episode_0091

…It feels bad.

Reptile, a head like an alligator among them, and the body of a muscular ape.

The bizarre creature, who was alone in the quiet and enormous room, was thinking that.

First, strange magic power suddenly began to flow from its body, and its body contorted.

Having lost consciousness from that pain and woken up, it realized that a powerful force was gushing from its entire body.

It wasn’t a weak body originally, but it had become so strong that its former self felt ridiculous.

But there was just one part that bothered it.

As much as it had changed, the structure of this place had also changed a lot, and an object it had never seen before appeared.

A lump of iron stuck firmly in the floor. It was the first object it discovered after coming to its senses.

Out of curiosity and at the same time to check how strong its power had become, it tried pulling the object, but for some reason, it wouldn’t pull out of the ground.

Even mobilizing all of its power, which had become incomparably stronger than before, was completely useless.

In a fit of anger, it swung its claws towards the iron bar and even bit it, but it didn’t budge, let alone get scratched.

And that creature was utterly displeased with this fact.

Of course, it didn’t need that iron bar as it had gained sharp and huge claws and high-density muscles.

It was simply a very simple reason: that things weren’t going according to its will, which had become strong.

As luck would have it, there was no one but itself in this empty space, so there was no one to vent its anger on.

Then, beyond one of the doors leading to this place, it felt a presence.

The aura of two bodies that were quite well-trained.

If its own instincts and intuition, imprinted since birth, were correct, their owners would surely come into this room.

Good. That creature thought it was fortunate that someone had appeared for it to vent this annoyance on.

. . .

“Ropel…how did you find something like this…?”

“I told you. We can’t just quietly wait for rescue, so I just looked for anything useful or a good place to hide, just in case.

The structure was strangely familiar, so I found it by moving my legs as my heart led me without realizing it.

Should I call it a blessing in disguise, or was I just lucky?”

‘Lucky’? You can’t explain this phenomenon with words like that.

This is a situation where the dungeon’s rank has increased to the point where monsters weaker than wild animals have transformed into monsters that are difficult to even imagine fighting.

As much as that, the structure would have become more complex and there would have been many traps.

But in such a situation, you found a room likely to have an artifact purely by luck, all at once?

Considering the number of monsters defeated and traps dismantled on the path we’ve taken so far, it absolutely cannot be a coincidence.

But that didn’t mean Ropel seemed to be lying.

From the start, his mind was like a child’s, or even whiter and purer than that, so the possibility of him deceiving me is low.

Anyway, in the current situation, which is no different from an emergency, what difference does it make if he deliberately hides something from me?

For now, there’s no choice but to accept that his discovery of such a place is truly like a miracle.

“The fact that you found this place is quite good news…!”

There are two ways for the first-year students currently trapped in the dungeon, including Ropel and me, to escape.

One is to quietly wait for rescue from the academy side, which may come at any time.

The other second way is for one of us to clear the dungeon.

And while there are various conditions for clearing a dungeon, the core is unified into one thing.

That is, destroying the core located in the very center of the dungeon, which is the power source for everything that exists in the dungeon.

And with high probability, at the location where this core is located, there is either a boss monster protecting it or an artifact that serves as a reward, and the opposite is also true.

This means that just by the presence of a boss monster or an artifact, you can know that the core is located nearby.

“Ropel, let me ask you something first. That giant monster over there. Did you defeat it yourself?”

“Huh? Yeah. It was quite strong, and I actually almost died, but I dealt with it somehow.”

“Oh, I see. Then…”

As it was, the presence of this giant monster right in front of the door had been bothering me.

If my guess is correct, this would be the boss monster of this dungeon, the being protecting the artifact and core that would be behind this door.

Setting aside the question of how he, alone and with weapons made of bone rather than proper equipment, fought the boss of this upgraded dungeon,

First, we must solve the problem directly related to our lives and the lives of the other students.

For us students to escape, there is just one step left: opening this door.

“But going forward is the problem.

I tried opening the door just now when I was alone, but… how should I say it, I got a slightly ominous feeling.”

“An ominous feeling?”

“Literally. In a way, I reached this point just by trusting my intuition, but when I actually tried to open the door, I got a feeling that I shouldn’t open it, how should I put it.

I even thought, shouldn’t I gather more people?”

Normally, I wouldn’t trust something supernatural like intuition, but thinking of it as his intuition that led him straight to the very center of the dungeon, I couldn’t ignore it.

Could there be some special trap?

..But hesitating here was also not something I wanted to do.

We are isolated within this dungeon, and even at this moment, various students elsewhere might be facing dangerous situations at any moment.

Although the goal was to act as the princess, and I just couldn’t reveal my true self ‘Meiru’, as Princess Tiara Altarian, I didn’t want to see the students I had known until now lose their lives.

“..I know it’s strange for someone who was just unconscious all along to say this, but Ropel, I think it’s best for us to go into this room right away by ourselves.

I understand why you’re acting cautiously, but first, how about opening the door and just checking things out a little?”

“Hmm… yes, if that’s what you think, let’s do that.”

