Chapter 699: Lost in Thought
The old [Mutual-Destruction Eye] was only enough to stick a chunk of ice onto the other guy, and it only started to feel remotely like freezing if I stacked it multiple times with [Octopus Arms].
But now, I’d cast it just once, and even a giant that big had turned into a solid block of ice.
Even taking into account that the bastard was made of wind and rain, it still showed just how far the freezing effect had been pushed.
And if I chain [Octopus Arms] into this...
I’d probably be able to freeze people absurdly hard.
For reference, the base drawbacks of [Mutual-Destruction Eye]—“[Poisoned] to the caster” and “1-minute cooldown”—hadn’t been affected by the enhancement, so they were unchanged.
Anyway, that meant the short performance test was over.
“...!”
Song Cheonhye flinched and turned to look at me.
The boss had frozen over without her even sensing me use a skill.
But this wasn’t the time to worry about that.
I couldn’t afford to miss the moment the enemy was defenseless.
When I stretched a hand out beside me, the [Lightning Rods] I’d already summoned shot forward like great spears.
KRA-KRA-BOOM!The next instant, a huge hole had been blasted through the ice catfish-man’s chest.
It writhed in agony, absurdly fragile for something that size.
Song Cheonhye started to attack too, then stopped halfway.
“It feels kind of... weak?”
“It’s F-rank.”
Getting past the teleportation magic was the hard part. Everything else followed the dungeon’s rank.
That was why I’d originally planned to come in alone.
If the boss had been any stronger, I would’ve brought the others, or given up on the shutdown and just met the crows.
At that, Song Cheonhye’s expression turned a little deflated.
She’d probably wanted to be of some help, even if only a little, but now there was no point.
“...I’ll finish it.”
“Go ahead.”
At my signal, I swept both hands as if directing a formation, and the rest of the [Lightning Rods] rose all at once before surging toward the Frozen Storm Catfish-Man.
KRA-KRA-KRA-BOOM!Its whole body was riddled with holes as it let out a soundless death cry.
Then it twisted violently, as though trying to keep its shape, before finally collapsing in a heap.
Song Cheonhye watched it and asked,
“That’s... over, right?”
“Yeah.”
“It just feels kind of empty. Even if it was still a boss.”
It had gone down so easily she was probably wondering, Isn’t there supposed to be a second phase?
But the Frozen Storm Catfish-Man never revived.
RRRRUMBLE...With a thunderous collapse, the exit opened.
And beside it sat a single tiny box.
[Trident Lake Random Box(F)]
Normally, you had to clear all three lakes evenly, but we’d skipped that whole process, so the clear reward was barely worth mentioning.
And I’m turning this in anyway.
The academy planned to keep it as physical proof that this dungeon had existed.
Not that it made any difference to me.
I’d already gotten the only reward that actually mattered—the shutdown reward.
And there wasn’t much worth getting out of an F-rank random box in the first place.
Even if I loaded it up with Lucky Charm luck, D-rank or C-rank was probably the ceiling.
Better to save my luck and use it somewhere that actually mattered.
So I pocketed the random box in a light mood and walked out of the dungeon with Song Cheonhye.
Then I turned and looked back at the teleportation portal.
RRRRUMBLE...It was still giving off an ominous aura with a deafening roar.
A moment later, it swelled as if it were about to explode, then shrank like it was being sucked into a single point—and vanished.
The next instant, a familiar voice rang by my ear.
“Good work.”
Seo Cheongyong was standing there with several staff members.
I’d told them roughly when I expected to finish, so they’d come ahead of time and waited.
Wearing his usual easygoing smile, he continued,
“You don’t get to see a dungeon shutdown very often. That was a nice show.”
“You seem like you’ve done it yourself.”
“Twice from the outside. Fairly recently, too.”
Apparently it had been around the time just before he became a teacher at Dragonslayer Academy.
There was a little and you’ve already {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} done one yourself? mixed into that too.
Not exactly a topic I wanted to keep talking about, so I let it slide naturally.
“Oh, right. I should give you these.”
Like I’d just remembered, I handed him the replay crystal orb and the random box.
Seo Cheongyong stored them away neatly, then smiled.
