15 – Dungeon Practice – 3

 

*Sigh…*

 

He exhaled the breath he had been holding and stopped using his body’s acceleration. His body, that had been brought to its limit, settled down.

 

He checked the magical tool he had kept in his pocket. A blue dot representing his location was hovering right in front of the green dot, which represented the dungeon’s entrance. It was evident that this cave in front was it.

 

At first glance, it felt like a dungeon, but just in case.

 

He went straight in. The sooner he broke through, the more spare time he would have in case of unforeseen circumstances. If no such thing happened and time was left, that would be all the better.

 

As soon as he entered, the sound of a monster roaring echoed from a distance. At the same time, the sound of footsteps approaching was also echoed. Judging by the overlapping sounds, it seemed like there were quite a few of them.

 

Not long after, a troll revealed itself. He quickly estimated the numbers.

 

‘One, two, three, four… a total of twelve?’

 

Normally, the number of monsters increases fourfold when a person enters alone. So, there would have been three originally. One troll per person.

 

Although he had to face twelve times that amount, it didn’t matter. If you bring such halfway decent monsters in such middling numbers, they are not threats but mere nuisances.

 

He made a gesture as if grabbing something from thin air. Suddenly, light and wind rushed together in my hand. Then, the handle of a sword appeared, followed by a crossguard above it.

 

Soon, a perfect sword shape was formed. It was a sword with a blue overall appearance with patches of yellow, the sword that had been engraved into my soul in the first world.

 

It was ‘Eternity’.

 

*Roar!*

 

They roared and closed the distance as if they were competing to touch me first. Their roar echoed down the corridor like a chorus.

 

A common attribute of trolls in most works of creation is their regeneration. Therefore, the way to counter them varies from one work to another.

 

Whether you have to cut off the head and neck and wait for a certain amount of time for it to die, or you need to extract or separate the heart for it to die, or you need to chop the whole body almost into a pulp by overwhelming firepower, or burn it.

 

Generally, there are these four types.

 

‘They said that here you have to remove the heart for it to die.’

 

It was fortunate that there was no need to crush everything from the limbs to the head and torso, then remove the heart and burn it separately.

 

-Whoosh.

 

I heard the sound of the wind. I moved out of my thoughts and started moving. The closest one had approached far enough to hit me by swinging the wooden club it held in its hand.

 

I swung my Eternity in response to the trajectory of the swinging wooden club.

 

The wooden pieces, whose thickness was similar to a human thigh, and the sword, which was about half of that thickness, were pitted against each other, but Eternity easily smashed the wooden club to pieces.

 

While it was stunned at the cleanly cut club, I quickly approached it and stabbed Eternity deep into its chest where the heart was located. The blade penetrated the skin and muscles without any resistance and pierced the heart.

 

‘I wonder if this will work on this brat?’

 

I didn’t know if it would work on an artificial life created by human magic, but it seemed worth a try. I poured mana into Eternity.

 

*Roar!!*

 

At the same time, I felt something welling up in Eternity.

 

‘It’s happening.’

 

The troll screamed in pain and twisted its body. The sensation of blood being sucked out from its whole body must not have been very pleasant.

 

In just 3 seconds, the troll, which was nearly 2 meters tall, weakly fell on its knees. It stopped moving as its skin and muscles shrank significantly.

 

It was a natural outcome considering that its heart had exploded in the process of sucking the blood. I pulled Eternity out of the crumpled body. The sword, soaked in blood, had a red blade added to its former appearance.

 

It was a technique I had developed while thinking about how I could use the sword a little longer before I got Eternity.

 

‘Ever since I got Eternity, I have continued to use it because it has proven quite useful.’

 

Blood dropped from the blade made entirely of pure blood, forming a wrinkled circle. The blood should be depleting to maintain the sharpness, so a quick resolution is needed.

 

I ran towards the troll, which had become the first in line after the one in the front had died. The blade made of blood bisected it before it could react and chopped its heart into pieces.

 

Now, ten remained.

 

$Grurruk……$

 

The orc, who was beaten all over its body, fell to the ground, writhing as blood gushed from its wounds.

 

I drove my eternal blade into it, replenishing my blood instead of swinging my arm to shake off the blood left on the blade. The Eternal had turned back into its clear, refreshing sky color as if questioning when it had ever been constructed from blood.

 

After confirming there were no more enemies, I swung the Eternal and cleaved the dungeon core in half. The machine acting as the core completely stopped.

 

I looked at the time displayed on my magical device. Roughly 30 minutes had passed since I entered. Usually, a clear takes one and a half hours so I had made good time with an hour to spare.

 

‘The Crown Prince took 13 minutes, didn’t he?’

