We ran as fast as we could following the corridor which Leo had headed through. The bomb that I gave to him had two effects. It created an explosion wherever it was thrown, and the second was creating dark smoke. The smokescreen was our way of finding him, following the source of it.
It wasn't a powerful bomb, but its function wasn't destruction in the first place. I gave it to him so he could disorient the monsters around him, escape, and wait for our backup. But knowing him, he would probably do that as a last resort.
That thick head would probably try to kill himself fighting a foolish battle before calling for help. Maybe I was impressed by his skill, Counter, but even though it was a useful weapon, it wasn't absolute. Counter reflects the damage the user blocks using his weapon. In other words, Counter didn't reflect surprise attacks or more damage than he could handle.
'We should never let him go alone, just go to the boss room and beat it.' I thought inwardly, regretting not being cautious enough.
I wasn't in the best mood. I was losing my V-card, and my blood was still rushing back to my head. Imagine running like this. 'Leo, that counts as two strikes. If you aren't in trouble, you'll be.'
The more we walked, the thicker the smoke became, indicating that we were on the right track.
"Wait!" Sarah said apprehensively. When I stopped, footsteps could be heard in the opposite direction, coming from the spot right ahead of us.
My body was tense as a result of the adrenaline rush. Sarah pulled out her sword and I prepared my dagger to defend. We didn't know what was coming, but we decided to fight and save our companion.
The smoke was dissipating and, from there, we could finally see the source of the footsteps.
"Eh?" I was surprised by what I saw. Before my eyes was a tall guy, blond hair, and his clothes were dirty, covered with ashes. He wore a disappointed look on his face.
"Leo?" I said, surprised. I was expecting to enter a fight, but apparently that was not the case. The explosion dirtied him from top to bottom, but he didn't seem wounded.
"Leo, are you all right… ?" Sarah said to him.
"Y-Yeah…" He responded with a shameful voice.
"Where are the enemies?" She wanted to know.
"W-Well…"
I asked myself why he was looking so embarrassed. A teenager caught masturbating in the bathroom would probably have the same look.
"Why did you use the bomb though?" I asked him bluntly.
"Y'know, I was exploring the area, as I said I would, and found a room that wasn't on the map." Leo explained to us, but for some reason it seemed that he was avoiding being straightforward.
"We had a similar experience." I said, looking at Sarah, who turned her head in another direction when our eyes made contact. Well, Leo's journey probably didn't involve interrupted sexual intercourse. "Ahem, so what happened?"
"There was this treasure chest…"
"No, no way! Not this again!" Sarah had already figured it out. "Are you saying that you got tricked by a Mimic?!"
Mimics are monsters that disguise themselves as treasure chests in order to eat careless adventurers. When a clueless adventurer opens a disguised Mimic, the chest's lid transforms into the monster's mouth and closes, keeping the victim stuck.
But it wasn't as bad as it sounds. Mimics aren't dangerous monsters; their teeth are too weak to chew a human adult. Usually, they just grip an adventurer, and his party members help him and destroy the monster before its saliva digests their friend. Because of that, the risk of dying to a Mimic is considered low among low-rank adventurers like us.
But it's still annoying to pull someone out of a living creature, and our friend here has the bad habit of falling into this kind of trap. It's not just for romance that he was naïve.
"So you got stuck and used the explosive to free yourself from it, right?" I asked him.
He didn't answer, but his expression screamed "Guilty as charged!!"
"Are you stupid?!" Sarah snapped at Leo.
"It was the only way to break free from the Mimic…" He said hesitantly.
"Only an idiot would open a treasure chest alone, but just an idiot among idiots would fall for a Mimic with such frequency." She said furiously.
She had a point. Leo had a bad habit of carelessly checking every chest he saw. A deadly trap disguised as a chest would be an effective way to kill him. Thankfully, in the entire story of SCRL, no villain ever tried that.
"Why are you so angry at me, Sarah?" Leo asked her.
"Eh? Well…" She glanced at me, and her cheeks turned red. "I-It's because you're an idiot! That's why!"
Her emotions were all over the place. The quick glance she gave me was enough for me to understand why she was mad. Sarah was pissed because she wanted to be clapped.
Well, I was angry with Leo before, but this situation was so ridiculous that my primary emotion was more like disbelief. Maybe the sudden change in the flow diluted my anger. But I didn't know that women got furious from being cock… No, pussyblocked. Well, live and learn.
"You're our leader, so act like one!" She continued to scold him.
"If you're going to act like this, you should be the leader…" He whispered indignantly.
"Did you say something?" She demanded, narrowing her eyes.
"N-No, Ma'am!" He responded, afraid of her.
"Good, so let's keep going. For the boss room." She commanded.
"Yes, Ma'am!" Leo responded like a soldier replying to a general. He was stronger than her and the party leader, but their dynamic was like that. I was having fun watching him being treated like that.
If he hadn't interfered with my fun time with Sarah, I would probably feel bad for him. But that wasn't the case. He disrupted us not once, but twice. Therefore, I think he deserved some punishment.
"Why are you looking at me like that?!" She asked me, still angry.
"Nothing." I replied, but inside my head I thought, 'Geez, she really is mad. I'll make sure to fix that mood of hers.'
…
In front of us, a heavy iron door stood out among stone-block walls. Finally, we were at the boss room. The obstacle between me and my new powers. I couldn't hold my excitement. I was so close.
The other two were gathering courage to deal with whatever was on the other side. After taking a long breath, Leo opened his eyes with determination. "Here we go!"
The door opened with a metallic groan. The room was shaped like a square, illuminated only by torches on the walls, and at the center stood the creature we were supposed to kill.
"It's not possible… It's a…" Sarah said in disbelief.
"Baaaaaa."
"Sheep!" Leo said, clearly disappointed.
'Yep.' I shut my mouth so I wouldn't sound like I knew beforehand. Well, I couldn't blame him. Leo was 1.85m tall, so the 1.5m (4'11'') mammal looked like a small challenge for a dungeon boss.
Its entire body was covered with yellowish wool, its hide was bluish, clearly different from a normal sheep. The curved horns on top of its head ended at the back of its skull, and its yellow horizontal eyes calmly stared at us.
This monster appeared at the beginning of SCRL. An F-Rank Boss. It was an easy fight in the book, meant only to show how weak we were.
'This is the first big monster that appeared in the book, and it was easily defeated by the heroes. A low-level boss. So it should be easy, right?'
"Well, a monster is a monster. After killing it, we can advance." Leo was taking his sword from the sheath, and the meek sheep started to get agitated in the presence of the shining steel.
Leo drew his sword from the sheath, and the meek sheep, that was passively watching us, started to get agitated in the presence of the shining steel.
"Baaaaaaaaaaa!"
I didn't know why, but something didn't feel right about this boss. "Leo, stay back!"
Right after I shouted, the swordsman took a headbutt from the beast. Leo was sent flying at high speed, crashing into one of the room's walls.
"Leo!" Sarah screamed.
The sheep changed. Its bleat became guttural and its dark skin and wool shifted to a red tone. The beast that had only been observing us now looked like a completely different monster, foam covering its mouth and veins bulging through its hide.
I didn't need a system to understand what happened. The sheep activated Berserk.
"You must be kidding me." The creature before my eyes was far stronger than its version from the book. I didn't know why, but things had changed drastically.
"Who the hell changed the difficulty here?" I said to myself.
The enraged beast was pawing the ground, preparing for the next attack. And his new target was me.