Chapter 100 94: No Appreciation For Kindness

A thundering growl rang out in the air.

A hiss, followed by a spurt of acidic spit.

"Woah, fuck!" I nimbly twisted my body to the side and dodged the spit. My hand landed on the ground at the back and I kicked off the ground in a backflip to dodge another.

My feet skidded against the ground as I landed. In the blue cave, on the eighty-fourth floor, two lamias were currently going up against me.

One of the Lamia's charged right up at me, not giving me a single second of a break. The swift monster's formless body slithered in the air as it came close to me—

—And thwacked its face against one of the invisible Hexagonal shields.

I shifted the grip of my sword and stabbed ahead with the back of my hand.

The first of the results of my training, a strong manipulation of my active spells.

The shield opened up from the center, just enough for the sword to pass in as I stabbed the Lamia square through its face. The Lamia screamed in pain but I didn't bother with its sounds.

"Now! Burn it up!" Titania squealed in excitement.

The second of the results of my training. I could now use spells through my sword.

Immediately, the aura coating was replaced with a layer of mana, and strands of purple stretched out of the blade. The mana formed a small ethereal circle passing through the Lamia's body.

"[Ignite]"

Another intermediate-ranked spell.

Flames rose from my blade and consumed the monster at once. The Lamia continued flapping about in pain as it fell limp on the ground. This didn't end it, of course, so I moved my hands at a quick pace and chopped off the monster's body into many small pieces to avoid any mistakes.

The other Lamia charged at me right then. Its snake-like tail dug into the cave walls.

I ducked low and avoided the attack of the tail from right beside me. The tail went back into the wall and the Lamia kept coming closer.

"I wasn't serving you food, you bitch."

I was honestly getting tired. No, I had already exhausted myself greatly. If I was any less experienced I would have probably been knocked out on the way to this floor. That these monsters could climb up and down on their own was just another hassle.

In a single go, I stabbed a few pieces of the old Lamia with my sword and dragged it along as I ran.

"Come, have some barbeque bitch."

The Lamia scowled and growled as it saw me hold up its food. Strangely enough, the should-be dead pieces of the Lamia were still writhing about as if they were alive.

"Were you able to learn anything?" I asked Titania in a whisper as the Lamia approached.

The monster growled and I stabbed the sword with the meat into its mouth.

"Not much. It seems to be a strong demonic curse," Titania answered.

That sucked.

I had found a weakness amongst these bastards. It was when they were eating.

Exploiting a weakness during training, I didn't like it that much, but I decided to let it be considering many people even stronger would think of this as just a life-and-death situation and not training.

Tears started spilling out of the Lamia's eyes as it chewed on the meat of its brethren.

"[Ignite]"

With a simple mutter, the monster caught on fire and fell to the ground as well.

Ignite worked rather well since the acid in a Lamia's spit was a strong oxidizer, I had to stab them through the throat to set them on fire completely.

I sighed and stepped back.

Sweat dripped from my forehead as I relaxed and let my body fall on the ground. I took deep breaths to calm myself down.

This was definitely tiring. Fighting to the point of such exhaustion had made my Ki purer and my control was improving by the minute. With that ignite, I had reached the last dregs of my mana as well, and maintaining the hexagonal shields too was growing to be a bother.

When running on fumes, I was sure that I'd be able to grow a step further.

If there wasn't a requirement like not getting hit, I probably wouldn't have been pushed back to such a degree. The inability to receive attacks greatly narrowed the risk you could take.

I was about to pull out some jerky from my bag when.

"AAAH!"

A scream, reminiscent of a grunt. Someone was making a final stand somewhere.

"When did other people get to this floor?" I muttered, stepping up from the ground.

"Are you going to check it out?" Titania asked as she sat atop my head. She was currently inspecting the curse placed on the monsters and had made me dig out quite several brains and hearts.

"I'll take a look," I said. If someone was in trouble, there shouldn't be anything bad about helping them. Especially as adventurers.

I rushed through the passageway in the cave and reached the wide opening on each floor that showed the fountain. I was on the eastern end of the dozens of meters wide center gap. With the width of the empty space in front of the waterfall, there was a very small need to worry about monsters creeping up on me. There could be a problem with Harpies in the sky, so I made sure to fuck up a large number of them first.

Two of the twelve hexagonal shields I maintained floated in front of my feet. I took a step and landed on the shield as I made my way up the air.

The higher I reached, the sound of steel clashing against something came ringing out in my ears.

"This is quite straining," I muttered, my heart feeling the full brunt of the mana on the verge of depletion.

Then, finally, on the thirty-first floor right near the edge, I saw a group of three Arachnes circling a single person.

Webs shot out as the many clawed half-spiders jumped in and out, attacking the stick-wielding adventurer with perfect tactics. Thankfully, they weren't able to land any attacks yet.

I watched the battle for two seconds. I only needed to watch that long.

"Yup, I can't help her."

I had pushed myself way too much to take responsibility for another person right now.

"Wah! You devil!" Titania squealed as I slightly lowered the shields.

"D-Dusk!?" A desperate scream rang out from behind me.

Hah... Fine. Helping just once wouldn't be a problem.

"Kid! Run away and escape the dungeon! Something's wrong with these monsters!"

"As you say!" I shouted out loud and turned away from her.

"Hoh? She's smiling," Titania muttered.

A sigh left me as I turned back toward the adventure stuck in battle. Adventurer Dawn, the apparent old lady who had made history in the battle before. According to the adventurer guild's receptionist, this lady was actually in her thirties and not twenties.

"Does any of that matter?" Titania asked.

"Yup. I am making sure I know the worth of what I am going to risk myself for."

I hadn't really had any real conversations with her, but she was definitely not in my bad books.

Immediately, I jumped off the shields and toward the battlefield.

"Just kidding!" I screamed at the lady as four shields each passed me by and rammed into the trio of Arachne.

I landed on the ground, pivoted my body, and in a fell swoop, picked adventurer Dawn off the ground. Hoisting her up, I dashed away from the arachne.

"W-what!? What the hell!? Let go of me, brat! I'll handle my prey on my own! Don't interfere!!"

Wow.

Did people have no appreciation for kindness these days?

Without hearing another word, I shifted my hold on Dawn and tossed her on the ground.

"As you wish."

"AAAAH!