Suddenly, Selene’s eyes shot open after she sensed a change in spiritual energy at that spot.

  “Dodge!” she shouted and threw herself at Asterios.

  Everyone else quickly sidestepped in anticipation of something happening from the place they were all looking at, and less than a second later, the pillar broke off the wall and flew towards the only man in the group with incredible speed. Fortunately, Selene managed to push him out of its path, falling to the ground together.

  *SHHIIIIIIIINNNGGG*

  The mysterious attacker passed them with a loud whistle of air and whizz of stone flooring being cut. It left a shallow but lengthy line in the ground, from one side of the chamber to the other, where it landed after its lunge.

  The fallen duo hastily got up.

  “Damn bastard camouflaged itself with the surroundings!” Rudy cursed.

  “It’s a Deathscythe Grasshopper! Group up now! Don’t let it catch you in the open!” Asterios shouted and everyone quickly ran to him and Selene. “Like Sword-legged Grasshoppers, it will mainly attack with its insanely sharp hind legs, trying to split up its prey and take us down one by one. These guys move much faster than the smaller ones and their top is tough. Miria, Rudy, we rely on you blocking its charges. I and Selene have to find an opening to stagger it. Move as a group. If somebody gets pushed away, we instantly run to them!”

  “Yes, Master!”

  “Understood.”

  “Got it!”

  They all replied and shuffled their formation. Miria extended her Mana Coating to the length of a longsword and stepped to the front. Rudy joined her, positioning her greatsword in a way that would allow her to instantly lodge it into the ground to parry strong attacks. Selene stood close behind them, condensing her spiritual energy in her hands, and Asterios took a spot at the very back, trying to figure out which techniques could be useful in this fight.

  Having finally recognized the enemy, all the girls examined their opponent with more attention. It was a grey-colored grasshopper, something around five meters long and two high. That explained how it managed to blend in with the environment, also hiding its presence with spiritual energy. As Asterios had mentioned, its hind legs were visibly much sharper than its smaller cousins, and they were slightly curved, like a scythe.

  Since this time everyone was ready, the sudden jump the enemy made seemed not as quick as before and the front guard was able to see the attack coming at them. The grey block flew at them with a still impressive speed and force.

  Both Miria and Rudy decided that the best choice would be to launch a counterattack aiming at its main weapons and they succeeded with clashing their swords against the monster’s scythed legs.

  The force of the clash pushed them back a bit into Asterios and Selene, who supported them, and the grasshopper went above their heads after the girls altered its trajectory, landing on the other side.

  “Shit… That one packs a punch!” Rudy swung her greatsword which had almost been ripped out of her hand with the enemy’s attack.

  “How is your Awakening?” Asterios asked Selene.

  “I’ll be a bit sore afterward, but I can use it.”

  “Just our luck… It had to be an enemy that preys on groups without a dedicated defender… Let’s deal with it quickly, before we start gathering injuries.”

  “Should I go all out then?”

  “No, save it for the moment things go south.” He patted Selene’s shoulder and she nodded. “Miria, it’s all yours. I’ll prepare some nice buffs for you. The moment Selene manages to throw it off-balance with her attack, rip it into shreds.”

  She instantly let go of all the limiters she had been putting around her mind and deepened her connection with Asterios as much as they could, linking her mana pool straight to his fiery reserves too. She wanted to have her own at the max and mentally asked Asterios for a quick transfer, which would be much faster than her drawing his mana out by herself.

  Surprising Rudy a little, Ast’s face suddenly appeared to her right and he shared a kiss with Miria, who turned her head to the left, without dropping her guard she kept in the front. She watched them intensely pursue each other’s lips with wide eyes. The passionate exchange was short and quick, and the two returned to their position.

  “Thank you, Master. Let’s do this.” Miria refocused her attention on the enemy.

  “Can you do it?” he asked Selene.

  “Consider it done, my Lord. The next time that bug tries cutting us again, it will go flying, but not where it wants.”

