บท 92: CHAPTER 92(Speedrun Start)
Please read the author's notes. (Examples and explanation of moves and appearance+ Monster Sources)
Discord: https://discord.gg/K7f8qGpvuk
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CHAPTER START---
"So, wanna explain why you tried to kill each other?" Finn asks with a commanding tone, Tiona flinched while Thalie simply looked toward Yang, seeing a small smile on his lips.
Both women were sitting on a stone bench in the courtyard as Riveria quietly chants her healing magic beside them. Thalie opens another elixir to heal her destroyed arm and shoulder.
"I wanted to see what the spear could do..." Tiona mutters, slightly ashamed now that her captain was standing before her.
"Same," Thalie says while shrugging her one good shoulder.
"Jeez, there are better ways to find out than this Tiona, and she destroyed one of your Urga's blades, you'll have to use a spare greatsword for this expedition..." he says while pointing at the shattered weapon in Tione's hands.
"AWEE MAN!" the girl whines.
"She broke a first-class Adamantite weapon as a level four..." Gareth says, bringing everyone's attention to the somewhat overlooked fact.
"I make good stuff," Welf brags with a light shrug.
"Do we even want to know what that sword of yours can do, should we be worried?" Tione eyes the black weapon on Welf's back.
"Eh, only if I have to point it at you, otherwise you're fine."
"To be clear, this was just... limit testing? And you're fine with working together on our way down the dungeon?" Yang asks, making sure the one member of Finn's team that could work with his team was still viable, he didn't want to deal with Ais always trying to spar with him.
"What?!" The ever protective big sister of the amazons asks.
"Tione, it was my decision," she immediately shuts up awaiting an explanation. "Because of how many important resources Yang will be carrying I've elected to assign Tiona to his team for extra fighting power. She'll be acting under his command until we meet up with them," Finn's words carried a tone of finality that everyone accepted.
"Wait so I'm going with Hephaestus's people?" Tiona questions for clarification.
"Yeah, you're the only one that can work with us. Everyone else is too annoying or nosey," Yang says casually, earning a slight glare from everyone in the courtyard.
"Cool another level 5 should make things way easier, still wanna get some room to test out my new sword at least. We can take her, um, that..." Welf points at Urga," and I'll fix it up when we get some time in the dungeon."
"Uh... dunno if I can afford to have Hephaestus's celebrity smith fix that..." Tiona awkwardly rubs her head as she remembers she's currently 34 million Valis in debt.
"If you're gonna be on our little team it's best to have you at your best, it'll be on the house. I could always use practice on unique weapons anyway."
"Thalie, how do you feel. Did you get the result you wanted?" Yang asks, the underlying meaning conveyed to his teammates alone.
"Yeah, just barely, I'll meet you at the fountain in Babel plaza..." she abruptly takes her spear and begins the walk toward Babel.
"That changes things for the better... you ready to go yet?" Yang asks Tiona, the girl still covered in blood but now standing.
"YUP! Let's go," she cheers happily while taking her spare greatsword from Raul, a silver greatsword made of Adamantite just like Urga.
"Anything else you wanna say, Finn?" Yang asks while walking over to Urga and storing it into his inventory, as he walks towards the crates and begins storing them away Finn falls into step beside him while Riveria and Gareth give Tiona an extended lecture, Tione giving her sister a hug and wishing her luck.
"If I may ask, you still have a copy of our quests and goals, if you should come across---"
"Got it, you can have whatever helps with your quest. Already planned to go get at least one of those things for you, if that's ok..."
"Hmm, and which one would that be?"
"That's a surprise, don't wanna get your hopes up after all, but loot really isn't my goal. Got money, got the gear. Got a nice apartment. I'm just tryna get stronger. You'll get your special items if I can hold em..."
"Hm, that was easier than I thought, thank you, Yang. And please don't do anything reckless with Tiona in tow, fighting gold dragons isn't for everyone, after all, we aren't all Elementalists." Finn says with a slight chuckle.
"Yeah, I promise only to piss off the dungeon when you get there."
