"Is this a breeze or what! We're almost to the exit; I can feel it!" A male adventurer with brown hair chuckled, practically skipping ahead. "Man, guess I got worried for nothing, huh?"
"True! It's been a whole day, and no one has even found us yet!" The other shrugged, wearing a cocky smile. Behind them, a petite girl struggled to keep up.
"S-slow down, you two! Don't leave me behind…" She begged, out of breath behind them.
"It's going to be fine! There's literally no one here—" His words died as he bumped into the back of his companion, who had gone still.
"Hey, dude, watch it—"
"You up there!" The brown-haired adventurer shouted ahead. "Which team are you on?!"
"Who are you talking to—?" The second man snaked his head around to see. His eyes widened.
She stood at the end of the path, a silhouette against the dull light of the dungeon. Her lean body doing little to hide the muscle underneath. Her emerald eyes watched them, unblinking.
"Is she dumb?" the second man hissed, stepping past his frozen friend. "Oi! Didn't you hear us?! Which team are you from?"
"Hey, chill out!" The brown-haired one snapped, his fingers coiling around his partner's collar.
"Ack—what's your problem?!" The man spat, but his protest died as his eyes dropped to his friend's trembling wrist. "Huh—"
"Look—we don't have anything, alright? Honest! Just let us pass and we'll be on our way—"
"I don't appreciate being lied to." The girl finally spoke. Her words caused the boy to recoil.
"Hand over the crown, and maybe you'll have enough limbs intact to take another."
"Who are you to make demands…" The second man's breath hitched through his teeth, tugging the other's hand off of him before whipping his arm in front of him. His opened palm points towards the girl, fingers spread wide as he shouts.
"Screw you!!"
A flurry of unconcentrated blasts shot out from his palm; the blasts arched before hitting their target with an unrelenting barrage. Smoke started to pile up on each other, gushing forward and back with the small blasts.
"Oi, dumbass!" The other hesitated, his heart dropping at his partner's actions.
"Shut up and join me! She can't get out of thi—"
The sound of rattling bone and tearing flesh cut through the air. The brown-haired adventurer's eyes widened in complete horror as he saw it. His friend was looking at him with dead fish eyes, neck twisted 280 degrees, ripping from his ribcage.
In an instant it was sent flying, the headless body falling to the floor with an empty thud.
The tanned girl's hand leaked with the boy's blood as she stepped forward.
The brown-haired adventurer was left speechless, only to be brought back by the bloodcurdling scream of his partner behind him. Her eyes widened in panic.
Without wasting a second, the boy turned, grasping at his partner's collar.
[Crown ownership has been transferred!]
"Taketa…" the girl whimpered, her heart dropping at the guilty look on his face.
Taketa pushed past her, causing her to stumble before the girl. She stopped right before her, her gaze downcast on the girl with pity and disgust, before walking over her.
'Sorry, Maiel! I didn't want to do it!' He thought, his feet moving as fast as they could. 'There was no way we could go up against her! I knew that from the start!'
Air whistled. He snapped his head back—a chunk of stone was already arcing toward his skull. He barely managed to dodge before sending back an attack of his own.
The air around him started to manifest, turning into a bow twice his size. "I'll show you the power of the JACK patrons, damn you!"
With a deafening crack the bow fired; the intensity of it all tore the walls apart as the arrow went directly for the tanned girl's shoulder. Blood poured once the wind arrow connected. The force sent her back, her heels digging into the earth as it dragged her by the wound.
"Twist!" He commanded, the wind arrow twisting in on itself, opening the wound further before exploding in a mist of blood and skin.
"D-did I get her?" He mused aloud, though he never stopped running. "Nah, no way that did!"
'With Maiel and Trevor dead, I'll have to find this exit by myself! How lucky am I—it has to be here somewhere! There's no way it's not right?!'
"Benikiba!"
A stone dragon broke the walls in front of the coward, its teeth digging into the other end of the maze. The boy stumbled backwards, watching as an oni's shadow towered over him along with his other two teammates; right on his shoulder sat a girl.
She dressed in all white, with a blue crystal horn with white hair flowering around it.
"Confine!"
She crossed her fingers, her hands almost as if they were commanding the air itself. Sliver of highlights started to appear around the coward.
'String?!' He thought, quickly trying to stand, but was quickly wrapped in hundreds of invisible threads.
"H-hey! Hold on, let's just team up, ok?! I'm being chased by a freak of nature! You don't want to fight her, right?! Come on, let's take her down together!"
"Come on! It's four on one! It'll be easy!"
"You're right, we wouldn't want to fight her." The oni reassured. The girl crossed her wrists.
"Decapitate,"
The strings started to move wildly around him, the thread burns searing his skin. He screamed in agony until blood clouded his vision. Before he could even react, his head fell to the floor, watching his body as only the collar around his neck was left intact.
'N-no way…'
The last thing he saw was the tanned-skin girl walking up to his still-confined corpse, fingers brushing against the sensors of his collar. His mind flared, heating up with a few seconds of its final unfiltered rage. Her shoulder showed itself to be completely unscathed.
[Crown transferred!]
'I definitely hit that shot!! N-no way, no way, no way, no freaking way!!'
"We helped you, Kaela." The oni declared, jumping down from the dragon's neck, his hand outstretched towards the girl. "We would appreciate it if we had the crown before continuing this deal of ours."
"Out of the question," Her words were sharp and matter-of-fact. The oni's head raised in surprise at her soft outburst.
"Master Rahim and you have come to an agreement; the crown that you will hold will be the one that boy has."
"And what if that's the crown you're holding right there?"
"Then at the end of it we'll split the spoils like promised, not before."
The oni took a minute, his gaze clearly gauging if it's worth it to start a fight now. Though he ultimately decided against it, dropping his head with a defeated sigh.
"Very well."
Without saying another word, she pivoted on her heel and started to walk away with the crown added to her arsenal.
Suddenly she stopped, as if she had forgotten something.
"I don't care if it's me." She looked behind her, with a gaze filled with warning. "But fix your face before meeting the master; it's unpleasant." picking up on the oni's irritation and bloodlust.
"Right, my apologies—"
'She's playing us for fools—'
"What do we do about her?" The girl dressed in white spoke, still staring at Kaela's back.
"Cooperate for now." He said with a grunt, hopping onto the dragon with a single leap. His sandals clicked against the dragon's stone body, the beast starting to rise.
"We could've totally taken her there—" The red-haired girl groaned, hand resting on her sword idly.
"No…we couldn't."