  Fortunately, or unfortunately, the grasshopper had some intelligence and didn’t seem to be that eager to repeat its attacks pointlessly after they hadn’t worked two times in a row. That gave them time to properly prepare themselves for as long as it didn’t sense a chance or grew bored of waiting.

  “I can see all its legs tensing up! It might be trying to hit us harder!” Miria informed the rest.

  Selene finished gathering a huge amount of spiritual energy and drawing some weird pattern with her foot over the floor. She started doing that the moment Asterios finished talking to her.

  Asterios also prepared his techniques. Doing it as fast as possible, he attached Haste, Wind Infusion, Sensory Boost, and Air Dance to his gloves. The last one allowed him to create footholds under his summon's feet, similar to the platforms Selene had woven out of spiritual energy earlier that day. With his mind deeply connected to Miria's, they shared their ideas and thoughts faster than sound could travel.

  Everyone was more than ready for the monster’s next charge, but it remained unmoving, only releasing some cricketing noises from time to time. Not that much of it passed. With everyone carrying out preparations at their own discretion, it took them ten seconds to complete everything after the last word had been spoken.

  Confirming it mentally with Asterios, Miria tried to act like she was slowly moving her crossed shortswords away to lure the big insect into attacking them. When they reached her sides, the monster finally made its move. But her weapons were now exactly in the position she needed them at.

  The grasshopper pushed itself off the wall with a loud thump and lunged at the party. Asterios snapped fingers of his left hand and Miria received the benefit of Sensory Boost. Even without direct contact, it allowed her to watch the monster fly at them around thirty percent slower than usual.

  She filled her blades with the wind mana from Ast’s enhancement and carefully traced upwards with them, timing their trajectory to perfectly catch the sharp leg of her enemy with a cross-shaped slash.

  While Miria sliced its limb off and injured the monster’s body a little, Rudy crouched and leaned to the back, letting the other scythe scrape over her blade as the force of Miria’s upwards attack set the insect into a vertical spinning motion.

  As it passed above the warrior woman and continued flying past the vanguard, Selene was more than ready to receive the opponent that had been turned upside down. She drove her heel into the patterns she had created earlier and a massive amount of spiritual energy, in the form of tall bluish tongues of flames, burst out from them, heading upwards.

  It wasn’t an actual fire, so it didn’t burn anyone present, and she had made sure to guide the patterns all around her teammates to avoid pushing them off-balance because the sheer force of the released energy sent the giant bug flying towards the ceiling the moment it had been unleashed.

  Asterios sent Miria a mental signal and activated Sensory Boost for her again. She hastily crouched down and gathered mana in her legs, using her Physical Strengthening. He snapped the fingers of his right hand this time and Miria launched herself off the ground with a perfectly timed Haste activation from him. With their minds joined into one, their cooperation was almost without imperfections.

  Miria caught up to the monster’s body still flying upwards and Asterios snapped the fingers of his left hand, creating a foothold with Air Dance just the moment she rotated herself to receive it. Abruptly stopping in the air with the use of the platform, she closed her eyes and entrusted the vision to her master, focusing her all on the upcoming technique.

  Others had just barely noticed the disappearance of Miria, accompanied by a loud thump and two almost instantaneous snapping sounds, when she came crashing down with another snap and an insanely sharp whistle.

  Instantly after landing, she was gone again with another snap and a whistle. This repeated nine more times, with the number of snaps alternating between one and two each jump. Everything took less than four seconds. Twelve sharp whizzes, eighteen snaps, and twelve explosions of air later, Miria appeared in front of the group, kneeling on one knee with both arms extended horizontally to the sides; her blades covered in greenish blood.

  Before anyone uttered a single word, a rain of mutilated flesh chunks fell all around them. The Deathscythe Grasshopper was no more. Miria quivered and Asterios quickly jumped to his knees to catch her into his arms before she dropped forward. They both panted heavily.

  “What the hell… was that?”

