The second Al took his first step into the room, the globsters started to move. They didn’t move fast enough though. The one on the left stood up, but was immediately struck by two [Stone Bullet]s and an arrow from Pierre, knocking it straight back to the ground. The stones left small craters in its tough shell, and cracks could be seen creeping all along the sides around where they had struck, and to my surprise, Pierre’s arrow had sunk deep into the shell, with only the feathers still visible.

  The injured globster screamed in pain, filling the chamber with a terrible cacophony. The other one also screamed, though much more aggressively, and it charged Al. I launched another volley of stones at the downed globster, but was only half paying attention to what happened to them after they were fired. Instead, I watched as Al gathered an incredible amount of aura to the point that he was practically glowing while he stood his ground against the charging globster.

  The globster lowered its horns as it approached, and it collided with Al’s empowered shield with a resounding clang. Al grunted, and slid backwards a foot, but was unharmed. I absent-mindedly sent another two bullets at the far globster, which was struggling to stand, while the near one started to attack Al with its claws. Al lifted his shield arm to block one claw and swung his ax the other. The ax clove through the claw like a hot knife through butter, causing a spurt of blue liquid to shoot out.

  Al laughed maniacally while the globster screamed. However, I had to stop watching, since the far one had finally managed to get to its feet. Its shell was cracked in half a dozen places, and it had 4 arrows sticking out in various places, but it was far from dead, and it was starting to display some intelligence. It was advancing slowly, using its large claws as a shield against our projectiles.

  “Lucy!” said Pierre.

  “Don’t worry. I’m on it!” I called back.

  I cast [Illusory Terrain] followed immediately by [Pitfall] directly in front of the far globster. It was a spell combo that I had tested a few times on goblins to great effect, but had forgotten to demonstrate for Alyona and the others. The globster plodded forwards, oblivious of the trap directly in front of it.

  “What are you-?” started Pierre just as the globster fell into the hole. Then he laughed loudly. “Hahaha, great!”

  I was not strong enough to make a pit large enough to fit the entire globster yet, but I was able to get half of it inside. This actually worked out better for us, since it’s claws were now belowground, and its back was exposed to us. Pierre loosed arrow after arrow against it, while I started using [Mana Sense] and [Earth Manipulation] to mold the earth around the trapped globster and keep it completely immobile. It was tough, since it was constantly flailing around, and breaking everything I tried to make before I could solidify it, but by keeping the terrain constantly shifting, I made it unable to find the leverage to push itself out of the hole, and after a minute longer of struggling, it started to slow down, and a minute later, it was still.

  While we finished off that globster. Al and Christine had almost finished off theirs. Its left claw was nothing more than a stump from Al’s ax, and all but one of its legs were bleeding profusely from where Christine had slashed at them. I thought about casting some spells to help them out, but seeing Al’s wide grin, I decided not to. He and Christine were both unharmed, and seemed to have everything under control.

  Al blocked another charge, and Christine dashed along one side of it, running her blade along 3 of its legs. The globster collapsed to its side, and Christine jumped out of the way. Seeing his opportunity, Al lowered his shield, raised his ax, and brought it down on the globster’s face, cleaving its head in two. Its legs twitched a few times, and then it was still.

You have defeated [Nephrocabra] lvl 41

You have defeated [Nephrocabra] lvl 42

User level 25 -> 26

[Sole Survivor] lvl 25 -> lvl 26

You have 60 free stat points available

  “YEAHHH!!” shouted Al.

  “Nice work!” said Pierre, running up to clap him on the back..

  “You guys- did well- too,” said Christine, panting slightly.

  “Hahaha I love this thing!” said Al, raising his ax over his head.

  “With our old weapons, and just the 3 of us, usually it would take longer than that for just one of these,” Pierre explained to me.

  “What did you do when you ran into two then?” I asked.

  “Attrition. They can’t leave the room, so we would bait them over, hit them with whatever we could, then retreat back to the hallway. Maybe in a few more levels, we would have been able to fight them evenly, but with you, they’re not a problem anymore.”

  “Yeah, Lucy you were awesome!” said Christine. “The way you had that globster just completely trapped was incredible. Having a mage in the party really makes a huge difference!”

  “Thanks. Glad I could help,” I replied.

  “By the way, how’s your [MP] doing?”

  I glanced at my HUD. “Not great, but if you give me half an hour to meditate I’ll be back to full.”

  “Works for me,” said Al. “I need to recover as well.”

  “I didn’t use too much aura,” said Christine. “I’ll start working on the dismantling while you guys rest up.”

  “Same here,” said Pierre.

