"Alright, guys, let's take a break here. We're about halfway through at this point, so let's rest up before continuing on," I remarked, as I stretched my arms up with a sigh.

Today's the 21st of June, 2169, two days since my duel against Trent, where I totally wrecked his sorry ass. That was fun.

Anyway, I was currently in a High Level Dungeon, leading the party that had been assigned to this raid, and we were making pretty good progress.

This one has seventy-four floors, and we just got done clearing the thirty-seventh floor. The Monsters in this place have, so far, been all Giant Mantises, which are a Mid Level species.

And they're exactly what they sound like, oversized praying mantises that are around the size of a car. They have fairly strong exoskeletons and are pretty aggressive.

We've been having a pretty easy time of things against them, which is only natural since they're Mid Level Monsters, I haven't even needed to summon Luxuria yet.

Giant Mantises only have a single evolved form, which are Scythe Mantises, a Critical Level species.

That's why, despite being Mid Level, Giant Mantises are almost always only found in High Level Dungeons, and the Dungeon Boss ends up being a Scythe Mantis.

With these Monsters, there's two standard patterns...either all Giant Mantises throughout the floors until the Boss Room, or mostly Giant Mantises with Scythe Mantises on the last few floors, and a stronger individual Scythe Mantis in the Boss Room.

The latter pattern is a lot rarer though.

Since we're only halfway through the Dungeon, there's no way to tell for sure which pattern this one is following, it's still too early to discern, but at the rate at which we've been progressing, I suppose we'll find out soon enough.

Aria and I were at the front line, of course, along with a K-Ranked Saber girl with the Water Attribute.

The mid line was made up of a K-Ranked Fire Mage girl, a K-Ranked Earth Mage guy, and a Q-Ranked Lightning Mage girl.

As for the back line, Sera and Damien brought up the rear, along with a Q-Ranked Detector girl.

Fortunately, everyone in the party was pretty chill, none of the women had any problems with guys, so things were a lot less tense than they were during my previous raid.

And I think I'm handling myself reasonably well as the party's Captain. I do have some experience leading before, I led the party I worked with as a Freelance Hunter a number of times.

"This is turning out to be pretty boring, huh? These Giant Mantises are no challenge at all," Aria sighed wistfully, as she took a seat on the ground.

This Dungeon's terrain was cave-like, which is the most common type. The temperature was pleasantly cool, without being too chilly, and the ground wasn't overly uneven or rocky, so we've been able to move around freely enough.

"Hey, don't say stuff like that, especially after what happened last time," Frowned Sera warily.

"It should be fine...luck is something that must be balanced, and since we had terrible luck last time, our luck should be positive this time," Responded Damien with a thumbs up.

"Uh, that definitely sounds like the kind of thing that'd set off a death flag," Chimed in one of the others nervously.

"Yeah, you, of all people, saying something optimistic makes me feel like something's definitely going to go wrong, Damien," Added another of the party members warily.

"Let's just take it one floor at a time. There haven't been any reports of drastic deviations from the standard patterns since our last raid, but we know that's going to change sooner or later.

We can't let that affect us though, our best approach is to just take it floor by floor and respond accordingly if we encounter anything out of the ordinary," I surmised prudently.

"Agreed, we can't be too complacent, but at the same time, we can't be too on edge either," Replied Sera with a nod.

"Yeah, that's true. It's hard to stay sharp when it's so easy, though," Spoke up Aria, a wry smile on her face.

After resting for a while, we continued on, making our way up to the next floor. As we headed through the floor, the Detector soon sensed another group of Monsters, eighteen Giant Mantises.

As the Monsters came into sight not long after, I drew out my blade as the Attack Mages unleashed a fierce volley of fireballs, rocky bullets and lightning bolts at the Monsters.

Sharp screeches rang out as the attacks peppered them, the Giant Mantises scattering before Aria and I shot forward, the Saber not far behind.

As I closed in on one of them, I swung Desecrator up and across as the Monster drove one of its pincers towards me, a screech of pain echoing out as my blade cut through its exoskeleton and and sliced off its pincer, before I swiftly lunged forward and thrust my blade into its neck.

I gave the blade a sharp twist before rapidly dragging it across with a snap of my wrist, slicing across its neck. The Monster collapsed onto the ground as a thick, gloopy green liquid oozed out of its neck, its head barely hanging on by a thread.

I then sprang back as two more Giant Mantises came charging in from either side, the Monsters crashing against each other before I chanted and manifested Void, extending the black hole out towards them, both their heads getting pulled into it before I deactivated it, ripping off and swallowing up their heads before they could react.

An agonized screech rang out from a few meters away as Aria struck the underside of one of the Monsters with a crushing uppercut, smashing through its exoskeleton and fatally wounding it, her face scrunching up as the gelatinous green liquid coated her gauntlet.

The Saber's holding her own pretty well too, and the Attack Mages are bombarding the stragglers with ease, only five Monsters left on this floor, and it shouldn't be long before they're dead too.

Alright, let's finish off the rest and keep moving ahead...

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