Gacha Harem System-Chapter 48: Ah, Shit

Lukas surged forward an instant before the beam fired.

But it seemed like this time, the scorpion had learnt from his earlier maneuver.

As he surged forward, the tail tracked him instead of staying in place.

The glowing tip angled downwards, following his approach, adjusting to cut off the slide before he could execute it.

He saw it happening and changed his plan in the half second he had available.

Instead of going under, he went closer.

He closed the remaining distance in a single burst, and just as the stinger discharged, his palm slapped down on the top of the tail, driving it towards the ground.

The beam hit the scorpion’s own back.

The explosion was instant, creating a concentrated burst of heat that rolled out from the point of impact, the force of it pushing against Lukas even at close range.

He felt the heat across his chest and arms, but before it could cause any damage, [Dread Cuirass] activated.

Twenty percent of the force reflected back into the dissipating explosion, and what remained washed over him without any significant consequence.

He straightened.

The scorpion was already dead.

Ding!

[You have killed a C-rank Deathstalker Scorpion.]

Lukas looked at the notification. Then at the scorpion. Then back at the notification.

"Oh, come on!"

He scoffed, turning away from the smoldering remains.

"That one doesn’t count," he said aloud, to no one in particular, his voice carrying down the empty wooden corridor.

"That beast killed itself. I didn’t attack it. I just redirected its own attack and it did the rest." He pointed at nothing. "My game is still active. Zero kills."

Satisfied with this ruling, he resumed walking, and after a moment began whistling to himself, the sound moving ahead of him through the passage.

He turned a sharp corner and walked directly into three scorpions.

Two were moving side by side, filling most of the corridor’s width, and the third trailed behind them.

And in that little instant in which they realized that there was prey in front of them, Lukas dashed forward.

He didn’t give them time before he accelerated, lowering his body as he ran.

He launched himself into the air just before he reached them, clearing the backs of the front two in a single jump, tucking his legs to avoid the tail of the third, and landing in the open corridor on the other side without breaking stride.

He kept running.

Behind him, the sounds of confused chittering and clicking pincers erupted, followed by the heavier percussion of pursuit.

He rounded the next bend, took a fork at random, then another, varying his turns without any particular logic, and within thirty seconds the sounds behind him had lost cohesion and faded.

He slowed back to a walk, still whistling.

The dungeon kept producing scorpions, some coming around corners just as he reached them, and others coming the other way along a straight stretch of corridor.

He evaded all of them.

Some required more creativity than others.

One required him to press flat against the wall and hold completely still while a scorpion passed close enough that its tail brushed the air above his head.

Another required a short sprint and a jump that cleared a pincer by less margin than he was comfortable with.

But he kept moving.

And gradually, the passages around him began to change.

The width of the corridors increased. The change wasn’t really pronounced at first.

It changed just enough that three scorpions could walk side by side, then slowly grew wider, until every corridor was like its own small hall.

He walked through a final passage and the walls fell away entirely.

He’d finally arrived at the boss room.

The hall opened around him, with a high ceiling, and the wood of the floor worn smooth from whatever had been moving across it for however long this dungeon had existed.

The light in the hall was sparse, as there were fewer holes in the ceiling here, making the columns of sunlight narrower and spaced further apart.

Lukas stopped walking and stood near the entrance. He scanned the room slowly, moving his eyes across each shadow in turn, listening.

Then he finally heard the sound of clicking.

His gaze snapped left.

The boss scorpion stepped out of the dark.

It was larger than every other scorpion he had encountered in this dungeon, and also larger than the ones in the Scorched Forest.

Its exoskeleton was a deep, burning red, and the heat came off it in faint waves that he could feel from across the room.

Its tail rose higher than the others, the stinger at the tip already glowing. Its eyes burned red in the shadows, fixed on him without blinking.

"There you are," Lukas said, and raised his sword.

Then he heard it.

The sound was faint at first, before rising higher. His eyes widened as the soft clicking of pincers began coming from multiple directions.

He looked around, finally noticing the holes in the walls. And from each of them, scorpions were emerging, pouring into the room and filling the space around him until all he could see was scorpions.

He was soon surrounded, and he stood there, assessing.

When he was done with that, he only had one thing to say.

"Ah, shit."

So that was how it worked.

Run from them all you liked and take every fork away from them. Evade every pursuit, avoid every confrontation, and they all found their way to the same room eventually.

The dungeon collected them here. There was no version of clearing this place that didn’t involve going through every scorpion currently surrounding him.

He exhaled slowly.

Then a grin appeared on his face.

He’d faced seventeen Ice Wolves in a dark forest with less stats.

He’d fought an A-rank Nemean Lion with a broken shoulder blade.

He’d stood in the Scorched Forest surrounded by C-rank beasts and come out the other side.

And to him, this was just exercise.

He rolled his neck, shifted his grip on the sword, and looked at the sea of exoskeletons and glowing eyes surrounding him on every side.

The boss scorpion watched from the back, letting its guardians move first.

Lukas twirled his sword once.

"Let’s do this."

He attacked.