed would have made it look pretty harmless if it wasn’t for the shark jerking back in recoil as it fired.

I didn’t trust it for one second. I didn’t even want to shoot at it now, just in case it exploded or something.

So I simply lowered my gun for the time being and kept running, waiting for the shark to charge me.

But that didn’t happen either. Instead, the shark began charging a second shot of the energy ball.

I frowned, but kept running just as the first energy ball reached the spot where I’d been standing and… bounced off the ground with another one of those weird pwoof sounds.

After the bounce, it kept flying at the same speed somewhere back into the room and–

Oh fuck no.

I belatedly noticed one of the mirrored energy balls slowly making its way down to me from above and moved out of the way.

I looked at the room at large and my face paled in horror. There were six of these energy balls just randomly bouncing around the room now, which meant even more stuff I needed to constantly stay aware of.

The sharks fired their second shot of bouncing energy balls.

That was what they were doing. They were trying to fill this room with so much crap that something would inevitably end up hitting me. As if it wasn’t enough that my own gun’s shots could hit me, argh!

Again, instead of charging at me with its body, the sharks began charging a third energy ball.

I need to end this now!

I pulled out my gun, took aim at the energy ball still being charged, and pulled the trigger.

A loud bang followed by six roars of my enemy reached my ears before I heard the rapidly repeating pwoof sounds of the energy balls and saw several somethings whizzing by in my field of vision.

My stomach dropped as I realized what had just happened.

My shot had just sped all those energy balls up. Slow ones were already a nightmare, but this–

I yelped and dodged out of the way just as an energy ball smacked the ground where I’d stood and kept on bouncing. I had no time to recover though as the shark himself had finally decided to charge me just as I was off balance.

I idly noticed one of the energy balls hitting him and harmlessly bouncing off his scales – stupid cheater!

I activated Bullet Time, although I felt that I didn’t have much juice left, quickly took a stance, aimed my gun down his open maw, switched the setting to ink, and then fired.

I found myself flying backwards just as my vision went black with the bang. My gun fell out of my hands and I tumbled on the ground.

My entire body was in pain from the crash and I didn’t think I could move very well, but the sound of an energy ball bouncing very close to me motivated me enough to scrabble back up onto my limbs, screaming in pain, and wipe away the ink that was covering my face.

The shark was thrashing in the air, coughing out ink, clearly in pain and very distracted.

But also not dead yet. And there was still a cluster of energy balls making the entire area into a death zone.

It wasn’t over yet and I needed to move.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

But what could I even do? I was low on Ether, probably low on Tempor, I had no offensive options for Intra, I’d dropped my naginata too far from here, and my gun had fallen from my hands as well.

The only weapon I had left was–

I summoned the key sword into my hand, fed it as much Ether as I could – without knocking myself out – to ignite it, drew my aching arm back, and then whipped it forward in a throw with as much force as I could straight at the nearest shark.

Just as the weapon left my hand, I collapsed into a heap, drained of most of my Ether. I still managed to crane my head up enough to look at the shark though. And by some miracle, I saw that I’d hit it.

There was a key sword buried inside its head, and the shark kept jerking around for another second before it abruptly stopped moving and fell to the ground. All of them did, in fact.

I tried not to flinch when one of the sharks fell past me and onto the wall behind me.

The energy balls were still bouncing, though, and I couldn’t help but feel dread.

Even if I’d managed to kill it, what was I supposed to do now? I couldn’t move right now, and eventually, one of those balls would hit me–

Just as I thought that, every single energy ball in the room suddenly sputtered out and vanished.

My breath hitched and I froze in anticipation.

Slowly, one by one, the reflections on the walls and on the ceiling faded away like a mist, eventually leaving only the one pool with normal gravity, me lying in a heap, and a dead shark with the key sword sticking out of its ink-stained head.

A moment later, the shark also disappeared into the mist, leaving the key sword to clatter on the ground. In its place, a massive chest appeared. One even bigger than the previous boss chests, with a glittering cyan horned skull painted on the lid. The entire thing glowed cyan.

I stared at the chest in muted silence for a moment before I let myself finally relax.

It was over.

I’d finally beaten this stupid dungeon.

Then, just as I relaxed enough, there was a whole slew of system windows popping up in front of me.

‘Baby adventurer’ achievement unlocked!

+1 Skill point

‘Lone wolf’ achievement unlocked!

+3 Skill points

‘Far from home’ achievement unlocked!

