episode_0074

『Current Status』

『Energy 4/4』

『Until next draw 55』

[Terrain Manipulation (3) – Power] [Earthquake (4)] [Force Field (2)]

Among the 3 cards, the first one to use is naturally [Terrain Manipulation].

This battle clearly won’t end quickly, so it’s an obvious choice.

Furthermore, with the [Cat’s Paw] relic, which enhances the first card used, it’s much better in the long run for a Power card to be the first used.

As soon as the card melted into thin air, mana swirled.

Immediately, I lifted the terrain to grip the boss monster’s legs.

But it wasn’t enough. Even with enhanced terrain manipulation, it’s difficult to bind the feet of a boss-class monster from the 4th floor of the labyrinth. Perhaps it’s the limit of a low-level card.

However, like Gamel, the mage of the White School did, magic isn’t only for offense and defense. I constantly move the terrain to obstruct his view.

Whoosh!!! Perhaps finding it bothersome, Gallius smashes the dirt with his hand. But the turn spent on that creates a gap elsewhere.

First, Kairak’s arrow, which killed the giant previously retrieved by Arrow Regression, flies once more and strongly strikes his body. Something seems to protect his skin, so it doesn’t tear, but Gallius’s body recoils from the intense impact.

Next, Grace’s dagger, the Swift Blade, cuts through Gallius’s body.

No wound is created, but his body, starting to freeze, begins to slow down.

Bang!! Gallius’s greatsword, wrapped in chains, slams down where Grace was. But Grace was no longer there. Furthermore, having swung his sword with a large stance, a gap was created, and Luca lunges into it. The languor in Luca’s eyes is gone, replaced by pure killing intent.

Slash!!!

Luca’s sharp red claws pierce the invisible exoskeleton protecting Gallius’s body and tear away flesh. Where Gallius’s rotten flesh is ripped away, Kairak’s harpoon arrow embeds itself, and simultaneously, Luca’s claws tear Gallius’s legs apart.

Whoosh-

Gallius attempts a horizontal slash with his greatsword, but Luca instinctively ducks and avoids it, and a single girl darts through the trajectory of the greatsword’s movement.

Adel. The smallest girl in our party, holding a greatsword much taller than her with both hands, runs forward and slams it down with the weight of her entire body. Rotten flesh splatters everywhere, and Gallius’s body is split in half, leaving only his upper body, but.

Gallius slowly moves sideways as if he were an ethereal being, then regains his original form.

One might think that everything that happened so far was meaningless. Fortunately, that is not the case.

The two lights on either side of the cave darken again, and Gallius’s body shrinks slightly. Now, it is external time again.

The key to defeating Gallius is the coordination between the 10 people externally and the 5 internally.

When Gallius is wounded, he receives energy from the outside, and he regenerates infinitely until that connection is severed.

While it’s possible to defeat him with only the internal party without external support, the difficulty varies greatly. Our party composition makes it possible, but we deliberately don’t do so.

“The average external clear time is 3 minutes.”

Since the clear speed of explorers at a suitable level is 3 minutes, it’s also suitable for evaluating the skill level of the clan members. Entering this 2nd-floor hidden dungeon was primarily to assess the skills of the clan members, although the suitable difficulty was also a factor.

In that sense, I also held back a little.

I needed to know the extent of Adel, the newcomer in our first-string party.

From now until the external clear time ends, we must fight the rampaging Gallius while conserving as much energy as possible. How well we conserve power while fighting in this situation is the core of the strategy.

To put it in game terms, stalling for time as an evasion tank is best. And most of the three vanguards in our current party are of that type.

Luca, who has retrieved [Wildness], knocks away Gallius’s greatsword with two small axes. Gallius then shoots numerous chains from his sleeve, attacking the vanguard, but Kairak’s arrows and my terrain manipulation knock some away. The remaining chains are all narrowly avoided.

However, there was a difference in this situation.

Grace avoids them with swift movements without allowing a single hit, freezing the chains while also throwing daggers at Gallius.

Luca dodges half and knocks away half with her axes.

She has a feeling similar to an evasion tank, whereas.

Our newcomer, Adel, was slightly different.

Thud!!!

Adel rammed her greatsword into the ground and hid behind it.

When everyone else was evading, Adel stoutly took the attacks.

She had the speed to dodge if she wanted to, but she didn’t.

Chains passed the greatsword and attacked her body.

As her attacks started to hit, Gallius also stopped attacking Grace and Luca and attacked Adel.

