Chapter 70: Escape
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 70: Escape
Avatars.
Also known as Angels.
Since ancient times, they have been the celestial guardians who convey the will of the gods to the mortal world and act upon their commands.
However, in a war that broke out tens of thousands of years ago, most of them lost their lives or were forced to leave this land.
Now, after the war was declared over and an immense amount of time has passed, the stories of Avatars have been relegated to little more than ancient murals in ruins and oral traditions dismissed as legends. That was the reality of the current world.
Nevertheless, one thing was certain: Avatars who remained in this land to uphold the commands of the gods still existed.
“...”
In the deepest part of the underground dungeon, an elf was intently gazing into a small mirror.
In a past so distant it had faded even from memory, she had been guarding the dungeon's core under the command of her mother and god, the World Tree. A few days ago, she had sensed an intruder.
At first, she dismissed him as just another common grave robber and quickly lost interest.
After all, such creatures would never even cross the threshold of the 1st Layer, destined only to become nutrients for the dungeon.
But the grave robber who entered this time was different.
When he was fighting the magical beasts of the 1st Layer, he had been incredibly weak.
She was certain he wouldn't last long against the gatekeeper before being killed.
And yet.
“...?”
The man who'd struggled even against common magical beasts had defeated the 1st Layer's gatekeeper in a single blow.
What changed? Did he have some kind of epiphany in that short time?
It was a surprise she hadn't felt in a very long time, but it was still something she could dismiss as a minor anomaly.
With his level of skill, he would never reach this place anyway. The dungeon's unique nature also made it impossible for him to lead an army.
She was slightly surprised by the progress of this new grave robber, but she was sure he too would die before long.
She had believed it without a doubt.
However, when he temporarily retreated from the dungeon to regroup and then returned, a problem arose that she could no longer ignore.
“...That is.”
She felt the divine power of the World Tree coming from him.
Although the lingering traces of divine power were so faint they wouldn't even compare to that of an ordinary priest, he was more intimately connected to the World Tree than anyone else—perhaps even more so than the Elven Queen.
This meant only one thing.
Besides the saints and saintesses directly chosen by the gods, there was another kind of being who possessed the strongest power of destiny.
A Hero.
But the World Tree had never once chosen a Hero before. And a human, of all things.
It was a situation she couldn't believe, even seeing it with her own two eyes.
At the sight, Yurain's eyes narrowed.
When he returned to the dungeon, he was incomparably stronger than before.
Although she couldn't feel any divine power at the tip of his sword, his ability to grow so strong in such a short period proved there was something special about him.
The thought sent her mind into a complicated whirl.
If he is the World Tree's Hero, why has he come here? Does the World Tree require the holy relic I am guarding? If so, instead of sending an underdeveloped Hero into this troublesome dungeon, the World Tree could have simply sent me a revelation as she used to.
“Growth...?”
At that moment, a hypothesis flashed through her mind.
What if the reason the World Tree sent an underdeveloped Hero here was for the sake of his growth?
And what if the ultimate goal was for him to one day reach the deepest part of the dungeon and take her with him?
After an eternity too long to describe, a strange light flickered in Yurain's eyes.
If that was the case, then she had a duty to aid in the growth of the World Tree's new Hero.
“The gatekeeper of the 3rd Layer... it was a Minotaur, I believe.”
There wasn't much she could do to interfere with the upper layers from the dungeon's core, but strengthening a magical beast was within her power.
Using the authority she had received from the World Tree, she enhanced the Minotaur and watched the situation carefully.
According to Yurain's calculations, the Hero's current skill level should have been insufficient to face the Minotaur. Of course, she had seen a glimmer of possibility when he was joined by a summon that appeared to be a beast-kin, but it would by no means be an easy fight.
Still, Heroes were beings who always overcame adversity and created miracles.
‘I just have to make sure he doesn't die.’
Even if the Hero were to be defeated by the Minotaur, she had no intention of letting him die.
His life and death were for the World Tree to decide.
She was merely assisting in his growth.
