Over the course of several weeks, going into early fall, while Achilles continued his cultivation, or whatever he called it, the trio went dungeon diving, clearing dungeon after dungeon. They had brought him along for every one of them, but he couldn't go in with them since he'd already cleared eight dungeons, while they had only cleared one.
Of course, the entire time he was trying to cultivate while waiting for them, multiple monsters attacked him, sometimes immediately after the trio had gone into the dungeon, other times just as they had gotten out. It was a bit chaotic, and annoying to say the least of it.
So when the group went into a dungeon, Achilles would create a tower around himself and the dungeon, giving him the space to defend himself from monster ambushes. So far, they were effective.
After the first couple of weeks, after they had moved into the New Yorker hotel, groups all over the four boroughs began to form (FUCK Staten Island), and Achilles had unfortunately interacted with them.
A few times ended in fights, other times in warnings in the form of his translucent spears as warning shots, and most ended peacefully. Of course, not a single one of them ended with him being injured in any way, shape, or form. Some groups were actively hostile, while others were simply defending themselves.
Of course, he, being the super kind person he was, let them off. Sure, he might've been a bit rude to them, but they were the ones who attacked him first!
Now, they were going to their seventh dungeon, this time in Madison Square Garden, and Achilles was chosen as usual to guard it. But this time, Kimsung gave him a few words in advance.
"Alright, Achilles. This time, no breaking their shoulders, legs, arms, neck bones, cervical spines, shins, knees, elbows, wrists, any of their fingers, any of their toes, their ankles, ears, noses, or one of their ribs. Got it?" He told him, unfortunately, having seen the man do a few of the many things he's named. It should've been funny and scary that Achilles was able to accurately pinpoint said parts of the body so precisely, but Kimsung was rather terrified.
Who wouldn't be, if someone immediately knew your physical weak points from a single glance? Just as the trio was about to go in, a rumble was felt on the ground. Achilles immediately summoned his tower of barriers, thinking it to be perhaps an F-rank, or maybe the rare E-rank attacking them, but it wasn't.
It was a girl riding on top of a bear, being chased by an E-rank that appeared to be a mix between an eagle and a lion. In simple terms, it was a Griffin. Of course, Griffin's left wing appeared to be damaged, and that girl on the fleeing bear seems to have caused it.
Like an idiot, she was screaming her head off, which only served to entice the truck-sized griffin to chase her. Achilles took a single look at the girl and sighed in annoyance, muttering a curse Kimsung hadn't ever heard before.
"You know her, Achilles?" He asked, already taking out his sword and summoning his armor as it coated his body. Achilles' expression was a mix of annoyance, disgust, and discomfort, so clearly, he had a sort of negative connection with her.
"Eh… you could say that…" He sighed before creating a wide platform that covered the avenue the bear and griffin were running on.
Animals with claws were used to rough grounds, grounds that their claws could dig into, and allow them to run normally. However, Achilles was a pet owner, much of a surprise to the trio.
It was something commonly known to all pet owners who had cats or dogs, that if something with claws ran on a very smooth surface, they could easily slip. The paws, claws, and feet of wild animals were not meant for smooth surfaces to begin with, so the result was expected.
As the bear began to run on the smooth barriers placed over the gravel, the bear began to slide as it ran, and the griffin, with its claws, also slipped. However, Achilles had placed a barrier at a specific part of the avenue large enough for the bear and the girl on top of it to pass through, but not the griffin.
So the group proceeded to watch as the griffin clumsily crashed into the invisible wall while the bear slid away to safety. Once the bear stopped sliding on the floor, Achilles raised the barrier it was on and brought it to him. The griffin had finally begun to use its brain, using the buildings to crawl around the barrier wall and continue its chase.
Of course, because birds are physically incapable of perceiving glass, it didn't notice the three-liter-wide spear made of barriers shot to its chest, until it felt it, of course.
[You've slain an E-ranked Low Tier Griffin, You've gained 3+ EXP]
Achilles looked at the notification in slight disappointment. Ever since he began cultivating, he's already surpassed his original reserves of an F-rank and reached 8530 mana. It was his current limit to control three orbs, so he'd have to rank up if he wanted to increase it further. Of course, he could just go deep-sea diving in the Hudson, but he didn't have an oxygen tank, so it wasn't a viable method.
As he placed the platform carrying the girl and bear down, his frown deepened. It was one of his classmates in high school, a bitch he hated because she did that 'Aren't we friends?' bullshit with him all the time. He pitied her, mentally, of course, so he allowed her to keep doing it.
He treated this apocalypse as a time to be a new person and let go of his past. But now, someone from his past, a person he especially wanted to forget, had appeared. Perhaps it was fate, but he wasn't very inclined to follow a route if she was involved.
As the girl awoke, Kimsung wondered who she could be and what she knew about Achilles, considering how he reacted. She groaned in pain, holding her head as she sat up, and first saw Keido, who was seated on the steps nearby.
"Oh, thank god! I finally found somebody!" She exclaimed in joy and got up slowly, still rubbing her head. "Hi, my name's Maria!" She spoke joyfully and looked around, her eyes locking on Achilles.
"Oh, it's you, Matthew! You're alive!" She said, giving him a short hug, much to his apparent discomfort.