Chapter 15: Chapter 92 – Ice to Meet You

They checked all their gear and descended the crude stone stairs leading into the dungeon. Just from the very entrance, one could instantly guess the theme of the dungeon, which clearly had something to do with scary, withered, spooky things, judging by tens of cracks in the walls, dirty webs, weird dust, and even bone fragments.

“Oh. You were right, Miria. I can see in this darkness. Even better than I previously did with your sight in the past.” Asterios glanced around with his brows slightly raised; his crimson eyes with vertical pupils shimmered as he did so, without glowing as much this time.

“Then, Master now has an innate Darkvision too?” Miria tilted her head.

“Something like that, I guess. The picture is even sharper and more vibrant than yours. You can check it out.”

She nodded and closed her eyes after Asterios wrapped his arm around her waist to support Miria and prevent her from falling as they were still going down the stairs.

“Wow. It’s amazing. I didn’t know it could be so detailed. You can literally see the rough texture of the stone bricks up ahead. I might be the one to borrow your eyes now, Master, ehehe~”

He brushed through her hair with a smile while they continued heading down as he pondered over the recent discoveries they made together. 

Was it something he could have inherited from Kaguya? But Selene’s eyes weren’t vertical slits. His father then? Considering the weird Lizardman golem back in Teira, it could be possible if the man was of a race similar to it. But, the legends in Miria’s and Selene’s world stated that Kaguya fell for a human.

Unless he was a bastard son, obviously. Umbra had portrayed Kaguya as someone at least a tad crazy about fighting strong opponents. If she had met someone strong in this realm while traveling alongside that human, it wouldn’t be impossible for her to elope with them, especially if she also was affected by full moons.

It was already clear that Kaguya—even if nobody had piqued her interest before that human summoned her—had mated with others before they had met since the whole lineage had to come from someone or Selene wouldn’t exist, being her direct descendant. 

It was even possible that her human partner hadn't minded her sleeping or even having children with others. No one could know that. Or, he had just died of old age and she had then found someone else after some time. All of this had happened centuries ago, hadn't it? With her longevity, she could outlive a normal human many times. That sounded the most believable.

Around the time he finished at that thought, they reached the bottom of the stairs. As expected, the main chamber was empty. Adventurers had been kept out of the dungeons for some time already, so it was obvious, but Suanori still suspected that there were people who snuck in even under the prohibition and the orders to stand back. She just hoped that this number wasn’t high and they didn’t become overconfident in an empty dungeon.

Allowed to enter the Guildmaster’s mind, Umbra quickly memorized the maps she had studied earlier with incredible attention to detail in case their copies would be destroyed somehow, and he began leading them through the first floor while checking ahead.

Suanori instantly noticed Ast’s method to mark their progress and commented on it positively. She had thought he would leave it to her, but she was glad there was another person who could keep an eye on their position. It was always much safer with two returning trails instead of one.

They moved through the first three floors with almost no interruptions, only encountering a Skeleton or two, even barehanded, or bareboned. It was the first good sign. As they have learned from the documents, the first five floors were mostly Skeletons with varying weapons and professions, but it seemed that the ones with more combat power had been moved down to help defend or attack where the holes were created by the diversion teams.

Asterios was allowed to cut most of them down to practice with his weapons a little bit more. Each Skeleton had a core somewhere around its body or in its bones so those that had their hearts placed in the open served as good practice targets for his Poison Fang.

Floors three to five had some enemies with crude rusted shortswords and polearms, which also were of no challenge to anyone in this party. Miria joined in to fight alongside Asterios after asking for permission. They hadn't fought together like that a lot and she found it incredibly fun and entertaining.

Finally, they reached their first boss room on the fifth floor. The huge stone doors were unfortunately closed.

“Do you think someone is fighting there?” Miria asked.

“Or the dungeon closed all of its Gates to prevent or slow down the spread of the enemies that managed to infiltrate its floors,” Suanori suggested.

~That’s simple to check.~

Umbra left Ast’s chest as he had been serving as his emergency shield and seeped into the almost non-existent gaps between the doors and the doorframe. 

~There’s no one here. Except for the boss. It’s a Skeleton with the body of a horse and a humanoid one instead of the animal’s head. Master called it… a Centaur in his memories?~

“Alright. Any weapons?”

