Chapter 91: Neutralization
[Edited by Arthur300000, Bunny, and deathbricks]
As soon as the bus left the city, a man sitting in front of me suddenly took out his weapons.
“Bring me all the panties, or this kid gets it.” Is what I imagined would happen next. However, he just took out a small screwdriver and started doing maintenance on his gun like it was the normal thing to do… I looked around for an explanation, but they were all doing the same.
[Mistress, they are preparing themselves for the dungeon.] Skynet explained.
[Wait, isn’t the next station called dungeon city? That means it’s supposed to be a city on top of a dungeon, right?]
[You’re right, mistress, but the dungeon city’s security is notoriously bad. It’s always housing one or two crime syndicates there since they can always hide inside the dungeon whenever the government forces come. So people tend to equip themselves well before entering the city.] Uh, it’s that bad, huh? Wait, shouldn’t there be a black market in that city? Maybe I could buy a few sex slaves there...
“Hey, is that girl lost?” While I was trying my best to figure out how to convince my mom to turn our basement into a sex dungeon, a red-headed girl from the other side of the bus began to gossip with her friend.
“I don’t know. Her jacket looks expensive, but she has just been sitting there making strange faces for a while.” Her friend replied. She wore glasses and had purple blonde hair. “Maybe she’s a rich kid wanting to play adventurer or something.”
“Shouldn’t we call her parents!?” The red-haired one urgently whispered back.
Before things could get out of hand, I began to equip my gear. Hmm… a dungeon, huh? Maybe it’ll have a lot of tight spaces, whips, candles, and shackles. Anyways, having some knives with me might be a prudent choice.
I took a set of failure kitchen knives from my storage device. It came with a full set of knives in its desk-top holder. Their condition was still perfect and super sharp, but because I made them for cooking, they didn’t look anything more than fancy kitchenware. They didn’t even have a hand guard on them, but since I already had my unique monster gloves, these knives should serve me fine as backup weapons.
I selected a cleaver and two big ones with a pointy end from the set, adjusted the dagger holders from the carbon fiber strap set that I bought from Marcus’ team to accommodate them. Then I stored the rest.
“Did you see that? She took a kitchen knife from her home to fight in the dungeon.” Those two girls still didn’t stop gossiping.
“That poor girl. She might be a lady from a ruined house. A defenseless girl who is abandoned by her parents, now forced to fend for herself.” Red-haired girl melodramatically said while dabbing the corners of her eyes with a handkerchief… These people’s imagination is too wild.
I finished equipping the knives, cleaver to the back of my hip, and two pointy knives around my waist. Then I took out a big black gun for medium to long range fighting. Checked its magazine for missing monster cores, took out another two spare magazines and equipped them.
“That gun looks expensive.” Heh, it seemed this cool pistol stopped them from gossiping. I patted my gun in appreciation a few times.
“Maybe it’s from her passed away dad.” A burly woman from a row behind them chimed in…
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.
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“Dungeon city station, Dungeon city station.” After I listened in on them turning my life into a drama, the bus finally arrived at the destination. According to their last speculation, I unknowingly gained a noble title and a very big loan. My dad who was both alive and dead at the same time surprisingly had a lot of mistresses. Then one of my evil godmothers cast me out with her evil schemes. And now I had to work for an unknown man who was supposed to be my sugar daddy…
Girls always like to gossip, I concluded and jumped off the bus.
“Ouch, sorry.” A lanky girl bumped into me and walked away before I could reply. I looked around myself, but all I could see was a sea of people. I had to squeeze myself between pedestrians to move.
The buildings around here were made of some kind of monster bone and scales propped up together to make a shelter. However, they did build up high, the shortest of them were three stories. I also could easily spot five to six stories buildings all over the place.
“A guide for hire! Only a silver coin per hour!” A malnutritioned teenage girl yelled, trying to get attention from the group of adventurers who just passed by. Luckily, they just ignored her and kept striding forward.
I pushed away a cybernetic arm from the person in front of me, trying to get to her before someone else took her.
“Do you know where can I pick up a lot of dungeon flora?” I yelled as I acrobatically slid through another two people blocking my way.
“Leave it to me!” She nodded and grabbed my outreaching hand.
With her leading, things were a lot easier as we walked with the flow of people. I noticed a lot of fishy establishments along the way, a rundown clinic selling dubious penile enlargement pills, a herbal tea shop where they displayed a lot of pipes and smoking contraptions, and a financial institution where their advertisement was about accepting your organs as loan collateral, for example.
There were also several normal shops here. However, their products were mostly monster parts oriented. One of them sold a giant worm on a stick which smelled even worse than anchovies. No matter how much I like to taste something new, I don’t think I’ll ever try that in my life.
Finally, we walk into the dungeon checkpoint. I was afraid that they might treat me like a kid and forbid me from going in, but after I showed them the adventurer license on my ID card, the officer let me go with a salute. Surprisingly, people treated me like an adult when they saw the “mad dog attacker” thing. Hmm, maybe my random answers were the right choice after all.
