"This is indeed very suspicious." said Magra.

Before going back to the dungeon, I paid a visit to the Captain of the Guards, and informed him about traces of Assassin I found in the dungeon.

"What the hell did he want there? Dammit! Nothing goes as planned. Should I double the security at the Outpost?" cursed Captain and then looked at me. "You are planning to go back, right?"

"Yes, that was the plan." I replied.

"If it's not hard, keep an eye for anything unusual."

*

"Oorah!" with a loud shout Elmor swung his weapon at arachne.

She quickly created a thread and easily suspended the sword in its track. The greatsword glowed for a moment, then flames covered its surface and the thread was burned.

Arachne jumped to the side to avoid being hit and ended up in a path of another sword. She hastily created another thread, but when the second sword ignited with flames as well, it was burned too.

A high-pitched scream was released when her hand was severed.

Only by sacrificing her hand, she managed to save herself from a lethal blow. Arachne looked at minotaur with anger and then spat him in the face.

Elmor deflected poison to the side with his sword and then swung at her with another. The monster jumped to the side and shot a thread from her remaining hand. While it was burned by the sword, the attack was only a distraction.

During the jump, she left a thread on the ground connected to one of her legs. While Elmor was distracted by the attack from her hand, with a quick movement of her limb to the side, his legs were entangled. Arachne jumped high on the tree, dragging Elmor by the thread.

I summoned my gun and was about to shot her .. but it was unnecessary.

The minotaur acted quickly and cut off the thread with his burning sword. With his legs now free, he fell to the ground. He got up and then glared at the monster still on the tree.

"Get down!" he shouted and with a single powerful swing, cut off the tree.

Arachne leaped from the falling tree, but Elmor was waiting for this moment and with a powerful swing, tossed one of his swords.

The monster was in the air and there was no way to dodge. She still didn't give up and quickly shot a thread to the falling tree with an attempt to change her direction, but it was too late. The still flaming sword pierced her through the stomach.

Elmor got close to where she fell, arachne was still alive and desperately struggled for her life, but it wasn't long before she lost her head .. literally.

Others were almost done too. Darson with his slaves has already killed two, while Phoenix with the rest was dealing with four more .. three. I looked at a large boulder where the fourth was supposed to be.

Jack has stopped poison spit with his shield and then charged forward. Monster easily blocked his attack, but the moment she did so, she was temporarily paralyzed from electricity, released by the shield, and soon after a sword pierced through her chest.

Tia withdrew her sword from the back of monster and quickly looked around to see if her slave is alright.

With a Grimoire forming symbols for the spell in his left hand, Phoenix shot one arachne with his gun in right. He then summoned gun back and from now empty hand, launched a fireball at the last monster. "Fireball!"

Arachne leaped to the side, but it was useless as the fireball changed direction as well and her body flew to the side from an explosion.

Phoenix looked at the corpse of arachne he shot earlier, then summoned his gun again and aimed at the last monster. Even after taking a dirrect hit from the explosion, she was still alive, but a shot to the head quickly fixed that.

You have gained 4214 experience points for overcoming your adversary.

"Ha ha ha! They are incredible! Master, you are the best!" shouted Elmor while looking at his weapons with admiration.

"Just try to not break them." said Tia with a smile.

She was happy for a praise, and her tail was lightly swinging back and forth.

"Exactly, if you break even those, I will ask Tia to sell you. If someone heard we bought enchanted weapons to the slave, they would think we are crazy." said Jack while looking at his shield. Sparks of electricity were drifting over its surface, but a special material on inner side was protecting him from suffering its effect.

Even with a terrible pain, I chuckled when remembered his expression after I named the price.

Weapons of Elmor were already high-class when I made them. But when Phoenix put an enchantment, they became masterpieces. No one wanted a slave to have better weapons than them and I ended up with a lot of work. if not for the metal manipulation, we would have no time for our second tour to the dungeon.

"I am more interested in those strange weapons." said Darson while looking at the corpse with bullet wounds.

"Sorry, not for sale..." I said and with a new wave of pain, couldn't stop from groaning.

"Master, what's wrong with her?" asked Miriel while looking at me with a worried face.

"Hah! Probably stomach ache. You saw yourself how much she ate." answered Darson with a grin.

Uhh. The pain I was suffering was definitely not because of 'that'.

"She is making changes to her body and the process is painful." explained Phoenix and after walking close to me, gently stroke my hair.

This action alone gave me the strength to bear with the pain.

The source of my misery was my bones. After I was sure I got everything right, I slowly started changing DNA and bones themselves. It was way more painful than I thought, and I couldn't do anything to lessen the pain .. or rather, I didn't dare. During this process, I want to be aware of any changes within my body.

As this is the first time I make changes to this degree, I can't allow myself to make any mistakes. There is so much that can go wrong, even my own regeneration is getting in the way. But it will change once the DNA for majority of cells is altered. When that happens, my regeneration will even speed up the process.

*

"Finally!" I shouted with relief.

After an hour of suffering, I was finally done. My bones were a bit heavier and just as sturdy as the exoskeleton of formida.

Drastic changes to the body detected, your race has been changed into Cat Beastkin (Rare Variant).

I guess I should have expected something like this. Rare variant .. is this a fancy word for a mutant? Well, it doesn't matter, there is no way such little detail will ruin my happiness .. because at the moment .. I feel invincible!

Even if my own weapon was used to shot me in the head, it would just graze me at best. My skull now can easily protect even from a bullet fired by 'silver thunder'. Of course, there are many places where my bones don't offer any protection, the heart is a good example .. but I think I could survive that.

The best part is that even if it's possible for some martial arts master to damage them with many powerful attacks aimed at the same spot .. my regeneration would make sure they are in top shape after few hits. Fufufu. I am invincible!

I activated the limit break and looked at my arms pulsing with power. There was no longer any danger to break my bones, but that still leaves the risk of rupturing my muscles. Of course, that's nothing my regeneration can't handle, but in a middle of battle, even a moment of weakness can be the difference between life and death.

I think I can safely use it up to the third stage.

I looked around to see if my scent attracted more monsters. I was burning with desire to test my powers. When I was handicapped from the pain, I was still helping others by luring monsters with my scent manipulation. This way we don't need to search them one by one.

*

"Kitty, wait!" I heard the shout of Phoenix.

But I couldn't do that even if I wanted. After a powerful leap with the limit break, I have nearly reached my target.

Stupid arachne, probably thought she is invisible and out of my reach. Think again! But my cocky thoughts disappeared like a smoke when I noticed that my speed might be not enough. With activated stealth, arachne was sitting upside down on the ceiling .. almost sixty meters from the ground.

Even if my speed was impressive on the ground, I slowed down to a crawl and was not sure if I will manage to reach her. Arachne shot a thread, but I let it pass through me by activating phantom shift for a moment.

Next, with all the speed I could muster, I attacked her with my tail. She, of course, tried to avoid, but it was a futile effort, and soon a headless body fell down. It took some time before it reached the ground, and the sight that followed, left no doubt that only her monster core might be still valuable.

You have gained 682 experience points for overcoming your adversary.

Before loosing momentum and starting to fall, stabbing my phantom tail into the ceiling was a very important part of the attack. Thanks to that, I was hanging on the ceiling like a monkey.

It would hurt a lot if I fell. I thought while looking at the 'corpse' of arachne I killed. No other choice then. I deeply inhaled and shouted from the top of my lungs.

"Please save me!"