A single man guarded the southern entrance to the Onyx Lair. Well, he didn’t so much as guard as he sat on a chair, playing with his phone. Trace Taylor. pursed her lips and turned to her best friend.

“What are we going to do about him?”

Elizabeth Evergreen considered the question. Then she snapped her fingers. “I know— just follow my lead.”

The redhead blinked as Liz marched forward, walking straight towards the archway. Trace followed her, sputtering. “What are you doing?”

“Shush. We don’t want to arouse suspicion. Just play it cool.” Liz continued walking, whistling very conspicuously as she passed by the man.

He didn’t even glance up at her, too engrossed in what he was doing.

“Hey, Chuck,” she greeted him and continued into the archway.

“Mm, hey,” he said, uncaring.

Trace stared as Liz walked into the Onyx Lair without a problem. She hurried after her best friend, trying and failing to muster up any words.

“Told you.” Liz grinned.

“This is fucking stupid.”

But before they could get any further, a voice echoed from the entrance.

“Wait a minute…” The man lowered his phone. “My name’s not Chuck.” And his eyes grew wide. “And you’re not anyone I know!”

Trace halted and pinched the bridge of her nose. “I knew it was too good to be true.”

“What? Of course you know us!” Liz said, laughing as she waved a hand dismissively. “Come on, Chuck. Lay off the drugs, will you?”

And it was only then did Trace notice his bloodshot eyes and the dark circles drooping down from his eyelids. Was he high right now? His reaction led her to believe that he indeed was.

“Hmm. I swear I don’t know you…” He walked up to Liz, stroking his chin.

“Alright, enough of that,” Trace said and pistol-whipped him across the face.

He flopped over, falling unconscious without much of a sound. Liz stepped back, aghast. “Why’d you do that to Chuck?!”

“Piss off, Liz. This is serious.”

“Alright, alright. I’ll stop.”

The layout of the Onyx Lair was quite straightforward— Sam had explained it to the pair before he left. There were ten floors connected by a spiral stairway at the centre. Each floor had a labyrinth which led to this stairway. Before it was cleared out, the Dungeon had been populated with ox-like monsters guarding the labyrinths. Their levels were roughly the same— all of them were below level 10, since this was a G rank Dungeon. The only difference between each floor was the complexity of the labyrinth and the number of monsters within.

The first floor’s labyrinth was relatively easy to navigate. The halls were large enough for even a truck to pass through, and there were really only three paths that actually diverged. Trace simply stuck to the ones with the most footrails and trash left behind. Seriously, the Onyx Lair Crew didn’t care to clean up after themselves. It was like a literal dumpster.

There were some occasional side passages— rooms that had probably kept treasure or traps or monsters— but they weren’t actual corridors. Just box rooms holding stolen items within.

They’re probably keeping the women in one of these rooms, too.

The pair made their way to the centre after a solid fifteen to twenty minutes of careful walking. Trace spotted the stairway to the next floor up ahead, but immediately pulled herself to the wall when she saw the five figures guarding it. They didn’t notice her— which, good.

“They’re around level 10 each,” she said, peering around the corner. “And they’re armed with rifles as well.”

“I’ve got this.” Liz started forward—

But Trace pulled her back. “We’re definitely not getting past them the same way as before.”

“Of course not. Do you think I’m an idiot? No— we’re gonna beat them up.”

“Don’t you think that’ll attract too much attention?” The redhead stared at her best friend dubiously.

“Nah, it’ll be fine. Just listen.” Liz held a hand to her ear. “Do you hear that?”

“Erm, no? …” Trace was pretty sure that she heard nothing. Then it hit her. That was exactly the point— even though there was a battle going on outside of the Dungeon, she heard nothing whatsoever. And with how large the halls were, she expected to at least hear her own footsteps when she’d been walking around the labyrinth.

However… nothing.

Somehow, whatever materials made up the walls absorbed enough sound so that there’d be no echoes, and were also thick enough to muffle loud noises from another room.

“And you said it yourself,”—Liz raised her Obsidian Longsword, stepping into view of the five guards— “You want to teach these jerks a lesson, right?”

The guards shouted at each other. One of them took off, heading straight for the stairway as the other four readied themselves for battle. Trace sighed.

“You’re right,” she said and fired a single bullet.

It shot across the room, zipping straight for the running man. He turned around, wide-eyed, trying to get out of the way. The gunshot struck him across the shoulder, and he tumbled to the ground.

The other four guards exchanged a glance. Then they charged at Trace and Liz. However, the sable-tressed Swordsmaiden was already running their way. They bore down on her with various different weapons. One of them had a large axe, and another a pair of double-edged daggers. A kind of Warrior and Rogue. They intercepted Liz as the other two remaining guards attacked from afar.

One of the two men who stayed back had to be a Spellcaster since he began conjuring a spear of ice out of the precipitation in the air. He hurled it at Liz, and Trace moved. She fired two gunshots— that was what it took to shatter it completely, according to Vulnerability Vision.

The ice shards exploded and rained on the ground as the redhead continued firing at the Spellcaster. The man conjured up everything he could to protect himself or dodge the oncoming bullets, but she still managed to nick on the shin. He stumbled back right as the last man stepped forward.

