Dungeon Menagerie 32

Commissioned by InfiniteChaosRei

Dungeon Menagerie

Chapter 32

-VB-

Lili … Lili had to admit that she was a little scared. She never saw the Monster Rex Goliath before, and there was a good reason. Like all adventurers said, it was called the newbie killer for a reason. Why its spawn point was called the Big Wall of Grief for a reason. 

She’d thought about this before during the few days they have been in the Dungeon and thought that she was ready for it. 

She certainly wouldn’t be fighting up front, and she would run as soon as things went south.

With Mr. Bell in tow, of course. If there was one good thing about being a supporter, then it was the fact that she could carry anything and Mr. Bell certainly fit under that category. Vanessa had her friends so she didn’t need to worry about her at all. 

Chauky was deceptively fast, after all. 

But still…

Fighting a Goliath as a Level 2 by herself basically? Because Bell was still a Level 1? All for a “friend” that she pulled out of nowhere like a lottery? 

That was insane. 

She still thought she was insane for coming along because Mr. Bell wanted to help Vanessa. 

Vanessa was a bad influence on Mr. Bell.

She let out an explosive sigh as they approached the Big Wall of Grief. The place where so many adventurers came to die. 

Would she be one of them, too? A little too slow? A little too big to escape notice? 

She hated that she felt this vulnerable and weak. 

She hated it. 

But she’ll endure it for Mr. Bell. It wasn’t as if he was going to get involved in disasters like this dive over and over again, right? 

(Right?)

As they approached the Big Wall of Grief that laid beyond the forest… it happened. 

There was a crack that rung in the air, and a giant hand blurred out from the walls. 

It was a giant hand. It was so big that it could probably grab Chauky completely, close around her, and not show her at all. That’s how big it was. 

Lili was starting to get second thoughts about this. 

As the Goliath emerged, it roared and shook the entire floor.

It was … giant. 

It was the biggest living and moving thing she’d ever seen.

And Vanessa took one look at that beyond the trees in front of her, sniffed, and marched forward with the certainty of a woman on a mission. 

-VB-

Goliath.

It wasn’t the Black Goliath that needed multiple high level adventurers to take down. 

It was a “regular” Goliath.

If … If it had been a Black Goliath, then she would have cut her losses and ran. There was no use fighting something she couldn’t win, even if it would have hurt Chrysalismon. 

But, thankfully, it was a regular Goliath. She had a chance here. 

Vanessa felt her grips on her spear and sword grow taut as she looked at the giant monster slowly turning to face her and Bell. 

They had a plan. They discussed it. 

But now that she was about to fight the Goliath, her plans felt … she felt unprepared. 

Now was not the time to second-guess, though.

“Mori!” 

Mori shrieked as he stomped. 

From the thin air, half a dozen ropes appeared. One of them wrapped around the Goliath’s neck and pulled while the other five grabbed at its fingers and pulled them up. 

The Goliath stumbled and struggled, but it was too big to be hurt by Mori’s special attack. 

“Now,” she hissed.

She and Bell jumped into the fray, shooting across the forest around the Goliath, and then struck at it from its flanks at the same time. 

Already occupied by the black ropes, the Goliath didn’t have a chance to counterattack. 

Vanessa cut swathes across its body and Bell cut away at its tendons. Their slices lasted but a few seconds, and then they immediately jumped away as the Goliath reacted to the attacks and vigorously kicked around. 

She landed on her feet and jumped away once to bleed off the fall’s momentum and then looked up at the Goliath.

She grimaced. 

Their attacks barely had an effect on the boss monster. 

“Again.”

And they jumped back in. 

Vanessa grunted and then yelled as she stabbed the spear into the back of its right leg. Then she used it as a springboard to jump up. The moment she slowed around the Goliath’s mid-back, she grabbed her cleaver-like sword with both of her hands and spun to cut into the monster’s back.

Each time her sword sliced into the Goliath, she saw more slices forming around the wounds she sliced open. She continued to spin and slash as she fell down, and then reached out with her hand to grab the spear. 

She winced as her fall came to an abrupt rest before the momentum pulled the spear out of its place in the monster’s flesh.

As the Goliath screamed and tried to kick her away, she used its own movement to boost her kick off of its leg. 

When she landed, she looked to Bell. 

He’d fallen back before she had, but it looked like he’d done some good damage to its legs as well, taking particular care to savage its Achilles’ heel.

Did the Goliath’s heel tendon even work like a human’s? It had a human’s general form, after all.

“Aga-.”

And then they heard snaps above them.

Both she and Bell looked up, and her eyes widened when she saw Mori’s black ropes dissipating away.

The Goliath.

It broke Mori’s ropes?! 

It finally took this chance to attack them. It spun around and kicked. 

Vanessa barely brought the flat of her sword up to guard her body, but instead of blocking the hit, the Goliath’s kick slammed into the flat of her sword, pushed it up against her side, and then sent her flying.

She spun dizzily in the air before somehow orienting herself. Upside down. She quickly corrected that before slamming into the forest canopy. She winced and flinched as the tree branches cut her exposed skin, face included, and then she nearly rolled down to the forest floor. 

