《The Cardboard Explorer》Chapter 26
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Trying to pretend that he was not aware of Cade watching him, Shihoon was unaware of Cade approaching him.
When he realized it, Cade held his shoulder to stop him from running away. Shihoon tried to stay calm and he moved his head and looked at Cade.
Shihoon smiled at Cade calmly, “Is there something you need?” said Shihoon with a calm voice. His heart was not calm. It was beating fast and he even tried to hold his sweat from coming out.
He was nervous. It was not like he was scared of Cade but he knew he had been stalking Cade for the past few days and he even took many pictures of Cade… He felt guilty and embarrassed about his behavior.
“Why are you following me for the past few days?” Cade just went straight to what he wanted to know. He was not the type to love making long conversations. He loves going straight to the topic.
Cade’s voice was not low and since they were all in a cave, his voice was magnified and that attracted the attention of everyone neared them.
Cade asked the question loudly because he did not want Shihoon to run away. With a lot of people watching, Shihoon will be unable to run away.
Everyone nearby was watching them. Their eyes fell on both of them. Cade was somehow used to people staring and watching him thanks to his cardboard equipment besides, no one had seen his face, so, he was fine.
For Shihoon on the other hand, it was the first for him. With all the eyes staring at him, he started sweating. His calm act earlier had started to crumble.
“I- I- am a photographer,” said Shihoon stuttered a bit with his words. He continued, “I think you look cool and handsome with this-,” Shihoon pointed his finger on Cade’s cardboard shield, “-cardboard thing you have.”
“I stalked you for the past few days to capture pictures of you with your cardboard thing,” said Shihoon. His eyes were trembling a bit and he did not plan to say that.
What he said came automatically from his mouth due to his nervousness. He had intended to lie or deny what Cade was asking but due to so many eyes staring at him, he blurted that out automatically.
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Everyone who heard that including Cade were blinking their eyes at Shihoon and then, they all looked at Shihoon weirdly.
Cade who was holding Shihoon’s shoulder instinctively let go of Shihoon. He took a step back and he made a dry laugh.
“I hope you do not do that again…” said Cade surprised by Shihoon’s answer. He stopped talking for a bit before he continued, “Or I will report this to the police.”
Then, Cade left him alone but he came back to Shihoon, “Please delete my picture…” and then left Shihoon immediately.
Everyone who heard that looked weirdly at Shihoon. They thought that Cade was weird but there was someone weirder who thought that the cardboard looked cool.
However, to those that had seen what the cardboard can do, can somehow understand Shihoon’s feeling. It looked ridiculous but the effect of something ridiculous abled to do something amazing can make anyone felt it was cool.
But to them, it was not to the point that they wanted to stalk Cade. They all sighed and shook their heads at how ridiculous Shihoon was.
Shihoon, on the other hand, had a red face due to being too embarrassed. He was hiding his face from embarrassment.
He did not know why he said that. He followed Cade because he found him interesting… no, his cardboard equipment was interesting.
He only wanted to know and was curious about what the cardboard equipment was capable of doing. He did not know why he blurted that. Shihoon decided to leave the dungeon. He cannot stand the embarrassment.
He did not blame Cade as he knew it was his fault by saying that.
“Is he my fan?” thought Cade. He felt bad if that was the truth but he still disliked someone taking his photos secretly. He stalked him too.
When he looked in the direction of Shihoon, he saw him leaving. When he thought properly, it did not look like he was his fan so he did not feel guilty. He hoped that he would not meet him again.
Cade continued waiting for his turns to enter the floor boss room. Once it was his turn, he entered the boss room.
Everyone who was waiting saw Cade entered by himself and most of them wondered if he could survive the boss with his lousy cardboard.
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Only those that had seen the capability of the cardboard knew that Cade would be fine, possibly. They saw themselves how strong the cardboard was and they had no doubts about its capability.
The door closed and Cade continued forward and came into a huge empty room. A magic circle appeared on the ground and the toad boss appeared.
It was big. As big as a two-story house. The size did make Cade feel intimidated but it did not look like it was powerful.
The boss toad launched its tongue and it was huge. Cade did not parry that attack but evaded it. Parrying or blocking that huge tongue was suicide.
Even a normal tongue attack from the big tongue toad was powerful and that huge tongue was for sure powerful too.
The tongue hit the ground and left quite a crater there. Cade did what he was used to doing to defeat the normal toad, slashed the tongue.
His attack landed on the tongue and blood spluttered out of it. The boss toad screamed in pain and from that scream, Cade can confirm that it was a monster.
Cade followed up his attack with a few more slashes against the tongue. The boss toad retracted its tongue back and decided to use its arm to attack Cade.
“That was new,” said Cade. The toad he had met had never used their arms. They either use their tongue or jumped around and kicked their opponent.
The arm smashed the ground but Cade easily evaded it. The other explorers were right. The boss toad was too slow.
Cade slashed that arm. The toad tried to retreat but it was too slow. Since it cannot jump, the boss toad loses most of its mobility.
Cade moved near the toad and slashed its body. The boss toad tried attacking but Cade had no problem evading all of its attacks.
The fight between them continued with Cade slashing the toad and the boss toad attacking Cade but Cade evaded the attack.
The fight did not last long. It was around five minutes and Cade succeeded in killing the boss toad.
The boss toad dropped a skill book. It was the toad skin book but it was the boss version. It was a D grade level 1 skill. The effect of the skill was stronger than a normal toad skin skill.
Unfortunately for Cade, he did not level up. He thought he would level up if he defeated the boss but that did not happen.
The teleporter to the second floor appeared. Cade took the teleporter and went to the second floor.
His explorations on the second floor were not that much different compared to the first floor. It took him a bit longer to reach the end of the second floor due to the toads getting a bit trickier and smarter in their attack.
However, it did not pose many problems with Cade. Cade fought two variant toads on the second floor.
The variant toad looked the same as a normal toad but they had a blue tongue. Their tongue was as cold as ice. Whatever was hit by that tongue, a bit of ice will form.
The freezing was not that strong as the toad were low level but Cade felt like it would be troublesome when they were higher level.
Cade wished that he got a skill book from that variant but unfortunately, they only dropped an endurance crystal.
There was nothing he could do with that drop. It was random and he cannot control it. Cade defeated the boss on the second floor as easily as the first floor.
Again, Cade was unable to level up. He had been fighting lots of toads but he was still not leveling up. He felt a bit frustrated and annoyed but there was again nothing he could do about it.
He can only keep fighting until he leveled up. He took a total of 5 days to complete the second floor. When he was on the second floor, he ran out of food.
Cade did not want to get out of the dungeon and remembered about the materials drop. He had a lot of toad’s meat.
The storage appraisal said it was edible. Cade steeled his heart and decided to eat that meat. To his surprise, it was not bad. He decided to continue his explorations with the toad’s meat as his source of food.
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