[10]

Slowly opening his eyes, Dante felt his body ache as he groaned in discomfort.

However, there was a certain peace within him due to how much he had been able to increase his levels, especially in such a short time. The boy was really hoping that the end of it was near, though, because if he had to go up to wave fifty or something, that would be kind of crazy.

Since it was getting pretty late by the time he decided to go back in and grind some more, he was only able to get up to wave eight before he figured that was enough, but with the increase in levels, Dante felt accomplished despite how he had originally felt.

After he stepped out of the bathroom, a towel wrapped around his waist, his eyes turned towards his phone as the sound of a notification went off. Turns out, it was Molly, and apparently there was going to be a change in plans when it came to the method in which his money would be given to him, which totally didn't set off any alarm bells within his head. However, he went along with it, before eventually getting a response that told him she would be delivering the cash herself.

…Now, that really confused him.

He would just have to see what ended up happening, though, because the brunette stopped texting him back completely after their brief conversation. Additionally, there was a quiet knock at Dante's bedroom door, and when he told whoever was behind it to enter, it turned out to be his beautiful mother, who looked a bit happier than normal.

"Hey, baby. You sleep good?" She greeted, eyeing the towel around his waist before looking back up at him. "Oh, sorry! I didn't know..."

'It's fine, don't worry about it.' Dante signed, calmly turning towards the short Latina. 'What's the matter?'

Deciding to just keep it short and simple so that he can return to getting dressed, his mother couldn't help but smile as she spoke. "Your dad and I have agreed to let you start taking online classes instead of physically going back to school."

Mirroring her smile, Dante hugged the woman. There was no need to use words in that moment, as they both understood the emotions conveyed throughout their warm and lovingly-wholesome embrace.

Internally, Dante was already thinking about heading back into the dungeon, especially now that he knew for certain he would have more time on his hands.

----------

After spending about an hour in the living room just watching random shit on tv, there was a knock at the front door that caught everyone's attention. Before either of his parents could get up, though, Dante signaled that he would go see who it was, hypothesizing that it could be Molly.

Slipping out of the living room and into the main hallway, he approached the front door with cautious steps, ready to extract a gun from his inventory within a split-second as he turned the knob.

A familiar brunette immediately met his eyes, this time dressed in a more casual but just as form-fitting of an outfit, which caused his eyes to widen in surprise. It didn't take him long to realize what she was here for either, as a downwards glance allowed the boy to spot a briefcase, which he hoped was filled with money. What shocked him the most about her physical appearance, however, was that she was actually, genuinely blushing at the sight of him.

He had no clue how to even react to that, especially when it was seemingly coming from such a serious-minded woman, but quickly came to the conclusion that whatever he did to her with that affection-increasing reward from yesterday had somehow broken her or something.

…Unbeknownst to Dante, as most of the videogames he had experienced never really possessed anything like an affection meter of sorts, the boy hadn't caught on quite yet as to how that dungeon item ended up having an effect on her, especially when it came to the outlook she now inadvertently held towards the thought of him.

Gesturing to the briefcase she was holding, no words were needed to understand the gist of the message being silently conveyed between them, as he took it from her and briefly held up a finger before closing the door. With that, he instantly popped open the briefcase and transferred all of the money into his inventory before quickly ducking into his bedroom and sliding the empty bag under the bed.

Just then, the sound of footsteps alerted him to someone walking into his bedroom, as he hurried to stand back up and act casual. Luckily, it seemed to be just in time, because that's when his dad popped his head in and curiously inquired about the knock at the front door.

"So, who was it?"

Quickly coming up with an excuse, Dante walked over to his desk and eventually pulled out a piece of paper. Once he was finished writing on it, unsure how to express what exactly he was trying to say through sign language yet, the boy held it up for his father to see.

The man shook his head in response, before stepping out and returning to the living room, where he could hear his mom ask about the knock at the front door.

"Apparently, it was them damn Kifflom-worshipping people again. I swear, those motherfuckers are crazy, just going around town while trying to lure others into that weird ass Epsilon Program cult of theirs..."

Letting out a sigh of relief, Dante quietly snuck out of the house shortly after that, where he found Molly waiting for him in the backyard.

----------

-2 Affection with Molly Schultz!

…Ouch.

The brunette had eventually revealed to him that he was most likely going to die very soon, and when Dante wisely responded by stating that he would just kill her boss before the man's supposed goons could get to him first, which was actually an achievable feat for him at this point, especially with the use of the still-active tracker placed on one of their vehicles, her reaction to that information was surprisingly negative.

With a deep frown marring her face, the boy watched Molly as she began to walk away.

…Maybe he should've just been a bit more subtle about it?

He was pretty sure the reason her reaction was like that, though, was because her level of affection and obedience towards Devin Weston had to be higher, if not already capped out at the limit. Well, at least the former, but since she had taken the effort to warn him ahead of his demise, he also figured that her obedience couldn't have been maxed out for whatever reason.