“I’ll check them over. If anything raises questions, I might contact you later.”
“Understood.”
“You did well. Go get some rest.”
We both bowed our heads in greeting and left, then got onto the elevator heading back to the surface.
HMMMM—As the machine hummed and my body rose with it, Song Cheonhye looked up and asked,
“Where are you going now?”
“Everything’s done, so I was thinking maybe the training center.”
“That works out. I was going there to train too.”
For some reason, hearing that immediately made me want to do the opposite.
So I changed my mind as easily as flipping over a hand.
“Actually, no. Maybe I should hit the campus store and refuel with caffeine first.”
“...Now that you mention it, I kind of want something sweet too.”
“Or maybe I should just go back to the dorm and rest.”
“...Why do you keep changing your mind?”
“My call. And why do you keep copying me?”
Faced with that shameless answer, Song Cheonhye looked briefly speechless.
Then she said, a little sulky,
“...I was following you because I had something to say. Happy?”
“You should’ve said that from the start. Coffee?”
“Let’s go.”
As soon as we left the dungeon wing, we headed straight for the campus store. We each bought a drink and sat across from each other.
As always, coffee for me, and a strawberry shake piled high with whipped cream for Song Cheonhye.
We talked about for a while, and then Song Cheonhye finally brought it up.
“You know that challenge [Austerity].”
“Yeah. How far are you?”
“This far.”
With that, she pulled up her quest window.
[Sub Quest: Stage 1 Austerity] (In Progress....)
▷ Increased difficulty maintaining [Lightning Rod]
▷ Fight while maintaining 7 or more [Lightning Rods]
▷ Objective: Reach proficiency (91/100%)
“Not much left, huh?”
By the end of PvP week, she’d only met the maintenance condition. Her proficiency had been around eight percent.
Now she was already right on the verge of clearing it.
“I’ve been working on it whenever I had time. Sparring with the other club members.”
“You’ve definitely improved a lot.”
The boss had only been F-rank, sure, but she’d still erased the storm catfish-man in one shot with a [Lightning Rod] rush.
At my praise, Song Cheonhye looked smug and pleased with herself.
Then she asked,
“If I clear it... will I be able to go straight to the next stage?”
“Sorry, but I don’t think there’ll be an opening.”
“...Really?”
“Like I said, this time was an exception. Normally, other people come first.”
I’m pushing Go Hyeonwoo so he can inherit Wind God, and even aside from that, I still need to use it on Seo Ye-in, Dang Gyu-ri, and Hong Yeonhwa too.
At that, Song Cheonhye’s expression turned abruptly lonely, and she sipped at her strawberry shake.
Then, after thinking about something, she asked another question.
“...What do I have to do?”
“To do what?”
“To become one of the ones who comes... ‘first.’”
“We’d have to get closer than we are now.”
“So how, exactly?”
I let the silence hang for a moment, then put on a serious expression.
“If you really want to know, let’s make a hypothetical.”
“A hypothetical.”
“If, hypothetically, I told you to quit the Discipline Committee, would you do it?”
“I already told you before. I don’t plan to stay in it for all three years.”
“I know. But the important part is what comes next.”
“...?”
I made my face even more serious and asked,
“If you quit the Discipline Committee, and I asked you to come to a dungeon with me, would you?”
“For an unauthorized raid?”
“Yeah. Or if I asked you to come hit the temporary storage facility with me, would you?”
“That...”
Song Cheonhye opened her mouth, then closed it.
Opened it again, then closed it again.
And then she sank into deep thought for a long while.
*****
No.50, [Transference Labyrinth].
It was one of the dungeons the Witch of Decay had corrupted last year, and also the site where the full-scale battle against the academy side had broken out.
A lot had happened, but in the end Dragonslayer Academy had driven the witch back, and after that, [Transference Labyrinth] had been left abandoned.
It was A-rank, and the number of people required to clear it was high enough that even the third-years, let alone the faculty, couldn’t casually set foot inside.
But at this very moment, [Transference Labyrinth] was once again under invasion by an outside enemy.
By the same person as last year.
