Chapter 157 - Cleo's Advance

"Speedy Gonzales," Cleo whispered as soon as she entered the next floor of the dungeon. "Roadkill," she then shouted out loud, rushing ahead. 

"This moron..." Marvin muttered, covering his face with his hand. "Why not let me cast some buffs on her first," he complained, shaking his head. 

"This is her first real fight," Tom replied with a smile. "Give her some room to have fun," he added before shaking the spear in his hand. "Don't worry, though. I'm watching over you two."

"If you say so," Marvin spoke in a muffled voice before finally picking up the pace and going ahead. 

For the first several minutes, the two of them saw nothing but squashed corpses of monsters slowly disintegrating on the dungeon's floor. 

"Whenever I see it, I'm salty about her getting the strong skills instead of me," Marvin admitted, casting a look at the flattened body of a relatively small orc. 

"Didn't I tell it already? It doesn't matter." Tom asked, rolling his eyes. "With your buffs, I will be able to defeat the last boss without risking my life. That alone is worth more than even the most powerful ability for us," he added. 

"It's easy to say, especially for you," Marvin rebuked before leaning forward and picking up the pace. "Don't you need to go check on her?" he asked, turning his head to the side. 

"I can still somewhat sense her." Tom shook his head. "I will be able to tell if something wrong happens. It's better if we just let her run free and test her strength out," he added. 

"If you say so," Marvin muttered, focusing himself back on the running. 

Running after Cleo wasn't a simple task. With her speed boosted both by her self-buff and the roadkill skill itself, even Tom found it hard to keep up with her speed without using his haste spell. On the other hand, Marvin was unable to even follow in time with the girl. 

"You know what," Tom's friend said after taking a short break to catch his breath. "You go on ahead; I will make sure no monsters will threaten our cargo," Marvin said, giving up on the chase. 

"Are you sure that's the reason?" Tom poked fun at his friend, averting his head to make sure no angry gaze would reach his eyes. 

"Just go on. Pick me up at the last corner of the corridor. I will make sure we will stay back enough for the two of you to enjoy yourselves," Marvin said, paying Tom back and then some more. 

"Yes, Boss," Tom showed his tongue to his friend before speeding up. Yet, even when he ran at his fastest speed, without making use of any of his skills, he had no hopes of actually catching up to the girl. 

'Huh?' Tom shrugged when Cleo's distant aura wavered a little. 'Did she encounter some sort of stronger monster?' he thought, tightening his teeth. 

'Haste,' Tom thought, not wasting any time. Keeping up his speed, he couldn't even feel when did he actually speed up. 

'It feels like trying to run in water,' he thought, attempting to seamlessly go from a simple run to one within the haste influence. The air itself appeared to resist his attempts to speed up, making it harder to run faster the faster he actually ran. 

'I wonder how Cleo does fight against it,' Tom thought, forcefully breaking through those restraints and achieving his full speed. 

'Still, I think just jumping from spear to spear would be faster, but I can't waste that much energy just to catch up with her,' he thought, gritting his teeth as Cleo's aura continued to waver. 

And then he reached the scene. 

Cleo's entire body was running wet with sweat as she continued to avoid the attacks of a massive orc.

'Right, on this floor, there are two or more types of monsters at once!' Tom realized, blaming himself for forgetting about that part. 

"DDDuuuccckkk!" he shouted, trying to make his words as slow as possible while recalling one of the thousands of magic spears that he created. 

This was Tom's ultimate answer to the problem of how costly it was, energy-wise, to create a magical spear. Since his mana would slowly regenerate during rest, he simply continued to make more and more of them whenever he could and leaving them all over the place. 

And once a need appeared, just like now, he would simply recall the one farthest away from him, making sure that there would always be a magical spear well within his range. 

The girl heard Tom's message, jumping away out of his line of sight instead of ducking. 

'Smart call,' Tom thought, noticing how the orc didn't only use a massive club but also a spear on its own. And while ducking would allow her to avoid the club, it would put her in the path of the monster's spear.

"Hhh..."

Cleo attempted to say something. But Tom didn't wait for the girl to finish her slow words. Rather than that, he stretched his arm to the back and threw his magical spear forward, instantly recalling another one to his hand. 

"RRRROOO..." the orc attempted to make something like a mating or threatening call, swinging his club right at Tom's spear. 

And what was surprising was that it actually managed to push it away!

'Is it abnormal or something?' Tom thought, surprised by the situation. 'Or was it just lucky?' he considered the other possibility right before thinking, 'swap!'

The orc managed to strike Tom's spear away just by trickling it with his club. But as soon as the projectile changed its course away, its attention moved back to Cleo and... the spear that replaced Tom's previous position. 

"Die," Tom muttered, pushing his spear through the orc's throat before allowing the momentum of his jump to carry both himself and the spear out. 

With its throat pierced and then slashed open, even the orc quickly succumbed to its wounds, turning into a grand spectacle for Tom to watch in slow-motion. 

"eeelll..." Cleo's shout for help still lasted even after the fight had already concluded. 

'Break,' Tom thought, ending his haste spell right as his feet touched the ground. 

"p..." Cleo finished her plea before she could realize that the fight was actually over. 

"What seems to be the problem?" Tom asked with a small smile. 

"..."

For a moment, Cleo simply stared at him, unable to understand what actually happened. Then, her eyes moved towards the orc, who finally fell on its knees only for its lifeless corpse to angle forward and fall to the ground. 

"Thanks," she finally said, rising up from her knees. "It seems that I found out the disadvantage of the roadkill," she added, looking back towards her friend. 

"Let me guess," Tom smiled as he approached the girl. "It doesn't work on opponents bigger than you, right?" 

Cleo's face darkened for a moment before relaxing a second later. 

"Yeah, that's right," she said, biting her lips. 

"Don't worry," Tom shook his head, perfectly aware of what was going through the girl's head. "This doesn't make you weak. In fact, you are still pretty powerful. Even if there is a flaw to your skill, that doesn't mean it's weak on its own," he added before patting the girl's shoulder. 

"Right, where is Marvin?" Cleo asked, looking around, a look of confusion appearing on her face. 

"When I felt your aura change, I rushed ahead," Tom replied. "He decided to clear all the smaller monsters so that our baggage won't find itself in trouble," he added.

The baggage, obviously, referred to the enslaved Kira and young Rufus, out of which neither could hold the candle to the monsters of this level. 

In the end, even if Kira had some abilities to her name, without the nourishment of the mana stones, those skills would quickly turn completely useless against the monsters in the dungeon. 

"Want to take on the boss, then?" Cleo asked, pointing her hand ahead. 

Tom confirmed that they had indeed arrived at the end of the floor already with a single look. Even though it seemed short, it was actually caused by just how fast Cleo moved through the corridors. 

"Sure thing," Tom said, quickly averting his eyes. For the sake of his own sanity, he didn't bring Marvin's words and suggestions up. 

"Do you think I will be able to take care of it?" Cleo suddenly asked right as Tom was about to pass the barely noticeable barrier between the boss room and the corridor. 

"Right now?" Tom asked only to shake his head. "I don't think so," he replied, looking towards yet another massive orc sitting in the very middle of the room. 

In a sense, it appeared to be a twin brother of the orc they fought before, just that it was even bigger. What's more, instead of a club and a spear, it wielded a club and.... a mage's staff?