Chapter 8: 008 – Dungeon Boss

Chapter 008: Dungeon Boss

…

Now well rested, we push open the door to the rest of the dungeon.

Behind the door is a larger corridor than before, where five people can stand next to each other instead of two like before.

It is lit up with glowing stones at regular intervals.

Multiple sighs of relief sound out, including mine, as we see the light.

Suzy walks in between Raquel and I, but this time we are not holding hands.

I have my bow ready. In front of us there is Lin Hao, and further there are Danielo and Claire.

(Claire’s priest gown were definitely bought with points…)

“Claire, does your gown have any benefits?” I ask her.

“… Yes, it helps with divine energy so I can do more prayers.”

(No wonder she could cast so much. It seems she doesn’t use mana either.)

“I see, thanks.”

“You are welcome!”

After a while we encounter 5 armored skeletons.

“Let me!” I say.

I cast two Magic Missiles and destroy two.

“I’ll leave the others to you.”

Claire touches her spear’s tip and light flashes on it. “Bénédiction.”

She advances and stabs a skeleton, it crumbles to pieces, then she stabs another, who dies the same way.

(Damn, that’s way more efficient than me.)

Raquel steps in front. “Aqua Flecheto!”

The water arrow flashes through and hits the last skeleton, making it stagger with a missing head. It falls to the ground, dead.

Raquel seems tired from that one shot. Unlike Claire and I, she can only use her special ability once.

(Not that I’m much better.)

I look at Lin Hao and Danielo. Lin Hao looks amazed. He must have used his guns against the skeletons, but they probably resist physical attacks quite well, to kill them must take quite a few bullets.

Danielo looks at us with an open mouth. He must have used his chainsaw to tear the skeletons to pieces, which would take some time and be exhausting.

The benefits of magic in this trial are evident.

We move forward.

We enter a small room with sewage holes placed in the walls.

“Watch out, there might be giant rats coming!” Says Lin Hao in common, seemingly stressed and pointing his rifle to one of the sewage holes.

I thought rats were the weakest here, but it seems like Lin Hao’s injuries actually came from the rats. I guess that fighting those in the dark for him with his guns would have been a nightmare.

Indeed, giant rats came through the holes.

Lin Hao started shooting, the sound was deafening.

Claire, Raquel and Suzy had their hands on their ears, while Danielo and I compromised with just one hand.

I shot two Magic Missiles immediately and got two kills.

That put me up to 20 points, enough for something decent.

I take out my bow and start shooting inside the sewer holes kind of like Lin Hao, but silently instead...

Lin Hao stops shooting and reloads his weapon, sweating like a pangolin.

“Lin Hao! Put a silencer for God’s sake!” I shout at him.

“Sorry! I’ll get one next time!”

Sigh.

It would already be too loud with a silencer in here, not to mention without one.

I shoot more arrows, as fast as I can. More and more rats push through the holes.

Danielo is in front of one with his chainsaw constantly cutting rats. He’s got that hole covered.

I kill three rats with arrows. Raquel and Claire start killing rats as well.

Only Suzy fidgets around, wanting to help.

Then, rats stop coming.

“… Looks like it’s over.” I say.

“Oui…”

We continue forward.

…

After a whole day of fighting, we decide to sleep.

Danielo has a small mattress for himself, and the others don’t have anything but their own clothes to make themselves comfortable.

I set up my tent and enter with Suzy.

“… Suza!…” Raquel looks over with tears in her eyes.

(She’s still crazy for sure.)

Suzy looks over and back at me.

“Sir Edward… Perhaps, we could let her in with us?”

When Suzy speaks, all the other apostles look over.

“This… Only if she leaves her knives outside.” I give out, knowing it’s for the best.

Suzy walks over to Raquel and guides her inside, leaving the knives right outside the tent in a bag.

Raquel is very meek and lets Suzy act as she pleases.

Suzy rests in the middle of the air mattress, while Raquel and I stick close to Suzy in order to not fall on the ground.

Raquel and I look at each other.

She glares at me.

(Did she start a relationship with her Suzabeth?)

It seemed Raquel stuck close to Suzy for other reasons.

After a while, we fall asleep.

…

Day three of the dungeon dive.

We eat breakfast.

Even with Danielo’s bag, we had supplies for three more days at most, then we’d run out.

