Dungeons Online

Chapter 152: Cleo's show

"Isn't it a bit... too easy?" Marvin asked, kicking away yet another slime. 

Under the force of his kick, the slime fell towards the wall, only for the force of impact once it struck it to shatter its core. 

"Man, we are still on the seventh floor," Tom replied, rolling his eyes. "How long ago did you play Dungeons online for the last time?" he asked, shaking his head in disbelief. 

"A good year or so?" Marvin replied, kicking away another slime. 

"Can I try fighting those slimes too?" the young boy asked, looking at the ongoing fight with sparks in his eyes. 

"There is no need for that," Tom shook his head. "I do not doubt your bravery, but you are still too young to fight with monsters," he added, sending the boy a smile. 

"Mister, if you are that strong, why are you not fighting yourself?" the young boy asked, clearly dissatisfied with Tom's answer. "My parents would let me fight those slimes..." he added in a mutter under his nose. 

"Cleo," Tom called out to the girl. 

"What's up?" Cleo asked, turning her head around from the slimes she was smashing with her bare hands. 

"Remember to remind me once we get out on the other side to have a proper talk with this boy's parents," Tom explained before sending a meaningful look to the boy. 

'Am I bullying him too much?' he thought, watching how the look of confidence washed away from the young man's face, replaced by the terror of realization that the responsibility of his words would be pushed on his parents instead. 

Or rather than that, he most likely realized that if his parents were to get scolded, it would be him that would receive the scolding at the end of the line!

"Mister!" the boy cried out. "Please, forget what I said!" he pledged, running towards Tom and latching on to his side while looking up with upturned eyes. 

"My memory is too good for that," Tom replied, gently pushing the boy away. "Kira!" he shouted.

"Yes!" the woman instantly rushed forward, ignoring the potential danger from the nearby slimes. 

"From now on, you are responsible for this kid with your life," Tom said, quickly pushing the burden of caring for the little fart on the only person he didn't need to ask for an opinion about it. 

"Excuse me?" Kira asked, her face showing just how dissatisfied she was with the solution Tom came up with... But this expression of hers lasted only for a short moment. 

"Do you have a problem with that?" Tom asked, raising one of his eyebrows. "Or maybe you would prefer to be just a stress relief for Marvin instead?" he added in a threatening tone. 

"I will take care of him as if he was my own brother," Kira quickly replied, lowering her head. 

"Shouldn't it be the son?" Cleo asked over from where she played around with more slimes. 

"Do I look that old to you?!" Kira flared up, even more than she did when the burden of taking care of the kid was pushed on her.

"Hahaha," Cleo laughed, only to shake her head a moment later. "Forget it, then!" she shouted over before putting her attention back to the current task. 

Within the narrow corridors of the dungeon, fighting barehanded wasn't that hard. Only once the group would reach the further floors, this area limitation would become a burden, especially once bigger and stronger monsters would start to appear. 

"And that's the last of them," Marvin said as he stomped down on the slime. His hand forced its internal liquids to move away, all the way to the point where only the membrane of its skin separated the monster's core from both the floor and Marvin's shoe. Then, with nothing else to protect it, the stone-like object shattered.

'It's disgusting to watch this happen,' Tom thought, almost averting his eyes from the genocide of the slimes. 'Back in the days, I thought it was the bugs I don't like, but now?' he thought, shaking his head. 'Slimes are far worse,' he thought, fighting off against the disgusted shake of his body. 

"Well, it's great that it's over now," Tom said, taking a step forward from the wall he was leaning against while his friend fought. "Now, let me take care of the boss," he added, stepping through the barrier that separated the corridor from the boss room right ahead. 

Just like all the monsters on this specific floor, the boss was a slime. Roughly twice as big as the mobs in the corridors, it instantly moved what appeared to be its face towards Tom the moment he crossed through the barrier. 

"I wish you could let us fight the bosses as well," Cleo muttered, still dissatisfied with Tom's decision regarding this matter. 

