A Wall of Hedgehogs

Ame was fine, Ame merely went out of the boobs during the night and was given a spare pillow to sleep on, and Mandrome is now taking care of Ame the rabbit. Of course Monika was flustered enough that she didn't notice as she ran off without her signature rabbit in cleavage. Monika took a little look in her minimap as her sense of impending death at every turn become muted as she was mapping out the area quickly while crushing everything underfoot. Really it was kinda insane that because she drank Carlissa's breast milk she was now doing 33% more damage from that strength increase. Every so often doing a max speed attack to break a leg, drink a healing potion, and repeat once the potion cooldown which exists went away... and when Monika found an enemy that wouldn't dissolve from her kicks since most mobs were around level 4-5 at worst and her level was... irrelevant for the most part. There were some skills Monika was leveling in the background like "basic running", "running punch", "running kick" which scaled either from her speed or strength or a bit of both but not from Monika's level directly... and since she couldn't use her stat points right now Monika's level was only good for sizing herself up right now. The fire bolt level on the other hand at level 5 which now was getting some serious fire power... for a beginner spell... and then an hour in Monika's shoes finally gave out. They were a nice pair of running shoes, but given Monika's first fight against the slimes and her superhuman speed and how often she needed to break or quickly shift directions... the bottoms were leaving skid marks quite often... a.k.a. the bottom of the shoe rubbing off and when she hid misjudged the level a mob was Monika had flown right through it with a jump kick and when she landed she skidded quite a bit where she felt the bottom of the shoe give out entirely and now her shoes were merely covering the top of her feet.

"Achievement Unlocked: Shoes Die Hard" the system said as Monika was running away from the other mobs chasing after her. Still it played in her head like an audiobook "Man, those shoes died so young and you abused those things to hell. On the bright side you'll get to train that self harm resistance skill with your bloody feet. Reward: A Silver Shoe Cemetery Box!" Monika stored her broken shoes in her actual inventory and not the boob inventory, and checked her map for a safe room. Her mind and feelings about breaking major bones for a split second was a bit off, but she was NOT going to be walking or running on bloody feet perpetually if she could help it... Seriously who could just run through this dungeon with bare feet?!?! She had been running for awhile and the nearest safe room was...

She pinged Mark "Hey Mark, think we're close enough to share map details?"

Mark was checked and then pinged Monika "I think you may be a little out of range, can you run south west a bit? I'll share the map details once your in range."

Monika sighed as she back tracked, turned the corner, and saw "Wall of Hedgehogs Level 6: It's a wall of hedgehogs. NO they cannot run fast. NO they are not blue. YES they are adorable, and their spines are facing in your direction... Go through them at your own risk." Monika did not like hurting animals... She didn't particularly like hedgehogs but they were small mammals... That said... She took in a deep breath... and then cast firebolt which hits a small pocket of hedgehogs that burnt to death but were not set on fire leaving the wall to mostly stand as a wall. The wall's spines seemed to elongate a bit, and Monika really didn't have the mana or useable time to just... Monika took in a breath as she run forward, and tried to take the brunt on her arm and then... Hundreds of needles went through her skin. First from her right arm and they dug, then a bit into her torso, a bit into her neck, cheeks, she was able to taste one of the needles for a second... As she decelerated Monika drank a health potion and watched a bunch of hedgehog bodies just fly off from their needles which remained in her skin till the healing potion did it's thing and the needles ejected from her body. Monika took in some deep breaths, physically she was fully intact and completely healthy... Mentally...

"Ah, found you on the map... So now here's the map data" Chris pinged Monika as her map was filled with a better explored area around the safe room they slept in earlier. "...and that's a lot of stuff you bumped into, a few event rooms, you brushed past some minor bosses, Oh you even found a staircase!"

"Did I?" Monika wondered to herself before pinging "Must've been some signs I missed or something, was mostly running through some basic enemies and training some of my skills"

"We'll need to test that illiterate debuff some more. It could be a bigger issue than we thought." Mark pinged

"My shoes gave out, but I got an achievement and some shoe cemetery box. I'm heading over to that safe room north east of you."

"We got some stuff done so that sounds like a plan."

The 3 friends were a lot closer to the safe room, but as they didn't have the endurance to jog to it and Monika was keeping up running better and better even with feet that were a bit raw and bleeding a bit from the cobbles she made it to the safe room first. This one seemed more like a donburi chain which felt fine. Mandrome walked over with the rabbit Ame in hand and said "I'd hang around for at least an hour, the first show is going to be showing soon."

Monika checked her map and said "The other 3 will be arriving shortly, think we'll have time for some box openings?"

