"Wha-...?! What happened?!" Blurted out Lector, sitting up with a start as I smacked him awake, looking around frantically, before adding in surprise, "Wait, we’re still alive? How?"
"Uh, hey, calm down. It’s all good, the Monster’s dead," I informed him, before helping him up.
"What? Sorry, can you speak up a bit?"
Huh? Oh, right, the Hypersonic Bat’s sonic screech damaged his eardrums. Actually, I’m surprised he can hear me at all.
<Likely due to his enhanced natural healing ability>
<As I have mentioned before, higher-ranked Hunters possess stronger bodies, and therefore, stronger healing capabilities>
<While he is evidently not fully healed, he is certainly in better condition that when he first lost consciousness>
Oh, right, I forgot about that.
I repeated what I said, speaking louder to make sure he could hear me.
"I see...no offense, but given your Potential, that’s a bit hard to wrap my head around. Did you really kill it?" He responded incredulously, before giving me a glance over.
"Yeah, barely, as you can see. More importantly, could you help wake up the others so that we can get out of here? I’m in a lot of pain," I replied with a strained sigh.
"Huh? Er, yes, of course. Does that mean everyone else is alive?" He asked me, a look of relief appearing on his face.
"Mhm, Trey and the Lancer are out cold but they should be just fine. And the Healer and Detector ran away, so they’re probably alive too, unless we missed any Monsters on the lower levels."
"Wait, do you not know the names of all of your classmates?" He said in bemusement.
"Oh, uh...I’m not great with names, I have trouble remembering the names of people who don’t make a strong impression on me," I admitted sheepishly.
"I see..."
I headed over to the Lancer as Lector knelt down beside Trey and tried to wake him up, as I lightly smacked the Lancer’s face a couple of times, before plugging his nose.
His forehead creased as he let out a slight mutter, before waking up with a gasp as he ran out of breath, sitting up abruptly right as a startled yell rang out, as Lector woke Trey up.
I helped the Lancer back onto his feet, letting him lean on my right shoulder since it looked like he’d fractured his left leg, struggling to stand up straight and put any weight on it.
As I approached Lector and Trey with the Lancer, I gave them a brief explanation of what happened after they were knocked out.
Trey’s eardrums were a lot more damaged than Lector’s were though, so I had to practically yell for him to hear me.
"Huh?! No way, YOU killed it by yourself?! That’s not possible!" He exclaimed as I finished explaining.
"Yeah, well, don’t know what to tell you, because that’s what happened!" I informed him loudly.
"Considering that the rest of us were knocked out, along with the fact that the Monster is nowhere to be seen, that is the only explanation," Reasoned Lector.
"No way...it must have just been a fluke! Either that, or the Monster was really weak!" Huffed Trey saltily.
"Oh, then how weak does that make you, considering that you were the first to fall?!" I shot back tauntingly.
"Why, you...!"
"That’s enough, we can’t waste time arguing. All of you need medical attention, so we need to get out of the Dungeon immediately," Interjected Lector with a frown.
Yeah, he’s right.
Calm down, I shouldn’t be letting some obnoxious kid get under my skin like this. I’d just ignore him normally, but I’m in a pretty bad mood thanks to all the pain I’m in.
The four of us then dragged our feet out of the Boss Room, heading back down the Dungeon, making our way through each floor steadily.
Lector took over helping the Lancer since I was struggling thanks to my injuries and fatigue, that Monster really did a number on me.
Well, at least none of my injuries are severe enough to leave any permanent damage, some relatively high-level Healing Magic should be enough to fix me up, good as new.
And the others are less seriously injured than I am, so they should be fine too.
All in all, I’d say this went pretty well, the only downside is that Trey is still alive. But besides that, I managed to get a decent bit more powerful, I took down a High Level Monster and most importantly, I survived.
Even if it had been weakened, defeating that Hypersonic Bat is proof that just because something is stronger than I am, doesn’t mean that I don’t stand a chance of winning.
I’ve proven to myself that I’m capable of punching above my weight, so to speak.
Also, I got to test out and see how several of my Skills hold up in a real battle.
Devour is most effective at close to semi-mid range, it moves too slowly to be much use against faster targets, especially at a distance.
Drain isn’t really all that useful as an offensive weapon, but it’s a pretty solid shield for blocking non-physical attacks, it’s best use during battle is defending against ranged Magical attacks.
Command isn’t going to be of much use until I’m a lot more powerful, Appraisal is as handy as ever, it turned out to be more useful in battle than I thought it would be, since it helps me identify a target’s strengths and weaknesses based on their stats.
I didn’t get to use Treasury since it isn’t really viable in battle, but it should be useful if I ever end up breaking my blade or something.
The one I used today is a copy, I’ve got the original stored in Treasury, so I’ll be able to make another copy if this one breaks.
On that note, my gear got pretty wrecked, only the boots are undamaged, I’ll have to toss the rest. But it’s not a problem, I can make new copies to replace everything that got damaged.
Moving on, Lethargy was a lot more effective than I thought it’d be, I doubt I could’ve beaten the Dungeon Boss if it wasn’t for that.
The effect of that Skill definitely slowed the Monster down, and I was still struggling to keep up, I’d almost definitely be dead if it was at full speed.
And finally, Obliterate.
While the activation conditions are a hassle, it’s pretty damn powerful, not only is it next to impossible to block, but the blast is so fast that it’s extremely difficult to dodge too, it pierced the Monster in an instant.
The only Skills I didn’t use were my two Lust Skills, two Envy Skills, my second Wrath Skill and second Sloth Skill.
Of those six Skills, I don’t have enough MP to use three of them, and as for the other three, two cost a large enough amount of MP than it wouldn’t have been worth using, and the other wouldn’t have been of much use in battle.
"Hm? Wait, hold on...I hear footsteps," Frowned Lector, stepping in front of us with a wary look on his face.
We were down to the fifth floor, not much further till we reached the entrance. I doubt we missed any Monsters, so it’s probably...
"There they are! Looks like they’re all alive!" A voice rang out, right as several people came into sight.
Looks like Hunters...the Healer and Detector must have called for help.
It’s a good thing I managed to defeat the Dungeon Boss, because by the time these people would’ve reached the Boss Room, we’d all have already been dead...