  Rudy sheathed her sword and glanced around at all the carnage. She noticed many deep cuts in the walls, ceiling, and flooring. There were twelve in total.

  “Haaah… A technique… haaah… I just came up with… Master…” Miria said in between breaths.

  “Just came up with? Are you crazy? You pretty much disintegrated this thing!”

  “It’s not completely new… Hoooh… We just changed it a bit and added some verticality to one of our previous moves…” Asterios tried to explain. “She basically jumped twelve times with my Haste… slashed with her blades infused with wind energy… using footholds I created in the air to fly in various directions… and cut the monster into pieces…”

  “Because of course, she did! Dude! Who can defend against that?!” Rudy threw her arms into the air and shouted, glancing then to the side at Selene who chuckled at her reaction.

  “Well… She’s most compatible with the speed and agility type of techniques… That’s pretty much it... I’ve never activated this many spells in such a short time frame and in quick succession...”

  “It was amazing… Although my head is now really dizzy… Too many changes of direction… We need to practice it more, ehehe~”

  Rudy just waved her hand at the kneeling and smiling duo and turned around to guard them with Selene while Asterios and Miria were catching their breaths after their insane performance.

  Chapter 11

  Gaining Some Experience

  After a few minutes, Miria and Asterios finally calmed down their breathing. Both had pushed a few techniques to their limits at the same time. A feat that resulted in the impressive performance they managed to pull off. It certainly wouldn’t be possible for each of them to achieve the same effect alone compared to when they worked together with almost perfect cooperation.

  Miria took another deep breath and smiled at Asterios who supported her with his body. He, in turn, kept stroking her twitching ears. Knowing that she recovered enough already because they were still deeply connected to each other, he helped Miria stand up.

  “So… Do we get anything from that?” she asked while glancing around.

  “Besides its core, no. I’ll try to check if any decently valuable parts are worth gathering from what was left of the grasshopper,” Asterios answered.

  Seeing them up, Rudy approached the duo with Selene by her side. “We were just unlucky. As he said before, monsters usually don’t drop any specific rewards like Trials do and adventurers just scavenge their cores or what’s left of the corpse. Sometimes the monster itself is really valuable.”

  “Is this one of any worth?” Selene joined the conversation.

  “Not really. It’s just a bigger and more aggressive version of Sword-legged Grasshopper. But the core should have a fair price.” Asterios moved to find it in the piles of mutilated bug parts.

  Rudy sighed. “If only it was a Goblin Warchief or something. We would have at least gotten its equipment. And the fight would have been way easier. That grasshopper was pretty much our counter. I think the only worse thing from earlier floors would be a Quagmire Behemoth. Bastard is slow as fuck but just getting through all the armor takes ages, and besides the charming foxgirl here, we don’t have much straight, blunt firepower. Well, it doesn’t matter. It’s not like we are planning to farm here.”

  Miria glanced at her curiously. “Farm? Why would anyone want to try planting crops inside a dungeon boss chamber?”

  The warrior looked at her with both eyebrows raised and exploded into laughter soon after. Miria could hear a quiet chuckle from behind her, where Asterios was going through all the slimy insides of their past enemy.

  Rudy slowly tamed her outburst and returned her gaze to the confused panthergirl while still chuckling a little. “Sorry. It shouldn’t be this funny but the way you asked was just too much, hahaha. Ekhm. I didn’t mean it like that. Adventurers sometimes reach a boss chamber and then repeatedly try to conquer it, walking back and forth through its entrance whenever the monster spawns again. It’s an especially popular method around the floors or dungeons that have certain rare variants spawning. That’s what we call farming.”

  “Ooooooooooh… I wouldn’t have thought of that meaning…” Miria giggled a bit embarrassingly. “So, if we took the Goblin Warchief you mentioned before as an example, to farm it, we would have to go back and forth and kill it again and again and we would be able to pick up its gear every time, yes?”

