Frostfire Legacy

Soon after, the three of them arrived at the dungeon's entrance. The time was 6 a.m. sharp, earlier than their usual 6:30 a.m. entry. The Oni uncle grinned at them after they paid the entrance, rooting for them.

"Alright, you're good to go! Good luck exploring a new floor, newbies!"

"We will~!" Cassy replied with a smile of her own. "But we'll probably be coming out in a few hours."

"Ohh! The usual hunting pace, then? That's great! Earn more money, and give me more dungeon entrance fees! Ha ha!"

With Kali and Aster ignoring the uncle, the three of them walked past the entrance, entering. After a short transition, with a bright light covering their vision for a moment, the scenery before them changed.

A wide plain almost the same as the first floor, with the only difference being the color of the slimes leaping around!

The three moved a short distance away from the entrance first, ensuring that nobody else would be able to disturb them, before Aster dropped the two bags down and arranged a clean area before him.

"Alright, all set!" He declared this while nodding to the two girls. "Let's start the day with the usual."

"You mean slime hunting, yes? Let's go~!"

"I'll hunt those pests; you bring the corpses back here."

With a short exchange, they coordinated their assignments with each other. Of course, the only reason they didn't need to discuss it for long was because it was the "usual" formation they take when hunting.

Without delaying, Kali started to run around, destroying slimes one after another, while trying to keep their injuries as small as possible to make their fluids leak slower.

Cassy transported the corpses in batches of three to five, depending on their overall size. After all, she can't carry too many, with her only having two hands.

Then, with the batch of slimes delivered, Aster would begin to work on drying them out. But this time, he noticed a slight difference compared to usual.

'I can control the temperature faster and more accurately.'

Before, it took him roughly 30 seconds to finish a batch, but now, it doesn't even take 15 seconds to complete them!

Of course, this happened for a reason. Aster's practice of controlling his Legacy-level Magic Carved Seal before affected his overall control of mana. The spell's accuracy, invocation speed, and strength of phenomenon alteration were all significantly improved!

Since the cores of Green Slimes and Blue Slimes were of the same size, the trio finished filling up two bags in under an hour, as usual. The only thing that delayed them was that the Green Slimes were a lot more spread out compared to the Blue Slimes on the first floor.

"Alright, this should be enough."

Just as Aster was about to stand up, he noticed a gaze coming from behind him. When he turned his head to look, he noticed a familiar figure walking toward the other side of the plains while throwing an irritated gaze toward him.

"She's yesterday's..." Aster whispered, following her hourglass figure with his gaze.

"Ahem!"

"...!"

When he turned around in response to the sudden cough next to him, Kali was there, frowning and looking at him. "Don't." She said it without any context, but Aster still understood what she meant.

"I won't, I won't! I've learned my lesson from yesterday already."

He could still remember how he had almost kissed her fist, so there was no way he would go and approach her willy-nilly. Let the sleeping dogs lie, as they say. He learned that being a busybody could be deadly at times!

"Anyway, let's head back and cash in these first before coming back."

"Ah! I'll do it, Star!" Cassy quickly raised her hand. "Us three leaving to return would mean all three of us would need to pay the reentry fee. But if only one of us left, then we would only waste one set of fees!"

"Oh, you mean, you'll bring these back alone to save fees?" Aster raised a brow while thinking.

Of course, he knew how inefficient it would be if all three of them left just to send the loot they got to the guild. As such, Cassy's suggestion was a godsend, literally.

"Then, can we leave it to you?" Aster asked while giving a wry smile.

"Sure~! Then, I'll be back in an hour! You guys can hunt or something while I'm gone!"

"One hour..."

It took them less than an hour to fill the two bags, with three of them working together. Now that only the two of them were left, how many cores could they gather before Cassy returned? Aster started to wonder.

Cassy didn't linger for long and made a beeline to the exit while carrying two bags filled with Green Slime Cores. Although she looked ridiculous with a bag on her back and front, thinking that her shipment was roughly a million in worth, she didn't feel bad at all.

"Then, let's continue hunting slimes!" Aster suggested it as soon as Cassy disappeared through the portal.

"... Alright."

Kali merely sighed before following Aster's suggestion.

The reason she was feeling down was that now that Cassy had left on an errand, there was nobody to help deliver the killed slimes to Aster's side. That meant she needed to cut her hunting time to deliver the hunted slimes back to him, doubling her workload!

Kali ran around, hunting a few slimes, before carrying them all back to Aster. Then he would dry them out and extract their cores in their pristine, clean state.

*Tap!* *Tap!* *Tap!*

But while he was in the middle of drying the next batch of slimes, a sound of footsteps echoed from behind him.

"Cassy? Just in time. Help out Kali, who... huh?"

Aster muttered as he turned to look, but was surprised upon seeing who it was. It was the black-haired cat woman from yesterday! And, again, she looks bloody as hell, with stains covering her from head to toe. It was as if she had just come out of a massacre with how much blood was staining her body!

"..."

Aster frowned, readying himself to move at any moment. After all, yesterday, he was mounted before he could even react. This time, he at least wanted to dodge!

"It's you, isn't it? The one who exposed my location." The woman spoke, her voice cold and emotionless. "If I kill you here, will the assassinations also stop?"

"... What?"

Before Aster could deny her accusation, the cat woman's figure had already disappeared from his sight. At the same time, he felt a breeze cut toward his back!

'I'm getting mounted again?!' Aster thought as he turned around, raising both arms across his chest.

As he guessed, the cat woman was already behind him; her hand extended forward and grabbed his wrist. Then, in one swift motion, she performed a shoulder throw, slamming Aster to the ground in a flash.

*BAM!*

"AGHK...!"

Air got knocked out of his lungs, making him suffer in agony. At the same time, he saw the catwoman move as if to send a straight punch to his face.

"YOU AGAIN?!"

But then, a different cat saved him in the nick of time.