Ch.210[Chapter 210] Enter the Dungeon

Mountain Bridge Marsh secret base.

“…Is this also part of the magician’s plan?”

The swordsman looked at the archer with a dumbfounded expression.

“I don’t know. But the magician must have a reason for—”

The archer was equally confused.

Until now, both had believed that spider was a summon controlled by the magician. Seeing the spider being friendly toward Sir Dominic had thrown them into confusion.

Why were they so perplexed?

To understand this, one needed to know the relationship between the swordsman, the magician, and the archer.

On the surface, they appeared to be a team, but looking closer at their relationship revealed that while they were friendly, they showed absolutely no interest in each other.

Their party was merely set to “auto-hunt,” and they were so focused on their own strength that they paid no attention to each other’s skills or stats.

That’s why the swordsman and archer only knew that the magician controlled summons, but had no idea what kind of summons she controlled.

It was truly a tragedy born of indifference.

“Ah.”

Just then.

The archer exclaimed as if having realized something.

“Yes, that’s it. This is a trap.”

“A trap?”

“Yes. A trap. The magician is putting on an act to deliver a critical blow to Sir Dominic at the most crucial moment.”

The archer boldly jumped to the wrong conclusion.

“Think about it. We just heard it ourselves. Seven days in there is essentially 700 days. That means even if someone attacks early to drain health, they can fully recover by resting for two years. The magician must know this and is planning for the late game. At the most critical moment, at the very end, she plans to ruin everything for Sir Dominic!”

A completely misguided thought.

However, the swordsman seemed to think the archer’s words had some logic and nodded.

“I see. Indeed, a plan worthy of a magician who invested all stats in intelligence.”

The archer and swordsman looked back at the crystal ball.

Whatever plan the magician had made, they believed that the intelligent magician would surely succeed.

…

“Damn it, damn it! Damn it!”

In a crack between the moss-covered dungeon walls.

The magician, wearing a silk witch hat and revealing attire, was anxiously biting her nails and cursing.

“What on earth is that monster? How could such a monster be at the dungeon entrance?”

The magician looked outside the crack with anxious eyes.

There was only thick darkness out there, and the magician frantically scanned the darkness with purposeless eyes.

“The plan was perfect, so why…!”

The magician bit her nails again.

She accidentally bit her fingertip too hard, causing it to bleed, but she felt no pain.

This was because she was completely focused on the monster that might be just beyond.

The magician had entered this dungeon with a perfect plan.

A plan to summon many creatures to drain Sir Dominic’s health as much as possible.

Indeed, her summons were all carefully selected small and agile animals that would be effective against Sir Dominic.

However, the magician’s perfect plan fell apart before Sir Dominic even entered.

Because of that spider.

“…I’ve never seen anything so horrible…”

The magician muttered as she scanned the darkness with lost eyes.

The magician despised things with many legs.

Insects, scorpions, centipedes, and spiders.

For the magician who particularly hated spiders, a giant spider was all the more detestable.

Above all, there was another reason why the magician hated that giant spider.

It was because the spider was the natural enemy of her summons.

The magician’s summons, composed of small and agile animals, were caught in spider webs and devoured by the spider before they could do anything.

Of course, the “devoured” part was the magician’s assumption.

She thought that since spiders are predators, the captured animals wouldn’t be in good shape.

From the spider’s perspective, this might be considered a speciesist remark, but at least that’s what the magician was thinking right now.

“…I need to change the plan.”

The magician muttered while chewing her lips.

A trickle of blood flowed from her lips.

“I have to use my best card…”

After muttering this, the magician moved deeper into the crevice.

Then, taking out a ritual knife and cutting her fingertip, the magician began drawing a magic circle with blood while chanting an unknown spell.

…

“This tower… no, it’s a dungeon now. This dungeon has six floors below. I’m on the top floor, the 6th floor. And we’re on our way to the 5th floor.”

The one called Merry continued to provide information to Sir Dominic.

