"Is this really necessary?! You've already recovered your shade grimoire!" Yuuvia bellowed with a shuddering stutter as she was forced to sit on her staff like it were a broomstick, resulting in its jittery vibration to ripple through her. Holding tightly onto her staff with the might of her legs and arms, Yuuvia was barely able to keep her mind focused on restructuring the staff's active spell, let alone keep the thing aimed towards the baron slime suspended in the air.

  Usually, handling such a straightforward task as glyph tuning and aiming her staff was as simple as breathing for someone of her status and acclaim; however, despite all her training and magic practice, nothing could have prepared her for what she was presently trying to perform: not only was she suddenly thrusted with the request of usuing a whole new branch of magic out of the blue but then that Inkaro had to go and added onto it by having her simlcast it with her tapestry spells.

  Situated and orbiting right around the tip of her Crescent of the Waxing Moon staff was one of Inkaro's floating Sky-Style Syntax: Air Writing rings, one bearing the diameter of roughly a meter and the colourless colouration indicative of spatial-type magic.

  Sure, she prided herself on being a peerless prodigy when it came to getting the uptake on any subject thrown her way, but a whole new field of magic she hadn't known the existence of until a few minutes prior was a stretch, even for her. Through a gritted grin, Yuuvia mumlbed something incoherently to a person who didn't seem to be there: "I don't know whether he's finally understands my genius, or is simply... um...."

  "Blinded by a sort of fatherly wrath?" Hlyswo asked with unbridled sass and snark, returning to the forefront of the noble girl's mind. Yuuvia somehow managed to simultaneously do something, thanks to hearing the presently non-tangible guy's voice: a wicked grin of devious planning and a fearsome scowl to burn right through the dome of anyone in her line of sight.

  She squeezed her eyes even tighter, mentally groaning so aggressively and squeezing her fingers against her staff until both turned weakly white. The air turned increasingly cold, matching the girl's present feelings towards the guy presently residing in her mind, not that Yuuvia noticed the shift in the atmosphere with how heated she was.

  "Not in the mood, Hlyswo." Yuuvia's commanding and cold tone left little to the imagination for Hlyswo, being that Yuuvia wasn't about to put up with his antics for once. She felt the guy's presence vacate her body without much fanfare, which somewhat surprised Yuuvia, not that she'd complain about receiving a free pass on Hlyswo's mental pestering.

  She knew he'd be back soon, so she savoured every second of his absence like it would be her last chance to.

  "Truly a splendid display, even if the design is more to Enulatina's tastes, finishing moves deserve to be a bit flashy," Inkaro stated aloud, hamming his praise up just a tad, not in hopes to embarrass Yuuvia but to rub it in to the baron slime that dared to touch one of his precious grimoires so brazenly.

  Hearing the guy's praise, Yuuvia felt a torrential surge of pride fill her soul, only for the thought of her not knowing what Inkaro was going on about to hit her like a train and bring her back to her senses with a bemused smile. As she slumped her shoulders weakly, she raised her field of vision to the once magically suspended baron slime before she deeply exhaled, realising she did something absurd: properly executing glyph tuning without consciously doing so, something only a Master Class Shaman would be capable of.

  No longer suspended purely by the gravity magic of the SSS:AW ring, the once gelatinous and morphable monster had been frozen solid so thoroughly that not a drop of water could've remained. Not only that, the baron slime sat atop a towering and immaculately carved ice sculpture of a flower formed from using the deep slime pool as materials for its construction.

  Yuuvia had no words. None at all for the feat of labour she produced by accident.

  She figured such a feat should bring her immense joy and pride, but the ego-stinging fact that she hadn't done it intentionally truly soured any sense of accomplishment she could've squeezed out of such an action. But she'd be damned if she'd let Inkaro know her opinion on her impressive display, and risk him giving Lizu any teasing material: "I- um... I mean, duh, it is me after all."

  "That's rich~," Hlyswo teased.

