"Achilles! Wake up, we found a dungeon nearby!" She called out to him, knocking on the door repeatedly.
Achilles got out of bed and knocked back, signalling he was awake. After a quick shower and getting dressed, Achilles emerged from his room, rubbing his eyes. He looked at Heidi, who was already much shorter than him, standing around 5'4" in freedom units, or 163 cm. Achilles himself was nearly 6' in freedom units, or 183 cm, so looking down at her was a bit annoying for him.
"You said what?" He responded, having already forgotten what she had said.
She sighed and took out her short swords before repeating what she had said.
"We're going to a dungeon we found nearby, alright?" She said, before turning and walking down the hall to the stairs. Achilles went back into his room and took one of the beds into his inventory before following her downstairs.
Downstairs, in the lobby, the doors were barricaded by couches and furniture. Keido and Kimsung were at the reception desk, checking backpacks filled with various supplies.
Once the group was together, they carefully took down the barricade and rebuilt it as they left, heading to a dungeon nearby.
A large, white dungeon gate was open in Times Square, around the height of a tour bus. Kimsung stood at the front and turned to speak.
"Alright, Keido and I will deal with most of the monsters at the front. Achilles, you'll cover our rear and keep Heidi safe in case anything happens. We're bringing her because if Heidi can rank up with us, she can contribute more to the group, alright?" He clarified.
Achilles did not speak; his question about Heidi's presence having been answered by Kimsung, he was fine with the plan. The group headed into the dungeon, appearing in Times Square, but it was much brighter and livelier, with a multitude of mascots walking through the streets as all manner of things happened.
Some were dressed as if they were from another time period, others were dressed as if they were from the current era, and one man was only in his underwear with a cowboy hat and a guitar in-hand.
Achilles immediately formed a barrier around the group as multiple of the mascots attacked. One was dressed as a futuristic astronaut, another was an anthropomorphic mouse couple, and a large robot made of car parts brought its foot down on the dome-shaped barrier.
The barrier cracked, but was quickly repaired as Achilles counter-attacked, a spear stretching from the barrier and impaling the robot, then more spears grew from it, branching out and killing the robot monster.
"Well, holy shit. Guess It is a good idea to always be prepared." Achilles giggled in amusement before more of the mascots were promptly killed. He fixed the barrier and created slits in it at perfect heights to attack from as the people, or what were people, swarmed the dome, surrounding and attacking it.
However, after killing a few of said strange creatures, Achilles found out they weren't even giving him EXP, so he changed the form of the barrier into a simple siege tower with three floors. He had the mana to sustain it, and all they had to worry about were the mascots.
"So I'm guessing you guys want to do something to help?" He asked the trio. Keido and Kimsung quickly reacted, having been taken by surprise by the sudden attack of the mascots before taking out their swords, prepared to fight.
From large flat screens on the buildings surrounding them came out the people and characters in the ads playing. Video Game characters, models from famous brands, and characters from plays came out of the board, attacking the tower. Thankfully, they were all F-ranked monsters and quite weak ones, not to mention their sizes weren't any larger than ten meters, so Keido and Kimsung could kill and attack them from different floors of the translucent siege tower.
Adding in Achilles' spikes and a multitude of defenses on the tower, they successfully kept the monsters at bay. After killing almost all of the mascots, most of the screens, posters, and displays were empty by that point. A large statue of liberty, just around twelve meters tall, attacked the tower, quickly impaled to death by Achilles.
From what Kimsung understood, this had to be a Swarm-type dungeon. They were typically full of fodder-type monsters meant to wear down the challengers and rushed from beginning to end. Only by killing the main attackers of the dungeon would the swarm cease, and the boss battle begins.
It was like those video games that had swarm after swarm of attackers, except in dungeons like these, there were no rest periods, and it only stopped after the boss was killed.
This was only their second dungeon, and it was finished in less than an hour, compared to how they spent ten full days in the last one.
[Congratulations, you've cleared the dungeon in record time, and you've earned an extra reward for beating the former record of two days, fourteen hours, seven minutes and eighteen seconds!]
[Congratulations, you've cleared a dungeon! You've gained 100 EXP!]
Each of them was shown a list of weapons, ranging from swords to axes, and even bows. There were also items like potions that gave extra strength, speed, or vials that helped restore mana faster. Armor was also presented, but only up to E-rank, which was quite good in Kimsung's opinion.
Achilles took some chainmail armor, wrapped in leather to prevent his hair from being caught in it, Kimsung took a sword, Achilles took a shield, and Heidi took a few potions for healing and strength boosting.
All in all, the dungeon was actually very low risk, with high rewards. It showed just how useful having someone like Achilles, with the masterful control of his barriers, could be in completely controlling the swarm and impeding it entirely, only using a lot of mana and receiving no injuries.
Keido was actually expecting the dungeon battle to last a lot longer, or for something dramatic to happen, but it didn't. Achilles really was just a cheat code for clearing dungeons. Perhaps, when he gains his domain, it'd be even easier for him to clear Mid-level dungeons with minimal injuries.
"Well… I guess since we finished early, let's have breakfast at the hotel?