There it was, the boss of this dungeon. Just like every other summoner, the monster was wearing a cultist robe, and had its hood hanging just over its face, hiding the monster behind it with shadows. This arena was wildly different from the rest of the dungeon, with the somewhat flat, bricked walls giving way to a literal cave big enough to host a couple apartment blocks. On the other side of the room, there was a platform with stairs leading to the top, and the summoner was on it.

“How long do you reckon it would take you to cross to the other side?” I said. If Alex could just dash to the summoner, distract him to stop more bats from appearing, I could finish them off and kill the summoner.

“...I don’t know.” Great. “Probably a minute or two. I could’ve done it faster, but my abilities are still on cooldown.” I could work with that.

“Run right up to the summoner, then distract him for as long as you can. I’ll kill the bats and then him. If you can kill him first, then that’s even better.” He started thinking for a second, but then the summoner got up, signalling that he knew we were here. Alex instantly ran forwards, noticing the bats appearing out of the aether before I did. The swarms tried targeting him, as he was the tank that passively attracted monsters to try and hit him, but I was there to slice them into meat chunks.

Soon enough, I realised that my plan was flawed. I forgot to account that Alex would be targeted more than me. I had foolishly assumed the summoner would target me as I was able to kill him, but the summoner had no way of knowing that. I was tempted to call Alex back, but it was too late anyway as the swarm of bats sealed my way to him. It was time to move to the least bad way to redeem this plan. If I could clear the swarm ahead of me, and join Alex, we could just rush the summoner and kill him, and then we’d do the usual combo of him distracting the bats before I kill them. I started by sticking my sword in the ground, ripping a chunk of earth out and launching into the swarm. I did again, and again. The chunks cleared a bigger area than my sword swings, and after I did it a couple times, then rushed forward, hitting the boulders to keep them flying forwards, drilling through the swarm. My arm started to hurt a little, but I endured it until reaching the stairs. The swarm wasn’t as solid at this point, but it was still incredibly thick. I was frankly flabbergasted by the amount of bats. I knew they were incredibly weak, and thus easily summoned, but this was ridiculous.

“He’s not fucking stopping! Your plan was shit!” Oh, shut up Alex.

“I’m fixing it! Just keep chipping away at him!” I threw my sword while it was spinning vertically to clear the way to the summoner. A bat flew into the face, almost knocking me off course before I punched it right back into the swarm. Then more came, and I had to start punching them all while moving in the path my sword created. One managed to bite my knuckle, which was… really bad, terrible actually. If I got distracted by that pain, or if the bat slowed me down, It could be cataclysmic, as it would allow more bats to bite me, which would slow me down, which would just continue the loop. I threw it off, but not in time for another two to bite me, and at this point, I just gave up and ran straight for my sword. More and more bats bit me, and then others bit into the first bats just to increase my weight. They pushed me down, but I crawled, not before the sword got covered by more bats. I flicked them away, used my middle finger to stretch as close to the sword as I could get, and pulled it towards me before grabbing it and slashing all the bats off of me.

“Where the fuck are you!?” I could see why Alex would think I probably died, since I hadn’t said much for a while. I slashed forward as fast as I could, stressing my hand to the max, and finally reached a little safe haven where Alex was bouncing around the summoner to keep the bats away.

“Here.” I rushed the summoner who… dodged?! Since when could they do that? “Shit! Give me a second.” I threw my sword to my left hand and stretched my hand out towards the summoner’s right, while my sword was to its left. It couldn’t swerve out of the way this time, and my sword sliced through it cleanly.

“What now? I can only bounce for so long!” When Alex wasn’t speaking, he was breathing twenty times a second.

“Keep going. I’ll thin them out.” I put my sword in the wall, and tossed stones at the swarm again. Alex swerved out of the way of them, so I kept going. I must’ve been killing hundreds of them, as the literal cloud of bats got thinner and thinner until Alex jumped right next to me. His set of thin armour and thick coat made of Kevlar was soaked with sweat. Kevlar was damn near impossible to get fully soaked, but he managed to draw that much water out of his system just to keep the bats away.

