"Wait, is it okay to leave X alone behind?"

Kokoro asked as he ran forward, and Mei frowned and shook her head.

"We can only trust him. Since he is willing to stay here, he must be sure of it."

"But there are so many dragons..."

Thinking back to the densely packed pile of dragons falling down, Future just felt his scalp tingling.

"In short, we must rush to the central passage as soon as possible, and then..."

Before he could finish his words, Mei, who was walking in front, suddenly stopped, and Xin and Weilai, who were walking behind him, were unable to dodge and bumped into him.

"Woohoo, be careful, what's wrong?"

“…We are surrounded.”

Looking at the exit of the tunnel, Mei gritted her teeth. Just as Fang Zheng said, the central passage was now densely packed with those round dragons. Seeing this scene, the others also turned pale.

"What should I do about this?"

"I……"

Faced with her companions' questions, Mei didn't know what to say, but at this moment, Fang Zheng's voice suddenly rang out.

"Hey, everyone, how's the scenery outside?"

"X!"

Hearing Fang Zheng's somewhat lazy voice, Mei immediately breathed a sigh of relief.

"We are surrounded here! Those dragons have blocked the exit!"

"I guessed it. Come back. I've cleaned up here."

"knew."

Mei didn't hesitate any more at this moment, because the dragons wandering outside had already discovered them and were screaming and rushing towards them.

"Let's retreat!"

"Hey? We still have to run back?!"

Although they were very depressed, facing the large number of round dragons in front of them, they had no choice but to turn around again and desperately run in the direction they had just come from. Behind them, the dragons made terrifying screams while swinging their spider-like limbs and quickly pounced on the crowd.

“Wa ...

Now, it was difficult for everyone not to run away.

After a while, the group, led by Mei, returned to the previous underground cave area. The moment they rushed out of the passage, everyone saw Chlorophytum standing in front of them with a big sword in his hand.

"X!"

“Get out of the way!”

As Fang Zheng finished speaking, a sword light instantly stabbed forward, and the other mechas also dodged to the left and right. Then, the big sword in Fang Zheng's hand pierced straight into the passage, splitting the round dragon chasing after them into two.

"The Delphinium and Amaranthus will stand on both sides of the passage and attack any dragon that comes in. The Goldfinch will stand behind me and suppress the dragon's advance with artillery fire. The final blow will be left to me! Do you understand?"

"yes!!"

Fang Zheng's order was quite decisive, and after hearing his order, everyone calmed down and nodded in agreement. Then they stood in their respective positions according to Fang Zheng's instructions and began a duel with Jiao Long.

"The passage will restrict their direction of movement and will also affect the opponent's field of vision. The two of you hide on both sides and launch a sneak attack. We don't seek to kill them with one strike, but we must inflict maximum damage when they are not paying attention! Goldfinch, pay attention to the artillery coverage. I don't ask you to kill the enemies, just suppress them!"

While swinging his sword to chop the dragon that emerged from the cave in half, Fang Zheng did not forget to instruct the others on how to fight. To be honest, operating the mecha to fight was not stressful at all for Fang Zheng. If the dragon was not too big, Fang Zheng could have just used his bare hands to defeat it. Now he was actually following the routine of the adventurer team in the Western fantasy world to instruct and fight - anyway, these things on the opposite side seemed to be dumber than goblins.

As a beginner adventurer, the experience points are quite useful.

At the beginning, the other three didn't work very well together, but after a few times, they gradually got the hang of it. Since Fang Zheng was holding the aggro like a MT, the other three only needed to focus on output, so they gradually tried to cycle their skills to find the best output routine... To put it bluntly, this was actually not much different from going to a dungeon to fight a boss.

The only difference is no milk...

Just as Fang Zheng thought, this group of dragons attacked instinctively, and it seemed that their IQ was even lower than that of goblins. Before long, the large group of round dragons were wiped out. Although a huge round dragon came out at the end, it was just a thing that Fang Zheng could use to send it to the sky with a combination of Insight and Iai, and it was not worth mentioning at all.

Although the group of underground dragons were eventually wiped out, everyone was exhausted, especially Yuno, who fainted without saying a word after getting off the mecha.

After that, everyone dragged their exhausted bodies back to the Thirteenth City and went back to their rooms to rest.

Of course, even though they were physically exhausted, everyone was still excited to have defeated so many dragons in the first attack.

But for some people, it's another story.

“——!!!”

Yunai, who was lying on the sickbed, suddenly opened her eyes, turned around and sat up from the bed. Her face was pale, she was gasping for breath, and sweat was all over her forehead.

"Yuno!?"

Seeing Yunao, who was lying on the sickbed, wake up, Mei hurriedly walked forward and held her hand.

"Are you okay? Are you alright?"

"I...I'm fine..."

Hearing Mei's voice, Yuno seemed to finally relax. She raised her head and smiled at Mei, then reached out to pick up her glasses and put them on.

"Are you okay? This is the second time you've fainted... piloting the Chlorophytum with X... is it too much of a burden for you?"

