Chapter 86 :

Episode 19 : Brother Figure (4)

I gave Louis the amount of undead bones that he needed after hearing what he agreed on for his trade.

Afterwards, seeing how we were about to leave anyways, I started to depart this place as soon as possible.

When I was waiting for Behemoth to climb onto my arms, including Mirai getting on my head, I was thinking of a suitable name for ‘that’.

After getting my comrades on myself, I was now walking to the exit of this dungeon.

"You know the way out of here?" Whether he was suspicious or curious, Louis asked me.

I nodded toward his question and was going to hold onto Mya's hand when I was suddenly prevented from doing so by Louis.

"What are you doing?" I asked, staring at Louis who was now the one holding Mya's hand.

"You think I would let someone like you with her?" Louis expressing his distrust and disrelish, answered me and seemed to be protecting Mya from me.

"Didn't Mya say I'm her teammate?" I sighed from just witnessing an overprotective Louis.

With Louis and Mya following behind me, I shook my head and began moving further into this area.

That was when I remembered that Mya was hungry before, so to not let her feel starved to death, I took out an apple out of my inventory.

When I took a peek behind me to look at Mya, I was slightly shocked to already find her eating a bun.

‘Did Louis give that to her?’ Somewhat furious, I stopped looking at those two and took a big bite out of the apple which I was supposedly going to give to Mya.

Not caring about that anymore, I walked and walked, not fast enough to cause Mya to feel tired.

Behemoth and Mirai thankfully didn't argue much while we were walking which was great. Usually they would get themselves in a heated argument over who gets to stay on my head.

"Mya. What is your next quest?" I asked Mya.

She replied back to me. "O-Oh. It's to get 77 bluegill fish from a pond or a lake.. D-Dead or alive.."

"Good to know."

After asking her that, I switched my destination to somewhere else.

While I was moving and observing my surroundings, I pondered how HwanGi's party was doing. For the reason that Frostina and Raiden are there with HwanGi and Alaine, I wouldn't need to feel anxious about their safety and well-being.

But I did hope HwanGi and Alaine got their quests done swiftly so that my comrades could finish theirs as well.

Right now, I needed to finish Mya's second quest so that I could start doing mine. Yet, I didn't expect myself to encounter a stranger in this dungeon.

‘More so, how did Louis get here?’ When I realized that, I wanted to ask Louis about this question, yet I didn't. 

Because I figured he wouldn't even answer me of how suspicious he thinks of me. ‘To be doubtful of someone you tried to kill, how sensible is that?’ 

During a short period of walking around, I finally came across the place I was searching for.

To think that this place was where the original JoonChul slept in, I wondered if it was a coincidence that he stayed there and not found out that this cell had the button for him to escape this dungeon. 

‘Well, he was too tired and preoccupied with the undeads before.’ I shrugged my shoulders.

I then went into that jail cell, sliding my hands onto the wall to locate where the button was while Louis and Mya watched me from behind.

"What are you doing?" Louis asked me while I gave the wall a knock, trying to find the shallow part.

When I found it, I pressed into that brick to push it far back. "You'll find out soon."

After pulling my hand back and letting the brick move back to its rightful place, the wall in this cell soon opened up, revealing a whole new path toward the surface.

I made a gesture with my hand to tell them to follow me into this new passage quickly. Even though Louis became hesitant, he went in first when he saw Mya moved toward the secret pathway.

Louis halted Mya from going in first and instead let her enter after him. Thus now, I didn't understand what he was trying to do.

I thought as I was traveling behind them. ‘Surely it isn't the pathway looking all ominous that he's acting this way?’

We walked until we discovered ourselves being trapped in a dead end small circle room.

I knew Louis would be infuriated since he was suspicious of me, thinking that I led him to a trap or some sort, as a result, I said. "Wait for it. Be ready to get launched."

"What are you saying?!" Louis definitely got mad and was going to grab my collar when suddenly the floor we were standing on, pushed us up in mere seconds.

At a great speed, I quickly enclosed us in a cocoon, making sure the cocoon left no holes to let anything in.

And eventually, we were flung upward, bursting out what appeared to be a lake judging from the splashing noise. And now, we were soon in the middle of the air.

I quickly opened up a small opening from the cocoon before carefully moving Mirai who was in spider form outside to allow her to do her work.

Mirai shot out her strings onto the nearby trees, using her strength to yank us over to land.

