Chapter 210: Residents of a Ruined World (6)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 210: Residents of a Ruined World (6)
It was born with immense size and strength.
That was only natural, for it was a monster forged by the Calamity, however incomplete it might be.
The Calamity had done its absolute best in crafting it, and as a result, the creature possessed levels of physical power and mana resistance that most people couldn’t even hope to challenge.
Immediately after its birth, it ran to fulfill its mission, becoming a part of the labyrinth and successfully locating its target.
Black hair and red eyes.
It even had the same face its parent had shown it.
Its purpose for being born was to kill everything that stood in its way and take that girl.
The obstacles fired magic at it, but it didn’t even hurt. The monster forged by the Calamity let out a roar and swung its fist.
The target’s companions were sent flying by the blow. The target screamed something, but the creature could not understand human speech.
It wasn’t difficult.
It was a simple task.
Now, all it had to do was seize that black-haired ‘woman.’
* * *
The monsters here were high-level, but not so much that A-rank individuals would be overwhelmed.
There were always ways to pierce through high physical or magical resistance, and once they got the hang of it, they hadn’t suffered any significant damage.
However, that was exactly why they were caught off guard when it first appeared.
A massive monster, a grotesque fusion of shadows and flora.
It exuded a pressure unlike any monster they had faced so far, but based on their previous encounters, they concluded it wasn’t an opponent they couldn’t defeat.
“Hey, get ready!”
“Don’t give me orders…!”
While the Hero prepared an attack spell, the Hunter began chanting a support incantation. The manifesting magic circles intertwined, amplifying their power.
The 3rd-tier magic, <Flare Burst>, instantaneously swallowed the support magic, ballooning in size before slamming into the massive monster’s head.
Even after the hit, they didn’t let down their guard, immediately casting defensive spells and entering a vigilant stance.
In truth, there was nothing wrong with their response.
A large enemy is an easy target, so you strike first with a powerful spell. Since a counterattack is likely, you follow up with defensive measures.
Though their efficiency suffered because they didn’t get along, they were still renowned superhumans in their own right.
At the very least, they weren’t the type to be careless or underestimate an enemy during combat.
Therefore, the reason for their defeat was, as always, a simple difference in raw specs.
The monster wasn’t uninjured, but the damage was negligible.
The scratches were far too pathetic to be the result of a reinforced attack from an A-rank Hero and Hunter.
The monster healed even those minor wounds instantly and charged. As it swung its fist, the defensive spells were torn to shreds. The Hunter, who had relied on the spells instead of dodging, was taken out instantly without even having time to scream.
A support member had been downed, but one doesn’t reach A-rank by panicking in such a situation.
The remaining Hero immediately injected himself with a combat stimulant and fired a barrage of low-tier, non-fire attribute spells at the monster.
It was an attempt to identify the most effective attribute, assuming the creature had fire resistance, but that effort was immediately rendered futile.
The monster, resisting magic of every attribute, swung a fist that hurtled toward the Hero.
“Block it…!!!”
Of course, she—Kang Na-hyun—hadn’t been doing nothing during this series of events.
It was just that in this world, doing something doesn’t always guarantee a result. The shield manifested by her talent, Word of Command, was torn apart far too easily by the monster’s fist.
Perhaps the only consolation was that the shield had bought a fraction of a second, allowing the Hero to attempt an evasion and avoid being completely taken out in a single blow.
“Heave… huff…!”
Of course, he seemed to have completely lost his will to fight, so for all intents and purposes, he was out of the race.
But when the monster’s gaze shifted away from the defeated Hunter and Hero toward her, Kang Na-hyun could feel it instinctively.
Between the entry requirements for this dungeon and everything else, something had gone horribly, horribly wrong.
The monster lunged at her.
In that brief moment, Kang Na-hyun finished her calculations.
Since neither attack nor defense held any meaning, she had to dodge to survive even a moment longer.
