Dungeon diving

"So?"

"So what?"

Looking extraordinarily annoyed at Tom's open ended question as they were about to split up, Aura's tail moved rapidly back and forth in irritation.

"Do I pass? I figured I would make a pretty good party member."

Knowing for a fact that Aura wasn't very honest in these kinds of situations, Tom glanced over to Dan, only for the swordsman to give him a knowing smile in return.

"What, how would I know that!? I hardly had time to pay attention to you because of how brilliant my spells were!~"

(... Is this girl alright in the head?)

"Oi, you just thought of something incredibly rude again didn't you?"

For the second time in a row, Aura managed to read Tom's mind, only this time he had a counter for it ready.

"Okay I see. It is sad that I couldn't join your party, but I won't let that dissuade me!"

"Eh?"

"- I'll work hard to find another party to join, thank you very much for the experience!"

Bowing deeply partly to hide his shit-eating grin, partly to sell his bit, Tom could hear Aura visibly fluster before she surprisingly firmed up.

"Ha? Why are you getting ahead of yourself!? We're still testing your compatibility with our party so don't you dare run away like some sort of coward!"

Returning to a stand, Tom found himself at a loss for words as he saw Aura's face brimming with confidence.

"Touche, let's meet here tomorrow then."

After Tom's first tryout to join Dan and Aura, he had countless more of those 'tryouts' over the next few weeks. Doing that time, the trio raked in massive earnings diving into the dungeon. Over that time, Dan and Tom grew closer together, but Aura still remained as unpalatable about Tom's presence as she was the first time she met Tom. Although Aura's attitude towards Tom never seemed to get in the way of their cooperation in battle, at least not more than her usual attitude.

While the impromptu team's individual attitudes were questionable, the party still created quite a stir in the local adventurers, as the topic of massive earnings tended to irritate the majority of adventurers when they weren't involved.

"Hey, did you hear about those two?"

Returning to his buddies after a trip to the upstairs 'funhouse', a burly adventurer seemed to be pissed off about something he had heard from one of the 'workers'.

"What two?... Ah, the 'strange pair'?"

"Yeah, they finally found a close range caster, some kid from god knows where. Rumor is that those 3 are now the top earners in town, beating even the noble sponsored efforts that just happened a month ago."

After having just returned from a trip to the local dungeon with a disappointing amount of loot, such news quickly stirred the rest of the party.

"Oi, seriously? Being an adventurer isn't something kids like that should thrive doing."

"Agreed, I didn't suffer being a pack mule for years on end just for fucking brats to to overtake me now that I'm finally hunting monsters myself…"

While most of the group had already emptied their beers and were preparing to go hunting, the party's mage seemed a little bit more cautious than the rest.

"... Do you know how they started earning that much?"

"Yeah, the new brat seems to have an enormous amount of mana, I guess he's one of those 'natural born talents' you love so much."

Being and not being blessed with a large mana pool was everything for mages, especially low-born ones that couldn't afford to go to school or hire a tutor. In this context, the term 'natural born talent' didn't refer to a mage's luck in the size of their mana pool, but the size of said mage's parents cash reserves.

"So the new member is some kind of snotty brat? I vote we go introduce them to the life of an adventurer."

"""Agreed."""

With a common goal for time-wasting other than shitty beer agreed on, the group got up and left the packed bar en masse. A few minutes later, a lone cloaked figure got up from their seat at the bar to follow the party.

When first light dawned the next day a batch of corpses were found in the nearby alley, although not unusual for that part of town, the seeming one-sidedness of the slaughter was enough for the local guard to get involved. After a short investigation, the entire event was swept below the rug and with violence being the norm in that part of town it was soon forgotten entirely.

-

"There they are, think you can keep up with this Tom?"

"Sure I am."

