Beyond M-Eclipse: Easy Mode LIVE

———Lynda———

“What an absurd proclamation. Let’s see if you live up to it.” What in the world have I run into here? I swear I got into this situation way too often.

One moment I was just doing a normal dungeon run and ran into her again. Just absolutely typical, she tends to come in and ravage through all the early floors that took quite a while to respawn. I know that can be kinda frustrating, but why are all of you trying to gang up on her!? Do you want to die that badly!?

“It’s about time we put you in your place already! You think just because you’re so strong you can just take everything for yourselves! We barely got a damn dime!” One of them yelled out while pointing his sword at her.

“Your incompetence is not my responsibility. Enough talk.” Emmie said before forming a scythe out of nowhere. This one looks a lot less impressive than the one she had used previously. “Stay behind me, unless you want to get involved.”

“Yeah, I’ll sit this one out.” I said before walking away to give them some distance. I’m just not involved in this at all.

*Dash* *Slash* *Crash*

Without any warning, Emmie ran in and swung her scythe at one of the members and sent him flying into the wall before the others could even react.

Others quickly reacted and swung their weapons at her in response.

*Block* *Parry* *Evade* *Kick* *Smack*

She began countering all the incoming attacks by swiftly blocking and parrying them and started attacking back with kicks or a smack from the back of her scythe. It looks more like a bunch of children trying to fight an elite athlete and getting completely destroyed. She flat out looked bored as she kept smacking them down and causing them to collapse to the ground, unable to handle a few attacks from her.

*Dash* *Swing* *Evade* *Tumble*

“Urgh!” One of them even tried to throw a punch while running at her at full speed, only for him to miss and fall to the ground clumsily.

*Grab* *Swing* *Crash* *Tumble*

Emmie then lazily grabbed one guy by the neck and swung him into another guy with only her right arm. She looks extremely bored as she handled them without a single flashy attack or spell. It’s so… boring, actually. It just looks like bullying at this point, not some sort of big fight the prelude of the fight would’ve suggested.

*Punch* *Smack* *Kick* *Slam*

Yeah this is just painful to look at. Just end the slugfest already. This is so pathetic to look at. Can’t at least one of them throw out a spell? I know that could end up hitting your teammates but at this point you’re not even dealing a single point of damage. Here I thought you guys want to rattle her with a bunch of threats.

*Spark* *Zap* *Punch*

One of them did cast a lightning spell right in her face but she tanked in and just punched him in the face in response. Guess their spells aren’t all that impressive either.

*Shoot* *Swat*

A rock bullet was casted and she easily swatted it away with the back of her left hand.

*Slash* *Smack* *Punch*

She continued her onslaught and beat everyone down, completely tearing through the ranks and causing them to drop like flies.

*Clank* *Wrapped*

She then summoned multiple long chains and wrapped everyone in it, finally ending the fight with everyone either incapacitated or on the brink of it. Finally it’s over. It’s not even that long and it feels draining to look at with how one-sided it was.

“Disappointing on every level.” Emmie remarked before walking further into the dungeon and down to the next floor.

…This is just sad, man. How many times am I gonna see something like this? At least I’m not actively involved.

Whatever, let’s just go leech off Emmie’s kill and gather any material she left behind. She cared way more about the fighting than the looting. I could use extra cash no matter how small.

Those guys aren’t in any real danger. She deliberately held back and seemed to have used a dull scythe, since I don’t see any of them bleeding profusely and need any treatment. Maybe I have bad eyes for it, but I also don’t want to think about these guys too much, I really don’t wanna get involved.

Alright, run down to the next floor and… Right, the third floor and the annoying trapdoors room. I’m not gonna test my luck to see if I can tank falling from such a height…

*Jump* *Leap*

At this point I could easily just jump from one side of the room to another without worrying too much about navigating it.

Onto the next floor, and everything is completely torn to shreds. There are only a few big chunks of material that could be sold. Anything a size of a pebble would get you thrown out of the guild. There is only some monster equipment that could be salvaged here. The goblin-like monsters wouldn’t be worth anything even if their bodies were intact.

The walls and floors are riddled with the mark of her scythe, many large gash on the walls and floors, and the monster corpses barely recognizable with how brutally and quickly they were disposed of.

Let’s just get some of the intact equipment and keep going. Hopefully she went far enough to clear one of the rooms with a teleport circle.

Onto the next floor and the boss golem got wrecked before it could even call any backup, it seems. Looks like she also took the floor reward as well, so I can only collect some rocks and the broken core.

