Party Member Reroll
“Aaaagh!!!”
Jun bolted upright.
“...Shit.”
A faint scream dragged his sleeping mind back to the surface. The ominous sensation that hit him the moment he woke forced a curse out before he could stop it.
“Jun!”
“My lord!”
Fortuna and Dohwa, who had dozed off after their intimate entanglement, jolted awake right behind him. Their faces were just as rigid — they had felt the same dread.
While hurriedly preparing to leave with them, Jun poured every scrap of his cognitive power and awareness into figuring out what was happening.
Three people are missing. Don't tell me they went after the Easter Egg.
He had known Dennis still hadn't given up on it. Even so, Jun hadn't bothered crushing that stubborn will. An Easter Egg — even one that appeared on the first floor — could easily carry a life-threatening danger, and the only person in the party desperate enough to risk it with their cohesion already in the gutter was Dennis.
Apparently, that had been a mistake.
What kind of magic did he use to drag Susan and Amber along? Don't tell me those two still have feelings for him?
When they had passed the Easter Egg earlier, Susan and Amber had looked disappointed, sure — but not particularly attached. When Dennis threw his tantrum about going after it, they had given him looks of pure contempt.
So what on earth had changed their minds enough to follow him?
Jun had no idea.
I should have forced an extra command even if it was a stretch.
His multitasking still wasn't registered as a skill. It only ran through a forced activation via Realize, which meant it could only execute pre-set tasks — no flexible thinking. Before falling asleep, the only orders he had given the fragments of his consciousness were to keep watch for enemies through the radar and maintain the barrier around the campsite. (The command to wake him at a set time had been too low-priority to include.)
To prepare for the worst, he had pushed the radar's range and the barrier's strength to their absolute limits without overtaxing his core. That alone consumed so much of his consciousness that he couldn't issue any further commands. He could have forced more, but then even more of his mind would have stayed awake, and he wouldn't have slept properly at all.
So he had left it, uneasy but hoping for the best. That "what if" was about to get someone killed.
A clear failure on his part.
Please just still be alive.
Gear on, Jun burst from the tent and threw himself across space at full power, determined to make up for the mistake. A distance that would have taken over an hour of hard walking vanished in a few seconds — and then he saw them.
“Hic... oh God...”
“Party leader. Party leader.”
Susan and Amber, crying out for salvation inside a barrier that looked ready to shatter at any moment — and Dennis, so emaciated he was barely recognizable.
...Even granting that Easter Egg difficulty is a total crapshoot, how the hell is it this hard?
Jun took in the situation at a glance and couldn't help complaining. This was no time for idle griping, but looking at what his party members were facing, he couldn't help himself.
Thud! Thud!
Uwaaaargh!
Kyahaha!
The light barrier — presumably Susan's — was packed tight with skeletons hammering it without pause. These were no ordinary skeletons. They were Skeleton Knights, the kind you only saw on the forty-first floor and above, armed with excellent skill and equipment. For some reason their eyes burned with green ghost-fire while the pressure they gave off was only Blue-rank — but either way, they had no business appearing on the first floor, no matter how unlucky you were.
Well. That thing over there is worse.
Whoosh! Fwoosh!
A yellow flame roared as if using Dennis himself for firewood. The pressure it currently gave off was Green-rank, but it was rapidly reclaiming the force that matched its true color — and Dennis's body was wasting away just as fast. It was as if the fire were sucking the life straight out of him. If he hadn't been an ability-user with both Aura and Super-Ability Recovery, he would have been dead long ago.
Save Dennis first.
Rescuing the two women was urgent, but stopping the thing inside the coffin before it fully recovered its power was more urgent still. Even now, the pressure it radiated was plenty threatening. If it got any stronger... every party member except Jun might end up meeting Lady Death.
“Dohwa, protect Susan and Amber. Don't force a rescue — just buy time.”
“As you command.”
“I'm counting on you. Fort, let's go.”
