Chapter 42
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「Don’t be surprised, okay?」
「Bring it on, I’m ready for anything.」
「Apparently, there are twelve boss monsters in the 《Time Dungeon》.」
Is that all?
Of course there would be dungeons out there crawling with boss-level enemies.
「Huh, you’re not surprised?」
She tells me not to be surprised, then asks if I’m not surprised. What a handful she is.
She really does resemble my cute little sister.
I need to spoil her rotten and buy her all sorts of things. Hehehe.
I’ll indulge her to my heart’s content. (sense of duty)
「Excuse me! I’ll have a honey tea with extra honey, please!」
I followed through on my words without hesitation.
I know that Milan loves sweets, especially honey.
As I handed her the drink, I switched gears in my mind.
Let’s think about this so-called 《Newly Constructed Most Challenging Dungeon》 itself.
Take the 《Mirror Dungeon》 for example, the first one I challenged and conquered.
The lower levels were infested with vicious monsters called 「Dragon Species」 and 「Deadly Series」.
Mika said at the time that if even one of them were let loose on the surface, the kingdom would have collapsed.
「Those twelve bosses don’t all appear at once, right?」
「Yeah. The ‘Time Dungeon’ is a twelve-floor dungeon, with a different boss monster waiting at the end of each floor.」
Fighting twelve at once would be tough, but one at a time is no different from the dungeons I’ve cleared so far.
「And apparently the ‘Time Dungeon’ is an evil god’s dungeon.」
「What’s that supposed to mean?」
「The monsters in the ‘Time Dungeon’, especially the bosses, use forbidden time manipulation techniques.」
「What’s the connection between time-manipulating monsters and evil gods?」
Milan’s explanation still isn’t quite adding up for me.
「Controlling time is the domain of gods. An evil existence that encroaches on the realm of gods – that’s why they’re called evil gods.」
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That’s quite a leap in logic.
Or rather, that’s-
Time manipulation is certainly an incredible ability, but I’ve encountered time-controlling enemies several times before and defeated them.
Two battles in particular gave me a hard time.
The first was in the ‘Blade Dungeon’.
That enemy moved even within the world of my ‘Autostrada del Sole’ (super light speed combat form), like some bad joke defying reality.
I managed because I had a skill to move at the same speed or faster than it, but if I had faced it right after leaving the castle, it would have been a drawn-out battle of constant healing. I might have even lost in the end.
The other tough one was the boss monster called the ‘Puppet Master’ in the ‘Strength Dungeon’.
Let me briefly explain the ‘Dungeon of Strength’ first.
As the name suggests, it was a dungeon hyper-focused on physical attacks. For example, I had to wrestle giants, force open huge doors with brute strength, and sprint across collapsing bridges. It was filled with brawny monsters and traps.
Ever since Angie and Mika became Ryūgūin exclusive support(?), they’d accompany me in dungeons but stay way behind me, making out inside multiple layered barriers while I fought.
And of course, they did the same in the ‘Strength Dungeon’.
Just remembering it reopens old wounds-
It happened right as I was getting pummeled by the Puppet Masters.
—Hero, open wide please.
—Ah!
—Mika, no fair! Hero, me too!
—Now, now, don’t fight over me you two. We’ll take turns with the ‘ah’. Here, say ah!
—As expected of the Hero! Even the way you say ‘ah’ is so gallant!
—Mika! The Hero looked even more gallant when he said ‘ah’ for me!
—Come on you two, the ‘Ahhh Hero’ isn’t going anywhere! I’m always here waiting for you. No more fighting, okay? Hehehe!
Agh, the wound reopened.
My head- my brain feels like it’s going crazy.
(deep breath)
(deep breath)
(deep breath)
Anyway, putting that aside (one last deep breath).
For that reason, I sadly had to clear the ‘Strength Dungeon’ all alone.
The boss at the very end was a monster commonly known as the ‘Puppet Master’.
And there were eight of them.
When I first saw them with their exposed internal gears and wiring, I almost laughed through my nose. But that was a huge oversight.
The monsters were made of a mysterious alloy rivaling ‘Mithril’ in strength, making them a major threat just from that alone.
But in terms of being a threat, their toughness was really just icing on the cake.
Normal dungeon bosses should be solo.