~A rusted lance and a kite shield. And a bronze cuirass I think. Or it’s completely covered in rust. I think it’s the latter.~

“Thank you.” Asterios turned to Selene. “Would you be so kind as to open these doors for us?” he asked with a subtle smile.

She chuckled and bowed. “With pleasure.”

Everyone else stepped back and Miria stood in front of them. Selene closed her eyes and placed her hand on the stone gate. After examining it with her spiritual senses, she nodded to herself and entered the first stage of her Awakening. That would be enough.

A small circle appeared around her palm still present on the grey surface and a few runes lit up inside of it. She placed her other hand a bit to the side and started drawing her right arm back; the one above the spiritual formation.

Strong pulling force opposed to letting her hand go while she steadily increased the distance between her fist and the stone slabs. The others were able to spot the shimmering of air in that little space she kept widening. Rising pressure could be felt from it.

Reaching a satisfactory point, Selene opened her eyes and her fist trembled a little before it stopped resisting the pulling force and rushed back into the formation. The external circuits of her right arm lit up as she landed an incredible thundering blow into the door, shaking the whole place.

The stone Gate stood no chance and was crushed into bits while thrown inside, creating a huge hole, covering almost the whole double doors. Just a little bit of them was left behind on the diagonal sides of the door frame.

“To one-shot a Gate… Impressive…” Suanori praised her performance.

Selene chuckled with her side to them. “After like a century at the temple, I’ve gotten quite good at opening doors.”

Asterios shook his head and they headed inside before the Skeletal Centaur would rush at them from behind the still hovering dust. Suanori cleared it up with one simple wind spell and they watched how the giant monster could not move an inch while bound by Umbra’s shadowy tentacles.

A moment later, tens of sharp black spikes surged from the ground and made the Skeletal Centaur into a Skeletal Porcupine, with one of them piercing through the monster’s core, making it tremble and begin to fall down in pieces.

“Where’s the fun in that…” Miria made a sad pout.

Ast’s fingers brushed through her hair. “We are here on a mission, remember? The less effort we expend till the harder enemies appear the better. We’ll have plenty of fun in the Demon Continent, I promise.”

She nodded and released a few cute purrs under his caresses. They joined the others who had already walked inside to look around. Nothing of notice was visible at the first glance so they decided to move on. But, the door on the other side did not open.

“So, it’s really locked.” Asterios pushed them a little.

“Let me use the key, my Lord.” Selene gently pushed him away with a smile.

“Won’t it deteriorate?”

“After you gifted me with a keyring two levels more durable than the previous one, this much is nothing. Thank you for your concern, my Lord.” She bowed her head courteously.

He nodded and stepped back.

“Keyring?” Suanori whispered to Miria.

“She means her Awakening. The thing when her fur goes sparkly. After Master mated with Selene while she was breaking through, she reached even a level higher than she should.”

“Ah.”

A very faint blush covered Suanori’s cheeks as she glanced at Ast’s back and imagined the scene for a brief moment before shaking off those wandering thoughts. Fortunately, due to the loud boom Selene caused, he didn’t hear their conversation or he would definitely bonk Miria on the head for not leaving out that certain detail.

On floors six to ten, the area was dominated by different versions of Ghouls, starting with the weakest, slow and awkward humanoids, and ending at bear-sized beasts with mighty attacks; still not that fast though.

Miria’s blades worked the best against them so she did most of the work, slicing the rotten meat and tissue into pieces like a professional butcher; one that was also an incredible dancer in secret.

Selene jumped in to drill through the fatter and tougher enemies with her spiritual orbs or spinning cones. Since those monsters weren’t anything rare, they always aimed for the cores, if they were able to locate them. The worst part about many undead was that it could be found pretty much at any spot inside their bodies instead of being in the same place for all the same-species enemies.

Just as they reached the door to the boss room on the tenth level, Miria spotted something in the distant corridor leading to the side.

“Look, Master! That must be a Trial, right? Should we try it?”

Certainly, the obelisk did have the signs pointing out at it being a possible Trial. Asterios captured her attention back with a tame peck on her lips.

“Let’s not take additional risks, okay? Especially in front of a boss room.”

She nodded with a slight blush. “Okay.”

“Umbra?”

~Flesh Golem, I think? It looks like someone grabbed a huge handful of the meaty monsters we’ve encountered till now and squeezed it into one mass, shaping it into an awkward humanoid.~

“This will get a bit more annoying,” Suanori commented. “Any way of binding it will just cause it to fall into pieces and then rebuild while we have to fight a small horde. There’s always the Queen Ghoul in that mass, controlling everything. We need to identify it and destroy its core.”

