Avery had managed to find his own sword to work with, It was in a sheathe that made the blade look strangely round like it was actually just a steel pipe. Analyzing it told me it was a Blade Warden’s Greatsword, and that it’s attack power was garbage. It offered only +4 piercing damage, but it had unbreaking, so I figured it was alright. He’s a Blade Warden, it is a Blade Warden’s weapon.

Besides, he was even higher level than us with a crazy high strength stat, and we hadn’t really fought enemies that didn’t die like you’d expect them to when getting a blade through their ribcage. Perhaps higher leveled enemies exhibited the ‘ki shield’ phenomena where you beat on them and beat on them, and then finally once their shield is gone you can cut them normally, but the low leveled imps, kobolds, slimes, and pill bugs did not.

I added him to my party after the girls arrived. Reena had splashed her face with water or something, because you couldn’t tell that she had been ugly crying only twenty minutes ago. They introduced themselves, and I realized that I hadn’t done so either.

“Avery, my name is Kyuu. We’ll be making a rush for the third-floor boss.”

“You bought a map or something? Your party seems pretty rich to spend so much for me for only two hours.”

“Kyuu is a human map!”

“Reena! She means we explored earlier and learned its location already.”

“Well, even if it builds up a little Revenge, we should take on at least one enemy so you can understand how I fight. I’ll be vanguard, so just let me deal with breaking the Pill Bug’s stance.”

As expected, he is familiar with the floor if he has already cleared it once. Also, it seems like we won’t need to use the battery unnecessarily until at least the boss fight. Also… is Revenge a Blade Warden thing? The way he worded it makes it sound bad.

Since I didn’t want to sound like a noob in front of the new guy, I decided I’d ask Lola about Blade Warden skills when I had the chance. We entered the floor, I located the exit on the map, and we made a beeline for it. Occasionally Avery would take extra caution walking wide around dirt segments in the walls. I noticed later that those dirt sections coincided with strange colored walls that Pill bugs could move through. If he hadn’t acted strange around them, I wouldn’t have realized we could get side blinded by a patrol.

“Hey, a monster is on the other side of that dirt wall.”

“Okay…?”

Reena didn’t understand. Lola didn’t seem to either, but she did realize that I wouldn’t just share that seemingly useless information for no reason. Avery looked surprised at me and drew his ‘sword’. It was shaped like a rapier… but it was way too thick. It didn’t have a blade at all, only a pointed end. It was about three feet long and had a basket hilt. He turned towards the dirt wall and held the sword in front of his body with the point straight up. His off-hand rested on the back of the ‘blade’, holding it steady.

When the Pill bug burst through, it was already rolling.

“I’ll now show you the Shield Sword, the most important skill a Blade Warden learns.”

It rolled straight at the prepared Avery, bouncing in the air about five feet away like it had against Reena. Avery grunted and pushed both of his hands forward, invoking the skill. When the Pill bug hit the sword, it bounced off like it hit a wall. It landed on its feet and rolled at him again. When it bounced off the second time, it landed on its back and he impaled it.

“Ooo… you could solo this whole floor, couldn’t you? Blade Wardens are coolio.”

“I agree. Perhaps, given his skills, we should just go ahead and do that. Two hours is plenty of time to mop them up and get to the boss.”

“What are you saying? That’s crazy.”

“No. Perfectly sane. I’ll lead us right to every single monster.”

“That’s not the crazy part! You build up the whole floor’s worth of Revenge and the boss will be almost impossible!”

Revenge again… Ugh… I hate looking like a noob. But… it seems important.

“I don’t understand what you mean. We cleared all fifty monsters on both the first and second floor before facing the bosses.”

“You WHAT?! Even acknowledging that the first floor bosses split the Revenge evenly between their species, the Imp General should have been throwing instant kill fireballs and been able to rend steel with just it’s claws!”

But we didn’t beat the first floor boss… did we? Enigma is the one who finished off the boss after we wiped. On the second floor, Brinly knocked the boss stupid before Reena finished off the fight, but he’s also totally OP. Was that slime really only half as powered up as the imp?

“Lola… did you know about this?”

“If I did, we never would have gone into the first boss room.”

“Still would have gone into the second boss room though… that guy was ridiculous.”

“I don’t really know what to make of this…”

“Then don’t make anything of it. Let’s go straight to the boss, then return later to clear the floor.”

We did encounter two more enemies, but Avery put them down himself. One dropped a carapace, so we took it. We’ll feed one of the two we’ve had drop to Guppy to see if there is a new skill to learn when I get a chance to summon him again. It took only five minutes of running through the halls to come to the Gateway. Avery was quite shocked, since it seemed like we were just making random turns. We passed through and into the boss room, but it was a little different from the two previously. Perhaps to utilize the newest dungeon mechanic, this boss room included dirt walls forming a large circle around the Pill bug General.

“Once we enter the enclosure, entrance behind us will close up with dirt as well. The general will ram into me once, then escape through the walls if it doesn’t land on its back. If it lands on its back, everyone attack it. Since we won’t be able to see what direction it is coming from when it does come back through the wall, we need to stick closely to the middle of the room. It may take a few times, so perhaps we should let my MP recover.”

Using analyze, I could see he had enough MP for seven casts of his Shield Sword.

“Nah, go ahead. I have a battery with around 1000 MP stored. We’ll be fine even if you have to bounce the boss back three hundred times. Lola, you hold it for Imp’s Revenge.”

