“You… you were stalking me again, right?” asked Cade. Shihoon had a history of stalking Cade and looking at his guilty face, that was the only thing that came to Cade’s mind.
Shihoon immediately moved both of his hands forward and with his head, he shook violently meaning no, he did not stalk him.
“No! No! This is a coincidence! A coincidence!” said Shihoon, denying what Cade was asking.
However, Cade did not buy that. Shihoon looked suspicious. Immediately, he drew his sword, took a fighting stance and dashed forward.
Shihoon was shocked that Cade suddenly attacked him. He took out a picture and used ‘picture come to life’ skill. The picture shone and then disintegrated immediately.
After that, a magic circle appeared in front of Shihoon and a man in a hoodie with gray cardboard equipment came out of it. That man was another Cade, with his newly upgraded linked equipment.
“Stop him!!” ordered Shihoon as Cade was coming fast at him. However, he was surprised when Cade suddenly passed through him and attacked something behind him.
Shihoon looked behind him and saw a big blue tongue toad was injured by Cade. The toad did not die because it succeeded in jumping backward before the attack landed, reducing its injury.
After that one slash, Cade followed up with another dash towards the toad and slashed it again with his sword. This time, his attack landed perfectly on the toad and the toad died.
Shihoon was staring at the situation blankly. The Cade he summoned just stood there motionlessly beside him.
Cade stared at Shihoon and said, “I thought you said this is a coincidence? What is that?” Cade pointed his finger to another him that was standing beside Shihoon.
“Ahaha…” Shihoon dryly laughed. He looked straight to Cade’s eyes and with determination, he immediately got on his knees and kowtowed to Cade. Cade was surprised by Shihoon’s action.
“Boss! I am sorry! I saw you yesterday and you look cooler than before with that new cardboard you have. I couldn't help it~ I got curious and… stalking you again. Forgive me boss!” said Shihoon.
He was telling the truth. Shihoon coincidentally saw Cade the day before and was attracted by the new look Cade donned. He did not want to stalk Cade at first but after seeing him in action with the new equipment, he could not help it.
“You…” Cade suddenly got a headache. He was not a celebrity or anyone famous at all but now, he needed to deal with a stalker… fan? Cade did not know if Shihoon was his fan or purely a stalker.
“Boss, you won’t kill me, right? You even saved me just now!” Shihoon begged Cade. He was already almost at the end of the third floor. If Cade killed him, he needed to restart the third floor again.
“Stop calling me boss. I am not your boss and I am not a cruel person that kills everyone I dislike,” said Cade and he sighed. He suddenly felt extremely tired.
“You had no intention of harming me so I don’t think you deserve to be killed,” said Cade and he decided to left Shihoon alone.
“Let’s explore this dungeon together!” Suddenly Shihoon suggested that they explored the dungeon together.
“I prefer to be by myself,” said Cade and he took the item drop he got from the toad he killed earlier.
“You know, you cannot survive by yourself in the dungeon. It is okay on the lower floor, but the higher you go, the harder it is to fight by yourself. You even need my help before,” said Shihoon.
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Shihoon was right. He had experience going to a higher floor before and even if the dungeon was low level, the monster was usually stronger than the explorer.
No matter how high the grade of the explorer, they all needed to team up when they reached the higher floor of a dungeon.
The stubborn ones who preferred to work alone usually died earlier than the ones who decided to party with others. No matter what the explorer did, the monsters will usually be stronger than them at the same level.
Cade stopped on his track when he heard that. He knew it in his heart that he cannot work alone forever. He already went through two situations where he needed to have someone else by his side to survive.
The first time was on the top floor of the slime dungeon. If the army of slime did not decide to betray their boss, he had no chance of surviving the dungeon.
The second time was fighting the group of the big blue tongue toad. If Shihoon did not appear and helped him, he might have needed to start exploring the third floor again.
Cade knew all of that but he still stubbornly did not want to team up with anyone. His reason was his high luck. If many people knew about it, they would want to use him. Cade did not want to be used by anyone.
“I will be fine by myself,” said Cade and he continued walking leaving Shihoon by himself.
“Sigh, the kid is quite stubborn. Even with his new equipment, I can see he was struggling to fight a group of that toad,” said Shihoon and he decided to follow Cade from behind.
Shihoon cannot help himself to stay away from Cade. All the time he was stalking Cade, he was getting fonder and fonder towards Cade. If he can help Cade, he will do his best to do that.
He had a feeling that Cade might need his help soon and decided to stay close to him. He will try to persuade Cade again to party with him.
“I feel like I am becoming more and more like those maniac fans who wanted to get close to their idol and do everything to get their attention,” Shihoon realized that he was slowly going that way though he was pretty sure that it was not like that.
Cade, on the other hand, felt a bit of pressure with Shihoon following him from behind. He minded it a lot but he cannot chase Shihoon away because at the moment there was only one path forward.
Shihoon did not take any of Cade’s pictures but he just followed him quietly and watched him fighting every monster they met. He also sometimes fought the toad that came from behind them.
After spending a few hours together, Cade had gotten used to Shihoon’s presence. He was feeling the pressure of someone watching him earlier but now, he felt nothing.
Continuing forward, Cade met another big blue tongue toad. He killed the toad but unfortunately, there was still no puzzle piece for the blue tongue part.
Luckily, on the third floor, the big blue tongue toad was common. The normal big tongue toad can only be found at the beginning of the third floor. After that, Cade found none of them.
Moving forward more, Cade finally arrived at the boss room. Many other explorers were waiting for their turn to enter the boss room.
“This is weird,” a voice came from behind Cade. The voice belonged to Shihoon.
“What is weird?” asked Cade. He did not find it weird that many explorers were there. It was not that much different compared to the first floor.
“The amount of people here is quite the same as when we were waiting on the first floor,” said Shihoon.
“Maybe all the people on the first floor that wait with us arrive here at the same time as us,” said Cade. Both of them had somehow naturally been able to talk to each other like there was nothing happening between them.
“Ugh~ Kid, are you stupid? Do you think that everyone waiting on the first floor with us succeeded in defeating the boss? And, do you think that everyone here waiting with us is the same one we met on the first floor?” asked Shihoon.
“Well… I still don’t see what is weird with this situation…” Cade still did not know what was the weird thing that Shihoon meant.
“I said just now that not everyone that fought the boss can defeat the boss. Let say, 20 people, wait their turn to fight the boss on the first floor. After 20 of them fight the boss, only half of them succeed and go to the second floor.”
“On the second floor, 10 of them fight the boss again and only 5 of them succeed,” said Shihoon. Cade looked at Shihoon and he still did not get what was weird with it.
“Sigh, what I want to say is, the higher we go the less explorers we will meet but the one waiting here is as many as when we are on the first floor,” explained Shihoon to the still not understand Cade.
“What is so weird about this? There are many explorers after that that will pass the boss and fill the place of the one who fails,” said Cade.
“There, you said it yourself, ‘many explorers’,” said Shihoon. “Don’t you find it weird that suddenly many explorers came here?”