“Helot,” JJ called out as she walked towards the first room.

“Yea, what’s up?” Helot responded.

“Do you have the same powers as M?”

“Unfortunately no, I won’t be able to see the entire map of the dungeon if that was what you were asking.”

“Ah, well, what a shame. As much as I don’t want to admit it, that is a really useful skill. Oh well, let’s see what is in the first room, it seems like it is bats, again.”

“You were aided by M last time right? This is a chance for you to see if you are able to beat them by yourself. Don’t waste it,”

“I thought you liked to speak in rhyme, why aren’t you doing it now?”

“English isn’t my first language so it is still a bit of a work in progress. Give me some time alright? Jeez,”

“Alright, alright, no need to get so defensive,” JJ said while also turning on her infrared vision. The room was just as dimly lit as the one from before, this way, she would be able to detect heat signatures in even this low amount of light. She snuck in and began shooting as many as she could, however, it was certainly not going to be easy.

As soon as the first bats were impaled by the bolts used by JJ, the others reacted quickly and charged at the intruder. The noise was deafening, but the fight must go on. JJ continued to fight, and in just a few moments she was surrounded just as she was the first time. However, the wolf charged at the aggressive bats and tried its best to protect the summoner. Even just this was enough for JJ to reload her crossbow and it took a bit more trial and error, but she managed to deal with all of the bats. Her aim was not as great as she had liked, but against such tiny foes, there really wasn’t much she could do about it.

“Let’s head to the next room, JJ, maybe you will find something better suited for your...skill of aiming.”

“I almost kind of like it more when M ridiculed me openly,”

“Though you may be an enchanting person, it looks like your attitude problem seemed to worsen.”

“Oh, now you decide to bring out the poems, hey?” JJ spoke as she neared the entrance to the next room.

She took a peek inside and to her surprise, there was only one figure inside. One bigger than the average figure. From the back, it seemed as if it was just an unusually tall human, but that was far from reality. It had coarse skin, a bald head, and it was feasting on something raw.

“Judging from its horrible posture it is a cyclops, another hint comes from its loincloths”

“...That...needs a bit of work.”

“Oh just kill it already. Remember that you should go for vital points like the eyes. In this scenario, I think the eyes are the only thing that your crossbow will be able to penetrate. So you best change to a bow and metal arrows instead of what M gave you the first time.”

“Good idea. Will I be able to penetrate its skin with this?”

“I don’t know!”

“What?”

“Here, you should really depend on your own intuition for these types of situations. Look at the cyclops and get his stats, then, look at your own, and finally, your weapon. You haven’t had to do this as M did it all for you, but now you don’t have that luxury.”

“Yes, right, I have to be able to do this myself,” JJ said while opening her stats window, then the one for the cyclops, then the bow and arrows that she had just conjured up. Her stats indicated that she was level A8 with her highlighted skills like strength, agility, and defence all being level A7. “What do highlighted skills mean?”

“They just mean what skills your strong points are, that way, you will know what skills will take you far.”

“That was a pitiful attempt at a rhyme, Helot. Are you sure you want to keep doing that to yourself?”

“...Why are you so negative? I had pegged you for someone who would adore company given your, uh, history.”

“Yea, well, I’m just trying to look out for you. Speaking normally isn’t too bad you know.”

“Cut the jizz. Let me tell you about how hitpoints work. Your metal arrows and all other weapons will have a quality rating. The higher it is, the more damage it can do to an opponent. The higher the opponent's defence, the less damage it will take. It should be pretty basic stuff. What is special about this levelling system is that the hit points counter is a bit different. You can see that there are 15 health bars on this guy right?”

“Yeah, I see that. Does that mean I will have to kill it a bunch of times or what?”

“Close! You will have to make sure that you drain all the hit points in every health bar, but you don’t have to kill it 15 times. This just indicates what level of health your foe has. In this case, level A15.”

“Hold on, my health level is A6, does that mean that rule applies to me too?”

“Yes. Generally, most monsters will have more health than humans, and above even them is demons.”

“And above that?”

“No! You stay out of that junk. Ok, go kill the cyclops, I think you should be fine. Ok, order the wolf to go tank the hits then we can get started.”

“Whuf, alright,” JJ said as she sent the wolf in first.

The wolf lunged in followed by JJ who immediately shot the metal arrow at any weak points she could. Though the wolf could hold it off, for now, she knew that it was a fairly weak monster and that she could not rely on it for a very long period of time. Before the wolf even reached the cyclops, she had already shot 5 arrows.

However, all of them were noticed by the cyclops just before they made contact and he moved his arm so that the arrows hit him square in his giant biceps. He moved his arm away after being hit to see who was fighting him only to see a wolf jumping towards him.

There was no way the cyclops would have been able to dodge in time and ended up taking a bite to the forearm. While all this was happening, JJ was getting her next few prepared. Though she had experience using bows, from killing all those bats, she wasn’t exactly the best shot. She nocked the arrows and shot 3 more, all blocked or dodged by the cyclops.

“It doesn’t matter if you get a critical or not, just make sure you land the damn shot, also make sure to breathe, I’m sure that will help a lot.” Helot’s voice echoed in her ears.

JJ had wanted to prove more than anything that she was able to kill the cyclops by herself, but that did not seem to be so doable anymore. Nonetheless, she continued to nock and release arrows as fast and as accurately as she could. The accuracy of her shots was quite high with being able to hit the beast 9 out of 10 times.

However, the problem lay with her precision. She had wanted to aim for the heart, lungs, eyes, or anything that would deal massive amounts of pain to the monster, but the movements of the cyclops were too random and erratic. By the time her arrows reached him, they were not anywhere near her intended target. As she shot more and more, she was getting the gist of it and occasionally managed to land a hit where she wanted to. It took quite a while, but eventually, the two of them managed to kill off the cyclops.

“Huff, huff, huff.” JJ huffed and puffed and sighed when it was finally over. She was getting a little out of breath.

“???What are you huffing for? You stood and shot arrows for the past 10 minutes. We’ve got tonnes more to explore. Come on, are you so light-headed that you need me to show you the door?”

“Huff, huff. Are all the monsters in this dungeon going to be like this?”

“Yeah, pretty much.”

“It took me so long to do these two rooms, how long will it take for me to do the rest of this dungeon without M’s vision that will lead me to the exit in the least amount of possible rooms?”

“Shortcuts seem to be the only thing you care about, I’d like to see you do one without.”

“Well, I suppose without him here, I don’t really have a shortcut at my disposal is there?”

“I thought you liked to grind or is that no longer a thing in your mind?

“What’s with the sudden increase in rhymes? I thought you were still learning it.”

“I can learn at speeds which you cannot comprehend, I am, after all, a higher existence than you in the end.”

“Oh, you cheeky bastard. It seems like being rude is also a trait that you “higher existence” people have.”

“On to the next room we go, what lies there? Nobody knows.”

“Humph, let’s go,” JJ said as she pet the wolf who just looked up at her. Then, the two of them followed the path to the next room.

JJ and Helot had their fair share of troubles, toils, griefs, moments, and everything in between. It certainly took them a long while to get out of the dungeon, but it was a fairly enjoyable adventure. The loot was collected by JJ into the fourth dimension. Once they had finished the dungeon and JJ checked her rewards, the two of them headed to Firetank to see what his progress was with digging out the key.