I dumped half of my MP into it before handing over the Slime Battery. In order to use it, you have to grasp it in one hand while you use your other hand to cast. Yet another thing Reena can’t do.

We headed into the enclosure together, and behind us the wall closed up. The Pill bug General, which was barely larger than a regular Pill bug, suddenly turned aggressive and rolled into a ball. It flew at us like a bowling ball, but Avery put his blade up like normal. Using his exaggerated STR stat, he knocked the boss flying at the wall. It bounced off the dirt wall too, but landed on its feet. It skittered into the wall and disappeared.

“Everyone group up! If it appears opposite me, I won’t be able to move to it in time! Make sure you are ready to dive behind me!”

I looked at my map and watched the red dot roll around us again and again.

This boss is especially nasty. Not only could it constantly back stab you, the arena traps you in. There is no abandoning the fight here. You fight to the death. If we had come here without Avery, we would have cleared the whole floor first… we might have very nearly dodged our death with him.

“He stopped moving! He’s about to come through! Get ready!”

“Ah! Avery. It’s right over there!”

I pointed to wall at Avery’s five o’clock, and he immediately jumped in to his new position. The girls spread out towards the walls away from that spot, and prepared to attack. When it burst through, Avery hit it head on and it went flying back towards the hole it had just created. It landed upside down in the hole and got stuck when the dirt closed around it.

“It seems no matter what MMO I play, clipping will always be exploitable.”

The Pill Bug General rather pathetically wriggled its legs in vain.

“Literally everything about these enemies are gross. After we clear the floor, lets never come back.”

“You got it, Reena. After today, I’ll never ask you to come here again.”

I summoned Guppy on top of the ledge created by the General and ordered an “Imp-Pale”. Guppy obliged, apparently, since we could hear the sounds of the bug getting stabbed. We couldn’t see it since the attacks were coming from Guppy’s underside, however. A few moments later and the boss turned to light and disappeared. Guppy dropped to the floor along with the high dirt walls and another carapace. He immediately ate the carapace, getting (1/10) for “Shell Roll”. I tossed Guppy the other two and dismissed him. I ponder briefly over whether or not I should call Guppy ‘him’ but gave it up as ‘bad work’ and headed to the exit Gateway.

The Imp General gave more experience. I only got 50 here. Ah! And I got less leet too! I see the advantages to fully leveling up a boss before fighting it. The Revenge system is… passable. I wonder if that is why we got weapons off of both bosses too. Even though the hatchet kinda sucked, it was still better than ‘ol Chipped Gladius I’m still holding today. Who cares if I couldn’t hurt slimes with it? I can’t hurt anything regardless of what weapons I’m holding.

We enter the fourth floor, leave to the Gateway plaza, and reenter the third floor. We start sweeping the floor. After 25 more of the Pill bugs, and giving Avery 50 of my charged MP, we had 7 more of the carapaces drop, so I summoned Guppy and had him finish learning Shell Roll. To demonstrate it, he grew a shell in the shape of a ring around his body and started rolling and bouncing like the Pill bugs. Though the bouncing was a bit higher than the bugs. Slimes are pretty bouncy by design. Feeling satisfied with his transformation, I started leading the party back towards the entrance.

“We only have about 15 minutes left of Avery’s contract. I’m six more kills short of leveling to eight. Or… we can just call it, and I’ll get my level in the fourth floor. Avery. What monsters are on the fourth and fifth floors?”

“The fourth floor is Wolves, and the fifth floor is goblins. Starting on the fourth floor, monsters start attacking in groups. Typically no more than three monsters will attack at once until later floors though. The current highest floor that has been reached has bees. The floor is really small compared to the one we are in now, and they all patrol really fast. If you fight one, you fight them all, making the boss way too deadly.”

“You think we can handle wolves and goblins without you?”

“I have no idea what you guys are capable of. I soloed literally every single enemy we’ve encountered today. Well, your slime got the killing blow on the boss, but it was already beaten. You guys fought imps and kobolds without any problems right? And you’re crazy and even maxed out the Revenge on both bosses… yeah, in hindsight, if you could do that you’ll be peachy.”

“Fair enough. Want to come with us? You’ve long since paid your debt off to that Harry guy. You can make lots of money with us. Probably level a few times too.”

“Eww! A hairy guy owns Avery?”

“It is tempting… your ability to track monsters is incredibly convenient.”

“Perhaps… but it’s pretty standard in games with visible enemies. I’m a little surprised everyone can’t do it.”

“I… don’t know what you’re talking about. Games with visible enemies?”

“Did you not come from a world with video games?”

“Ah! You are a summoned slave? I’m afraid I don’t know anything about where you come from. I was born here.”

“Well, then ignore me if I say strange things. You coming with us to the fourth floor or not?”

“No… I think I’d rather leave. I really don’t like the labyrinth.”

“I heard you say you were cursed. Something about your last party?”

“Parties, plural. They’re all dead. I don’t want to talk about it. Have a good day, and thanks for helping me pay off my debt.”

He left. He removed himself from the party soon after leaving via the Gateway.

[Name: Kyuu

Class: Level 7 Time Wizard

EXP : 770/800

Age: 15 (30)

HP: 20 MP: 70 STR: 11 AGI: 11 VIT: 11 INT: 16 MND: 16

Spells: Anchor Moment (10 MP), Recall Moment (3000 MP), Summon Slime (Level 1 Guppy, 15 MP + 3 MP/Minute)

Equipment: Chipped Gladius (+4 stabbing/slashing), Slime Battery (1061/5000 MP)

Leet: 975

Debt: 1,999,900]