Getting closer(3)+Spoiler

(Author: I had a momentary author's block, but after reading a bit of Danmachi's wiki and thinking more about the story, I calculated that there would be three more main arcs before the conclusion of the volume).

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'ROAR!'

On the 24th floor of the dungeon, a boy and a girl were stuck between two groups of ferocious monsters. The boy, Mark, calmly analyzed the situation, distinguishing the various monsters and their weaknesses. Instead, the girl, Zoe, had a trace of hesitation, but even so, she gripped her magical spear tightly.

"This is a bit too much..."

"Didn't you say you were bored?"

"Yes, but like I said, this is too much!"

Zoe shot an exasperated look at Mark, but seeing him smile quietly, she shook her head and turned her attention to the oncoming group of monsters.

"Do we make the usual rules?" -Asked Zoe.

"Whoever kills the most wins. Maybe you will have more luck with all these numbers."

"It looks like I have to put some secret ingredients in the next potions I give you."

"What kind of ingredient?" -Mark asked suspiciously, but only got a mysterious smile from Zoe that gave him a bad feeling.

After a bitter laugh, his eyes sharpened. He drew his sword and charged toward the second group of monsters.

Zoe, who was left with her back exposed, didn't seem to be worried. She could often get into arguments with Mark, but she knew that with him around, she only had to deal with the monsters in front of her.

Mark was the first to engage the monsters.

In front of him were a dozen trolls, several hobgoblins, and lizardmen, but the most problematic of all was a huge monster similar to a mammoth, which shook the ground at every step.

"Let's get the distractions out of the way first."

Four magic circles cast 'flashbang' to the trolls and the mammoth monster. The effects were immediate, and the giant monsters began to squirm in annoyance.

Momentarily ignoring them, he focused the aura on his legs and arms and quickly made his way toward the groups of hobgoblins and lizardmen, wanting to finish them off as soon as possible.

'Shaa!'

A lizardman tried to hurt him, but Mark's arm moved like a shadow, and soon the monster was split in two, but another lizardman tried to jump on him.

Mark looked at it indifferently and leaned his body slightly avoiding the monster. At the same time, he reached out with his free hand towards the monster and shot an electric bolt that pierced the monster's head, while his other arm blocked several blows with his sword.

'Let's get this done quickly.'

Seeing out of the corner of his eye the various giant monsters that seemed to recover, he decided to finish off the small fish.

"Intent."

Immediately, the monsters seemed to freeze in fear, and four electric balls flew between them, which exploded shortly after, eliminating most of them, while the rest were killed by his blade, which seemed blurry at how fast it was swung.

'ROAR!!'

He didn't have time to catch his breath before the big monsters were upon him. The trolls relied on their powerful body and the logs they used as clubs to attack him, while every movement of the mammoth brought enormous power with it.

Even so, Mark moved without agitation. He knew that physical attacks had little effect against trolls, due to their high regeneration, so he looked for ways to kill them in one fell swoop with his magic, so little by little, each of them fell to the ground dead.

Now the only remaining monster was the enraged mammoth, which moved dynamically, swinging its spear-like fangs and proboscis that had the same force as a wrecking ball.

Mark ran towards the monster but quickly changed direction when he saw it slamming its front paws ferociously on the ground.

The monster looked with hatred at the human it couldn't hit when it noticed a strange electrical flow connected to the person it wanted to kill but it was already too late, and an electric snake, that seemed to have come out of nowhere, bit the mammoth eye, then created a small explosion.

'ROOOAAARRR!!!'

The monster cried out in pain and with its remaining eye still functioning, tried to find Mark, but he seemed to be gone, but soon after, the monster felt a prickling sensation on its head, and the next moment, it collapsed to the ground dead.

Mark, who was standing on the monster's head, drew his sword away, splattering away the blood. It had taken him little more than five minutes to slay the various monsters, but even so, there was a trace of dissatisfaction in his eyes as he watched the peculiarly unstable gray membrane covering the blade, which disappeared after a few seconds.

Infusion was the second stage of the aura, which allowed him to improve the performance of both his body and the objects he interacted with, and it was on the latter that he had begun to spend time training. The good thing was that it was less complicated than connecting the aura to magic circuits; in fact, he succeeded on his first attempt when he tried, but the problem was with the control. Since the sword was an external object, Mark had a hard time controlling the aura that came out of his body.

"Let's take it one step at a time. However, I have to admit again that her magic is totally broken…"

Since he had finished with his group, he turned to Zoe speechless. She too was almost done, but unlike the terrain Mark had fought on, hers was almost unrecognizable.

The ground was covered by a layer of ice, which complicated the movement of the smaller monsters, while the larger ones were blocked by chains of stones. In addition, various elemental spells rained down, which gave no rest to the monsters, managing to kill or seriously injure them every time they were hit, and all this without her moving a step.

"I counted 35. What about you?" -Asked Mark, once he had confirmed that she had finished.

"35 for me too. It looks like it's a draw… Mark?"

Seeing that he was looking at something else, Zoe followed Mark's gaze, noticing a firebird flying menacingly overhead.

"What is that?!"

Mark, who was preparing to finish the bird, was startled by Zoe's sudden cry and turned around in confusion, but found nothing, and it wasn't until the next moment that he realized he was tricked.

"Stone spears!"

The stone spear pierced the air and impaled the monster without even managing to attack the two.

"Would you look at that, it seems that I won. Don't worry, next time I'll try to hold back." - Zoe said while smiling pleased.

"Hah."

Mark's mouth twitched at seeing Zoe's expression, but Mark was a serious and responsible adult; so, he knew when to let things go. It's not like he really wanted to win...

'Maybe next time I should use flashbang on her.'

