Ch.15Dungeon Practicum – 3

“Haaah…”

I exhaled the breath I’d been holding and stopped using body acceleration. My body, which had been boiling to its limits, settled down calmly.

I checked the magical tool I had kept in my pocket. The blue dot indicating my position was displayed right in front of the green dot marking the dungeon entrance. The cave before me was definitely it.

It looked like a dungeon at first glance, but just to be sure.

I went straight inside. The faster I cleared this place, the more time I’d have in reserve for any unexpected situations. And if nothing unexpected happened, having extra time would be good too.

As soon as I entered, the roar of magical beasts echoed from far away. Simultaneously, the sound of approaching footsteps reverberated. Judging by the volume of overlapping sounds, there seemed to be quite a number of them.

Before long, trolls revealed themselves. I took a moment to gauge their numbers.

‘One, two, three, four… twelve in total.’

Since the number of magical beasts was supposed to increase fourfold when entering alone, there would have originally been three. One troll per person.

Although I had to face 12 times that amount, it didn’t matter. Bringing such mediocre magical beasts in such mediocre numbers wasn’t a threat—just a nuisance.

I made a gesture as if grabbing something from the air. Suddenly, light and wind rushed into my grasp. Soon, a sword handle appeared, followed by a crossguard forming above it.

A perfect sword took shape. A sword with an overall sky-blue appearance mixed with yellow in places—the sword I had imprinted on my soul in the first world.

It was ‘Eternity.’

“Graaaah!”

They roared as they closed the distance, looking as if they were competing to reach me first. Their roars echoed through the corridor like a chorus.

The common characteristic of trolls in most fictional works is their regenerative ability. Because of this, the methods to defeat them varied across different works.

Either separating the head and neck and waiting for them to die after a certain time, removing or separating the heart, turning them into mush by overwhelming them with firepower and slashing their entire body, or burning them.

Generally, these were the four methods.

‘Here, they die when you remove their heart, right?’

Fortunately, I didn’t need to crush everything from limbs to head and torso, then extract the heart and burn each part separately.

—Whoosh!

I heard the sound of wind. Snapping out of my thoughts, I moved my body. The closest troll had already approached within striking distance, swinging the wooden club in its hand.

I swung Eternity along the trajectory of the wooden club.

It was a confrontation between a wooden club as thick as a human thigh and a sword barely half its size, but Eternity effortlessly sliced through the wooden club.

While the troll was stunned looking at its cleanly cut club, I closed in and thrust Eternity deep into where its heart was. The blade penetrated through muscle and skin without any resistance, piercing the target heart.

‘Will it work on this kind of creature too?’

I wasn’t sure if it would work on an artificial life form created by human magic, but it seemed worth trying. I infused mana into Eternity.

“Graaaah?!”

At the same time, I felt something filling up within Eternity.

‘It works.’

The troll screamed in agony and twisted its body. The sensation of having all your blood sucked out while still alive couldn’t be very pleasant.

It took only three seconds for the nearly two-meter-tall troll to helplessly fall to its knees. Its skin and muscles shriveled up significantly, and it stopped moving.

It was a natural result since its heart had burst while its blood was being drained. I pulled Eternity out of the desiccated body. Eternity, now full of blood, overlaid a red blade on its sword body.

This was a technique I had developed before obtaining Eternity, when I was pondering how to use a blade for longer.

‘I continued using it even after getting Eternity because it remained effective.’

Droplets of blood fell from the pure blood blade, forming distorted circles. Blood was being consumed to maintain sharpness even at this moment, so a quick resolution was the answer.

I rushed toward the troll that had become the new frontrunner after the first one died. The blood blade split its body in half before it could react, then chopped up its heart as well.

Ten more to go.

“Grrrr…”

An ogre, its body completely mutilated with no intact part left, made a blood-boiling sound as it writhed on the ground.

Instead of stabbing it with Eternity to replenish blood, I swung my arm to shake off the remaining blood from the blade. Eternity returned to its clear, refreshing sky-blue color, as if it had never formed a blood blade.

After confirming there were no more enemies, I swung Eternity and split the dungeon core in half. The machine serving as the core completely stopped.

I checked the time displayed on the magical tool. About 30 minutes had passed since I entered. Since clearing usually takes about an hour and a half, I had gained about an hour.

‘Didn’t the crown prince take 13 minutes?’

