NOVEL WEB Chapter 12: Eyesore
I don't own solo leveling or Naruto
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"I'm not quite ready to leave, there's still more this dungeon has to offer for me," Sasuke announced whilst breaking a piece off of the slab of crystal lighting up the cave.
"Oh, when you're at a disadvantage like this. I can take down pretty much anything this dungeon has to offer, but it's pitch black ahead of you. Can you really fight in those conditions?" the agent questioned.
"I've got really good eyes and this crystal to aid me, so I'll manage," Sasuke retorted, turning his back to him and moving deeper down the tunnel.
"Heh, like I said my job security hinges on your safety so I can't let you go," he said, halting his advance with a grab of his shoulder.
Sasuke glanced behind,"You say that but do you think you can stop me," he questioned, sharingan spinning lazily. That stunned feeling captured him a second time and with it thoughts of doubt surfaced at the idea of facing this kid.
'Those eyes. What are they?' he wondered with a cold chill trickling down his spine. Sasuke shrugged off the man's grip on his shoulder and walked off unimpeded.
The agent watched him walk off into the darkness with a sense of unease welling up in his stomach and excitement if he would ever get the chance to face him in mortal combat one day in the future. He could just fight and kill him now, because after all what happens in a dungeon stays in a dungeon.
However, there would be the issue of that assistant and the pressure from an entire guild for concrete answers. He was still new in this job, so the Monitoring division likely wouldn't take the heat of the strongest guild in Korea for a new recruit. That would only just strain relations between the chairman and Choi Jong-In making him more likely to leave Korea for a more lucrative offer outside the country similar to S-rank hunter Hwang Dong-Suk moving to the United States of America. The Monitoring division wouldn't want to risk leaving the country another S-rank hunter short.
'All these politics! Look at me not acting at the moment. Am I going soft?' he wondered.
No, no he wasn't, he was just being cautious.
'This kid has the moves of an assassin-type, fire magic and strength feats commonly performed by power-types as well as a unique eye technique… I've never seen anything like it so it's no wonder why I'm being careful,' he rationalised.
Leaping onto a monster corpse, he dug into its flesh with his dagger and pulled out two essence stones that he pocketed away. Planning on moving to the next one, he saw a speck of light shining in the direction of the entrance and it was followed by a myriad of voices.
[Camouflage]
He used his unique assassin class skill, disappearing from sight as he watched as a group approached the aftermath of the carnage he and Sasuke had produced.
He figured that this group was probably here to clear the dungeon. The Association had acted fast on the information he'd sent them earlier on, it hadn't even been 2 hours yet.
'Well, well, well… Look at you, little assistant. It seems I really did get to you,' he chuckled lightly, spotting the black haired woman amongst the crowd.
'It's a good opportunity to get rid of an eyesore such as yourself. Unfortunately, you made a mistake walking into this dungeon,' he thought and whilst he was still camouflaged, sped down towards the woman and slit her throat out.
The other members of the group reared back in surprise at the blood that burst from Nari's throat. She gurgled on her blood with eyes of shock and surprise. And as she fell towards the floor she couldn't help but think that she had seen a flash of familiar purple before her eyes glazed over.
"What the hell was that!?"
"That's our healer dead and we didn't even see it happen!"
"Can we even turn back now? This monster might have been stalking us from the beginning,"
The group showed varying degrees of shock and confusion at the death of Kil Nari, but all subconsciously doubted their strength to press on after such an unexpected attack. They were at a severe disadvantage if a monster in here was able to slip under their noses and take one of them out like that. They needed to move towards a significant amount of light or something.
"Huh, what are you guys doing down there?" They all looked up at the purple haired agent that addressed them."Come up here, I need your help tracking down this troublesome brat," he said, waving them up the giant monster corpse.
They all quickly ran up to join him with one of the tanks carrying Kil Nari's corpse along with them. "Uh, what happened to her?" Tae Shik questioned, acting oblivious to his hideous actions prior. "A surprise attack seconds before you called us up here, black suit," Kimura answered him.
"Is it now? And here I thought I took care of all the monsters in this area. It just goes to show that you really can't account for anything in a dungeon," he shrugged his shoulders and got a noise of agreement from Kimura. "So, you mentioned something about a kid, black suit?" Kimura questioned.
"Yeah, I did and my name is not black suit, it's Gang Tae Shik," he said with a twinge of annoyance. "And I'm Kimura, black suit," the silver haired leader replied cheekily. This only served to fester Tae Shik's growing annoyance with the man even if he didn't outwardly show it that much.
He scoffed lightly, "... Anyway, I was tracking down some dumb kid that thought it'd be fun to explore a dungeon by himself. I actually managed to catch him here, but we were split up when these dumb beasts decided to show up," he explained. "I thought it would be a simple search and rescue, but this kid is really skittish. So, that's why I need your help." he finished, jumping down towards the pile of crystals that provided sufficient light.
"Is clearing this dungeon all you're here to do, or is there another reason as well?" he asked Kimura pointedly.
"Strange that you'd think we have ulterior motives, but we were hunting down a lost asset for the little lady," Kimura answered, gesturing towards the woman's corpse. "It could be that this asset is with this runaway child of yours," Hana cut in with her own two sense.
"I figured," he muttered. "So, will you all carry on the wishes of a dead woman or turn back, because I have a feeling that the boss isn't in this tunnel," Tae Shik said, giving the dead woman a particular stink eye.
