Promise came in sight. The sun was setting and the party used the encroaching darkness as a cover to land and lift the illusions.

  “Right. I just have to say this. This dungeon is created by Agnis. I’m not sure what you all know or expect of him but we will die if we don’t take this seriously. I don’t know why he made this but there is a big chance that it was made as a joke or prank. This place isn’t going to be kind to us. I have studied the video of their ‘Speedrun’ and we should be fine on the first floor. The second floor… scares me. I don’t know how they survived that when they were young but it’s going to be a real challenge.” Toxic Donkey said and started to lay out all the important points the team needed to pay attention.

  “Video? I haven’t seen it! Show me!” The idols demanded that Toxic Donkey showed the video that he had mentioned earlier.

  “Most parties that have recently tried a shot at this dungeon are using the footage of Team Hourai as the new guidelines. But nobody has been able to reproduce it… not even close. I bet this is intentional and is 100% that shitty fox’s idea.” Toxic Donkey sad in a frustrated tone as he took out a tablet and had the party watch the speedrun in the twilight.

  The idols eyes lit up as they saw their love interests in action. It had the point of views of all three of them.

  “This… this seems impossible… I can’t use hammers like Gregory did…” Noelle was amazed by Gregory’s skill with the hammer. She would attempt it but would resort to punching if it didn’t work out.

  “Using water in a magma chamber. He really set the bar high. I might be able to get somewhere with my illusions but I need Noelle for that…” Giana said as she made some jellyfish with water magic.

  “T…that couple seems p…problematic. I might be able to deal with Paul.”

  “Oh, about the couple, look here at the final fight. It seems Agnis made sure to defeat them simultaneously. I’m sure he put in some stupid trap that goes off if you don’t defeat them simultaneously, just as the bosses need to die at the same time to reduce the number of ‘time loops’ in this dungeon. Truly a sadistic fox…” Toxic Donkey highlighted the last fight of Boshi Town.

  “So, you know him the best it seems, what other things can we expect?”

  Toxic Donkey shook his head. “I don’t know Giana. It could have literally anything. He did tell me about a shitty town that took way too long for them to escape out but he never went into much details. I also never asked so I guess that was on me. Just expect anything that can make this dungeon more of a pain in the ass.”

  “Here are recording crystals.” Vinny said as he handed each member some recording crystals. “I’m sure your fans would like to see you in action since you retired.”

  Io laughed and spat fore around. “Just kill everything with dragon fire! Hahahaha!”

  “Io, you do realize that Agnis is a mythical beast, right? Anything that he had to struggle with at any point of his life is unlikely to be solved with dragon fire…” Vinny said as shook his head in disapproval.

  The party slowly approached the dungeon. They tried to pool all the information they had on Agnis but it seemed to be surprisingly little.

  “I feel bad… I just realized that I don’t know anything about him…”

  Giana took this quite hard. Toxic Donkey was racking his brain, Io was unsurprisingly useless and Vinny had no ideas either.

  “Hey isn’t this bad? I might not know him well but I was there when he killed all the stalkers and destroyed a whole city after they messed with Giana. I’m confident in my toughness but I don’t think I can deal with things that gave him issues.” Noelle informed after also coming with no useful ideas.

  “Let’s hope he just wants to prank adventurers and not kill them. we have a Golden Angel, 2 dragons and mythical beasts. We should be fine. I just hope that I can pull my weight…”

  “I will protect you, Kyle! We will be fine!”

  Kyle was unsure how well Io would be able to protect him but these words were relieving. He would have to lead this party; a party of mythical and legendary beasts, as a human.

  “What is a pheasantboar? I’m only familiar with flora, my knowledge on fauna is limited.” Vinny had solved the entrance puzzle but that didn’t mean that he understood it. Thoughts flashed through his mind of what a creature like that would look like.

  Toxic Donkey tapped on his tablet and showed an unclear image of a pheasantboar, moments before it got incinerated by Agnis.

  “I see. How are we dividing the guardians? As a jungle dragon I can’t stand fire so I would prefer to avoid that fire guardian.”

  “I think we can let one of the idols handle this. I don’t know what their specialties are but it’s not hard to guess ours.” Toxic Donkey said while starign at the opened dungeon gate.

  The party went inside to find themselves in a town in the mountainside. It was daytime and the air was clean. Yvonne took in the clean air as it had been a while since she could be in an environment with clean air. Noelle could feel all the earth around her and felt very comfortable.

  “It’s pretty.” Giana linked her vision with Noelle and Yvonne and looked around. “So this is where they grew up.”

  Toxic Donkey wanted to start with the strategy meeting but he decided to let the idols enjoy the scenery. He agreed that it looked beautiful and peaceful. He was painfully aware that this was as deceptive as his mentor.

  “So, this is Boshi town. I see some flora that is quite rare!” Vinny said exitedly as he ran off to study some plants.

