Chapter 22

Chapter 22

I Installed a Dating App and Girls from Another World Became Obsessed with Me.

Episode 22: Underground Dungeon (3).

Demon Beast Studies was a subject that was mandatorily taught throughout elementary, middle, and high school.

It was not a subject with a separate exam, but anyone with a proper sense of concept wouldn’t dare neglect it.

Even in modern society, where the development of technology had made it possible to know the timing of gate generation, deaths due to demonic beasts continued to occur.

It often happens even in the capitals of developed countries.

No matter how many hunters, heroes, mages, and numerous superhumans reside, misfortune never ceased.

Just like the Heimlich maneuver and some self-defense techniques, ordinary people who could not resist demonic beasts needed to always be aware of general knowledge about demonic beasts to survive the misfortune that would come someday.

Grrrrr…

The figure of a bipedal muscular dog-shaped creature was something I remembered seeing in textbooks.

“…Kobold Warrior.”

Kobolds, along with goblins, were known to be weak (?) demonic beasts that ordinary people could somehow kill if they were armed.

However, there were special individuals among such demonic beasts, known as elite individuals, who were famous for showing far superior performance than other demonic beasts of the same species.

Among them, the most famous and viciously known was the Kobold Warrior, who freely wielded a greatsword.

The grade was D+, and if you asked if it was easy to deal with, the answer was, I didn’t know.

It was my first time facing a demonic beast, and D+? Until recently, I was just an ordinary person.

“It’s a bit too much to have something like that come out from the start.”

Regardless of the automatic lamentation, all the resources of my entire body were already anticipating combat.

And so was the Kobold Warrior, holding the greatsword as if he would rush at me at any moment, which heightened the tension.

“Weakness Detection.”

Woong- As soon as I activated the skill, an intangible wave swept past him.

As expected, the weaknesses I found with the skill were only things that were obvious to any normal creature, such as the brain, heart, and lungs.

“For an Epic grade, that’s pathetic…!”

Kaaaahhhh!!!

Seeing me not taking any action, he thought the exploration was over, and the Kobold Warrior immediately started rushing towards me.

The distance between him and me was so short that it wasn’t even 30 meters.

Even if they are bipedal, dogs are dogs, much faster than humans.

The fastest short-distance breed, the Deerhound, boasts a speed of 64km/h.

Of course, it didn’t mean the Kobold Warrior was that fast. But he was almost as fast, and literally in the blink of an eye, his greatsword was swinging towards my head.

Clang!!

The barrier and the accelerated greatsword collided, creating a loud noise and sparks.

He seemed to have not anticipated the barrier, and from the moment his attack was blocked, I could see surprise on his face.

“Die.”

At some point, the wood wand was pointing towards his head.

Immediately after, a magic circle emitting red light appeared at the end of the wand.

“Fire Spear.”

A compressed strike of flames pierced the Kobold Warrior’s forehead accurately, burning his entire head.

With fatal damage, the Kobold Warrior scattered his completely burned brain fluid and fell to the floor.

“Hoo…”

Anyone who saw it would say it was a bland battle that ended in the blink of an eye.

But at least for me, it was a moment of fierce battle that crossed life and death.

What if I hadn’t been able to put up a barrier as soon as I saw the Kobold Warrior?

What if he knew how to sense mana and knew that I had put up a barrier?

What if the first attack was a feint, and other attacks were prepared after that?

What if the mana in the barrier wasn’t enough to block his downward slash?

If anything had gone wrong, I would have been lying on the floor now.

Thinking about it, cold sweat poured down like rain.

“Mana consumption is no joke…”

I put too much mana into the barrier, and the same goes for the Fire Spear.

As a result, I now had less than half of my mana left.

I had no choice but to pour the remaining mana into the barrier and then take time to meditate to recover mana by absorbing natural mana.

No matter how much I was receiving buffs regarding mana self-hypnosis, rapid recovery of mana without meditation was difficult.

When I reached the 2nd circle, I absorbed a huge amount of mana with the determination to die, but I couldn’t do that now.

I had to absorb it little by little, as much as my body could handle.

The time it took to fill mana was about 30 minutes, and my teeth were grinding on their own at the thought of wasting too much energy in the first battle.

Ding-

[Defeated Kobold Warrior]

[First kill reward: 100 coins]

“…This is a dating app, right?”

I felt like the app’s identity was becoming more and more strange.

Dungeon exploration continued with mapping.

Of course, along with battles with demonic beasts.

Kieeeeeek!!!

Poison Spider, which melted the limbs of its prey with acidic poison and then devoured the prey alive.

His grade was D+, like the Kobold Warrior.

I had a hard time because he approached with front legs that could cut even steel and broke the barrier twice in a row, but I rolled forward and avoided the moment he spat out poison, then lunged into his arms and fired a volley of fireballs.

