Chapter 67 (2/2)
The dungeon was so quiet that even the water drops could be heard so clearly. Not only that, but the interior was so dark that they couldn’t even see an inch in front of their noses.
“Uh, uh-uh?”
Howal tripped and began tottering. As he couldn’t see his front, he lost the sense of balance and his steps had become unstable.
“Are you alright?” Su-hyeun asked.
“I-I’m sorry.”
Howal’s voice was shaky. It was pretty uncommon to see a rank B Awakener tripping over something regardless of how dark it was. In other words, that was how tense they were currently.
“Don’t be so tense and take it easy,” said Su-hyeun.
“Hiiieek!”
The moment Su-hyeun finished saying his piece, the howling of a monster traveled out from the deeper parts of the cave. It was an eerie, high-pitched screech like that of a ghost.
The deathly-frightened Howal was startled silly and hurriedly backed away, while Keshunirn swallowed his saliva out of sheer nervousness.
“I’m telling you, you don’t have to be so tense.” Su-hyeun stared at Howal with unimpressed eyes and continued on. “I’ll be hunting them down all by myself, anyway.”
“….Wha?”
“Don’t even think about trying to help out, and stay put so that you won’t get in my way.”
“Hey, you crazy son of…”
Rumble—
Howal was triggered by Su-hyeun’s words, but had to clamp his mouth shut after spotting dozens of flames that suddenly appeared all around them.
He wasn’t the only surprised one, however. The rest of the group was also the same.
Kiii-hihihihihi—
The screeches were drawing closer.
Su-hyeun started walking slowly towards the screeches. The other three stood there and simply stared at him.
They had instinctively realized that the dozens of flames appearing around Su-hyeun were created out of the concentration of magical energy one level higher than theirs.
Su-hyeun didn’t even care whether the other three were moving or not.
This trial was supposed to be about attacking the dungeon together with those people, but the thing was, it didn’t really apply to him.
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Su-hyeun observed the monsters gradually entering his visual range. They were bizarre-looking bipedal fish creatures covered in scales. The land-bound monsters with the name of Silk Merman mainly called damp caverns like this one their home. They also appeared rather frequently in the entrances of yellow and green colored dungeons.
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Compared to the yellow-colored dungeon Su-hyeun conquered for the first time a year ago, this one’s difficulty seemed to be higher. After all, only Lizardcops showed up back then.
“Thankfully, it doesn’t seem like I need to use my head.”
Su-hyeun smirked deeply. The fact that the dungeon’s difficulty was high was actually a welcome piece of news for Su-hyeun.
If the difficulty were lower, he’d have been worried. A lower difficulty would potentially mean that besides attacking the dungeon, there was something else he needed to consider.
However, what the trial asked of him was clearer if the dungeon’s difficulty was quite high to begin with. It could very much mean that without any unexpected variables, he’d not really need to get crafty here. He rather welcomed such a straightforward trial like this.
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The scales of the Silk Mermen were unexpectedly hard, but their magic resistance was also quite considerable as well.
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Shu-kaaahk—
The moment he sprinted towards the Silk Mermen, Su-hyeun also unsheathed the sword from his waist.
The Silk Mermen’s bizarre-looking maws split wide open as they pounced on him. They seemed slow and lumbering initially but when they attacked, they did so with an explosive turn of speed.
Craa-aack—
Sliiiiiice—!
However, it was still too much of an ask to reach Su-hyeun. The moment he drew his sword, the Silk Mermen’s maws were sliced clean off.
He didn’t need to spend a lot of magical energy either. He only needed just enough to activate the magical blade already present within Gram.
The cleanly-bisected corpses of the Silk Mermen were soon discarded on the ground. However, these monsters lacked the fear of death and continued to pounce on Su-hyeun, not caring at all about the demise of their own kin.
Stomp—!
Su-heyun stepped on the head of a Silk Mermen that dashed in front of him and leaped upwards. Once he reached the ceiling of the cave, he quickly scanned the locations of still-surviving Silk Mermen.
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He inwardly counted their numbers as per his habit and finished his preparation.
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Su-hyeun’s figure rapidly dug in and struck them with his sword before leaping back up in the air. And so, after he rapidly scythed past the space and wielded his sword several times like this, the Silk Mermen ceased all of their movements.
Splaaaash—!
Fountains of blood exploded from the necks of the Silk Mermen.
The monsters with half-severed necks stopped moving and collapsed to the ground.
It was then that light leaked out from the dead Silk Mermen and entered into Su-hyeun’s chest.
[Warmth has been added to the Divine Beast’s Egg.]
[The Divine Beast’s Egg has….]
“….Uh?”
That was an unexpected reaction.
Su-hyeun then recalled the egg he had half-forgotten about stored inside his inventory.