By that point, I could spend points to buy food or even magic that creates food. But those would definitely cost tons of mana, I preferred to use my supplies by far, especially when points were in short supply.

We proceed forward.

This time we enter a room filled with a crowd of skeletons.

“… This will be hard.” I comment.

Claire steps over to me.

“I can bless your weapon and another.”

Her blessing persisted for a minute and enabled great damage to the undead.

“Then, s’il te plaît.” I ask her politely in the little French I know.

Claire smiles and blesses my short sword then Danielo’s hammer and her spear.

“Let’s do this!”

We charge into the fray.

I slash and slash skeletons until they crumble.

Having little to no skill, I often have to block and then stab and slash back.

After a minute, I’ve killed four skeletons.

I take a few steps back then I shoot down two with magic missiles.

(Damn, I wish I had much more mana.)

I could buy magician gear right now with my apostle slate.

It should increase my kill rate and pay for itself.

But I also didn’t want to reveal the slate to the others just yet.

I couldn’t trust them, or what they would be made to do later.

The battle ended with Raquel shooting the last one with her water arrow.

“This was close, we almost ran out of blessings and magic.” I say.

“Yes, we should rest.” Claire replies, as most others nod.

We sit down and rest.

I take out the apostle slate while nobody’s looking. I have 29 points.

It’s just like the interface. In the top left I input a search word. I restrict the results to affordable ones.

‘Mana’.

Other results were irrelevant, and used mana instead just like Mana Arrow or Mana Detonation.

If only a sip of the mana potion restored myself to peak condition, then it would be a good investment. Otherwise, it means I’m trading two points for one kill.

I was curious about Mana Control, and I knew Mana Sense would eventually help.

Mana Control’s description said it helped regulate level 1 spells and to grasp a hold onto mana.

As always, it’s cryptic, and that’s what makes me want it more.

‘Buy. Buy.’

I got both Mana Control and Mana Sense.

I’d try to make it through without potions.

I put the slate back in my bag.

Immediately, I felt something ahead from me.

It’s from Claire’s direction.

I can feel her gown pulling mana inside. I believe it is to activate her gown's enchantment.

(So this is Mana Sense.)

With this, I’m able to sense whether or not something’s enchanted, this will be useful later.

A smaller tingle makes me look up, right towards the crystal lights.

(So these use mana too after all.)

…

The party moves on.

On the way, a pair of skeletons await us right in the middle of the corridor.

“Let me. I can recover quickly.” I propose.

“Go ahead.” Claire replies.

“Yeah.” Danielo acquiesces.

I chant my magic missile.

“Magic Missile.”

However this time it feels different.

It’s like I have muscles inside my arms making my veins constrict more or less.

(So this is Mana Control?)

I constrict them a little.

The Magic Missile forms as usual, but twice smaller.

(So that’s how I restrain its power and mana consumption? Will this suffice to kill the skeleton?)

I shoot it, the skeleton falls dead.

That used half as much mana.

It seems the base Magic Missile is quite powerful, at least for these enemies.

I should have taken Mana Control before.

I shoot another Magic Missile, this time about a third of the base size and power.

The skeleton takes it, falls on its knees, then slowly falls down, dead.

(So that’s about the minimum amount to kill a skeleton…)

We continue walking down the corridor.

…

I could now shoot down three times as many skeletons.

They took a little while until they completely died however.

I guess it’s the difference between being shot with a canon and a sniper rifle.

I could also make the magic missiles more powerful, which could only be useful for bigger foes.

If something has a flat resistance to magic damage, then it’s more efficient to go with a bigger spell from the get-go.

Three giants rats are spotted.

I shoot one down, Lin Hao shoots another and the last one is stabbed in the head by Raquel, who sprints at it as fast as a car.

I had 13 points, enough for one piece of ‘apprentice apostle copper equipment’.

I wait until the next lunch break.

…

We killed a few dozen more monsters on the way then took our lunch break.

This gave me a total of 21 points.

You are reading story Yume Howling at novel35.com

Suzy prepared almost everything.

I felt a bit jealous she served food to the other apostles as well.

(It’s not like I can keep her entirely for myself in this situation.)

While Suzy distracted everyone, I quickly took my apostle slate and purchased the ‘apprentice apostle copper necklace’ for 10 points.

The necklace appears right above the tablet and slowly falls on top of it.

I immediately put it on and leave it underneath of my leather suit.

I feel my mana pool expend.