Creating a shield to buy a tiny opening and focusing entirely on evasion offered the highest probability of survival.
“Young lady. Don’t move.”
The moment she heard that voice, Kang Na-hyun’s body froze stiff.
She didn’t manifest a shield, nor did she dodge; she simply stopped.
Her reason screamed at her to move, asking if she’d gone mad, but her instincts—her superhuman intuition—desperately fought back, signaling that this voice was her only lifeline.
“Glad to see you’re a good listener.”
Standing behind her was the swordsman who claimed to run a private dojo.
Almost simultaneously with the shring of a sword leaving its scabbard, a chilling sensation washed over her entire body.
Then, the arm of the monster charging at her was severed as if it were made of tofu.
No, to be honest, when she first saw it, she couldn’t even register that it had been cut by a sword.
“Phew. Those Association bastards… ‘minimum safety measures,’ ‘unlikely you’ll have to fight.’ Yeah, I knew they were the type to run their mouths without even doing a proper investigation.”
If she hadn’t seen the man who drew the sword slowly approaching the monster, she still wouldn’t have grasped what had happened.
“Ah, young lady. Are you alright? I’m sorry. I sounded a bit forceful, didn’t I? Mister here just got a bit startled, so please try to understand.”
Having severed the monster’s arm in a single strike, he asked the question in a somewhat awkward, polite tone.
“Ah, yes? Yes?”
“It’s a bit awkward for an old man like me to butt in and talk to a young lady your age or my juniors, right? There’s that thing called a generation gap. Kids these days hate that kind of thing, don’t they?”
It feels rude to think this, but… he’s not at all like he looks. So that’s what he was worried about.
“You two over there, sorry as well. I should have helped sooner, but honestly, I thought you’d at least be able to block that much. I didn’t think you were actually getting beaten; I thought it was some kind of feint. I heard modern Heroes like that sort of thing.”
The doubt that he was being too relaxed before the monster was even defeated vanished in the next instant as the monster’s other arm flew off.
She didn’t even see him swing, but the arm’s position had changed, proving the sword had been moved.
“I have some personal circumstances that prevent me from fighting for very long. So, I’ll just finish off this monster first and then we can talk, alright?”
“Ye… yes…?”
The moment the answer left her lips, his figure vanished, and slashes began to butcher the monster.
“…Illusionary Shift?”
The movement, which looked like flickering teleportation even to a superhuman’s eyes, made it clear to anyone that he was no ordinary person.
* * *
The dungeon raid was proceeding quite smoothly.
“I think I’ve solved most of it.”
Professor Park A-ram, who had set down her papers as if finished with her calculations, looked at me with a bright smile. It was a look that seemed to say, ‘See? There’s no need to rely on that kind of power, right?’
But Professor…
I’m impressed and surprised, and honestly, I’m touched that you’re looking out for me like this.
But you basically just smashed through everything with brute force.
Since there weren’t any clear hints, I suppose you could call it a standard raid, but how many parties in the world could actually bulldoze through such annoying monsters like this?
To solve the formation, she had essentially opened every single door to find the correct sequence of rooms.
Of course, Professor Park A-ram formed and proved hypotheses along the way so we didn’t literally test every single possibility, but if we’d been unlucky, who knows how long it would have taken.
“Hmm, if it only involved parts related to my hometown, I would have solved it much faster. Strangely, there were unfamiliar landscapes mixed in here and there, so it took a bit of time.”
So that was why the dungeon scenery became strangely desolate the further we progressed in the correct order.
To me, it just looked like a barren wasteland, but in the Professor’s eyes as she gazed at the landscape, there was a hint of nostalgia.
Park A-ram is a survivor of a ruined world.
She wasn’t even rescued from a dungeon; she was a case who escaped through a miracle added to her independently developed space magic.
Since there were no dungeons connected to her world, it wasn’t hard to understand her emotions at seeing a landscape she thought she’d never see again.
