16 – Dungeon Practice – 4

 

‘Huh? What’s this?’

 

‘Why? What happened?’

 

When Jaina, who held the staff, frowned while looking at the screen, sword-wielding Jaina asked. Her tone was much more relaxed than when she was in front of the students.

 

‘No, they’re all gathered on one side.’

 

‘Let me see. Yeah, really? Did they all eat something wrong in a group?’

 

Jaina’s screen was slightly more special than the ones distributed to the students.

 

Not only it showed the location of the dungeon to be broken through with team members, but it also showed all the students listening to the lecture and all the artificial monsters scattered throughout.

 

Therefore, she couldn’t help but find it strange that the monsters, supposed to be scattered throughout the forest, were concentrated in one place.

 

Sword-wielding Jaina checked the coordinates of the area densely spotted with red dots.

 

‘Dungeon 7-1? Was there something there?’

 

‘No. Nothing.’

 

‘So why are they acting like this?’

 

‘…How would I know?’

 

Jaina stared at each other with a confused expression. As the original didn’t know what the clone knew and vice versa, the discussion was largely self-answering.

 

‘Dungeon 7 would mean, it should be where he is, right? The freshman top student.’

 

She was one of the three that she had forcibly ripped apart, citing the reason that the balance wasn’t right. You couldn’t put the top and second-place of all freshmen and a hero in one team.

 

‘Right. His name is a little hard to forget.’

 

Of course, Jaina knew about Mira Crete too. In Belrium Academy, it would be faster to find someone who didn’t know about him.

 

It was due to the intense incident at the entrance ceremony, showcasing his skills after that, and recently due to the matter involving Archmage Ingrid.

 

‘Let’s see, Mira Crete… Mira Crete… Huh?’

 

‘What?’

 

‘It says he already went into dungeon 7-2, cleared it, and came out?’

 

‘Wait, he cleared it? Already?’

 

‘Yes. It says he went in alone after sending the other two team members to Dungeon 7-1. Breakthrough time was… wow, what is this? 30 minutes 8 seconds? Is that possible?’

 

‘…Seriously?’

 

After the rule was reinforced to prevent the trick of dividing groups when entering, if you enter the dungeon alone, you have to face a monster twelve times more than when you entered with three people based on simple calculation.

 

Yet, he set a breakthrough record in the shortest time? Jaina, knowing how unbelievably insane this was, gaped. Aside from the crown prince who was practically an outlier, it’s absolutely first place.

 

“Can’t we save the surprise for later? Shouldn’t we deal with this anomaly first?”

 

“Alright, alright, don’t rush me.”

 

Jaina, holding her staff, muttered as she infused mana into her magical tool and issued a command. It was a command to immediately return to their original places.

 

“Wait, what?”

 

“What? What’s wrong?”

 

“Hey, these things aren’t responding to commands?”

 

“What?”

 

Jaina, holding a sword, hastily checked the screen. Despite the continuous orders for them to return to their original places, the red dots didn’t move an inch.

 

Jaina’s face hardened, sensing that the situation was turning abnormal.

 

“Connect vision. Sector 7.”

 

Jaina tried to connect the vision of her unmasked eye to the magical tool set up around the forest.

 

There was no response this time either.

 

“I’m going crazy, really. The magical tool isn’t working.”

 

“Are you saying it’s broken?”

 

“No. It’s not broken. It just stopped working, for no discernible reason.”

 

Jaina bit her lip as she realized the implications of her words. This means something serious has happened that caused the magical tool, which had been checked for functionality just yesterday when creating a new dungeon, to stop working.

 

“The others are the same. Everything within a 200m radius of dungeon 7-1 has stopped– Ah, cancel that. There’s one that’s still alive. Hang on…”

 

Jaina, who had been trying to connect continually, found a magical tool that was barely working and shared its vision. It was distorted beyond comparison to normal, but it was barely visible.

 

A purple smog scattered in the air and withered black trees curled up on the ground. Jaina’s eyes bulged.

 

“Is…Is this erosion?”

 

“Damn it!”

 

Jaina, holding her sword, immediately channeled mana into her body. Despite her astonishment at what she saw, Jaina, holding her staff, created a portal connected to the corresponding coordinates.

 

“What?!”

 

Jaina, about to leap in, was thrown backwards. The sound of her body rolling on the ground echoed. Brushing off the dirt from her body, Jaina mumbled dismally.

 

“…It’s definite that I’ll get a dismissal notice after this.”

 

“Oh, for God’s sake.”

 

She changed the strategy. Jaina, holding a sword, turned her body and began running towards dungeon 7-1 on her own. The figure disappeared at a terrifying speed beyond the tall trees.

 

Jaina, holding her staff, ruffled her hair and issued an emergency return order to all students through the magical tool, and opened a portal leading directly to the president’s office by creating another clone.

 

Whether there’s a dismissal notice or not, she had to save the students first.

 

From noble mtl dot com

 

After taking a breather, she continued her pursuit. The monsters that had attacked were all eliminated. The red blade, sealed in eternity, didn’t seem inclined to disappear, regardless of how much blood it had soaked in.

 

“I haven’t thought about the past in a while.”

