Dungeon Practicum, Part 3 (Christmas Commemorative Illustration)
Feeling the familiar ripple of mana moving through my body as naturally as eating a meal, I passed through the gate.
Then, after a brief instant, I finally stepped into the dungeon made entirely of holograms.
As I stamped down on the hard, gritty earth beneath my feet, it struck me all at once that I really had come to another space.
The floor of Sielm Academy’s lobby had been made of polished quartz, lending it an air of luxury, but this place was nothing so refined. The cold was raw here, skimming over my whole body, and tiny flakes of snow fell with a faint, crackling hush.
Fortunately, the blackout I had worried about with Lee Seona didn’t happen. But...
“Uh... Miel? Seona?”
According to the information I’d been given by Professor Han Seohwa and Professor Seres, everyone was supposed to gather in one place after passing through the gate.
But contrary to that information, I alone had been left behind and dropped into an unfamiliar space by myself.
The gentle mana I was used to feeling at Sielm was nowhere to be found. Instead, a mana sharper and more unnerving than anything else pressed against my body all on its own.
On top of having landed in a dungeon that was already freezing, my senses were far more sensitive than other people’s, so not only the chill in the air but even the frost-laced mana of the dungeon itself slowly settled over my entire body.
- Wooooong
Using the ring artifact I’d received from Professor Seres, I pulled a thick padded coat out of subspace and put it on. Even though it looked simple, warming magic had been cast on the padding, preserving my body heat and keeping me warm.
“Hah...”
I had been suddenly dropped into an unfamiliar place. I was momentarily flustered, but after gathering what I needed and taking a deep breath, I managed to regain a measure of calm.
For now, there was only one problem.
I had been separated from Miel Norison and Lee Seona. Fortunately, since this was only a holographic dungeon and not a real one, we could still communicate, though the signal was limited.
[This is Lim Paran. I’ve been separated from the group.]
I remembered the communicator I had given Miel and Lee Seona in case anything happened, so after pouring mana into it, I used the device to send a message to the rest of the team somewhere in the dungeon, broadcasting the transmission widely.
It was a magical tool that allowed communication by sending out a specific mana wavelength, which another communicator could pick up if it sensed the same wave.
And soon after, having apparently sensed the mana I’d sent, two replies arrived on my communicator.
[This is Miel! Where the hell did you two go without me? I’m alone here!]
[This is Lee Seona. I got separated too. Just calm down and use the mana detector Paran gave you. Head toward the place with the strongest mana. Paran’s mana is the most concentrated, so you know where to look, right?]
Just from the messages alone, I could tell Miel Norison was flustered, while Lee Seona was calmly assessing the situation and planning a rendezvous.
They had figured out that my mana was easy to detect because it was so unusual, and planned to converge on me using the mana detector I’d handed over.
There was no real map here, and no way to pinpoint anyone’s location, so in a situation like this, it was probably the most ideal plan possible.
After receiving their messages, I let my mana seep outward. Even if my mana was easy to identify, if the distance was too great, the detector might not be able to catch it.
At the same time, through mana erosion, I extended my senses widely to detect the surrounding mana and confirm that there were no humans nearby except for myself.
Falling leaves, snowflake petals settling on branches, the fragile way they looked as though they might collapse with the slightest movement—it all filled my field of vision.
Bitter Winter Dungeon—the high-level dungeon currently being raided by hunters outside Sielm.
According to Lee Seona, one of her family members was among the raiding party, and she had also told me the dungeon was every bit as cold as its name suggested.
Thanks to that, I’d been able to pack plenty of magical tools suited to the dungeon’s nature, and for now I was keeping myself warm enough that I didn’t even feel the cold.
There were trees faintly saturated with mana, leaves frozen where they had fallen to the ground, snowflake petals drifting down from the sky, and more besides...
All of it carried just enough mana to help me grasp the outlines of the objects around me through the surrounding flow of power.
As I slowly sensed the mana around me, I noticed a clump of mana approaching in my direction.
The problem here was...
- Fwoooosh!
First of all, it was an unfamiliar mass of mana that didn’t belong to either Lee Seona or Miel Norison, whose presence I’d felt earlier.
Sensing danger, I threw myself to the ground, and a rusted greatsword slammed into the spot where I had been standing.
When I looked up, I saw a Dullahan made of ice, wearing armor and holding a shield in one hand, glaring at me.
- Wooooong!
“Haha... so you’re angry because I came in here without permission...”
The Dullahan, exuding sharp, hostile cold and blasting mana toward me, pulled its shield free and hefted it with both hands.
