Chapter 69

With the sudden approach of the unknown Seraphim from below, Jae urgently warned Bailey through telepathy.

[Hold on tight!]

Then, he took a sharp dive in the opposite direction of the Seraphim. The highest priority was getting as far away as possible before even thinking about starting a fight.

Did Samael not see what was going on? Probably not, but either way, it didn’t matter so much. If it was only one angel, Jae could easily win by himself.

Narrowing the shape of his draconic body and sharpening his wings, Jae’s speed massively increased with the help of「Power Burst」. As he fled at the fastest possible speed he could manage, Jae thought of a plan.

I can’t use any Sin Skills, including Mark of Death, until the transformation is over, but there's still another 50 minutes remaining... I’ll just have to run and stall until it’s up, but I don’t think that’ll cut it. Is there nothing else I can do before then?

Sending out magic power behind him as he flew down, Jae noted the angel’s speed.

Fuck, she’s fast...! Even with「Power Burst」, I’ll only be able to keep a distance while we dive. Enhancing speed with magic isn’t going to be enough either―against an angel, I’ll need to conserve as much mana as possible. I haven’t levelled up since clearing Gluttony, so if I can find something to kill that’ll help raise my stats, but will it be enough to get away...?

Although there were another 50 levels he could gain by levelling up here, Jae would be earning 700 points in Agility thanks to his new Class. As well as the 50 Distributable Points he would get, that’s a 750 point increase―it’s a hell of a lot, but against an opponent with such a sheer stat advantage like a Seraphim, it’s negligible all the same.

If that’s the case, then...

Glancing back for a moment, Jae laid his eyes on his opponent’s feathery wings.

...Can I slow her down by injuring her?

Those eyes glinted, seeing a golden opportunity. He thought there was no harm in giving it a try, and so, with full intent to kill, Jae began unleashing one attack after the other, using any means to force the angel to halt the chase.

*fwoosh~!*

A myriad of multi-coloured flames, lightning bolts and powerful gale slices created a threatening wall of magic between the two. Additionally, innumerable attacks were sent towards the angel in an attempt to either harm them or guide them away.

“What party tricks!”

―Unfortunately, with but a single yell of frustration from the pursuer, Jae knew that he had accomplished little with his efforts.

Sensing her persistent approach, he was conversely afraid that what he had done had simply made the angel even angrier. Like it was nothing, his continuous magic assaults were being brushed off and charged straight through.

What’s wrong with you? Just leave us alone! 40 minutes at least...!

However, it’s not like the magic attacks were useless. After all, from what he gathered by watching the angel’s chase, she appeared to be bearing the brunt of most of the attacks but dodging certain others.

...Is it lightning?

And, of course, Jae didn’t miss it.

Let’s try it.

Without hesitating, he began to build up magic in preparation for a large attack. He thought that if it worked, then it would definitely be worth the relatively small mana cost.

As expected, however, the Seraphim wasn’t simply going to sit still and wait to be attacked as she sensed a strong charging up of magic power within her opponent.

All of a sudden―

Woah!

―Jae hurriedly tilted his body in a panic to dodge a terrifyingly lethal spear of light that flew faster than a bolt of lightning through where he was a second ago.

Shit, that was close...! What the hell was that?!

“You scaly bastard! Stop running!”

Until now, all Jae was doing was fleeing. He made sure to keep charging mana in the meantime, but now there was another factor at play; dodging incoming attacks.

Despite having felt like an hour has passed, it hasn’t even been ten minutes since the Seraphim’s appearance. There was still more than 40 minutes left before Greed’s transformation was up, and Jae needed to last until then while keeping both himself and Bailey safe.

[Make sure to never let go! No matter what! It’s gonna get bumpy!]

Was she tired of running? Perhaps she was, as she placed less focus on chasing after Jae and more on launching rapid-fire ranged assaults. Still, he pushed himself to the limit to ensure their survival.

And so, as he continued to graze the angel’s deadly, Holy-themed attacks, dodging them by the slightest margins, her movement speed slowed significantly, and the gap between them gradually widened.

He bided his time, waiting for an opportunity to attack. After all, if he just sent the magic out haphazardly, the opponent would just dodge it. Thus, there was a need to wait for the right time.

Just a bit more...

Now, only thirty minutes remained on the transformation timer. As soon as the time was up, it would be over―not for Jae, but for the Seraphim. He only needed to last one more half-hour in this chase.

To be honest, Jae thought that a fight against a Seraphim would be a lot harder than it has been. If you can even call this a ‘fight’, that is.

Tsk!

―But it was only just getting to the hard part.

There’s nowhere left to dive.

They had been fast approaching the ground for the past fifteen or so minutes, but now, there was nowhere left to go. Without space to go down, the angel would easily be able to catch up.