"Ugh, sometimes I forget you're only like 17," Finn groans with a roll of his eyes.
"Not my fault you're like 50."
"40."
"Same shit, you're level 6 you'll be looking like that f for a century anyway," Yang shrugs.
As he stores the final box away, Welf approaches with all the scraps of Urga gathered into a small bag, storing this away too they quickly make their way toward Babel with Tiona in tow.
With a casual motion, he stores away her backpack leaving her carrying a greatsword on her shoulder as they walk through the streets.
"So you guys really just gonna try to get all the way down there alone huh?"
"Yup, problem?" Yang asks, trying to pick her brain for her experience.
"Mmm, normally having Riveria makes stuff way easier, big magic and healing ya know."
"We've got big magic and healing items. We should be fine, a smaller team means less people to babysit anyway," Yang informs her.
"Yeah I was skeptical at first too but miracle boy makes life easier..." Welf jokes.
"Ohh, miracle boy huh..."
"Do not call me that, I swear Welf if that sticks..."
Minutes later they all meet up with Thalie at Babel plaza, a cheeky grin never leaving the woman's face.
"Well?" Welf asks.
"After three long years, finally level 5," she bounces in place trying to contain her excitement.
"HELL YEAH!" Yang and Welf cheer her on, Tiona just stares wide-eyed at the news.
"Did, did you use me as the feat to level up?" She asks curiously.
"Hm, oh no, I had it already but I wasn't satisfied with my stats, but fighting you showed me I was ready, thanks for that," Thalie says while patting Tiona on the shoulder.
"Anything new we need to keep in mind?" Yang asks as he looks toward the dungeon, preparing himself for the upcoming trek.
"Mm, I've got better control of my magic, still need to test it though..."
"Gotcha, well if that's it we ready to talk about the plan?"
Receiving a nod from everyone, he begins the small briefing.
"I assume Hephaestus told you about the change in Finn's goals, that's why you're here and not off doing stuff for her."
"Yeah," Thalie confirms," she wanted you to be a bit more hands-on with making decisions as the point man for our expedition team."
"Yeah, I figured, well anyway out goal is the 50th-floor safe zone."
"Um, what?" Welf asks with clear concern.
"You heard me, we spent a month on the first 39 floors, let's get a move on. We're gonna do this speedrun style while giving you two a chance to let loose."
"Speedrun?" Tiona asks.
"Right, forgot you guys, never mind. It just means that we ignore anything that isn't a Unicron horn basically. Welf takes point and kills anything getting us to the 37th floor as fast as he can. When he begins to slow down then Thalie will start to fight too. Tiona and I won't be fighting unless things go bad, that means if I don't jump in you don't either, got it?" he shifts his gaze to the amazon.
"Got it, still kinda dangerous but it's your team after all."
"Thanks Tiona, now take this."
Removing the cloak that came with his new battle mage equipment, he wraps it around the young amazon, her being 7 inches shorter means it reaches almost her ankles.
"Uh, why?"
"We use a lot of fire and you're basically naked for most of your body, level five or not I'd rather not have to waste potions." He gives her a brief explanation while turning toward Welf, "whenever you're ready red, and we're skipping the water palace this time."
They each gave him a strange look, Yang chooses not to answer as they walk into the dungeon.
As they walk into the less crowded 5th floor, Welf draws his blade, not flowing any magic through it as he takes off in a run with the team following right behind him.
"Hey, Yang. This thing is really comfy, normally things like this are super warm, what is it?" Tiona asks as she feels the soft material of the cloak.
"Altena battle mage armor, that cloak cost probably a hundred million so it had better be comfy."
Tiona almost choked on nothing when he said that. She was wearing something that could bury her deeper into debt. But he lent it to her so she put it out of her mind, taking a look around, now that he mentions it Welf's kimono seems to be fire-resistant as well, and even Thalie has some of the same material in her armor, maybe their team really did like fire.
As they begin rushing forward, Welf knocks away goblins and kobolds with each floor. Shattering their bodies and instantly killing them with blunt force, his sword still being the angular rectangles for blades.
