Boing boing.
’Cause I didn’t want to run up too big of a Bullet Bill, y’know? No point in throwing away money.
“The adventurers’ guild doesn’t teach this kinda stuff. That’s ’cause they have a lack of sound magic users and an even bigger lack of sound economic principles.”
I figured most people in this universe would struggle to master the art of magic bullets. Spellcasting was a matter of imagination, and whatever you could conceptualize could come true…but people here had no idea what guns were, so that severely limited their options. Or so I assumed—but Sleeping Beauty had no trouble copying me. I guess she’d picked up on the concept well enough just from seeing me in action.
“Right, but lemme correct you on one point—I’m not the target? Don’t point that thing at me? If looks could kill, that look in your eye could take me out? And stuff?”
Slimey, not wanting to miss out on the fun, created bullets of his own and began shooting level 52 blaze bats right out of the air. Between our three anti-aircraft firestorms, we extinguished these blazes in no time at all.
“This feels like a set-up. Was the dungeon trying to get us to concentrate fire and open up holes in the ceiling? We could’ve at least spread ’em out a little… Too late, though. We’re all out of bats.”
Judging by the sounds of explosions, the reflecting bullets were working all too well. My ears were ringing worse than a cathedral’s worth of bells at noon.
Anyway, with that behind us, we went down the next set of stairs. Sleeping Beauty went to work with her dual-headed halberd (which she still insisted was a holy staff) while I messed around with Slimey.
“Polearms shouldn’t have two heads, because that defeats the purpose… Reach is everything in a polearm. In Chinese martial arts, double-headed weapons are just for show, because they’re too cumbersome to effectively cut. But that never seems to stop Sleeping Beauty.”
Double-headed swords, too, shared similar impracticality issues. But hey! With magic, anything was possible. This was fantasy, where common sense only served to get in the way of the fun. We couldn’t all be smart, sensible people like yours truly. Creativity, take the wheel!
“That’s the theory behind Gundam beam sabers. God, I hate that we live in a world where nerds are the right ones…”
Jiggle jiggle.
Sleeping Beauty was quite taken with the whirlwind staff attack I had shown her. So, ever eager to impart on her more wisdom, I talked as I walked, starting with the thirty-six moves of staff fighting as made famous by Shaolin kung fu, at which point Sleeping Beauty switched tactics and went full Water Margin on me.
“Um… I think the Sainthood went out the window the minute she turned her weapon into a three-section staff. And that wasn’t my fault? So quit while you’re ahead, level 53 elemental rhinos? Honestly, after hippos and giraffes, rhinos are kind of a letdown. Yawn.”
One rhino was tossed on its rhinose with a whirlwind staff blow. Another was added to the endangered species list via death by a thousand halberd cuts.
Funny how the nerds, evidently masters of the most mystical martial arts, clammed up and turned stiff the moment they faced a dungeon emperor. Perhaps the art of talking to girls needed an extra five hundred years of esoteric practices before the nerds could take a crack at it. If there was one thing that set a nerd’s nerdy nerves on edge, it was a cute older girl. This, incidentally, was why the nerds had barely managed to string a sentence together around Bunny Girl when they’d first come to her aid. Her well-ordered facial features (and well-developed body features) had made her seem much older than she looked. Poor nerds. They’d been helpless.
It was nice to see the nerds again when we’d reunited, actually. I’d been worried about those gormless gremlins. Every time they split up, their combat capability took a nose dive. I forbade them from fighting solo, but that only conspired to backfire on me. I felt responsible, so I returned to them, free of charge, the equipment they had given to Bunny Girl. I may have shed a tear or three, but yes, I parted with my items for free. It was just one lost equipment sale, I consoled myself. I’d charge them out the nose for anything else!
“Right… So why is our Saint fighting with a battering ram, again? She’s doing a great job, don’t get me wrong, but this just doesn’t seem right? Or appropriate for this dungeon’s difficulty level?”
Wiggle wiggle.
Now that the twins were fighting alongside us, I had to figure out the matter of their equipment. A tricky puzzle, that. Sleeping Beauty needed more equipment too… The equipment she’d come with was next-level OP, so matching that was sure to be time-consuming. And before all that, I wanted to make sure Sleeping Beauty was proficient at fighting on her own. She would need those skills, along with a full set of gear, were she to join me ’n’ the other dungeon emperors in the deepest dungeon dives. And her kit needed to be cute, too, ’cause she was a real looker herself!