“Okay!”
Fortuna scattered multicolored motes of light, laying buffs, blessings, and protective holy arts over him. The instant Jun confirmed they had settled properly into his body, he leapt through space.
He appeared before the coffin and Dennis —
What are you going to do? If you touch that nasty flame, it'll drain your life force too.
Then I'll just do this. Might as well be thorough.
Jun Original — Lightning Sever
Snick!
A blade that could cut even the uncuttable sheared clean through Dennis's arm where it reached into the coffin. The sword continued its arc, aiming to bisect the ominous coffin itself —
Clang!
— only to be stopped by a beautiful sword that shot out from inside.
“Tch!”
Jun clicked his tongue lightly and flung himself backward, the now one-armed Dennis tucked under his side.
“That sword!”
“Fort, you recognize it?”
“Yeah! It's identical to the one carried by a guy who gave me a little trouble in the last war.”
“So the owner of that coffin is either that guy, or someone connected to him.”
“Probably. Hmm... Jun, I think we should team up with Dohwa and clear the rear first.”
“Why? Is he a commander type?”
“Yeah. The kind that gets more annoying the more minions he has.”
At Fortuna's answer, Jun spun without hesitation. At the same time, he triggered a spell he had completed by wringing every drop from his accelerated cognition — its range deliberately narrowed to just barely enclose the coffin.
Magic — Distortion
The air around the coffin rippled as if sheathed in crude glass. Whatever was inside sensed something wrong and tried to push out — but the warped space twisted its emerging body in another direction and shoved it right back in.
You won't be getting out easily.
By keeping the range so tight, the distortion barrier's strength had jumped a full tier. The thing couldn't properly exert force or swing its sword with any power. Already weakened to Green-rank, it would take considerable time to break through. And even if it did claw its way out, the situation waiting for it wouldn't be pretty.
—SLAUGHTER DEMON!!!
A roar thick with grudge and rage tore from the coffin. The title it had used, though, was oddly familiar. Jun glanced sidelong at the angel perched on his shoulder.
“Hic!”
Their eyes met, and the little angel flinched as if something had pricked her conscience. Of course she did — Slaughter Demon was the nickname the enemy had pinned on her during the last war.
“...Seems like that thing showed up here because of you, Fort. What do you think?”
“I-I dunno. Fort has no idea.”
“...”
“I-it's not my fault! Squeak! The one who messed up is my dad for not locking that thing up properly! Don't yell at me — yell at my dad! Squeak!”
“...Never mind. Forget it.”
Fortuna wasn't wrong, but Jun didn't have the guts to pick a fight with his father-in-law, so he dropped it.
Right. Better spend the time thinning out the trash mobs.
Dohwa had already used her pink birds to herd the Skeleton Knights into a single cluster, primed for a mass attack. With the table set, Jun drew Siliens from Dowonhyang and prepared the strongest strike he could manage.
Jun Original — Lightning Storm
Crack! Crackle! Whoooosh!!!
Bigger! Faster!
A ferocious storm of lightning coiled around Siliens's blade. Empowered by Realize, it swelled in an instant — and when Jun swung, it became a dragon that swallowed the enemy whole.
“...If those had joined up with him, this would've been a real headache.”
Jun muttered as he watched the path the dragon had carved. His calm blue eyes took in the knights who had formed ranks and weathered the rampage. More than half had fallen, and the survivors were in rough shape — but they had endured a strike that would have broken the will of even a Green-rank adventurer. And they had done it while weakened by a full rank.
—Uwooooooh!!!
“Jun.”
“Yeah. Let's finish this as fast as we can.”
At the scream-like roar, Jun coolly leveled his blade at the remaining knights. Moments later, as he dropped the last one still standing —
—KRAAAAGH!!! I'LL KILL YOU!!!
BOOM!
Another roar, and the coffin exploded. Through the billowing dust, a pair of mad, ghost-fire eyes locked onto Jun with murderous intent.