[OP: ]
In a tense standoff, Eva positioned herself between Lucy and the formidable, skeleton-like beast slime with its radiant, glowing claw raised menacingly. The gravity of the situation weighed heavily upon them...
Lucy was looking at her, her eyes were closed, she had already accepted her death, and this moment was her end. Still, there were no signs of regret and sadness on her attractive face.
She was only happy that she was able to be of any use to them so, she was smiling.
And though her smile had a bitterness that she could only accompany them for this short time, she was fine with it.
She knew they were strong enough to get out of there alive and smart enough to not repeat something like this again.
She had accepted things… but they did not.
-Swish!
-Click.
-Kha-chak!
Lucy also used his own movement skill, {Light steps}, appeared right between the tip of the glowing claw and Eva and used his {Horizontal slash} in succession and cut down the slime beast in half!
-Swhush...
It was a very quick attack. So quick that normally, it would only seem like a red light suddenly blinking behind the closed-eyed Eva and then immediately before her at the same time, and then another red light blinks, but a brighter one than before, and the next thing you know, the airborne slime beast is cut in half.
It was a strong attack and it must have taken a great toll on Lucy's still not strong enough body to perform such complex and quick movement. El knew that so she hurriedly created a transparent water barrier around them when she confirmed Lucy was safe, appeared inside it, took out a small vial of green liquid, and dropped it all in his mouth.
Lucy was mostly fine by that time, with no big visible trouble, but that move really was a toll on his physical body.
He didn't need a whole bottle of this potion but she still dropped it in his mouth forcefully and he could understand her worries.
She could feel his emotions and feelings through their connection link so she must have known about the head-grinding headache, stomach-slicing cut pain, and the bone cracking vibrations from the shock of the skill.
But it was less painful for him because of his highly superior mentality. She didn't have to worry and she also knew it but her instincts that were conditioned to look after his safety before anything else, did not.
Also…
-Smack!
"You bitch!"
She could not help but slap the confused Eva. And the curses from her pretty mouth were eternal so it was natural that she started cursing her hatefully.
"El. Stop. She doesn't know. We should have told her."
Lucy had to hug her from behind to calm her down and she did calm down, just that her cussing never stopped.
He patted her and told her to finish the rest of the beast slimes while he talked with Eva about how they never thought she wasn't helpful.
He told her how having at least one unharmed party member in this special dungeons where the other parties had interfered with the dungeon could give better rewards so they were trying their best to protect her.
They hadn't expected a situation like this at the start but it was a good opportunity to gain some good stuff so she had to be unharmed throughout this dungeon raid.
He told her how much he believed in her talent and how if there could be people who can achieve great things with sheer hard will, she had talent to back it up.
If she worked just as hard as them, there was no way she couldn't be so strong that these lowly slimes would seem trash to her.
She understood him, and El's anger, and cusses, and that hateful expression. She apologized to him for her stupidity and to her for all of this and El forgave her, of course only after another slap.
It was at least a good thing that she wasn't using any great strength behind those slaps or else, she was strong enough to crush a big boulder if she only infuses her Mana into her hand.
Eva also knew that much too after seeing her for the last few months. So, she was even more angry at herself.
El's hug which was followed by that slap was all she needed to know just how much she liked her, and how much more she cared for her brother.
So… their small issue ended with the skeleton slimes and they moved forward after some rest and food.
The next few unique slimes were easy to deal with but it became a problem when the cave area became brighter and everything inside the cave, from rocks to pillars and plants, started reflecting their image as if it were all made of glass.
Things were reflecting them and they appeared almost everywhere, but thankfully, it was mostly easy to understand which was a reflection because of their party member indicators.
But the same certainly wasn't true for the (Mirror slimes) that had the ability to travel through these mirrors.
They didn't have high attack power but their only offensive skill of throwing glass shreds at them was dangerous.
They couldn't block it with a magic shield forever as they neither had endless Mana nor an endless supply of Mana potions.
They had two ways to finish these annoying little bunch, and that was to find the path and move forward; or destroy all the mirrors which Lucy could do with his sword skills but, that could be dangerous. There was also option to carefully analyse their movement patterns, and find the path to move forward hidden in the mirror-like walls based on it.
This other option was the most safe and doable since they had El. To find the path to move forward from almost a closed off area with mirror like rock walls was a seemingly impossible task after all, even more to carefully calculate and come up with the location of blind spot from white these slimes cannot move through.
She took a while but she managed to detect their patterns, used some spells, killed some of those nasty, irritating slimes, and moved forward.
The new place they ended up into this absurdly long cave was a totally dark place.
They already knew what kind of slimes were there and also that they had some of the greatest weaknesses, light magic. So, she used a rare light element spell {(Flashbomb)}, illuminated the whole area, and slimes that were almost aiming their string like dark tentacles at them, were burned to ashes.
They weren't vampire slimes but just darkness slimes so if there was no darkness in the area in the first place, they couldn't even run and go into hiding.
They were easy to deal with but then there were some weird carnivorous plant-like slimes covering the entire next area which had powerful super regeneration powers.
Their cores weren't visible on the dark surface of their bodies so it was even more difficult to deal with.
El suggested the simple way to just obliterate them as a whole with strong magic and skills but it would require time and a place where these bastards couldn't see and use their whip-like thorn-covered vines.
These plants had a strong energy beam attack skill too so they were more dangerous.
But, one thing was true about them: these plant-like slimes were actually plant-like. They couldn't move.
There was actually no need to worry about them, they were rare tamable species and could be used as trap monsters in the future so they just used a shield, took out their special bottle of dragon poison that these plants clearly feared, and crossed to the other side.
There were more dangerous slimes but after almost a month-long struggle after they entered this low-ranked dungeon, they finally reached the last stage of the dungeon, the boss room.
And this place actually looked what we would call a boss room, though there was no big gate this time.
But, this was a giant place with no walls, all around them were brightly glowing luminous flowers, small glowing creatures, and big purple crystals coming out from the ground.
There was a deep crater where a big boss should be. And there were also no other beings to support this boss like the sub bosses or support ones.
The dungeon had previously been tempered by the complaints of the spectators watching them. They had taken more than three times as much time as they should have to reach this point. And they were not perfectly fine anymore.
There was this thing in the worldline called personal
This was one of them and on a higher realm, with greater authority, this could show the list of the 'spectators' that agreed to this suggestion.
El was a merciful lady. She would forgive them for most things they do to her. But things changed when it was about him. And Lucy was the same for her. And they did this to both, and this was certainly not going to be the last time.
Anyway, their punishment would come in the far future.
For now, there was a small blob of purple slime-like slime with a red core… which wasn't the boss's actual body.
"El. Should we start? I want to finish this quickly. Eva's training and stuff is pending and we still have to travel a lot."
"Yes… let's finish this."
Eva was at the very back this time. Her work was done here, there was a big crater here and the two of them were on the edge of this crater, looking down at the slime in the center of the giant hole.
This was going to be the last fight and we were going to see a disgusting sight soon…
"Cute-"
"In no way even in hell. Start it already. Take those things out."
Lucy was a strong person. A very strong one to be able to handle a person like her. Both mentally and physically...