Arriving at the edge of what looked to be a construction site all the way at the other side of town, Leon and Alyssa came down from the car, walking into the site proper, where a young lady not older than 25, dressed in flexible but professional clothing was waiting.
"Miss. Carter." She greeted, rushing over in hurried steps to meet Alyssa as she kept walking forward. Leon listened from behind as she gave several details, going through a few things, most of which he didn't even understand. Even at that, he was sure she was debriefing Alyssa on the dungeon.
'Seeing as I'm not involved, she must think I am not going in.' He thought to himself.
It was an uncompleted office building with several floors. After going up a few floors, the lady led them to space where the dungeon gate had appeared.
"I'll wait here for you, Miss." The lady said.
"Ok. Come on, Leon, what are you lagging behind for?" Alyssa said.
Leon simply nodded, walking up to her as they proceeded to approach the dungeon gate. Leon was about to walk in when Alyssa grabbed his wrist and pulled him back. "What are you doing? Entering separately will split us up."
She didn't bother explaining, and with their hands held, they both went into the dungeon.
The lady outside was stunned for a moment. She hadn't expected Leon to also be entering the dungeon, after all, not only was he not dressed like someone ready to raid a dungeon, he didn't even look interested, 'he didn't even make an attempt to listen in to the briefings. Who's he? Miss. Alyssa even appears to value him much.' She compared the little interaction she witnessed to what she knew of Alyssa. It wasn't adding up.
Allysa and Leon appeared within the dungeon, and for the first time in his life, Leon was standing in a desert. All around, as far as the eye could see, was sand.
"You weren't listening, were you?" Alyssa said, letting go of his wrist. "Let's move forward. Our targets are sand lizards." She didn't explain further, so Leon concluded that he was expected to know what there creatures were.
He looked around hoping to find a trace of these monsters, but he saw nothing but sand. 'I better just play it cool until we face these lizards.'
After walking in a particular direction for two minutes, Leon was already tired and could feel the overwhelming heat bearing down on him. It felt as though his skin would start sizzling at any moment. He really couldn't take it, while Alyssa looked completely fine, her summon was a phoenix after all, of course she was fine in such an unbearable environment.
"I suppose the real danger of this dungeon is the ecosystem rather than some lizards?" Leon said, physically exhausted at this point, and it had only been five minutes.
Alyssa didn't respond immediately, but looking at him, she couldn't help but notice how weak her stepbrother was at the moment. 'He's just like any regular summoner. Was the phenomenon a dud?' She could only sigh and wave off the thought. "I guess you also forgot about the monsters you've studied about too? Sand Lizards are not just, 'some Lizards'."
As though waiting for her to say that, a tremor passed through the ground. In different places, the sand looked as though it was sinking into the ground, and from those places, lizards appeared, bright yellow in colour, with double red stripes running down their tails starting from their eyes.
"This is what you call lizards?" What Leon was looking at could be called a dinosaur and it'd fit the description. These so called lizards were the size of horses, and they didn't appear one at a time but 12 appeared at once.
"I don't give the names." Alyssa turned and began walking away from the circle of creatures now orienting themselves toward the two humans in their desert. "They're all yours. I'll step in if things look genuinely out of hand."
Leon was left completely dumbfounded. Was he actually brought into this dungeon to be tested? It was just absurd!
He had called out his newest summon, the Grade 2 skeleton warrior the moment the sand started shifting.
Though he himself was indifferent to it and didn't take it as much, his new summon was quite something. The death energy it carried rolled outward across the sand in a wave that made the nearest two lizards pause and reassess. This one was much thicker than the others, and for living creatures, death energy like this was only bad news. Not only was long exposure possibly fatal, it induced a sense of fear even in the strong.
The sand lizards' pause lasted a few seconds before they committed anyway.
He sent the skeleton forward and started working.
This new summon of his moved differently from the others, noticeably so. It was faster in the transitions between strikes, and more decisive in the weight it put behind each movement. Leon found himself not needing to give directives most of the time, as it knew exactly what to do.
When the first lizard lunged it met the greatsword in a collision that sent the creature sideways and created the opening for a follow through strike that connected cleanly. Leon was very impressed. He only needed to give a few inputs and that was mostly it.
With one down, the second fell within the next minute. Those two attacked at the same time while the rest watched idly.
Just when he thought he might have the leeway of fighting them batch after batch, three charged his summon.
...
A/N: SO sorry for the lack of updates. I unfortunately relapsed in my health. I thought I had gotten better, turned out that was not the case. I'm still not 100% fine now, but at least much better and I'll start updating again. Let's pickup the pace!