"Is that everyone?" Lyrica asked whilst looking around.
"It should be. That being said, I don't think they'll want to approach the area seeing as though I've made a small monument for them." Shiro smiled whilst patting the frozen corpse mountain.
"Right. That would dissuade them from approaching." Lyrica smiled wearily seeing Shiro's combat prowess sore once more.
"Ai, don't look at me like that. Both you and Madison have improved a lot. I mean look at your levels. You've practically caught up to me now." Shiro chuckled slightly.
Both Lyrica and Madison had reached level 44 which is only 2 levels under her.
Whatever they did in the dungeon for several days must have paid off.
"Umph, let's go back now." Shiro said as she hopped off the corpse mountain.
"Since we're all close to level 50, we should push for level 50 plus dungeons to get more exp."
"Ah speaking of dungeons, we want you to meet someone. As for the time, how about tomorrow morning?" Lyrica suggested.
"Hmm… sure. I'm rather curious about what you want me to see." Shiro nodded her head after a short pause.
###
The next day, Shiro waited at a coffee store while Lyrica and Madison went off to bring her the surprise.
"Are you sure this is ok?"
"Yeah it's fine. Trust us."
"But it's going to be awkward!"
"Ai, don't be like that. You wouldn't know if you don't try."
Her ears perked up hearing some hushed whispers. She could recognise two of them being Lyrica and Madison while the third one was a little unfamiliar. However, she knows that she's heard that voice before.
"No way…" Shiro muttered as she had a candidate in mind.
Turning her head over, she saw Silvia standing awkwardly while the duo inched her towards the table.
"H-hi?" Silvia greeted.
Shiro felt a twitch creep up on her lips and raised an eyebrow.
'Why did the hi become a question.' She thought.
"Hi, it seems like the two of you have some explaining to do." Shiro said and turned towards the duo.
"Ah, you can talk now?!" Silvia widened her eyes in shock.
"Yeah… I'm not explaining the story for the third time. You two can bring her up to speed." Shiro shrugged and decided to go for some coffee.
Gesturing towards a waitress, Shiro waited patiently.
"What would you like?" The waitress asked.
"Coffee please."
"What kind?"
"huh?"
"What kind?"
Shiro was a little taken aback since she was just used to saying coffee please and getting some coffee.
"What types are there?"
"Well we have a variety. A latte, cappuccino, espresso, f-"
"Can you just give me a regular coffee?" Shiro asked since she couldn't taste it to begin with. She just wanted something to drink while waiting for the two to explain the story.
"… So I'm guessing you want latte then?"
"Sure just go with that." Shiro nodded.
Not too long after, Shiro's coffee arrived and the duo had just explained the entire story to them.
"So you've managed to reach 5 stars. Congratulations."
"Thank you."
Seeing how formal and awkward the two of them were being, Lyrica and Madison looked at each other before sighing.
"I swear… basically, the gist of the situation is that Silvia wants to join our party." Madison said as she got straight to the point.
"Madi!" Silvia panicked seeing Madison say it so bluntly.
"Ah is that all? Sure." Shiro nodded. Since Silvia wanted to join, she would welcome her with open arms. Naturally, if she had any thoughts about harming the party, she would end her in an instant.
"Eh?"
"What do you mean eh? We told you Shiro would be ok with it." Lyrica rolled her eyes a little.
"Ah but-"
"No ah's or buts."
"Well you three can do whatever you want. Silvia is an exception. Just don't start bringing random people to the party." Shiro said whilst she finished the rest of her coffee.
"Of course. Who do you think we are? No random person can join our party." Madison nodded.
"Good. Since Silvia is joining, we'll have some slight changes to our plans. We'll be challenging the level 55 dungeon instead.
"""eh?""" The three of them widened their eyes in shock.
"DIdn't you say level 50 before?!" Lyrica asked.
"That's only because we didn't have a healer. Now that Silvia is here, you think I'll let you girls slack off by giving you an easy dungeon? Now get your asses ready. We're going to the level 55 dungeon." Shiro grinned and walked away.