“W-wha—?!”
- KANG!
Then, with startling speed, it hurled the massive shield at me, and I hurriedly pulled an axe from subspace to block it.
Was it because I had stopped an attack filled only with killing intent, something I had never felt from sparring with Professor Seres or Miel Norison? The shuddering vibration transmitted through the axe sent a thrill of shock through my entire body.
At the very least, those two had never intended to kill me. They held back to a reasonable degree when they fought, but this Dullahan was attacking me with the sole purpose of ending my life, and that difference dragged a fear over my body unlike anything human.
No matter that this was Sielm; even if I didn’t die, the pain would still be real.
If I couldn’t die outright but instead lived through that pain? Wouldn’t that be even worse?
And if I died here, I’d gain nothing in a dungeon where the Authority of Growth was amplified, and I’d fall behind everyone else.
- Clang! Kakakak!
Among the monster knowledge I’d memorized like my life depended on it for four whole days, there had naturally also been information on Dullahans, those famous monsters.
Lower-grade Dullahans belonged to the 6th Class, while higher-grade ones were growth-type monsters fully capable of reaching the 2nd Class.
That was why Dullahans were counted among the monsters that had to be taken down first.
And the weakness of such a Dullahan was...
Basically, because a Dullahan has no head, it generates the energy to move its entire body through the core created in its chest.
And if I blocked the flow of mana as it kept moving through its body...
- KWAANG!
- Woooooong, wooooo...
The battle with the Dullahan continued as it quickly generated a greatsword made of ice.
Every swing of that massive blade cut through the air with tremendous force, and I focused on evasion rather than trying to meet it head-on, letting the fight continue that way.
I widened my footwork to slip past the broad sweeps, while knocking aside the more measured but faster strikes with my axe, waiting for an opening to counterattack.
- Fwoooosh! Thunk!
And now, with the attack launched with all its strength buried in the ground.
And the only way to stop that flow is to crush the core...
There’s no other way but to break it!
I poured every ounce of mana I had into my axe and swung it at the iron armor covering its torso.
- Kakakakak! Kang!
The core that made direct contact with the axe gave off a violent cracking sound, then shattered before it could hold together any longer.
The moment the small explosion blossomed, the Dullahan that had seemed ready to keep charging at me vanished, leaving only the shape of armor with bits of ice embedded all over it.
It must have been the form the ice-aspected mana generated by the core had taken as it animated the body.
“Haa... haa...”
Having poured out all my strength in an instant, I was drained completely and collapsed face-first onto the dirt.
Now that my life had genuinely been threatened, the strain on my body had piled up far more heavily, and the mana I’d spent was on a completely different level from what I’d used in sparring with Miel Norison and Professor Seres.
For someone whose combat power was still lower than average to be fighting a Dullahan of a higher tier than expected, the exhaustion was brutal.
As I slowly tried to catch my breath, I felt another massive clump of mana rushing toward me at high speed from the surrounding area.
And, naturally, it still wasn’t the mana of Miel or Lee Seona.
“Urk...”
I don’t have the strength left to move any more...
I tried to force myself up by planting my axe in the ground and hauling my body upright, but my legs were shaking so badly I couldn’t even manage a proper stance.
What appeared before me in the meantime was another Dullahan, one whose mana density was visibly much thicker than the one from before.
Was it twice as strong? It was vomiting out such dense mana that my vision blurred white.
“Hah... haha...”
Looks like this is the end for me...
- Fwoosh!
Seeing the monster charging at me, I squeezed my eyes shut and braced myself to accept the cold blade that would soon tear into my flesh...
- Clang! Seung! Chakakakak!
- Woooooong?
Instead of the cold blade cutting through the air, the blue ripple I had felt on Wednesday swept across the space in front of me and lightly blocked the massive greatsword.
“Now, now. You’re a knight in name if nothing else, so trying to kill someone who’s already fallen over is a little too unsportsmanlike, don’t you think?”
With a bright, cheerful voice, Miel Norison came into view, swinging his long rapier and piercing the Dullahan’s core with perfect accuracy.
It had all happened so quickly that, in the blink of an eye, the fight was already over.
“Paran! I heard a huge noise, so I ran over here. Looks like I made it to the right place after all. More importantly, are you okay?”
Wearing that familiar mischievous smile, Miel Norison greeted me with concern.
“What? Paran, what happened to you?!”
Soon after, Lee Seona joined us too, and only one hour after the dungeon practicum began, the whole team was finally together.