(Hum… About a fifty percent increase? One more normal Magic Missile’s worth.)

I felt a bit more energetic too, however my mana regeneration didn’t change. Still, stocking up more mana is good.

I started eating.

Suzy came back to sit and eat with me a few seconds later.

“Oh…?”

“What is it, Suzy?”

“No… It’s nothing, Sir Edward.” Suzy smiles at me.

Although staying in this dungeon for so long was jarring, having Suzy around made things much better.

“Suza… Hermosa sonrisa...”

She also made Raquel normal.

…

…

That night, I had attained a total of 20 points.

The only reason we knew it was night in the first place was by feeling tired, not by looking at our phones.

We had different time zones and time stop lengths, which made looking at the phones meaningless, besides confirming my previous train of thought.

We set up the tent and everyone went to sleep in the same configuration as before.

Raquel was less wary of me, and looked at Suzy more now, having no interest in me.

…

The next morning, my total mana and its regeneration had increased a tiny bit.

My body itself was adapting and improving itself for magic.

The morning pains and grogginess disappeared very quickly.

We set out and the first thing we reached was a new door.

The floor had traces of blood. It was a gruesome presage.

“I think that behind this door, there’s either an army or a bigger monster.” I repeat myself in common.

“We can only go forward.” Replies Lin Hao.

“Right. Danielo?”

Danielo pushes open the door.

I wasn’t surprised when we found out how strong he actually was.

It seems he had chosen multiple strength enhancing skills.

Behind the door were actually zombies for a change, and in the middle of this huge room was a 4 feet tall, giant rat skeleton.

Its tail was swooshing around, making noise.

The zombies who were scratching a big sealed metal door on the opposite end of the room, turned towards our group and started walking faster and faster.

Danielo, Suzy and I drop our bags to the ground.

I started blasting out magic missiles at their minimum one-shot-kill power.

“Magic missile, magic missile, magic missile, magic missile, magic, MISSILE!”

Chanting the name of the spell was annoying, but necessary, I had tried to skip it to no avail.

The zombies went down with each shot.

With my newest improvements, I could shoot up to 10 of these smaller magic missiles.

I count the zombies. Five more.

The rat skeleton charges at our group.

Danielo steps in and stops it with his sledge hammer, cracking its bones.

Claire blesses her spear, one of Raquel’s knives and Danielo’s sledgehammer.

Claire then kills two zombies and goes to assist Danielo, as Raquel kills two other zombies, leaving one. Raquel then sprints around and above the rat skeleton, slashing it with her enchanted knife.

I take care of the last zombie with a magic missile.

I’m left with only enough mana for a slightly stronger regular magic missile.

After that, I’m useless unless I recharge.

Even worse, the blows the boss is sustaining with the blessed weapons aren’t doing too much damage.

I see some of the bone decay, but it’s still energetic.

The rat skeleton turns 360 degrees around itself, slashing with its tail at the three of them.

Raquel dodges, but Claire and Danielo get hurt and propelled away.

Lin Hao starts shooting everything he has, most of the shots going between the bones.

The ones that do hit, chip the bone or even break it, but that only slows it, as it tries to evade the shots.

Finally, the blessings stop working, their duration expired.

Raquel shoots her water arrow, breaking off a few of the rat’s ribs in the process.

All this only bought me a minute of regeneration for my mana, and I couldn’t meditate either.

“Magic… Missile!” I put every bit of mana inside my spell, pushing everything inside until I feel sick.

The magic missile is only a third bigger than the ones I used to do before getting Mana Control.

Still, I could only hope it would be enough.

I shoot it.

It quickly and accurately tracks the rat skeleton as it tries to evade through a turn and a jump.

JuuUuUuUoom

The magic missile hits easily the rat skeleton’s torso. It suddenly flops on the ground, then it claws its way closer, still getting shot by Lin Hao.

It seems the giant rat skeleton couldn't move its legs anymore.

Claire and Danielo get up meanwhile, but after a glance, I see they’re bleeding.

Suzy takes bandages from my bag to help them.

We now had no way to fight back.

I felt sick, I had trouble staying up.

(… Potion, mana potion!)

Two points or not, now seemed the right time to get one.

I jog back to my bag, flopping onto it.

“Sir Edward! Wait a bit! I’ll be right there!” Suzy worried for me, as she bandaged Claire’s ribs.

