Chapter 23 Fishy

Hitori was sure he felt his katana cut nothing but air when he swung it with all of his strength. Because it did not hit anything, he spun around at the spot due to the followthrough.

Just as before, everything on the roof was covered with flames of fire. As soon as the phoenix crashed on the ground, it caused a much bigger impact than ever.

The walls Kamiya used as a defense against the meteor crash's impact were destroyed on the next second of the impact.

He crashed against the tall border wall and ended up losing more than just a bit of his health.

Cough!

He did not feel the pain but he coughed a mouthful of blood. He placed his hand on his chest to calm himself down, his wand was trembling in his hand, thank god he did not lose it on the way.

"Hitori…" he pushed himself off the wall. He still had a lot of health with him, the health bar had barely touched the yellow line. His eyes examined the whole area under them but alas, they could not spot Hitori for Kamiya.

A sense of helplessness and hopelessness started to make their way inside Kamiya's heart, 'After all this? How can we lose?' he demanded an answer, 'it… can not be happening,' he denied the fact that they have lost the dungeon's final fight.

Click.

The fire and dust blew away. Kamiya thought his ears were playing a trick on him but on a closer look in the dust, he heard the mechanical click once again.

Kamiya lifted himself off the ground, he sat on his knees. He took a step closer towards the dust that flew all across the roof, and the fire, of course. A dark red color health bar appeared in front of him, flying in the midair.

A smile spread across his lips but which, too, soon disappeared. The health bar was glowing in red color. The number that represented a particular player's health, displayed the number two.

"As expected," he pulled out his wand calmly, "Kami no Megumi…" he quietly chanted the spell with barely moving his lips, "Iyashi!" he gently said and opened his red eyes.

A dark blue beam of light came out from his wand and fell on the person he wanted to heal. To use a god's blessing… would again suck a lot of mana from the user, but it was worth it.

[Name: Ryu level twelve]

[HP: 3/75]

[HP: 13/75]

Hitori coughed a few times. He was low on stamina but when his health started to restore, he found himself able to move once again.

Hitori quickly turned his head towards the direction from where the sound of chanting a magical spell came from.

His eyes met with those shiny glasses which reflected the night's moon on them. A blue aura had covered his body, it was clear where it was emitted from.

He smiled back at Hitori, "Finish… the battle…" Kamiya muttered weakly. The blue aura that covered Hitori's body disappeared. The light of the beam from Kamiya's wand disappeared.

[HP: 53/75]

Hitori hurried up to Kamiya, he fell down to the ground. His wand fell out of his hand and flew up in the air. Hitori took a light jump and caught the wand before squatting down on the ground with Kamiya in his hands.

"Kamiya…"

"I am out of mana…" Kamiya opened his status screen. Hitori did not bother to take a look at his mana.

It was obvious, clearly. He used the torrent magic twice and a high-level healing spell once. It would be a cheat if he was not out of mana.

"It is fine," Hitori smiled at him. Why would Hitori smile? "We have already won the battle…" he pointed in the phoenix's direction with Kamiya's wand.

The sight was clear for Kamiya. Nothing but ashes, dark gray ashes remained there. Kamiya glanced at Hitori with a surprised grin.

"I- I thought the boss's attack was successful?"

"Well, I thought the same…" Hitori glanced at the pile of ash, "but before the whole ground was set on fire, I saw that the phoenix's head was detached from its body. What crashed was the rest of its body."

"But then the fire should have died,"

"It set itself on fire as soon as its neck was cut and it was beheaded…" Hitori explained with a grin.

Kamiya realized and nodded a few times in response, "Just what a phoenix does when it dies," Kamiya scoffed.

Hitori sighed with a light laugh. He shook his head and lifted his eyes… they fell on Kamiya's status screen.

"I only have three- no, two mana points left…" Kamiya started.

[Mana: 2/12650]

"I shall log out before I die here…"

"Hm." Hitori nodded, "I will wait for you here,"

[Auto saved]

[Congragulatios on clearing a level fifteen Fire dungeon]

"Hm," he opened the log-out screen, "See you here in one–"

At least complete your sentence, what is the hurry? Hitori thought.

Switch.

Kamiya vanished from Hitori's arms. He sighed and sat back on his knees. He threw his head up and looked at the sky. Black particles of ash flew away in the sky.

[God's Hell has left the dungeon]

[God's Hell has logged out]

It takes only a few seconds to log out of the game but it might take somewhere around a minute to log in back into the game. And Hitori was not sure if Kamiya would be spawned directly in the dungeon or at the start point. The dungeon was the latest save point though.

[The duo of Ryu and God's Hell has conquered a level fifteen fire dungeon]

[Killed a level seventeen Phoenix boss]

[Leveled up to level fourteen]

[obtained an epic treasure]

[On completing the quest acquired:

+1 rare treasure

+10,000 Yen

+170 Mana gems

Obtained two rare skills & one rare spell]

Hitori ignored all the messages popping in front of his eyes, his main focus was on completing the remaining task.

<Soul liquefied>

<Cultivated Mana: 40,000/40,000>

'I should be able to enter the next domain-' his thoughts were interrupted. He saw something… something moved in the pile of ash.

Hitori turned his serious eyes at the ask and moved closer.

He heard a high-pitched chirp of a bird before the tiny head of a bird popped out of the ashes. He frowned before leaning closer to the baby chicken.

[Dungeon boss (reborn) level one]

'It is cute…' Hitori touched its head lightly. It did not have any feathers on it but… a small flame was burning on the tip of its tail.

[Would you like to name your pet?]

'Pet?' he frowned. Hitori got up from the ground, he wanted to take Kamiya's opinion about this. But he was nowhere to be found.

"Not yet?" he looked around. Hitori opened the chat window and texted Kamiya but got no reply from him. Of course, it showed that Kamiya was still online.

He guessed maybe Kamiya was using the washroom so he decided to wait for two more minutes. Still no reply. Hitori hence waited for five minutes but he got no reply from Kamiya and neither did he receive a message of Kamiya logging in to the game.

[Log out]

Hitori opened his game screen and stared at the 'log out' option for a few seconds. He finally gave up and selected to log out.

He sensed… something 'fishy' was going on with Kamiya's situation.