  "Don't make puns in my head!" Yuuvia mentally bellowed, somehow managing to make her throat feel strained as if she'd squeeled vocally. Desiring nothing more than to stick it to the imagination invader, Yuuvia stuck her index fingers on her respective temples and focused.

  In Yuuvia's mind, the sound of a lit fuse could be heard.

  "Wow, you hurt me, emotionally, of course. Do you honestly think a bomb of this calibre could hurt me? You would need at least a nuk-." A high-pitched and constant note, indicative of a military-grade flashbang, rang aggressively loud in the girl's mind as the presence of Hlyswo took a long hike for the time being. Following a hearty sigh of relief from Yuuvia, Inkaro turned from looking at the frigid state-turned boss monster to the girl whose legs had long given out on her and were now positioned in the shape of a W, forcing her to objectively lean upon her staff to keep herself from ending up in a prone position.

  "Are you okay? You didn't overexpend your mana, did you?" Inkaro asked. Yuvvia dismissively waved a hand before letting out a faintly strained cough to clear her throat and recollect her thoughts.

  "I'm fine." Yuuvia enthasised just how, supposedly, fine she was by slamming the base of her staff into the brick-lined floor below her. Then an all too familiar voice graced the girl's eardrums. For a moment, she was peeved, then confused as she realised the voice wasn't inside her head this time.

  [Congratulations: Dungeon Delver Party]

  If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  [Inkaro Has Received The Achievement: Defeated Gelatomb Dungeon's First Boss]

  [Yuuvia Has Received The Achievement: Defeated Gelatomb Dungeon's First Boss]

  Yuuvia glared at the floating text, almost brought to the height of offence that the thing had the audacity to share that damned Hlyswo's voice. Though as much as she hated it, the text having his voice was oddly fitting, given what that guy's classification was, not that she'd give him any more praise than that, with how he sullies his title by the antics he bombards upon her on the regular.

  But she wouldn't get to think on the matter for much longer when a loud, ice-shattering boom exploded in the room as her ice sculpture's fractured form smashed against the floor, hitting the ground with enough force to get Yuuvia airborne.

  Followed by her landing on her butt again, she was shocked by the fact she didn't feel any pain on impact. One look down and her confusion was dispelled.

  The silvery slime had subsequently detached itself from her leg before ballooning in size and catching Yuuvia as she fell. Realising her behind was saved from another round of eating the dirt, Yuuvia untensed, followed by the pillowy silvery slime becoming extra squishy as Yuuvia sank halfway into it. Despite her efforts to resist, Yuuvia found herself falling into the squishy and snuggly clutches of the silvery slime's intoxicatingly enticing and pillowy form.

  In the middle of Yuuvia's endulgent lounging, that pain-free time of hers shortly came to an end.

  Yuuvia tensed up her left leg and involuntarily wiggled from the sudden tingling sensation prickling across her freed limb as its blood flow abruptly returned to a normal pulse and circulation.

  "You know, I didn't get the chance earlier, but taking a closer look at the slime and how it acts. I believe it is actually a type of magic device as opposed to a living creature... an artefact if I had to guess," Inkaro mused aloud while simultaneously tinkering with the gem on G.Galore's cover without even looking.

  She shot daggers empowered by pained frustration at the guy's complete overlook of her current state; she lightly bit her upper lip in a pout, stopping herself from talking too soon and risking some choice curses spilling from her lips.

  But after she found the mental resolve to push past the buzzing in her leg, the second she went to say something, Yuuvia held her tongue.

  Want could've possibly been capable of making a girl as vocally outspoken as Yuuvia? A lapse in emotional instability? No, rather than anything done on her part, it was the glaring sight of blood falling from his forehead.

  Yuuvia almost gasped, but bearly clung to her motor controls to stop herself.