The girl guide was also curious about what was written on my ID card and tried to peak, but I blocked her view with my body.
After the checkpoint, it was a lot less crowded. From here on, they said that it was already dungeon territory, but there was still no monsters in sight.
The dungeon itself looked like a cave. It was a lot wilder than I’d thought it would be. The entrance was forty meters wide and twenty meters high, with old marks of splattered blood and gore here and there.
Several adventurer groups who passed by kept eyeballing us from time to time. Well, two girls walking hand in hand in the dungeon really should raise suspicion. But people here seemed to mind their own business and opted to not approach us.
My guide also seemed to be sure about where she was going. She was really good at avoiding paths with monsters. We walked for about 30 minutes but I saw no monsters at all.
Anyways, I wanted to tell her that it was okay to encounter some monsters, but after seeing her trying hard to concentrate and straining her ears seriously when selecting a path, it felt rude to disturb her.
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The last part of the walk had a lot of climbing and crawling, but as I was about to complain, a wide berth of vegetation appeared before me. There was a lot of shrubs and trees here like an overgrown jungle, except that the plants here looked strange. They were shaded mostly purple and blue instead of green, and some of their leaves had a spiral shape. Also, some fruits looked like naked women.
“Here, it is. It’s almost fifty minutes, so it’s one silver coin.” The guide reached her hand out.
“Oh, here you are.” I gave her a tip of one big silver coin. It was ten times the agreed price but considering her effort, I think that she should have something nice thing to eat for dinner. However, she just silently took the money without a word and quickly ran away.
“Hey, what about the way back!” I shouted after her but she didn’t even look back-
Then a loud noise of something ricocheting off a barrier came from behind me accompanied by another loud bang… It was a sniper rifle!
[Mistress, we are under attack!] Skynet urgently told me. I felt Skynet’s device begin hungrily sucking up my Magicka. That barrier spell must’ve used a lot of energy.
[I know!] I ran like hell and jumped to the nearest cover, but as I did so another bullet whistled past over my head.
[Fuck! Why didn’t you block that!?] The near-death experience caused me to swear.
[It was predicted to be a miss, so it would be a waste of energy.] I was trying to locate the sniper so I didn’t have time to argue with her. From the last two shots, I could guess the rough location where the bullets came from. The problem is planning the safest route to reach there. Also, there might be more than one sniper.
I threw some fireballs to test them out and burned up the forest at the same time, hoping the smoke would camouflage my position. But for what it was worth, I got another three incoming shots, two missed, and Skynet barely blocked the third one.
[Energy buffer at 50%] Skynet warned. As expected, the barrier spell she used took too much energy in a short time, and the Magicka transfer from me to her wasn’t fast enough.
[How about switching back to the good old interference field?] I asked. That spell seemed to use several magnitudes less energy.
[Against that armor piercing anti-material rifle? Impossible, mistress.] … I wanted to wait for a few seconds for Skynet’s buffer to recharge, but a fraction of a second later a bullet pierced through the bolder where I was hiding, sending small rock debris scattered all over the place.
[Several magical signatures incoming!] Skynet proclaimed as I jumped off from what used to be my hiding place. It seemed they sent their teammates to finish the job.
[Error: Item withdrawal failure, the area was covered with heavy magic residual or interference field.] My storage device prompted up as I was trying to withdraw my scythe and zigzagging my way to the sniper at the same time.
Given no other choice, I unsheathed my cleaver and fired my gun at two positions where I saw smoke moving strangely.
“Gah!” A splatter of blood and gore fountained out from both of those places… It seemed they were under some kind of invisible spell. Luckily I burned the forest beforehand.
[Energy buffer at 2%. Warning, I cannot block the next spell.] Another sniper bullet ricocheted off Skynet’s Barrier. I knew that I was wearing the unique monster armor which might be capable of stopping that bullet, but seeing the damage the bullet caused when it missed me, I think my evaluation might be too generous.
“TIID-KLO-UL!” I decided to use the slow time shout.
“Gettttt herrrrrrr!” In the midst of defining beating noise from my heart, I heard a faint lower than bass yelling from somewhere ahead of me. Even with slow time shout, I wasted five of precious sixteen seconds of the slow time effect looking for the sniper. I cursed my short legs.
“It... hard... to... aim... She... is... too... small...” Another deadly bullet sped over my head in slow motion. Well, being short wasn’t always bad. During the sprint, I killed three more bandits as they tried to block my way. Two from me randomly firing at them while another one was cut in half by my cleaver. There was also a bandit who tried to throw some kind of grenade at me but it was detonated in their hand by a spell from Skynet.
[There it is!] Skynet highlighted the area at the same time that I noticed a spark fly out from a thick bush of brambles. However, the bullet that came out from that spark rotated itself at me way too fast. I had no time to dodge, so I blocked it with my cleaver.