“The sword that changes the past is on the first basement floor. That’s… six floors below here.”

Merry was double-checking if her calculation was correct after saying that.

“By the way, how do I earn points?”

Sir Dominic asked Merry whenever he had questions.

Merry made a chuckling sound in the darkness, saying it was a good question.

“You can earn points in various ways. The easiest way is to kill skeletons or zombies walking around. They’re like day laborers who earn points daily.”

Of course, you don’t have to kill them if you feel sorry for them, Merry added.

“Next is selling items to me. Actually, I don’t recommend this much. As I said earlier, I don’t have many points in my account.”

“Lastly, you can kill bosses. Defeat one of the bosses on each floor and get rewards. This is the method I recommend the most.”

Sir Dominic nodded at Merry’s words.

It was an understandable system.

“Then what items sell for high prices?”

Sir Dominic asked while opening his inventory.

In the inventory, only equipment items were marked with X and couldn’t be used, but all other miscellaneous items could be taken out and used freely.

“Well, it varies a bit from merchant to merchant… but I like sweet things.”

Merry licked her lips in the darkness.

“Sweet things?”

“Yes. Like chocolate or candy.”

Jelly would be the best, Merry added.

“Actually, I heard there was a jelly rain recently. That, that… must have been amazing.”

Merry drooled as she recalled what an internet friend had told her.

In truth, Merry had never tasted anything sweet.

However, she had nurtured dreams and hopes by looking at desserts posted on social media.

“At least it’s 100 times better than bitter and foul things. Like humans, or rats, or centipedes—”

Merry told Sir Dominic with a voice full of dreams.

Hearing this, Sir Dominic fell silent for a moment.

Merry thought Sir Dominic was frightened and hurriedly changed the subject.

“Oh, I mean, I’m not saying I’m going to eat you. I just wanted to say that I like sweet things.”

“That’s not it…”

Sir Dominic awkwardly scratched the back of his head at Merry’s excuse.

“I was just wondering if you buy in bulk at a better price.”

“Huh?”

Sir Dominic looked back at his inventory.

There, in the corner of his inventory, were jellies, candies, injeolmi powder, and sugar that remained after buying information from fairies during the past Jelly Rain.

And enough to fill an entire floor of this dungeon.

…

“It’s chewy! It’s sweet! So this is jelly!”

Sir Dominic watched Merry voraciously eating jelly in front of him.

She was a girl wearing silk woven from spider webs, with long ebony-like hair and skin so pale it was almost transparent.

At first glance, she seemed to have a normal appearance, but her lower body was anything but normal.

She had a spider’s body with eight extended legs.

Surprisingly though, her eyes were like a human’s—just two. The red glow that he had thought were eight eyes turned out to be two eyes and six ruby hair ornaments.

She was holding so much jelly in both hands that they became sticky, and she was stuffing the jelly into her mouth with impressive fangs.

“Take your time. There’s still plenty left.”

“But… but I don’t have anywhere to store this! I have no choice but to store it in my stomach!”

Merry grumbled to Sir Dominic with a disgruntled voice.

As soon as she discovered that Sir Dominic had jelly, she immediately spent all her points to buy jelly from him.

She had scraped together all her available points, so even her bag and box had been converted to points and transferred to Sir Dominic.

Therefore, all she had now were a few pieces of jelly.

That was why her hands were sticky, and why she was voraciously stuffing jelly into her stomach.

“By the way, are you okay with just those points? Don’t you need anything else?”

Merry looked at Sir Dominic with innocent eyes.

Having received such rare food for very few points, she felt like giving him something more in return.

“In that case…”

Sir Dominic glanced at the stairs leading down.

“I’m curious about… the one called the boss of the first floor.”

Sir Dominic asked about immediately important information.

“I can tell you what I know about that.”

Merry nodded as if it were possible.

And she immediately began to talk about the 5th floor boss.

“The boss of the 5th floor is—”

Sir Dominic began to listen attentively to her words.