At least we managed to escape the city. Still, we won’t be able to maintain distance for long.

Previously, Jae considered staying in the city―the idea was that the Seraphim was unlikely to attack him if it caused collateral damage to the place she lived in. However, he quickly decided against that idea because of the threat of even more enemies arriving.

I think... This is the right time to attack.

As the thought ran through his mind, the angel rapidly came from behind and yelled threateningly.

“You’ve got no way to escape now, lizard! Cease your breath and die!”

Does she have something against Wyverns or what? What’s her problem?

Jae was confused about why this angel seemed to have a personal vendetta against Wyverns, and it made him want to ask her the reason why she came after him to attack in the first place, but this was obviously not the time.

Anyway, my breath, is it?

From her words, it appears she thought that the attack Jae had been charging up was a breath.

Hah. You’ll see.

Normally, it would be the correct assumption―and because a Cloud Wyvern’s breath is not lightning-attributed, it is no wonder that she didn’t seem to be worried by it.

A little more...

“I’ve heard about you from my sister! That revolting stench of yours is unmistakable! I’ll be the one to take you down for once and for all!”

A tiny bit...

The Seraphim, who had started yelling strange things, had entered within range of the attack. Still, Jae didn’t yet attack.

Get closer...

Was he being too greedy? As the angel drew ever closer, she slowly stretched out her arm.

Any second now...!

Her hand unfurled, ready to grasp onto Jae’s tail trailing behind him at the soonest moment. And then.

“Hah! I’ve caught you, you sinner!”

―Now!

*--BOOM...!!*

Before she could even react, Jae unleashed a thunderous, concentrated explosion of lightning onto the immediate surroundings, like a super-charged EMP bomb. Of course, Bailey was shielded prior to the attack.

And, because she was in direct contact with him when the explosion went off...

“Ugh...! Kaghk! Y-You fucking...”

The angel’s charred body, fried from the extreme voltage of the lightning, fell helplessly to the ground without a speck of resistance. The majority of the feathers in her wings were ruined and her perfect skin was blackened and burned.

Meanwhile, Jae was thrilled. It was true that the attack was something he put all of his efforts into, but he still didn’t think it was something that could injure a Seraphim to this extent.

So lightning is a huge weakness, huh? Very good to know!

The only thing was, Jae was stuck on what to do now. He originally just planned for it to be an attack to slow the angel down, but since it ended up doing such considerable damage, he wondered if he should just kill her now.

...No, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I still need to wait 20 minutes for the transformation to end anyway, and I don’t know if I can kill her before then, so let’s just use the time to get as much distance as possible. She’ll probably have some kind of Healing Magic as well, so don’t think it’s over yet.

Deciding as such, Jae once again used「Power Burst」to create distance between them and the electrified Seraphim.

“...Master.”

As they fled, Bailey called out.

[Yes?]

“Can I... Do something like that too?”

Hm? Is he talking about the lightning attack?

[If you mean the magic I used, then I don’t see why you wouldn’t be capable of such a thing one day.]

“Really...?”

[Well, as long as you keep up your daily training and don’t skimp out on effort. But I wouldn’t recommend it.]

“What? Why?”

He sounded disappointed, so Jae thought he might have gotten the wrong idea. Correcting himself quickly, Jae explained what he meant.

[That was a purely magical attack. Bailey, since you’re a magic swordsman, not a pure magician, that type of thing wouldn’t suit your fighting style, which is why I wouldn’t recommend it for you.]

“Oh...”

[But, as I said, if you keep training and getting stronger, then you’d be able to unleash all sorts of similar attacks even as a swordsman. So long as those kinds of magical techniques are based around your use of the sword, then you would even be capable of more than just this much.]

“Ah...! So, instead of fighting by just using sword and magic together separately, I need to fight by combining them into one technique, right?”

[That’s probably a good way of thinking about it. See? You’re a natural.]

Jae was truly proud of the boy. He even seemed like more of a genius than himself.

Well, I know I’m not actually a genius and was merely lucky, but still, it’s impressive. I don’t know if I could do that at his age, even if we went through the same experiences.

Taking a look behind him, Jae felt both comforted and relieved by the fact they weren’t being chased. Perhaps the angel chasing them had taken too much damage from the previous attack, or perhaps she could no longer be bothered.

Either way, Jae shifted his focus onto the more important matter.

Now. Let’s head to Asphal.

He resolved himself to save his daughter from the dangers of the Pride Dungeon.

*Slam!*

“This is really pissin’ me off.”

Ryan slammed the earthen table in front of him. Despite using all of his physical strength, it didn’t budge nor crack. But that isn’t what he was furious about.

“So? What’re we supposed to be doin’ now?”, he asked no one in particular. Internally, he regretted ever coming to this place called the Pride Dungeon, but now that they were in, they had no choice but to deal with it.

