Now up to speed with Frederick's plan of using them as cheap labour, the duo picked up the speed of killing, hoping to overwhelm him with piles of corpses to slow him down.
Along the way they saw floating whitish yellow spheres which they concluded were mosquito eggs since they refilled their energy in small amounts after being stabbed.
"Charles, I think we have reached the end of this tunnel. There should be an opening up ahead", Tess said, inwardly frustrated that her unique vision hadn't been able to locate Frederick.
"Okay, let's take a little break. I want to be at full stamina before fighting the boss."
"Hey I know you said you can't use your power on yourself but have you tried using it on something, then sitting on it" Tess suggested.
"I don't think I follow. Come again."
"What un trying to say is that, imagine you make a book fly, right. Then you stand on it, sort of like a hover-board or a witch's broom."
"Hmm, I don't know how I haven't thought of that."
"Eh, I didn't think of using my SKIP as a blindspot watcher before, so i guess we're even."
"Hmm, I guess so."
Scanning the dark swampy environment, the young master put together a small pile of stones and activated his TELEKINESIS, easily making it float at knee height.
Making himself comfortable, he slowly lifted his support higher and higher, and after seeing that he didn't fall off, he zoomed about at full speed in the tunnel.
Touching the left wall of the tunnel, then the right, the young master was having the time of his life, but his excitement was cut short when he decided to touch the high ceiling of the tunnel.
"Aaaaaa", Tess screamed, as she fell through the air.
Maneuvering his rock-chair, the young master managed to catch Tess before she came close to hitting the ground.
Cutting her scream ahort in order to catch her breath, Tess squirmed a bit before turning to stare at her saviour's face.
"You know Charles, if you wanted me to sit on your lap you could have just asked. There was no need to use the fear method." Tess said, positioning her body well on Charles's lap, shifting her thighs and rear in a slow sensual way.
Ignoring her blatant seduction, Charles asked, "What the heck are you talking about. What fear method?".
"Oh you know, cancelling your TELEKINESIS skill on me so that I'll fall and scream and you'll come and save me, like you just did, while feeling me up close and scoring brownie points. The usual trick."
Staring at her with part doubt and part disbelief, he eventually managed to say, "Girl, you crazy. I don't need to do all that to win over an 8 like you when I easily score 10s on a weekly basis." Charles countered, feeling his masculinity being challenged.
"Jerk. Then how do you explain me falling, huh."
"To be honest, I actually felt a little headache some moments before you fell, so either my skill has a weight limit or a range limit."
"Right. Okay, I believe you."
Hearing the sarcastic way she spoke, Charles decided to address her.
"Then why am I hearing not so faint traces of sarcasm in your voice."
"Eh, it's probably in your mind. Anyway once you're done recovering your stamina let's go and defeat the boss and escape from this cramped space."
"Alright, let me just drop you down, you're probably uncomfortable sitting on me."
"W-we don't have enough time for that, there's barely 2 hours left on the timer. And don't worry about my comfort, this is way better than earlier. You would not believe how much my back was killing me."
Adhering to the strange request for her sake alone, and not because the faint flowery smell of her hair soothed the persistent headache he still had, he flew them into the center cave, the bosses lair.
The boss's lair was a stark contrast in terms of brightness, to the tunnel they just exited, and this was for two visible reasons.
The first being that their cave wasn't really a cave, it was more like a pit or crater since the top part was exposed to the NIGHT sky which shed its purple light on them.
The second was the huge glowing rock in the center.
Cautiously floating them towards it, the young master felt his head being pulled down by Tess as she shouted, "DUCK", a pebble flew past where his head was and hit the weird glowing rock.
Rotating the stone-chair 180⁰ the two were finally able to see their employer for the first time since he left.
"Oh sorry about that. Didn't mean to kill you, you were just in the rock's way is all", the cheery voice of Frederick sounded out, his red glowing eyes made his attempt to smile look sinister.
"Ohh, it's alright. No harm no foul eh Fred." Charles said, looking at the bundle of stones in Frederick's hand that turned into dangerous bullets when thrown with his strength.
Unfortunately Tess didn't see them and thus, began her tirade against him.
"Yeah right. Just like you didn't mean to kill Christina. You know what, it wouldn't even come as a shock to me if you killed the missing guy or girl of our group. The one we haven't met until now." The shaken up Tess said as she leaned into Charles, hoping to be protected.
Boom!!
Faster than any of them could register, Frederick blurred out of their views and appeared on their left, a feat he could perform as a result of his BERSERK and SWALLOW infused superhuman strength.
Seeing them rotate to face the rock with him, he answered.
"Christina was a special case while the other one was a personal one."
"You- you monster, how could you do this. They were humans, had their own lives and everything, and you took that away from them. What gives you the right."
"Hmmm, I guess my strength gave me the rights to do so. And if you're angry because you think they're human, don't waste your anger."
Stunned, Tess relied on the one person she could, "Charles, what's he talking about."
"Beats me. But it's probably related to that weird text we received upon entry, the one about two humans, two Halflings and a Hollow. By the way the rock is an egg."
"Huh, wha- how. What the f*ck is going on, and how do you know the rock is an egg."
Frederick beat Charles to the answer, "Because it's hatching. Take cover."
Boom!!
The rock eggshell exploded into tiny pieces, creating a dust cloud around the newborn.
*Screeee*
The giant silver glowing mosquito screeched as if to announce to the world about its arrival, the crater-pit responding with a quake.
"Leave it. It's mine to kill. Besides don't you guys want to see the results of you feeding me."
"Okay asshat, so what are we supposed to do then, huh. Sit on our asses and look pretty for you."
In response to Tess's question thousands upon thousands of mosquitoes shot out of the numerous holes in the wall, coming from the network of tunnels around.
"Well you can deal with that. See ya later" And with that, Frederick shot forward, hitting the giant house-sized beast.
"Asshole" and with that Tess rotated her sitting posture, now facing the smirking Charles, her legs locked around his waist.
"Pervert. Don't think of doing anything. This is so that we can cover each other's backs since I'm disabling my SKIP vision." Tess blushed.
"Right right. I hear you, but if you feel any changes under you, know that you caused it."
Blushing harder, Tess activated RESISTANCE, her grip on the katana hardening.
Charles just made the other katana, Tess's gun and some stones float, intending to use all of them simultaneously.
The culling of the mosquitoes went smoothly, with the background screeches of the boss monster enraging them more as some flew to help it, only to die before achieving their goal.
In a bit more than an hour, there were no living mosquitoes left.
Tired and out of breath, Charles and Tess didn't say a word, lying on a floating slab of rock as they relished the silence and each other's company, completely oblivious to whatever it was that Frederick was doing.
The time ran out, and portals appeared in front of everyone as they bid each other goodye.
*Back in the young master's fortress, the SAFE FLOOR.*
"Young master. You made it. Would you like to talk about your dungeon run."
"Maybe later, Alex."
" Astra, wake me up when the second TRIAL starts" and with that, Charles dozed off.