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“You heard her, girls. Give that long-expired schnitzel a good pounding and be on the lookout for the important piece of meat. As far as I know, it’s hard to say how it’s different since it can vary, but we should be able to find it,” Asterios added.

“Or, we can just completely pulverize it if it doesn’t work.” Selene smiled at him and proceeded with the opening.

Suanori cleared the dust instantly and they jumped inside, spreading out a little, with just Asterios and Suanori staying together. The huge horrendous-looking flesh doll screamed at them with many mouths. It was closer to a screech due to most of those being beast ones.

While his two companions dove in first to launch their attacks at the amalgamation of rotten bodies, Asterios brought out a light blue Runic Chip and slotted it into the hole in his weapon. It started emanating a very faint whitish mist with the transcriptions glowing in blue.

“What’s that?” Suanori asked after sending an Earth Spike at the enemy.

Asterios smirked and made a powerful swing with his right arm, bringing it way to the back before that. The moment his blade made a wide arc of half a circle, an ice projectile shot out of it, or rather, from above it, and pierced into one of the Ghouls, freezing it.

“Nothing much. Just a simple Ice Javelin.” He smiled.

“How many times can you fire that?”

“Don't know. Let’s test that out.”

And they both kept launching earth and ice spears at the boss monster while Miria and Selene rained slashes and blows at its body from up close, with the latter trying to force the opponent’s focus onto herself to allow the panthergirl to make surgical cuts that revealed the Ghouls inside the mass.

Ast’s token shattered after six projectiles, which was quite a decent number. Unfortunately, they had a hard time finding the correct mob and they were only slowly eliminating single Ghouls with their efforts, which would take so long that they would tire out first before luckily stumbling onto the correct one. Even Umbra didn’t notice anything special with his omnidirectional vision.

Miria jumped back to the duo of magicians. “There’s no end to them. Should we use a stronger technique, Master? I can start drilling through it with my Spiralling Lunge.”

Suanori grunted lightly after sending a spinning disc of earth with vertical wooden blades protruding from its top and bottom. “I guess we could try to force it into the severed state and risk looking for the Queen Ghoul with tens of them coming at us instead of one.”

“That could end badly. Or bad enough for us to have to bring out even more strong abilities,” Asterios replied. “Alright. I’ll have a go at it. You two deal the finishing blow.”

Miria didn’t even ask what he planned to do and just nodded before heading back to her friend. Suanori also decided to trust Asterios and observed his movements to help him out in a crisis.

Asterios pulled out a good-quality dark blue crystal token and slotted it into his Spellslinger. A moment later, after activating it with his scorching energy, his black blade got covered by thick frost and a clear, cold mist began rising from it.

“Ever heard of Permafrost?” He saw Suanori’s eyes widen slightly at his question and Asterios broke into a run towards the giant monstrosity.

As he ran forward, more and more of the white frost gathered over the blade, making it two times thicker and around three times longer when he covered two-thirds of the distance between his starting position and the enemy. He had to quickly discharge the accumulated ice particles or they would soon start heading the other way, towards his body.

~Stairs!~

Selene reacted immediately and started creating spiritual platforms in front of him while Miria moved to defend her from the attacks that could be hard to dodge. Asterios jumped up and up from one platform to another until he was slightly higher than the monster. 

He then leaped off the last one and both of the girls quickly jumped back, receiving his warning through their connection.

“Hey! You rotten meatloaf!”

The huge amalgamation tilted its body to the back to look up—if it even could or had to look at things—and noticed a single opponent falling onto it from above, a little too late to react now.

“Here’s your long overdue pinch of spice!”

The long white blade easily pierced and sunk in the fleshy body of the boss monster, to the very tip of Ast’s knuckles, coming out on the other side. The monstrosity started screeching again as the intense frost began spreading from the wound at a running speed, turning more and more of its internal flesh into rock-solid ice.

A huge snowstorm in the shape of a sphere arose around it too, taking care of the external coating of Ghouls, effectively causing both the inside and the outside of the Flesh Golem to turn into a giant ice block. In a blink, it turned into a huge statue and the blizzard died down.

“Uhhh… Small change of plans!” Asterios shouted, failing to break his blade off, now welded into the ice too. “I need a little help here before you start with the smashing!”