 

Despite having never paused midway, I wondered how he managed to kill all the monsters and destroy the core within 13 minutes.

 

Trolls and orcs were more manageable, but maybe he caught a monster that was easier to catch. Or it was an incredibly formidable monster.

 

I breathed my mana into the magical device, causing a blue light to blink leisurely. It was a clear sign. As if in response, the same leisurely blinking returned from the other side.

 

From noble mtl dot com

 

With this, one was finished. Since we agreed not to interfere with each other’s quotas, all that remained was to look at the place where the portal, that directly connected to the demon world, was opened.

 

As soon as I escaped through the dimensional gate revealed when the dungeon core disappeared, I immediately used Body Acceleration. Pushing off the ground with my feet, my body shot forward in reaction.

 

Dodging large trees and breaking through branches and bushes with my body, I managed to reach the location Priscilla mentioned in not too much time.

 

‘The dimensional gate… is gone.’

 

Despite carefully sweeping the vicinity, no magic was detected, and the place where the second dimensional gate was said to open was similar.

 

The last location, reputed to be the place where the largest dimensional gate would open, was the same. Nothing was available.

 

This was a fortunate matter. It seemed like there was unnecessarily no need to sightsee the demon world.

 

‘Now I guess I just need to wait for those two to come out? It’s comfortable with no monsters…’

 

I paused in my thought. Something seemed odd. Despite looking around the vicinity, nothing popped up.

 

‘… I was warned to be careful because I could be ambushed by monsters on the way to the dungeon, right?’

 

We had crossed nearly half the forest to get here, but I hadn’t seen a single monster. Although we could irresponsibly attribute this to the low number of monsters outside the dungeon, the professor’s words at the start crossed my mind.

 

‘She was certain that I would definitely be one to get attacked.’

 

I had a bad feeling. I took out the magical device and was about to set the direction to the dungeon where the other two were when I stopped in my tracks.

 

The two blue dots were frantically blinking.

 

This does not mean clear for starters. This was undoubtedly a very rapid pace. Thus, there was only one explanation remaining. What the rapidly blinking blue light meant.

 

A distress signal.

 

‘….What just happened?’

 

I was taken aback. Diana might have requested aid, but Warde did not seem to be the type to ask for help readily.

 

Still, the two blue dots were blinking at an extremely quick pace.

 

Based on the fact that a red flare did not appear in the sky, it seems that an emergency wasn’t called for assistance from the professor. However, it would become dangerous if they did not borrow my hand either.

 

We will look into the circumstances later. For now, it was important to help them. I pushed off the ground using my body’s full strength. The scenery around me whizzed by.

 

By the time my speed had decreased repeatedly, my blue dot had arrived very close to the other dungeon entrance.

 

‘What are those…..’

 

Upon reaching the dungeon entrance, I was sure something had gone wrong when I saw its appearance.

 

From a glance, hundreds of various types of monsters, including trolls, orcs, scorpions, and killer wolves were gathered together and swaying. The common feature among these numerous monsters was that they were the ones Jayna had warned about beforehand, saying it would be good to know how to tackle them as they may appear as monsters.

 

‘This is why I hadn’t seen any monsters in the forest.’

 

So, they were all gathered here.

 

‘But… why?’

 

I questioned myself, but no answer came.

 

“From the start, those things weren’t real monsters. They were nothing more than fakes created by the academy. They weren’t supposed to deviate from the parameters set in advance.

 

‘Hehe?’

 

Suddenly, a few killer wolves raised their heads, sniffing the air, then turned. As soon as they spotted me, they began to drool profusely and bare their teeth.

 

Not much farther, the whole bunch that was gathered at the entrance were turning towards me. As the monsters coming towards me parted, the dungeon entrance was faintly filled with the characteristic color of the demon world, purple.

 

It was the erosion phenomenon Priscilla had described in great detail.

 

‘…The timing is off, and the place is wrong. The butterfly effect is truly powerful.’

 

Just as the purple haze began spreading in the air, the screen went blank. As soon as I confirmed this, I injected mana without hesitation and blew up the screen.

 

However, the red light that should have signaled standing coordinates was not emitted.

 

‘Well, I roughly predicted this…’

 

The trees engulfed in the seemingly smoky, yet light, purple hue, began to contort conspicuously. Even that was exactly as Priscilla had described.

 

Demonization.

 

I pulled out my sword again. As I infused it with mana, a faint blue light glowed around the blade. Pointing the tip of the sword at the enemies, I muttered incredulously.

 

‘It’s only been a week since I enrolled here, If they are coming out like this, how big of a fuss are they planning to make later? Huh?’

 

They, of course, didn’t hear my words and like real monsters, they rushed at me fiercely.