Itori looked over the mountain of corpses that lay in front of her. From mindless demons to seemingly strong ones, they were all hungry to eat her up. But even before they could do anything, Itori had already killed anything that came close to her. Without any allowance to have a break, it somehow caused her to lose the sense of time in the circle of Gluttony.
Yet the moment she realised that she was done clearing the enemies, Itori continued to be restless and disappointed that the Circle of Gluttony was underwhelming. The White Fox was still hungry for stronger opponents, and this prison was a lie to her when the dungeon core key was left in the open in a sparkling golden chest. Was there nothing that could provide her with a sufficient amount of challenge to sate her appetite?
Even her older sister and brother were proving to be less than effective sparring partners with the advent of her new weapon, and she could not help but yearn for stronger enemies.
“Then perhaps, you should defeat yourself.” The chest snapped back hard as she tried to pick up the dungeon core key from inside it.
“A mimic…” Itori said to herself, and even though it only wounded her a little when the gold chest bit her hand tightly, it ultimately still hurt. No teeth were seen at first glance, but the moment the trunk closed, she could feel dozen jagged edges poking her arm. (It would not be a problem if Itori did not remove the power fist to pick the key up, but she was afraid she would break it accidentally.) Therefore, Itori smashed the chest with her left power fist and caused it to break open instantly.
But when she took a closer look at the dungeon core key, it turned to dust, and Itori panicked a little. Did she accidentally break the key when she brute forced opened the golden chest?! “Well…guess I’ll have to move to the lowest floor and break open the door for them…” Itori thought to herself until she heard a maniacal laugh.
“You think you got the key?! Hahahahah!” Apparently, the chest had just disappeared only to reappear approximately 10 metres away from her. It then revealed its true form…
“Ew. You are disgusting…” Itori pointed at the chest mimic that had bitten her. In its true form, three heads in the shape of the very same golden treasure chests emerged from the main torso of the monster as it roared its almighty name out for Itori to hear. (Even though she didn’t really give two toots about the monster’s name.)
“I am Chestberus! The Mighty Guard Supervisor for the Gluttony Level. No matter how many monsters you’ve defeated, you will never win against me!” The Three Chest Head Monster yelled as he opened his mouth and coins started to pour out of it.
After which, the coins slowly stacked together, as if they were fusing as one entity. Only when the form became more concrete, did Itori notice that it was actually mimicking her own form.
“After a quick bite, I am able to replicate the form of my opponent! So, no matter what, you won’t be able to defeat your very own doppelganger! Prepare to die miserably in my -WHAT?!” As Chestberus was in the midst of goading about this ability, Itori had sent the coin infused form of herself into oblivion with a single kick.
The coin creature shattered into its individual parts and flew as indirect scatter projectiles hurting the Chestberus. “Impossibru! There is no way!” Chestberus now opened all three of his chest mouths and recreated the very same doppelganger three times more. He also made sure that he had inserted more than the number of required coins to make these doppelgangers and strengthened them further.
Yet once again, Itori didn’t wait for them to finish as she decimated the three doppelgangers in the blink of an eye. Furthermore, she did not hesitate to punch and destroy one of Chestberus heads. “Give me the dungeon core key, and I’ll let you get away with your life still intact. Might not be the entirety of it but still something.” Itori had enough playing around with weaklings for the day.
“No! I am the Gluttony Guard who has served this prison ever since its inception! I will not hand the key over witho-” And with that, Itori had had enough of the odd-looking three-headed chest dog and punched him out of existence.
With his disappearance, the real treasure chest lined with intricate golden linings and patterns emerged from all bloodied coins on the ground. “Should have done that a minute ago instead of yapping about.” Itori berated her late opponent as she ripped open the treasure chest and picked the dungeon core key.
“CHANCE!” A voice echoed in the depths of the Gluttony Level, and a new treasure chest tried to bite her from the back. The very last resort of Chestberus but Itori was faster. She grabbed the chest’s top as soon as he had let out a noise and met it with a furious punch.
The blow was so immense that the Dungeon Core for the Gluttony level was unable to sustain its infrastructure and the impact of Itori’s fist led to a giant hole, revealing the Prison Core of the lower basement level. Her actions had been on a purely instinctive level and had been further strengthened by her innate hatred for ambushes. The White Fox’s punch impact had inadvertently killed off the Guard Supervisor for the level of Greed as well.
“No way…how did you even realise that I had a copy in Greed’s level?!” The leftover golden chest debris of Chestberus coughed as he did not expect for his opponent to be able to figure out that he was actually the Guard Supervisor of two levels.
If the two copies were not killed within a span of five minutes, Chestberus would be able to regenerate indefinitely as he had made a link with the heaps of food and coins stockpiles on both levels.
No one in decades had been able to defeat these two levels since they never knew they were intertwined. Chestberus was considered as the ultimate gatekeeper for Paradiso because of his hidden ability to regenerate and ambush their challengers so long that one of the two copies existed.
“Seriously, Itori. AGAIN?! Do you find it funny to killsteal my prey?!” Ixa complained loudly from below when she realised that the Prison Core had released the key on her end before she even met the guardian.
“….”
“…It’s just a coincidence. Really!” Itori shouted back as she crossed her fingers at her back. She honestly hoped that her elder sister wasn’t too mad. At least this time around it really reaalllyy wasn’t done on purpose.
“Argh~! Whatever, I will just clear the remaining monsters here.” Ixa replied with a shake of her head before returning to clean up the remnants of the Prison Core.
Meanwhile, Itori looked at the leftover piece of Chestberus. “Don’t ever try to ambush me! I hate it when people do that. Fight me face to face if you wish to challenge me again!” She berated it as she squeezed her hand. Slowly but surely, Chestberus turned into splinters and subsequently dust. (As if he wanted to challenge such a fearsome foe once more.)
With the Gluttony and Greed Keys now in their possession, there were still five more keys for the remaining foxes to get.