Entirely unaware of their current infamy, Tom, Aura and Dan got ready to ambush a group of monsters they hadn't ever seen before. Standing at about 2 to 2 and a half meters tall, the monsters looked like some sort of humanoid/lizard-like creature with teeth and claws which seemed to be designed to rip their prey apart in addition to wooden spears and clubs. Worse yet, the group of 5 seemed to have some sort of mage in their midst, in the centre of their remarkably well-maintained formation was a particularly tall member of the group clad in some kind of dark leather robe and countless amulets, necklaces and rings made out of bones with the unmistakable gleam of mana cores in between.

Needless to say, attacking such a group was overconfident bordering on outright insanity, but the recent overwhelming success had infected the trio to the point of wanting to tackle every challenge they met head-on. With everybody ready, the plan started and Tom was the first one to move. Charging straight towards the formation of monsters, Dan slipped into Tom's shadow as both of them filled their bodies with mana, drastically increasing their speed as Tom was noticed by the closest monster.

(Just like planned. So far, so good.)

Clenching his [catalyst], Tom counted the steps between him and the 2-meter tall lizard creature that was charging towards him and adjusted his own pace with what he had in mind for defeating the foe that he closed in on. Loading his [catalyst] with mana as he closed within a step of the monster, Tom swung his clenched fist holding the [catalyst] towards the monster's wooden club as he activated a spell.

"Shatter!"

Without any contact from his fist, the wooden club that was about to break Tom's wrist shattered apart violently, creating a shower of wood shards and splinters flying away from Tom and the monster.

(My turn.)

Still carrying quite a bit of momentum, Tom targeted the monster's left leg and kicked its knee with the sole of his foot. As the bone popped out of the joint, Tom used the remains of the monster's knee as a stepping stone as he once more loaded mana into his [catalyst]. Tom's second spell was even simpler than his first, he simply created an uncontrolled torrent of gravitational tidal forces out in front of his [catalyst] as he moved to punch the monster in the face. The second Tom's fist (and by extension his active spell) came within range of the monster's head was caught up in the gravitational tidal forces. With that, the monster's brain was shredded as its eyes burst, but Tom had controlled his strength to an extent that the monster's head wasn't outright destroyed.

Placing a leg on the monster's chest as it fell over dead Tom righted himself as he continued his charge towards the mage monster that was already formulating a counter-response along with the rest of its still-standing kin.

Just according to plan.

"Don't forget about me now!"

Appearing seemingly out of nowhere, Dan's sword carved straight through the monster's neck, cleanly avoiding the vertebrae while severing most of the large veins as he continued on towards one of the two remaining none-mage monsters.

At the same time, Tom continued his charge towards the mage, closing to within 5 steps Tom suddenly felt a surge of mana from the monster. Loading his [catalyst] with mana in response, Tom watched unflinchingly as the monster clasped one of its many bone amulets and stomped down its foot, loading the ground with mana and creating a series of rock spikes sprung out of the ground towards Tom. Creating a counter, Tom stomped down his own foot and discharged his mana built up in his [catalyst] into the ground as the rock spikes were suddenly crushed under their own weight as he further closed in on the monster, before suddenly dropping to the ground. Before the mage monster knew what was going on it was cut apart by Aura's spell which Tom just about managed to dodge.

As the mage monster fell, Dan cut the last monster's throat after blinding it. Flicking off the blood accumulated on his blade, Dan breathed a deep sigh before a smile formed on his face and he sheathed his sword.

"That was perfectly done!"

"Yeah, great job covering for me Dan, Aura too, you really saved me with that spell."

"Of course I did, what did you expect?"

With the monsters apparently defeated the trio lowered their guard. In hindsight, this was a mistake. As the 3 adventurers started talking the mage monster lying on the ground bleeding out decided on its final spiteful act towards those who had taken its life and the life of its kin. Clutching an amulet made out of bones with a single monster core in its centre, the monster sent out a pulse of mana as a beacon for other monsters in the area with its dying breath.

-

"Shit, I can't get through that amount of amour! Aura!"

