"I heard you cleared that dungeon on your own." Kun pointed his spear towards Mat, the steel tip gleaming against the orange light of the afternoon sky.

"Not on my own." Mat raised his hands. He could feel all the eyes focused on him from all around like he was the center of attention. "I was only able to fight all those monsters because of the health potions. And I didn't clear all of the dungeon-"

"That's true." Kun raised a finger to his chin. "But a person who had no prior experience of fighting, clearing a dungeon in three days, going solo no less?"

"I was training beforehand."

Kun let out a hearty laugh, a look of excitement apparent beneath his helm.

"It took me tens of months before I could clear my first dungeon solo." Kun gestured to the group around. "And this guy just did it in less than a few week's time. You also ranked up to iron?"

Mat nodded. "After the fight with the frostfire lich."

"That's a goddamn lie if I ever heard one." Laro shouted from the front area of the deck, his red hair tuffling against the breeze passing by, messing up his face. "In just a few weeks, this guy went from your average dumbass to an iron ranker? You've got to be kidding."

Mat was flattered as to what they both convinced him to be. If he was improving and advancing- fast- he had a sort of guess as to how. It maybe was because of his absorption skill.

This skill allowed him to acquire the strength of the monsters he's killed and the souls he's consumed. Even though the strength of the souls was weakened, he's still gained a sizable amount of stats within the few days he's been wandering around the dungeon killing monsters.

Given that though, another thing he found out with his absorption skill was that the effects were diminishing the more souls he consumed on the same tier. This meant that the more F-tier monster souls he consumed, the lesser effects the F-tier souls had on his body. Still though, he couldn't deny the fast improvement he'd had over the very few weeks he had in this fantasy world.

"So, you up for a fight?" Kun stood at ease, resting his spear to his side. "I want to gauge how strong you really are. Also, the ladies are watching."

Mat's eyes took a quick peek around, his gaze landing on Flo before focusing back to Kun. "If I could pass, then I'd gladly want to, but it looks like you won't give me the chance."

"That's the spirit." Kun thumped the wooden deck below with his spear. "I won't use magic, so it's just going to be a chill, relaxed fight with no unnecessary things involved. Ready when you are."

Mat nodded before checking over himself. He had on leather armor with a metal breastplate, all underneath the blanket covering him like a robe. He had a fairly unrestricted set of protection, mixing agility with defense, but the thing here was his pants were all but burnt up from the frostfire wave before. He didn't want to fight like a pervert, so he wrapped his blanket like a jacket around his waist, acting as a makeshift skirt.

He drew his sword. His shield was burnt halfway from the frostfire wave, so all he had now was the old reliable blade to his hand. He held the sword in both hands, having a firm grip as he angled it towards Kun.

"The first to land a hit wins." Kun said, prepping himself against the oncoming fight between the two. To his credit, it didn't seem like he was underestimating Mat. In fact, the passionate gleam in his eyes said the opposite. He was edging to spar.

Mat knew he wasn't going to win with only his sword by his side, so he picked up his newfound artifact- the frostfire skull, before imbuing it with magic. The skull then floated around him. He also called his trusted sidekick, Wingman the kite hawk. The ghost bird was the only summon Mat had that was healed up relatively full way, so he couldn't bring out Juggernaut nor Amigo to the fray as they were still healing up inside his hand.

As soon as Mat brought out his Wingman, he could feel a part of his crippled hand lose control. It felt heavier- like a rock. Still, with his other two summons providing his hand life force, he could still manage, albeit his fingers were quite uncooperative.

"A summon." Kun mused.

"Yup." Mat said before whistling an order to Wingman. In an instant, the bird dashed to Kun like a piercing arrow, leaving behind faint green streaks of light.

Kun raised his spear and slashed a vertical strike, though Wingman dodged it barely with a side flap before drawing its claws to Kun's face helm, preventing him sight with the bird flapping its wings all crazy up front.

Mat then drove forward with a dash, gripping his sword in both hands as his eyes were all in, focused like predator eyes. He swung a horizontal slash, but Kun sidestepped with a pivot of a foot, the blade glancing his silver armor. What Kun didn't expect was the frostfire ball that followed after Mat's sword slash, coming from the floating skull around Mat, but Kun's reflexes were sharp. Extremely so. He dodged the magic ball of frostfire with a tumble and roll before countering with a thrust of a spear forward.

Mat dashed away, barely swerving the spear thrust. It was fast. Too fast. Like lightning, Kun's movements were sudden and explosive. There was a clear gap between Kun's experience with his spear and Mat's amatuer movement with his sword. It almost seemed like Kun was playing Mat like a fiddle, guessing his moves left and right.

"How did you do that?" Mat was astonished by Kun's reflex and skill. Even when temporarily blinded by Wingman, he was still able to react to both sword swing and frostfire ball coming at him simultaneously.

Kun pointed to his bunny ears. "My ears help me a lot. And your aura is very open, as if you're saying out loud what you're about to do next."

Mat didn't know a thing about aura, but Kun gave him a few helpful insights on how to approach the situation at hand.

Mat whistled for his ghost bird again. The bird dove from the sky, and as Kun's attention moved from Mat to the hawk, Mat took the opportunity to go for another strike with Kun's attention divided. Mat dashed forward with his sword at the ready, only to be stopped in his tracks by Kun's spear brought forward.

It was checkmate, with the spear tip held against Mat's neck.

"I win." Kun beamed a wide smile.