After the fight both Selena and Hajime were collecting the scorpion parts and Yue was watching Hajime with possessive eyes, ignoring that Selena was even there. 'Wow she is on the hunt for her man.' Chills crawling down her spine see how it is to know what you want and doing everything in your power. Selena pulls some of the bones from the monster tied and uses a lighting field to burn a bit of meat to start the campfire out of bones as replacement for wood. Yue was surprised to see the fact that Selena also activated her mana directly too, since when they were fighting she was wholly focused on Hajime, her savior of her prison. To the side, Hajime was using a lightning field to cook only the scorpion meat. Once he was done, he pulled a knife and used a gale claw on it to cut the meat in half. He walked over to her and gave it to her. After thinking for a second he looked at Yue and asked her if wanted any pointing at his share.
"No thank you, I'm good Hajime. More importantly, who is she?"
"She is mmm,"
As Hajime looks at Selena try to find the right words for Selena however she decides to make trouble for the would-be demon lord to be.
"That's easy, I'm his girlfriend," in the straight face Selena could come up with, leaving him stunned at her description of herself.
Getting pissed after a moment of silence he threw a bone that was near him.
It clocked Selena's face and made her fall on her back. She turned to stick out her tongue at Yue and started laughing back and forth.
Growing furious at her he went over and stomped on her.
"No! Hajime, don't be so mean to your friend for a harmless joke" wheezing at this point with air being forced out with his stomp.
"That stop acting like your back grade school" tick mark on his forehead
"I stop when your act your age and not like mafia goon" smile at him
Seeing the interaction, Yue grew envious at their close bond they showed her.
Seeing Yue getting gloomy, Selena turns to her "don't worry honestly we are good friends and we are working our way down."
Seeing her expression change Yue 's gloomy aura to neutral.
"Ya this battle junky doesn't know how to read the mood."
"You of all people have no right." At that moment, yanking his foot to the side really fast caused him to fall next to her.
Selena got up and grabbed her meat and took a bite from it. "Hey, I can make a basin so I can drop the water." Getting up he transmuted the ground to make a sink hole and Selena formed a few hand signs for the first time in front Yue and after a bit vomiting out water from her mouth.
Yue's eyes widen and see this form of magic for the first time in her life. She could see that the water hole formed from her not gathering water from the air.
She grabbed their cups from her bag and while that was going on Hajime pulled out two vials of heal water. Trade each other stuff they both grab drinks and eat in comfortable silence.
Yue waited as soon they were all settled and she began a question session. "Why can both of you use mana without incantation? Are you monsters? What are those weapons both of you are using? How did the two of you get down here? Why did water come from your mouth and both of you are drinking it like it's normal? What kinda magic is she using and why were hand moved in weird ways? How long have I been down here? And are you both truly just friends?"
Both Hajime and Selena took a moment to think about all her questions. 'Love how she is trying to make sure that I'm not in her way to make Hajime hers hehe.'
"Calm down, we explain everything just." Hajime was taken about and how many questions came out in less than a minute. Yue had made her way closer to Hajime, eager to stick to him like glue. Hajime looked at Selena pleading for help.
"Let's see the hands sign it as a part of my class called shinobi. Want to give example do remember outside the door how there was a lot water puddles well that was me using ice mist as an attack although it bit time make that attack happen I have been using spells like that very often so take more like unlink my few favor spells." Weaving ten hand signs in less than ten seconds, the ice gauntlets manifested on Selena arms. Again Yue was since once again the ice form came solely from her not using any outside source to make them appear.
Yue walked over to her and knocked on the fist feel how sturdy they felt. "Does it feel uncomfortable with your hands inside of the ice blocks?"
"Mmm no I have been used to it since we evolved?"
"Why does that sound like you're not sure?"
"Well" Selena began to detail the event that had brought their class to the world of Tortus. Do you want to see both my and Hajime status plates.
"I'm interested," Yue looked at Hajime at that moment wanting to know more about him.
With an exasperated sigh, Hajime takes his plate out and hands it to Yue.
Hajime Nagumo Age: 17 Level: 53
Job: Synergist
Strength: 980
Vitality:1070
Defense: 960
Agility: 1140
Magic: 860
Magic Defense: 860
Skills: Transmute [+Ore Appraisal] [+Precision Transmutation] [+Ore Perception] [+Ore Desynthesis] [+Ore Synthesis] [+Duplicate Transmutation] — Mana Manipulation — Iron Stomach — Lighting Field — Air Dance [+Aerodynamic] [+Supersonic Step] [+Steel Legs] — Gale Claw — Howling — Night Vision — Far Sight — Sense Presence — Detect Magic — Hide Presence — Poison Resistance — Paralysis Resistance — Petrification Resistance — Diamond Skin — Language Comprehension
"He has some interesting stats there, huh?" Selena says over Yue's shoulder.
