"Hey, am I even needed here?" - Former Floor Boss

"...Not so sure myself." - Garami

I and the former boss of the 5th Floor of the Water-Knot have arrived at the "left eye"..., or, in the forest surrounding it. This should be the scene where the former floor boss goes in and show off his power to kite the monster snakes away...

If the whole place hadn't transformed into a monkey pandemonium.

Mira, what did you do to these guys!? They're fighting anything in sight with enough vigor and heroism to be mistaken for paragons! For what reason did I recruit this guy for this job?

"...Consider yourself lucky that your work's reduced then. Stay hidden and throw a spell or something if anyone gets in trouble. And try to find the cat while you're at it." - Garami

"Ok. Just one question." - Former Floor Boss

"Yes?" - Garami

"What's a cat?" - Former Floor Boss

"......Just snipe with magic." - Garami

I jumped off the snake's head and started to run through the shadows of the forest. The lemur who had acted as my guide jumped off as well and ran to a safe treetop so it wouldn't be hit by any stray bullets.

The fire-snake's occupied with what appears to be something a lightning bolt and a gorilla ended up with after having a night in the red-light district. As for the black snake... it's covered in gorillas. Those guys don't flinch even when their friends get swallowed alive. Just crazy. They're lucky the black snake's not as strong on land as in the river. Still strong enough to fend off the smaller gorillas. 

The card soldiers are supporting the two snakes... if "supporting" means the same as being either trampled flatter than they already are, or burned to crisps due to lightning.

The card soldiers ain't weak. Around Lv.20 of E-ranked battle-species? But the gorillas have so much momentum and heat that they just flat-out destroys the card soldiers. 

I decided to ignore the strange army of gorillas and ran to the place where the card soldiers emerged, which means it's the place where a certain goat-head is at the moment. 

"Those wretched primates. Why did they choose to attack today of all days?" - Avido

...Craaaap. He's completely composed. And gutting monkeys left and right.

Goat-head is manipulating the cards in mid-air, almost as if they were controlled with telekinesis or something. And there's some sharp edge coming outta the cards as well, cutting through the monkeys with ease... hey! Those are buzzsaws! Buzzsaw-cards? You jokin'!?

He's even got the time to protect the thugs that are hiding behind him... wait, he didn't, like, let them sail their own sea? What compassion!

But seriously, is Trick Dealer supposed to be that amazing!? Or... it's the cards. They're weaponized. 

Damnit! Why didn't I think of that? If he can use cards as he likes, then won't he have a higher amount of weapons to use? And if they all have abilities in the class of my own equipment... if that's the case, won't it be like him having 52 Thaumaturgy Revolvers equipped?! Even if it's not the same level of quality, with that quantity...

"Time to clear this mess..." - Avido

Crap! He's aiming at the gorilla boss! I hurriedly drew the Revolver and fired at goat-head, at Avido. The bullet went straight towards his heart-!? He's got Auto-Guard cards even!?

"Figures there would be someone sneaking around. Even so-!" - Avido

Damn, the cards heading gorilla-boss ain't stopping... no, they're coming for me instead!

However! I won't dodge them! They're homing types anyway, as demonstrated from when they shredded the apes before.

The cards' trajectory is visible thanks to [Intuition], so I used that information to successfully Arrow Parry the cards back to Avido.

"Yikes!?" - Avido

Avido dodged the cards right before they could finish the deal. The force of the parry must have knocked away the control or whatever he had over the cards, or maybe he was so surprised over the cards being parried? He had a face that screamed "What in the world!?" when I sent the cards back to him. Even him having a goat face didn't prevent me from getting that.

The moment after I parried the cards, I moved to Avido through [Blink], Carnwennan in hand, and used Backstab in the hope it would finish him off.

It didn't. Damn Auto-Guard!

"Tch, nasty little girl-" - Avido

I didn't bother listening to his complaints and tried to get in another Backstab (which doesn't live up to its name by now). The Auto-Guard kept on blocking the thrusts... but the number of Auto-Guard cards is dropping rapidly. Several of them are needed in case of a strong attack...

Let's go full force then! Chaotic Zahhak!

5 python-like dragon heads emerged from the ground and attacked Avido. It's straight out painted on his face that he didn't expect this.

Tch. He blocked even that. I expected to make him use up his Auto-Guard cards, but who would have thought he ordered the black snake to take the hit for him? Not to forget that the snake could break itself free from the brawl against the monkeys. The snake's down for the count now, but for how long... huh?