GURGLE, GLOOP.The original final boss of this dungeon was a knight wearing a crown, but that creature was now covered from head to toe in pitch-black slime.
A dark ublek—the Witch of Decay’s main undead.
Since it devoured victims and borrowed their appearance and martial strength, it wouldn’t be long before the Crowned Knight was added to the witch’s forces.
In one corner of the boss room, she had set up a table and chairs as though she were in her own home, and elegantly tipped a teacup to her lips.
This is even easier than before.
Well, of course it was.
This was her second time clearing it.
With fewer mistakes left to make, it could only be easier.
And the fact that she’d grown stronger than before surely played a major role too.
It was thanks to the power bestowed on her by her master, the Corpse Dragon.
Of course, that also meant the expectations placed on her were even higher now, so she needed to accomplish her objective that much more perfectly.
What should I consume next...?
Last time, she had indiscriminately scattered ubleks throughout the underground floors.
That had caused tremendous confusion, but it had also exposed her movements too quickly.
She had learned from that failure.
This time, she intended to change strategies and choose her target dungeons carefully, one by one, before taking control of them.
Being a student really is convenient at times like this.
She was a freshman at Dragonslayer Academy.
That meant she could access far more information than she ever could as an outsider.
Which dungeons had bids on them, which ones were unpopular—those were all easy to find out.
So after identifying suitable targets, she had been sneaking down during each raid week and taking them over one at a time.
Under normal circumstances, clearing A- or B-rank dungeons alone wouldn’t be easy.
But she was a necromancer-type class.
Given enough time, she could easily display the might of a one-woman army.
I just have to keep doing what I’m doing now.
She would absorb boss monsters with ubleks, increasing both the quantity and quality of her legion while also strengthening her own martial power.
Then, once she broke through the wall of S-rank, she would move in earnest to accomplish her goal.
To overturn Dragonslayer Academy itself.
And kill that bastard too.
The moment Kim Ho’s face came to mind, the Witch of Decay felt anger rising in her all over again.
If it weren’t for him...!
A huge portion of her plans had gone wrong because of him.
Last year, if the full-scale battle inside [Transference Labyrinth] had gone the way she intended, she would have isolated and crushed the academy expedition team one by one, inflicting catastrophic losses.
Even if she still lost in the end, she would have achieved her main objective.
But then that bastard made some strange crow cry, and the expedition team she had worked so hard to scatter all gathered in the boss room in an instant.
And he blocked the poison too.
From her perspective, it was no different than having one of her main weapons sealed away.
Given the circumstances, that had to be Kim Ho’s doing too.
He was, in every sense, the root cause of all her failures.
Once I reach S-rank...!
She would trap him in an ublek first, no matter what, and melt him down.
Suddenly realizing she had become too agitated, the Witch of Decay raised her teacup again.
Then she repeated the thought she had just had.
...Right. I just have to keep doing what I’m doing now. Just like this.
She had gone in and out of the underground floors countless times during raid week, yet the academy side still hadn’t sensed anything suspicious.
If she kept moving in secret like this, it wouldn’t be long before she got what she wanted.
Of course, there were still a few unstable variables.
That gaze at the entrance ceremony.
It had felt extremely similar to the sensation she got whenever her master looked at her, so it was almost certainly a dragon.
Still, it was unclear whether that dragon had seen through her identity, and it didn’t seem to have made any move since then.
There was no need for her to try making contact first.
As for the other source of concern—
It sounded like a few of them heard me.
The noise she made while infiltrating the underground floors.
A tiny, splashing sound.
And yet someone had managed to catch it.
One of them was famous enough that even she, as a freshman, couldn’t have failed to recognize the name.
Topaz Mage Tower, the Song family’s precious daughter, and a member of the Discipline Committee.
Song Cheonhye.
And the other one, unexpectedly, was some slick male student. After asking around here and there, she learned he was a second-year named Shin Byeongcheol.
It was a very awkward coincidence.
Both of them were second-years, just like Kim Ho.
...Should I make a move in advance?
But were they really enough of a threat to justify taking a risk right now?
If anything, laying a hand on students might increase the risk of exposure instead.
Which would be better...?
The Witch of Decay fell into thought.