My Demon Pet System

"A speedrunner?" Yoichi asked again, unable to independently understand the meaning of that word.

"Speedrunners are tamers who complete dungeons only by defeating the boss, regardless of the secondary rooms and extra loots. As you already know, maps of Lumya's main dungeons can be found in so many places, and once you memorize their floor plan, you can skip the 'optional' rooms and get straight to the boss to draw from the main XP points source of the dungeon.

"I don't see anything wrong with it," Yoichi acknowledged, looking at Shioko and awaiting confirmation. The archer was astonished at the calm response of her colleague, who, unlike everyone else, did not consider that behaviour that wrong.

"Shioko just preferred to level up Nobu and succeeded to evolve it. It sounds like a great goal for a guild tamer, doesn't it? After all... isn't that what we all want?" Yoichi continued, justifying his answer.

I'd like to know Kenji's current level, but even if the blood writing appeared, I wouldn't be able to read them because of this dark and chilling environment. We need to get out of this room as soon as possible. He thought.

"It doesn't matter who I am. What matters now is to be able to complete the dungeon and find that damn necklace so that you can receive the loot you've been promised", Shioko replied, puffing as usual. Already close to the three headstones, the red-haired tamer lowered towards one of them, looking closely at the details.

"Maybe you don't understand, brother... being a speedrunner, Shioko does not know the whole dungeon but only the part related to the last boss. As a result, this is the first time she has entered this room!" Enastu remarked, underlining how serious the situation was. Meanwhile, the girl's hand touched the thick layer of moss grown on the rock of the first tombstone, starting from the left.

Scratching it away, letters appeared beneath it, giving shape to an inscription. "A... s... ai... Asai? It says 'Asai'. I think it's the name of the one who's buried here," Shioko mumbled, continuing to scrape the moss from the gravestone.

"Why don't we just look for the necklace? If it's not here, there's no point staying in this room, right? I don't think there's any loot, and... moreover, there are no demons. Brr! This place creeps me out!" Enatsu shuddered, looking at the narrow walls surrounding him and his friends, which made that cramped place even more terrifying.

The thick black mud continued to flow through the rocks and was absorbed into it once it reached the floor. At the same time, as if it were an infinite cycle, more mud came out of the fractures of the ceiling, feeding the flow on the walls.

"If this room contains three headstones, there must surely be a reason. And then... you've talked about speedrunners so far, who tend to skip extra rooms, but... maybe you're not against that idea," Yoichi commented, scolding his partner. Once again, Enatsu's fear was slowing down the mission.

The merchant tamer did not answer, storing the blame. Knowing that Yoichi was telling the truth, he tried to control himself and not speak out of place, waiting silently for something to happen.

"I'm sure your cleverness will be very helpful for us, Enatsu. The fact that this room is demon-free doesn't necessarily mean it doesn't hide a loot. Don't you think?" Yoichi asked, speaking to Shioko.

She was intent on flaying moss from the second tombstone. "Your map says the Blackvault Mines have only three large rooms, so... yes, it's impossible that there's nothing but these three tombstones in here.

The writing engraved on the second headstone took shape under the archer's eyes, who recited the word aloud. "Osai…" Shioko murmured with a puzzled air, turning her gaze towards Yoichi.

Meanwhile, the young tamer had approached the third and final tombstone, the rightmost one. With the help of Nobu, who moved over the adventurers' heads, illuminating the area, his fingers began to scratch away the moss.

Under that thick green layer, formed by small mushrooms and lichens, a word the same length as the other two became legible. "Ysai!" Yoichi spoke, straightening his back.

Suddenly, when even the third word was uttered aloud, a loud tremor enveloped the room. A seismic shock started from the wall behind the tombstones: moving like a wave in the sea, that mysterious energy coming from the underground lifted the rocks of the floor, lowering them as the earth wave passed.

Caught off guard, the three tamers found themselves unconsciously on the crest of that wave, and all the three of them fell to the ground, unbalanced. The sussultatory movement of the seismic wave perpetuated its propagation, moving it edge-to-edge into the room as if the walls were the borders of a container.

Under the incredulous eyes of the three adventurers, Nobu flew right next to the wave, illuminating its path: when it arrived at the entrance, the side walls were forced to release the energy transmitted up to that point.

*boom* - a noise similar to that of the boulder which had fallen before they entered the room echoed through the narrow walls of the dungeon. The front door had just been sealed off by debris.

"No! Fuck! No, no, no! The door is closed!" Enatsu screamed, panicking. The merchant began to run towards the entrance, crossing the whole room throughout its length. "I can't die here! I still have a lot to do! I want to get married, have a beautiful wife, many kids... what will I do if I die locked up in here?" he despaired again, trying to remove the rocky debris from the cave's natural door.

Yoichi and Shioko rose from the ground and looked each other in the eye. Within seconds, that narrow, shadowy room, in which the presence of that dense slurry suffocated oxygen, had turned into a giant grave and the three of them were the candidates to be buried alive.

The merchant's screams were interrupted by another sudden sound. This time, it came from the three headstones, just behind the two tamers.

The soil in front of them began to rotate swirling, and the rock layers alternated with muddy layers in that spot only, in a whirlpool-like motion.