Ch.111The Saint Is Dangerous (6)

Boom!

Crunch.

Crunch crunch.

“C-come on, do better!”

“Even if you tell me to do better here…”

My luck was absolutely terrible. Of all things, an S-rank dungeon with holy power-based monsters? Honestly, I never expected something like that to pop up out of nowhere.

Hastily summoning undead would be pointless—the holy knight statues would just blast them with holy power and they’d crumble helplessly.

I clicked my tongue and hid behind Yesiel’s back. Then immediately regretted it.

“Holy Light of Heaven!”

“Ah! Hot! Hot!”

I’d forgotten that she also fights by unleashing holy power everywhere. Finding myself with nowhere to go, I moved aimlessly, running back and forth across the battlefield.

“Don’t you have that undead you used before? The one with resistance to holy power…”

“T-that one takes time to create, so I can’t.”

Given our sudden departure and the fact that I had no idea this would be this type of dungeon, I obviously hadn’t prepared in advance.

After barely finishing one battle, I stopped advancing and calmly began to think.

“It’s not like I can’t defeat them at all…”

But pushing forward recklessly would drain too much of my power. Eventually, I’d reach the boss fight and have no choice but to release my seal.

‘Of all times for Chaehwain to be absent.’

It was because I’d entered the dungeon separately while visiting Chaehwaryeon before Javier arrived.

I could have sent a signal for her to join me, but I thought I wouldn’t need her.

Now I regretted that decision.

“…If that’s the case, wouldn’t it be better to find Master and join up with him first?”

Yesiel carefully suggested, but I shook my head again.

“Look at this magical density. Ordinary people won’t last long.”

Joining Javier would make clearing the dungeon easier, but if we wasted too much time searching for him, we might end up in trouble.

Besides, if Javier wasn’t having major problems, he’d be heading toward the boss room anyway, so going in that direction might actually increase our chances of meeting him.

‘I can’t even use scouting undead in this environment.’

Having reached this conclusion again, we calmly began advancing deeper into the dungeon.

When we sensed monsters again, I quickly summoned the Book of Death and prepared a summoning ritual.

Whoosh!

Splash!

“Extraction.”

Even so, I wasn’t satisfied with just taking damage from enemies of this level.

I’d encountered countless holy power-wielding enemies in Thebes. Right now I lacked the strength for an efficient response, but as I mentioned earlier, it wasn’t like I had no options.

“Materialization.”

Whoooom.

Whoosh!

Three eyeballs appeared in my palm, and as I scattered them on the ground while chanting, a massive undead with three heads emerged from the earth.

[Kuhik. Grik, warrior of the earth, greets the Lord.]

A mutant cyclops with three heads and three personalities.

I addressed the central head, which was the only one with its eye open.

“Sorry, but not you. Tell Hakim to come out quickly.”

[…As you wish.]

Each of them possessed special abilities according to their personalities. The youngest, Hakim, despite being undead, had immense resistance to holy power.

Moreover, he emitted an energy that devoured holy power, stealing the strength of his enemies—making him practically the natural enemy of holy knights.

[Kuhik. Did you call for me, my Lord? Your humble servant Hakim greets you.]

True to being the most intelligent of the three, his speech was much more fluent than his brothers’.

Upon receiving my command, Hakim glanced at the statues surrounding us and began charging without hesitation.

Thud.

Thud thud.

Crash!

[Anyone who blocks my Lord’s path shall die.]

Clang!

Clash!

As the battle began in this rather violent manner, Yesiel also demonstrated her skills by smashing the statues one by one.

With the attention divided, it was clearly much easier to move around than before.

Click.

Click.

Rumble.

Crack!

The statues in the form of holy knights continued attacking Hakim with holy power, but such simple methods couldn’t possibly damage him.

In the end, the second battle concluded embarrassingly easily compared to the first.

After the battle, Yesiel, who was checking her weapon, approached me with a surprised expression.

“I can’t believe you have such an undead… But why didn’t you use it earlier?”

“I didn’t want to use it. This one consumes a lot of energy since it contains three souls.”

Bringing out the cyclops triplets essentially meant I intended to clear this dungeon quickly.

“No time to rest. Keep moving forward.”

“Yes. We can’t afford to waste time when citizens are in danger.”

I meant something else, but that wasn’t wrong either.

We continued smashing the statues we encountered and steadily advanced deeper into the dungeon.

Finally, we discovered a passage leading to the depths of the dungeon.

“I couldn’t sense anything unusual on our way here.”

“They’re probably all inside.”

“I’ll take the lead.”

The passage was quite dark, so Yesiel emitted holy power to secure visibility, and we quickly entered.

Soon after, we found traces of Javier who had gone ahead.

“He handled them cleanly.”

“Yes, these are definitely Master’s traces. He might have already reached the boss room.”

Just from the remains of the statues, I could roughly guess that Javier’s skills had reached a remarkable level.

Most of them appeared to have been dealt with in a short time.

‘…Not bad.’

It must have been even more difficult with civilians in tow, which made his accomplishment all the more impressive.

After confirming the direction the traces led, I had Yesiel take point and continued through the dungeon.

“According to the preliminary measurements, the boss room shouldn’t be far.”

“I suppose so.”

However, there was one thing that had been bothering me.

It was about the core entity of this dungeon.

‘So what exactly is the point here?’

The appearance of holy knight statues wielding holy power made sense.

I could tell that a temple of priests was the theme of this dungeon.

However, since entering the dungeon, we hadn’t encountered any significant enemies besides the holy knight statues.

Isn’t the composition somewhat strange for a simple temple?

Considering that even those statues were somewhat ambiguous to classify as monsters, there might be something hidden in this dungeon that we hadn’t yet realized.

‘Statues, statues…’

Among the numerous religious orders in Thebes, there were those who used techniques to breathe life into inanimate objects to serve as guardians. They called these guardians “Guardians.”

I wasn’t certain, but the statues we were seeing were probably of a similar type.

And from what I knew, while they claimed to represent a religious order, they were actually closer to a group of sorcerers.

As we continued fighting and moving, I became increasingly confident in my prediction based on the gradually changing surroundings.

‘As expected, people are similar wherever you go.’

The structures resembled those at the entrance of the dungeon, but upon closer inspection, they clearly had a different style.

This place was becoming less like a temple and more like an altar.

“…The traces of battle have stopped.”

That meant Javier’s group must be nearby.

Since there didn’t seem to be any more holy knight statues in the vicinity, I exerted my power to release scouting insects to check the surroundings.

And finally, I found them.

‘Just as I thought.’

Their expressions were all frozen, and they seemed to be watching each other nervously.

After examining the surroundings a bit more, I clearly understood why.

‘So it means we can’t proceed without offering a sacrifice.’

This was devastating news for the civilians. It meant that someone among them—excluding Javier, of course—would have to sacrifice themselves for the dungeon to be cleared.

“Did you find something?”

“I found them. Let’s go.”

But having confirmed this, I strode toward the location without hesitation.

I don’t know what kind of trick they’ve set up, but I am a necromancer.

‘…How presumptuous.’

Unfortunately for the dungeon boss, this field was precisely my specialty.