  Al and I walked over to a corner of the room and sat down to meditate while Christine and Pierre began to take apart the globsters. Their shells were worth a lot, since they were strong, and easily enchanted, and they were large enough that, with a few modifications, they could be used as armor for mounts. Normally, they would have had to send one person out of the Dungeon to fetch a corpse carrier to collect the shells, but with me there, they only needed to separate it from the rest of the monster, and I would be able to take it into [Greater Inventory].

  It took a little less time than I had predicted to recharge my [MP], so once I was finished, I left Al to go help Pierre and Chris de-shell the monsters. A few minutes later, Al joined us, and 15 minutes after that, the shells had disappeared into my extradimensional space, leaving behind an amorphous pile of bones and organs that smelled as bad as it looked. I gave us all a good hosing with [Water Jet], since, despite our best efforts, we had all been covered with a fair amount of monster blood, and then we left out the door opposite the one from which we arrived.

  We progressed through the Dungeon in the same way for the rest of the day. Pierre kept a pocket watch on him so that we were always able to tell the time so we could stop for meals. I successfully use my fake eating trick, taking a bite of food, and then immediately transferring it to [Greater Inventory] and pretending to chew and swallow. It was difficult, because it tasted disgusting, but none of the others seemed to have caught on.

  By the time we decided to set up a camp for the night, we had fought 5 times against different monsters. Each monster we encountered was, like the globsters, a combination of two or more different animals or monsters. Some combinations looked better than others, and some worked better. For example, our third fight was against an elephant crossed with some kind of insect. It looked terrifying with its huge size, and giant pincers where its trunk should have been, but it ended up being one of the easiest fights, because it was slow, and its legs were highly susceptible to my pitfall traps.

  On the other hand, the hardest fight we had was against what had been dubbed by the adventurers as “puppies.” They were deceptively cute, looking like nothing more than a dog with bird wings, but their adorable appearance belied a very dangerous monster. They dogs and birds that these beasts were composed of were not normal dogs and birds. They were actually crosses between Blink dogs and Thunderbirds, meaning that they could teleport, and release electrical shocks.

  Ordinarily, they would have avoided these monsters entirely, since Al’s metal armor made him vulnerable against their attacks, and Pierre couldn’t hit them, because they would simply teleport out of the way. With me, however, we decided to take the risk to fight them. They were by far the toughest foe we could face, so defeating them would theoretically bring us closer to the boss room than another route would.

  We formulated a plan, centered around me to deal with them. The puppies could not teleport more than once in quick succession. They needed a few seconds after teleporting to recharge. The problem before had been that by the time Pierre could shoot a second arrow, the puppy would have already been on top of him, but with a second ranged attacker, we could combine our abilities to force a teleport and follow it up with a ranged attack.

  The biggest issue then was that they appeared in groups, and though it would be easy to take out one or two, taking out all five that we ran into would be difficult. We solved this issue with some creative spellcasting on my part. Rather than immediately attacking them with damaging spells, I instead cast [Dome of Darkness] over the entire area where they were resting.

  When I did this, all but one of them immediately teleported out in surprise, only to find themselves staring at an [Earthen Wall] with an arrow slit, from which Pierre was shooting them down. I then cast [Flash] to further blind them, and followed it up with [Blind] on the two furthest while Pierre started picking off the near ones with his arrows. The puppies were dangerous, but they were not very tough, and a single arrow from Pierre was more than enough to take them out.

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  The adventurers were ecstatic when the fight was over so quickly and easily, since the puppies had been an opponent they didn’t dare approach beforehand. We ended the day in a very good mood as we looked for a good spot to set up camp. We ultimately decided to camp at a corner in one of the hallways, so that we could see a good distance in either direction without turning too much, and sat down to eat dinner. While they were eating and I was pretending to eat, I struck up a conversation.

  “So, the Ravellian Lions,” I started. “I get that they’re strong and all, but how strong are they exactly?”

  Christine had just taken a bite and hurried to swallow her food, but Al spoke first.

  “Literally the strongest. I’ve heard that over half of them are level 100 already, and the ones that aren’t have some crazy classes that give them stats as if they were.”

  “Your elf friend,” said Christine, having managed to swallow her food without choking. “Natalya. She was one of them for a while. She quit a couple decades though, and her apprentice is one of them now. But when she was there, she wasn’t even the strongest one.”

  “She wasn’t?” I said.

  “No,” she replied. “She still might not be the strongest, even if she joined again now. Like Al said, they’ve got some crazy classes there. There have even been a few [Godly Emissaries] there in the past.]

  “[Godly Emissary]’s?”

  “You don’t know what those are either?” asked Pierre. “Wow, you really have been living away from civilization.”