"…"
"Say, don't you think Shiro's become more dominating now that she has her voice back?" Silvia couldn't help but ask. Previously, since she had to use her phone, she couldn't take command.
However, not that she had her voice back, her sadistic side seemed to be showing a bit more.
"Hehehe…" Lyrica only giggled at Shiro's actions.
<_>
'What?' Silvia couldn't help but think, seeing the blush on Lyrica's face.
"Don't worry about it. Lyrica's Shiro syndrome seemed to have gotten worse after Shiro came back from her trials. Ha…" Madison replied with a fatigued sigh.
"Right…" Silvia replied whilst occasionally glancing back at Lyrica.
###
"AHHH!!!!"
The trio of Lyrica, Madison and Silvia was currently running away from a giant dinosaur like monster that had been chasing them.
"Don't just shout. Kill it." Shiro called out after them.
"WHY DID YOU PROVOKE IT!!!" They retorted since there was a huge ice rob poking out from the dinosaur's ass.
"Don't mind the small details. I just want to see how you three work as a team." Shiro grinned.
Currently, Shiro was resting her body on a large tree branch.
Laying on her stomach, she rested her chin on her hand whilst her feet would swing back and forth. She had a playful grin on her face as she watched the dinosaur chase after the trio.
The three of them looked at each other and decided to fight the dinosaur.
"You know what to do." Madison nodded as the three of them turned around.
Black mist enveloped Madison while Lyrica used her Rose Blossom skill set.
Attack Demon Knight!
Rose Blossom: Blood Thorns!
Stabbing her sword into the ground, Lyrica bit her finger and drew a rune in the space in front of her.
A portion of her HP was drained away as blood red thorns shot out of the ground and latched onto the dinosaur.
'Oh? A HP siphoning skill that requires the user to sacrifice some of their HP first huh? Interesting…' Shiro thought with a smile.
Analysing the skill, Shiro had an idea of what it could do.
'I'm guessing Blood Thorns needs the user to sacrifice some HP to 'summon' the thorns. After being summoned, the thorns will not only siphon away the HP of the enemy, but also restrain them whilst this was happening.'
As for Madison, after shifting into her Attack Demon mode, she readied her greatsword and nodded to Silvia.
"Blessing!" Silvia commanded.
A golden magic circle expended out from under her and encased the duo in a golden glow.
Feeling power run through her body, Madison crouched down and dashed towards the dinosaur.
"HAAA!"
Slashing at the head, she hoped that it would end the beast in one go. However, a bone armour extended out from the skin and wrapped around the head.
*CRACK!
While her greatsword did mage to create a fracture on the bone armour, it was just a little short from breaking it.
"Huh?!"
"Don't huh me, RUN!" Lyrica shouted out and grabbed Madison by the neck.
After that last hit, she could feel the monster becoming enraged.
*BOOM!
The skin on the dinosaur started to turn dark red as neon yellow energy flickered off his body.
"Watch out~ It's is a lightning element." Shiro warned casually. She believes that the three have enough firepower to kill the dinosaur in front of them. And even if they were in danger, she had already placed several safe measures on their bodies without them realising.
Defence Demon Knight!
Shifting her greatsword into a giant shield, Madison gritted her teeth since she could feel the mana gathering towards the dinosaur's mouth. When a monster gathers mana towards their mouth, it can only mean one thing. A breath attack!
A dark red magic circle swirled around Madison's shield. Closing her eyes for a short moment, Madison activated her new skill.
Defence Demon Skill: Demon Fortress!
As her skill started to take the form of a giant fortress, the dinosaur stomped down heavily and opened its jaw.
*BOOM!!!!!!
A giant beam of lightning shot out of the dinosaur's mouth and smashed against the illusionary fortress.
*BOOMMM!!!!!
"GAH!"
Madison was forced back a few steps as cracks could be seen on the fortress itself.
Thankfully, the breath attack didn't last long since the dinosaur puffed out a cloud of smoke before charging towards them again.
Madison couldn't move as well since her body had to sustain some of the damage.
Raising up her staff, Silvia cast a healing art on Madison and healed her up almost instantly.
