chapter_0478

Chapter 476: Ghouls are Empty

I struck the box with my fist, believing it would break if I hit it hard enough.

Kong-

A small impact sound echoed, but unfortunately, the box remained intact.

“My hand…”

The underside of my fist throbbed with pain.

It had been such a long time since I’d felt this kind of pain that my ears and tail shot straight up before drooping back down.

“Are you okay…?”

“Y-yes…”

She said hitting it hard would do the trick, so I thought I could manage with my own strength.

Apparently, the standard was for Level 4 adventurers.

“I-I’m sorry, I thought it was just an ordinary wooden box…”

Ryuko struck the wooden box with her fist.

Though she didn’t hit it very hard, the wooden box shattered into pieces.

“…”

Ryuko blinked, showing her embarrassment.

She had every reason to be embarrassed since I hadn’t been able to break such an ordinary box.

“I’m sorry… I’m just too weak…”

“N-no, I should be the one apologizing…! I’m really sorry!”

Ryuko pressed her palms together in apology.

As I rubbed my sore hand and chuckled, the children approached me, sensing our conversation had ended.

“Gyeoul, are you okay?”

“Yes. I’m fine.”

Despite telling Bom I was fine, I continued rubbing my sore hand.

Concerned by this, Levinas pulled a potion from her bag.

“King, Levinas has red medicine.”

“It’s okay. It’s not serious enough for a potion.”

“Mmm! Just tell me if it hurts!”

While Levinas was putting the potion back in her bag, there were thudding sounds coming from the broken box.

When I turned to look, Gaeul was striking the box’s remains with Woodcalibur.

Thwack-! Thwack-!

Was she trying to take revenge for hurting me?

Gaeul was striking the box with a rather solemn expression.

Thwack-! Thwack-!

Among the fragments scattering from the impacts, something shiny caught my eye.

Inside the box was a key.

“…This looks like a key to exit the mansion, doesn’t it?”

“Yes. The symbol on the key matches the one on the door.”

Had we finally found the key to leave the dungeon?

Though I felt happy, there was also a sense of uneasiness.

A Level 4 dungeon couldn’t possibly be this easy.

‘And we barely got any items.’

Because we had ignored all the traps and mazes, we’d been able to skip quite a few monsters.

Where had all those monsters gone?

As we retraced our steps, I couldn’t see any of the monsters we’d skipped.

“Hmm…”

My beast-kin instincts were warning me that we needed to prepare thoroughly before returning to the main hall.

I felt I should share my honey tea with everyone.

**

“With this, I think I could even take down a crazy ghoul.”

Trebon flexed his thick hands after drinking the tea.

Milton, who was similarly checking his condition, asked me:

“But why did you give us this?”

“Well, I had a bad feeling…”

“A bad feeling?”

“Yes. Something…”

As we proceeded while drinking the tea, we arrived at the second floor of the mansion.

From there, looking down, we could see ghouls gathered in the main hall on the first floor.

From the massive ghoul to all the ones we had skipped.

Every ghoul had gathered in the main hall on the first floor.

To leave the dungeon, we had to go down to the main hall.

It was as if they were seeking revenge on us for skipping the dungeon.

“Oh, no…”

“So this is what happens when you skip the dungeon…”

The adventurers were shocked at the sight of ghouls filling the first-floor lobby.

Some of them were visibly upset.

“What the hell is this shit…!”

“There are too many of them…!”

Several adventurers showed fear at the suddenly increased dungeon difficulty.

Had we been too reckless in pushing through the dungeon?

As I worried about receiving blame from the adventurers, Trebon stepped forward to calm them down.

“Hey, calm down and check your condition. Thanks to the buff, it’s not an impossible situation.”

“B-but…!”

“We’ve all faced more dangerous situations as adventurers. And we’ll face more in the future. Right?”

Trebon said, looking around at everyone.

The veteran adventurer’s voice was enough to calm the frightened adventurers.

“Don’t panic, everyone. Maintain formation. We have the advantage fighting from above on the stairs.”

Under Trebon’s command, we formed a line at the top of the stairs.

The strategy was to push the ghouls down as they charged up the stairs.

If even one tumbled down, it would damage the ghouls behind it as well.

It was quite a good strategy.

“Tsk, if I’d known we were facing ghouls, I would have brought some holy water.”

“Yeah, if we could just apply holy water to our weapons, we could wipe out these ghouls. Does anyone have any holy attribute items?”

Holy attribute items.

Unfortunately, none of us had any holy attribute items.

“Nobody has any…”

“Gruk?!”

