Chapter 92: Part 1: I Just Wanted Friends, But My Summons Keep Eating the Bosses
Tap, tap.
Night’s flip-flops touched the cold floor as he appeared inside the dungeon.
In the end, he had decided to bite the bullet and enter the dungeon.
If he remained paranoid about every single dungeon he came across, he might miss out on something huge.
Most of the dungeons were System-made and according to Sara, the System gave generous rewards for clearing them.
Their previous dungeon was not System-made, which was why they had received zero rewards despite clearing it.
[Ding!]
[You have entered a Level 30 Dungeon: The Sleepy Panda Forest]
[Objective: Slay the Dungeon Boss to generate an exit portal.]
Looking around, they found themselves in a dense forest, but all the trees looked incredibly dull, as if they were lifeless. Puddles of stagnant liquid could be seen scattered across the muddy ground, and they reeked terribly.
Definitely not water, Night thought, quickly creating a breathable face mask using his Nightmare Mist.
Only then did he feel much better. Must be some unknown elements.
Tap, tap.
Night turned around and saw Eve, Lilith and Death stepping through the blue portal.
Paw, paw.
Behind them, Lucy appeared in her small plushie form. But as soon as she appeared, she wrinkled her snout. The stench was unbearable for her.
The others weren’t as affected, but Lucy had her already sensitive nose enhanced by the [Sensitive Nose] skill.
After inhaling the stench, she felt like she was about to vomit. Looking over at Night, she quickly drew inspiration and covered her face with a veil of shadows.
Whew...
"What a dangerous dungeon... it managed to almost suffocate me to death just by existing..." Lucy joked with a gag.
( ＞ ▽ ＜ ) ﾉ
"Pathetic," Death insulted her without holding back in the slightest.
Grrr... They couldn’t directly see Lucy’s expression behind the shadows, but from the low growl, they could easily tell she was angry.
( ╬ Ò ‸ Ó )
Eve stepped forward. "Master, we need to be careful, just in case it’s like last time..."
Lilith nodded firmly. "Yes, Master. And this time, we can protect you better."
Death then ignored Lucy and waved her scepter. The twelve skeleton Ice Light Eagles instantly appeared and took flight into the dull canopy.
Death stood still, concentrating deeply; apparently, she could actively share her vision with her undead summons.
The others stood beside her quietly, even Lucy.
Sage was currently waiting safely outside with Sara and Blade.
She had volunteered to stay behind before they were forced to make the awkward choice of exactly who would be benched due to the five-person party limit of the dungeon.
But she didn’t forget to make them promise that next time, someone else would securely stay back in a similar situation.
How incredibly thoughtful, Night mused, remembering the brave, slightly pouting face Sage had made while saying all that.
@(・ω・)@ノ
After some time, Death looked back at them and reported, "There are a little more than a hundred monsters ahead, and all of them feel weak. I honestly feel like I could slaughter half of them using just the skeleton birds."
Lucy sighed in relief. "Finally, a completely normal dungeon. As for why you feel that way, it’s probably because the birds themselves were around Level 40 to 45, making their bones very sturdy, while these guys are probably around Level 30."
Night smiled with deep gratification. "It seems my idea about ’more friends means more kills’ was not so far-fetched after all."
The others kept completely quiet at that.
Recently, Night had been actively talking about getting even more summons aka ’friends’.
While everyone except Death had no problem with it, they were worried the sheer amount of EXP he might need in the future, it could also lead him to be stuck at a low level, while others his age leveled up quickly.
Eve and Lilith, who were quick with their internal math, were vehemently against him getting more friends when they realized how much EXP he would need at the much higher levels to just level up once.
Night, "Let’s cleanly finish this dungeon quickly," then gently reminded them, "Of course, prioritize your own safety first."
They silently followed him, lost in their own complex thoughts.
Soon, they spotted a monster that looked remarkably like a giant panda casually leaning heavily against a dull tree.
It looked half-awake and half-asleep.
Its heavy head kept slowly tilting down as thick drool lazily escaped its mouth while it struggled to simply stay awake. It had dirty brown fur, stood easily seven feet tall and possessed sharp nails and jagged teeth. It looked cute, yet undeniably deadly.
Wow... these guys live up to their name. It literally looks exactly like a Sleepy Panda, Night thought in amusement.
From the deep shadows, Lucy whispered, "Let’s fight one head-on just to test their capabilities."
They agreed, and Lilith smoothly stepped out.
All this time, she had barely gotten a proper chance to show off her combat skills. She moved out in the open without making a single sound. The drowsy monster only noticed her when she was standing incredibly close to it.