"Thanks!" Madison called out and charged towards the monster with her shield in hand.
Jumping up, she twisted her body and slammed her shield against the dinosaurs head.
While her strength right now was crazily high for her level, it wasn't enough to overpower a C class monster.
However, this was part of her plan.
Attack Demon Knight!
Using the momentum of the dinosaur throwing his head back to get her off, Madison swung her greatsword and cleaved upwards.
*URAAAA!!!
The dinosaur cried out in pain as his jaw was split in two due to Madison's uppercut.
While the dinosaur's attention was focused on Madison, Silvia had stacked several buffs on Lyrica that increase her power across the board.
The edge of her blade glowed with a reddish silver glow.
Thousand Blade Aura + Willow Blade Aura!
Activating both her berserk skills, Lyrica charged towards the dinosaur and swung towards the already wounded jaw.
"Burning Lotus!"
*BOOM!!!!
Several sword lights pierced through the jaw, stabbed through the dinosaur's flesh and finally pierced the brain.
The trio kept their guard up whilst glaring at the dinosaur.
Its body shook for a moment before the light in his eyes dimmed.
*BANG!
The weight of his body and the force of impact against the floor caused a small cloud of dust to appear.
*Cough cough cough
"Finally." Lyrica said after coughing for a short moment due to the dust.
"Good job." Shiro praised.
They were about to react happily but paled when they saw her sadistic grin.
"Now take on two of them." She continued as two more dinosaurs charged out the jungle with ice spears poking out their ass.
###
"Haa….Ha….ha…."
The trio panted heavily whilst laying on the floor.
Every time they killed a monster, Shiro would provoke a few more for them to kill. Naturally, the number never surpassed two but the pressure of having to constantly fight meant Silvia had to heal almost on instinct. The moment either Lyrica or Madison was about to suffer from fatigue, she would cast a spell to rejuvenate them.
Of course, this also meant her technique improved substantially.
"Hmm, not bad at all." Shiro nodded in approval. She was satisfied with Silvia's performance. After all, the healer was one of the most important roles in a party.
If the healer was bad, the party would eventually crumble.
They couldn't have a weak link.
Of course, if Silvia didn't match up to her expectations, she could always train her a little.
"Now that you guys had your fun, it's my turn." Shiro smiled.
"You call that fun?!" Madison couldn't help but retort.
"Of course." Shiro grinned.
Tapping her necklace, Shiro summoned Ascendant Dream much to Silvia's surprise.
"What kind of weapon is that?" She asked curiously.
"Something I won in an auction." Shiro replied simply. She wasn't going to expose the fact that it was an orange grade weapon just yet. After all, even though she wanted to recruit Silvia, she hadn't spent enough time with her to warrant exposing this kind of information.
Walking away from the party, Shiro narrowed her eyes.
"Little Yin, you can also take this chance for some EXP. I want to see what happens when you reach level 50."
*chirp!
Soon, the party could hear distant screams that would be cut off abruptly. Silvia couldn't help but glance at Lyrica and Madison in shock.
"I-is she-"
"Yeah don't mind it. Shiro's abnormal." Madison waved it off since it was a normal sight for them to see Shiro play around with monsters higher than her level.
Sometimes they wondered if Shiro was even human.
Of course she wasn't, she's a snow woman and on top of that, she was also a feared Nanomancer in her past life. Not that they knew the truth anyways.
After resting for a short moment, the trio started to walk towards the obelisk. On their way there, they couldn't see any monsters which could only mean that Shiro took care of them all.
"I still can't believe she's so powerful…" Silvia muttered with slight disbelief.
Even though she knew Shiro could solo a raid boss when she was lower level, she didn't think it would be the same now.
"You girls took a while. I was considering the idea of killing the boss alone." Shiro grinned, seeing the trio walk towards her.
"As much as I want to think it was a joke, I know you can probably do it if you tried." Lyrica replied with a weary smile.
"Hehe~ You know me so well. Come on, we got a boss to kill." Shiro grinned before teleporting them to the boss room.
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