"Alright, you. I'm stopping wearing the silk gloves now, so you better be ready-" - Avido

"Behind you." - Garami

"Hah! As if there is someone that will fall to that old-*BANG!*-gyuuu..." - Avido

Despite my warning, Avido got knocked unconscious by the rock flying straight into the back of his head. He's not dead, right? I Identified him just to be sure. He's alive. Kinda disappointed. And a little impressed. He's surprisingly resistant to some stuff. I thought his head would pop like a water balloon.

And the culprit? Believe it or not; it's a Skeleton! In broad daylight! It's holding a sling, so... a Skeleton Slinger? Or something in the scout-line?

Anyway, with Avido out of commission, the remaining card soldiers stopped moving and turned into regular cards again. The fire snake's also back to normal... but the gorilla-boss took advantage of the fire snake's moment of confusion and K.O-ed him out too.

Hey! Don't take him out just cause he turned back to normal! Especially when more enemies are coming for us!

That's right, there's more than just Slingy coming outta the bushes. Several undeads, from zombies to Skeletons to walking armors, all unaffected by the daylight, emerged from the western forest, attacking anything in sight. 

Time to go! I'm not gonna fight a miniature undead apocalypse! Gotta take this goat-head with me and-

"Meow." - ???

Huh? A black-furred cat... Milo! He's sitting on top of the unconscious Avido, almost as if it was him who defeated the gambler-demon. Beside him is a blank card... so that's how. The classic "trapped in a card" trick that sometimes comes up in light novels and mangas? I've got no proof, but it's probably that.

Alright, little one, come here and we'll leave this... hey! Don't start running towards the undeads!!

I chased after the cat as it stormed towards the undeads. The slinger-holding Skeleton tried to lob a rock at me, but I deflected it without almost subconsciously. 

Some zombie-warriors tried to attack me and the cat with some rusty weapons... I don't need to explain that I dodged them with ease, do I? Even the cat ran zig-zag around the zombies as if he was just playing around.

I threw a few [Glow Bullets] at the undeads dangerously close to either of us, but the cat's damn fast... and I'm faster. Army of One kicked in due to the number of undeads, so I snagged the furry devil in a blink... using the skill [Blink]. No pun intended. Seriously.

Now, time to take you back to your owner-crap!? A large sword struck where I had been just seconds ago with a loud crash. What is it this time?

A knight? Or, a full-plate armor. There's no one inside. Identifying the thing revealed that. It's a ghost-type undead named Living Armor. As one could guess, this is armor that's turned into a ghost. It's not a ghost possessing the armor, so if the armor goes, so does the ghost. 

And damn, he's got some nasty defensive skills. Kinda wished Alf had the same... what's up with that class!? Damn, I wanna make undeads like this guy. Hopefully, they would also have the [Daywalker] skill...

I've been wondering, why do all these undeads have that skill? It's unnatural, right? Daywalkers' supposed to be super-rare according to the literature on Earth, so while I'm aware that this isn't Earth, why do noobs like these guys have it?

I resorted to dodging all the strikes of the Living Armor and the other undeads and started to look for some clue to this [Daywalker]-bargain-sale these guys must have visited.

And something got my attention through the use of [Emphyrean Eyes]. It's not their skills that's strange... okay, the [Daywalker]'s strange, but except for that, there's something wrong with these guys' aether readings. It's like something's stuck to them. Something grim and black...

Is that the reason for them all having [Daywalker]? I took a look at the surviving undeads, who dropped in numbers fast due to the gorillas, and all the undeads had the same "stain" on their readings.

Hmm, let's test some things out. As mentioned just now, the situation's already under control thanks to the gorillas. I also saw Mira and the rest beating the rotten stuffing outta undeads that got too close to Marc. Noire's even taking care of several at a time! That's Holy Magic for you!

I turned my attention to the Living Armor in front of me. It's durable, and better yet, I can easily evade his attacks despite using one of my arms to hold the hairball. Let's use it as a lab rat.

First... maybe some Turn Undead? It's easy to use, even with one arm, and it will give me proficiency for Spectermancer... let's do it. Turn Undead!

A magic circle appeared underneath the Living Armor and started to shine in silver-white light. At first, nothing seemed to happen... until the ghost started to release smoke. It's still stoic as the dead... ah.

While I was messing around watching the undead paused in the middle of the magic circle, a plume of especially dark smoke seemed to escape from the Living Armor's head... hey! Its aether readings went back to normal.

"...? GYAAAAA!!" - Living Armor

Oh? Its [Daywalker] skill disappeared. What gives? A fake skill? The Living Armor seems like it will die for a second time, so I stopped the spell. If he can scream, then he can answer questions as well.