  “Simply speaking, yes. But don’t forget that the boss monster can be any one of the enemies we met above, so the chances to stumble on the one we want to hunt are not that high. People do it nevertheless if the worth still offsets the wasted time. Also, there’s one more thing. The Dungeon Core is not ignorant of what is happening. When it notices its Guardians getting repeatedly annihilated in short intervals, it will intervene and throw much stronger enemies into that chamber. We call it a farming cap. I think it was around fifteen to twenty tries for this floor.”

  Miria consumed all the interesting knowledge with sparkling eyes while Rudy showed a wry smile. She wasn’t used to this kind of attention. It was usually Tesser who explained everything about dungeons and monsters to them and she was just repeating what she had heard from him during their many travels. It was slightly uncomfortable and embarrassing. She wondered how Asterios could deal with this kind of stare so easily.

  The person in question finally finished their hide-and-seek game with the magical core and walked up to everyone.

  “Well said. Maybe you should take my role of explaining things from now on? You are an experienced adventurer and I’m a newbie in the end,” he said with a smile.

  “Oh, hell no! You, brain. Me, muscle. Hack, slash, smash! Thinking! Hard!” Rudy comically emphasized her preferred position, making everyone laugh, herself included.

  “Alright. Let’s get out before the Core decides to kick us out with a stronger mob. I got what I could.” Asterios turned to Miria and plopped a hand onto her head. “Go back home and get some rest. We can make it to the surface alone.”

  “But…”

  “I know you are fine, but you’ve earned it. And you need a shower. There are monster intestines all over you. Besides, Rudy didn’t get much action during our trip. She deserves some fun too. Go. We can always talk mentally.”

  She glanced herself all over and blushed a little. Hardly any visible part of her skin and fur was uncovered by greenish fluids. No surprise there with how she had been flying through them shortly before.

  Miria shyly looked away and nodded her head. “Okay. Call me whenever. I’ll rush to your side at once, Master.” She stepped in front of Asterios and left a quick peck on his lips, hastily jumping into the shadowy portal before anyone noticed her red face. Rudy just rolled her eyes while Selene chuckled.

  They walked to the door they entered through and opened them to leave. No other party waited for their turn this time. After they stepped outside, the doors slowly closed behind their backs. Even if someone tried sneaking in while people were walking out, only one pair of doors could be opened after the boss died so they would just get imprisoned there until a new monster appeared. Most Cores weren’t that stupid.

  It took them an hour and a half to reach the surface and Rudy had much more fun now that all the vanguard responsibilities fell on her and Asterios agreed to work around her as the main pillar of the party instead of Selene. They would have made it faster that way, but he didn’t mind a slightly slower pace. Asterios was curious about Rudy’s true abilities, so it wasn’t a complete waste of time, and she did show him a fair deal of Warrior techniques and skills he’d mostly seen or read about in books.

  Outside, it was already late night, so they decided to meet the next day near the Skewed Skewers stall by the Guild’s tent and go sell the cores and other stuff together. They said their goodbyes and Rudy left towards her tent-inn. Selene accompanied Asterios on the way to his resting place. They soon reached it and he turned around to face her.

  “Thank you for today, Selene. I got a decent grasp of your abilities and fighting style. I’m really glad you joined us.”

  She bowed with a light smile. “The pleasure is all mine, my Lord. I’m thankful you allowed me to do so after the disgraceful behavior I’ve shown you that day.”

  “It’s okay. We all have our bad moments. We should focus on the present and future. And you don’t need to act so respectfully all the time.”

  “I’ll do my best then.”

  “Same here. I’ll try to help you as much as I can. Don’t forget to do the exercises I told you about. We’ll try stimulating the circuits after you hit a wall with what you can achieve alone. Just don’t rush it,” Asterios said with a kind smile.

  Selene nodded with her almost iconic calm smile present on her face. Asterios could notice her being incredibly happy and excited hearing his words, not only via their connection but also from her bushy tail’s lively dances. It looked like she couldn’t control that part as perfectly as she wanted.