In fact, even I have almost no knowledge of her original world.
It was mentioned in the Setting Book, but the details were quite sparse.
The only thing I knew was that it was a world ruined after a man who was originally a Hero turned to the dark side.
I don’t know exactly what memories she made or how she grew up, but perhaps it wasn’t entirely filled with misery.
However, as we moved into the next room, we entered a place like a garden filled with roses, and her expression contorted.
“Seriously, is this a joke? Just when a person’s trying to get sentimental, a flower bed like this pops up to rain on my parade?”
This, too, was a landscape from a ruined world, but this one didn’t give off an image of desolation.
On the contrary, the deeper we went, the deeper the color of the roses became, and the way the plants grew stronger evoked a strange sense of dread.
It’s common sense that monsters get stronger the deeper you go, but that wasn’t exactly the case here.
Instead, it grew strangely quiet the further in we went. By the time the boundaries between the two worlds collapsed and a blended landscape appeared, not a single monster was in sight.
“…For some reason, this feels unpleasant.”
A place where red flowers bloomed everywhere, as if mocking the ruined world filled with gray.
In the center of this vibrant space, it lay in a bathtub filled with rose petals.
It had radiant platinum-blonde hair that made it feel sorry to even compare it to Aisha’s, and the sight of the roses and us reflected in its eyes was quite mystical—but this wasn’t a situation for idle spectating.
The power radiating from it was the real deal.
The creature’s gaze swept over us and stopped on me.
So I’m the target, huh?
Vast amounts of mana gathered at its gesture, and each rose vine that rose up, fueled by that mana, became a monster and surged toward us.
A feat no ordinary human could perform.
Seeing an enemy force that numbered close to an army, the emotion I—no, we—felt must have been identical.
“…Is this all?”
A torrent of golden mana. A thrusting fist. A raging storm. They tore through the army formed by the rose soldiers.
It wasn’t enough.
Certainly, if this were the work of a human, it would be a flashy and magnificent feat.
If a single superhuman had achieved this alone and in an instant, it would undoubtedly be something to be praised.
How could the power of an individual becoming an army not be impressive?
Especially if each of those soldiers was a monster surpassing a mid-tier species.
However, while this was the realm of a highly talented S-rank superhuman, it was a power far too lacking to be called a Calamity.
If that creature was an existence that created an army, the Heroes gathered here were those who could destroy an army as individuals.
They were those who could crush a numerical disadvantage alone without a second thought.
An incomplete Calamity. An imperfect being with power but no knowledge, talent but no experience.
The chances of victory were more than sufficient.
Vast mana was gathered and fired, so it was powerful.
However, because the mana hadn’t been refined into magic through a formula, it wasn’t truly threatening—it was merely a massive lump of energy.
The endlessly rising army was shredded by blades of wind the moment it appeared.
And the fist of the superhuman who leapt toward the Calamity controlling it all recognized its target and pierced it with precision.
The Calamity let out a scream as the concentrated punch struck home.
Then, its expression was dyed with bewilderment.
“What are you looking at? Don’t make that kind of face with my face. Seriously.”
“Fortunately, it hasn’t fully adapted yet.”
“Its recovery is impressive, so we can’t rule out the possibility of it growing during combat.”
Well, even if it’s incomplete, a Calamity is a Calamity.
It’s more that this side is ridiculously strong rather than that side being weak.
“Um, Junior. It looks like the Professors have everything under control. What should we do?”
“We can give them courage.”
“Pardon?”
Well, I’m joking, of course. We have to stay vigilant. There’s no way it ends like this.
It should be about time, right?
I know exactly how this goes—it’ll awaken with some ‘Authority of the Creator’ manifestation or something.
Come on, out with it.
But for some reason, no matter how long I waited, the one-sided violence from the Professors only intensified, and there were no signs of anything else happening.
…What’s going on? It’s a bit late.