With this, my feeling of guilt for my laziness lessened a little. 

“Who are you?”

The mercenary asked and it took me a second to get it, that I understood what he said. How could it be possible? He was speaking an unknown for me language moments ago. Was it some spell that the new guy used? Or was it his aura that made everyone understand each other. Actually, I don’t know how this second option even came to my mind.

The fact was that I understood what they were saying, and the oppressive aura was still there. The fact that the guy seemed friendly didn’t lessen the burden on me even a bit. I was struggling to move, and after a moment he finally noticed it.

“Interesting, I’m pretty sure I’m blocking all of my presence right now, and yet you seem to be crushed by it. What could be the cause?”

It became a little easier to move when he said it, but still I was struggling pretty hard. The girl and mercenary seemed to understand what was happening to me, but still were puzzled about the cause. They didn’t feel anything after all. 

“Hmm, it seems I’m not able to hide it from you. It would be a problem if you couldn’t properly listen to what I have to say, here have this.”

He said, and then threw something at me. It landed on my head, and then disappeared.

[Proficiency reached. Gained skill [Mental fortitude lvl. 8] ]

At that moment I became able to move again. I could still feel his aura crushing me, but now I was able to withstand it. That was pretty neat skill, and at a high level as a bonus. Wait… did he really just give me a skill? And it seemed like he used the same crystal that previously dropped from the bosses. Did he have something to do with it?

“What you’re guessing is correct, it was me who placed the skill crystals as rewards for killing them, but don’t misunderstand, I’m not a dungeon master. Also, they were meant to drop only when you killed them, let’s say that I’m helping you a bit, but please, don’t tell this to the real master, she would kill me. Well, at least she would try. “

Didn’t he just say some pretty outrageous things? He was helping me with going through the dungeon? But why? Also, the dungeon master is a she? Wait, it doesn’t matter, just what the hell are his intentions behind giving me skills?

“You set something as a loot from a dungeon monster without the consent of the master? Just who are you?”

The mercenary came with helping hand. He just asked something I wanted, but it’s always better when someone else asks for you. I mean you can hide your lack of knowledge this way. I never knew it was possible to make a monster drop something, and thought it was just it’s nature as a boss, and yet I found out that the thing he did was even more outrageous since he didn’t have a permit.

“You don’t need to know my identity, since we won’t meet again. You won’t continue clearing this dungeon after all. Ahh, our little spider must want to know why these guys appeared here in the first place. It was a result of an interference in teleportation sequence. The spatial distortion just threw them out along with a massive amount of energy, and that was the earlier explosion.”

Thank you for explanation, but it wasn’t the thing I wanted to know right now. Well, maybe a bit, but really, I had bigger worries for now. What was his deal with coming here after all this time. If he wanted to help, he could just transport me to the end and I would be through. But was it really my intention to finish as fast as I could? I didn’t come here to just conquer a dungeon, did I?

“It wouldn’t be fun if I carried you to the end, and also you answered yourself. Since I’m helping you, I won’t take you to the end since your aim in entering here was different. You want to get stronger, don’t you? And me giving you skills is my contribution to your cause. “

“Are you conversing with this spider right now? Can you read minds or what?”

The mercenary was getting impatient, he had no idea what I was thinking, and the guy was just answering to me like it was a normal dialogue. I was wondering what the girl on my back was doing while we were “talking” but it seemed like she has just fallen asleep. Poor little thing, I had to take a good care for her.

“Isn’t it obvious? I also know who you are, and I have to say, your methods of doing things are highly ineffective. Because of you, this little girl ended up in a dungeon with the purest scums of the earth. Good thing that this spider found her, because you wouldn’t be able to kill them all with your contract.”

What contract was he talking about? Was it something about not killing people? But he killed the fat guy without any remorse, so it couldn’t be it. Well it was something private so I had no reason to ask.

“This girl here is safe with the spider, so you can go save other slaves. Her family was killed anyway, so your job is done, since you can’t return her to them anymore.”

“What are you talking about? That would mean the whole kingdom is…”

He didn’t finish here because the black coat guy snapped his finger and he disappeared. I was confused, what kingdom was he talking about, and what about it? He sounded pretty shocked so it probably was something important.  

“You don’t need to bother yourself with things like that. You are in a dungeon remember? Don’t you have some bigger worries? Also, it looks like my time is over, but I have one more thing to say. I swapped the final reward for conquering this place, and it might be something of a great interest for you. Crap, she found me already!”

I turned back and froze in place, not believing my eyes. A whole herd of sphinxes was galloping our way. Weren’t they immobile? And why was there almost a hundred of them? I looked again at the guy, but he was far in the distance, running comically holding his coat high, so he wouldn’t trip. His speed was something else though.