Chapter 112 - First Encounter

"Dang, this is so boring," Claudia complained for the nth time in the last hour. Ever since the two of them reached the seventy floor, all the monsters that they encountered turned out to be too weak to pose literally any challenge to them. 

"How about you strip naked and guard your clothes then?" Tom replied, rolling his eyes in annoyance. While he had only a few memories of his father, this silly joke was one of the things that he could still perfectly remember. 

"What, are you horny again?" Claudia replied as she leaned her head to the side before raising her arms and grabbing herself by her boobs. "I know that I'm super sexy, but what will we do if we finally encounter someone?" she asked before sending Tom a wink.

"Aren't you an exhibitionist?" Tom asked, pretending to be surprised. "Anyway, I know it's boring, but it's actually a good thing to us," he said, dropping the joking line from before and focusing back on the task at hand. "I think that if we go ten floors higher, my everblaze should be enough to take care of all the monsters we will encounter," he added, constantly shooting and recalling his magic spears. 

At the current sixty-ninth floor, Tom started to feel the signs of boredom as well. While they were climbing down the dungeon's floors, there was the excitement of growing stronger and aiming to discover what lay at the bottom of it.. Those feelings were more than enough to motivate him and ward him off against any kind of mental exhaustion. 

But that changed ever since they descended from the eightieth floor. Ever since that time, the stones offered by each floor were practically useless for them, while monsters didn't provide them with any real challenge. If not for the curiosity of what lay on the other side of the dungeon, Tom would long turn around and strive to return home as soon as possible. 

"How about we hurry it up a bit more?" Claudia suggested, slamming a whole group of poorly armed goblins aside. And what was supposed to be a simple shove aimed at pushing them out of their way, turned the pack into mincemeat when the free space to move was replaced by a hard wall of the dungeon's corridor. 

"I'm all up for it," Tom replied before leaning a bit forward and changing from stroll to a slow run. 

They progressed through the dungeon's floor as if they were in a museum rather than in a place where their lives were at stake at any time. Roughly two floors lower, some monster managed to somehow sneak in a hit against Tom's exposed flesh... Only for its rusty sword to bounce off Tom's skin. 

The difference in strenght was just too damn great. 

Their mad dash through the floors continued for a fewteen more minutes when Tom suddenly raised his hand and broke his momentum. "Stop!" he whispered, placing his hand at the girl's chest to prevent her from coming around the corner ahead of them. 

"What's wrong?" Claudia asked, initially surprised only for her face to turn slightly red as a happy smile appeared on her lips. "What, are you finally ready to get down to the business?" she asked when she realized just where Tom's hand accidentally fell. 

"Shush!" Tom scolded the girl, putting his finger on his lips. Then, he aimed his other hand at the corner before looking at the girl with his face fully serious. "There is someone beyond it," he said. 

This was the first moment when they managed to encounter something interesting ever since crossing over to the other side of the dungeon. As such, all the notions of boredom and laziness instantly evaporated from their minds. 

"Do they look human?" Claudia asked, bending her knees in an attempt to appear smaller than she was in reality. 

'What is she so wary of?' Tom thought, recalling how she would use this kind of position only when turning fully serious before a fight with the boss. "How should I know?" Tom asked out loud, hiding his curiosity about her stance. "It's not like I can see them. I only felt an aura that doesn't fit any monster we encountered so far," he said, shaking his head. 

'While there is a chance that it's some kind of monster we have yet to encounter,' Tom thought, puzzled by the situation, 'if something like this were to happen, it would happen at the higher floors, not in the middle areas like the one we are in right now!' 

After their mad rush, the two of them managed to reach as far as floor fifty-ninth. At this point, Tom could just keep running through the floors, leaving his everblaze skill to just kill everything ahead and behind them. The only reason why he didn't get to use it previously was his worry that if he were to ramp up its intensity to the point where it could deal with monsters of the higher floors, it would make his skill too powerful for Claudia to just calmly follow him right through the flames. 

"Are we going to make contact?" the girl asked, looking up at Tom's face. 

"It's not like we have much choice," Tom said a moment later after feeling up the aura from beyond the corner. "If I'm not wrong, they are busy fighting monsters right now," he added after closing his eyes for one more moment. 

"How about we go help them, then?" Claudia asked before looking over at her own look. Ever since their unfunny encounter with the slime all the way at the beginning of their journey into the dungeon, their clothes were basically gone. While she didn't really pay it any mind ever since they both grew used to each other near nudity, appearing in nothing but a few pieces of ragged cloth covering her most vital parts definitely wasn't the way that Claudia wanted to appear to the potential otherworlders for the very first time. 

"It's not like we have any choice," Tom repeated his words from before as he caught the girl's drift. "Right, while we don't know if we can communicate with them in the first place, we still need to get our story straight," he said before lowering his head a little. 

"We went up all the way to the seventy-seventh floor. We lost two of our companions there and were stuck for a long time, trying to get back home," the girl replied in an instant as if she already thought about this topic way ahead. 

"This should work," Tom said as he stood up and fixed the little clothing he had. "It can also explain why we are in such a rugged state," he added before shaking his head. "Well then, shall we go?" he asked, casting a quick glance at the girl. 

"Sure, after you," Claudia smiled in response as she smacked her fists against each other. "Worst case scenario, we will just have to kill whoever those people are," she said before spreading her arms and shaking them. "This could also solve the problem of our lacking clothes," she added with a small yet vile smile. 

"Whatever," Tom shook his head, not willing to bother with this trait of the girl's character. 'Is it just me, or did she turn quite merciless after entering the dungeon?' Tom thought, puzzled by the situation. Ultimately, he ignored the topic and took his first step forward instead. 

There would be a lot of time to think about Claudia's mental state in the future, while his feeling told him that the party that he somehow felt didn't have that much longer before they would be overwhelmed by the monsters they were fighting with. 

"Heal the tank!" A voice reached Tom's ears as soon as he crossed the corner. Yet, to his surprise, there was no human nor a monster in sight. "Kill it already!" another voice reached his ears not long after. 

Tom glanced over at the girl. 'It's clear that they are struggling,' he thought, recognizing the anxiety in both of the voices. 

"Let's just hurry it up," Claudia muttered, equally surprised. 

'To think that those people would speak the same language...' Tom thought as he rushed ahead with his spear already in his hand. 

"NOOOO!" A desperate voice reached Tom's ears just as he crossed half of the distance that separated him from the next angled part of the corridor. 

'Fuck,' he thought. That shout was clearly filled with pain, grief, and terror. And in a dungeon, there was only one situation when one would act like that. 'I guess this proves the other party is not made up with some random avatars,' he thought, conjuring a magic spear and throwing it towards the next corner. 

'Swap,' Tom thought, instantly replacing the spear that he threw and sliding past the corridor. 

Just like expected, he finally reached the place where the battle was taking place. A massive horde of poorly armed goblins crowded the corridor, with a set of three massive orcs taking up the front row. 

And right behind them, a group of five stood their ground. They were injured all over. Their auras were weak, proving just how little mana they had left to use in the fight. 

And right in the hands of the ogre at the very front, a lifeless body of a... something. 

'Could it be?' Tom thought as excitement exploded in his veins. While exploring the dungeon was a mission for his family, seeing just what the monster was holding was too much for him not to feel overwhelmed with joy. 

But those feelings could wait. Tom conjured another magical spear in his left hand before taking a half-step forward and throwing it right into the chest of the ogre that held a lifeless body of a demihuman in its arms!