-Crystal Dragon Lair-

"I told you to just go back earlier but you told us to go on, I hate you!" Akko whispered me back. I can tell she's seriously in a panic right now.

"Yeah, but if it was a normal boss this would be easier, though this time it's even stronger than the Chimera we've met in the forest. This type is a World Boss with a rank of S. Four of us are not enough to kill this kind of monster," I don't think explaining would make them less hate me.

A legendary monster like the Chimera that has a rank of A can be easily beaten by the Thirteen Gods together, pretty sure about it. But with a World Boss like this, a hundred of them won't even stand a chance.

We gently crawled back... and avoided the sight of the Dragon. Its appearance is fierce enough to even scare the sh*t out of a Legendary Boss. It is so huge that it almost covers the whole space of the end of the cave. I promise that when we get stronger, we will hunt you down! With every move it makes, we stopped moving and pray that it doesn't detect us. Thank God, its sensory abilities weren't that great, maybe because it wasn't expecting any visitors.

The moment we left his den, we sighed releasing every tense and mental strain we were having. That scared the hell out of us. We shouldn't probably wander around carelessly or our items and rank would be on the line.

"Well, that was scary. How are you guys?" Somehow they regain their composure.

"We are ok now. I almost throw up a moment ago," Elou's pretty scared earlier.

"This is Scy's fault for dragging us all along here," Lili's mad face is really cute.

"Hey, don't blame Scy. We all agreed to explore the place, right?" Akko replied. She's so sweet, always defending me but she told me in the first place that she hated me for bringing them here.

"It is ok, Akko. The important thing right now is we are all safe. Let's go back and check if the entrance opens up," I suggested.

This is the second time we wasted our time exploring. The first was with the Chimera Cave and now this... We should just train and rank up first before doing exploration like this. We will go back empty-handed.

We traveled back spending hours of walking... We are all looking exhausted from walking and the thought that we didn't get anything made it worse. Just like that, we arrived at the entrance. It's still closed so we decided to train again and settle our bet...

-Near the Entrance of Crystal Cave-

"We will not go easy on you this time," They prepared their move this time.

"FALCON'S EYE! POWER UP! ELEMENTAL UP!" They used their buffs to utilize their full potential. The good thing about this place is it is wide, which really is a good place to train.

"SNIPE SHOT!" Elou used one of his killer shots, which aims for a head shot but I already have seen that move multiple times that I already know how to avoid it completely.

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*SWOOSH!* I avoided it on time and...

"What?! Even with high accuracy? Damn it!" Elou said confused.

"FIRE WALL!" Akko created a thick wall of fire around me. I didn't have the chance to avoid the spell because I was too focused on evading Elou's Snipe Shot. This is bad. Elou is preparing another snipe shot and because I'm trapped, it will be hard for me to avoid it!

"SWOOOOSH!" He once again made a shot but that's not going to work!

"Damn it!" He's pretty pissed. I used my fire boosters and flew upwards hopping through the firewalls. Huh?! They smiled and Elou prepared another shot. It was their plan all along.

"RAPID SHOTS!" He shot three consecutive shots aiming for my body.

*BAAM BAAM BAAM!* Don't forget that I have a shield on my back! I blocked the arrows by turning around, thankfully it wasn't as strong as Snipe shot that it didn't pierce my shield.

"ERUPTION!" Soaring fire burst like an eruption from below! Jeez. They are really making me work really hard this time.

"FIERY FLAME!"

*BOOOOM!* I tried to stop it with my flame and an explosion occurred! My flame stopped hers. The fire scattered around the area.

"Darn it! I thought I got him this time," I'm getting the hang out of Akko's disappointed face.

"Akko! Let me borrow your power!" Elou asked Akko's support.

(WARNING: Powerful attack incoming!) Even the system sends me a warning of how powerful their combined power is.

"ARROW FIRESTORM!" What the heck. Using a skill like that would destroy this place!

*SWOOOOSH SWOOSH! SWOOOSH!* Arrows flew towards me and exploded after hitting the ground. Are they really trying to kill me?!

*BOOOM BOOOOM BOOOOM!* Random explosions echoed throughout the whole cave.

I managed to avoid the explosions using my fire booster and hid in a safe place. After the explosions stopped, the smoke blocked their eyesight so I decided to counter. There's no way I could defend from that.

"FIREBALL!" I used a simple spell to use it as a diversion.

"LIGHT GOD'S BARRIER!" I knew it. Lili blocked my attack by using a barrier. But I know the weak point of the barrier. It can only defend what's in front but not from behind.

I flew upwards and hopped behind them and lashed out a powerful spell.

"GIANT'S FIERY FIST!" I created a giant fireball from behind them and exploded after hitting them. I held back to make sure they won't get severe injuries.

"Ughhh... Damn it," Elou was surprised and pissed that they won't be eating a free meal tomorrow.

Their face and body were covered in ashes from the explosions. Lili healed them up after getting minor injuries.

"Someone will get a free meal tomorrow! Yay!" I said while helping them remove the ashes from their body.

"Jeez, you really are holding back when we trained earlier," Akko said. Well, technically, we were really fighting fair earlier but they focus on offense and forget how to utilize their defense. They're doing good... I can tell that if I train them enough, they will definitely defeat me.

"How about we hunt Boss monsters for your Soul stones guys? That would really boost our party's overall power," I suggested.

"That's a good idea but where do we find boss monsters?" Lili asked.

"We just need to go back to the Vanguard's Stronghold and asked them about rare Bosses. Legendary and World Bosses are out of the question," I suggested.

"Well that's a good plan but we should do it tomorrow because it's already five am in the morning. The nearest city to meet up is around four hours and I think we should really get ready. We will meet before twelve pm. Right?" Lili suggested.

That's right. It will be a long ride later. Well, at least I will get a free meal.

"Scy is thinking about the free food he'll get later," Kyut appeared out of nowhere told them what I am thinking about.

"Damn you, bird!" And after that, we just laughed. Eh...

The ground once again shook and the entrance opened up in a couple of seconds. We rushed and make it out successfully.

"Wooh! At last, we're out!" Elou said.

"Yeah, I think it will take a long time before we enter this place again," Because the only reason to enter this place is to challenge the wrath of the Crystal Dragon.