"Yeah," she says, amazed at the list of skills he has acquired.
"Well, here are my stats" Selena says, handing over her own plate to Yue.
Selena Yamagishi Age: 16 Level:53
Job: Shinobi
Strength: 1150
Vitality:900
Defense: 870
Agility: 1080
Magic/Chakra: 1200
Magic Defense: 780
Skills: Chakra [+Tenketsu Point Mastery] — Elemental Release [+Lightning] [+Wind] [+Water] [+Ice]— Judo — Dagger Skill — Sword Skill — ??? — Mana Manipulation — Iron Stomach — Lighting Field — Air Dance [+Aerodynamic] [+Supersonic Step] [+Steel Legs] — Gale Claw — Howling — Night Vision — Far Sight — Sense Presence — Detect Magic — Hide Presence — Poison Resistance — Paralysis Resistance — Petrification Resistance — Diamond Skin — Language Comprehension
Meanwhile while Yue was next to Selena, Hajime began to make a sniper rifle since the last fight showed that neither him or Selena had any moves with overwhelming firepower yet.
"It's so sad both of you were betrayed by the people who were supposed to be your teammates."
"It's okay, I don't even care anymore." Hajime said dismiss the events like it was nothing to him.
"It is not so black and white as that, Hajime." Not knowing what the best words would be to curb that mind set at the moment. "Mmm well at the very least there were people in our class that did care for our safety."
See the different opinions Yue could tell there unspoken things between the two of them.
Hearing those words Hajime stops to recall the night before they went into the Great Orcus Labyrinth.
"So what are your plans?" Yue asks, hoping to get to know Hajime better.
"mm well go find a way home I guess"
"I see" as she starts looking dejected and turns to look at Hajime. At the same time, feeling that something might be wrong, he turns to look at Yue staring at him with her bright red eyes. He glances off to the side with his peripheral vision to see Selena shake her head while she pointing her index finger at him.
"Well if you want when all is said and done you can join us going to our world it is not as exciting as this one."
Hearing those words Yue shows a rare smile hypnotizing Hajime with it due to her barely showing any emotion since they met. "I would love to."
"By the way, aren't you hungry?"
"I am, do you mind giving me your neck?"
"Why would you need that ?"
"Hehe crawling toward Hajime it won't hurt i promise "
Hajime doesn't know what to do and looks at Selena and he sees something that just out right pisses him off. Selena claps her hands together in prayer for poor baka Hajime not to have noticed her fangs by now.
"May you rest in peace, Baka." as Selena uses howling to stun Hajime let Yue hug him while getting her first suck in.
Few days later
Selena pov
Ever since Yue joined the party this dungeon run has been going smoother than before but for some strange reason there were still floors that screw me over due long range attack being the better attack method over frontline combat. Like were the creatures of these places on drugs, seriously who the heck thinks of slimes that burn all but themselves on one floor. We push on fast through the floors with bullets, magic, and chakra. We easily made floor 70. Hajime did make sure that Selena shared her blood with Yue since he didn't want to be the only blood bank.
To my dismay Hajime and Yue weren't like I had read in the story. I feel so bad since I knew I was the cause of this since Hajime had me from the beginning. He might even harbor some feelings for me. I just can't see him in that light since I always idolize him as my hero and I don't want to take the place of someone special from Yue, someone who has been waiting all this time in darkness.
Unlike most floors only few monsters spawn but to now they were the most dangerous we had seen up till now. It looks like a ghost like the bottom half of Casper. The friendly ghost-like bug with legs just be spectral and arm looking like mini scyther.
"There," Hajime shot a single round hoping to kill it. To his dismay, the monster seems to be able to pass through solid walls so he misses a lot.
Yue casted lighting hoping that the shock will harm it since it is inside the rock.
"These monsters aren't strong but the fact that they ignore common sense is annoying," Hajime said.
Zone out from the moment Selena wasn't aware of her surroundings and one of those serpent like things was casting earth spear under feet. Hajime at that moment pulled Selena back as earth spear from where she once stood. Hit her head to get her back in the zone, "this isn't the time to space out if we need to talk later?"
Yue could tell something was eating at Selena for sometime now, but to this point she hadn't found a way to bring it up, since she clearly didn't want to tell Hajime. She wanted to make Hajime her but at the same time she would not do anything underhanded to get there. Selena hadn't gotten in the way of her making advances on Hajime and smiled instead, slightly confusing her. It is just too bad it didn't work on him since he was more focused on making their way down and also on his feelings for Selena subconsciously, to Yue's and Selena's dismay.
Poking Selena's arm Yue looks at her face tilting like is everything okay?