As a bug, he couldn’t overcome his weakness to fire and burned to death with a terrible smell.

[Defeated Poison Spider]

[First kill reward: 100 coins]

I consumed 30% of my mana here.

It was encouraging. It was an improvement from the previous battle, where I used up more than half of my mana with one barrier and one attack magic.

After the battle, extreme fatigue washed over me.

I drank some mineral water, replenished my sugar with chocolate, and set off again.

It was called the first floor, but as expected of a place where the World Tree’s relics were sealed and stored, there were still forks in the road.

As many as the traps that appeared.

The first trap I encountered was a classic trap where arrows shot out from the wall when you stepped on a pressure plate.

“Damn, that hurts.”

The word classic also meant that it worked well.

I tried to avoid it as much as possible, but one arrow pierced my shoulder.

Fortunately, there was no poison.

I took some first aid measures and started walking again. For reference, mages cannot use healing magic. Healing abilities are the exclusive domain of priests.

Before long, the road split again.

This time, into three branches.

“This is driving me crazy.”

[Remaining matching time: 09:12:41]

About 2 hours had passed since I entered the dungeon.

Considering that I went through a total of three two-way intersections to get here, it can be seen as progressing smoothly.

But that was also evidence that the dungeon was that wide.

I didn’t know how much time I would have to spend just to conquer the first floor.

Of course, it wasn’t a place where treasure chests were hidden like other dungeons, so it would have been enough if I could find the way to the second floor, but the problem was that the way to the second floor could be among the forks I had passed.

“Is it even possible to not know the dungeon structure you created?”

In fact, even if I say this, I came to the dungeon for my growth, so it was right to go around as much as possible.

“Let’s keep going for now.”

There was also the option to stop here and go back to explore the other paths I passed.

But that wasn’t a very good choice.

Just like there’s a formula to keep going along the wall, whether it was left or right, to get out of a maze, exploring the dungeon wouldn’t be much different.

I decided to keep moving forward as far as I could go.

“That’s…”

For reference, the torches lighting the dungeon passage only light up around me.

In other words, the torches that were far away from me automatically turned off.

The interval was about 50m.

Unless it was a fork in the road, that was the limit of my visibility.

And something was appearing in the darkness 50m ahead of me.

“Isn’t this… a bit much?”

-Krarararak!!

-Keueoeoeo!!

What appeared at the end of the darkness in the passage were two Kobold Warriors.

No, to be precise, it was a little different.

One of the Kobold Warriors was holding a greatsword like the one I saw earlier, but the other was holding a bow.

And my concern became a reality.

The ones who recognized me began to roar roughly. And only the Kobold Warrior with the greatsword rushed towards me.

The one with the bow, of course, knelt on one knee on the spot and started preparing to shoot.

“They’re really playing dirty!”

About 60% of my remaining mana, what’s the best thing to do here?

It was to deal with the greatsword while checking the archer.

But that wasn’t as easy as it sounded.

Clang!

“Kuk?!”

The barrier was broken by blocking the attacking greatsword.

It was so fast that the distance of 50m was meaningless.

Of course, blocking it wasn’t difficult. The barrier was broken because I made it with only the necessary amount of mana to avoid wasting it.

But a problem arose.

Thwack-

“Shit…!”

As soon as the greatsword broke my barrier, an arrow flew in as if aiming for the gap, piercing my thigh.

If this was a 1-on-1 situation, I would have burned his head by taking advantage of the gap where the barrier was broken like before.

But this was a 2-on-1.

The intense pain that came up my throat was incomparable to when I was hit by a trap and an arrow was stuck in my shoulder.

Even so, I had to move. The greatsword guy, who had readjusted his posture in the gap where I staggered from the arrow, was rushing towards me again.

‘Barrier…!’

Clang!!

The barrier was broken again by the greatsword that struck down again.

The problem was that the mana consumption was greater than expected because it was a hastily made barrier.

I was momentarily flustered by the mistake, but this time, an arrow was flying towards my forehead.

The arrow had already reached a place where I could reach out my hand.

How much time was left until that arrow pierced my forehead? 0.1 seconds? 0.01 seconds?

In an extreme situation, thoughts accelerated.

There wasn’t much time.

I concentrate all the resources of my brain on the barrier magic.

The basics of transformation magic focus on simple output changes. Firepower, range, speed, etc.

But if you went one step further from there.

Ting!

“Fire Sword.”

A sword of fire that rose with the wand as a medium bisects the body of the greatsword-wielding guy.

And on the floor were his bisected corpse and the arrow that bounced off the barrier.

“…Hey.”

Kruuk…?

I touched the magic circle of the barrier magic and made the barrier generate only on my forehead, not in the form of covering my whole body.

Thanks to this, the activation time and mana consumption were drastically reduced.

“Was it fun just shooting arrows from behind?”

It didn’t take me 3 minutes to deal with the remaining Kobold Warrior.