Kneel
The moment we stepped into the gate, the first thing that met our eyes was a sky drowned beneath a blood-red moon — and beneath it, skeletons pouring down in endless waves.
And there, among them, were the members of the 2nd Team and the survivors I had seen before.
I couldn't tell exactly what was happening, but even from a distance the urgency of it was unmistakable.
"Valt."
A clear, crystalline resonance unfurled from my lips.
At once — every skeleton froze mid-motion, as though time itself had stopped.
In that same instant, Ayla swept her hand through the air.
KRRRRRRRRRRRAAAASH!!
Enormous tree trunks erupted from the ground and scythed sideways, sweeping an entire swath of skeletons into splinters.
"I have cleared a path, my Queen."
I nodded and started toward the 2nd Team.
I had only meant to check whether anyone was hurt.
That was when I saw Hunter Han Yuseol.
Her body was so ruined it seemed a miracle she was still alive. Her left arm and right leg looked as though they had been torn clean off, and every inch of her was soaked a deep, terrible red.
It was a sight that should have filled me with panic and dread —
Dreamy King's Dignity surges to full strength.
"……Pin. Heal her."
"Ppi!"
Seraphin shot forward at once and began mending Han Yuseol's body.
The moment she was done, I turned my gaze on the monster I suspected had done this to her.
Far in the distance, a skeleton sat upon a throne of bone, watching us with lazy composure.
The instant I laid eyes on him, it wasn't panic that filled me — it was cold clarity. Not fear, but rage.
You dared hurt my friend?
A mere pile of bones?
Through the torrent of emotion, a single word rose to the surface of my mind.
A word born of pure contempt for the arrogant creature surveying this place as if it owned it.
"Aldra."
Kneel.
THOOM—! THOOM—!! KRUUUUM—!!!
The moment the Rune Language rang out, every monster dropped to its knees without so much as a flicker of resistance.
The skeletons, crushed by a force bearing down from above, simply shattered into pieces.
The boss monster — the dark mage Gardaga — stared down at his own hands in the face of what had just occurred.
They were trembling.
No. His entire body was trembling.
KRUUUUUUMBLE!!
An unknowable power was crushing him from every direction.
A force of compulsion……?
He immediately shifted his assessment of the primary threat to the girl.
She was, without question, the most dangerous presence in this place.
And yet — she is still weak.
The power that had annihilated his thralls in an instant had not reached him. For now, he stood above her. She could never bring him down.
That was when something came streaking toward him at tremendous speed.
A tiny body. A cascade of golden hair. Wings beating at its back.
BOOOOM—!!!!
He registered the shape for only a fraction of a second — because in that same fraction of a second, a catastrophic force slammed into him.
Gardaga's body obliterated the throne he had been sitting on and went flying without end.
KRASH! BOOM!!
Only after tumbling wretchedly across the ground, plowing up heaps of earth, did he slowly push himself upright.
……
What just happened?
His barrier had been protecting him. And yet whatever struck him had shattered even that and driven the blow straight through.
An unthinkable destructive force.
Crack—
The impact had been enough to put fractures through his very bones.
"Ppi."
At the sound, Gardaga turned his head.
A tiny figure. A little girl no larger than his palm.
That thing had sent him flying?
"Ppi. Ppi-ppi. Ppi."
But Seraphin only looked down at him with a face of ice.
A mere skeleton dares defy the Queen's command and try to stand?
So she had personally smashed his throne and forced him to his knees.
Because the Queen's word was absolute.
Of course, Gardaga had no way of understanding any of that.
You……
He stretched a hand toward Seraphin.
She was strong. Ordinary magic would not be enough.
To deliver a single overwhelming strike, he began layering spell upon spell.
『Gravity Press』 ×2
『Dimension Slash』 ×3
『Void Crush』 ×2
『Glacial Storm』 ×2
『Blaze』 ×1
CRACKLE!!
And in that instant—
『Grav█ty █re█』 ×2
『Di█nsion Sl█sh』 ×█
『█oid █rush』 ×2
『█lac█al █torm』 ×█
『Bl█z█』 ×1
A burst of blue current erupted from his grasp, and every spell he had woven simply stopped.
He knew this phenomenon.
A dispel?
How?
Neutralizing more than ten mid-to-high-tier spells in a single stroke? That was impossible.
