As they headed back to the Hotel, the group, excluding Achilles, chatted about plans, especially ranking up on schedule. They'd bring Maria with them for every single one and help her rank up as well before leaving for Chicago.
Kimsung finally also told Achilles of their plans to leave for Chicago in early summer, and he surprisingly agreed, with the condition that he could choose their vehicle transportation. It wasn't much to Kimsung, so he allowed it.
Achilles looked quite excited to choose their R.V., so Kimsung guessed it wouldn't hurt.
The walk was quick, and Eliza was given a room next to Heidi and Keido's. She was introduced to the others living in the hotel, and she got along with them quite well, especially when talking about their experiences as the Disaster started.
For a few days, the group continued to recuperate, and a week later, they headed out. It would be the main trio's eighth dungeon, just one more closer to Achilles, and it'd be Maria's second dungeon.
As they walk up 57th Street, having scouted a dungeon inside of an apartment complex on the rich side of 66th Street, Achilles continues to practice his Spiral Shot, while Kimsung tries to remember his 'History' Ability. For some reason, a large chunk of his memories are missing, but this isn't new to him. He thought of it as a way to balance out his return, since it could happen at any point and he'd have the knowledge to change the world. The thing he always forgot was how to learn his skill's abilities.
Of course, he knew what they'd be, but he didn't know how to activate them when he had reached the rank to unlock them. For instance, his transformation ability was forgotten to him, but it was quite powerful and allowed him to further use his skill's time manipulation to the fullest he could manage.
In fact, many things, like the location of rare, powerful items, crucial knowledge about certain figures, and strange things that might happen would always be forgotten after every reset.
Finally arriving at the dungeon, near the river, the group didn't know what to expect, but the fact that it was next to the river was quite worrying. Dungeons near rivers were always substantially more powerful than those not very near to a body of water, and it showed in the difficulty.
Of course, neither of those could compare to sky dungeons, which were always extremely deadly, even for veterans and experienced survivors. Kimsung had heard of even a few SS-ranked hunters dying in sky dungeons, simply because they were unpredictable.
The sky was one of the largest recipients of mythological lore, so damn near anything could spawn in sky dungeons. However, in exchange for quality over quantity, they were thankfully quite rare, and only experts in large groups were allowed to challenge them. Not to mention the extremely extensive research done on the region where said sky dungeon spawned, the hunters of humanity took absolutely no chances with them.
It was high noon, and they had half an hour before they'd go into the dungeon, so they were double checking every bit of equipment they had on them. Meanwhile, Achilles was creating a large stronghold of barriers, having started to research how to change the durability and density of his barriers to make them better defenses.
"Hey, Kimsung…" Achilles spoke, looking up at the sun, blocked by thin clouds.
Kimsung looked up from his gear bag, still making sure his armor was completely intact.
"What is it?" He asked, a bit curious. It was rare for Achilles to start the conversation between the two of them, since Kimsung was always talking plans with him, especially telling him about the locations of the dungeons they'd challenge.
"Did you know, one of the first things to be recognized as a god, was the sun? I find that making more and more sense as I continue to learn about plant life. It's a giver of life, so it's natural for early humans, and humans today to worship the sun. At least it's physically here, unlike nearly all of the gods." He spoke with a slight smile.
Kimsung looked back down at his bag, then looked back up and spoke.
"I didn't know that, thanks for telling me."
Once they were fully packed, the group were bid good luck by Achilles as they headed into the dungeon, followed by Maria's bear.
They appeared in a green, flourishing land, filled with trees and greenery that wasn't present in the modern era, unfortunately. Maria quickly tamed a nearby bird, as planned before between the group, and began to tame many birds along the way. Of course, these birds weren't actually monsters and were simply a part of the forest.
An hour passed by quickly, and she'd already tamed dozens of sparrows, nearly ten starlings, over a dozen rats, three crows, and a fish she had found by the river. It appeared that the dungeon was next to the Hudson river, and they had to kill something that lived in it.
Maria commanded her tamed animals to split up and search the entire dungeon. As expected, with four people, the dungeon spanned a bit wide, but not enough to be overly worried about, like in their first dungeon. After a while, her tamed beasts had actually spotted the monsters in the dungeon, almost all of them grouped together by the rocks.
After a long while of walking, the group found the monster group, and it was a bunch of geese. Kimsung had never seen monster geese before, but if they were so annoying and avoided in normal times, then he'd take them seriously here. Just as he was about to attack, he felt the blood in his legs surge up to the rest of his body.
Kimsung fell down, and was quickly sat on the ground. The effect wore off after a while, and while the group was grateful for the time limit, they were also trying to figure out what it was that attacked them.
Maria had clearly stated that there were no more monsters in the area aside from the geese group, and yet Kimsung was attacked before he could even begin fighting. It was as fascinating as it was terrifying.
Thankfully, Kimsung had collected an enchanted necklace from the previous dungeon and put it on, trying to attack again. Surprisingly, it worked fine, but Kimsung could still feel some of his blood actually moving out of his leg upwards to the rest of his body. He stepped back and sat down, confused about what had happened.
"What was that even? One second I was walking, and the other, I had fallen over. I even felt my own blood moving up my veins to the rest of my body. Could that be the High Tier's ability? Some sort of blood manipulation attack?" He wondered aloud. Perhaps that was its ability, and if it was, that meant he'd have to resort to long range attacks, something he did not possess.