"We don't have time for that," Tom countered, pulling out his spear while creating a magical one in his left hand. 

With a single throw, he punctured right through the slime, making its liquids spill all over the place at a rapid rate. 

'Everblaze,' he thought, invoking his basic fire spell just for the sake of preventing the disgusting fluid from dirtying his clothes.

'There is it,' he thought after a bit more fluid escaped from the slime's insides, revealing the position of its core. 

With the other magic spear in his right hand, Tom took a single step of runout before throwing it towards the monster. Yet, rather than just letting it puncture the slime and end up flying towards the other end of the room, Tom released his hold over the weapon's structure, disintegrating it back into free magic. 

Free magic that he could still influence thanks to his spear-magic domain 

"Fireball," he uttered silently, no longer bothered by hiding his skills from his friends. In the end, even if Kira were to learn what skills he had, there was no chance for her to ever catch up to his strength. 

The spear at first dissolved, fading away from Tom's view as if someone just erased it from existence. Yet, before it could completely disappear, its colors suddenly grew more intense only to turn into a massive ball of fire... right beside the slime's core!

BOOM!

The only reason why Tom used such an elaborate attack to take down such a weak boss was his own disgust in the liquid that the slimes were mostly made from. Given how it was pretty combustible, only by igniting it from the inside, before the slime's skin could dissolve back into mana, could Tom prevent a splatter that would likely end up with everyone in their group getting their clothes eaten away by that liquid. 

"I guess it's time for more energy, right?" Marvin commented, taking a quick look towards the wall. 

In it, just like on every single level of the dungeon, stones were embedded. Yet, due to how little the group managed to progress so far, only grade-one could be found there. 

"It's a pretty nice haul," Tom commented, putting his hand against the wall and infusing it with a silver of his energy like usual. A moment later, the stones quickly started popping out on the floor, allowing Cleo and Marvin to carefully pick them up.

"Can I get one too?" the boy shouted over from a distance, reminding Tom that he was still there. 

'This lass is doing a surprisingly good job,' he thought, casting a quick glance towards Kira. 'I didn't expect her to keep him silent for so long,' he added before covering his hand with a cloth and reaching it out towards Cleo. 

"Here you go," the girl said, passing the first stone over. 

Just like when he was climbing the dungeon with Claudia, Tom had no wish to waste even a single silver of energy by letting his friends consume the stones directly. Rather than that, he pulled out his main weapon and used his skills through it to turn the stone into its true form before leaning the blade towards the girl.

"Here you go," he said with a small smile. "As for you, young man," Tom turned his face towards the kid stuck in Kira's arms in the distance, "I'm sorry, but we need to let my friends level up as quickly as possible," he said, turning his eyes from the sight of Cleo absorbing the energy. 

Unlike Claudia, Cleo's reaction to the infusion of energy was quite... intense. Her face turned red, her lips parted only for her to start moaning wildly. 

"Ahhhh..." Cleo moaned, unable to stop her voice from escaping through her mouth. 

"I'm sorry," Marvin muttered, turning his face away. 

"Don't mind it," Tom replied with a sigh before throwing a quick glance towards Kira and the boy hidden in her arms. 

'That's quite... thoughtful,' he noticed, seeing how the woman covered the boy's ears and made sure to shield him from the sight with her own body. 

"More," Cleo muttered, passing another stone in Tom's direction. "Give me moar!" she shouted, messing up her last word as her saliva started to drip from her mouth. 

"This is going to be a long climb," Tom thought, pulling his weapon out only to turn the stone into energy and pass it to the girl again. 

For a few more moments, Cleo continued her show, constantly reminding Tom that it was a while since he got a girl in his bed. Yet, when he fed her the fourth and second to last stone of her batch, her vision suddenly cleared, her moans stopped. 

"I just reached the tenth level!" she shouted with joy, looking at Tom with pride in her eyes. "I mean, I just got my first skill!"