With a sharp sound of metal scraping against metal, Dan pulled back from the monster he was facing and switched over to evasive action. Standing at well over 2 meters tall, the lizard-like monster was covered from head to toe in sharp armour which looked like metallic rock that was used for both offence and defence. Although technically not a dragon, the monster Tom, Dan and Aura were currently fighting was commonly referred to by adventurers as a small metal dragon.

"Roger! Tom, cover with Dan!"

"On it, But make sure not to hit us..."

Circulating mana throughout his entire body, Tom used [strengthening] at the same time as he loaded mana into his [catalyst]. Perhaps more so than when he hunted monsters with Lizzy and Anne, Tom had gained vastly more combat experience without the safety of his reliable teacher and a healer right next to him waiting to heal him and cover for every mistake he made.

(... I have a feeling my lance won't work on this monster either.)

Along with that experience came a better understanding of his own affinity, its advantages and disadvantages, strengths and shortcomings. Closing in on the metal dragon, Tom sped up the circulation in and out of his [catalyst], creating his signature lance spell he increased the circulation speed up until the limit of his control as he struck the dragon.

(Nothing, as I thought.)

"Get out of the way!"

Hearing Aura's shout, Tom snapped out of his own little world, only to realize that there was no way to avoid the mass of mana that was right behind him using normal means.

"Shit."

Switching from circulation mana throughout his entire body to just his legs, Tom felt his bones strain and muscle fibres break as he pushed too much mana into them. Leaping into the air, Tom narrowly avoided a mass of spears made out of highly compressed air before he started falling back down.

"Dan catch me!"

"Eh!? O-on it!"

With no way of correcting or slowing down his fall, Tom was about to get his head smashed and back shattered when Dan broke his fall with his own body. Having caught and supported Tom's head to avoid Tom's neck breaking, Dan found Tom's face a few centimetres away from his.

(... He really has long eyelashes.)

Admiring Tom's face at close range Dan found himself in a daze.

"Hello?"

Until Aura snapped him out of it, that is, her tail moving rapidly from side to side as a clear sign of her displeasure.

"Eh!- Ah, sorry! Tom are you okay!?"

"Not really… Is that dragon dead?"

Even just trying to stand made Tom's legs ache like nothing he had ever felt before. Tom was pretty sure he hadn't broken anything too important, but putting a further strain on his body in his current state without a healer anywhere close wasn't smart.

"Yeah it is dead alright, are you doubting my abilities? I hit that thing right in the head, that leg over there is still twitching."

Pointing over to the now very dead dragon, Aura looked extremely proud of herself for a while, so much so that she initially overlooked Tom's condition.

"Come on, let's continue onward!"

"I'm afraid that's not possible."

Attempting to stand up, Tom's [pain resistance] wasn't enough to counter the pain which assaulted his mind, making him fall flat on his face, if not for Dan which quickly caught him.

"I don't think anything is broken, but I can't move mana into my legs or even stand without excruciating pain."

"Ah, yeah."

Snapping out of her own pride-filled trip, Aura's face paled when Tom rolled up her trousers to reveal large blue patches underneath his skin, indicating heavy internal bleeding.

"I really did overuse [strengthening] this time around… This pain feels strangely nostalgic."

"Eh? You're using [strengthening]?"

As a mage with a large pool of mana herself, Aura knew how hard it was to use [strengthening] and had just assumed that Tom's affinity somehow made him able to move like he did as she still had no idea what it was.

"Yeah, I was forced to learn it to keep up with my instructor."

"... But how did you-"

Already partly knowing where the conversation was going, Aura still refused to even think about it before Tom interrupted her.

"My [pain resistance] level is 4, want me to tell you how it got to that level?"

"... No, I'm good."

"Let's get out of here before we get swarmed by more monsters, Aura dug out the monster core will you?"

Although normally reluctant to do anything about the mess she made, Aura realized the seriousness of the situation and wordlessly complied with Dan's instructions. With Tom unable to stand, Dan carried him on his back as the 3 adventurers made a hasty escape from the dungeon.