We were back in the forest dungeon that I had gotten injured in.
"Are you sure you wouldn't rather go into another dungeon?" Mat asked me for what felt like the hundredth time.
"I am not going to let one injury dissuade me from going into the dungeons. You can only become stronger by overcoming your weaknesses. I do not intend to make this dungeon one of them."
"That's the spirit!" Callie was raising her arm up into the air for some reason.
I smiled at her and rubbed the top of her head.
"Hey!" She broke free and started smoothing out her hair.
"It's for good luck so I can overcome this dungeon."
"Oh… Well I guess that is okay."
Mat hid his laugh behind his hand and cleared his throat.
"I need good luck too."
"But you didn't get hurt," Callie replied, confused.
"It would set my mind at ease."
Callie puffed up her cheeks, but eventually allowed him to pat her head as well. I had a feeling this was going to become a routine in the future. Maybe Kei would join in on the fun if we were successful.
Unlike last time we did not take our time going through the forest. We headed straight to the center of the forest where the dungeon boss was waiting.
The moment the large cat, with dark fur that had hints of purple, came out of the clearing I could feel my body tense. The injury that had completely healed ached. I was afraid of this monster.
I felt a reassuring pat on my shoulder and turned to see Mat looking at me. I could tell he wanted to ask if I was doing okay, but I shook my head. We needed to focus on the fight ahead of us.
We had a stronger shield and stronger weapons. Any time we found materials compatible with our weapons I could tell that Dyno was strengthening them. He did not ask for extra pay to do this. He just wanted us to continue to survive.
I suppose that was my goal all along. To survive in this hellscape that I now considered normal. Only now, I wanted others to survive along with me. It was a terrifying thought. All this time I had just been worried about my own safety, but now I was something more than my previous life and I was not all that sure that I liked that.
I gulped back the fear still residing within me and moved to position myself behind the boss. Mat drew its attention, while Callie stood several feet behind him. It was the same formation we had used before, but we were all different this time.
Callie had admitted she had trouble focusing on who to heal in our last fight. So I had worked with her until she got her priorities down. Her position required using the most brain power out of all of our roles. She would need to manage her own magic power as well as juggle the different party members and their needs.
I told her later on that healers could learn a skill to help manage that, but for now she would have to learn it the old-fashioned way. As it was, I knew we should probably all learn what we could as a base and only rely on skills after we had learned the basics.
Perhaps it was the experience of juggling different party members that eventually awarded you the skill. I had learned all manner of weapon handling before the fall, and it had earned me better skills this time around. However, this was not common knowledge.
I suspected that others had gone back to the past with me. It wouldn't be too impossible to think they were controlling the knowledge shared with others. I did not know what withholding such knowledge would gain them. Perhaps I should just release what I knew as an anonymous blogger later on.
I shook those thoughts from my head and used the wire weapon that Dyno gave me to hook one of the boss' legs. I missed. I gritted my teeth. Even with a few days of practice, I was still not used to using the wire.
I took a deep breath and waited to see if it noticed my presence. It was still attacking Mat, so I tried again. This time it grasped firmly to the leg. I needed to get the movement with my hands down right.
I used my speed to pull the wire over its back leg that was not hooked and wound the wire around a tree. I had noticed that trees in this dungeon were unusually sturdy, so I hoped that my little trick would work.
"Now!"
I called Mat and he jumped over the wire and ran in a half-circle around the boss. The cat tried to pivot but quickly became entangled in the wire. It fell on its side and attempted to claw at the wire to regain its freedom.
Being careful of the claws, I pulled out the short sword at my side and ran it along its back, far from where the claws were flying. The enhancements that Dyno had made to the sword made it sharper and better able to cut through the hide of this monster.
I thanked Dyno in my heart as the boss' blood coated the grass in the clearing. Callie had moved with Mat so that he was firmly in front of her. The cat's tail clipped my shoulder as I ran past. I instantly noticed a healing spell light up my shoulder.
It seemed that she was getting the timing right when it came to managing our health. The dull ache in my shoulder was eased instantly. I wanted to scold her for wasting a spell on me this early, but the cat boss had managed to untangle one of its legs from the wire and was pulling at the tree to untangle the other one.
The tree creaked ominously as the cat boss pulled on it. I could see where the wire was cutting into the flesh of the monster, so it must have been super painful for it to do this. With the wound from the wire on its other leg and the fresh slash I put across its back, a steady amount of blood was mixing in with the dirt on the ground.
I would need to be careful not to get stuck. I retreated back into the trees and contemplated what my next move should be. The cat boss was looking for me, so Mat used his huge shield to land a solid hit on its head. A loud yowl filled the air and I felt goosebumps on my arms making me want to shiver.
The cat boss' attention was now back on Mat, but it felt more wild than before. Like it knew that it was running out of time. The clearing that was filled with green grass was coated red and it painted the trees and Mat's shield with each claw swipe.
I wanted to throw up looking at this scene. I should be used to such gorey scenes by now, but it felt wrong to delay the suffering of this creature, if you could call it that. Was this what the person behind those messages wanted?
I turned the grip of the short sword in my hand. I needed to finish this as soon as possible. After scaling the tree directly to my right I was now in position to attack the boss from high up. It was too focused on Mat now, who was taunting it between blocking strikes.
He really was the perfect distraction for me to get in hits. It almost felt like fate that we had created a party with Callie. I took one last deep breath before leaping from the branch I was on.
The wind rushed past my face and I seemed to be accelerating beyond what a fall would normally bring me. My short sword lit up with a fiery glow and created an arc behind me.
I was positioned over the cat boss' head and my blade went smoothly through its neck. I caught a glimpse of Mat's face as I landed past him and the cat boss. His mouth was opened in an O shape. I wondered what my attack looked like to him.
I was sure that the skills one sometimes earned in the dungeon were to thank for this, but I landed on my feet without any difficulty. Almost as if I had merely taken a step. Or maybe it was that strange skill I had earned when I returned to the past.
I looked behind me and I had cleanly separated the cat boss' head from its shoulders. The two halves were singed as if they had been burned. I stared down at my short sword, but the glow I had noticed before was gone. I would need to ask Dyno about this later.
"That was amazing!" Callie called while running to my side.
"Was that a skill?" Mat stared at the mess of the cat boss and then back at me.
"I'm not sure. I think Dyno may have upgraded my short sword."
I cleaned the sword and resheathed it at my waist. I thought about asking him for another one handed sword with the same enhancements later. I needed to fight as the vanguard with our current party setup.
The body of the cat monster glowed and the drops showed up shortly after that. I stored them in my pack and we began harvesting the different bounties of the forest while cleaning up any extraneous monsters.
I let Callie and Mat work together for the most part to give Callie more experience. That attack also left me feeling a little mentally drained. I would need to be careful about when, and how often, I used it in the future.