But Adel suffered no injury. As if her body had become as hard as the greatsword. And that was why we unanimously chose Adel.

Adel possessed three core cards.

Sword and I are One, Feedback, Blood Drinking Blade.

Their effects are roughly as follows.

[Sword and I are One] – Become one with the sword you are using, sharing its strength and weight.

[Feedback] – Accumulate damage received for a certain time and counterattack.

[Blood Drinking Blade] – Recover a portion of the damage dealt.

Simply explained, she’s a counterattack character who gets stronger the more damage she takes.

Adel described herself that way.

‘A greatsword that will never fall.’

Crunch!! Bang!! Thump!!!

The more attacks Adel took, the more she and her greatsword glowed with a yellow light. A flustered Gallius unleashed his attacks even more fiercely, and even swung his greatsword, but Adel held her ground. The yellow light grew stronger, starting to radiate light like the sun, and in that light, Gallius couldn’t do anything but retreat.

Time passed, and soon, the moment arrived.

The external team finished quickly, in about 2 minutes and 10 seconds, and the two blue lights returned inside the cave.

Adel opened her eyes, which she had squeezed shut, and lifted the greatsword that was deeply embedded in the floor.

An intense yellow light, shimmering as if a knight were cloaked in aura, enveloped the greatsword. The greatsword was now so large it far surpassed Adel’s body and reached the cave ceiling.

She slammed it down.

CRACK!!!!

The cave split in half, and Gallius’s body had nothing left except his two arms.

Gallius slowly regenerated. The blue lights inside the cave also disappeared again.

But the greater the wound, the slower the recovery.

Just as the recovered Gallius began to move again, the final third blue light appeared.

The final phase.

It had proceeded so smoothly that there was no need to use the magic circle I had prepared beforehand, but it didn’t matter.

Even if explorers must live each day prepared for death, there’s no need to stand on the brink of life and death every single day, is there?

“Haaaaap!!!”

Luca let out a scream and thoroughly tore apart Gallius’s body.

As soon as she did, Gallius dissipated.

“…That was anticlimactic.”

But I didn’t feel bad.

Sometimes days are like this.

Just as I was about to erase the magic circle, feeling relieved.

I felt something strange.

‘Why isn’t the reward window popping up?’

That question was quickly resolved.

Because the cave started shaking violently.

“W-wait a minute. Why is this happening?!!”

“Be careful!!!”

I heard the voices of the flustered party members.

At the same time, the cave began to collapse.

I’ll think about why this happened later; for now, I need to react quickly.

I raised the terrain to protect the party members.

Since the three vanguards, including Grace, and the two rearguards, myself and Kairak, were quite far apart at the moment.

To regroup, I stacked the terrain to create a cylinder, blocking the falling rock fragments of the collapsing cave.

Boom!!! Boom!!!!

But the barrage of rocks pushing in was so intense that the dirt wall couldn’t stop it. The dirt cylinder shook and began to collapse slightly.

I wasn’t originally planning to use it now, but I opened the magic circle.

[Purgatory]

As I generated Purgatory at a location invisible to the eye, no more rocks fell on the dirt cylinder, and it didn’t collapse. Thanks to this, the vanguards returned to our side.

“What on earth is happening?”

“…If I had to guess, something hidden is happening, like what happened with Gelart’s painting on the 1st floor. Or the book lied to us.”

“That can’t be…!”

Grace, a book devotee, vehemently denies the latter possibility.

Actually, the probability of her being right is higher.

“Regardless of why this happened, it’s already happened. Let’s figure out how to get out first.”

“Yes!”

I resent myself for thinking nothing serious would happen this time.

Indeed, there’s no way that would be the case.

Just then, my expanded senses detected something.

Something piercing through the rocks and digging into the earth.

Grace seemed to realize it too, as her nose reacted, and Luca was growling, staring at one spot.

Slipping…

Rotten smoke was slowly approaching us, cutting through the earth.

“What is that?”

“Let’s get out of here first.”

I had planned to endure in the dirt shelter until the cave collapsed. But as expected, things in the world don’t go as planned.

Immediately, I opened both magic circles.

[Wave]

[Fire Dragon]

First, the fire dragon, Hwaryong, advanced towards the rotten smoke. As soon as it touched the smoke, the fire dragon exploded. I immediately raised the terrain to block the aftermath.

“Get ready to run!!”

As I shouted, Luca, who had approached without my noticing, picked me up.

Held in her arms, I immediately manipulated the terrain to open the ground.

But that path was blocked by rocks. It didn’t matter.