While Mark had dark thoughts, Zoe got a bad feeling from his silence.

"You're not thinking anything bad I hope." -Zoe she looked at him wary.

"Who knows."

Now it was Mark's turn to smile contentedly as Zoe fidgeted for the answer.

It was already the fifth day since they had made their deal, but for the two it seemed that time had flown between jokes and simple challenges.

Mark continued to train, feeling he was getting better and better, and spending time with Zoe, helped distract him from his thoughts. Zoe also had some improvements. Thanks to the large number of plants collected, she could experiment more often, moreover, her relationship with Mark had grown a lot, and even if she often said that Mark was unbearable when she returned home, she could not help but think back to the events of the day and laugh to herself.

…

The two quickly collected the various magic stones and drops left by the monsters, and then continued with the collection of herbs, but considering that this time they were quite deep, they decided to start the ascent after a few hours.

They had no problems during their journey. With Mark's ability to detect monsters, it was difficult to encounter groups of monsters like the ones before if they weren't looking for them on purpose, so in a few hours, they were near the entrance that would lead them to the 19th floor, when the Guide suddenly spoke to him.

[Host, I sensed a fragment earlier.]

Mark's steps stopped suddenly, and he quickly asked the Guide:

'Before when?'

[While crossing the 20th floor but it was quite far, also it seemed to be moving.]

'Why didn't you tell me before.'

[I thought the host would prefer to be alone, plus I was sure you'd drop the girl off in a safer area before you go.]

'This... is true.'

It wasn't that he didn't trust Zoe, it was just that Selene's fragments were a sensitive subject, and the fewer people knew about them, the better, especially considering that in the wrong hands, they could become extremely dangerous.

"Mark?" -Seeing that Mark had stopped, Zoe called to him.

"Zoe, listen, I have to ask you a favor."

Seeing Mark's complicated yet worried look, Zoe nodded doubtfully.

"I have to do something that concerns me personally… now. So I was wondering if you could wait here momentarily."

Mark scratched his cheek in embarrassment. The corruption might have stripped his empathy, but he still felt like shit leaving her alone, even being a party, and while it was true that Zoe was strong, the dungeon was unpredictable, but Mark couldn't waste time getting her to the 18th floor.

He had walked these floors more than a dozen times before, but never once had the Guide sensed anything; therefore, he could not miss this opportunity, even if it meant being selfish.

Mark's request caught her off guard, after all separating from the party in the dungeon was frowned upon, but looking at how agitated Mark looked, Zoe couldn't help but wonder what had made him that way.

"Can't I accompany you?"

"It's something I should do myself…"

After a moment of silence, Zoe let out a sigh and smiled reassuringly.

"Although I don't know what you have to do, it looks important and I have to say that the area near the stairs is relatively safe; so, I can wait."

"Haaaa, thanks and sorry." -Hearing her, Mark sighed with relief.

"But if you don't return within half an hour, I'll appoint you to taste experimental potions."

"Then I'd better hurry."

With a bitter laugh, Mark activated the partial transformation, and the next moment his figure was hurtling away.

"Fast!" -Seeing how quickly Mark had gone, Zoe opened her eyes in shock.

…

Mark's figure moved quickly through the trees and the various monsters present could barely see his shadow, but Mark ignored them. His main goal was to resolve the matter as soon as possible. He continued to run toward the position indicated by the Guide until he entered a cave.

"Now where?"

Disabling the transformation, he caught his breath and looked around the cramped and dimly lit cave.

[it's near. It's in that direction.]

Mark turned to where he'd pointed, but there was only the cave wall. Even so, he slowly approached and hit it several times. Hearing nothing strange, he thought of something and decided to accumulate the aura in the ear, which he placed against the wall.

To concentrate better, he closed his eyes and focused only on hearing.

'noise'

"Were those voices?"

Confused, he tried to put his ear back, but even after several seconds, he didn't hear anything.

[Host, I feel the fragment starting to move.]

At the words of the Guide, he decided to get to the bottom of the matter, so he launched several explosive electric spheres toward the wall, which once destroyed, revealed a new passage.

"Do you have information about such a place?"

[No, it looks like it's a new area.]

Mark nodded without too much surprise. There was a reason the dungeon was called one of the three largest unexplored regions.

Without wasting any more time, he entered the new path, which was so dark that Mark was forced to summon a sphere of electric light, which allowed him to see slightly better. He continued forward in the corridor until he reached a larger area, also covered in darkness.

He looked around carefully, but the poor visibility didn't help, at least his ability didn't pick up monsters.

'crack'

At that point, his still enhanced ears heard a noise, and his head immediately spun, and out of the dark stepped a figure two heads taller than him and attacked him mercilessly.

'Clank!'

He managed to block the enemy's weapon in time, allowing him to see who it was, and was more than surprised to see a red-scaled lizardman covered in good equipment.

'He's much stronger than normal lizardmen.'

Feeling the weight of the blow, Mark made a quick estimate of the monster's strength, but as his gaze focused on the monster, his pupils constricted at what he saw, causing him to react slightly late from an attack that came from the other side.

'slash!'

'GHH!"

He managed to push the lizardman away and lean his body as far as possible to dodge, but even so, he received a cut on his shoulder.

Jumping back several times, he had more space to analyze the situation and identified that the monster that had attacked him was a gargoyle, but the surprises didn't end there. The cave was suddenly illuminated, allowing Mark to see various monsters, but the strangest thing was that they all belonged to different races and many of them were fully equipped.

'This does not make sense.'

Mark could accept that he couldn't sense monsters with his ability and that each of them was a different race, but there was one thing he couldn't understand.

'Why does each of these monsters have an aura?!'