She wasn’t joking when she said she possessed the skill set of an Assassin, Night mused, looking at her glide across the ground with practically zero friction.
If one didn’t look directly at her, one wouldn’t even realize she was moving.
Standing directly in front of the beast, which was undoubtedly a Sleepy Panda according to the system prompt, Lilith smoothly opened her metallic hands and two kunai instantly appeared.
The sharp kunai looked dull and mundane as she coated them with her Dark Energy.
Wearing a sleek maid outfit, dual-wielding kunai, and possessing a flawless robotic appearance... he had to admit she looked incredibly cool.
If only she had some actual hair instead of being completely bald, she would have looked absolutely perfect, Night thought critically.
The huge monster finally woke up in a daze after slowly realizing the intruder was not a dream, but reality. Its heavy eyelids opened, revealing solid brown eyes with no whites.
It opened its massive mouth, but right before it could roar, Lilith flawlessly threw both of the kunai coated in Dark Energy directly at its eyes.
The monster desperately tried to draw its heavy head back, but it was awfully slow.
Realizing it was impossible to dodge, it quickly snapped its thick eyelids shut. When the dark kunai hit the eyelids, instead of being blocked by the thick hide, they effortlessly pierced right through it.
So, despite its quick defense, it still ended up being completely blinded.
Hmm... incredibly weak physical defense, Night thought analytically as he casually tapped his index finger on his chin.
The monster reeled backward and frantically tried to dig the embedded kunai out clumsily with its huge paws.
Instead of safely pulling them out, it ended up painfully pushing them even deeper. It let out a weak, pained roar...
It only managed to yank them out after several frantic tries, but not before completely shredding its own optical nerves and making the damage exponentially worse.
Throughout all of this, Lilith was not idle.
She rapidly brought out two more kunai and threw them cleanly into the thick trees on both sides of the thrashing monster.
She then quickly sprinted behind the blinded panda and did the exact same thing from the rear.
The monster suddenly snapped its head toward her, miraculously detecting her exact position despite not having any working eyes.
It let out a strange, deeply hypnotic roar. Immediately, Lilith, and even Night, who was actively hiding close by, felt an intense wave of sleepiness wash over them upon hearing it.
It was an incredibly interesting area-of-effect attack, but it failed to practically affect Lilith, who being a robot, apparently never actually slept.
Lilith, entirely immune to the skill, simply raised her hands and tugged at the empty air.
Looking closely with his slightly sleepy [Mystic Eyes], Night could see incredibly thin, practically invisible strings wrapped all around the trees.
When she tugged, the strings instantly tensed, and the four kunai pinned to the surrounding trees were pulled back.
Because of the precise geometric way they were carefully set up, as soon as they were freed from the wood, they rapidly swept through the air, following the tight circular path in which the invisible strings moved.
The sharp strings bound themselves directly around the thick neck of the monster, and because of the massive momentum of the kunai, they instantly wrapped tightly around its throat like a deadly noose.
Before the drowsy monster could even properly react, the four flying kunai, still covered in Dark Energy, pierced its neck from all four sides with hundreds of times their original throwing force.
It fell heavily onto the ground with a thud as life rapidly fled its body.
The returning kunai had managed to almost behead the beast purely because of the intense centripetal force behind them. The damage was easily more than enough to instantly kill it.
[Ding!]
[You have slain a Lvl 27 Sleepy Panda | +270 EXP]
Level: 20 (EXP: 11010 /21,000)
Night was completely stunned when he witnessed her flawless execution. With his [Mystic Eyes], he saw the entire geometric scene vividly, and he quickly realized the terrifying amount of on-the-fly calculation that must have been required to set it up perfectly.
Despite it looking superficially like a simple attack where she merely threw four kunai and just pulled some strings, it was anything but that.
The exact distance, the complex angles and even precisely how deep the kunai pierced into the wood of the trees had been flawlessly calculated.
The tugging as well was done strictly by dynamically taking the ambient wind and the clumsy shifting position of the panda into continuous consideration.
If any of these minute variables were even a tiny bit off, the complex but simple attack would have completely failed.
Of course, the panda being awfully slow was the main reason why it even succeeded in the first place, but it was still an incredibly cool attack nonetheless.
And Lilith didn’t even look like she had put much effort into it; this complex but elegantly simple attack had literally been child’s play for her.
Damn. If she could use the Nightmare Mist like me and Sage, she might easily become the deadliest out of all of us, Night wondered in awe.
( ✧Д✧)