"Probably if you hurry through the bronze stuff." Just took a few more minutes for a battered and bruised party of 3 to limp back in as Clarissa physically drank a potion off cooldown "You do know that you don't have to physically drink those right?" Mandrome asked

Clarissa said "...It tastes... Interesting. Yeah I'll use the hotbar in combat but... It's interesting..." Mandrome nodded and everyone went through their lootboxes. Most of the stuff was healing potions, rope, and other basic equipment.

Stewart opened an Arrowhead bronze box and got two dozen "Sticky cherry bombs"... apparently he could use them from his hotbar and just stick them to his arrowheads to shoot a minor explosive at his enemies, Mark got some leg armor that increased his constitution by +3, and Clarissa got a bunch of mana potions.

"Basic grinding boxes" Mandrome muttered "You were out for just a few hours and nothing big happened. Makes sense."

Monika then went for her Shoe Cemetery box and it popped out with an empty open grave on top... Monika took out her broken shoes and put them in and the grave filled with dirt, a shriek of damnation played that made everyone jumpy, and then finally the box opened revealing.

"Bunny Booties: +2 to the Rabbit Jump skill, +1 Speed"

Mandrome said "No idea about the specifics of what the Rabbit prefix does but the Jump skill when leveled helps a lot with Vertical movement. May not be able to swing that giant axe, but add a few more levels and on floors where the ceilings are higher you can just drop it on mobs you jump over. Now then the show's about to begin, everyone get your food, and pay attention."

The screen showing how much time was left flickered to a broadcast of what looked like a game show set with some grey alien looking guy on stage who said "Welcome to the Dungeon and Adventurers brought to you by the Balal Corporation, I'm your host Drak and it's been a day as we meet our new contestants from the world Earth." he then gestured to a screen that showed all sorts of random shots of Earth as he tried describing Earth somewhat poorly with a lot of half truths, disregarding context, and being extremely racist towards Europeans for "abusing superior tech against the other races". Then he showed clips of different Adventurer groups. A large military-like force meticulously going through the dungeon, A mother and a group of girls from a sleepover getting murdered by goblins, Some serial killer with a chainsaw tear through goblins and then his next victims looked at him like a savior before being mowed down by himself...

"...I guess I did a little friendly fire with my aoe but... I guess killing each other is an option..." Clarissa said

"It's a Feast or Famine strategy that rarely gets you off the 10th floor. It's exciting TV, but the galaxy doesn't want too many psychopaths and mass murderers out in the general populace... It does make it easier to get the first few floors done." Mandrome explained

The show continued till it was about done and Drak said "And now for a silly little girl from Japan!" the group hadn't been shown yet and the likelihood of any individual being shown was very low but... everyone else had been shown as fodder or bad asses who were maybe wearing some silly stuff, but due to her nature... A clip was shown of an overly busty girl in a bunny suit and sunglasses running and punching mobs to death before quickly stuffing loot drops into her cleavage. "Our Adventurer of the day is one Monika! She came in with a little sweet bunny and the A.I. gave her a nice bunny suit that gives her infinite inventory space in those mammaries of hers. It can also store living things if their head pokes out of her cleavage." The clip then switched to a close up on Ame peaking out of her cleavage "Also works on other humans" where the clip switched to when Clarissa was feeding Monika when Clarissa was in Monika's boobs "Can you believe this is broadcast safe people? Just the size of those alone! but still if you think she's just fan service look out!" Another clip showing Monika jump kicking a the giant Goblin and it going down before Monika shoved the giant axe into her boobs making them grow "She's got a mean kick and all sorts of secrets between those boobies!" and that was all the time the show had before they cooled down and wrapped up.

Mandrome sighed "Ok... So Monika you are officially famous, and are going to be the sex symbol of this season."

"Yeah..." Monika sighed

"Clarissa, you are probably going to be portrayed as the sex symbol's partner thanks to what happened last rest"

"Probably..." Clarissa said

"And you two are only nominally more known than the rest thanks to the livestreams and not being in the broadcast proper." Mark and Stewart just nodded

Mandrome said "So you all have a path to the stairs now. I'd suggest you 3 go and head to the stairs and maybe take a few detours for rooms of note. Monika you should run around them within Mark's map radius that should let you grind and train while being able to get back to the other 3 when they need help with a boss or something. Now time's a wasting... You want Ame back or should I just keep an eye on her?"

Monika held out her arms for Ame which was unnecessary as Ame just jumped into Monika's ever growing boobs. Monika patted her rabbit on the head and said "good girl" and then they went back into the dungeon.