+3 Skill points

‘Paradox adventurer’ achievement unlocked!

+8 Skill points

‘Rookie dungeoneer’ Side quest complete!

Main objective:

   Clear a dungeon of any rank [ACHIEVED]

Side objectives:

   Delve into the dungeon on your own with no outside help [ACHIEVED]

   B rank dungeon or higher [FAILED]

   Conquer the dungeon on your first try [FAILED]

Hidden objectives:

   Conquer a Tempor-based dungeon [ACHIEVED]

   Begin the dungeon with less than 10 total skill points [ACHIEVED]

Rewards:

   10SP

   Large Tempor expansion ticket

I lay there baffled at the sheer amount of skill points I’d just gotten as the aforementioned ticket fell in front of my face into the puddle of ink.

How many was that? Three plus three plus… twenty-five skill points?!

Holy shit.

Hold on, though. Why had it auto-completed the quest? That hadn’t happened with the previous quest. Was it because completing the dungeon automatically either failed or completed all the side objectives?

My eyes kept scanning all the text, and I idly asked the system to tell me what all those achievements even were.

Baby adventurer - Conquer a dungeon. [COMPLETE]

Lone wolf - Conquer a dungeon solo. [COMPLETE]

Far from home - Conquer a dungeon outside of your birth country. [COMPLETE]

Paradox adventurer - Conquer a tempor-based dungeon. [COMPLETE]

…Huh. There really were a ton of achievements tied to conquering dungeons, weren’t there?

Also wow, outside of my birth country? Try outside of my birth world.

Or wait. Did my rebirth count? Had that reset my ‘birth country’, so to speak? Did that mean that I’d crossed some imaginary country border in my wandering?

…Could you still call them countries if there was no civilization to speak of?

Maybe I was just overthinking it. Whatever. An achievement was an achievement.

Although, hold on… Why had completing a tempor-based dungeon given me a whopping eight points? Yes, it had been grueling, but wasn’t this supposed to be a D-rank dungeon? Why was this dungeon treated like it was harder than it should be? Were the letter ranks not what I thought they were, after all?

“Ugh…” I groaned as I began to slowly move again.

I tried to prop myself on my hands, but my hands slipped on all the ink I was still covered in.

“Bwuh,” I let out as my cheek hit the ground.

I groaned in annoyance.

It took me a few more tries to properly sit up again.

Now that I wasn’t desperate to kill a shark and avoid his balls, I felt all the slimy ink covering me and couldn’t help but cringe.

Why had I used ink for that shot anyway? I’d wanted something stronger than just water and hadn’t wanted to burn myself with death water or buff him with life ooze, but… Ugh.

The ink option was a total noob trap, wasn’t it? Why would you ever use it except for extremely niche situations?

I summoned John and had him look at me.

Yup, I was completely covered in sticky black stuff. I looked like l’d crawled out of the dark abyss or something.

“...Sup, chat. I’m ready to rob a bank. Got my disguise all ready and everything,” I drawled while finally looking over at chat again.

JamieWasTaken3: lmao

GeorgeDoshington: breaking news swamp monster robs a bank more at 11

KaiEbikoOfficial: …alright I guess you’re good if you’re making jokes

Irid123: probably should take a shower

Jeofffff: that giant loot chest looks JUICY

I groaned and rubbed my face – which only smeared more ink over it, ugh.

“Yeah, I’ll take a shower first, then I’ll open the chest. God, that boss was… crazy.” I sighed and picked up the ticket off the ground before shaking my head and finally standing up. “Three phases, chat. The other bosses had none. Or I guess two for the coins? Still! That last phase was just dumb!”

Jeofffff: it punishes you for stalling

Jeofffff: gotta go for speed kills

“Mmm, yeah… Not like I’m gonna be fighting him again though… I hope.”

I idly put the ticket into my backpack, then grabbed my skirt and began to wring it to get rid of the ink.

It wasn’t very effective.

I huffed.

“Okay, give me a minute, chat!”

I made John look away, took out my infinite soap and bucket out of the backpack, got out of my sticky inky clothes, and began showering using the glove, which still had the shower head infused into it.

Once I felt relatively clean, I moved onto the clothes, hosing them down and wringing them. The stains came out surprisingly easily – probably another secret magical feature of them – and all I had left to do was to dry.

I chomped on some ooze to restore Ether and then used Flameguard to dry both myself and my clothes.

About an hour later of showering inside a final boss room – and wasn’t that weird to think about? – I finally felt like a human again and was ready to move on.