"Huff... Huff..."

Julius caught his breath as he glared at his foe, this floor’s, supposed "Boss Monster," the broadsword he clenched on his right hand, drenched by its ’blood.’

[Are you that important to him, kaelen? That he would sacrifice his own arm to simply retrieve you?]

He recalled the moment amid their scuffle, when the Roach, in a fit of desperate panic, burst forth at a speed imperceptible to the naked eye, lunging for Kaelen and completely ignoring Julius’s blade.

[It was almost as if...]

He caught his breath, straightened his posture and glanced at the boy who wore a bleak expression.

[...You’re more important than him. How can that be?]

The Roach’s actions were clearly uncharacteristic for a Boss Monster, and Julius was not so naïve as to not notice, and with that grim realization, the Roach’s earlier words echoed infinitely in his mind like a broken record.

I am merely a dog sent on a hunt.

The cold hands of despair slowly began to caress the seasoned A-rank Adventurer’s heart, the reality of their situation, like the weight of the world on his shoulders.

[No! I cannot despair, there is still hope!]

His eyes burned with a self-induced determination as they reflected Kaelen’s limp frame.

He then looked back at his party members who were currently engaged in an intense battle against the two scythe wielding insects.

[We need to take Kaelen back and regroup! That boy may still be the key to our survival.]

He clenched his jaw, his flooded Mana Veins granting him immense strength.

He then activated Mana Essence, his eyes glowing briefly with a faint azure.

[Such powerful summons. They’re both roughly at level 18.]

Crackle!

The blue plasma that is Mana, enveloped his being like a contained explosion, veins bulging on his forehead as he swiftly twisted his frame and bolted toward his party members.

Ta! Ta!

■■ Qi Art: Blazing Claymore! ■■

Julius moved so fast that he left afterimages in his wake, in one moment he severed one insect’s torso, blink, and he was cleaving the other clean in half.

"L-lead?"

Hank fell to his rear at the sudden shock of the insect he’d been battling, splitting and revealing Julius behind it.

"Soaring Boar!!!!"

He shouted until his throat burned.

"Our objective is to kill that cockroach and retrieve Kaelen and escape this place to regroup!!"

His next guttural roar reverberated louder than the first, his feet already coiled and the fire in his eyes never dimming.

"W-why would there be a need to escape if we’ve killed the floor’s Boss?"

Arthur squeezed out a question that was dangling on the other member’s tongues, but Julius gave no response and instead gestured that they should prepare themselves for an all-out assault.

"Leader, that boy will bring us nothing but calamity, we should kill him along with that abomination of a — Gasp! "

All it took was one glare from Julius for Igor to become breathless and shut his mouth tight.

Daring not to protest longer, Igor shifted his posture and readied himself to charge.

/

"Look at how they squirm, Kaelen."

The Roach gently sat Kaelen on the ground and retrieved two objects from thin air —His pocket dimension.

Said items were two glass vials that contained red and blue potions. One being a health potion and the other, a Mana potion, respectively, both being of the highest quality.

He popped the caps on both of them and clenched them with his mandibles as a small cockroach the size of a dog delivered his severed arm.

The Roach swiftly grabbed the dismembered limb and attached it, the hemolymph hardening, connecting nerve and tissue.

Gulp! Gulp!

He drained them down his throat, and a faint emerald light shone from him, and with that, he made a full recovery.

"Watch closely, my Master’s most invaluable asset. I will personally bring you the heads of your captors."

The Roach spoke in a soft, yet deep voice that was as sweet as a lullaby, flexing the fingers of his reattached arm.

Faced with the charging Soaring Boar, the Roach and the two Serrata Blatta charged in response.

"Huff... Haa... Huff... "

Kaelen began hyperventilating as he watched the people he’d spent the past few days with fight desperately for their lives, the present blurring as fragments of the past were projected over it, scene after scene bleeding into the battlefield.

[No... No... Just stop!!]

He clenched his snow-white hair and planted his head on the green pastures, the grinding of his teeth almost dislocating his jaw.

Kaelen clenched his hair so much that he plucked its white strands before slamming his hands on the ground and began plucking the blades of grass, uprooting them from the ground.

Bam! Bam!

The sound of his skull bashing into the ground were drowned out by the intensifying battle a short distance away from him.

His powerlessness twisted something ugly inside him. He wanted the earth to open up and swallow him, and so he drove his head into the ground, like a rhino’s horn digging for roots.

/

Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang!!

Julius and the Roach rapidly traded blows in a blur that scattered shockwave after another, an illumination of sparks being the only thing visible to the naked eye.

"D-damn, we can’t even do anything!"

Margaret remarked with her ears covered, and she wasn’t exaggerating either, the battle between those two was not something either they, or the insects could intervene and so they merely became spectators.

"Just wait for his signal as planned!"

■■ Light Steps! ■■

Helena responded to Margaret’s remark and cast a buff spell on her husband, one that heightened his speed.

"Ugh..."

[My ears are going to explode at this rate!]

Hank watched attentively, waiting patiently for Julius’s signal.

/

■■■ Tempering Arts: First Claw Of The Fire Dragon! ■■■

Boom!!

Amidst the fast-paced, evenly matched battle, Julius’s blade which was once coated in pure, raw Mana, exploded into flames, however, those flames did not scatter and were instead gathered, amplified and concentrated onto the the entirety of his broadsword.

As though freshly forged, the blade shone brightly like molten steel. No —It shone even brighter than that.

[!!]

"Chieek!! "

In that same instance, he plunged the sword deep into the battle-scarred earth and unleashed all of its energy, resulting in an unrestricted explosion.

Booom!!!

The explosion upheaved the earth in a 20 meter diameter, completely engulfing the Roach.

"Now Helena, that’s the signal!"

Not even awaiting the smoke to settle, Hank barked and coiled his legs.

■■ Light Steps! ■■

■■ Feathered Weight! ■■

■■ Blessing Of The Wind! ■■

Helena exhausted her Mana Pool, her nose bleeding before she collapsed on Margaret’s arms.

Fwosh!

Hank tore through the cloud of smoke faster than any of Arthur’s arrows.

//

The explosion forced Kaelen to raise his head from the ground like a startled ostrich.

He then slowly rose, dust and mud falling from his white crown.

[I need to do something before Charymos gets h —]

"Oya~"

[!!]

"My precious little Kaelen, papa has been so worried about you, I’m glad that you’re safe!"

A slimy hand coiled itself around Kaelen’s shoulder and he felt his skin crawl, glancing up, he saw the unmistakable tentacles twitching on Charymos’s face.

"Aww~ look at how your eyes have swollen, have you been crying?"

"You must have been so scared hm? Don’t worry, papa is here now~ I’ll save you from these disgusting insects."

As Charymos spoke those words, gelatinous ooze dripped from his other palm, his terrifying eyes beaming with rage.

And with a whisper, he cast a spell, waving his right hand and scattering the slime into the air.

■■■ Kraken’s Sneeze.■■■

What began scattering as a mere ten drops of slime rapidly multiplied. One droplet multiplied into a hundred, a thousand multiplying into a hundred thousand in a scene that resembled horizontal rainfall.

Each drop was roughly the size of an avocado seed and carried a force greater than a cannon ball’s.

"Achoo~! "