“I’m… I’m fine!”

I search inside my bag, get the apostle slate and type in mana potion, buying one immediately.

It appears from thin air above the slate. I grab it, uncork it and drink a big sip.

(It tastes metallic… Is that how they put mana inside?)

My sickness felt better after five seconds, then I felt I was recovering my mana.

The recovery effect then quickly diminished.

The only reason the skeleton rat wasn’t onto us was because Lin Hao was circling around it, shooting, with Raquel helping kick it with great speed.

The rat still had good speed even paralyzed from the waist down.

When my potion’s sip stopped doing anything, I was almost three-quarters full.

I decided to use all my mana at once.

“Magic missile!” This time, it was two and a half times bigger than normal, almost twice as big as the last one.

The magic missile flew much faster and right into the skeleton rat. It died on the spot.

Looking at my interface, my points went from 24 to 34.

This guy gave 10 points!

I still felt sick from mana-deprivation.

“Ugh…” I groaned.

“Good job, Sir Edward. Please wait a bit more, I’m almost done.”

Suzy was bandaging Danielo’s stomach.

“Well done, Edward. That was a powerful shot at the end…” Complimented Claire.

Raquel went to Suzy’s side, watching.

Lin Hao came over, tired.

(This guy seems to spend all his points on ammo or something. What a waste.)

Either that or he was hiding his abilities.

After resting here, Claire used her healing prayer on Danielo and herself.

We got up, took our bags and walked to the metal door.

I felt a slight draft.

“There’s a draft going to the door. I think it’s the exit!” I proclaim.

“Super!” Exclaimed Claire.

Danielo went and pulled the door open.

Behind the door, was a wall and a white door.

“It’s the white door… I guess we’re done.”

It was quite a hard few days in this dreary dungeon.

Everyone sighs in relief.

“It was good meeting you guys… I hope the best for you.” I say to them.

The others nod, besides Raquel who seems to understand that Suzy will part from her.

“Suza…”

“Un, Raquel. We’ll meet again…”

“Suza…! Si!”

As tired as we were, we didn’t say much more and went through the white door.

I let Suzy pass through first.

…

I was lacking a point to be at a clean 40 points, which was frustrating.

I could still get one good skill or spell now.

I drop my bags, remove my helmet and my leather suit to make myself comfortable.

I search for mind protection.

I find Mind Protection 1 for 20 points, it protects the mind from external stimuli to an extent, and can be deactivated and re-engaged at will.

I also search for defensive skills.

The previous trial showed I could be fragile.

One stab from Raquel might have killed me.

One hit from the boss would have led to my death. And Suzy’s.

Slime Release was a snail inspired skill that released bubbly slime from skin pores.

That was the most disgusting skill I had encountered yet.

On the other hand, the telekinetic skills seemed good. Looking at the description, they didn’t use mana at all, but ‘mental power’. I had no idea how much I could use of this.

Searching for mental power, there were the typical skills to upgrade it, similar to those for mana.

Searching for telekinetic skills, there was ‘Telekinetic Grab’ for 20 points that could grab, push and lift. With enough mental power, I could eventually throw metric tons away, or fling away an enemy.

I was worried about doing two things at once, namely mana and mental power.

Mental powers seemed similar to spells in lots of ways. Through pyrokinesis, I could throw fireballs. Through psychokinesis, I could influence minds.

(What is the point of having two different energies doing the same thing?)

Perhaps I’d understand more if I compared them in practice. The only big difference is that there are not levels. There’s no Telekinetic Shield 2 for example.

However there was Mental Power Capacity 2, 3 and MAX.

I buy Telekinetic Grab. I figure that I could grab onto incoming blows with this and attack or push enemies.

Hell, I might grab myself and fly away.

I place down my knife and test my telekinesis.

I try to move my knife.

“Telekinetic Grab.” The incantation doesn’t help at all, unlike for spells.

(So psychic powers are done silently… Nice.)

However this also meant there was more difficulty getting a hold of this power.

First, I take out a peanut in my palm and try to move it with my mind.

Nothing.

The protocol is engraved in my mind, and I knew I had a base amount of mental power, just like I had a base amount of mana.

“…”

I was missing something.

You can find story with these keywords: Yume Howling, Read Yume Howling, Yume Howling novel, Yume Howling book, Yume Howling story, Yume Howling full, Yume Howling Latest Chapter