“Are you insane!?” Hestia yelled, “you can’t take on the goliath!? It’s too early for that.”

“I’m confident we can take it on. I even have a solid plan, you see-“

“I don’t care if you have the best plan ever. That’s still too dangerous”

“Hestia, the monsters that are on the 16th to 17th floors are level 2. If we want to get stronger, we have to pass those. floors. Other adventurers partied do that, and I don’t see the problem.” He shrugged.

He didn’t, yes; it seemed overly confident and absurd, but he had a solid plan to beat the goliath.

It was tough, but he convinced the goddess with a promise of pizza every day for the next week.

Of course, that was the first hurdle. The second was convincing, Rose, which was just as difficult, but he managed.

...

-Keehk!

Monsters in the dungeon, war shadows, goblins, and more monsters turned and ran away from a group of adventures as they marched down.

“I don’t think I quite got it,” Enki groaned, a feeling told him his skill hadn’t reached it yet.

“But it’s working. The monsters are running away,” Lilly said, trying to cheer him up.

“Yeah, but I still felt nothing.”

He sighed as they made their way down the dungeon, killing and scaring monsters.

[Dungeon of babel 16th floor]

-Shunk! -Poof!

The 16th floor did not differ from the 15th with an abundance of minotaurs. Two of them shuddered under Enki’s killing intent.

They groaned for a second before stomping and charging forwards, “Torrent.”

-Swish

He dodged the first hit, swinging up with his glaive, slashing one half as the other moved back, getting ready to charge him like a bull.

A small grin appeared on his face as he released his weapon. The Minotaur roared charging, Enki let out a howl of his own and swung down a minor explosion of air occurred. His water aura rippled as he pushed against its horn.

Both groaned, trying to overpower one another. “hah,” he let out a sigh and fell back, grabbing the Minotaur by the horn and throwing it over his shoulder, ‘heavy!’

It slammed against the ground as Enki brought his glaive down, piercing its chest.

Bell could handle himself with his speed and swerved past every hit from the monster, slashing at its vital areas, its ankle armpit, and all joints responsible for movement.

It was until the Minotaur couldn’t do he stabbed it in the throat.

Lilly was fairing easier than the others as she was riding on Verde, who was slashing at the group of Minotaurs with his sharp talons.

Lilly, on his back, shot at them with her crossbow in the eye, allowing the bird to finish the job of decapitating heads.

“Nice work, V,” Lilly petted the bird as he cooed, accepting the praise.

The group had time to breathe in that time and just went over the basics of their tactics and counted the number of magic stones they’d gained.

“Kru?” Verde looked up ahead of the group into the darkness.

“Huh, what is it, V?” Enki asked, facing the same direction. It was a faint feeling, but he was being watched.

With a quick hand sign, the others nodded and slowly rose, Lilly hopping back on Verde’s saddle and Bell pulling out his blade.

Small insect-churning sounds echoed from the darkness. The silhouette walked out, revealing itself as two crystal mantises.

“Bell.”

“FIREBOLT!”

He fired into the flames. It smashed against the mantis. The group watched as the flames died. The mantis was the same as it was before, with no scratches on it.

-Snap! -Swoosh!

He snapped his white gloves, launching a long blast of fire towards the monster and, like before, it was resistant, “I thought it was just resistant to magic but flame alchemy as well or just a natural heat resistance?”

“Enki, do you know what it is?” Lilly asked.

“A crystal mantis very resistant to magic a bit of a rare encounter we need to fight it up close and be careful its blades are sharp also they mostly appear on the 15th floor but I guess we’re lucky, huh?” He said turning to Bell who nodded.

-Scree!

It screeched, sensing the incoming battle Enki and Bell kicked off, slashing at the one in front of them. The mantises parried and pushed them back, then screeched, charged in, slashing away at them.

Bell could dodge with a hair’s length, using his blade to guide its claws away from them.

Enki couldn’t and focused on parting the hits with his glaive. He watched carefully as it chipped a piece off with every clash. He ducked under a horizontal slash and kicked the monster in the chest, pushing it back.

-Clap!

Clapping, he slammed his fists into the ground. The Mantis was about to charge when a blast of water erupted beneath the creature, submerging it in water only for a second before it froze completely.

It let out a small chirp as its body froze in the ice. Enki walked up to it, easily decapitating the crystal mantis, ‘Water magic plus alchemy equal ice trap.’

He chuckled, looking over at Bell. He was slowly being pushed back while clashing with the Mantis’s claws. The clanging of their blades sparked the air. In one clash, he let go of his blade, falling.

The mantis screeched, raising its crystal blade to finish his, but Bell flipped kick the blade in the air straight into its eye, the blade sunk, causing the monster to screech.

He pushed off the ground, grabbing the blade. “Firebolt!” Flames erupted through the eye of the monster it grew before exploding from the inside.

-Boom!

The monsters exploded, leaving behind their crystal wings. “Huh, neat.” Enki lifted one, examining it. ‘These crystals should be magic resistant. I wonder if I can replicate it... these monsters are commonly found on the 15th floor since they eat the crystals for their skeleton.’

“Guys were keeping these drops,” he said, walking to Verde and putting them in the saddlebag.

“Are you going to use them for something?” Lilly asked.

“Just an idea for a better cloak and weapon is all.”

...

[Orario Guild]

Inside a small room was a certain red-haired wolf girl pacing back and forth. She was feeling distraught.

‘Why is he going to face the goliath? Why is he so urgent about wanting to get stronger? No one wants him dead,’ she huffed, her ears dropping.

“If he dies.” She didn’t want to bear the same feelings again, not when she opened up, but the fear of being left alone to suffer was ever strong in her mind.

“No, don’t think like that is he’ll come back if he does and kills the goliath then I’ll-“.

-Knock -Knock

She was taken out of her thoughts as Eina walked in.

“We need some help in the guild's front.”

“In a minute,” she nodded, and Eina left. Before she also left the room, she took a deep breath, calming herself and went outside.

…

[Dungeon of babel 17th floor]

The howls of hellhounds echoed throughout the vast cavern as they were being slaughtered left and right by the four adventurers.

With a slash followed by the snap of his fingers, Enki incinerated the group in front of him with his alchemy.

Bell doing the same shot a massive firebolt, as Lilly shot the hounds in the face while holding herself on Verde’s back who picked up the running pack membered like worms.

Their teamwork was shaping itself to be something formidable.

Slowly and effectively they made their way through the dungeon fighting monsters they met, all the while Enki focused on his growing skill, halting some monsters only for a second before finishing them with one hit.

Whatever his skill was, it was doing wonders in paralysing them with fear.

“Enki, we’re here,” Bell called out from ahead.

The space they stood in branched open and not far off in the distance was none other than the giant monster Rex itself, standing seven meters tall, with grey skin, red eyes and silver hair.

Enki gulped, seeing the boss in the distance. His pit was in a mix of excitement, anticipation, and slight fear. All emotions he wore on his grinning face.

“Goliath, hah, right, let’s do this.”

[Freya Estate]

“This is going to be interesting~” the goddess smiled, watching Enki reveal his plan to the others.

“Alright, guys, let me give you a short version of the plan. I bury it! And we beat it till it dies!” he gave an honest smile.

“...” The faces of Bell, Lilly, Verde, and even Freya, who was watching, halted for a couple of seconds.

Freya watching snapped out of it first, “what the actual fuck?”