Otherworld Adventure

BOOOM BOOM BANG

PZZZZTTT SPPZZZZ FWOOOSSSH

The back and forth exchange between Cecil and the Orobos went on for about another 5 minutes. Cecil was constantly dodging and landing his kicks onto the monster. During their 5 minute exchange, the exterior shell of the monster was cracked and broken down in many places.

Cecil didn't let up and constantly pulverized the monster. Many of the protruding spikes were already shattered and broken from the boy's kicks.

Throughout the entire fight, Cecil kept to his words and never once used anything other than his legs to attack the monster, although he did kick debris or any broken spikes back at the Orobos, but he still kept using only his legs.

The Orobos was constantly screeching in pain and agony as well as frustration. Since the start of their fight, it hadn't once landed an attack on Cecil. The boy was constantly flickering around the monster and dodging its beams that only came from the single opening of its shell.

As the fight ensued, the cracks and destroyed parts kept piling up on the Orobos' steel-like exterior, Cecil pushed all the mana in his mana points into his legs and kept up the intensity, not once backing off to take a quick breather.

He felt pain coming from his legs, but the boy only gritted his teeth and continued his onslaught.

'Crap... it's hurting more and more.'

Cecil began to grimace when he landed another blow onto the Orobos' shell. His pathways felt like they were about to split apart and his legs began to tremble in pain.

He channeled more mana into his legs and landed another follow up kick onto the Orobos. The kick sent it flying into the wall, embedding itself deeply in there.

Cecil quickly backed off to the far side of the cavern and took a quick breather. The Orobos was still struggling to get itself out of the wall so Cecil checked on the condition of his legs.

"!"

'I...don't think it's supposed to look like this...'

Cecil had activated Mana Sense and examined his mana pathways...and the sight was a little ugly for him to witness.

The pathways were practically crumbling with many gaps now formed in small intervals on his originally connected pathways.

'No wonder I felt that my mana was leaking out more than usual... is... is this a bad sign?'

Cecil began to worry. The doc.u.ments that his foster mother had sent him stated that his pathways would strengthen and mend itself, forming a stronger link and transform into the Mana Circuits which would then lead to a decrease in mana wastage and leakage.

The gaps in his broken pathways suggested otherwise, so he felt seriously worried about this. Not to mention that his legs were throbbing and aching in pain as he kept his Mana Burst active. The coursing mana in his pathways also leaked out much more than before.

Cecil felt like instead of helping his pathways evolve, he had instead just crippled them.

'Crap this is bad... maybe mother was right?! I should have started with the pathways on my torso and abdomen first!'

GHHHHHHRAAAOOOOOOAAAAAARRRRRR

The Orobos had finally freed itself from the wall and began thrashing around in fury. It turned its body and its big red crystal eye glared furiously at Cecil. It roared once more and a changed appeared on its crystal eye.

The ruby red crystal began to crack apart and just like how you would peel an onion, the top red 'layer' of its eye fell apart and a new amethyst purple 'layer' took its place.

Cecil widened his eyes a little, astonished seeing the change. He quickly took a stance and prepared to fight. The Orobos, with its new purple eye, only glared at the boy and once again it roared.

The red broken crystals that had fallen onto the floor began to levitate into the air and fly towards the Orobos. The crystal fragments smashed into its shell and embedded itself on it. The new form of the Orobos no longer had the protruding spikes on its shell. Instead it was covered with red crystal fragments.

Cecil took out the potion medicine that Anna had given to him and quickly took a gulp of it.

'It's supposed to heal and mend the pathways, I hope it helps.'

He directed his Mana Sense to check on his broken pathways and saw the medicine working its magic. Indeed just as Anna had stated in the doc.u.ments, the medicine did heal the pathways. Seeing this Cecil immediately took another 2 vials of the medicine and quickly gulped it down.

"Phew, let's go! Round 2!" Cecil shouted.

Once more he kicked off the ground and flew straight towards the Orobos.

"HHRAAAAAAAHHHH!!!"

*****

As Cecil was intensely fighting against the Orobos, Jena's party had finally arrived outside of the mines. They quickly dashed back towards the Lian Valley's Adventurer Guild.

When they arrived, a large commotion was currently ongoing inside the guild hall. The source of the commotion was from the rowdy adventurers who were now questioning Milla, one of Jena's party members who had gone ahead of the rest.

"What do you mean the Silent Sword is attacking the Orobos?"

"Hey, Milla! We know you've been active here for a while, so why the hell didn't your party stop him from fighting that monster?!"

"Are you crazy?! How could you let him throw away his life like that?"

The adventurers were constantly shouting and yelling at the catkin girl who was now on the verge of tears.

Jena immediately rushed forward and yelled.

"STOP IT!"

"You!"

"Jena! It's you! How could you people do this??!"

"Let me explain you idiots!"

The receptionists were helpless in keeping the rowdy crowd of adventurers in check when they heard the sudden news. They kept bombarding the catkin, Milla, with questions and criticism, but now at Jena's sudden shout, the entire crowd immediately settled down.

"Silent Sword—no—Cecil...he stayed behind to block the monster so that we could escape."

"Yeah, we heard that already. But why in the world did you guys even go down that deep?!" An adventurer yelled.