Toward the 12th floor, however, his grip on Mōsōka tightens. The red lines on the inner walls of the blades glow as the outer walls form solid blood-red flames in the shape of a sharp blade.
The sword now effectively has two blades with a gap between them facing opposite directions rather than two rectangular blocks.
"That's pretty cool," Yang admits, a little salty that he doesn't have a cool weapon like his friends.
"Wow..." was all Tiona could muster as she saw Welf cut up Orcs with ease.
"Well one of us had to have a flashy weapon, might as well be the magic sword," Thalie says with a smirk.
With every sword swing, Welf barely had to put in any effort. The superheated edge of his weapon divides monsters on these floors as if they were nothing.
His weapon itself didn't require any real input from him to activate the heated edges. Simply holding the blade and willing it to form was enough, he could keep it up forever because of his spirit healing skill continuously regenerating his mana faster than it's used.
They eventually make it down to the 17th floor, their feet stopping for the first time as they all look at the goliath, Tiona was most curious as to what they would do. She knew Yang could easily handle this monster rex, he was just that much of a freak.
But how would his friends do, and when the hell would she get to join a fight.
"Nothing changes, Welf, deal with it," his voice left no room for debate, the amazon could hardly believe this was the same boy she met months ago.
He had changed so much in a few months, he'd gone from some kid playing at being an adventurer with more power than he could handle... to the man she stood beside now. No, to the man who stood ahead of her, she may not be the most studious person, but amazons were good at instinctively judging the strength of a person, men especially. Upon seeing him at Twilight manor weeks ago, she knew that he'd surpassed her, now she wants to see just how far ahead he was.
"Finally getting to use this one!" Welf announces proudly, without stepping away from his teammates he stabs his weapon into the ground.
Both blades dig into the stone easily, before their very eyes two blood-red streaks of magic flow through the ground, rushing to where the goliath stood before forming a simple circle around the monster.
At the moment the end of each line collides head-on, however.
*FOOM!*
A massive pillar of flame erupts from the ground. The line on the floor melts the stone as the ground around the pillar softens with the immense heat.
The goliath cries out, rushing toward the team. Half of its face and torso missing as the large magic stone is exposed for all to see.
"You need help?" Yang casually asks, not really offering help but more like saying 'You didn't do enough,' as if to poke fun at the smith.
"Still not used to gauging how much magic some enemies need," Welf says as he does a wide horizontal slash.
A massive arc of blood-red flames slashes out, immense heat washes over the team. The skills and equipment shielding them. Even with her experience being around high-level magic, Tiona was grateful Yang had lent her his cloak as the attack made her face heat up in a small blush.
The Goliath falls forward with a loud crash as Welf's attack cuts off its legs at the thighs.
Wordlessly he points his weapon forward, a small flame flicker to life in the gap between the blades before a pillar of fire rushes forward, finally putting the monster rex to rest.
As the flames still occupy the battlefield, he waves his blade in the air.
"Will-O-Wisp," he does his chant and activates his magic through his weapon.
All the flames in the area subside into nothingness as everyone looks at him, their eyes begging an explanation.
"I can control my own flames. If it comes from the sword I can control it basically, can shield myself from other flames too but that's not as useful at range," he explains proudly, puffing out his chest.
"Can you shield the team from my flames if needed?" Yang asks, earning a wary glance from his friends as they understood where this was going.
"Uh, if needed but let's not test that just yet. I need a bit more practice with the flame control aspect of Mōsōka."
"Hmm, alright, let's keep going, Finn will take a week to catch up to us and we've got shit to do before they get there and we end up guarding the camp."
At Yang's words, they ignore the goliath loot and rush toward and through floor 18.
END CHAPTER---
Planning the dungeon floors currently so if you've got a suggestion feel free to drop it in a comment or on discord.Suggestions always welcomed.
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keanu_eugene
keanu_eugene Have some idea about my story? Comment it and let me know.
---Finally saw how Mōsōka works :0
---Tiona in the party for a while.
---Thalie with the level up to 5!
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