 

Leaning against a tree and wiping her sweat, she was vividly reminded of her early years. My first possession era, to be exact. Back then, most of them were as reckless as these creatures.

 

There was no such doctrine to target the leader first, unlike in theory lectures that breaking the morale was more likely if the leader was targeted.

 

What could be the point of killing the leader when there were only monsters that charged at us, not as living creatures obeying orders, but as pieces of machinery risking their lives?

 

As time passed, her breath stabilized. She shook off the blood still fresh on the blade of eternity and was about to step further into the dungeon but paused.

 

‘Before I get in… just in case.’

 

She powerfully shot a red burning sphere similar to the one that should have been generated when the original magical tool exploded, into the air. The explosion magic that was activated in time exploded the burning sphere.

 

The flame shot up into the sky, hysterically bursting into massive explosion. The spectacle would not summon a professor as if it were real, but it was enough to signal that something had gone wrong.

 

Content with having a contingency in place, I headed into the dungeon. It’s not difficult to navigate when bodies of monsters, not killed by me, are lying at set intervals.

 

The count was significant. Roughly estimating, each person seemed to have eliminated at least twenty. Taking into account that all of the bodies belonged to trolls, it was an astounding number.

 

‘It seems I have become stronger too.’

 

As I went deeper, the corpses were increasingly larger, and the injuries more severe. It implied that they had become capable of withstanding attacks for longer before their demise.

 

After some time, I reached the spot where the trail of corpses ended with the body of a monster, mutilated beyond recognition. It seemed like this was the last of the creatures.

 

It’s not like I had dismembered the body. To be so mutilated indicates that this monster was alive until its arms and legs were cut off, its guts disemboweled, its body mutilated and its head cut off.

 

‘…It seems to have been wounded. Probably didn’t go far.’

 

I spotted droplets of blood regularly dropped on the ground. They were too small to be that of the monster. I began following the blood drops.

 

Judging by the easy-to-follow trail, the student was still very much a student.

 

It didn’t take long to find bloodstains disappearing into a wall. I used detection magic and found an entrance disguised as a wall with illusion magic. Two life forms were detected inside.

 

There was a metallic scent in the air. They couldn’t cover up their smells.

 

‘The blood drops were small, so the injury won’t be critical, but it won’t be an easy one to deal with. As for healing magic… I can’t help there.’

 

This world didn’t possess magic related to healing wounds. There were only potions to promote natural healing and holy power dedicated to healing.

 

Although I could use what I had learned from the previous world, and it definitely worked, I planned to avoid using it unless absolutely necessary.

 

I didn’t want to add more trouble, especially when everyone was already panicking because of the wide-area destruction magic. Particularly as this was a matter pertaining to the livelihood of the clergy.

 

‘Are you in there?’

 

‘Huh? Crate? Is that you, Crate?’

 

I walked closer to the illusory wall and called out. A cheerful voice echoed from inside, and someone peeked out. A distinctive redhead — it was Scarlet Diana.

 

Upon noticing me, Diana’s face lit up. Judging from her reaction, it seemed Ward was the one injured.

 

‘How did you find us? The magic items are not working. Is your device working?’

 

‘Mine’s not working either. If you wanted to avoid tracking, you should have wiped off the blood drops while moving. If you use illusion magic, you should also use confusion magic. But, well, there was nothing you could do about the smell.’

 

‘Uh, yeah. I’m sorry.’

 

‘Don’t feel too guilty. You did your best. Everyone makes mistakes in the beginning. It’ll get better with time.’

 

I comforted her and stepped inside the illusory wall. As I expected, Ward was leaning on his left side, sweating profusely. Smiling, I asked him,

 

‘How did you get injured?’

 

‘….’

 

With Ward keeping his mouth shut, Diana explained for him. Apparently, he had acted as bait while they were dealing with the final monster.

 

Looking at me with surprise, he let out a scoff.

 

‘I had no weapon left after my axe broke. This lady still had hers. Under those circumstances, I made a decision that gave us the most advantages. There was no way a pathetic creature like that could perform the role of bait effectively, now, was there?’

 

Sometimes, you run into such guys. They look down on others, thinking it’s natural, but when it comes to ‘dull-witted’ commoners, they believe they can’t do anything right, so they step in and do it themselves.

 

I mean, they’re assholes, but slightly less so. Although their thinking and motivations are based on a sort of eugenics, in the end, their actions often end up being closer to leading by example.

 

It’s pretty easy to manipulate these types once you’ve stroked their ego a bit. I readjusted my evaluation of Ward slightly upward.

 

‘…What now? He’s going to die from blood loss if we leave him like this.’

 

Diana, not knowing that she was indirectly insulted, was anxious for Ward.

 

‘First, let’s consider the worst-case scenario.’

 

‘The worst-case scenario?’

 

‘That our situation in the dungeon hasn’t been discovered from the outside yet.’

 

Honestly, I highly doubt that’s the case. Not only were all the monsters in the forest gathered in front of the dungeon, but the purple smoke was also spreading.

 

Given that they were closely monitoring the forest during the class, they would have noticed something strange.

 

“So then…?”

 

“Don’t ask the obvious. We need to find a way out.”