“Whadda we gotta do to get outta this fuckin’ place?”

Everyone else in the room was quiet, not knowing what to say or even think. Even Ryan’s Unique Skill,「Great Sage’s Records」, had no information in it to do with the Pride Dungeon, so they were truly stuck.

Today marked their 30th day since entering the Dungeon, yet there was not a single clue found on a way to exit the place. Thus, all they felt was frustration, with hints of despair beginning to creep in from every angle.

Currently, they live in the house that Jae and Aphy once called home. Every day, they went out, gathered food, killed Wyverns and other minor reptile-type monsters such as Baby Drakes and Salamanders, and tried anything to gather signals or clues on how to return to the ‘real world’.

All they had to go on at the moment was the statistic they saw upon entering the Dungeon exactly one month ago.

“‘Dungeon Clear Status: 0.15%’...”, Amelia mumbled, “Could it be similar to clearing a raid dungeon in an MMO?”

Nicolas, seemingly surprised, asked, “You used to play MMOs?”

“Yes? I played shooters and MOBAs too. What of it?”, she retorted with slight pride, to which Nicolas raised his eyebrows.

“...Nothing. I just didn’t know you liked to play games. Anyway, how do we check if your theory is right?”

Amelia shrugged in response.

“I don’t know. Can we? All we need to do is somehow get the notification to pop up again, but I don’t know if that’s possible right now.”

“Hmm...”

When the room was steeped in silence, Kaitlyn quickly spoke to Amelia in a hushed voice.

“By the way, Emi, do you have any of that?”

“‘That’? ...Ah. There are only a few left, so I think we should use them sparingly, but if you need one then I can give it to you. Is it really bad?”

Kaitlyn scrunched her nose slightly and slowly nodded with a bitter smile. Seeing that expression, Amelia thought it couldn’t be helped and so gave her what she needed.

After that, there was a lull in the discussion taking place in the room. This has been a typical, everyday occurrence since they began this routine inside the Dungeon, but just because they were all used to it didn’t mean they were comfortable like this―they had simply run out of things to talk about.

They desperately wanted to find a way out, as it felt like they had been inadvertently trapped inside the Dungeon, but no matter how hard they tried, it was as if this world and the real world had been utterly separated, with no way to return.

‘How long will we be stuck here?’

This was the unanswerable question that continuously ran through their minds during every waking moment. The truth of the matter was, none of them knew when, or even if they could go back. There was no way to find out with their current set of information.

“Hah...”, someone sighed. Everyone felt the same way, but they all knew that bringing it up would lower the morale of the whole group, so it quickly became an unwritten rule to not be too negative about the circumstances.

“...If we look at the silver lining...”

It was Nicolas who spoke up during this silence. Incidentally, he was also the one who sighed just a moment ago.

“...This is a vast place with countless resources. Delicious fruits, tasty meat, and many strong monsters to kill.”

He spoke with a sort of strange, renewed vigour. It seemed to everyone else that he had just been enlightened, but they weren’t sure as to why he acted like this.

They all looked at him in silence as if asking, ‘what’s your point?’

“Basically... We couldn’t ask for a better place than this if our purpose was to train and get stronger, right?”

“““...”””

After his words drenched the room in a cold, yet somehow refreshing silence, Nicolas felt like everyone was understanding where he was coming from, so he continued with confidence.

“This place was called a ‘Dungeon’ when we entered it, right, so let’s take Amelia’s theory as an example. Using the theory ‘clear the Dungeon to exit the Dungeon’ as a base, we can go from there.”

Everyone listened intently to Nicolas’ words―a rare occurrence. In spite of his usual, foolish self, he did have the occasional stroke of genius, and nobody here doubted that. To those that recognised the signs, they knew.

“So, for Amelia’s theory, we would need to kill all of the monsters in this Dungeon, or at least most of them. If it’s like a game, there may also be a kind of ‘boss’ of this Dungeon that we have to defeat before we can leave. However, if that really turns out to be the way to clear the Dungeon, we wouldn’t know unless we actually clear it.”

―This was one of those rare moments where Nicolas brought them to the solution.

“I think Amelia’s theory is right. But, I don’t think the number of monsters killed matters. It told us when we entered, right? The Dungeon Clear Status was only 0.15%, and yet Rena’s dad was able to leave.”

It seemed obvious now that Nicolas was explaining it to them. How did they not think of this before?

“That means that Rena’s dad must’ve killed the boss of the Dungeon before us when he left. And before you ask how we were able to enter the Dungeon if the boss is already dead, I’m guessing that either the boss respawns after a while, or another monster in the Dungeon gets appointed as the boss once the previous boss dies.”

Tl;dr: this is a chance to level up! Also, we can kill the Dungeon Boss!

