"Before asking others' names, wasn't it good manners to introduce yourself first?"
I smiled calmly as I faced the pink-haired girl whose name was still unknown to me.
For some reason, she became irritated by my words. She was more bad-tempered than I expected.
"Hah? How could you not know me?"
"Are you a popular person? Or some rich noble family's daughter?"
She shrank back under my gaze after I narrowed my eyes slightly.
"Uh..."
"Then introduce yourself properly."
Tears began to well up in her eyes as I towered over her with my superior height. Haha, she's so small and thin, like a chick.
_I wonder what the Crown Prince sees in her when he chose her over our Miss Villainess. Was it her small stature, because she's not as dominant as Tizmilly? Or maybe that fragile act she puts on?_
As the girl kept taking steps back, a hand extended to keep me away from her. A handsome man with short blue hair appeared. Ah, he's glaring at me.
"Can't you see that you're scaring her? Get away from Raffassa!"
Seeing him, the girl immediately hid herself behind him.
"Lord Agraviel!" she squeaked, voice trembling just enough to sound convincing.
Then two more boys appeared before me with stern faces, facing me like heroes determined to defeat a vile villain.
""We won't just watch if you bully her!""
I knew these three.
They were all named characters from the game.
The Crown Prince and the First Prince of the Fazaar Empire, Agraviel Fin Fazaar. He was Tizmilly's ex-fiancé and was also one of the main love interests in the game. Arrogant, prideful, and predictable.
The heir of the Fallburn family, who is also Tizmilly's elder brother, Lideon Fallburn. In the game, Ahlia could also get close to him since he was designed as a side love interest. Since he was our senior, he had already graduated from the Academy by now. Cold-eyed and quick to judge.
One of the few elves who attended the Academy, Reffion Tias. He was actually just a side character known for his high-difficulty side quest in the game, but his beautiful elven face could still push him to become one of the most popular characters. And he looked down on humans more than most.
"She's the one who approached us first," Tizmilly protested, her voice tight.
The girl, Raffassa Hamiula, peeked out her head from Agraviel's back when she heard Tizmilly's voice.
"I-I just wanted to greet you..." she peeped, lower lip quivering.
"Look, Raffassa is just trying to talk to you!" Agraviel hollered, before pointing his finger toward Tizmilly accusingly. "You always do this! Raffassa is always being kind to you, so why are you bullying her? That's why I left you!"
Then the other two also joined the fray.
"Even after Father threw you away, you still haven't changed, huh, Tizmilly? How long will you keep shaming our family name!" Lideon spat, disgust plain on his face.
"Disgusting human female. As expected, only Raffassa is different. You'd better learn from her before you destroy yourself, girl." Reffion's words were ice, his gaze even colder.
Tizmilly was astonished. She clenched her fists and looked like she was about to argue with them, but since I knew that it would just be a waste of time, I tapped her shoulder gently to stop her.
"Mister Roost...?"
"Never mind them. Let's just dive into the Dungeon as planned!"
Before she could voice any complaint, I immediately grabbed her arm and brought her into the entrance of The Bank of Water, which was a small pond located at the center of the post.
"Hey, wait—"
_Sorry, but we have to find something inside this Dungeon, so goodbye, guys~!_
I ignored the voice of that pinkhead and quickly jumped into the pond with Tizmilly.
The pond is shallow and small, but the moment our bodies fell into it, we found ourselves inside a wide and deep area with no visible wall or anything that limited the area.
Of course, that wasn't true, though.
There's an invisible barrier circling the place if you go to the cornermost side of the area. Just like The Beast Mountain and other Dungeons, the deeper we go, the bigger the place becomes.
It's not dark here, even though it was underwater, because the plants growing on the ground glow with soft light. Pale blues and greens, like moonlight trapped beneath the waves.
"If I am not wrong, in this Dungeon, we have to kill 10 monsters before we can descend further, right?" I asked Tizmilly as I looked at her.
However, she remained silent for a while, even though she was looking at me. Her eyes were distant, still caught on the scene above.
"Tizmilly?" I called her again.
Finally, she blinked.
