Chapter 483 – Training Day 5 – Crawling and Unlocking

Chapter 483 – Training Day 5 – Crawling and Unlocking

“I fucking love this place,” John blurted out while they fought. The large chamber they were inside had a central pillar of glass, turning the cylindrical shape into a doughnut with corners. Inside the resulting cut-out swam a large, black nucleus with a smooth surface, a tiny white dot swirling around like an eye.

John wasn’t even being sarcastic, he really liked this dungeon. The enemies spawned in a clearly telegraphed fashion. They all had two attacks, a basic tentacle lash and a second one depending on colour. The slippery floor was enough of a handicap to justify the enemies being immobile. If John didn’t want to have a fight, he just had to kill the very few enemies directly in his path and the Horrors that spawned. It was all incredibly fair.

Speaking of Horrors, that giant nucleus was not one. That thing was simply a mini-boss of some description. According to Observe, killing it would cause this room to turn into a safe place for the remainder of the run, which John could use to anchor his mental map to.

However, one of the Slimegmites (a botched combination of Slime and Stalagmite) was a Horror. The special spawns were incredibly easy to identify, given that they had a black swirly mist hanging around them like an ill omen made manifest. In this particular case, that colour also tinted it a deep purple, removing it from the usual colour scheme of blue, red, yellow and green.

So, John was in a doughnut shaped room with a slippery floor, Slimegmites growing all around him and the group, with a particularly nasty one already manifested and a miniboss watching them with abilities John didn’t know. Still, the Gamer felt like he was in a really fairly designed dungeon.

The strategy was quickly cobbled together. ‘Salamander, take out the green slimes first,’ he instructed. They were the weakest to fire attacks and had the nastiest secondary attack in the form of poisonous fumes that slowly filled up the room. They weren’t just toxic to breathe but also corroded materials, dealing incredible damage to Beatrice and Aclysia. ‘Sylph, you go for the yellow ones, their lightning counterattacks won’t hurt you as much. If you are done, help me and Siena with the remaining ones. Aclysia, you keep an eye out for the boss and taunt when necessary. Gnome, you concentrate on protecting me. Beatrice, you concentrate on the Horror.’

‘Affirmative,’ the passive maid’s answer came for everyone around as well, and the individual tasks and everything went into motion. They scattered through the room. Salamander and Sylph weaved through the Slimegmites they weren’t supposed to attack. With her considerably smaller size, the tempest elemental had an easier time doing so, but both threw their respective magic in precise fashions.

John engaged with a blue variant of the monster species. They were odd for sure, anchored to ceiling and floor with broad bases that narrowed towards the middle, only to thicken there again around a nucleus. From that thick middle part came the attacks, physical lashes and magic alike.

As of that moment, John had found two efficient ways to dispose of the Slimegmites. One could either go the obvious route, destroying the nucleus, or separate the middle from the bases. The latter was a bit riskier, leaving the slime to dry out and able to throw some last attacks, but also a lot quicker.

Unless one had weaponry specialized around thrusting.

John countered the ice bolt that was thrown into his charge by using Purgatory’s fireball. While the free attack wasn’t the most potent, it was enough to turn that single ice bolt into a shower of water and smaller shards that splattered against Mana Protection at a minimal cost. A second bolt hit the barrier around his right shoulder before he had closed the gap.

The Slimegmites were surprisingly wide from up-close, easily a metre of gelatine protecting them all around. Still though, John had a pretty good way to get through that. He pulled back his left arm and then thrust it at the monster. Purgatory pushed through the exterior layer reliably. Upon the intrusion, the slime immediately started to manifest tentacles and whip at the layer of mana protecting John.Explore new novels on novelbin(.)com

Although he wasn’t able to reach the core directly like this, at least not without shoving his arm further than the incredibly hard, obsidian-esque material of his gauntlet shielded him, all he wanted was to get his hand close in the first place. A blade of blue and purple, the colours of arcane magic, suddenly extended from his open palm. At that range, Mana Blade was strictly more affordable and it didn’t take a lot of damage to destroy the nucleus. All John had to do was hold his position for two to three seconds and then the attack had succeeded in cracking the organ that was heart and brain of the creature at once.

‘Why are you so happy about things being hard?’ Undine asked.

‘Because things being easy is super boring, also this isn’t hard, it’s challenging,’ John told her. ‘And I do like a challenge every now and again.’

From there cleaning the room was pretty easy. With no further spawning happening, they could progressively clean up. By using the central pillar as a shield, John stayed in relative safety. Once the green slimes had all been destroyed, Aclysia and Beatrice could join the fight again. Albeit the latter still only had her left arm to rely on.

Regardless, the slimes were taken care of a few minutes later and then they took a break in the now safe room. “Sylph, could you do some scouting?” John asked while they were waiting for both his mana to reach an acceptable level again and Beatrice’s arm to regrow. The latter was being assisted by Undine, who had latched herself onto the wounded side like a very attractive slug.

“Yes, Sir, Yes! I will be do the scoutsing, which means I will do the scout and go ‘do-ala-la-la-la-LAAAAA,’” and with that she blasted off into a nearby corridor. John could see the glowing green streak she became through the glass for a couple more metres.

She would trigger a bunch of spawns, but that wasn’t a big problem as far as John was concerned. Information about where they were heading, if anywhere, was more valuable. “I did not expect such burst damage,” John spoke in an apologetic tone to Beatrice. “I will take Horrors more seriously in the future.”

“It is fine, Master,” Beatrice stated. “I survived. Pain is a minimal concern.”

John reached out and patted her on the head. “Maybe, but it makes me unhappy if you are in pain.”

“Your unhappiness is a large concern,” the passive maid admitted. “Carelessness will continue to not be exhibited in my combat behaviour.” In other words, she wouldn’t change anything. As this all happened due to an unforeseen ability by the miniboss, that was the correct answer. “Master will need to up his guidance abilities.”

“Right,” John nodded at the direct criticism. This one was on him, he should have kept a closer eye on the miniboss. Well, his set-up wasn’t that incorrect, evident by how quickly it had been able to react, but nevertheless he could do better.

‘John, John! Captain, my captain!’ Sylph’s voice echoed through his mind and she sent him a vision of a large door. A thing made from silver in a world of stainless glass, grey fabric and slime, towering massively like a mountain range over the tiny fairy-like creature that was the air spirit.

It was like the entrance to a vault, with large beams that ran across and probably thicker than tank-plating.



‘That looks promising,’ John thought. ‘Good job, Sylph.’