I don’t think I ever stopped in the middle either, but I wondered how the crown prince could destroy the core in just 13 minutes while also killing all the magical beasts.

Maybe he encountered creatures that were easier to deal with than trolls and ogres. Or perhaps he truly was some kind of incredible monster.

I infused mana into the magical tool, making the blue light blink at a leisurely pace. It was the clear signal. The other side must have been taking a breather too, as an identical blinking pattern soon returned.

That’s one down. Since we agreed not to interfere with each other’s tasks, all that remained was to examine the place where the dimensional gate directly connecting to the demon realm had opened.

After escaping through the dimensional gate that appeared when the dungeon core disappeared, I immediately used body acceleration. As I kicked the ground with both feet, my body shot forward in an instant from the recoil.

Avoiding large trees and smashing through small branches and bushes with my body, I advanced at a reckless speed and soon arrived at the location Priscilla had mentioned.

‘No dimensional gate…’

I thoroughly searched the area, but no magical energy was detected, and the place where the second dimensional gate was supposed to open was similarly empty.

The same was true for the final location, which I had examined with special care as it was supposed to be where the largest dimensional gate would open. Nothing appeared.

That was fortunate. I had no desire to see the demon realm anyway.

‘Now I just need to wait for those two to come out? It’s comfortable without any magical beasts…’

I thought that far before pausing. Something seemed strange. I had been surveying the surroundings, but nothing had appeared.

‘…Didn’t they warn us that we could be attacked by magical beasts on the way to the dungeon?’

I had traversed nearly half the forest but hadn’t seen a single magical beast. It seemed too convenient to attribute this to a small number of magical beasts outside the dungeon, especially considering what the professor had said in the first class.

‘He spoke as if he was certain we would be attacked at least once.’

I had an ominous feeling. I took out the magical tool to get directions to the dungeon where the other two were, but stopped.

Their blue dots were blinking rapidly.

This wasn’t a clear signal. The pace was too fast to be considered leisurely. That left only one possibility for what the rapidly blinking blue light meant.

It was a distress signal.

‘…Why?’

My mind was confused. I could understand Diana, but that Warden guy didn’t seem like the type to ask me for help under normal circumstances.

But both blue dots were blinking at an extremely fast pace.

Given that no red flash appeared in the sky, they hadn’t reached the point of needing the professor’s help, but they had judged that they would be in danger without my assistance as well.

Details later. I needed to help them first. I kicked the ground using body enhancement to its limit. The surroundings blurred past me.

After repeatedly kicking the ground whenever my speed decreased, the blue dot indicating my position had reached right near the entrance of another dungeon.

‘Those are…’

As soon as I arrived at the dungeon entrance, I was certain something had gone wrong.

Hundreds of magical beasts were swarming together at a glance.

They were of various types: trolls, ogres, scorpions, killer wolves… The common trait among these numerous magical beasts was that they were the kinds Jeina had warned us about, saying it would be good to know how to deal with them in advance.

‘No wonder I didn’t see any in the forest.’

They were all gathered here.

‘But… why?’

I asked myself, but no answer came.

To begin with, these weren’t even real magical beasts. They were just fakes created by the Academy. They shouldn’t deviate from their pre-programmed behavior.

“Grr?”

Suddenly, several killer wolves raised their heads, sniffed the air, and turned around. Upon discovering me, they began to bare their teeth, dripping with saliva.

Before long, all the creatures gathered at the entrance had turned toward me. As the magical beasts approached me, creating a gap, I could see a purple glow—the characteristic color of the demon realm—faintly spreading at the dungeon entrance.

It was the infiltration phenomenon Priscilla had so thoroughly explained.

‘…Wrong time, wrong place. The butterfly effect is quite something.’

As soon as the purple light spread through the air, the screen of my magical tool went dark. Without hesitation, I infused mana into it and detonated it.

However, the red light indicating the activation of the coordinate device did not emerge.

‘Well, I kind of expected this…’

The trees touched by the purple smoke-like light were visibly twisting and distorting. This too was exactly as Priscilla had described.

Demonification.

I drew out Eternity again. As I infused mana, a soft blue light enveloped the blade. Pointing the tip toward the creatures, I muttered in disbelief:

“I’ve only been enrolled here for a week, and you’re already doing this? How much bigger are you planning to make things later? Huh?”

The creatures, obviously not understanding my words, began to charge ferociously like real magical beasts.