Versatile: Alternate World

Just like the walls all around us, the stairs that lead downstairs are disgusting and look like a maw of a monster opening and disguising itself as a staircase. I already scanned it earlier and it indeed leads downstairs, it just looks like it was a monster maw and nothing else. Purely just for aesthetics.

We descend downstairs and the bad smell that everyone can smell is just getting worse. Even I who already got immune to the smell find it repugnant and disgusting. A few of the guys started to puke as well and Harmless Sparrow and Viola are also stopping their mouths from barfing as well. It is just that bad.

"Master, how about you call Cotton? The other day when you still didn't call us, Cotton learned something new and it involves dealing with the smell. It might work, you know?" Lucia informed me.

"Smell? She learned it by herself?"

"Nah, Tina was taking care of her when she suddenly learned it. It was the most fragrant smell I smelled in so long. It cannot even be compared to the expensive perfumes that I know!" Lucia added.

I don't know about this but I trust her enough so I summoned Cotton out. She landed on Lucia's head and I can see that she has grown slightly much bigger than the last time I saw her. I didn't know she have grown so big already.

"Cotton, can you do the perfume thingy just like before?"

Cotton squealed a little bit before releasing white smoke from her body. It was like some kind of spore but because Cotton is clearly not a mushroom or a plant, it's more likely to be some kind of smoke or just an ability that resembles one.

At first, I didn't notice anything strange. But then, I suddenly smell the air a little differently. Compared to the rotten and disgusting smell that has been emanating since the moment we came down here when Cotton released the smoke-like thing, the smell that has been plaguing our noses has slowly disappeared and was replaced by a sweet-smelling scent that is not pungent and bad for the nose, instead, it smells much better in the nose and it made us calmer too,

"Woah! The rotten smell disappeared! That's actually good!" Tsuru recovered from barfing and can stand back again without the need to suffer from the bad smell.

Everyone else also recovered allowing everyone to finally feel at ease.

Curious about what her new skill Cotton was, I opened her stats panel and checked her skills. Aside from her old skills, one new skill was indeed added to her arsenal.

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[Aromatheraphy]

Tier 3

SP cost: 5 MP

Info: The user releases a sweet-smelling smell that overrides all the existing scents even the most disgusting scents available in the world and replaces it with the new scent. When smelled by friendly units, they will receive the following benefits:

-Increased Debuff Resistance

-Increased Buff Duration

-Decreased Cooldown on skills

-Portable Air Freshener

The skill will forever be active unless the user stops it or the user is incapacitated.

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For a skill that only gives the smell, it was actually pretty good, especially the cooldown reduction effect. Those effects are pretty good already and to think it comes free from a skill that is basically a portable Air Freshener is something else.

I look at everyone and the feeling that they are about to puke is no longer there and they are now back to tip-top shape after the [Aromatheraphy] has been activated.

"Looks like everyone is now back to normal. Shall we head on and fight the Pope now?"

"Yeah. Let's go. We can't waste our time barfing here now that the smell is much better now."

I nodded and activated the [Transform: Bat] once more to fly up above and use [Echolocation] to see the layout of the labyrinth. As the echoes returned to me and I get the proper reading, I returned to my human form and pulled out my Versatile Weapon ready.

"Ready your weapons, looks like enemies are now spawning all around the place this time around."

"Oh, so we have enemies now? Now we are talking!" Harmless Sparrow grinned.

"Hey, hey. I know you are excited to fight against enemies but these enemies were tentacle monsters. Knowing you, I doubt you will like seeing those things crawling all around." I added to make sure that she knows what we are gonna face.

"Ugh... tentacles. Why are these f*ckers always appear whenever something grisly and grimy appears? I was hoping for more monsters other than the tentacles but what can I do? Oh well, let's get into it then."

We proceed to the dungeon labyrinth and they followed me along the way. I wanted to defeat the boss as soon as possible so I used the map in my mind to my advantage and used shortcuts to get into the next area as soon as possible.

I also took advantage of this so that we don't meet as many tentacle monsters as intended. We faced a few but only a few instead of a lot of them. And everyone was fine with not grinding as they don't want to keep staying in the dungeon for far too long.

Thankfully, our long and arduous journey to get there has finally gone through and we arrived at the boss's room. Just being outside of the door felt very bad and the dark powers are clearly stronger here than before compared to when we are still just exploring the whole place. The energy of the darkness flowing all around the place is also just flowing from this place as well.

"This is it. Are all stockpiles for the boss fight all in place?" I asked everyone before we plunge in. It would fatally be bad for us if we entered unprepared.

"No problems here." Leoran confidently showed his inventory stockpile.

The others followed suit as well and they indeed are good enough."

"Good. I will be opening the door, Atlas, help me out. You push the other side, I push the other."

Atlas nodded and he waited for my command so we can open the giant door synchronized.

THUD THUD THUD THUD THUD

The sound of the door opening sounded like falling rocks falling around us but it was just the door opening.

Inside is a large hall filled with impurities and the walls are full of screaming faces. Souls of the dead flies all around us and the others are sometimes spooked out as some just appear out of nowhere and moan with a deathly tone to their ears, terrifying or mocking them from it.

We continue to walk to the very end and before us is a throne made from gold tainted with black things."

"Hehe, welcome to my domain adventurers. I am delighted to make your acquaintance. I am the Pope that you all are seeking."

I ready my weapon, everyone else did the same too.

"Hoho, battlemongers, aren't we? Very well. If you all are so much ready to fight then I will all grant your wish. But don't expect to crawl back out of here alive."

He snaps his fingers and multiple shadow-like figures appeared before us. The worst is that they are our doppelgangers."

"Now, go ahead and let me see whether you all are worthy for me to face. After all, I am busy here, so we have to make this worthwhile."

The doppelgangers attacked us and this divided us into groups, causing us to fight our own selves.

"Give me your body!"

"Piss off!" I kicked the doppelganger and he fell to the ground but he immediately recovered and started fighting me using my own weapon which is also copied too. Then it started attacking. Based on his own movements, it's directly a copy of mine.

PENG PENG PENG PENG!

Our swords clashed and I must admit, it was equal in terms of swordplay, more enhanced in fact which means the Pope directly copied us to make the enemies harder as they are just enemies who are yourself. Since defeating your own self in a fight is gonna be hard, he thinks that it will pose a big threat to me.

Instead of using the Versatile Weapon in a fight, I pulled out the Pain Delivery and pulled the trigger before the doppelganger of mine can even react. It was so sudden that the doppelganger was shocked before he heard the gunshot.

"That... that shouldn't have been an option... so unfair..." it muttered before it died and disappeared.

I grinned seeing that the doppelganger of mine was so shocked when I pulled out a gun which means the Pope didn't bother to copy all of the equipment present in our body and just decided to copy us by our form alone.

The pope stood up from his throne and angrily pointed at me. "CHEATER!"

I pointed the gun in return for his accusations. "Just your loss for not copying everything of me. Your creation was useless. Just go and die, please."