  “Is that a lake! I haven’t had fish in a long time! Kyle lets fry them!”

  Toxic Donkey [Shadow Bound] Io, who was about to run off to vaporize a lake. “Please stay put Io. Early guides of this place suggests that there are monsters in one of these lakes. Let’s not waste energy on the unimportant encounters.”

  “I know that we are here to clear this floor but do you mind if we look around in this town?” Giana asked. Her eyes did the same thing as Agnis’.

  Toxic Donkey nodded. He realized that he might have been too focused on defeating the dungeon but this was also a good opportunity to learn more about Team Hourai. Also, Giana’s eyes were as unsettling as those of his friend and mentor. He reminded himself that they’re from the same race and that messing with her might be a very bad idea, double so as she’s their Golden Angel.

  Io ran off to the lake to fry fish and lake monsters. Vinny was studying the flora in and around Boshi town and Kyle and the idols went into the town.

  “Why aren’t they reacting to your strange outfit?” Noelle posed a good question. Toxic Donkey admitted that even though he was the only human in his party, he had the most unusual appearance.

  “I don’t kno…” Toxic Donkey got interrupted because he got overrun by a wild boar. “What the fuck? A wild boar? In the town?”

  A boy that was suspiciously similar to young Raishin was chasing boars on the town plaza and Toxic Donkey had been run down by one of these boars.

  “Ooh is this young Raishin?! How cute!” Noelle said as she 'ran' off. Toxic Donkey was wondering if something had cast [Slow] on her because she ran off quite slowly.

  “Wait! We need to stick togeth…” Toxic Donkey got interupted again as he got run over by another wild boar. “What is wrong with this town?!”

  “I’m sorry Kyle, normally I would help but currently I care more about finding young Agnis! Cya!” Giana said as she 'ran' off too. Toxic Donkey was wondering if also Giana had [Slow] on her as she also ran off as if in slow motion.

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  Toxic Donkey looked at Yvonne, who was the only one left. “W…want to go over there?” She pointed at a stall with young Gregory.

  Toxic Donkey sighed. “Fine.”

  “Hello Gregory, my name is Kyle, I’m here to…” And again, Toxic Donkey got overrun by a wild boar. The boar also destroyed Gregory’s stall and Gregory lost it. Toxic Donkey landed and got out his daggers. “I’ve had it with these boars! We haven’t had dinner yet. I hope you love boar Yvonne!”

  “I’m vegetarian…”

  “Oh… well these boars need to go!”

  Toxic Donkey kept defeating boar after boar but there seemed to be an endless amount of them.

  “L…look! They have n...numbers on their back.” Yvonne said. She had caught and subdued a boar. It was struggling but there was no way it could beat a mythical beast in a contest of strength.

  “Number 112… what the… I swear if this is one of that fox’s pranks!”

  Toxic Donkey counted that 152 boars had fallen by his hand and Yvonne had caught over 300 boars.

  “This is a waste of time… It’s probably intentional...”

  Yvonne and Toxic Donkey reacted as an enormous pillar of fire shot out from a mountain in the distance.

  “Blue fire? What is wrong with this town?!”

  As minutes and hours passed, Toxic Donkey realized why nobody paid attention to his getup. Most citizens weren’t that fazed by the boars running rampant or the blue fire pillar. They seemed to be used to this degree of insanity going on.

  “I see, an insane town created insane individuals. It makes perfect sense now…”

  Toxic Donkey looked at Yvonne who had been chatting to young Gregory for the last 2 hours. Vinny approached him and tapped him on his shoulder. “This place is amazing. There is nature everywhere. There are some rare or near extinct plants here. However, something seems off with this place. It doesn’t match the environment at some point.”

  “Agnis did tell me this town was stuck in a strange barrier, the one we need to lift to get to the next floor. It is possible that anything inside the barrier gets affected somehow, which then makes it different from the environment outside.”

  Vinny looked around. “I see, where is the rest?”

  “They all ran off to do whatever they wanted. I’m slowly starting to understand why team Hourai is so unhinged and insane. Nothing in this town makes sense.”

  “Not sure it’s this place that did this. You are aware of how dragons are right? It’s just possible that this town amplified some of the quirkiness and insanity. They probably wouldn’t have been much different if they grew up in a normal place.”

  “I guess. Anyway, I need to fetch Io before she accidently burns this town down. She can save that energy for the boss.”

  “Shouldn’t we find a place to stay the night? It was daytime when we arrived here but its night now it should also be close to midnight.”

  “That’s a good idea. I will get Io and Giana. Can you make sure Yvonne doesn’t go off and find Noelle? Let’s meet up back here on this plaza.”

  Vinny nodded and approached Yvonne. Toxic Donkey [Shadow melded] to the lake and his mouth fell open. A red dragon was flying over the biggest lake and fighting some monster. He looked at his donkey suit which had seen better days so it might not be as watertight and water repelling as it used to be. He decided that he can’t stop Io so he might as well help her. Wind magic launched him into the air and blew him toward the fight.