Along with someone’s sigh, the massive ghoul called the crazy ghoul looked up at us.

Despite ghouls supposedly being incapable of emotions, its mouth curled up on one side, as if mocking us.

“Kyaaaak!”

Was it trying to exact revenge on those who had ignored it and passed by?

The massive ghoul roared loudly, extending its axe.

“Kraaak!”

“Kruk!”

In response to the crazy ghoul’s roar, the hundreds of ghouls all reacted at once.

Hundreds of pairs of dead eyes looked up at us.

And then, as if on cue, they began charging toward us.

“Here they come!”

At Ryuko’s shout, the adventurers drew their various weapons.

I was just pulling out an explosive arrow and nocking it when a bright light began to emanate from beside me.

“Owner! Ownerrr!”

“Uh, yeah…?”

“This! Use this now!”

Looking to the side, I saw Gaeul’s Woodcalibur engulfed in white flames.

But these flames felt different from before.

The warm feeling I had experienced when Sacred Guild Master Chae Juyeon used magic.

That warmth was rising from Gaeul’s sword.

“That’s…”

“Holy…!”

The white light shot from Gaeul’s sword toward the ghouls.

The massive ghoul showed a blank expression in the face of the warm, comforting light.

“…”

It was an expression as if it had let go of everything.

**

The ghouls were all wiped out by the white light emitted from Woodcalibur.

It seemed the item that Master Chae Juyeon had given me earlier was indeed a holy attribute item.

“Yeomyeong really thinks of everything…?”

“Yeah. Looks like they anticipated this from the beginning.”

“That’s Yeomyeong for you.”

The adventurers’ gazes fixed on Gaeul, who had wiped out all the ghouls.

Confused by their attention, Gaeul stood with a blank expression before raising her sword high.

“Ahem.”

So she finishes with an “ahem” after all.

I giggled as I looked down at the floor.

The floor was covered with mana stones left behind by the hundreds of ghouls and the boss ghoul.

“Finders keepers!”

“Woah!”

Bom and Levinas ran down the stairs to collect the mana stones.

I followed them down the stairs, but the other adventurers were just hesitating behind us.

Some of them looked at the mana stones with regret.

“Hmm…”

“We didn’t really do anything…”

What do they mean they didn’t do anything?

They had detected the dungeon’s traps, provided information about the boss ghoul, and boosted team morale.

Combat power wasn’t everything in a dungeon.

They had every right to share in the mana stones.

“Bom said finders keepers. You need to hurry and collect them.”

“Well…”

“Quickly, quickly.”

I went back up the stairs and gently pushed each adventurer’s back.

That way, we could all collect mana stones together.

“Dark King, how many mana stones did you collect?”

“This many.”

“King, did you collect a lot of mana stones too?”

“Yes.”

After diligently collecting the ghoul mana stones, only the boss ghoul’s mana stone remained on the floor.

But none of the adventurers were picking up the massive ghoul’s mana stone.

“That one…”

“That obviously belongs to you kids.”

“Is that really okay?”

“Of course.”

By unanimous agreement from the adventurers, we were able to claim the boss ghoul’s mana stone.

After collecting all the mana stones, we used the key from the box to open the mansion’s door.

“There’s the portal.”

“Everyone, good work. Hope to see you again sometime.”

“I’ll send an official thank you through the guild. Which guild did you say you were from, Trebon?”

We spent some time saying goodbye in front of the portal.

Some exchanged guild information and contact details.

“Thanks to the Yeomyeong kids too. I was tense because it was a special dungeon, but we cleared it comfortably thanks to you.”

“I’ll send an official thank you through the guild.”

“Okay.”

“Goodbye everyone!”

After exchanging farewells with everyone, we threw ourselves into the portal.

I was worried our paths might get mixed up if we all entered the same portal, but fortunately, we emerged from exactly the same portal we had entered.

“We cleared another dungeon today!”

“It was easy because Gaeul blasted everything away with light at the end.”

“Heuk…”

We returned to the park with bags full of mana stones.

Though we’d said “finders keepers,” we actually divided everything fairly according to the number of people.

“Can I use this big ghoul mana stone to make arrows?”

“Yeah! Levinas doesn’t mind!”

“I don’t mind either.”

With the children’s permission, I took the massive mana stone and ran toward Jung Yu-na.

Since it was a powerful boss’s mana stone, it would surely create powerful arrows.

“With this… I could make special arrows.”

“Special arrows?”

“Yes. The mana stone itself has an enlargement spell on it.”

An enlargement spell.

Could it mean I’d be able to shoot massive arrows?

My tail began to wag back and forth in anticipation.