  “[Godly Emissary]’s] are people chosen by the gods to represent them on Astraeus,” said Al.

  “Oh, so they’re like Demon Kings, but for the good deities,” I said.

  “What?” said Al, as the other two looked at me with confusion.

  Realizing my mistake, I hurried to correct it.

  “I mean, it’s something I learned from Anatoly. The Demon Kings are people or monsters chosen by the Demon Gods to receive power. We were just talking about them since there was that big scare with the other one down in Johann. Anatoly’s really old, so he knows a lot of stuff about that.”

  I glanced around, trying not to appear panicked. They didn’t seem to be suspicious of me though, and their faces cleared as I explained.

  “Oh. Yeah I guess they're kinda similar,” said Al. “Actually, they usually show up around the same time as Demon Kings. I think I heard a rumor of one having popped up over in Griegland somewhere recently. A little late, since the Demon King’s already been taken care of, but whoever they are, they’re gonna be insanely strong in a few years.”

  “Yeah, the gods always pick someone low level, so that they can get the full benefits of the [Godly Emissary] class, and they get something like a hundred free stats every level, and a whole bunch of crazy skills. Even an elf can’t compete with them if they get to a high enough level.”

  “Wow, that’s crazy,” I said, trying to sound impressed.

  That sounds a lot like the [Demon King] class I was offered, I thought to myself.

  “So do all the Ravellian Lions have classes like that?”

  “Most of them, from what I’ve heard,” said Christine. “None quite as powerful as the [Godly Emissary] class, but there are some that are pretty close. There are a couple [War Hero]’s there, a few [Archmage]’s-”

  “The [Warrior Princess],” added Pierre.

  “Yeah, there’s also her, and then there’s also some [Sword Supreme]’s and [Spear Supreme]s and whatever-other-kinds-of-weapons-they-use Supremes-”

  “The Chronomancer,” said Pierre.

  “Yup, he’s there, and there’s also-”

  “Wait, the Chronomancer?” I said. “Can he control time?”

  “He says he can. No one really knows for sure. He claims he can freeze time, but a couple [Archmage]s have said that’s impossible, and that he just has such a high [Agility] that it looks like he can. Either way, he’s the best Scout in the world. If we had him here, we’d be able to find the boss room within hours, even if he didn’t help us fight.”

  I started thinking about time manipulation. I had already theorized that some time manipulation could be achieved using Spatial magic, but I didn’t know enough about physics to even attempt such a feat. However, if there were someone already able to do things like that, then it might be worth asking them for advice, or trying to work out some time manipulation abilities on my own. Christine’s voice brought me out of my mind.

  “-and then lastly, there’s that weirdo artificer dude. I forget his class.”

  “I think he’s a [Mad Inventor],” said Al.

  “Why is an artificer in an elite adventurer group?” I asked.

  “His case is pretty unique,” said Pierre. “He’s not part of the group by choice. He’s basically a prisoner.”

  “What did he do?”

  “One of his inventions misfired and collapsed an entire Dungeon.”

  “Is that hard to do?”

  The three stared at me blankly in disbelief for a few seconds before Pierre spoke again.

  “Yes. Incredibly. It would take someone at the level of one of the Lions to do it from within. And a powerful spatial mage to get them out before they were crushed. And this invention did it by accident.”

  “A lot of the families of the dead adventurers wanted him killed, but the Lyons snatched him up,” said Christine. “Of course, they claimed that he got a fair trial, and that he was not guilty of murder, and only reckless endangerment and some other legal stuff, and then they took him in as a Lion because, in their words, ‘none but the Lions would be able to properly guard him.’”

  “Everyone knows that’s a lie, and that the Lyons just wanted him working for them, but nobody’s really able to say or do anything about it,” said Pierre. “And there haven’t been any incidents since that one. None that the public know about, at least.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  “Yeah. But aside from that dude, all the Lions are insanely strong,” said Pierre.

  “Yeah, I gathered that.”

  “Are you gonna be one of the Lions?” Al asked me.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I haven’t really talked too much about it with Sylvia. She just offered me a job working for her with a lot of benefits. We haven’t talked any details yet though.”

  “What kinds of benefits?” asked Christine.

  “They’ve gotta be pretty big, since Lady Sylvia was willing to spend so much on us, just for a one-time Dungeon Dive to keep her safe,” said Pierre.

  I hesitated for a second, but decided to tell them the truth. There was no reason not to. It would be common knowledge eventually, and it’s not like they would do anything bad to me.

  “She offered me a lot. A mansion, fully staffed with servants and stuff, the best teachers, the best food, a private training ground, and a title.”

  “A title?!” said Al. “Oh, you’re definitely gonna be a Lion.”