  It didn’t take long for him to arrive. Io noticed Toxic Donkey and plucked him out of the air. “Something is wrong with these monsters. They’re super strong!”

  “I’m not surprised, as I expected this town is very deceptive.”

  Toxic Donkey took out a vial, coated his dagger with it and targeted the lake monster. The monster was quite large, the size of 2 houses. It was by far the largest monster in the lake. But this had no meaning to Toxic Donkey’s corrosive poison. The monster started to corrode the moment the poison made contact and it was reduced to a strange dark blue sludge after the poison did its job.

  “Noo! Our dinner!”

  “Don’t worry Io, we have a lot of boar meat and Vinny brought various plants and herbs. Our dinner won’t be lacking. Let’s find Giana.”

  It took a while but Toxic Donkey’s shadow clone found Giana in a house with young Agnis.

  “Why are they eating ice cream? I know his ice cream is top notch but…”

  Giana opened the door after Io rang the doorbell. “Oooh Kyle! Did you know? Agnis is very good at making ice cream!”

  “Uhh, I knew, I’m sorry but I have to separate you from him. We need to get ready for the night and deal with the barrier tomorrow.”

  “Ok! I had fun! Bye Agnis! See you soon!” The young Agnis had no idea what Giana meant, neither did Toxic Donkey but he was happy that Giana came with him without resisting.

  Toxic Donkey was exhausted. He had forgotten that mythic and legendary beasts do everything at their own pace and can be quite problematic but his efforts paid off.

  Everyone had gathered on the town square and everyone was in a good mood. He did had to stay calm as the ‘Boar Problem’ was caused by young Agnis and Giana pranking him and Yvonne. The idols started to sing and Vinny whipped up a nice dinner. Giana reminded them that food made out of illusions can cause problems so she pulled food out of her dimensional pocket. It was very late but everyone was hungry and needed rest.

  The next morning came and plans had been made. It wasn’t feasible to beat all the bosses in one timeline so they would do it in 3 timelines just as team Hourai had done. Toxic Donkey went for this because he was unsure what traps Agnis had put in place in case someone attempted to clear it in under 3 timelines. He had become paranoid; anything they did in that speedrun video was for a reason.

  Io and Giana would take out the toughest guardian. Both of them would attempt to torch the place as Agnis had done. Toxic Donkey would [Shadow Meld] Noelle to the Mountain. She was confident that she could handle the Mountain as Gregory had done; with a lot of earth magic and a large hammer. It was a necessity to smash through diamond, which in Noelle’s words was a ‘Piece of cake’. There was a shortcut that could only be reached by [Shadow Melding].

  Toxic Donkey had heard of what needed to be done to get to the Mountain without that shortcut and it sent shivers through his spine. There was probably also the inconvenience that only Toxic Donkeys or highly specialized individuals could take that shortcut and the Mountain was a bad matchup for Toxic Donkeys.

  Vinny and Yvonne would take the village under the mountain. The village seemed to be named ‘Ash Potato Village.’ This wasn’t anything any adventurer had come up with. The first group had found a signpost that pointed toward ‘Ash Potato Village.’

  Nobody knew why it was called like that. Toxic Donkey was unaware if Ash Potatoes existed. Vinny also didn’t know about it but wanted to find this possible new potato, and Yvonne was also intrigued so both of them would be checking out that village.

  Toxic Donkey would go for Molerock. Recent reports had come out that killing Molerock has become exceedingly hard and several parties that had succeeded had almost been wiped out and then died due to exhaustion. It seemed that those responsible for Molerock’s death will be forced to breakdance for a week.

  Toxic Donkey was confident in his rapping and breakdancing skills but digging was something he can’t do so he had to make sure he wins the first 2 challenges.

  “Alright so this is the plan. We all start at 10:00 and regardless on how the fight goes, we defeat the guardians at 10:30. Is that fine?”

  Toxic Donkey looked around and everyone seemed fine with that plan.

  “I will [Shadowmeld] you Noelle. Good luck everyone!” Toxic Donkey put his hand on Noelle’s shadow and [Shadow Melded] her to the room of the Mountain. The Mountain had a sidekick but for some reason he always trips and dies in every dungeon run. There might be conditions where this doesn’t happen but there was no information on this.

  “Don’t forget Noelle, this all has been created by a sadistic fox, don’t let your guard down.”

  “Hmm, this boss doesn’t seem too strong. I got this don’t worry!” Noelle said as she got out 3 crystal tails. Toxic Donkey nodded and [Shadow melded] to his target, Molerock. He had the easiest boss and was unsure on how to feel about this.

  It was 09:58 and he had no time to think about this. He needed to prepare himself.

  ?