After returning to his hiding spot, his blood returned to normal and his legs were fine after a few minutes.
If Kimsung wasn't able to attack them, he'd need to find something to hit the High Tier with. Perhaps its blood manipulation does not extend to the other geese near it, and if that was the case, it would be simpler to deal with. But it was simpler only in name, because Kimsung could not stop the geese from simply flying away to a new location.
At the moment, Kimsung was not fully aware of Achilles' Spiral Shot, and therefore couldn't think of any methods to prevent the geese from escaping. Suddenly, he remembered he did in fact have something that could possibly attack the lunged from a long distance. He looked at both Keido and Maria, feeling stupid for not thinking about them earlier.
Both of them, especially Keido, had methods to either disrupt, or control the geese from attacking him.
"Keido, Maria. Could you two use your skills on the High Tier for me? Try to control it if you can, or at the very least, stop it from using its ability." He requested, and the two of them quickly tried it, Maria exerting her control over the High Tier Goose, and Keido sending the Worm to make it doubt its thoughts.
After about a while, the Goose began to sway. It was slow, at first, but minutes later, Maria smiled in joy, having succeeded in taking the High Tier.
"Kimsung, I got it! Hold on, let me try controlling it." She said, extending her arms and hands out, channeling her control on the High Tier as it slowly walked forward, approaching them step by step, its own flock of geese following it obediently, unaware of their leader's controlled mind.
As the High Tier approached, her control over it began to weaken, and Kimsung took his chance to strike, beheading the High Tier before its flock could react in time. When they did finally attack, Keido had rushed over as well, taking the head of a Mid Tier nearest to the decapitated High Tier.
A short battle happened, and after a few minutes, most of the flock had escaped, but those that didn't were several Low Tiers, two of the Mid Tiers, and the High Tier. The group celebrated and set up camp, having lunch together near the dead group of geese.
Over the course of the next few days, they hunted down and killed more of the Low Tiers and remaining Mid Tiers that acted as the leaders in the surviving flock. On the evening of the third day, they had ambushed the last couple remaining Low Tiers, finally completing the dungeon. It was actually quite easy, all things considered. With the help of Maria's skill, they could hunt down all of the monsters in New York's mainly forest-themed dungeons much faster than before.
Maria's addition to the group and her application of her skill was truly useful to ranking up, similar to Achilles' barriers which could defend them from all angles without fail. Kimsung theorized that Maria's skill had to be SSS-ranked, or else she wouldn't have been able to so quickly take control of the High Tier from the first day.
If it truly was SSS-ranked, that meant their entire groups consisted of the top two ranks among skills, giving them a heavy early advantage. Of course, as time progressed, that advantage would become a disadvantage to those who could not use their skills properly, or in a way that suited them. But for now, Kimsung was confident they could dominate most F-ranked dungeons without injury.
Perhaps that would show even more when all five of them ranked up to F-rank, and they'd have another ability to use.
As the dungeon finally began to close, they were all given a selection of F-ranked items as a reward. Kimsung chose a new sword, since his old one was beginning to break.
Heidi and Maria both chose armor, while Keido took quite a while to choose, finally picking a few potions for healing and mana training. Five potions was equal to one piece of armor, so he benefitted quite well, with such small rewards.
After appearing outside of the apartment complex, which was where the dungeon opened, they had expected to see Achilles there waiting for him. What they did not expect were many crustacean monsters on the street, some with holes in their heads, and others crushed or chopped in half.
Kimsung's eyes widened. He didn't expect another monster horde to attack Achilles in the time they were in the dungeon, and from the looks of it, it was quite recent. The blue blood on the street was still wet, but Achilles was nowhere to be found at the moment. Heidi looked around, and saw a large crab lying against a building nearby, its back armor shattered and a large hole formed at the center of the shattered armor.
The crab had to be the size of a small house, huge, and with many of its legs mangled.
"What the hell happened here? Just what was Achilles fighting?" Keido asked, looking around at what could be damn well considered a massacre.
The smell was terrible, and Kimsung covered his nose as he took out his phone, calling Achilles' number. It rang for a few seconds before it was answered, the voice on the other line speaking in a tired, weary tone.
"Yeah? What's good? Did y'all finish up in that dungeon?" Achilles asked on the other line, sitting on a bench.
"Achilles, where are you?" Kimsung asked, looking around as they walked to a more open part of the street to avoid close ambushes. Achilles laughed a bit before responding in a bit of a concerned tone.
"Just by the river. Hey, quick question, can you guys get the fuck over here right now? Thanks." *He spoke in a bit of a rude tone, a screech heard on his side of the call.
Kimsung quickly hung up, informing the group of where Achilles was and they rushed to the Hudson.
Considering where the dungeon was, it wasn't a far run, and they soon spotted even more crustacean corpses along the way, some of them bigger than even a regular sized house would be. Finally getting to the water, Kimsung looked left, then right, spotting Achilles sat down on a bench overlooking the water at what he assumed was 66th Street.
"Achilles, what the hell happened?" Kimsung asked, noticing the sailboat sized lobster corpse floating on the water.
Achilles shrugged, looking up at the moon. It was a couple hours after midnight, judging by the position of the moon.
"Well, you know how Heidi was complaining about the dungeons getting rarer and rarer?" He smiled a bit, then looked at Kimsung while pointing at the river: "Well, I guess I found your solution to that. There's a bunch of dungeons in the water, Kimsung." He chuckled lightly, as if it wasn't important.