At this moment, the friendly atmosphere turned into one of utter shock and confusion. Both were actually wondering if the other was pulling their leg...
Kasha's eyes widened in surprise but also began prettily shimmering with a green afterglow. It appeared the shock had made whatever concealment she had been using vanish. She truly had the eyes of a nocturnal creature now, it was cute in its own way. What kind of ability was her night vision anyway?
She went: "What do you mean set items?!" as she stared right at him, apparently trying to pierce the secrets he was hiding.
"Set items, ones that drop from the same Boss. They all share a similar name and once you equip three it gives a set effect. Mine is called White Spider Set. Here, I'll show you." Josh then unashamedly began undressing before her very eyes.
She made the motion to block her vision with her slender hands, but Josh could see her "sneakily" peeking from between the openings of her fingers. Well, it wasn't hard to notice with the glow-in-the-dark eyes.
Meeting her gaze, he chuckled softly as he brought out his White Spider Equipment before putting it all on. That was actually the first time he would use the set's ability and he could feel his entire self tremble with expectation.
He would have 5 minutes to somehow figure it all out and make the very best demonstration he could. He would show her the meaning of being white and sticky, exactly as the ability was called!
Josh willed the items to activate and he felt different. The White Spider Gloves felt as if they were part of him. He approached the wall and then put his palm right against the cold surface. Next, he simply began to climb, sticking to it.
It seemed like he could consciously control the adhesiveness of it all. There was a weird feeling all over his hands as if a whole new muscle had been added. He kept climbing until…THUD!
As Josh fell heavily on his ass, Kasha exclaimed happily: "This is karma for all these dumb comments earlier!"
Still, he did resolve that he would definitely train some more before he fought with it. For the remaining of the ability's duration, he simply stood motionless while getting used to controlling it.
"Hey, are you sulking?" Kasha circled around him incessantly.
He had his hands out and was staring at them. She moved closer trying to figure out what he was observing. That's when Josh felt like teasing her and directly grabbed her face!
"Mumble Mumble (What are you doing?! Stop this you dumbass!)"
He then let her go free once more while smiling at her. "See, this is the power of the set itself. Pretty cool, isn't it?"
"With this, you can pretty much climb anywhere. That's amazing! It would allow more mobility, especially during a long fight and..." she was getting heated up.
"About that....it lasts 5 minutes and can only be used once every hour but I only have 3 pieces. I'm thinking maybe the duration goes up with more pieces." Josh admitted.
"Ah! Still, you managed to find such a thing on your Floor already?! This is a first. We've seen items with skills but never as sets. This could have insane potential at our levels. Explain yourself!" She stared at him intently her eyes sparkling with as much curiosity as green light.
"Eh, it's nothing complicated really. I simply asked the Tower Protocol to raise the difficulty."
"Wait, what Tower protocol? What difficulty?" She appeared puzzled.
"The Tower system, aka Tower Protocol, is actually sentient. I simply asked it to increase the difficulty of my Floor 12, you know since there were not enough spiders for my tastes." Josh patiently explained.
"There were not enough spiders?! How much do you like spiders?!"
"Just as much as anyone else, especially fried with butter, but that's irrelevant. The important part is that I increased the difficulty and all three items were rewards that dropped on the White Dragon-Devouring Spider's corpse." For him, it wasn't anything weird.
"You! People are usually complaining about the Tower being too difficult or bragging about how fast they can clear it! Yet you are asking for more! Are you some kind of masochist?!" She almost screamed the last part.
"You don't understand, it was a matter of saving time. It was all so I could be more efficient. Plus the spiders are pretty cool, they aren't individually strong. As long as you dodge the webs everything is fine." He reassured her.
Still, her eyes remained open in disbelief. The horrible spider Floor was only fun and games to him! How much trouble had the Rankers have back in the day with it?
So many parties got defeated from their frontline ignoring how to dodge the webs. At other times their defender would manage to dodge but would fail to keep the monsters' attention. How many support classes ended up as a happy meal for spiders?
Kasha could be seen reminiscing, for that experience had left a deep shadow in her memory. She couldn't help but feel that Josh's ascension seemed more like he was a veteran taking a casual walk in a peaceful white lily garden.