“I was hoping to see how a magic-user fights, but all I’m getting is déjà vu from Vice Rep B’s battles?”
Boing boing.
“Yeah, there was plenty of that with Vice Rep B too.”
For now, Sleeping Beauty could keep the clothes she had on. I now had a good grasp on the way she fought and the kind of equipment she might need. I also had undertaken a systematic study of her magical abilities at night and had intimate knowledge of her measurements. My tentacles had wormed their way into every wrinkle, every pore, every valley and fold on her body to record them down to the last detail. And tonight, naturally, I would check my work! Because I needed revenge for this morning!
Anyhoo, we stopped at the 54th floor. The dungeon’s final boss was on the 55th floor. This was actually kind of a deep dungeon, come to think of it. It was so out of the way it must not have received much foot traffic, which had let it grow in peace.
“Not a bad trip, all things considered. Sleeping Beauty got to see a giraffe, and that was fun. Not half as fun as seeing her blissed-out, drooling face aimed at my long-necked append—oh, don’t mind me. I’m not saying anything. You can put the three-piece halberd away. Broadly speaking—that is, speaking about broads—I’m wary of that sickle and chain you’re carrying; narrowly speaking—that is, speaking while narrowly escaping certain death—this is targeted harassment against teenage boys! Right! Shutting up!”
Ah yes, Sleeping Beauty was fitting right into the local culture. She’d even developed a habit of lecturing me! If by “lecturing,” we meant “violence.”
I used the walk back to the surface for more fine-tuning, sprinting on every first step and slashing on every second. Because it was such a disjointed action, I was able to point myself in a specific direction and take ground-shrinking steps. It all felt more natural now, more an intuitive part of me. Maybe it was because it was integrated into Martial Qi Wizardry, or maybe it was because, it being a specific technique now, Hoplology took care of controlling it for me. It wasn’t like my old Skill Ground Shrink, which, once activated, couldn’t be stopped until I crashed headlong into something. I had control over it. I couldn’t stop, per se, but I could steer (a bit) and decelerate. Best of all, I could do it without turning myself into a clanky, stiff robot. Wisdom had run enough calculations to smoothly animate me, and I couldn’t tell you what a relief that was. One small step for me, one giant leap for—oh no. Giant leaping was a bad idea. Here came the chaos.
“I would’ve tried running headfirst into them had I thought about it, but alas, the idea occurred to me too late. Oh well. They’re all enemies, so let’s do what we do best.”
I took the center position in our little group, and the three of us—Slimey, Sleeping Beauty, and me—launched ourselves in a united front against the level 54 devil plants. Um. Less a united front and more a united front lawn landscaping team, I guess. The silhouette had made me get my hopes up for another tentacle monster, but alas… We can’t have everything in life…
“This dungeon might’ve been a better fit for the mean girls. Yeah, it’d really give them something to sink their teeth into! Literally!”
Wriggle wriggle.
“Incidentally…plant monsters are basically tree mimics, right? But, uh… Missing the forest for the trees here, people… A dungeon has nothing but monsters. Your camouflage is ruined. You can stand real still and think leafy thoughts, but we’ll still know you’re a monster!”
Jiggle jiggle.
I had hoped to be done and out in time for lunch, but we’d gotten held up in here longer than planned. Level-grinding Sleeping Beauty and fine-tuning me both presented precious few opportunities for speed attacks, so in hindsight, I shouldn’t have been so eager. I kiiiinda wanted to sneak off on my own and accidentally wander into two additional dungeons, but Slimey and Sleeping Beauty were pushing me toward the kitchen tools, so oh well on that.
I could reconsider the idea once we beat that Dungeon King on the 55th floor. Sleeping Beauty was adjusting to her new equipment and developing lianqi powers via the Lamaze method, which… Okay… It was a little distracting hearing her puffing like a bellows during battle, but I’d live. (And if I pricked my ears up to listen—and if my prick pricked itself up—that was no one’s business but mine.)