Give Yue and thumbs up and putting a smile that didn't reach her eye she draws out the katana hoping to bisect the current foe.
As when she made contact, the blade passed right through it harmlessly.
While the party wasn't able to touch them, it wasn't the same for these serpent like creatures as they were casting what looked to be earth base spells. Spikes, rock falls, and walls were just used to throw the team for tizzy.
"Let's just run though this floor, it doesn't seem like it will stop any time soon." Hajime said, annoyed he finally met something his bullets couldn't scratch.
As the other two were getting ready to dash off, Yue floated on top of Hajime's backpack. Seeing no reason to stop her, he went with it and dash off in search of exit to this floor. This would be some of the most annoying hours the group would spend trying to find their way out.
As the group dashed through this floor the enemies they had not been able to harm started to make themselves a problem. They started making an earth wall and attacking with more spikes tried to go for the kill in earnest. Selena led the way and cut everything that stood in front of the party.
"Aahh this is going to get old real fast" Hajime shouted as earth spikes coming at them from behind.
"Haha just keep running! It's like those obstacle courses back in grade school jungle gym." As Selena cut down another wall. But at that moment an earth spike came from the ground right behind the wall she just cut, not giving her time to react. Yue was lucky to watch for moments like these and she caused hollow ground shattering all incoming attacks on the shield.
"How did you two make this far while talking so much?" she asks in a deadpan tone.
Hajime got a tick mark on his forehead. "You tell her that" points Donner at Selena while opening his partner to reload it.
"Ugh you two just like rubbing it in." laugh while trying to calm her rush heartbeat. Her sword in front of her at the ready as Yue hollow ground faded.
This whole time both Hajime and Selena were polishing their skills. Hajime's sense presence was being pushed further to keep track of these monsters, while Selena's diamond skin had got the derivative skill that allowed her to imbue it on the objects and she was coating her katana with it.
Few hours later the Hajime party found its way down, but just as expected there was a bigger version of the floating bug looking similar to what had been harassing his group but now guarding the way.
Unlike all the others, this one seems to be about nine feet tall still with ghostly legs but its scythes were full sized this time and looks like prey mantis.
"Fuck this shit" not waiting to see what would happen, Hajime fired three rounds at the monster in hope it would be able to faze out of the attack, but to the whole party surprised it used it two scythes open a portal on one but rending the air open and another portal with the other scythe. From that barrier, the bullets came right back at them. Yue casts wind blades changing the bullets trajectory off to make them miss the party.
Hajime ran right while Selena ran left and Yue stood there cast wind blade and tried to pin down their enemy. But it wasn't going to be so simple since the little bugs started to get in the way, casting earth magic to get in the way of Selena and Hajime. Not wanting to use his few bullets for these distractions, he uses steel leg strike down the earth spikes. On the other side Selena uses diamond skin derivative skill to put on her katana to practice new skills while chopping down walls and spikes.
Yue moves from side to side dodging her own wind blade and sees that the portals only stay open for a short time after each cast. As they closed the distance Selena tried to cut him down and the Warper used one its scythe to block the strike. Hajime and Yue see their opening and launch their attacks with Yue using a wind blade to cut the other scythe hand off and Hajime aiming to blast its brain out.
To their dismay Hajime noticed that Warper used one last attack on a nearby Selena who tried to get away and a portal appeared right in front of her with great suction power she got dragged in with warper also getting stuck in. Both the Warper and Selena disappear right in front of Hajime's and Yue's eyes.
Hajime ran over top where Selena disappeared too in hope. "Please, something anything" But in the end he slammed the ground with his fist and cracked the dungeon floor ever so slightly.
At the same time right after Selena disappeared Hajime's intimate skill went off and even Yue was surprised since Hajime showed such raw emotion since till now he was so serious. She noticed that Selena was always trying to joke with him even if some of her jokes she just could not understand due to missing something. She recalled one that was mentioned that seems to fit how Hajime looks
"Hey you know what do you think the Jigsaw was missing?" Selena had asked
"No, what"
"One piece."
As she recalled that she was walking over to Hajime who was on all fours just looking at the ground.
"It's going to be okay, Hajime" Yue patted Hajime back to try to help calm down since she wanted to let him know he wasn't alone.
Shaking his head he said "it is not that. It is just that she can be so stupid at times. She can be air headed at times she tends to jinx herself a lot. She is only down here because of me too, since I stayed on the bridge to help out our classmates." He was self persecuting himself since did know where to vent his emotion. "Did you know she lost her backpack on the 25th floor since she was trying to go fast to catch up to help me out. She could have taken more time and I could have waited but she was more worried about me than herself."
Surprised at what Selena meant to him she was kinda sad at the same time since she wanted Hajime to look at her and get hurt just like that for her but she didn't know if she would ever get there.