  Seeing the splodge of red on his forehead and the flakes of ice in his head above the blood, Yuuvia felt somewhat guilty at the sight, but her mind was becoming more preoccupied by something more dire to her life: if Lizu learned she'd harmed Inkaro, even if by accident, Lizu would have the girl's pride rung through the ringer.

  She was so focused on considering how to get Inkaro to not mention the true reason he'd gotten injured to Lizu, the noble girl failed to notice Inkaro raising a hand toward her.

  But she soon found herself forced to pay attention to his actions as Inkaro placed his hand on her left leg out of the blue. She would've squealed in offended anger, had she not already been carried by the guy, and her recently injuring him, so her physical reaction was little more than a faint tremble. In a matter of seconds, three glowing rings of restoration formed on Yuuvia's left leg, constructed from light red grimoire syntax; the sight of seeing the process of Inkaro's SSS:AW rings first-hand silenced any protest from the noble girl, in her entirety.

  Yuuvia watched the glowing rings with a reluctant keen interest. As the rings worked their magic, the noble girl felt the uncomfortable sensations in her leg subside into a nonexistent memory; she wiggled her toes to check the numbness in them was gone for sure.

  Once he saw the girl's expression soften to her usual noble frown, Inkaro removed his hand from her leg. For some reason, this action got an angry pout and aggressive huff out of Yuuvia, especially when the SSS:AW rings bursted into a mist of tiny syntax segments. Experiencing her reaction first-hand, Inkaro assumed the girl wasn't very fond of his method of applying restoration magic to her.

  His assumption was somewhat correct about why the girl was unhappy. Did it involve his magic? Yes. Was it because he had physically touched her? No. She understood that healing/restoration magic's effectiveness takes a dramatic nose dive when it has to travel through a non-solid medium.

  In truth, she was mad at herself for getting the same fuzzy feeling in her stomach she had gotten the other day when fantasising about dungeon diving with a prince. It irked her to her core, leaving her sitting on the floor in silence.

  Once back on her feet, which trembled faintly as she found her footing, Yuuvia snatched a hold of the silvery slime's yielding form, to which the slime compressed and contracted into its original football size. Due to the weight of the artefact suddenly all being put in the palm of the girl's hand, Yuuvia lurched forward.

  Dilating her pupils from panic, Yuuvia rushed to respond by throwing her left leg into the silvery slime with a mighty knee strike and storing the slime in her thigh band storage curio in an instant. She staggered a little forward, almost letting both feet leave the floor, but caught herself from kissing the floor. She stood in place for a moment, contemplating something, not how she almost fell on her face again, before side-eyeing Inkaro as she crouched down and plucked her staff from the floor.

  As she rose to her feet and well beyond that, Yuuvia repeatedly looked between the two remaining light green cartridges of her staff and the guy's bleeding head. Ultimately, she made up her mind, following up her decision with a heavy sigh of resignation as the two cartridges' liquid contents shone under her unspoken command.

  With an assiduous poise behind her heavy eyes, she superficially jabbed the guy in the chest with her staff. The guy became encased in a thin veil of light green mana for a brief moment.

  "Try not to be so dumb next time, Dummy," Yuuvia said coldly, but not as cold as the thin ice layers coating the ground around her. Doing a one over to check the guy's wounds weren't fatal or dire anymore, Yuuvia spun on her heel with sassy flair before boldly trotting off for the boss room's exit. Her brisk walk was fuelled by a desperate desire to get out of the dungeon, wishing to avoid any more monster encounters so she could recalibrate her staff in peace.

  "If you're in a rush, I could teleport us to the entrance... also, shouldn't we get the baron slime's mana core before we leave?" Inkaro called out to the slightly ajarred door. He waited for a moment, ensuring whether Yuuvia would return or not before he'd commit to searching for the mana core underneath the large ice pile that filled the centre of the room.

  Following a noise that could barely be considered a pitiful whimper, Yuuvia dragged her feet and the base of her staff back into the boss room, now sporting an afro of various-coloured slimes.