Miria and Selene chuckled at each other and the latter started preparing a strong blow while the former drew on Ast’s fiery mana and focused it in one of her shortswords. With a few steps over the platforms Selene made for her, she freed Asterios with three quick slashes and jumped back with him in her arms.

The moment the two of them reached a safe distance, Selene’s right arm's external circuits glowed much brighter than before and the demonic-looking apparition appeared above it. She made a huge swing and the big ethereal fist launched itself at the frozen target, smashing it into tiny bits with an ear-splitting boom.

With countless pieces of ice and flesh in the air, Umbra spotted a differently-looking core and quickly pierced it with his sharpened shadow, finishing off the boss for good. Not like it would be able to gather its thousands of pieces while frozen with pretty much never-melting ice.

Fortunately, magical fire did have some effect on it—and Ast’s fiery mana too, as he noticed quickly—and with Miria’s help, Asterios got rid of the leftover cube that she had cut around his blade to get him out. Under their intense treatment, it melted fairly quickly.

“Should Permafrost melt this easily?” Suanori asked after coming closer.

“Any element when boosted with Master’s mana is much stronger. Especially fire,” Miria answered with a proud expression.

“Pretty much what she said. And the ice rod that serves as the core of the spell that I shoved into the Flesh Golem has now no connection with this ice so it can’t regenerate as much and as quickly.”

“Still. That was quite an impressive show of spell power.”

“And expensive. That was one of the pricier crystals I had on me. Let’s hope we can find a good replacement down below.”

~I think the chances of that will be only getting higher and higher, Master.~ Umbra’s voice echoed in their heads. ~There are many enemies right from the other side of the Gate. This is where things are going to escalate, most likely.~

“Of course. It would be too easy if we strolled through like one-fifth of the dungeon with just boss fights.” Asterios nodded. “Alright. Let’s take this chance to rest for ten minutes before moving further.”

“Smart. The boss will take at least fifteen minutes to spawn at a floor this high. Maybe even longer if the dungeon is focusing its resources elsewhere,” Suanori praised his suggestion.

Asterios sat down on a non-frozen piece of the ground and glanced towards his companions. “Miria. Selene.”

A smile appeared on Miria’s face, alongside a small blush, and she quickly ran to him. But, shortly before she reached Asterios, she tripped over something and flew past him while trying to regain balance.

A soft chuckle traveled through the spacious chamber and Selene gently lowered herself onto her knees, leaning towards Asterios with her hands gently placed on his chest. She connected their lips in a very ladylike manner, with soft and loving pecks and her eyes closed.

“Selene!” Miria shouted at her after coming back, clearly aware of the reason why she had tripped. “We agreed on the order!”

The mischievous foxkin chuckled again, not even lifting her lips from Ast’s. His hands were now caressing her single bushy tail, which made her feel so good she experienced slight shivers each time his fingers touched the base.

“Ghhhnnnnn…” Miria grunted angrily while shaking her fists and then sighed. She sat down by Ast’s side and calmed herself down, waiting patiently.

Asterios broke the kiss by pulling back. Selene glanced at him with a pleading expression but he only raised his brows at her. She pouted a little and chuckled again, leaving a quick peck on his cheek.

“I’m sorry.”

Miria ignored her words and remained sitting still. Only when Ast’s forehead rubbed against hers from the side she showed a faint smile and tilted her face to meet him, joining their lips in a passionate kiss, letting him dive deep into her mouth for a dance of tongues; one eye half open and glaring at the sly foxkin.

She was the one to back away first and smiled shyly at Asterios, who plopped a hand on her hair and started to scratch behind her ears while caressing Selene’s tail with the other. Suanori didn’t know if she should feel surprised, confused, embarrassed, or what.

Noticing her mixed gaze, Miria turned to look up at her. “Master can refill our mana faster through kisses. Or was it saliva actually? Anyway, we always replenish our reserves like this after bigger fights.”

“I see…”

“If that makes you uncomfortable, we can stick to more traditional means,” Asterios added.

“No, it’s fine. I just never heard about a technique like this.”

“There’s an even better one, fufufufu~” Selene chuckled with a cryptic smile, causing Miria to turn red almost instantly.

Suanori raised her brow at them and Asterios could only sigh with a slight smile. They then took a short rest with the beastkin girls bringing some refreshments in and prepared to tackle the next floors. Things would turn a tad harder from now on.

 

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