How strange.

The good thing, at least, was that Molly said she refused to interfere anymore from this point forward, and would instead let them go at it until one or the other inevitably lost their life. It seemed she was dealing with somewhat of an internal battle herself by how the brunette appeared to be behaving, so Dante hadn't bothered to give her much shit for any of it, and instead allowed the woman to leave the area without much of a problem.

Once the boy was left alone, his mind began running rampant with thoughts, as a plan quickly began to form. First, he would attempt to make it to wave ten within the human dungeon, and then, if there was enough time left throughout the day, Dante would try and end the rising conflict once and for all in the same day.

Exhaling through his nose, still feeling a bit of soreness throughout his body as he eventually hopped into the dungeon, he hefted a tear gas grenade in his hand as the world around him shifted and warped reality with ease.

It was time to put in some work.

----------

Grunting in pain, Dante stumbled and fell, landing with his back against a sturdy tree trunk as he clutched at the bleeding left side of his torso. Breathing heavily, the boy constantly glanced at his surroundings, afraid that if he stopped for just a second, it would be all over for him.

You see, once he finally made it to the tenth wave, it turned out there was a boss of sorts, which, if he wasn't mistaken, symbolized the end of the dungeon if he were to successfully defeat it. However, what he had been expecting was a human, except maybe just physically enhanced in some type of way in order to serve as a challenge.

Turns out, the boss wasn't a human at all.

…Well, not anymore at least.

Even though Dante wasn't very familiar with the legend, he definitely remembered hearing of it as a really young kid. You know, when you're in that phase of your life of being really into the supernatural and all that creepy shit.

All of a sudden, through the thick foliage and trees, he heard an all-too-familiar sound.

"...Baby, where are you? I-I'm scared!" The sound of his mother's voice traveled through the air. It was truly frightening, to a certain degree, knowing within his heart that whatever just precisely mimicked his mom's voice wasn't actually her.

Slowly, and with a racing heart, Dante tightly gripped his gun, before peeking his head out from his hiding spot.

There, within a crack through the foliage, he saw it's lumbering ten-foot figure. The arms and legs that possessed an unnatural amount of lean muscle, with a torso that thinned out to near-malnourished levels, and an ugly set of antler-like protrusions resting on it's head, with all of it covered in some type of fur. The scariest part of it all, however, was the creature's face, which was decayed and somewhat detached, as it's entire body stilled for a moment, and seemed to listen to it's surroundings.

The apparent boss to this dungeon was a goddamned wendigo.

As Dante tried moving into position as slow as possible, gradually raising his gun to aim right at the creature's head, the boy was too late to react when he accidently crushed a stick under his foot.

Immediately snapping it's head in his direction, black sockets just practically boring into his soul, Dante's eyes widened to their limits before he quickly prepared himself to go another round with the boss.

----------

He stared down at a blazing fire in exhaustion, the wendigo burnt to a crisp within the middle of it.

It turned out, after an unnecessarily-long time fighting that damned thing with way too much luck on his side when it came to surviving all of those lethal attacks sent his way, one of it's weaknesses was fire. The cannibal-turned-monster was incredibly vulnerable to quite a few hastily-thrown Molotov cocktails.

Quest Completed!

[Tenth Wave]

Objective: Eliminate the tenth wave of humans, as well as the wendigo boss.

Reward(s):

[Senzu Bean] - [Class Selection] - [Getaway Ring] - [Machete]

Briefly glancing over what he received, Dante was almost too exhausted to even give a fuck, but when his eyes landed on the first reward, he had just enough energy and curiosity over the name to check it out.

[Senzu Bean]

A mystic bean with immense rejuvenation properties.

Without even thinking about it, the boy popped it into his mouth, eager to get rid of the pain that was still coursing throughout the left side of his torso where the wendigo had dug fairly deep with it's sharp claws. Almost immediately, he felt better, as an enormous amount of energy shot through him like a lightning bolt.

Eyes widening in shock, Dante couldn't help but feel incredibly full as well, strangely enough.

With a newfound vigor, he ran over to the chest sitting on the ground just a couple feet away, and quickly opened it.

Item(s) Rewarded:

[Lotus Cash Card]

A debit card that never runs out of cash.

[Homing Launcher]

…It's kind of self-explanatory, isn't it?

Perk(s) Rewarded:

[Gone Crazy]

Growing up in a chaotic environment all your life, you eventually acclimated to your surroundings and became desensitized to all of the death and bloodshed happening around you. As a result, you now possess more of a heightened desire to participate in that chaos.

[Hearty Constitution]

A tougher body is accompanied by a slight healing factor.

[Natural Charm]

The bare minimum for whenever the affection of an individual increases has been hiked up to five points.