episode_0014

A voice, without a trace of presence, came from right behind me, close enough to touch.

I wasn’t flustered. I didn’t even turn around. Because there wouldn’t be anything there anyway.

No, still, just in case, I glanced back slightly. As expected, there was nothing.

‘Instead of a system message, in the form of a voice—.’

I knew the identity of the voice. It wasn’t something specific there, but a unique gimmick of the Abyss, a special status effect called “Abyssal Gaze.”

In the Abyss, every time a mob is defeated, the Gaze Level increases, and proportional to the Gaze Level, the appearing enemies become stronger, and the rewards obtained also improve.

─Before long, one by one, the monsters of the Abyss began to appear from beyond the purple horizon.

I silently extended my hand towards one of them. The distance was quite far. Several kilometers. Unlike playing the game, each mob was scattered sparsely at a considerable distance.

How effective would magic shot from such a far distance be?

‘Snipe Shot.’

The first thing that came to mind was this sniper magic, which, according to its setting, could take down enemies from ultra-long range.

That was just the setting, though; in the game, it was merely a non-elemental attack magic with absurdly high damage.

It *should* have been.

─Bang!

Now, it wasn’t.

Large-caliber colorless magic wrapped around my fingertips. Like pulling the trigger of a real sniper rifle, a magic bullet shot forth with an ear-splitting piercing sound.

And it hit.

It struck an opponent several kilometers away at the edge of the horizon, truly like a sniper shot, with precise accuracy.

Moreover, it wasn’t just an arrow or a bullet. It was the pinnacle of firepower, an attack magic wielded by the Warlock class.

From far away, the form of the monster struck by the Snipe Shot completely collapsed. Instant death in one shot. There was no need to add additional attributes through Six-Color Crafting.

‘It’s different from the game.’

The reason I reiterated this fact, which I already knew to the point of being sick of it, was that various spells that seemed useless and ambiguous in performance during the game might ‘actually’ not be.

Separately, Snipe Shot itself was indeed a performance pick due to its absurdly high raw damage.

It seemed highly likely I would favor it in this world too.

─After testing several more spells, and having gained a considerable harvest.

The voice was heard again.

“We are watching.”

“You.”

The voice echoed, incomparably more chilling than before. It wasn’t even from behind me. It felt as if it was resounding from within.

─Rip!

At the same time, several blades circling me like satellites shredded an Abyss Reaper that swooped in like a projectile.

Blades, performing a sword dance as if by Sword Control Art, slaughtered the enemies. It was as if an intangible swordsman was directly holding and moving the swords.

.

A barrier of blades that orbit the caster, detect enemies, and act on their own. This too was a magic that shone in reality, unlike when playing the game. And it shone quite a lot. Auto-hunting certainly was good.

‘The gauge must be almost full.’

I thought, looking at the blades that returned after cutting down the Abyss Reaper.

The boss that appears when the Gaze Level gauge is 100%: .

To defeat him, the entrance to the next floor of the Abyss opens, and the next floor is the same.

However, I had no intention of facing the boss right now.

Because the harvest I could reap here was already overflowing.

“Ariadne’s Thread.”

Finally, when I cast the escape magic to exit the Abyss, it didn’t just instantly teleport me out as if by magic.

Instead, a thread made of magic floated before my eyes.

To retrace the path I had walked inside the Abyss, and safely walk to where the magic circle was.

“…….”

In many ways, it was a truly vivid world.

*

After safely exiting the Abyss using the magic circle, the shabby scenery of the Labyrinth City welcomed me again.

Alice and Aria were also there.

“Ah, Dan— Oppa! Dark Street— Ugh? Mmph!?”

“W-welcome, Oppa—.”

“Mmph, Mmph!”

Aria smiled, expertly covering Alice’s mouth. She seemed to have momentarily forgotten her own blindness.

The sight of a lady and a girl, out of place with the location, drew no small amount of attention.

However, it didn’t take long for people’s interest to shift.

“Look! It’s 《Knight’s Order》!”

“《Knight’s Order》!”

