The next pair of enemies we happened upon was a Needlewood Lv.2/Green Caterpillar Lv.2 pair.
「Take care of that Green Caterpillar, Roxanne!」
「Umu!」
I gave the battle instructions and we charged in together. Since the Green Caterpillars are just like their normal counterparts except for being really big, they are not all that mobile, which makes them vulnerable to the attacks from the back and the sides, since turning around takes them too much time. Because of that, in my personal opinion they might be even easier to fight than the Needlewoods, who are dangerous no matter from which side you try to approach them due to those pesky branches of theirs.
I slashed the Needlewood in half with Durandal, while Roxanne attacked the Green Caterpillar with her Scimitar. Green Caterpillar tried to retaliate with a Rush attack, but Roxanne just twisted her body lightly, making it miss the mark completely and slam into the Labyrinth's wall with a rather squishy, wet sound. She's just so awesome. Taking advantage of the fact that the Green Caterpillar must have blacked out a little after its collision with the wall, I swung Durandal on its back. It screeched loudly and exploded into smoke. The way I see it, it doesn't matter if we face two, three or six enemies at once. As long as I have Roxanne with me, I feel like nothing will be able to stop us.
Morning the next day. When I woke up, I noticed I was hugging Roxanne. Having her as my personal hugging pillow was the best thing ever, since she was soft, smooth and warm like no other, and when I pressed my face against her chest, I was met with the sweet feeling of bouncy elasticity that threathened to suck me in at the same time. This is great. This is truly irresistible!
While still half-asleep, I received my good morning kiss from Roxanne. Her soft lips and mouth both taste so sweet, making all of my senses melt from the pleasure. While fully enjoying both the taste and the sensations, I slowly sticked out my tongue and made it twirl around hers. She welcomed me with little to no resistance, so I traced mine along its surface, taking my sweet time as I did so.
With each passing minute, Roxanne wanted more and more of me, which I could tell by the obvious movements of her tongue, which only grew in intensity. As I did my best to satisfy her needs, I felt a familiar firmness rising between my legs, but I did not care about that. All I cared about for now, was the union of our intertwined tongues and how they danced with each other.
When we both decided that we finally had enough, I let go of Roxanne's lips, although I did so very reluctantly.
「Good morning, master.」
「Good morning, Roxanne. Here's to another successful day.」
「Yes. May it be filled with success once again.」
We got dressed and left the inn, heading straight into the Labyrinth once more.
Our exploration of the second floor is going well. Surprisingly well, I would say. Even if we're facing two enemies at once, both the Needlewoods and Green Caterpillars die with a single strike from Durandal. It can be said that so far our victories were all an easily achieved ones. In fact, they were so easy that I asked Roxanne to guide me to a lot of places on this floor without taking the time to rest, because we weren't even tired, even after a few battles that happened in quick succession.Also, out of all the groups of enemies we fought against, only about half of them consisted of the pair of monsters. It seems that Roxanne was right: even though this is the second floor, where the number of enemies per battle increased from one to two, the appearances of lonesome monsters were still quite frequent.
If we are only facing a single opponent, it can be defeated it with only one strike from Durandal without possessing any kind of risk to us. When we're facing off against two, we split them up between us, meaning that Roxanne takes on one monster while I clean up the other one.
Roxanne uses her tremendous moves to keep her enemy at bay by dodging, blocking with her Wooden Shield or parrying it with her Scimitar. Each of her actions is a display of splendid movements that makes me fall for her even more every time I see them. With her at my side, I cannot feel the increase in the enemy's levels at all, because the strength of our teamwork turns them all into an absolute cakewalk. Durandal has its role to play in making our battles even shorter. Whenever I happen to dispatch my enemy first and I see that Roxanne did not defeat hers after slashing it with the Scimitar a few times, I always Rush in to help her. Usually, one Rush attack to the back of the unsuspecting monster is enough to send it six feet under.The Green Caterpillars have an attack where they can spit their threads at you, but it is not a problem if you just move to their sides or behind their backs, since the threads only travel a little bit to the front in a cone-like pattern. Just be sure to do that, and you won't be in any kind of danger.
Roxanne does not allow monsters to hit her at all, and I myself am rarely attacked because I kill all of my opponents with a single strike of my sword and then help Roxanne deal with the ones that focus on her, leaving them entirely at my mercy.
The one thing that I am potentially worried about though, are the Trap Rooms, a.k.a the small rooms filled to the brim with monsters, just like that one I happened upon on the first floor.
I'm not worried about myself because of Durandal's HP Absorption Skill, but Roxanne is another story entirely. Even though her reflexes are superior to mine and she can evade almost every attack that is being thrown her way, I fear it would amount to nothing when faced with large number of enemies who could overwhelm us with their numbers alone, and that terrifies me. I know she's strong, but if anything happened to her, I would have never forgiven myself for it. We got ourselves the Monk Jobs exactly for that, to be able to heal ourselves if we ever ended up in a bad situation, but the question here is: would we be able to heal ourselves in time if such a situation ever happened?
But you see, the problem here is that if we won't try to clear such a room with the two of us we won't even know whether we are cut out for it or not, but knowing the risk that it entails, I just don't want to push our luck more than we absolutely have to.
Despite my continous concerns, today's hunting went extremely well. I guess that's the power of being overly cautious to you.
Roxanne took the lead and guided us to another cavern, casually approaching the wall at its end. When she did that, a part of the wall made a noise and slowly slid down, reveling a hidden passage leading to a small room. Could it be? Did we really stumble upon the dreaded Trap Room just now?!
Keeping all of my senses on high alert I re-grasped Durandal and readied myself for an intense battle… but there was no monsters inside. Is this place actually safe? I found it somewhat hard to believe.
「Roxanne, we should remain cautious.」
「It's all right, master. We should be fine, because the smell of monsters is very faint here.」
「I… I see. T-That's… that's good, I guess.」
Roxanne can locate monsters based on her sense of smell, but she also said to me herself that it is not a perfect method of detecting that might not be able to locate enemies in certain locations, like rooms behind closed doors or Trap Rooms.
Am I still being cautious? Or is my cautiousness bordering on cowardice now? Well, I do have to admit that when that door moved with that pretty loud noise it made me freak out a little bit, but can you blame me? The last time I went into such a room I was in real danger of being gangbanged to death by Needlewoods, so forgive me for being a little on edge here, will ya?!