DISCLAIMER: Hyperdimension Neptunia belongs to Compile Heart and Idea Factory.

I'm going to have an exam for the next two weeks, so the next chapter will took a while to finish. By the way, here's a short one just before I began studying.

I really hope you enjoy.


Chapter 33

"Hyah!" Neptune yelled as she cut her opponent in half. She immediately pulls out her gun and aimed towards the incoming bird monsters.

She fires several bullets at them, but they all managed to avoid her attacks. The birds opened their beaks and shoot fireballs out of them.

Gasping, Neptune quickly change her gun ammo to thunder element before rolling to the side. The birds followed her and continues to fire their projectiles.

Getting up, Neptune ran away from their attacks, occasionally looking back and tries to shoot the attacking birds with her gun to no avail.

Hearing a loud roar, Neptune looked forward to find an ancient dragon is waiting for her, it's mouth is wide open, ready to devour it's pray. Behind her, the birds all fired their fireballs in unison. Stuck between the two monsters, Neptune took a deep breath.

"Gwah!" Readying herself, Neptune dropped herself and slide down through between the dragon's legs, barely inches away from it's jaw.

With Neptune's out of the way, the fireballs hit the dragon, one of them even entered it's mouth and down to it's throat, fatally injured the dragon and making it writhe in pain.

"Take this! La Delphinus!" Arriving at the scene, IF imediately cast her magic attack at the golden opportunity, eliminating both enemies in one attack.

"Whoah!" Neptune yelped as she got slightly blown away by the shockwave of the attack.

Once the light dissipated, Neptune sat up from her place, glaring at IF with a pout. "Hey! That could've hurt me y'know!" Neptune groaned.

"And yet there you are, completely unharmed." IF replied, shrugging.

Growling, Neptune pulled out her gun and take aim. "Move!" she commanded before pulling the trigger.

IF stepped aside, watching as Neptune's bullet fly pass where she used to be and hit a bird that was sneaking behind IF without her knowing.

"Hmph, not bad." IF muttered, she looked across the snow-covered clearing for her other friend. Finding the peach-haired girl in question a few meters away, killing monsters with no big deal.

"Arcane Shell!" firing the massive energy sphere to the sky, Compa watched as all the bird monsters around her get massacred by hundreds of energy neddles raining down from the sky, and those who tried to run away gets obliterated by the laser beams that followed after.

After the attack was done, and all the monsters were eliminated, silence enveloped the forest clearing. Everyone looked around them for a moment before Neptune shrugged.

"Welp, looks like this isn't the place." she said with a tired sigh, before sitting down on a rock. "Compa, mark this place as a 'no.'"

"Okay." Compa nodded, pulling out both the map and a pen.

"We have cleared five of thirty dungeons full of strong monsters. And so far, no Key Fragments are found." IF said, sitting down and opens her phone. "If we want to get the Key Fragment a lot faster, we have to know the specific monster who guards it."

IF looked at Neptune and asked. "Don't you at least know what kind of monster it was?"

Neptune thinked, for a moment before shaking her head. "I can't, my mind was blurry when I tried to think about it. All that I remembered was that it was big, scary, and makes you shiver just by looking at it." Neptune explained with her eyes closed.

"Big and scary, huh?" IF muttered, rubbing her chin while looking around at the birds carcass that littered the snow-covered clearing.

Sighing, IF stands up and dust off her coat. "Well, whatever it is, it's definitely not these aggressive flesh eating birds colony." she answered with a shrug.

Neptune hummed in agreement before standing up as well. "Let's get back to the inn, my legs are killing me."

~o~0~o~

"Did you call for me, Lady White Heart?" A blonde-haired woman in a maid dress entered the room, and bowed before the brunette girl who was laying on the bed, a book in hand.

"Yes. I need you to do me a favor." the goddess of white replied, her eyes never strayed away from her book.

"What can I do for you?" Financier asked approaching her goddess' bed.

White Heart pulls out a piece of paper and handed it to the Chamberlain.

"Some people send me a request of troublesome monsters elimination this morning." The white goddess said, flipping a page of her book. "But... you know who I am. I won't let myself get distracted when I'm busy."

Financier was about to comment about the 'busy' part, but she decided against it. "And your point being..."

The snow goddess put a bookmark on the page she's reading before closing her book. Sitting up and looked at her maid in the eyes.

"My point is... Why don't we ask our dear travelers to do it instead?" White Heart answered stretching her arms upwards.

"They are looking for strong monsters after all. And besides, according to the reports, the monster was last seen in one of the forest I told them where they could find strong monsters they're looking for." the brunette explained.

It took several seconds for the chamberlain to make out her goddess' words, and when she does, she blinks.

"Are you sure it's a good idea to involve them? This monster is too powerful for normal people, and only a CPU like you could handle it. What chance do they have against it?" Financier asked, her eyes busy scanning the reports on her hand.

White Heart rolled her eyes before laying back down on the bed. "Trust me, despite their appearance saying otherwise, they're far stronger than you'd expected."

Financier was hesitant, she wants to protest more but feared that doing so would make the brunette goddess angry.

Sensing her hesitation, White Heart sighed in annoyance and turned around with her back facing the maid. "Just do what I said, alright? Everything will be just fine." she said before closing her eyes.

Eyeing the reports one more time, Financier sighed before nodding. "Fine. I'll tell them in the morning." standing up, Financier bowed to the goddess before leaving the room.