"No, this...I..."

Facing Mei's question, Yuno hesitated for a moment, but finally, she spoke as if she had made up her mind.

"I…I don't want to partner with X anymore."

"Huh? Why?"

It has to be said that Mei was also shocked to hear Yuno's answer, so she quickly remembered the rumors about the partner killer before - could it be that X also has similar abilities?

"Do you feel unwell? Do you want me to call a doctor?"

"No, it's not, Berry!"

Seeing Mei was about to press the emergency call bell, Yuno quickly reached out and grabbed it.

"I'm not feeling unwell, I'm just... not used to X's fighting style."

"X's fighting style?"

"Yes……"

While muttering to himself, Yuno recalled the previous battle again and shuddered.

"That... that fighting style is too horrible. Those dragons... those dragons just pounced on me and I was killed directly, just like mowing the grass... cold... ruthless..."

"But...is this how we destroy the dragon?"

Hearing Yuno's answer, Mei was confused. If they were to destroy a group of dragons, they had destroyed quite a few today, but Mei didn't feel anything strange about it... at least she didn't resist it as much as Yuno did.

"I, I don't know what to say..."

Yu Nai shook her head slightly. In fact, she couldn't explain it. Just before, when Fang Zheng said that he would be the last one to come, and he was alone in the control of the Chlorophytum to face a large group of dragons, Yu Nai felt a little uneasy. But as Fang Zheng fought, she became more and more afraid and shaken.

It was not the fear of death. As mentioned before, the function of the pistil was to contact the Franks mecha, so Fang Zheng's manipulation of the mecha was actually equivalent to manipulating the pistil. For Yuno, she felt as if her body was being manipulated by someone and then she fought.

If that were all, then it wouldn't be a big deal.

However, the battle process made Yunai feel extremely chilled.

So many dragons rushed towards her, and she was even prepared to be bitten by them. However, under Fang Zheng's control, she almost perfectly avoided every attack. And every time she swung the weapon in her hand, one or more dragons would turn into blue blood and splash everywhere.

Especially during the battle, Fang Zheng was not as nervous and excited as Yunai had imagined. Instead, he seemed quite relaxed and even hummed a song while fighting.

At that time, Yuno felt that she was not a human being at all, but rather a cold and ruthless killing machine. She seemed to be gradually becoming less and less like herself, and more like a puppet being manipulated by someone... and X was the puppeteer who manipulated her...

It was this point that caused great fear in her heart. Fortunately, Fang Zheng's spirit firmly controlled her, otherwise the Chlorophytum might have been defeated halfway through the battle.

But after leaving the mecha and losing Fang Zheng's mental connection, all the previous fear and anxiety came up at once, so Yuno fainted decisively.

To be honest, Yuno couldn't accept Fang Zheng's fighting style during the last battle, and this time he even got worse...

Of course, this was also Fang Zheng's fault. When he started fighting, he forgot that he was controlling a sensitive girl and just went for it at his own pace. Little did he know that the other party was just an ordinary girl. Even if she had received driving training, her experience was definitely not as rich as Fang Zheng, who had fought his way through various worlds.

It is really too difficult for a novice who is doing a dungeon for the first time to keep up with the pace of the veteran who can clear the team dungeon alone.

Although Mei didn't quite understand what Yuno was thinking, at least she understood what Yuno meant.

"So... you want to switch partners?"

"……Um."

"Really?"

Hearing Yuno's answer, Mei sighed, then sat next to her and looked out the window.

"Actually, I have submitted my application to Seventh Sister today."

"Seventh sister?"

Hearing this name, Yuno was stunned for a moment. The so-called Seventh Sister was one of the two people in charge of managing the 13th Team. Her name was "Seven", so everyone called her "Seventh Sister".

"What application?"

"I want to step down as the captain of the 13th squad and let X do it."

"Why?!!"

Hearing this, Yuno was shocked and looked at Mei.

"Wait, Mei, what are you talking about? You are our captain..."

"It is precisely because I am your captain that I made this decision."

Mei turned her head and stared at Yuno.

"Hiroshi, Man and Naomi have all left us. I don't want to see anyone leave, or die. But... my experience is really not enough..."

At this point, Mei clenched her fists tightly. Actually, there was one thing she hadn't said, which was that she would always think of her departed companion, Guang. This made Mei feel upset. Although she tried hard to concentrate when commanding the battle, when their retreat was cut off by Jiao Long, Mei's brain was completely blank and she couldn't think of any solution.

So much so that when Fang Zheng's somewhat lazy voice sounded, Mei even felt like a drowning person grabbing a life-saving straw.

"I think you've seen it. It was thanks to X's command that we were able to destroy so many dragons today without any losses. In any case, he has much more experience than me, so... I want to hand over the captaincy to him and let him lead us forward. Of course, I will also study hard..."

Having said that, Mei also sighed. She also knew that this was not a good thing.

But wait…if Yukino really wants to change partners…who will X partner with then?

For Mei, this is the last issue she needs to worry about as the captain.