Chapter 92 - To Indulge Or Not To Indluge

"How is the spear doing?" Cleo asked after the group cleared up the first patch of monsters on the next floor. 

"Way better than what I already expected," Tom shouted his response back, pulling his new, fancy weapon out of the corpse of the monster he just killed. 

Before, whenever he fought with another entity, he still had to use his skills to deal with the real damage. Even though spearmanship was a part of one of his skills, it wasn't anything more but the ability to swing his spear in a proper fashion. 

As such, not only with his magical-sourced spear but even the one bathed in the blood of a monster, using simple cuts, slashes, and pokes wouldn't amount to much in a real fight.

But that wasn't the case anymore. 

As if forcing Tom's mana to constantly circulate through it, the spear managed to turn even the simple, skillless attacks of his into an actual source of quick, albeit low, damage. 

"To be honest, I'm quite worried about using it with skills," Tom admitted, moving his eyes at the girl in the distance. 

Ever since they left the last floor after feeding Claudia all the remaining stones through Tom's freshly obtained spear, the monsters surprisingly turned out to be weaker than before. 

'Could it be the influence of the item?' Tom attempted to guess. 'That monster was insanely strong not only because it was a boss, but because it had way more energy to spare,' the young man thought, trying to figure out a proper explanation for what was going on. 

"Just don't push yourself too far!" Claudia requested before moving her head back towards the few monsters that she had yet to slay. 

Between the two of them, Claudia was obviously weaker. Not only because she was only capable of dealing blunt damage but also because she had no real weapon or insanely overpowered skills like Tom did. 

'Now that I think about it,' Layn sank in his thoughts, 'why didn't she get memoriam like I did?' Tom asked himself. 'Was it because I actually had so many different avatars?' he attempted to guess. 

"Hey, Claudia!" Tom shouted, picking up his spear and running towards the girl. On his way in, he leaned his hand backward before throwing his fancy spear towards the last monster standing, one that was just about to unleash its claws on the girl's back. 

'Swap,' Tom thought, waiting with this spell of his until the spear actually penetrated deeply into the monster's body. 'Recall,' he thought as soon as the reality twisted and pulled for a single instant, announcing that the skill worked just as usual. 

"Ugh, that's disgusting," Tom commented when he realized what kind of mistake he just committed. While it wasn't anything dangerous, he unmistakenly severed some kind of artery in the monster's body, causing a sea of blood to sprout out of the wound as soon as the spear was removed. 

And given how he appeared right at the monster's wound the same moment the spear disappeared, he was the first and only target of this sudden flush of thick, red liquid. 

"That was unexpected," Claudia commented, putting her fists on her sides. For some reason, between that pose of hers and the look on her face, she looked extremely combatable... and sexy. 

"Tell me more," Tom said, shaking his head as former nausea suddenly returned. 

"How about you hit the floor with your face?" Claudia suggested while openly holding her chuckle down. Yet, despite her valiant attempts, she continued to fail at her task over and over again. 

"Is it really that funny?" Tom said, ignoring Claudia's pranky suggestion. 

"No, I actually meant that for real," Claudia shrugged when she realized what other meaning her earlier words could have. "Isn't the corridor's floor supposed to consume everything monster-related?" she asked, leaning her head over her shoulder. "Wouldn't that make it quite easy to get rid of all this blood, then?" she asked again, finally shedding some light on her true intentions behind the suggestion. 

"Wait, that might actually be a good idea," Tom said, shaking his head in defeat. Then, without any further and unnecessary wait, he dropped to his knees before falling forward on his hands. With that done, Tom lowered himself even lower, putting his face to the cold, stone tiles of the corridor's floor. 

For a moment, the cold texture of the stone allowed him to calm down and get a little rest. Ever since the two of them met with Cleo, this mission that was quite relaxed to that point turned into a military mission. 

While it was one from the very beginning, Tom was never a stickler to the rules. Since they had a ten-hour deadline to reach the fiftieth floor, he made sure to use his time in a way that would allow him and Claudia to achieve that objective. 

This meant that he had both the time to conquer the floors of the dungeon but also to indulge a bit into his budding relationship, even with how hollow it is, with Claudia. 

But everything changed once Cleo joined hands with them. 

'I know that's how everyone should act during this mission in the first place,' Tom thought, perfectly aware that the thoughts going through his head were nothing but a useless whining of someone weak enough to crave luxuries and rest. 'But still,' he thought, turning from his belly to lay on his back. While he didn't use any sort of mirror to confirm that all the blood was now gone from his face, given that there was no longer this unpleasant, stinging feeling on his cheeks, he assumed that the process was done. 

"That's what I was waiting for!" Claudia suddenly muttered, stepping over Tom and standing in the way that prevented any part of her scrap-clothing from fulfilling its purpose. 

She stood right above Tom's hips, pressing her ankles into Tom's sides as if in an attempt to prevent him from running. 

"What do you think you are doing?" Tom asked coldly. He then threw a look to the further part of the corridor. Thankfully, Cleo has yet to appear. "We don't know when Cleo will get back. Can't you really hold back for a few floors more?" he asked, trying to fight his own lust.

'Wait, am I turning into some sort of sex craze?' Tom thought, realizing that the last time he had sex... was actually roughly just an hour ago! 

While the time seemed to pass way quicker while he was busy with things, there was no way for them to spend more than an hour on everything they did so far. From the moment of reunion with Cleo, all the way through both talking with that Giant sage and then the time they wasted to let Tom recover after his fight with the spider...

Even by a long stretch, all that time would hardly make up a single hour! 

And that would mean the time when Claudia got her way with him for the last time before meeting with Cleo wasn't all that far in the past!

"Come on," Claudia protested as she bent her knees and sat directly on top of Tom's hips. "Won't you enjoy a little voyeur play?" she asked, smiling cheekily. Her cheeks turned red, proving that while her words were daring, she was actually just the same outgoing girl that Tom met back all that time back in the Online Hub. 

"How about you guys hold it off until we are out of the dungeon?" Cleo said, suddenly emerging from the shadows behind them.

"That's what I told her," Tom instantly admitted, placing his hands on Claudia's hips as to move her out of his body so that he could stand up. 

"And who are you trying to excuse right now?" Cleo asked, bending her knees and squatting right above Tom's face. "Or are you going to tell me that you just randomly laid down on the ground?" she asked, leaning her head over her shoulder. "Or maybe you suddenly got weak, making Claudia strong enough to tackle you like that?" Cleo continued, her voice turning darker and darker with each sentence. 

"Oh, piss off," Tom said, refusing to elaborate any further. "And you..." he said, moving his eyes on the girl atop him. "You better get off me. We don't know when some kind of monster will attack, and I'm not going to make Cleo guard us while we fuck," he said, forcefully pushing the girl out of himself before standing up. 

"Here," Tom said, reaching with his hand to the laying and pouting Claudia. "I know that fighting and overall tense situations are making everyone horny," he said, biting his lips as to not smile. 'Isn't this what the seed of harem looks like?' Tom thought before discarding the blasphemous idea altogether. "But this isn't the time nor the place to indulge like that," he said before patting Claudia's head. 

"Let's just hurry up and reach the end of the dungeon, then we will be free to return and play around all we want!"