Hopefully my bag isn’t completely full before I find one of the teleport circles to get the hell out. I was only here expecting to do a dungeon run as exercise, but that plan was dashed pretty quickly thanks to her. This is basically the only thing left I can do in a dungeon that would be productive. Just scraping all the scraps for even a little bit of cash. Seems like a sleazy work, but it still pays. They ain’t gonna try to verify if you kill the monsters or whatever.

———Lerim———

“Here are the idiots. I believe you guys lost them.” I said before placing them down on the floor. All of them don’t even have the energy to move.

“What in the world happened?” The current receptionist asked, understandably worried about the state of these four.

“They were completely out of gas down in the dungeon. Floor twenty-four, I believe.” I recalled what happened. Thankfully they weren’t in any immediate danger, but if they stayed for any longer the dungeon might seriously respawn monsters on top of them and kill them before they could even react. It’s a rare phenomenon, but it can happen. “Not in any real danger, but staying inside a dungeon for a long time provides some real risk. Also, these are their belongings.”

The other staff member then called for others to come help and dragged them to the guild’s infirmary. I hope they aren’t actually gonna start healing them and ask for payment when I told them they’re mostly fine? Just both normal and mana fatigue setting in. It’s pretty damn devastating but nothing that would kill you, it’s not like they are completely drained.

Anyway, I guess things are done on my end. Time to cash in a few things I did find that those guys didn’t pick up on.

“Here’s today’s loot on my end. Not much for today. Just pay me in whatever amount on the table and be done with it” I said while placing all the stuff I looted down on the desk.

“Right… Please wait a moment.” He said before collecting the items for evaluation.

Well, time for me to just sit down and wait for them to come up with a number. Time to find an empty table to sit at and wait.

As much as I would like to go in and hunt in deeper floors, it’s probably for the best for me to not try anything right now. It’s gonna look like I’m looting the dungeon dry every single day. I’ve heard enough complaints as is, and going in and out of a dungeon multiple times is actually quite a chore, you can’t really blast your way into lower floors with those impossibly hard materials, if blasting through the entire thing even does anything. The mechanics behind the dungeons are still quite the enigma.

I really don’t wanna stress myself much more after those guys give me quite a scare. I think I’ll actually take it easy today. Besides, yesterday was quite an event. Even without doing that much work the toll on traveling through so many floors, some of which is genuinely bigger than a football field, and you ended up burning a lot of stamina just from that alone. Of course with how people are nowadays they can withstand much longer travel, but at this point I’m already thinking too much into it.

“Here you go. Thank you for your service.” A staff member said as they gave me the cash and walked away. It’s as simple as that. Very quick and casual. I don’t think the others are doing it the same way, probably way more cautious about how they’re evaluating it and don’t want them to just pay and dip, which is a legit concern. I have heard of other branches being way more stingy or even petty with how rewards are being paid out.

As for me, I trust that guy’s character, for one. Secondly, I’m way too valuable as a sellsword working under the branch. Pretty much the only one who could get anything done with someone goes too far around these parts. Heck, it seems like the other branches want a piece of me if needing to beg me for help is any indication.

Wonder when I’ll get my next modeling gig, it’s been way too long at this point. I want to see my nice figure in all the magazines in town and beyond. I think I looked better than I ever did. Maybe my body getting slightly toned would cause a bit of a divide, but at least it’s still not very noticeable even right now, maybe a trick of the light can hide it.

In terms of my hair… Well I can’t really judge it in its current state, best to check it after I actually wash up and make sure everything is in order.

Let me pull up my hand mirror and check my face here… There are bags, but I’m not gonna have those when a photoshoot day comes. My skin is still quite smooth and youthful. No scars or anything, still in pristine condition overall. Could be better, but I had just come back from a dungeon and that place can sometimes just rain ashes and tiny pebbles down on you.

…I can worry about my looks later. I should just relax and rest for a bit, basking in the air conditioning for maybe an hour or two before going back home.

The place is quiet today. Many adventurers who don’t really have a job and mostly just doing dirty work from here treat the weekends mostly like they’re free. Of course, the income doesn’t really warrant thinking that the weekends are free, but I’m not their parents, they can do whatever they want.

…I could use a drink, actually. Maybe I won’t laze around here for too long and go find a nice drink to get through today. Feels like it had been a long time since I indulged myself. I need to remember that yesterday’s pay was quite a lot. I could spare a nice drink or two, at least ones that aren’t clearly bait for people following a trend and are marked up way too high.