An adventurer shouted. Starting with that remark, voices erupted from various places.

“It’s Zeruel the Sword Saint!”

“Alina the Sword Princess is there too!”

“To think I’d see the real Knight’s Order in person!”

A few men and women, attracting attention with a murmur.

At their appearance, the adventurers’ eyes, which had been like dead fish, suddenly began to sparkle with vitality.

Their colorful armor and armaments shimmered brightly around them. Even a quick glance from afar revealed that it was equipment of a considerably high grade. At least Heroic to Legendary, perhaps.

I hadn’t imagined there would be adventurers besides me attempting to conquer the Abyss. I inwardly realized my mistake. In the worst case, if I had encountered them within the Abyss, I might have had to kill them to silence them.

“—.”

It was then. The man who seemed to be the leader of the Knight’s Order looked this way.

“Excuse me.”

Then, he seemed to ponder for a moment, before striding purposefully towards us.

“Did you get lost?”

He walked through the adventurers and spoke to us without hesitation. His voice was very polite and gentle.

“Why do you think I got lost?”

I asked back coldly.

“Because you have a lady who cannot see, and a little girl as your companions.”

“Alice isn’t a little girl!”

“Haha. Please forgive my rudeness.”

The man smiled leisurely and replied. Alice protested with a line that sounded undeniably childish.

“Ah, Oppa—?”

As people’s attention concentrated on us, Aria cautiously hid behind my back.

“It just doesn’t seem like a party well-suited for adventuring. Was my assumption wrong?”

“Well.”

I vaguely trailed off, falling silent. It seemed he hadn’t seen me emerge from the magic circle.

No one else seemed inclined to tell him either. Then again, would it make any difference?

“—Zeruel?”

“Alina.”

Before long, a female Swordsman, who seemed to be his companion, joined the man.

It seemed the man was Zeruel the Sword Saint, and the woman was the female Swordsman called Alina the Sword Princess. Both were epithets I had never heard before. Neither here nor outside. They might be newly added NPCs in a new update.

“Why the sudden change?”

“It seems this party here is lost.”

“Ah, indeed—.”

Then the female Swordsman also smiled, looking at us.

“But you should be sure, Zeruel! It might just be unnecessary meddling.”

“Haha, I hear that often.”

Zeruel chuckled towards us, unconcerned by the female Swordsman’s words. When he smiled, his teeth, revealed below his lips, gleamed pure white. It was truly a hero’s smile befitting a hero.

“So, which is it?”

Zeruel the Sword Saint asked again. I silently looked at the two of them. After looking, I answered briefly.

“—The kind I never want to meet again.”

*

Many villains are rich. For some reason, that was a fortunate thing.

And in the nauseating scenery of the Labyrinth City, filled with filth and stench, there was a place specially permitted for the rich.

“Wow, it’s high! So high!”

It was the sky.

Riding an elevator powered by magic engineering, we moved towards the top floor of the Eight Dragon Fortress, which soared so high it seemed to pierce the sky.

Below was the bottom of the Bottomless Pit, leading to the Abyss. Above, a Heavenly Tower, reminiscent of the Tower of Babel, stood tall.

It was a truly bizarre contrast.

Beyond the transparent glass overlooking below. At some point, it was buried in clouds to the extent that even the scenery of the ground was no longer visible.

I first learned that at this height, I didn’t even feel acrophobia.

When the elevator, operating high into the sky, finally stopped, the scenery that greeted us was something unimaginable from the city below.

The highest point of the Labyrinth City’s Eight Dragon Fortress. A place finally befitting the name ‘Dragon Fortress.’

“Oh, my. You must have suffered greatly associating with the lowly and disgusting things below.”

It was heaven built upon the Bottomless Pit.

As if to boast of that fact, a man clad in an ancient-looking immortal’s robe, like something out of an East Asian myth, faced me and my companions. Behind him, he was accompanied by several terrified children.

Each of the children was strangely plump.

“Welcome, to the Heavenly Realm of the Eight Dragons—.”

Those who didn’t know our true identities, but only knew that we had a lot of money.