Trace stared at the final guard as he held up two rifles. Fully automatic rifles in each hand.

“Eat lead, you ginger fuck!”

He squeezed both triggers as Trace cursed. “Shit—” She dove for cover.

A cacophony of gunshots rang out, filling the room with an incessant ringing as the bullets whizzed and whistled around Trace. Her eyes widened as she saw the tracers coming. They were… they were… completely missing her.

The man had terrible aim. He wasn’t even a Ranger— just a Warrior who thought his increased strength would help him dual-wield machine guns. And, sure, he could control the recoil without much of a problem. But he didn’t aim any better.

Trace easily shot the rifles out of both his hands before shooting out his ankles. She turned to help her best friend as the man collapsed, only to find Liz standing over her two fallen assailants.

“Took you long enough,” the Swordsmaiden said, grinning.

“Show off.”

Trace walked up to the bleeding Warrior— the one who’d been using the rifles. He weakly flailed at her, but she kicked him over and pointed at his head.

“Where’s Janus? And where’s he keeping all the women he kidnapped?”

“As if I’m going to tell you anything, idiot,” he spat.

She frowned. “I have a gun to your head.”

“And? The both of you are going to die, anyways.” He laughed, and Trace narrowed her eyes. “You don’t get it, do you? Look around. Count how many of us are down on the ground, and think back for a moment about how many of us there were.”

Well, there were the two idiots Liz easily dispatched, the Mage who’d passed out from the pain, this idiot right here, and…

The redhead’s eyes grew round. “The first guard— the one who made a break for it… he’s gone.”

“Took you long enough.”

“How the hell did he? …” Trace stared. “How the fuck did I not notice?”

“He’s a Stealth Rogue, so he does that sometimes,” the man chuckled. “Janus will be coming down here with dozens of men any moment. He’ll make the both of you pay—”

Before he could finish, Liz ‘accidentally’ stumbled over his leg. She stepped on his bleeding ankle and placed a ditzy hand over her mouth. “Oops, I tripped on something.”

“You fucker!”

“Just tell us what we want,” she said. “Hurry up before I trip again.”

He glared at her, but he could tell she wasn’t joking. “…Janus is on the third floor. So you have a good half an hour before he gets here.”

Liz tapped her chin. “I thought he’d be on the tenth floor.”

“Well, no one wants to walk up all those flights of stairs, alright? And it’s not like anyone’s going to be using all these fucking rooms.”

“And what about the women?” Trace said, frowning.

“Second floor. Take the first hallway on the left, follow it until you get to the purple corridor. You’ll know it when you see it. Just fuck off alr—” He was cut off by a foot to the face.

“Thanks.” The redhead left him there unconscious as she marched her way to the stairwell.

“So, about half an hour before Janus and all his goons get here.”

“We’re not going to fight them, Liz.”

“Aw, why not? It’s not like they’re that much stronger than a lesser serpentfiend. I’m sure we can take on a few dozen of them on our own.”

“We don’t know that, and we don’t know what level they’d even be. Janus was close to our level, remember? And fighting through all of them to get to Janus defeats the purpose of why we’re even here.”

“Ugh, fine— then what are we gonna do instead?”

“Free the kidnapped girls and get out of here,” Trace said simply. “We wasted too much time fighting and avoiding all those idiots downstairs. But if we hurry here, we can probably get out of here before Janus arrives.”

“I mean, we didn’t really waste time. We did release a lot of pent up stress, at least. Also gained a few levels.”

Trace tilted her head back, and Ex spoke.

[Affirmative. I have neglected to mention the levels gained to not disturb your focus during combat.]

Well, let’s see it now.

[(F+) Magically Enhanced Accuracy has reached level 15!

(F+) Magically Enhanced Accuracy has reached level 16!

(E+) Vulnerability Vision has reached level 11!

(E+) Vulnerability Vision has reached level 12!

(D-) Mystic Bullets has reached level 10!

Adept Spellshot has reached level 19!]

It made sense that the main skills to level up from this were Magically Enhanced Accuracy and Vulnerability Vision. She’d been firing few but precise shots in the midst of battle, taking careful aim for non-lethal body parts before squeezing the trigger. Especially against significantly lower-levelled opponents— Trace was surprised she’d even levelled that much.

“You’re right, Liz.” She turned to her best friend, nodding. “But you get what I mean.”

“Right, let’s be boring and zoom in and out.” Liz huffed and crossed her arms behind her head.

When they reached the second floor, they were immediately met with a more complex labyrinth. There were three different routes they could go by. Trace stuck to the left path, fortunately managing to avoid running into anyone, and eventually finding the violet corridor that was mentioned.

A single door waited at the end of the hallway— Trace could hear the grunts coming from the other side. Her face twisted in disgust.

“Come on, we need to put an end to this.” She started forward, but Liz’s eyes flickered.

The Swordsmaiden grabbed her hand and tugged Trace back behind the corner. “Wait.”

“What? …” The redhead blinked, and the door flew open.

A short and stubby man stumbled out of the room and adjusted his belt as a familiar, injured Rogue hurriedly gesticulated next to him.

[Berserker – Lvl 19,] Ex said. [And the man you’re trying to avoid, Janus.]