I was worried I might need to persuade him a bit more, but unexpectedly, Ropel readily agreed.

And he stepped forward and began pushing the huge door with elaborate decorations.

Despite likely having considerable weight commensurate with its size, he didn’t show signs of difficulty.

“…! What is that…?”

When the door opened, an artificial square-shaped space was visible there.

And in the center of the room, an object that looked like an iron bar? was stuck in the floor.

A peculiar point was that despite it clearly being an underground-like space, bright light was streaming down towards the iron bar through a hole in the ceiling.

In that case, could that object be an artifact?

No, more important than that is the location of the core.

That which generally emits light and takes the form of a sphere.

Unfortunately, such an object was not visible.

It’s true that the core is near the artifact, but it’s not necessarily right next to it.

First, to find the core, it seems we’ll have to go deeper through the door on the opposite side of the room.

While thinking that.

“Meiru! Dangerous!”

Shouting like that, Ropel sprang out in front of me, who was standing there blankly.

It was a moment so fast I couldn’t even realize what was happening.

And soon I could understand because a monster like a ferocious beast, appearing from who knows where, was biting Ropel’s forearm.

Even though he had temporary armor made of the monster’s blunt bones layered on his arm, it couldn’t prevent bright red blood from scattering.

“Ropel!”

“Kuk!”

Ropel, without panicking, calmly swung the weapon made of bone.

In response, the monster distanced itself with agile movements and dodged.

“Keeek…”

The monster swallowed Ropel’s blood and flesh caught in its teeth as if to show off, and grinned unpleasantly towards us.

“Are you okay? Wait a moment, I’ll use healing magic…! Uh…?”

I hurriedly cast magic on Ropel’s wound but was soon surprised.

Because even with my specialty, magic in the healing field which was my main focus, there was no change whatsoever in his wound.

“Why!? It’s not like I’m short on mana, so why?”

“It’s saliva.”

“..What?”

“Its saliva is blocking healing magic. That’s why it’s useless.”

How do you know that? I wanted to ask back, but as the situation was urgent, I decided to accept it for now.

“First, withdraw the healing magic and conserve your magic power. Since it will probably target you first, you should use it as much as possible for self-protection…”

Before Ropel finished speaking, the monster raised its claws, revealed its fierce teeth, and lunged.

And just as he said, its direction was precisely towards me, and sharp claws were immediately swung.

Ropel quickly came forward in front of me, raised his weapon, and blocked the monster’s swung claws.

Soon, blows were exchanged between the two sides, and there was a test of strength.

Since their bodies were in close proximity and entangled, I couldn’t carelessly cast magic.

“Keeek!”

As expected, since it wasn’t a proper weapon, his weapon soon cracked and broke, unable to withstand the impact.

However, Ropel, as if he had been aiming for this, brought his intact hand into his bosom right at the timing it broke and threw sharply whittled bone fragments at high speed.

The bone fragments, like daggers, couldn’t pierce through the monster’s tough body and get stuck, only managing to leave small scratches.

Not stopping there, Ropel launched a kick towards the strong monster’s jaw.

“…This guy…!”

However, that kick was blocked by the monster’s hand.

Immediately, it grabbed Ropel’s ankle and easily snapped it.

“Kuaaaak…!”

In response, Ropel tried throwing a punch, but even that was countered as the monster bit his arm with its teeth.

Not stopping there, it lifted the arm it had bitten and slammed Ropel down onto the floor several times.

Naturally, I couldn’t just watch this scene, so I snapped out of it and cast magic.

I restrained the moving monster’s body with rope-shaped magic connected to the tip of my staff.

And because I didn’t know which attributes would be effective due to the creature’s saliva that blocked healing magic, I created spheres imbued with fire, electricity, and cold attributes,

and created stakes by telekinetically gathering and forming the broken bricks that made up the surrounding dungeon into physical shapes, and struck it.

But instead, the monster grinned as if deeming it laughable, took my attribute magic, and was unharmed.

The stakes made of stone were deflected by its swung claws and embedded themselves in the ceiling.

Soon, it even released my rope that was binding it, as if nothing had happened.

Then, it threw the now mangled Ropel to the side and began walking steadily towards me.

“O… don’t come…!”

Trembling in fear, I created a wall with a shield, but it cracked and broke with a single punch from the creature.

Looking at the teeth and claws of the guy approaching me like that, I squeezed my eyes shut.

It was then.

“Kieeeeeeeek!!”

A dagger-shaped bone fragment, flying from the side, was lodged precisely in the monster’s eye.

The creature screamed loudly in pain from being struck in a vital spot.

Black blood dripped from its eye area, and in its rage, it seemed to immediately change its primary target and turned its eyes away from me.

However, the monster, which had turned back towards Ropel’s direction from where the bone fragments flew, suddenly showed a look of confusion.

Because he had accurately hit its eye with his now tattered arms to the point where bone was exposed? No.

Because the iron bar stuck in the exact center of the room, that is, the object suspected to be an artifact, had been pulled out by Ropel.