"It wasn't my idea! Silent Sword had a quest to do that required him to obtain an Earth-source Magic Stone!" Jena countered.

"Yeah! And please remember that the Orobos randomly appears inside the dungeon, so being on the 1st and 10th floor wouldn't have mattered!" Earl, the only male member of Jena's party, immediately shouted in support of his party leader.

"Tsk... still... bah, never mind..."

"We could only say that it was their bad luck..."

"Yeah... the Orobos hasn't been spotted for weeks already, so it was bound to be somewhere... who knew it was on the 10th floor..."

"That's why no one has spotted it yet! No adventurer party has dived down that deep recently!"

Jena raised her voice once more to stop the crowd from their discussions.

"Enough! Right now, Silent Sword is still probably fighting that monster as we speak! We have to go down there and support him!"

"...who's to say that the monster hasn't already taken care of him?" A skeptical adventurer voiced out.

"What's that?! Hey! I'll have you know that the Silent Sword is a strongly renowned adventurer! His rank is already enough to prove that he's abnormally strong! AND! We've seen his strength already when we were traveling together earlier!" Jena shouted back.

"..."

"We have to help him." A largely built bearkin adventurer said. He had just come down from the 2nd floor of the guild.

"Yeah. No matter what, he's an adventurer. He's one of us!" Another echoed out in agreement.

"Let's go! All in favor of going quickly gather outside of the guild and we'll set off together!"

The bearkin adventurer whispered something to the guild receptionists and one of them immediately opened her mouth and shouted,

"The adventurer guild has also sent out an emergency quest for search and rescue! Also if you're able to destroy the Orobos there's an additional reward! Any participating adventurer will be rewarded 100 gold credits for the successful rescue of Silent Sword Cecil and an additional 1,000,000 gold credits for the subjugation of the Crystal-Eyed Orobos!"

The receptionist's announcement immediately caused the adventurers in the guild to roar and many in the hall walked forward to register for the quest. After quickly registering, the adventurers immediately grouped together in front of the guild.

Jena was in front of everyone as well as the bearkin adventurer from earlier. His name was Douma and he was like the older brother of every adventurer that was active in the Lian Valley Mining Town.

"Let's go Jena! You lead the way!" Douma said.

"Okay!"

The large group of adventurers immediately set off towards the mines as fast as they could possibly go.

They encountered many monsters along the way, but the front most adventurers, other than Jena and Douma's party, would break away from the large group and hold them off and then the larger group would keep advancing forwards.

It took a whole 30 minutes for the large group to finally arrive at the 10th floor. With the Orobos now active, the monster activity in the dungeon had upped a level so now their large group was reduced to only a group of 20 adventurers.

3-4 parties were left from the previously large group of 60 or so adventurers. Their group was cut down by more than half in numbers since many of them broke off to deal with the monsters that the group encountered on the previous floors.

But what were left was the most outstanding parties that were active in the Lian Mining Valley. When they arrived at the 10th floor, it was oddly quiet.

Jena and everyone thought that they would hear the deafening sounds of combat when they arrived, but it was strangely quiet to the point of unsettling.

Jena and her party immediately paled when they thought of the worst case scenario. Douma saw this and immediately reassured the party.

"Don't give up yet! He may have not lost, but has only temporarily retreated! We won't go back until we can confirm his corpse if he's dead or until we can bring him back with us if he's alive! Now chin up! Hurry and lead us to where you last saw him!"

"Y-yes! Th-thanks Douma." Jena and her party thanked.

"No problem, but let's hurry! Every second counts!"

Jena nodded and quickly led the group towards the large cavern room that they last saw the Orobos.

When they arrived, every member of the group was left astonished at the scene in front of them.

The entire room was in total destruction. Debris, deep gouges, craters and large cracks decorated the entire cavern. They walked into the place cautiously, but they couldn't sense nor find Cecil or the Orobos anywhere.

"D-Douma! Come here!" A member of Douma's party quickly called out. He was currently holding a large red crystal fragment.

"I-isn't this a fragment of the Orobos' eye?!" Douma exclaimed.

"N-not just that boss... Look over there." His party member pointed at a location at the far side of the cavern.

When the group walked over to the location, they saw many crystal fragments littering the ground. There weren't only red colored fragments, but also purple and black colored fragments as well.

"...Just, what in the world, happened here?" A member of the group softly said in wonder.

"...Jena...over there, look," Earl pointed at a crater in the wall close to them.

"Oh my gosh!" Jena exclaimed with widened eyes as she covered her mouth.

Everyone in the group also gasped in astonishment at what they saw.

Inside the crater in the wall, was a large black metal sphere that had many of its areas broken and crushed. The group walked a little closer and saw a large opening on one side of the large sphere. There was also a large empty socket inside that seemed to have held some sort of spherical object in it.

"...it's the Orobos..." Douma solemnly said.

"It's corpse to be exact." Another member chimed in.

"The Silent Sword actually beat it!"

"Yeah... but where IS the Silent Sword?" Douma said as he looked around the cavern.

The cavern was totally empty. There was no sign of Cecil and the only thing that was proof of his existence was the destruction caused by the aftermath of his fight against the now dead Orobos.

"Could it be...mutual destruction?"