Harem Reborn

Chapter 104: Dungeon Activating!

//Stablizers acitvated

I started to drop, and I reached out to grab Tilly's hand. She saw what I was doing and reached out, grabbing mine.

/Everyone, let's grab hands and slow down

Everything was going well, and Iona ran through the air with ease to my side, taking my hand. Tilly had just taken Mikota's hand when I heard my name scream from the helmet speakers.

//Dave! -Tama

That's was when I realized what was missing before I put the girl's hands together, and I dove to Tama's position on the map. I did squats off invisible walls to increase my speed because I could see her in front of me, but the ground was coming closer at an alarming rate. I kicked harder, and I rocketed to her, catching up, so I changed to feet down and ran at her, still falling and less than ten meters off the ground.

I snatched her and started to run up a steep hill of air, trying to bleed off my downward motion. Slowly, I began to make upward progress, and I began to slow, staying about five meters off the ground. I looked around at the sparkling sand and the surrounding area, but no threats are on the map yet, so I look down at Tama in my arms.

Suddenly Tama shook in my arms awake and then grabbed at me before relaxing. She must have passed out before I caught her, but why didn't she slow down? I looked up to see the other girls descending down to us, so I decided that it would be a good idea to go to grounds level.

/What happened, Tama?

I walked down through the air on invisible steps as I asked the question, and she didn't respond right away. It wasn't until just before the bottom that Tama decided to speak up, and I stopped about ten centimeters off the sand.

//I got scared, I'm sorry! I know I'm supposed to be brave, but I had never experienced anything like it before. It was like my mind wouldn't process thoughts, so that I couldn't get how to slow down through my head -Tama.

Now I understood what had happened, and I should have started us holding hands. When we jumped, none of this would have happened, but everything started to happen so fast. It wasn't Tama who should be apologizing. It was me.

/It wasn't your fault, I should have started us holding hands, but we made it. Though I'm a bit suspicious about how quiet it is down here. There are no monsters on the map, and we are too far from the top to pick up the ones here, so what is going on?

The girls were almost to us, jumping from air ledge to air ledge. These MAS suits just looked at the laws of gravity and said, not today! Mikota was the first to put the boot of Plague Strider down on the sand, but then everything around us changed, and I dropped to the sand, almost stumbling.

The others hit the sand around me, but they had been less than two meters from the ground when this happened. This phenomenon started when Mikota had put one foot down and the other raise. She stumbled and fell forward into the sand, cursing into the mic.

//System restricted, Dungeon Activating

Woah, that wasn't in my helmet HUD; this one was the same as last game, projecting from my eyes. I heard a noise coming from above, and I looked up. The stone canyon was closing above us, but I also see two large dark shapes flying down at us from above.

/Everyone up, NOW! DONT LOOK UP. JUST RUN!

As everyone quickly got out of the way, our two sand buggies smashed into the sand where we just were. When I looked up again, the roof was finishing closing up, and now we were in a cave. To be more specific, a dungeon, why didn't I see it coming? I had never guessed the place would close up like this, though.

/Is everyone alright?

Mikota's glass face place to reveal her pretty face and smile.

"Ya, only because you warned us. I was going to lay in the sand for a bit and mope, so you saved my life by yelling at us. I never thought that this place would be like so crazy, like how did the canyon walls just close above us?"

The rest of the girls crowded around, and I put down Tama. I dropped my faceplate with a thought, as did the rest of them. Before it dropped, I had noticed some strange red shape ahead on the map, but they didn't look like they were moving towards us.

"It's a game, remember; I just ran up open-air like some cartoon character to slow down. I have given up on trying to make sense of it all. There are enemies far up ahead, but I think we can rest here for a bit, but we will have to take watches, and sleeping in shifts."

The girls nodded, and we walked back to where we had landed. The area was now home to the two destroyed buggies. I don't think Kyrina could have fixed either of these; they were just two weird engine blocks with parts, wheels, and broken pieces lying around them.

I noticed Mikota starring at the mess, and I walked over to her. The rest of the girls were finding a place to sit down and rest. No one could take off their MAS units because we would need to respond fast if we were attacked.

"What are you thinking?"

Mikota didn't answer at first, but then she slowly turned her body to me and then finally her head.

"I don't know yet... I might be able to do something with this..."

That was all I got from her as she turned back to the wrecks and started to walk over to the piles. I watched silver mist pour from her gray plated suit with the blue and pink lines. As the fog touched the metal, it started to fall into piles of dust.

I had no idea what was going on at this point. I was just content with watching Mikota work as the others rested.