"I don't see why not? If that kid really does have an asset of the Hunters Guild then, I can use it as leverage over them for more money than I'd get mining everything in here," Kimura answered, pretty easily.
"Hey, what do you mean just you?" Hana questioned Kimura. "Huh, oh I thought you guys were wanting to turn around earlier," he shrugged his shoulders.
"Not if you think you can haggle a price from the Hunters Guild that'll be greater than the profits of this gate and besides it was them wanting to turn back not me," she shouted back, passionately, causing Kimura to step back surprised.
"Hey, you don't think I don't want to take down those guild rocks down a step or two?"
"It was only one attack that caught us! I won't let it escape my senses again!"
"Yeah, we'll be ready next time! I wanna get paid like everyone else!"
The group suddenly regained their vigour and courage to continue on in the dungeon, motivated by the idea of more money for their troubles. This caused Tae Shik to start laughing out loud. "Motivated by greed? I like that."
"Well, if that's settled then let's go find that asset and the kid, eh black suit?" Kimura grinned, gripping the hilt of his sheathed sword tightly.
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Beaming from the crystal he carried, Sasuke was able to see about 5 metres in front of him and with his Sharingan's perception he would be able to react to anything that jumped at him. That was his thought process when broke off the shiny crystal.
It wasn't too long until he encountered a dead end. This wasn't something that he was happy about and it left him quite frustrated, thinking that he wasted his time. He had been really banking on the fact that there was something inside this tunnel and he wasn't looking forward to facing that agent's annoying grin on his way back to investigate the second path.
He was about to turn and leave until he felt a slimy substance drip onto his shoulder from directly above him. Was it saliva? He looked confused feeling the strange substance and when looked up fear stabbed his heart, staring down razor sharp teeth each the length of his arm contorted into a manic grin and two beady red eyes that reflected murder, death and chaos.
He jumped back when the stuff of nightmares launched at him. It hit the ground with force enough to shake the entire tunnel system and have a few rocks fall from the ceiling. The rocks broke apart and similarly to the ones before they cracked open to reveal the magic crystals inside illuminating the tunnel.
The nightmarish creature with its muddy brown fur let out an ear piercing screech that reverberated throughout the tunnel and reached the ears of Tae Shik, Kimura and the rest.
"What the hell was that?!"
"Argh, so loud!"
"Ugh! What the!?"
Many were forced to their knees and covered their ears because of the high pitched scream that penetrated their ears and one could only imagine how painful it was on Sasuke if others from far away were put in such a state.
Its serpent-like body detached from the ceiling and sprung forward, mouth wide open, aiming to swallow the Uchiha whole. However, he was having none of that and with great effort held open its mouth with his bare hands.
He stood his ground as the monster forced itself forward trying to devour him. He, however, held firm and quickly came up with a counter play to down the beast.
[Chidori Stream]
Activating his lightning style jutsu he fired off electrical currents into the beast's wide open mouth hoping to put a stop to its rampage, but it only served to infuriate it even further. That was when he lost his footing and the beast was free to flail around as it pleased with Sasuke at the mouth.
In response to this victory its brown fur turned into razor sharp spikes and started to contort and rotate its body at terrifying speeds. Sasuke in response immediately activated stage 2 of his cursed mark transformation and that was a good call because the monster started a drilling motion and moved through the wall next to them.
'I need to put this thing down quickly!' he gritted his teeth, using his fleshy wings to cocoon him from most of the sediment that they barreled through.
Tae Shik narrowed his eyes knowing the cause of that unholy shriek and continuous vibrations was from Sasuke Uchiha. A chill ran up his spine followed by a rumble beneath his feet. He hopped away from the group quickly knowing what was to come and Kimura being the keen minded individual he was, warned the others about the impending danger.
And a second later the ground burst open to reveal a terrifying serpentine creature with beady red eyes, giant razor sharp teeth, and a much smaller monstrous fleshy figure at its mouth fighting against it.
"What is that thing?" Hana screamed out. "I've got no clue, light girl. But it seems they're tussling with each other," Kimura answered, not really sure himself but definitely within bewildered at the amount of ferocity between the two. It might be a territorial skirmish between the two that they so happen to be in the middle of, but he had a feeling that that wasn't it.
'That kinda looks like Sasuke?' Tae Shik thought. 'To be fighting off a Screaming Hellbeast, these monsters are said to only appear in high B-rank to low A-rank dungeons… I'm impressed,' he thought, unconsciously stepping back alongside the group and watching the two go at it.
The Screaming Hellbeast used its superior size to whip and crash into every crack and crevice of this tunnel but it seemed that Sasuke was able to take the brunt of these attacks fairly well.
Sasuke groaned as he was rammed once again through a wall and the Hellbeast rushed forward to finish him off, but he reacted and held its mouth open once again.
'I can't be fighting like this! I need solid ground to properly contain its erratic movements.'
They tunnelled into and out of the walls where Sasuke was then flung up towards the ceiling at high velocity. He only had seconds to gain his bearings and that was far more than enough time for him to mold his chakra and launch a counter strike.
Propelling off the ceiling he cocked back his fist and socked the Hellbeast right in the jaw sending it crashing to the ground.
He slowed his descent but not enough to stop the cloud of smoke that formed around him when he landed thanks to his damaged wings.
"Woah… Did that thing really take out a Screaming Hellbeast in one strike?" Hana murmured, astonished and a little bit fearfully. She unknowingly reiterates the thoughts of many in the group.
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