Chapter 65:Boss Basilisk

Simon had a lot of things on his mind, foremost of which was the fact that his 'hidden powers' seemingly had no end to their depth. So much so, that he believed that he held more 'value' than he reasonably should or wanted.

There was a slight glow on his bands as he understood what that meant.

If this got out, his life would no longer be his own. No matter how he tried to think of trying to find a way to live openly with this. He knew was already on the edge of being too desirable to care about his own wants and desires.

But he knew that whatever this was, it was too powerful to care about his wishes.

That meant that this discovery would be buried and Simon would have to hide a portion of himself. He loathed thinking about how it might stifle his growth, unable to ask others for advice and entirely dependent on his own devices.

"Oi! Boy! Are you still with us?"

A loud and rowdy voice snapped him out of his spiral and turned his head up to see Rana tap her feet, which was more like rapid stomps as she looked at him in exasperation.

"Yeah..."

"Good! Cause we all have rested enough, time to fight a dungeon boss!"

It took a second for that to sink in. But Simon still had the sense of presence to ask.

"What is a dungeon boss?"

Rana let out a long sighing breath through her nose as she answered.

"Right. Hillbilly. Need to remember. Bosses are like supercharged monsters or monster girls kept at regular intervals of the dungeon as a sort of power and skill check for tamers. We are a little too strong for this dungeon but bosses are never to be underestimated. The fuckers are given arenas that are designed so that they can abuse them to add an extra bit of 'challenge. Got that?"

Simon nodded, as his brain started to shift from introspection to analysis.

"Ok... So do we know what we are fighting?"

"Not really. The dungeon will choose any monster or monster girl and create the whole thing as you enter the arena."

"Alright. What are our choices here?"

"We go down and fight the thing. If we win, we get a reward decided by the dungeon and the option of leaving or going deeper. A loss would normally mean death unless you have one of these."

She waived an escape crystal as she said her last line the continued.

"Or we can use this crystal to warp out right now and be done with the current delve. Though you will owe me another feeding if we do so."

She gave him a fierce and lusty grin as she said so.

Simon huffed.

"I will give you one either way. Amy. Stella. What do you guys think?"

Amy gave him a happy affirmative bark while Stella who was now done with packing everything up gave him a shrug.

"Whatever you want master."

Curios about what this might entail and desperately needing an excuse to get his mind out of the gutter, he said.

"Let's do it."

"Then just jump in the circle."

He looked at the circle and as commanded jumped into the circle putting no more thought into it.

Like every other time, the was a blink of absolute darkness before the scene shifted.

This time, however, he was not greeted by a sea of trees, instead everyone was standing in waist-deep water with massive craggy rocks strewn all across, each with a cavernous entrance to them.

Yet none of these were the most interesting decoration in their vicinity.

That title went to the gargantuan black serpentine body wrapped around itself about a hundred or so feet away.

"Well, shit."

Rana was the first to react.

She quickly turned to everyone as she shouted.

"Tier 3 Boss Basilisk! Two things you guys need to be aware of! First, if it looks at you it is a guaranteed paralysis! None of us has any resistance, magic, or potions so that is fucked! Second, it can go into any of those rock tunnels and come out from any other! But there is good news, as a tier 3 boss it can only paralyze three targets at a time per party engaged with it! There is also the fact that because of the aura effect combined with our natural physicality, it poses very little threat to the monster girls. However!"

She was saying it all rapid-fire and his focus was on Simon as she quickly tried to say these next words.

"You are still vulnerable to its venom, fangs, and its constricting muscles. You need to..."

Her whole body was frozen in place as she was about to say her next words.

Simon realized why she was trying to speak so quickly.

While his focus was on Rana, a spot of yellow had opened on the sea of black.

That yellow orb shifted, Simon now noticed the slit of black at the center of the yellow and it was looking right at him.

Feeling a bit under the whether so a slightly shorter chapter today. Hope you all still enjoy.