Chapter 358: Feeling the Struggle

———Orrel———

<1: 31 pm>

“The tech theme is quite jarring.” Gregori remarked as we all sat down for a break, looking at the walls and ceiling of the eleventh floor, completely cleared of monsters, or robots, rather. “...Hey, can these things be turned into valuable scraps or what?”

“You could, but we have already taken one of these for testing in the past, and the technology is nearly incomprehensible despite sharing a similar structure to what already exists.” Rico explained. “In all likelihood, a strange development may occur if it was shared around, but regardless of all that, we’re not here to loot anything. This is all for exercise, got it?”

“Yeah yeah, I think we all do.” Kenni said while having a somewhat composed expression. Far cry from the usual smug face she has on most of the time. I can’t tell if the difficulty is getting to her or if something else is at work.

“Man… Had to say, this place being hard was not just us due to us being weak, at least.” Useph remarked. “Sometimes I wonder if we went wrong somewhere not going far the last time. Glad to see that this place really is built different.”

“…What even is the origin of this place, really?” I asked, since surely they should figure that out by now.

“Nothing we can talk about at the moment.” Rico replied. So does that mean we can learn about its origin later on eventually?

“Hey, so how are we gonna tackle the next one? Kenni, how are you doing right now?” Gregori asked. She is at least two times stronger than any one of us, but she has been very active in each fight including the boss on the tenth floor.

“Pretty good. I think I can fight the next floor on my own.” She said that, but she has the penchant of blatantly lying at times, and she does look a bit tired.

“I see…” I said, not really sure what to say. She probably would just try to rile me up if I try to argue. Sometimes she is really committed to the bit.

“…We’ll go in three minutes.” Kenni said while she stared at her phone. Weirdly disconnected, but there is not much I can pry from that alone, and prodding is simply asking for trouble. The others definitely notice the shift in attitude, but also don’t want to call her out on it. Is that also a bit she is doing? It’s quite confusing.

“Say, Orrel, how strong is a kick coming from you anyway? You use kicking moves a lot.” Gregori asked just to pass the time.

“The physiology of my body does lend to that. The bottom lizard-like half means my legs can output significantly more force than my arms. Admittedly it is still not my preferred approach, but the effectiveness cannot be denied.” Outside of my bottom half the physical attack approach is significantly less effective than for others. Perhaps that is in part due to my specialization as well, but that is all that needed to be said for now.

“You know, if it wasn’t for demi-humans with gimmicks like that needing more maintenance I might feel a bit envious.” He said with a subtle smirk on him. I do need to shed every now and then, it’s quite gross especially with some loose human skin. Aside from that there’s not much to worry about compared to a regular human.

“It’s not that big of a problem.” I pointed out. “Say, Jennla, you are still in good shape as well, correct?”

“Huh? Yeah, I’m still fine.” She said, surprised that she was addressed so suddenly. Compared to a normal meeting she is not very vocal right now, but with the stress of the battle everyone speaks a little less.

“Sixson?” I called him as well, someone who is by far the quietest one here.

“I’m okay.” He replied. I guess everyone is not in bad condition, at least.

“…Alright. We took a long enough break, let’s move.” Kenni said before standing back up. “Let’s move, gang.”

Everyone aside from Rico quickly stood up and started moving. We don’t really have to worry about strategizing too much since it’s likely not a boss room.

Floor twelfth, and what we see is a bunch of blocky robots roaming around, all of them having those glowing lines and big red eyes on its blocky head.

“Low polygon bots, is it?” Gregori remarked as he drew his sword. “Floating limbs, core is… Seems like we only need to target the head. Heh, as if that was never a good option…”

“We can either do that or destroy its body first, it looks like its head is heavily reinforced.” I pointed out before any of us jumped in. Ignoring their disconnected body seems like folly. “Their strength is relative to the previous floor, it seems.”

“Let’s start fighting already!” Kenni said before running in before any of us could.

*Dash* *Strike* *Smash*

“Hey! No fair!” Gregori yelled out before also running in. I suppose the fight has officially started.

*Flap* *Dim* *Swerng*

“Let’s try out something new!” Kenni said as she flew up and trapped one of the golem in a barrier of darkness.

*SUCK* *CRUSH*

Some sort of gravity effect seems to coalesce in that bubble and cause the golem to be mercilessly crushed. It’s not just the barrier imprisoning it shrinking and crushing it, this is a different level to that.

*Evade* *Slash* *Strike* *Shatter*

Gregori meanwhile managed to destroy one of golem by destroying its core, but he looks a bit winded by the attempt, having to dodge the incoming strikes from multiple angles of the floating limbs.

*Leap* *Kick*

As for me, I jumped in with a kick to a nearby golem, hitting it right in the head and sending it flying. There is at least some limitation to how much the body can be disconnected to the core, so the rest of it was also pulled away.

*Dash* *Slash* *Smash*

Useph then ran in after it to deliver the finishing blow before it could recover.