"Ppyu~"
A voice drifted down from the air above. He looked up on pure reflex.
A tiny girl lay reclining in the empty sky, the red moon at her back. She yawned as though the whole affair bored her, gazing down at Gardaga with languid, half-lidded eyes.
He understood at once.
That one. That was the mage who had unraveled his magic in a heartbeat.
WHOOSH—!
Something brushed past his arm.
!?
It was too fast for the eye to follow. No — it was too fast even to see. By the time his mind caught up, the result was already done.
……
The arm he had extended to cast his magic was simply gone.
Clink—
At the sound of footsteps behind him, Gardaga turned.
This time it was a silver-haired little girl in a knight's armor, a tiny sword in one hand — and in the other, his missing arm.
Had she cut him?
Did this creature possess a speed even he could not react to?
Thud— Thud—
KRUUUUUUUUMBLE!!!
And then, last of all, came the sound of someone approaching.
With every step closer, the force crushing his body grew heavier.
THOOM! KRUUUM!!
It pressed him down until his face was driven into the dirt.
Gardaga lifted his head with enormous effort.
He could see the girl drawing near.
And the closer she came, the more he was forced to admit the truth.
He had been wrong.
He had never been resisting her power. The distance between them had simply diluted its reach — nothing more.
I……
Just what am I facing?
"Did you truly believe a scrap of borrowed power like yours could defy the Queen's command?"
The woman standing beside the girl spoke. Her gentle smile never wavered, but the words that left her mouth were cold enough to freeze the air.
And more than that — she knew of the King.
Gardaga's voice shook as he asked,
Who are you…… no. Who are all of you?
"……It seems you still fail to grasp your place."
KRUUUUUUMBLE!!!
Massive tree trunks erupted around him, coiling tight about his body and sealing off his vision.
In the final instant before the wood closed over his eyes, Ayla delivered her last words in a voice of pure ice.
"Something like you has no need to know."
CRUNCH!!
A-rank Gate cleared.
Clear Time: 5 minutes 32 seconds
New record achieved!
At the cascade of notification windows blooming before my eyes, I finally let the tension drain out of me. It was over.
Not that I'd been tense because the boss monster was scary, mind you…
What I'd been tense about was the fact that even though I was angry, the fairies and Ayla had been so furiously, terrifyingly angry on my behalf that it was almost embarrassing.
Still. It was kind of nice that they'd gotten that mad for me.
So now I just need to pull the dungeon core, right?
To fully eliminate a gate, you had to retrieve the dungeon core. Erosion-type gates especially made finding an exit nearly impossible, so the standard method was to destroy the core and escape that way.
I turned to the fairies at once.
"Pin, Arwen, Lumiel. Go find the dungeon core for me."
"There is no need to search, my Queen."
"……?"
I looked at Ayla in confusion. She simply waved her hand.
At her gesture, the massive tree trunks that had just crushed the boss monster sank smoothly back into the earth — shhhk — and vanished.
Where they had been, fragments of the boss monster's bones lay scattered. And resting in what must have been the creature's chest cavity was a single stone.
A magic crystal. An enormous one. At that size, there was no mistaking it.
"It would appear the boss monster itself was the dungeon core."
Ah. So that was it.
I had heard of bosses like that — ones that became the dungeon core and sustained the gate with their own existence. Those were supposed to carry a higher threat rating than ordinary bosses. An A-rank gate boss really was something else.
"Ppi!"
"Ppyu!"
"Pya!"
The moment they spotted the dungeon core, the fairies scooped it up with bright, delighted smiles. Fair enough. An A-rank gate's dungeon core was a magic crystal worth planting in the garden — of course they were thrilled.
And then—
Sssssssssss—
Fractures began to spiderweb across the world itself.
The erosion-type gate was collapsing. Piece by piece, the fabric of this place cracked and scattered, and through the gaps the outside world came into view.
"Shall we return, my Queen?"
At Ayla's question I glanced briefly toward the raid party where Han Yuseol lay. Everyone's wounds had been treated. They'd make it out fine on their own.
I'd saved Hunter Han Yuseol. I'd gotten the dungeon core. There was no reason for me to stay any longer.
I'd contact her once she woke up.
I stepped through the fractured rift.
Doing a good deed left a warm, satisfying feeling in my chest.