She landed safely on her feet, and quickly ran back towards the fight even though her right side screamed at her in pain. 

It took her only a few seconds to come back out of the forest, and saw the Goliath getting strung up again by Mori’s black ropes, but in the small window of time that she had been flung away, he’d rushed in to act as the second combatant. 

Bell … didn’t look good. In fact, he looked terrible. His arms didn’t limp bonelessly but the way he was twitching and wincing told her that he got hit pretty hard right after she must have been tossed aside. 

“Keep him occupied!” she shouted as she rushed back in. 

The Goliath heard her yelling and tried to turn toward her, but Mori jumped up and smashed his talons into the Goliath’s chest. Bell moved in right after Mori jumped, and sliced away at the hamstrings. 

And then it was her turn. 

She jumped up and spun to kill.

One slice. 

Three hits.

Two slice.

Six hits. 

Three slice. 

Nine hits. 

Vanessa landed on her feet and then stumbled, wincing from the pain radiating from all over her body and the dizziness from spinning like she had. That spinning attack did a number on her, but she couldn’t have done it if her sword, the gift from Mori, didn’t weigh so light in her hands.

She looked up at the Goliath and grinned. 

It was finally coming down. 

She jumped up again, determined to make her next strike the last. 

She yelled and swung down. 

Her sword slammed and sliced into the back of the Goliath’s head … and it finally slumped over. 

She landed and looked. 

It stopped moving. 

She quickly backed off. 

“Mori?” she loudly called after her friend, and he quickly undid the ropes holding the Goliath upright. 

As soon as the ropes dissipated into the aether, Goliath’s body came crushing down. 

She stood there with her hands on her sword … (wait, where did her spear go?) and waited.

And waited.

And then grinned. 

“We did it!” she yelled as she threw her han-.

The Goliath moved.

Its arms and hands blurred as they moved to slam down on her, and she yelped and dove out of the way.

It was right at this moment that the Celestial Menagerie blossomed… and then shrieked inside of her soul.

Be warned. An anomaly comes. 

Be warned. An anomaly comes.

What the hell was she su-?!

She dodged out of the way again, this time on her feet, as the Goliath started getting up. But ropes appeared from the thin air and roped it back down to the ground. 

Be warned. The Golden Cage is not in effect. 

Be warned. The Golden Cage is not in effect. 

She gritted her teeth. She didn’t know what the Golden Cage thing was, but she cou-.

“AaaaaAAAHHHH!” she screamed as she jumped up into the sky. 

Be warned. The anomaly is breaking through.

Be warned. The Golden Cage is taking effect. The Golden Cage has activated.

Vanessa came back down from her jump with her sword held high, and then swung it down towards the Goliath’s neck.

And bounced right off of Mori’s black ropes because her aim was horrible while in the air. 

‘Oh shit.’

Crack.

Wait, that sound came from behind her. 

But her attack was good enough for the rope to break not too long after, and the Goliath pushed off of the ground. 

She panted as she looked up. Her legs and arms were tired now. Her side still ached. 

“Fuck…”

“Analyzing.”

She blinked. 

And then froze. 

She whirled around to face -.

Her face paled. 

Floating above the ground without any sort of visible means to do so was a creature that had been the cause of all of her problems. Its metal-plated body and tentacles turned to look down at her. The way its two tentacles whirled and flicked as they unraveled underneath it reminded her too much of geometric animations

She didn’t know that it was this massive. 

A dimly glowing purple large eye that was bigger than a tall man looked at her and then at the rising Goliath. 

“... That’s unexpected.” 

The Goliath turned toward her and bellowed. 

She snapped back around. 

Even if Vel’Koz was here, the Goliath was -!

There was a keening sound behind her. 

Then the world was bathed in purple. 

She watched as the keening noise changed into a dull roar the shook the very air around her. Her eyes could barely discern the outlines of other things around while the purple beam of death rendered Goliath down to nothing. 

She stood there, frozen, as something truly beyond her ability to fight - the cause of her problems - destroying the Goliath in front of her. 

Then the light died down, and the Goliath’s headless and mostly upper-torso-less body slowly keeled over and crashed back into the ground. 

Vanessa looked at the dead Goliath and then turned around to look at Vel’Koz over her shoulders. 

She saw the light in its sole eye dimmed back down to “normal” dimly glowing purple eye. 

“... Why are you here?” she hissed out with the bit of strength she could muster. 

It looked down at her. 

“Humans; simple, messy… yet exceptional. Just like you,” it crooned with what passed for an “eye smile.” “I am merely here to conduct my research on humans. And you, particularly. And you need not worry; I am not the original Vel’koz. That I can tell from the unseen chains acting upon me.”

She glared at it before her shoulders drooped. 

If there was one commonality between all of her Friends, then it was that regardless of their original version, they were all hers. 

And if Vel’koz was now … her Friend… then she didn’t have to worry about him.

“... How do I fix Chrysalismon’s infection of the void?” she demanded.

And if he was her Friend, then she better use him.