“Basically, we can use this opportunity to get stronger while we search for the boss. Then, just like how we progressed through the Land of Beasts and up the mountain, we can plan how to take out the boss and finally exit this place.”

“““...”””

“So, what do you guys think?”

Once he stopped talking, Nicolas took a deep breath and a gulp. He was confident while he was talking, but now that it was over he felt nervous.

What’s this pressure, haha? It’s like I’m auditioning for something...

Sweating, Nicolas focused his gaze on Ryan, the person he was most concerned about. After all, he was the leader of the party―if it was decided that what Nicolas just said was to go ignored, then their current situation wouldn’t change.

However...

Please.

Other than that...

Please...! Don’t call me a bastard!

All Nicolas was worried about was being insulted by Ryan, even after having put all this effort in. He never thought for a second that his idea may not be accepted, since, well, what other options did they have?

Ryan, the party leader in question, covered his mouth with his hand, seemingly deep in contemplation. Soon, Nicolas noticed a change within him.

...He liked it.

After working closely with the guy for close to a year and a half now, Nicolas had the habits and tells of his party members ingrained in him. From Ryan’s reaction just now, he knew.

He really liked it.

Feeling a sense of pride starting to well up, Nicolas stifled the grin that almost sprouted on his face and focused on his party members’ actions. Starting with Kaitlyn, they began to stand up from their seats.

“...Nico.”, Ryan, the only one still seated, called out to him. As he removed the hand covering his mouth, a wide and toothy grin was revealed to the world.

“I dunno what the fuck happened to ya, but good job. I know what we’re gonna be doin’ now.”

A genuine compliment from Ryan. Nicolas, no matter what he did, couldn’t stop a smile from showing now.

“Thank yo--”

“--Ya bastard. Hah. Really knocked it outta the park on this one, eh?”

“...”

I should’ve known...

No matter what he did, Ryan would find a way to sneak an insult in. Well, it didn’t matter. He provided the group with exactly what it needed, and that was ‘hope’―to be precise, a hope-based pick-me-up of sorts.

“Nic, thank you. I don’t want to imagine what would’ve happened if we continued as we were.”

He felt undeserving of Kaitlyn’s words but accepted them nevertheless. He did what he thought was the right thing to do in the situation and it ended up working. That was all.

“Haha. I only tried my best.”

To Nicolas, being able to do this much was more than enough. The last thing he wanted was to see the group’s depressing end here, so he tried his best to think of a way to get the mood up.

Still, receiving all this gratitude did feed a little bit into his ego.

“No, I’m serious. Thanks to you, I think we’re all set on the right track now. Looking at Ryan, anyway... Actually, maybe we should be prepared to go through hell again...”

“Ugh... You’re right.”

Despite fully agreeing with her on that, for some reason Nicolas didn’t feel that negatively about it. Did he want to level up? Well, sure, but he wasn’t one to put in a lot of effort if there was no need for it.

A Dungeon... I think it just... seems fun.

That was the truth of what he felt―an innocent, pure feeling of seeking fun. He knew that hard times awaited them; hell, he’d probably regret ever thinking it seemed fun five minutes into the actual training.

Oh well. The sooner we can get out of here, the better... Wait, that reminds me.

“Guys, hold on. I just remembered something.”

Everyone paused and listened to what he had to say. Scratching the back of his head, Nicolas spoke with furrowed brows.

“Before we came here, we were just spending our time training while fighting in the Land of Beasts because we were waiting for Rena’s dad to return from the Southern Continent with Jae, right?”

“Yes? What about it?”

“Right. Well, since he’s been here before but managed to get out, do you think that if he returns to Asphal before we get out of here, he’ll come here to help us get out?”

Silence took over the room once again. No one knew how to respond to it as they had all forgotten about it.

“―Um. Is this about Daddy?”

Until Rena broke that silence, that is.

“Nicolas, why are you questioning it?”

She asked as if she was genuinely confused, which caused Nicolas to reflexively make a noise.

“...Huh?”

“I said. Why are you asking?”

“What do you mean ‘why’...?”

“Of course Daddy will come.”

“...”

“Don’t ask again.”

“...Yes, ma’am...”

Knowing the girl’s iron will, Nicolas was quick to give in. There was no point in arguing, and he didn’t even know what her father was like anyway. If she said he’ll come, then Nicolas believed it.

What he was more concerned about was how long it would take Rena’s father to get to them. How long would they have to wait? And it wasn’t only him, but the whole group that thought this.

Either way, they would go along with their new plan first and foremost, so that there isn’t a need to rely on the arrival of someone who they don’t even know when they might get there.

There was one thing that they weren’t prepared for during their training, however, and that was...

――The absolutely nightmarish difficulty scaling of the Dungeon outside the Middle Zone.