She kept staring at him, wondering what secrets lied within. Would she ever understand this madman? He had to be mad to request more challenge in the already deadly Tower.
That is when Josh interrupted her stupor. He had better things to do after all. "Alright, I really need to go now. Time to get a secret weapon! One that I'll need to clear Floor 12 efficiently."
"What kind of secret weapon is it?!" She asked with rapt attention, even forgetting to breathe.
Josh grinned at her: "A lucky charm!"
She awaited him to finish his sentence but he kept her in suspense. "Why do you need that? What kind of peculiar ability requires that?"
"A lucky charm…..for luck. You know, it kinda says it in the name." He slightly shook his head from how obvious this all was.
"You believe in such superstitious stuff?!"
Josh gave a wry smile. "I used not to believe in magic either. Let's just say my beliefs have changed recently with the whole Dimensional Tower thing."
"Ah, whatever. I'll come along."
"Don't you have anything better to do with your time?"
"What if you get publicly bullied once more? *Sigh* how would you have even handled the situation without my help back at the restaurant, eh?" she proudly inquired, her hands akimbo at her hips.
"I would have pretty much ignored it. This is actually a pretty good trick, whenever something doesn't affect you just let it go. There will always be cocky dumbasses acting arrogant in this world."
"Cocky? Like you're one to talk! Also, that is so heartless. I can't imagine the woes of the poor young man that must suffer from having a friend like you."
"You mean the young man that you completely ignored and didn't even bothered to acknowledge the existence of while you were trying to…"
"I remember! Let's hurry up! We need to get that luck trinket, am I right! Oh, where are we heading?"
Josh took a mysterious tone. "The best place for it….the E district!" Of course, he was already looking up for a tour guide on his UW. There were many but one caught his attention. The ratings were abysmal and all the reviews looked especially fake.
There was one reproaching the owner not to have paid a young intern, another one was how she had canceled a tour because she was busy sunbathing, there was even one that told the tale of how she had stolen a client's husband while the wife went to the toilet.
It was all a mess! Talk about such obvious slandering! Josh couldn't help but be puzzled about how none of the reviews had been deleted but he simply headed straight toward the place anyway, they probably had ample time to guide him.
Before long, they stood before a single-room building that seemed extremely bare. The thing looked like a rectangular box that even a cat would have despised. After all, compared to the inventive structures nearby this one was truly lacking.
Then again its whole raison d'être was to bring people to other businesses. Since there were no buses allowed in the center of the city, there was no need for any garage either. Buses were boring anyway, not a big loss.
On the door, one could read on an intricate blood-red sign that read <Bea's Box>. On the side of this ominous-looking writing, appeared a few characters scribbled with black paint. To complete the picture there was a schedule, that too had visibly been added afterward as an afterthought.
Even that was peculiar. The schedule was clear and normal at first glance but there was a small PS: "Subjected to the mood of the owner." Could it possibly be that all the garbage reviews had been true?!"
At this point, Josh felt curious about the owner so he pressed the doorbell, hard. ~ Nothing happened. Inspecting it closer Josh realized that the doorbell wasn't even real. Inside the little box was chucked a note that read: 'It was too noisy~removed it'.
"…." For once Josh was speechless.
"Why are we even coming to this particular place? There are other tour companies besides this obviously shitty one. I mean just look at it! It looks so damn horrible!"
"Oh, believe me, it is even worse than it looks according to the ratings", Josh admitted chuckling.
"Then why are we here?! Let's get out quickly! Even if do get a lucky charm here it would be tainted by this place's shittiness."
That is when a voice came from behind their back. It was a passerby that had seen them loiter in front of the place.
"You guys are looking for a tour guide? You really shouldn't stop here. The woman living here is the worst. Honestly, we all hope that she'll leave the City. This place doesn't welcome trash like her."
Now, Josh somewhat really wanted to meet her. It was the same for Kasha, but in her case, it was probably just because she had been told to leave. That is when the two shared a look.
"Should we "knock" a little?"
"Sounds good to me."
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