For some reason, she giggled before she answered me.
"Pfft, sorry. Yes, the condition to descend into deeper floors in this Dungeon is to kill a certain number of monsters. For the first floor, 10 is enough. Since we are together, we need to kill 20 monsters."
_She seems happy, but why? Was it because I pulled her away before she had to say more to them? Well, that's good, I guess?_
Her smile affected me. I smiled, too, as I let her arm go to grab my spear.
"Then, let's get 'em quickly!" I stated.
Tizmilly also unsheathed her sword, the metal catching the plantlight.
"Okay!" she replied, her voice steadier now.
Since physics still worked with no problem inside this dungeon, even though it was underwater, we could dash toward the closest fish monsters as quickly as we usually could. Water resistance was negligible here. Another one of the Dungeon's conveniences.
These floor monsters couldn't counterattack properly when faced with the swarm of newbies who entered this Dungeon to learn how to fight monsters. When facing us, who were already way above the level of beginners, they couldn't even react before they were pierced and sliced by our weapons.
We killed 10 monsters each in no time.
The options to descend and ascend then appeared before us. After nodding toward each other, we tapped the descend option.
Then we started to quickly slay every monster we encountered on each floor to continue descending the Dungeon.
Needless to say, we would of course also collect the gems they dropped. They weren't worth much, but every Copper counted when you ran a restaurant.
Compared to The Beast Mountain's monsters, these really were weak. Maybe newbies would encounter some struggle against them, but not us.
After just about 30 minutes, we completed the number of monsters we needed to kill to descend again. People need to kill 50 monsters on this floor to leave the Dungeon, to ascend, and to descend. However, since the monsters were too weak for us, we could complete it quickly. Our movements were synchronized already, like we'd been party members for years instead of weeks.
Before we descended to the 10th floor, Tizmilly said something similar to what she said before she faced the Rain Serpent alone previously in The Beast Mountain.
"Mister Roost... Could you please let me handle the Boss alone? I could defeat it even when I was still a first-year student, so don't worry, I definitely can fight it alone with no problem!"
Seeing her like that, determination blazing in her eyes despite everything that just happened, I could only sigh and say, "As expected from Miss Villainess," and allowed her to do what she wanted.
Without wasting more time, we tapped the descend option.
The next moment, we were already at an underwater ruined building. Broken pillars and shattered stone arches loomed around us, remnants of some sunken city.
As we raised our heads, a 3-meter blue jellyfish greeted us. It was the Floor Boss of the 10th floor of The Bank of Water, Wave Jelly. Its translucent body pulsed with an eerie inner light.
Tizmilly entered her fighting stance as I backed off to spectate from afar.
The floor where a Boss exists is special. As long as we enter the floor at the same time, no matter who killed the Boss, both of us would still be granted the right to continue, and that rule applies to any Dungeons, except if there is an Irregular Monster inside the floor. In that case, we need to kill or restrain the Irregular Monster even after we killed the Boss before we could continue.
Back to the current time.
Tizmilly launched herself toward the Jellyfish to get closer to it.
The Wave Jelly manipulated the water and created strong waves to restrain her while throwing water spears to attack her at the same time.
However, maybe because Tizmilly had already known its attack patterns from the start, its efforts proved to be in vain as Tizmilly could calmly slash all its waves and water spears with her mana-coated sword. Each strike was precise, economical. No wasted movement.
It panicked the Wave Jelly, and it released a water laser to stop her advance.
But once again, its attack yielded nothing.
Tizmilly could easily evade the water laser with her quick movement, her body cutting through the water like she was born in it.
Seeing her approaching, the Wave Jelly swam higher to avoid her, but it was a mistake.
As it became too focused on swimming away from her, Tizmilly grew ice roses from the ground to reach it. They bloomed upward in jagged, beautiful spikes.
Caught completely off guard, the Wave Jelly couldn't do anything as the ice roses restrained and pierced it with their thorns. It thrashed, but the ice held.
Then, as a finishing blow, Tizmilly stabbed its body with her sword. The core shattered with a muffled crack, and the Boss dissolved into motes of light.