"Ahh, ahh... HOOOOOTTT!!" - Living Armor

Oops. If [Daywalker]'s gone, so goes his protection from Mr. Sun. The Living Armor started to roll around on the ground while screaming in pain. Does he think he's on fire or something? I grabbed the guy with some threads, then hurled him into the shadows... a little too hard. He's out cold. Despite being undead!

"Garami, what're you doing?" - Mira

"Hmm? You guys are finished?" I asked Mira, who had walked over to me.

"Pretty much. This ended up being easier than you anticipated after all." - Mira

Lots of different events tilted in our favor after all. Not sure if we could have done it without the assistance from the "locals" though. No, considering how surprisingly strong Avido turned out to be, we would have been the ones taken out instead. 

"There are a few stranglers among the non-living, but that big-ass water snake took care of them before they could strike us when we had our guard down. He's your friend, right?" - Mira

"Something like that." - Garami

That guy did? I looked over the battlefield, and sure, more than half of the undeads look they're drowned corpses. I didn't even notice he did most of the job even. He turned out to be the real assassin in this fight.

"Noire's protecting Marc as we speak, but she looked like she wanted to enter the fight, strangely enough." - Mira

Not that much. She did have titles like Undead Slayer after all.

"And Alf's securing Avido and his thugs, so there's nothing left than to get this fluff back to his owner." - Mira

'Fluff' as if. It's more of a pain than anything.

"Then, there's that guy," she said, pointing towards the Living Armor.

"...Not much. He lost the [Daywalker] skill, so he's essentially harmless unless in the shadows." - Garami

"I see... then, what are your plans?" - Mira

"For him? Nothing special, why so?" - Garami

"You see..." - Mira

---

The next day...

"Thank you, thank you so much! Thank you for saving my cute Milo!" shouted Marc with tears in his eyes as we were sailing back home to Velantas. It took a good ten minutes to get him to calm down... wonder how long he will last this time?

We've gotten more rewards than just Marc's gratitude. The Quest Reward, sponsored by the Merchan Union, is nothing to sneeze at, but it pales in comparison to the bounty we got from giving Avido to the Velantas guards.

Then there's an even better reward: namely the acquisition of Sea Tree Island! 

Or better said, having the various boss-monsters there agree to have the area be under the organization's command. The monsters there under the boss's command will act as "local agents" and protect the place. A secret base is planned to be built at a later date, along with an arena for the gorillas and snakes to duke it out against each other. 

More personal achievements are that I reached Lv.26 and have attained a Material count of 2,000. This is because there were more undeads released into the jungle due to the brawl with Avido and the charmed snakes. Leaving Alf and Mira to guard Marc and his cat, plus the prisoners, me and the fallen angel had hunted down the remaining undeads until the morning.

I dragged the fallen angel so she could earn some EXP firsthand and not just leach off our with [Party]. That, and she got to improve her [Holy Magic] as well.

Moving away from the undeads, I've finally reached a level where I can say it's safe to assume I can take a new skill without getting hit with Waning again. I could do it at any time, but considering that this skill will give me my third "Attribute Technique User"-title, it's better to stay safe than sorry. 

This title is necessary for obtaining the Black-Light Technique User title. By going with the Cerberus' Black-Flame Technique User title as a reference, the requirements for obtaining the title should be:

1. Have both Dark- and Light Technique User titles. (These titles will be combined into the new one.)
2. Have both [Darkness Element] and [Light Element] skills.
3. Have another Attribute Technique User title with an attribute related to Darkness, Chaos, and/or Death.

This is true for Black-Flame, except that the Light attributes are replaced with Fire. The Cerberus has evil flames due to this title, so will I be able to use "evil light" then? The "evil" part refers to the corrosive and destructive powers mainly seen in the Darkness- and Death attributes. The new title also has the powers of the two old ones.

I've been using Light attribute moves as much as possible during these last few days so to evolve [Lesser Light Element] as fast as possible, but I still need the third title. I already have got a candidate for it, so no worries there.

"Hey, think it's because he's a cook that he's so hot-blooded?" - Mira

"Oh, as in hot-boiled?" - Noire

"Stop with the lame jokes already." - Alf

...These guys who don't need, or don't care, about their future evolutions are damn carefree. Tch, that ruined my good mood. Good thing I've got the view of the lake to soothe my soul... 

Except for the prisoner transport ship containing Avido and his crew. That bulky frame's a pain for the eye. 