*Dash* *Slash* *Swipe* *Smash*

Sixson has already destroyed one with a massive barrage of attacks from his gauntlets.

*Dim* *Swipe* *Slash* *Strike*

Kenni then destroyed another one with a swiping motion, turning her hand into a claw made of dark energy that rips through a golem’s core.

*Swing* *Block* *Bash* *Strike* *Slash*

One golem swung its fist at Useph which he quickly blocked with his shield before retaliating with a frenzy of attacks.

*Swing* *Jump*

One of them tried to attack me but I jumped up high to avoid it.

“Make some room!” Jennla shouted out as she gathered energy between her two hands that shines brightly. The others noticed her preparing for a big attack and quickly retreated.

*BLAST* *BOOM*

She let out a massive burst of energy that swept away most of the remaining golems, not destroying them all completely, but heavily damaging or destroying their limbs.

*Slash* *Strike* *Bash* *Smash* *Kick* *Punch* *Slice* *Dice*

With so much of them being weakened it doesn’t take long for everyone to join in and dismantle the rest of them in short order.

“Did you really need to use a big attack like that one?” Kenni asked as all of us looked around and saw that we had destroyed every monster on this floor. I believe that took place in less than five minutes.

“I still have plenty of energy left in the tank, it’s fine.” Jennla dismissed any possible concern before sitting down and taking a glance at all the broken down golems, their black stone body and broken red core scattered all around. “Besides, you haven’t used any big moves yourself, I think it’s best if we leave the twentieth floor for you.”

“Oh, so that’s your plan.” Kenni said with a slight smirk on her face. “I guess that’s one way to do it. You and the rest of them can do the hard work for me.”

“...How do you think Emmie’s team is going?” Gregori spoke up. “Unlike our team that has two powerhouses and Wiina’s team having three… and yet she is stronger than all five of them combined, if not more.”

“Who can even say? This should be a breeze for her.” Kenni said while scratching her head. “No idea how strong she actually is, it’s really hard to tell. Is it even possible?”

“We can only guess the minimum.” I chimed in. “Her ceiling is hard to say since she hasn’t met anything that tests her limit in such a long time… Say, Rico, do you know anything?”

“Not worth talking about.” She decisively said. Looks like that is not a topic she is willing to indulge… which does say quite a lot. She doesn’t specify anything in that sentence like she wants to avoid any details leaking out, which in itself means… No, let’s not get too conspiratorial now. We all know something is off about Emmie anyway, even if we can’t pinpoint it at all.

“Anyway… Can we even keep up with Wiina’s group? Three powerhouses with two solid supports is hard to beat.” Useph asked. We are seriously not discussing Wers at all, which he would probably take offense to. He was one of the stronger students early in the year, but nowadays the placement shifts so often that he sounds rather unremarkable. Obviously most of us are in that camp as well, but that is also why we don’t mention ourselves when it comes to being a key factor in the silent competition. Sixson is consistently very strong but there is a large gap between him and Jennla.

“Come on guys, cheer up a little.” Jennla said, noticing the cynical tone. “We can still do this! If nothing else we are definitely not getting left in the dust!”

“Nice sentiment, but we really don’t have a plan to turn this around.” Gregori pointed out.

———Karra———

<1: 48 pm>

*Slash* *Smash* *Strike* *Smash* *Slice*

“...It seems that is all of it.” I said before leaning on the nearby wall and catching my breath. “Floor… sixteen done.”

“The difficulty jump feels very noticeable even just from one floor to another…” Wers remarked as everyone is also taking a short break. “These sci-fi things are making me feel uneasy, is it the same for anyone else?”

“I guess it felt a bit too overly familiar.” Qyunda remarked. “Like stories come to life. I know that is the case with monsters and dungeons in general, but I guess the sci-fi genre felt like a very human thing, so whatever created this place is similar to us.”

“Feel too familiar. It’s some sort of feeling I am getting as well, it’s hard to shake off.” Malk chimed in. It’s scary how they can already tell that much just from the second visit. “It's not just the sci-fi aspect that is making me feel this way. It’s pure vibes, I can’t actually articulate it.”

“...Something uncanny about it.” I chimed in just to not seem like the odd one out. Wiina has explained the entire story to me, at least everything she could properly verify. There are definitely details that make it seem obvious in hindsight, but because they lack a large piece of the puzzle, they are left aimless in their guesses.

The other two said nothing since they are naturally quiet, and Wiina obviously wouldn’t comment on it for now.

“It feels like I’m going to get a headache thinking about this too much.” Wers remarked. “Best to leave it to the two nerds. Hopefully they don’t get their heads kicked in while they’re here.”

“Let’s not try to jinx our competition. We can beat them fair and square.” Malk spoke up.

“As fair as the three unbalanced teams can be. Emmie’s squad is not handicapped nearly enough.” Wers replied.

“Enough talking, this floor didn’t even take that long as we’re still good on energy, right?” I spoke up as it feels like the conversation has been going on for too long. “Let’s keep moving! Otherwise we’ll be the one at the bottom!”