I big flash appeared at the point of contact, my cleaver vibrated violently. I could see a wave formed at the center of the blade then spread in every direction. As the shockwave reached my hand it caused my right hand to go numb. The shrapnel of the bullet flew off from my cleaver and scattered everywhere accompanied by bright sparks.
In the same split second, I used my other hand to aim my handgun at the sniper’s hiding spot and shoot. Without bothering to change where my spell originated, I just repeatedly fired my spell at that point and hoped that it hit. However, there was something long and flat that moved at a high speed to block the path of my spell.
From a glimpse of it, there was another man hiding beside the sniper. He had what seemed to be a metallic spider like appendage protruding from his back. Then he grabbed the sniper and jumped into a hole behind him.
Without hesitation, I jumped after them.
[Mistress, what are you doing!?] Skynet protested.
[That rifle looks expensive! I want it!] I lied. Anyways, I still had six seconds left of slow time shout, so it should be more than enough time for me to catch up with those guys. However, what welcomed me inside the hole was a long deep tunnel and another crazily fast bullet flew at me.
I twisted my body in midair to dodge, but my pistol was caught in its path. The gun was shattered to pieces in my hand and its impact sent me rotating uncontrollably.
[Activate aerodynamic barrier and gravity manipulation spell.] Skynet tried to stabilize my trajectory. But I was still bounced off a few times from what looked like huge stalactites or stalagmites that protrude horizontally, crisscrossing as the obstacle in the huge vertical shaft.
While I was free falling, banging, spinning, and banging again, the bandit in front of me used his mechanical spider legs to glide through obstruction with ease. He escaped the tunnel just when the slow time effect wore off. And kaboom! The whole tunnel around me exploded.
I was sent headlong into the ground by the shockwave of the explosion. It was too short of a distance and too fast of a descent to rotate myself to get my legs under me, so I choose the next best option, I landed on my butt. Then I bounced forward to avoid the gruesome fate of being buried under a megatonne of what used to be the tunnel wall.
[Destroying the tunnel is against the rules!] I complained. My entire body hurt, especially my hiney. My inside felt like mush as it was jolted violently a moment ago. I struggled to get up and tried my best not to inhale the dust that had spread through the area from fallen tunnel debris.
[There is no such rule, mistress. And a trap is the most common tactic that bandits use.] Skynet admonished. Thankfully, there were no sniper bullets firing at me anymore. Maybe they were also out of ammo or something.
The bad news is the slow time shout just wore off, and I needed another whole minute to use it again.
“Is she fucking immortal or something!?” They screamed as I got up and ran after them with a knife in my hand like a stabby housewife.
We went through a lot of twists and turns. The cave also went downhill deeper and deeper. During that time, I took out the scythe from my storage device. According to Skynet, there might be another ambush or traps. It was better to be prepared.
After about thirty seconds of running through a tunnel, we exited through a tight and steep downhill curve. But what was in front of me was a very wide chasm, behind it was a group of people stationed on three gun platforms.
“Shoot it!” The running away bandit yelled and used some kind of wire contraption to swing themselves past the chasm.
The Gatling gun platforms on the opposite site began to rotate.
The path was too steep to break. There was no place to hide. And impending doom of being barraged by those gun platforms or falling into the unknown deep was in front of me.
There was nothing much I could do. Slow time shout was still on cooldown. And I wasn’t smart enough to think of a way out.
[Skynet, sorry, I was too rash.] I gave up.
[Mistress do the spin jump!] Skynet yelled, she showed me the picture of a mannequin spreading out its arm while holding a scythe in one hand and spin.
I followed her instructions and felt like I was turned into a human frisbee.
I covered the length that wasn’t supposed to be possible with my normal jump. Maybe Skynet had something to do with it, at least my spinning was so accurate that I flew through the two bandits who were still swinging across the chasm with a wire, splitting their bodies and weird cybernetic limbs together.
Then I crashed into one of the gun platforms, killing one of the gunners in the process.
I felt nauseated and disoriented from the million rotations I just did. Before I was going to fall down by the feeling of the earth turning upside down and spinning like a washing machine, I grit my teeth and finished up the work by throwing my cleaver at another gun platform and finished the last one with a horizontal swing of my scythe.
I know that it wasn’t wise to lie down with several bisected corpses all over the place, but I couldn’t hold out anymore. I tripped and fell. The world around me still spinning nonstop. All I could do was strain my ears for any movement.
Thankfully, all I could hear was a peaceful silence.
Ah, it seemed that it was a time to change my sanitary pad… Heh, who cares, I bet I’m already covered in blood anyway.
Still, how do I get back? The path that I came from was collapsed… Hah, I was really too rash this time. No matter how strong I am, I’ll surely die if I kept doing this. No matter how many cute sex slaves were being held captive here, it wasn’t worth it.
[Hey, Skynet, remind me to buy you a cybernetic body when we go back.] It was because of her that I survived.
[Thank you mistress, but could you do something about your reference material folder? It’s been getting in my way for quite a while.] …
[Sorry, no.] I firmly replied. This and that are two different things.