Yet the boss ‘Puppet Masters’ that appeared before me came as a group of eight.
Their arms were equipped with stylish devices resembling wristwatches.
After facing me for a while, they all pressed the switches on those devices at once.
Then the eight mechanical puppets closed in on me at blinding speeds I couldn’t track with my eyes. I was surrounded before I could react and got the beating of my life.
Barely escaping that thrashing, I figured if I could dominate the space itself, their speed wouldn’t matter.
I unleashed the light magic 「Rain」, firing countless needles of compressed magic power infused with high concentrations of the light element, blanketing a wide area like heavy rainfall.
No matter how fast they moved, it was futile. By doing that, I successfully destroyed all eight trapped ‘Puppet Masters’ with nowhere to run.
They were all formidable foes indeed, but definitely not evil gods or anything so grandiose.
Retreating from the first floor, making exaggerated claims – this is likely just an excuse.
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「Apparently he told the Guildmaster in Lemone 『I originally planned to retreat after the first floor. Trial and error is necessary to lead dungeon conquering to success.』」
Trial and error, huh.
「『Just as they say failure is the mother of success, we can save humanity by repeating trial and error over and over!』」
What a self-important excuse.
It’s like saying 「Thank you for the sage advice」.
I’ve been with Ryūgūin long enough to figure it out easily.
sz
Retreating wasn’t the result of trial and error.
He simply failed to clear it.
The proof is in how he’s now going around spreading rumors calling it an 「Evil God Dungeon」 to try and shift even a little blame off his own mistakes.
His methods are very similar to when he framed me.
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And apparently this time he added twelve S-rank adventurers for the dungeon challenge.
In the first place, with just Angie, Mika, and Eris, they shouldn’t struggle on the first floor from what I’ve heard about this dungeon.
I continued the conversation with occasional shocked reactions and questions so Milan wouldn’t find it strange, but my head was filled with thoughts about the ‘Time Dungeon’.
First off, the name ‘Time Dungeon’ is lame. No question about it.
In that baseball video game I used to like, it’s the kind of name that would get slapped with a bright red 『No Sense ✕』 debuff to its stats.
No, no, let’s put that aside for now.
To sum up Milan’s story, the two key traits of the enemies in the ‘Time Dungeon’ that forced them to retreat were high-speed combat and mithril bodies.
If the Hero’s party had acted properly, they should have been able to easily defeat enemies with either trait.
There are several ways to deal with high-speed foes, like predicting their movements, having the tank skillfully parry attacks, or dominating the space like I do.
Eris should have been able to predict their movements.
And regarding Mika’s barriers – even if expanding the barrier’s effective range makes it somewhat thinner, if Mika had properly set up wide-area barriers, the battle shouldn’t have been that severe.
As for Angie, she had plenty of space-dominating attacks too.
They apparently struggled against the enemies’ mithril bodies, but Eris had already sliced through 「Orichalcum」 before, and in experiments with me, Angie cleanly bisected 「Mithril」 in one shot using compressed water magic.
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From here, I’ll try to predict Ryūgūin’s actions.
Ryūgūin’s guiding principle is 『Everything in this world exists for my sake.』
That’s exactly why he would have had Mika put up barriers and made her his exclusive healer and barrier caster.
He may have instructed Angie to use the overkill 「Thunder Claw」 magic that takes a long time to activate, like in the ‘Blade Dungeon’. That flashy guy who thinks everything is his own achievement would definitely do that.
As for Eris, she would fight while protecting the other twelve – though Eris alone could probably defeat them… I wonder how it turned out.
This is probably more or less how Ryūgūin’s dungeon attempt went, and I don’t think my guess is too far off.
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「I think that about covers it, Low.」
「Ohh, thanks!」
「It’s still early afternoon, you have plans, right?」
「Same as before, I’ll do some shopping, then maybe go to the Adventurer’s Guild this time to ask around.」
「Ooh! The Adventurer’s Guild! As expected of Low! You really are a true adventurer!」
Milan clapped excitedly.
Hehe, I touched a finger under my nose, but based on what she just said, was she doubting me before?
Well, whatever. Hehe.
「Milan, guide me to the guild then.」
「Okaaay! Leave it to me!」
Another world, guilds, a girl in tow.
There’s no way nothing will happen…
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