Once she's out. White Heart opens her eyes and smirked.

~o~0~o~

IF flinched when her phone suddenly ring, and a new notification pop out, once she saw it, she waste no time to open it to reveal a massage from a friend. Her eyes narrowed as she read the content.

"What is it, Iffy?" Neptune who was in the middle of combing her hair, curiously asked as she saw her friend's serious expression.

"It's Financier." IF answered, still reading the message. "She said she wanted to meet us tomorrow morning to give us a job from the Basilicom." she explained.

"Ooh, what kind of job?" Putting down the comb, Neptune approached her brown-haired and peeked at her phone.

"Not just any job. It's a bounty job given directly by the CPU of Lowee herself." IF answered showing Neptune the image of the reports.

"Wow! We must've been pretty good at killing monsters for lady White Heart to entrust us with such a job, huh?" Neptune wondered putting her hands on her hips.

"I don't know, it's kinda looking a bit suspicious actually." IF shook her head. "The reports said that the monster is a CPU-class enemy." IF glanced at Neptune. "Remembering how mad White Heart was towards you, I'm have a feeling she might send us into a trap or something." she explained, closing her phone.

"Oh come on, that's not gonna happen." Neptune waved her hand. "I know she's a bit meanie and also weird, but I know she's a very kind person in the inside."

Neptune paused, before looking away, scratching the back of her head. "Well... somehow I knew." she shrugged.

IF stared at Neptune for several moments before sighing, closing her eyes. "If you say so." she simply replied.

~o~0~o~

It was eight in the morning, the party arrived at the entrance of one of Lowee's monster infested forests where today's mission are going to be held.

Once they get there, the familiar blonde-haired maid are already waiting.

"Hello, everyone. I'm here to represent the Basilicom and explain your bounty job." Financier said, waving her hand.

"Just as what the reports I gave you yesterday said. This forest behind me are infested with vicious and dangerous monsters. Ever since they come, some of them would go to the city and raid residential districts in search for food," Financier stopped for a moment before sighing. "And by food I mean... people." she finished.

"That's, that's horrible." Compa muttered putting a hand on her chest.

"So unless we clear them out, people are in great danger, huh?" Neptune asked, hands on her sides and mouth frowning.

"Exactly." Financier nodded. "That is why, we, the Basilicom asked the favor of the three of you, skilled adventurers." she explained.

"If this matter was really that serious, why didn't the CPU do anything about it?" IF, being still skeptical, asked with a raised eyebrow.

Financier heavily sighed and shook her head. "Lady White Heart currently has other important matters to attend to. I don't know what it was, but she said something about 'finding the truth.'" she explained.

"Finding the truth?" Neptune asked, tilting her head in confusion.

Financier shrugged. "Anyway, that's all I wanted to stay. Good luck hunting all the monsters down, and be careful." Financier politely bowed before walking away, leaving the party alone.

The three girls exchange glances at each other for moment in silence before IF broke it away.

"Well, what are we waiting for? Let's go."

~o~0~o~

"Whoah!" Neptune ducked down as a snow serpent leaped through where her head used to be.

Firing her gun, she attempted to shoot the snake before it descend to the snow layers, but only managed to hit the tip of it's tail.

"Dang it!" Neptune groaned. She hears a russle coming from behind, turning around just in time as another serpent leaped into the air, mouth wide open, ready to swallow her head.

Neptune jumped back imediately after seeing that and brought up her sword in horizontal position. As the snake comes nearer, the blade of Neptune's sword passed through it's open mouth, and sliced through it's entire body, cutting the serpent's in half.

Wincing as some of it's blood got spilled into her face, Neptune heard another rustling coming, and quickly bent down her body as the snake that she shot earlier come leaping through the air in an attempt to behead her.

"Gotcha!" Once the snake has passed, Neptune threw her sword behind, successfully pierced through the serpent's belly and pin it against a tree. She then brought up her handgun and quickly gunned down the pinned snake.

Letting out a tired sigh as she put her weapons away, Neptune turned around to look at her two friends who was busy battling the boss monster, which was the queen of the snow serpents that has a seven meter length body.

"Heart Force!" With the queen's head between them, IF and Compa unleashed their ultimate combo attack, crushing the poor queen's head into tiny pieces.

With their queen's dead, the remaining snakes fled the battle, leaving the forest clear.

"Phew, that was a tough one." Neptune huffed wiping off the sweat on her forehead. She looked at her companions and asked. "Any Key Fragments?"

IF and Compa shook their head, both are leaning against a tree to wash away the fatigue.

Neptune heavily sighed, looking at the sky. 'At least innocent people wouldn't need to die every day now.' despite being disappointed for not finding the Key Fragment, Neptune was glad that she's able to save many lives.

Some tiny glowing things in the sky caught Neptune's eye, it's kept getting bigger, and the moment she saw this, Neptune realize it was coming down after her.

Neptune rolled to the side just in time before the the glowing things rained upon where she used to be standing, creating multiple massive holes on the ground.

Feeling a presence above, Neptune looked up to see the familiar figure.

"It's you..." Neptune muttered as she saw the blue-haired girl slowly descend to the ground.

To be Continued...


In case you don't know, I deleted Minus Dimension Neptunia. After I re-reading it I was genuinely surprised at how illogical and cringe it is. So, after some thinking I decided to erase it.

Maybe it'll return in the future, once I've become a more better writer. Who knows.