I unleashed [Wave] to shatter the rocks. This created a path.

However, rocks continued to fall.

It seemed the cave’s collapse was not yet over.

I lifted the terrain to block them and continued running towards the cave entrance.

But it was impossible to lift and block everywhere, and Luca’s running speed was so fast that I couldn’t concentrate well.

In this situation, it’s time to use a card that automatically uses magic without questions asked.

I am already in a state where I can draw the next card anytime. Since the first draw, I haven’t drawn any cards at all.

That means the golem can still exert its power.

The golem, reading my thoughts, came out of subspace, created a giant shield to block the falling rocks, then shattered, scattering mana from its body as it collapsed.

Seeing the golem, which had left so confidently, return to its original position, I immediately checked the next draw.

『Your turn. Draw 5 cards.』

『White Storage Box – Preserve 1 card at the end of the turn.』

The card to keep is [Earthquake (4)].

[Earthquake (4)] + [Lightning (3)] [Shield (1)] [Body Enhancement (0)] [Fireball (1)] [Transcendence (3)]

As 5 cards were drawn, Luca’s speed also slowed down slightly, giving me time to concentrate. However, the cards seemed ambiguous no matter which one I used. But I had to choose one anyway, so I used a card.

[Earthquake]

You might ask what the difference is from terrain manipulation. Surprisingly, there is a difference.

Terrain manipulation simply moves dirt, making it difficult to expect much power. But Earthquake is different.

Furthermore, since it’s a card, it doesn’t consume mana, so to be precise, it feels like using terrain manipulation briefly but powerfully.

I gathered my hands and caused an earthquake, collapsing the ground. The ground split open. Seeing this, the party members seemed to grasp my intention and entered inside.

While running through the narrow split ground, the terrain constantly moved to protect all the party members from the falling rocks. Unlike terrain manipulation, which just lifted a little dirt, I split the entire terrain and layered the pieces, making it difficult even for rocks to easily penetrate.

“We’re here!!!”

Before we knew it, the path leading out of the cave was visible.

Of course, since we were underground, we came out of the crack and ran towards the cave entrance again.

Rumble, rumble.

The collapsing cave chased us from behind, but fortunately, we were able to get out.

“Whew…”

The party members showed no sign of exhaustion.

Only I was completely drained from the incredibly fast pace.

Now that the major event was over, we were looking around to figure out what on earth had happened.

“Did the cave usually collapse like this?”

“What’s really going on?”

The questions didn’t last long.

“Sister!!!!”

Herman the guide desperately ran towards Grace.

It wasn’t just him.

Our clan members from the 2nd and 3rd groups were running away.

Grace, seeing Herman who arrived first, asked in a hurry.

“Herman, what’s happening?”

“Sister!! Strange smoke is approaching now!!”

“From where?”

“Over there……”

I turned my gaze to where Herman pointed.

From that direction, a massive rotten smoke was slowly approaching.

Immediately, I lifted the terrain to create a tall tower.

And from there, I could roughly understand how the situation was unfolding.

The surrounding grass and trees were gradually rotting away, hit by something.

Birds were flying in the opposite direction, and all sorts of animals and monsters were fleeing.

What were they running away from?

We observed something that filled the horizon.

“W-what is that?”

“I don’t know!”

“……It’s creepy.”

“There are too many.”

An uncountable number of rotten soldiers were walking towards us with the rotten smoke.

Destroying everything in their path.

“Let’s run first!!”

As Grace suggested, we decided to run for now.

The opposite direction from where they were coming was Seruem, the Ruined City.

We ran towards the place we had entered from.

We arrived at Seruem’s entrance in about 5 minutes.

But something was different.

“…Why is the city gate closed?”

As we approached, the outer wall’s drawbridge slowly lowered.

Just as we were about to enter, assuming it was nothing.

“Breaking news!! This is breaking news!!!!”

Someone appeared between us, shouting, and ran inside.

It wasn’t someone from our clan.

“A, a ghost…?”

While Kairak was scared, we rushed into the outer wall’s interior to quickly assess the situation.

But inside, an even more shocking scene awaited us.

“Messenger?! What is the matter?”

“The army of the Evil God is coming this way!!!”

The messenger who ran in was shouting something to a soldier.

The interior was filled with soldiers and residents.

People moving as vividly as if they were alive.

Furthermore, the appearance of Seruem was different from how it had looked for the past few days.

All the buildings had their original appearance.

Buildings perfectly built, as if they had never been broken.

“What on earth has happened?”

No one could answer Grace’s question.