  “Yeah, for sure,” said Christine. “All the Lions get titles. For a few of them, the title is one of the main reasons they decided to join.”

  “Maybe,” I said.

  “No, definitely,” said Pierre. “She wouldn’t offer so much to someone who wasn’t going to be a Lion.”

  “Why, though?” asked Christine.

  We all looked at her.

  “Sorry. I don’t mean to offend you, but, from what I’ve seen, I don’t think you’re strong enough to be recruited as a Lion yet. Maybe in the future, but at level 45, and from what I’ve seen, you’re not strong enough.”

  “Chris!” scolded Al.

  “No, it’s fine,” I said. “She’s right. From what I’ve shown you guys, I’m definitely not strong enough to warrant her recruiting me as hard as she is.”

  “From what you’ve shown…” mused Pierre. “Does that mean that you have other skills you haven’t shown us?”

  I knew it wasn’t good to reveal all my cards at once, but since they would know eventually, I didn’t mind a little bit of showing off.

  “Yes, quite a few actually,” I said, smiling.

  I held my palms up in front of me and, using [Spectacle], I conjured up an orb of each element in an arch over my head from one hand to the other. I wasn’t able to cast more than 3 spells at a time, so it would have been impossible to actually conjure the orbs, but with my Illusion magic, I could make it look like I could.

  “I am actually a hex-elemental mage,” I said, making the orbs spin while the others looked on in awe.

  “Hex-elemental?” said Al. “That means you can be an [Archmage] eventually!”

  “That’s not all though,” I said, dispelling the illusion. “I can also do this.”

  I stood up and started using [Aura Manipulation] and [Muay Thai] to gather aura in my fist, then punched the wall. My fist sunk in all the way too my wrist, and a spiderweb of cracks spread out around it.

  “You can use aura too??” said Pierre.

  “Yep!” I said, withdrawing my hand.

  “Why didn’t you do all that when you were showing Alyona your skills though?” asked Christine.

  “I didn’t want to draw too much attention to myself. Sylvia practically freaked out when she learned about it. I didn’t want the entire guild crowding around me and gawking. It would be annoying.”

  “Y-yeah, I guess that would have caused a bit of a commotion,” said Pierre.

  “But why didn’t you accept Lady Sylvia’s offer instantly. Why are you even here in the first place?”

  “I wanted to do some adventuring on my own for a while before everything was taken care of for me. Not that I’m really getting to do that right now, since she paid for all our equipment, but I figured that once I got to the capital, I would just be getting carried by stronger people, and that sounded a little boring.”

  “But you’d get your own mansion!” said Al. “And the best gear! And you might even get one of the Lions to help train you!”

  “I wanted to be independent for a while first.”

  “Yeah, but-” Al started to say.

  “Al,” said Christine firmly.

  “Sorry,” he said.

  “It’s fine,” I said, smiling under my mask.

  The conversation continued on for another hour, and consisted of a lot of me showing off the skills I didn’t get a chance to use in front of Alyona. It was useful for me too, since I had leveled up three times that day, and the showing off was helping to give me experience to bring my skill levels up toward the new cap.

  At the end of the hour, Pierre, brought down the mood by saying that it was time to get to sleep. Christine grumbled, and Al grumbled more, but they agreed that it was time to go. There was no day or night this deep underground, but we didn’t want to get too out of sync with the world aboveground. We set up a watch, though we didn’t really expect anything to happen at night, since most of the monsters on the 5th floor had their own rooms, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

  I took one of the middle shifts, knowing that it would be worse for them to get two short sleep sessions than one long one. Pierre got shafted with the other middle shift, but this seemed to be the norm for them, so he didn’t mind.

  The next day went very similarly to the first, though we were able to progress a little faster, now that I wasn’t limited in my skill choices. On the 5th day, we finally arrived at the boss room. It was faster than we had originally expected, and we had all leveled up a few times, so we were all in a good mood, but we tried not to let it get to our heads.

  We had done our research on its skills, and we all knew what to expect, but we still spent two hours talking and planning out strategies to deal with the boss. It was more difficult than any of the other monsters we had faced, obviously, but for more reasons than simply stats, as had been the case on the first floor.

  The 5th floor boss was a giant skeleton that wielded an equally giant sword, and also used magic, which meant that we would need to watch out for both its melee, and ranged attacks. It was also more intelligent than any other monster on the floor, so we would need to stay wary at all times. However, with four of us, and only one of it, even if we were weaker, on average, we figured we could handle it.

  Once we had finalized our plans, we got into formation and entered the room. When we did, a blue window appeared in front of me.

You have entered the territory of Baladan, Master of the Halls of Abomination