“You can handle the rest.” He fell down, and I turned to the swarm. I jumped right at it, slashing at every bat frantically until the last one fell, and a portal appeared right above us, sucking both me and Alex out before spitting us right back out of the tower.

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“There! He’s here!” I got up to see several sets of guards around us. Shit. Alex was unconscious, and couldn’t vouch for my innocence, so they’d probably throw me in jail, where I’d stay until Liz managed to pull some strings or just bust me out the conventional way. I mean, Alex could’ve chosen to vouch for my innocence after he woke up, but I doubted that would actually happen. I had just started to make him not hate me. I put my hands up.

“Just put me in jail. You can figure out how long I’ll stay there without me.” The head officer, as denoted by his actually tailored outfit, looked at his subordinates.

“Which one of you boys saw this man enter the tower without permission?” Two men raised their hands. “Good. You come with me.” He turned to me “I’m sure we’ll figure out something. Consider yourself smart for choosing to give yourself in this easily, You’ll get a lenient deal. I’ll make sure of that.” Some of the other guards grabbed me, pulling me away while yet another one grabbed Alex, presumably to take him to the hospital.

“Fuck!” He recoiled after feeling how wet Alex’s clothes were. “Jesus christ on a hand basket.” Oh, great. An American, just what Alex needed. Soon enough, everyone was out of sight, and I closed my eyes while being dragged away. I was still a bit tired from the whole ordeal, and my whole body hurt, but I could endure it. I saved a life, which kept my spirits up despite everything hurting.

“Hey! I’ll come get you next time if you’re still in there.” Said Charlotte. I recognised her voice by now. The cops turned half way through her shouting, and she just smiled at them like she hadn’t just said she’d bust me out of jail. This whole ordeal confirmed that Charlotte was stalking me. Great. Amazing in fact. The guards went back to dragging me along the ground, and before I knew it, I was thrown into a cell.

I was bored. This cell had little to no entertainment, and was only holding me until they decided what to do. It had been several days, which meant that Alex had in fact not vouched for my innocence, and Liz did not let me get arrested. She was probably trying to pull some strings and get me let out on a technicality. I didn’t know the exact law I breached, but it had to do with entering the tower without authorization from the guards. The only time people could do that is when they were running late to a communal party dungeon conquest, and had proof or a vouch of innocence for it. I had neither, unless Liz argued that since we were all one group–

“Hey, come out. You’re not guilty.” Huh? Did Alex change his mind? No, Liz probably did something. I walked out of the holding cell and followed the guard down the halls until I reached the room before the courtroom, where an angry Liz and tired Alex stood.

“There you are!” Her anger melted away after she saw me, which meant she wasn’t angry at me. That could only be explained by one thing, her blaming Alex instead of me for the whole ordeal.

“Let’s just go. I cannot deal with you right now.” I said, walking right past her before she grabbed my shirt collar and pulled me right up to her face.

“Listen here. I got you out of here after you tried being a hero. The least you could do is–” Did she seriously think I’d believe her?

“I doubt it was you who did anything if Alex is here.” I said.

“You… You’re too smart. How the hell did you deduce that?” She wasn’t surprised that I knew that Alex vouched for my innocence, she was surprised that I knew she had no hand in it. She would’ve been too prideful to resort to Alex to bust me out. She just had to prove that she could do anything, and that the law couldn’t stop her oh so magnificent self.

“How the hell wouldn’t have I been able to deduce that? You are too damn prideful to ever ask anyone else for help, especially Alex, who you wouldn’t mind dying.” I said.

“Oh, you’re really testing me, aren’t you? Do you think you’re free from pain just because you’re useful to me?” My mark burned again, making my muscles spasm as my nerves and brain were overloaded with pain. The pain stopped, and I was dropped on the ground. “We’re going. Get up.” I pushed myself upwards, looking at Alex, wondering what the hell made him free me. His whole mindset couldn’t have changed in a couple days, even with my little speech. The only thing that would’ve made him consider my words would’ve been Liz directly acting like I said she’d act, proving me correct…

Yea, she probably did exactly that.