"What a weird coincidence." - Alf

"Hmm?" - Garami

"Avido and us. In less than two weeks, we have encountered, and stopped, how many of that guy's plans? The guards even mentioned they had evidence that he was the one making things sour for the Plain Island ranches." - Alf

"When you mention it, didn't all this happen because he kidnapped Milo? Why take such an extra risk?" - Mira

"Stress." - Garami

"Huh?" came from all of them. Come on, it's obvious when you think about it.

"That guy's a gambler. One who was pushed into the corner by the game-breaker we know as the fire General." - Garami

"Ahh, I think I'm starting to get it," said Mira, who has her own history with gambling and knows about the fire-woman thanks to me telling about her before.

"Avido's been running his operation, his 'gambling spree', for who knows how many years now. The sudden and explosive appearance of that woman must have flipped his world. As a gambler, he knows the value of a high LUC, so that resulted in him trying to snatch Milo." - Garami

"Really? Even if you're a gambler, just relying on luck alone-" - Noire

"Avido's LUC was on 166. Milo's capped at 300." - Garami

.........

"Okay, that's the kind of luck you want to risk the operation for." - Mira

"300, is that not the highest value possible? Why did he try to kidnap the cat then?" - Noire

"As I said, stress. There could be another reason why he did it, but I think that he has..., or had, someone backing him. Someone who could afford all that fancy equipment and the bottles of sludge." - Garami

I mean, all those cards were too fancy for a simple mafia boss to have. In this world, anyway.

"Too bad for that guy that Milo had more luck than him. Garami witnessing the scene of the kidnapping must have been due to the cat." - Alf

"That's possible. It drives home that you can't rely on luck to move forward in the world though." - Noire

Yeah. Luck's only a little help at most. I've been lucky most of my life, but even I know there's a risk in relying on that. The sprite that turned her gaze away when hearing Noire's words of wisdom just now is a living example of that.

"Still, if luck alone makes you able to fight on the same level as Garami, then I would not deny having a little on the side." - Noire

When did I end up as some sort of measurement for strength? 

"That's wrong." - Garami

"Hmm?" - Noire

"It wasn't all luck. The real reason the fight ended up like that was due to his equipment... and that we underestimated Advance-tier classes." - Garami

The three looked at me with confusion written on their faces. No wonder. I also didn't notice it myself until I started reflecting on the fight with Avido yesterday.

"Avido had two Advance-tier classes: Trick Dealer and Snake Charmer. None of them were even close to being called combat classes. Even so, Avido managed to keep up with the battle yesterday." - Garami

"So... in other words?" - Noire

"It means, that the difference between Intermediate-tier and Advance-tier is so great that even non-combatant Advance-tiers can win against a combatant Intermediate-tier.

"Excluding Snake Charmer, Trick Dealers are supposed to perform magic tricks with cards in a casino, not slice-and-dice gorillas in a jungle. Even so, Avido was able to do that. It was mostly due to Avido having a set of awesome decks of cards, but that's within the margin of error." - Garami

A weapon's only as useful as the person using it.

"Even more so, a single Advance-tier class grants the owner 250 Status Points in Strength Stats. 200 if it is a Sub Class, but combined, Avido had bonus stats equal to 9 Tier-1 Ability Skills that have their skill levels maxed out. Luckily for us, Avidos's were all placed in DEX and RES, making him physically frail." - Garami

Master-tier classes outdo them again by giving 500 stats if it's the Main Class, 400 for Sub Classes.

"Question! What would happen if you combine two Advance-tiers into a new class?" - Mira

"It would be the same as discarding the two previous boosts for the one you obtain from the new class.

"The point is, Advance-tiers are more than one would first expect. After the next operation, I expect that all of us have reached, or getting close, to both an Advance-tier class and an evolution." - Garami

"Damn, our leader knows how to work one to the bones," said Mira in a joking manner, the one with the highest expectation of an extreme power-up with her Advance-tier class.

"I do not mind. That plan fits me quite well~" said the fallen angel, with a little too much enthusiasm than I had expected from her. Does she hate those guys that much? She had a Hunting Title related to them even.

"Hmm, Spearsman is already at its highest level, but should I try to clear requirements for rarer classes first..." mumbles Alf, lost in his own world. I agree with his idea though.

"Then, Mira only has one class level before being able to advance, so we're on break until then. Afterward, we will come back to this island, take the tunnel located in the 'right eye', then proceed with our raid on the Cursed Castle of Velantas!" - Garami

My little performance resulted in an upbeat shout from the three.

Just you wait, oh "Essence of Heresy", waiting there in the castle. You're the last piece of my puzzle. I'm definitely gonna get it, along with anything else in that castle!