Descending down toward the ground in an unfathomable speed, I needed to not worry about the speed but instead the impact of hitting the earth. Since the impact would be great, I waited until we almost hit land to unleash ‘Vortex Wave’ toward the ground to avoid us from having a rough landing.

Thanks to the whirlpool of water circling beneath us, we were able to have an easy descent. After that, Mirai started to remove the strings of the cocoon for us to be able to get out. 

"Are you trying to get us killed?! Look at how scared this child is!" Louis shouted in pure anger, extending his hand toward Mya to show me how frightened she was.

I saw how Mya was trembling slightly compared to the last time where she trembled many more times than this.

I apologized as I admitted it was my fault for not taking her into account. "I'm sorry Mya."

Mya only nodded as her response which somehow caused Louis to think elsewhere. "Mya.. don't just forgive him that easily!"

"Hey, Mr. Ignorant. I do not like how you talk to our teammates when you're just a stranger who prepared randomly." Behemoth grumbled but instead, only me and Mirai were the only one who understood him while Mya and Louis could only hear "meow meow! Mrow!".

"See! Even that cat agrees with me!"

When Louis said that, I only knew that he wouldn't be fine after this, since Behemoth dislikes anyone who says stuff like what Louis did.

‘This won't be good for Louis.’ I thought as I was holding my laughter a bit.

While Behemoth climbed onto my shoulder, I moved my arms out to act as a platform for him to jump off to. As Behemoth leapt off of my shoulder and then landed on my arm, I ascended my arm, launching him at Louis in lightning speed.

Eventually, Behemoth did a kick onto Louis's face, knocking the latter into the lake as well as getting himself into the water.

Because Behemoth was lucky enough to only land close to the water, he didn't get soaked as much as Louis. Louis on the other hand, he was completely submerged into the lake.

Louis's head poked out of the water as he tried to understand what was happening.

"How hilarious. Pfft." I chuckled while viewing this ridiculous sight with Mya. However, I didn't expect her to laugh with me.

"Hehehe, kitty didn't agree with you at all!" With how much she was laughing, I could see that Mya wasn't shaking anymore which was a good thing.

Then when I came up with an idea, I whispered to Mya. "Why don't you ask him to get those fish for you?"

"H-Huh?"

"Since he's already in the lake, ask him to help you." 

"O-Oh. I'll try." Mya walked closer to the edge of the lake and called out to the soaked Louis.

"Big brother! Can y-you help me catch bluegill fish f-for my quest..?" 

‘Right.. She doesn't know his name yet.. Wait, Mya is calling him big brother now?’ I thought, having Lucifer transform into a bow for me.

Louis gave his reply to Mya's request, perfectly happy to help a young girl like Mya. "Leave it to me! I'll help you as much as you want!"

And then Louis went diving into the lake in search of bluegill while I was a little puzzled by Louis's demeanor. 

"What a strange guy." I mumbled before glancing at Mya who was worried about Louis.

"Mya. Since this is a good challenge for you, why don't I let you practice shooting the fish from here?" I suggested to Mya.

"W-What? But won't i-it be hard?" 

"The water is clear as the sky which makes it easier for you to see the fish and that stranger."

"What if I h-hit that brother?"

"I'm not telling you to shoot where he is. The lake is big enough so that you won't hit him as long as you shoot the opposite side of where that stranger is."

"O-Oh, right.. I think I can do this!"

"That's the spirit." I ruffled her head and gave her a warm grin.

I hoped Mya does a better job at this than the undead part, nevertheless I shouldn't bring my hopes up because I knew it would be hard to shoot an arrow into a pool of water.

For Mya to succeed by hitting a fish, she needs to put more strength to her pull when she tries to shoot, so to let the arrow travel a bit further into the lake and pierce a fish entirely.

In view of the fact that when an arrow gets submerged into the water, it will lose its speed upon entering the lake. That's why Mya must use as much strength as possible for the arrow to advance far enough while not decreasing the amount of damages the arrow could do to a fish.

‘Doesn't matter if she cannot hit one fish, as long as she can shoot where her target is, that's—’ Musing while I was staring at Mya, something surprising occurred in front of my eyes.

[Player ‘555’ has gained a new Skill!]

My eyes went wild when I heard and witnessed the message emerging before me.

[Player ‘555’ has activated the Skill, ‘Scattering Leaves’ Lv. 1.]