Ank

Hey, the rest of the time on the 2nd floor, wasn’t that bad at all.

We hunted tens of monsters scattered throughout the entire forest, leveled up a bit, collected some more items, and I even managed to unlock the summoning of those [Cervalces scotti]. Finally, then, there was only the 2nd floor’s boss remaining:

[Species: (D - boss) Bison latifrons, level: 39]

Two and a half meters tall, five meters long, and displaying three meters long horns, the giant bison had all the strength of the previous boss, with double the agility, while not having a small [Health Bar] at all.

Still, however:

“Gwooon!”, the creature roared, its body starting to exhale the red aura that every boss monster unlocked when they lost enough [HP].

“Time to change strategy”, I said, as I urged the monster under my legs, the giant [Cervalces scotti], towards Hunah, and left my conjured spear vanish from my grasp. Passing by my sister’s side, without slowing down, I offered her a hand, and pulled her up to my mount; her [Doedicurus Flail] dripping with the 2nd floor boss’ blood.

“And what is the new strategy?”, she asked, as the horned beast dashed incredibly fast after us, pursuing my sister and I through a big snow field that served as its arena.

“[Summon: Fake Bow and Arrows]”, I conjured, and the weapons appeared before my sister. “Simple: don’t let the fucker caught us, and keep shooting”, I lost half of my [HP] when the boss kicked me with its hinder legs once while I was spearing him from the back of my mount, if the boss managed to get us with its horns, even Hunah’s superior defense would be meaningless, we’d be dead for sure.

Like this, the last part of the boss fight started, my sister shooting arrow after arrow from the back of my mount, as I gave my best to keep as away from the pointy horns of our pursuer.

And, like this…

“Got him”, Hunah announced, after the ninth quiver full of arrows I summoned; the giant bison-like monster falling down, its body a thousand times punctured, the black fur turned red.

…The last part of the boss fight ended.

Immediately, my heart having not slowed down a single bit, I turned my mount around, and dashed to the corpse that was starting to vanish. Jumping from the back of the only summoned creature I used in that battle, and rolling on the snow, I reached for the massive dead body and conjured with the very last bit of [Magic] I saved:

“[Dissection]”, my [MP] downed to zero, the palm of my hand shone, and the quickly vanishing corpse was lit in green light for a moment.

[Dissection failed; Dissection can’t be used on this corpse again]

“Fuck”, I cursed, kicking the snow, the fact that the damn skill failed on a boss again pissing me more than the fact that that horned beast had probably fractured a few of my ribs, broken off two of my teeth, and made me throw up with one of its attacks.

“Fuck yes”, my sister, on the other hand, commemorated, as the corpse vanished, and a nice black cape with a horned hood behind.

“Yeah… Nice…”

“Uh… Well, there’s still the third boss?”, finally noticing how I was staring at her, Hunah pointed, lifting a thumb up, as she equipped yet another cool item while once again I got only the EXP from the boss fight.

Then, just like the last time, a new message from the [Dungeon]:

[“H- Hey! Long time we don’t talk, hu? Not that I’ve seen you two recently either, though! A- Anyway, are… are you guys having fun?”]

I knew it. I knew it very well, the [Dungeon] wanted to know only if is challenges were being cool enough for us. I knew it, but, still, I was just forced to look at Hunah with the corner of my eyes; and after I caught her also looking at me, I replied:

“Yeah, we… we’re having fun.”

[“Nice! Nice, nice… Like the weather, hu?”]

Oh, my goodness, I just couldn’t handle the [Dungeon]’s social awkwardness anymore, and tried to help it to hold something like a proper conversation:

“Yeah, sure. But, what about you? What made you make your dimension look like this?”

[“Well, I thought that, if I made an adventure with just herbivore animals inhabiting the place, I’d be able to attract more people, like ‘wow, this Dungeon is easy and fun! I can’t wait to come back!’.”], they explained, and I noticed the large gate surrounding the gigantic wooden tower at the edge of the boss arena opening.

“So, this place is easy?”, Hunah whispered exactly what I was thinking.

[“And, now that you reached this place, I bet that there are a lot of more people passing by, right? Soon I’ll have more friends! I- I mean! It’s not like I consider you my friends already nor anything… Unless…?”]

Fucking hell, had that [Dungeon] maxed out the [Emotional Manipulation] skill?

“I consider you my friend already”, I said, closing my fist over my heart, holding my shirt tight between my fingers. Only then it crossed my mind: “How should we call you though? I’m Ank, and my sister is Hunah, by the way.”

[“ ˚‧º·(˚ ˃̣̣̥᷄⌓˂̣̣̥᷅ )‧º·˚

I- I’m sorry, I’m just a little emotional, Ank… my friend! My designation is ‘Incubator, Series Number: 124895’, but you can call me ‘In-”]

“Incute”, Hunah interrupted. Well, she was a girl, after all.

[“What?”]

“Incute, then”, I agreed.

[“I- I think this is good enough?”]

“But, sorry, Incute, we kinda found you by accident: there’s no sprawling city in the middle of the jungle”, Hunah pointed, scratching her head with visible guilt.

[“What? Accident? This- This… I see. Accident. I- I’m still isolated, then.”], The green screen that displayed the Incute messages disappeared for a whole minute, before it came back, right when we were just about to enter the 3rd and last floor: [“What you two were doing in the middle of the jungle, though?”]

Well, [Gods] and [Dungeons] weren’t exactly at war, but they weren’t friends either – and even if they were, and this info got out, no [God] would take us seriously anyway – so I decided to just tell the truth:

“We’re in a quest to genocide the [Gods] out of this world with our own hands.”

[“S- Seems complicated…”], Incute replied, and the two of us stepped into the wooden tower, and the new floor.

As soon as the welcome message popped up, with a thud, a monster that was almost the same size as my sister and I while on its four paws dropped from a branch of the tree right on the only path we had to make our way up; though I could see the path branching here and there with holes in the tree trunk, there was basically only one way up, and it was a thick vine-like plant encircling the giant tree serving as a ramp:

[Species: Megalonyx, level: 38]

“Ah, shit…”, Hunah cursed, letting her giant flail hit the ground, where a few of the glowing roots from the first floor showed up.

“Here we go again”, I completed, and summoned a small gang of monsters to combat the bear-sized beast. We still had one more floor to purge.