She manipulated golems to attack them from behind, even granting the constructs a stealth function to avoid mana detection.
As she expected, the two, already exhausted, began to flee from the beasts.
It wasn't difficult to guide the frantically escaping pair to a specific location.
Then, she sent the Minotaur—which should have been guarding the stone gate—after them.
How would the Hero react, forced to face a powerful enemy he couldn't be sure of defeating even at full strength, all while his body was worn out?
Honestly, she expected him to struggle.
But as if to mock her prediction, the two of them managed to drive the Minotaur to the brink of death.
The beast-kin's strike, which seemed to momentarily break past her limits, and the Hero's lightning bolt displayed enough power to have instantly killed the Minotaur before she had enhanced it.
Although the beast-kin collapsed and the Hero was battered, their coordinated attack was enough to startle her.
Of course, as the Minotaur began to heal its wounds, the outcome of the battle seemed clear, but he had already succeeded in proving his worth as a Hero.
‘Now’s the time to save him...’
Just as she was about to put the Minotaur to sleep and use her remaining authority to heal the Hero, something unbelievable unfolded before her eyes.
The Hero, his condition suddenly restored, began to clash with the Minotaur single-handedly. At a glance, it was clear the Hero was pushing the Minotaur back.
Amazingly, he had still been holding back.
He became a bolt of lightning, steadily chipping away at the Minotaur's life, but he too was reaching his limit.
When a blow from the Minotaur left him on the verge of death, she snapped back to her senses and reached out to save him.
But.
‘Those eyes...’
The vivid light shining from within his eyes made her fingertips tremble.
Soon after, the lightning spear he created succeeded in blowing off the Minotaur's left arm, but that was as far as he could go.
He looked like he had no strength left to move.
The Minotaur, in contrast, didn't seem to have much trouble moving. Moreover, it was regenerating its wounds, meaning the effects of the Hero's final, desperate attack would soon be nullified.
She thought it was over.
She was sure of it.
But it was over in an instant.
The Hero, his body restored by the queen's blessing, shot forward like a flash of light, burrowed into the Minotaur's guard, and sliced its torso in two.
And in that fleeting moment, he was steadily advancing to the next realm.
For a long while, Yurain could only stare blankly at the scene.
*
1,000 coins.
That was my reward for killing the Minotaur.
It was certainly more than what I got for dealing with the High Skeleton Mage, but that was only a relative comparison.
Considering I almost died several times, it was far too little.
But paradoxically, it helped me realize something for certain.
‘I guess it's determined to stick to its identity as a "dating app," for all that's worth.’
The truth is, I just happen to get matched with women in particularly difficult situations. If I had been matched with ordinary women, I wouldn't be struggling this hard to earn coins.
I could probably just chat a bit, laugh and have fun, and then collect my coins. Of course, that didn't mean I regretted meeting Iris and Cheon Yeo-hwa.
In any case, when you look at it that way, the amount of coins earned from matches wasn't small.
In comparison, hunting magical beasts was difficult and dangerous.
But I had to grind for coins by repeatedly hunting them. It was like how developers in an RPG deliberately control the supply of currency to manage the market economy.
‘...Still, killing magical beasts gets you expensive magic stones.’
Like this one.
Ting—
[Scanning information on the newly acquired item.]
[A-rank Magic Stone]
[Grade: Epic]
[A magic stone obtained by defeating the A-rank sub-boss, the Minotaur.]
[Its purity is exceptionally high, guaranteeing great value in various applications.]
An A-rank magic stone, and from a sub-boss at that.
Honestly, I'd felt something was off the entire time I was fighting it.
No matter how much of a racial bonus it had, the Minotaur was far too strong compared to the 2nd Layer's gatekeeper.
But if the Minotaur was a sub-boss, then everything made sense.
What a damn pain in the ass.
Of all the things to show up as a boss, it had to be that.
“Then again... this isn't a game. The difficulty isn't going to ramp up neatly like climbing a staircase.”
Besides, looking back at the situation objectively, I could have killed the Minotaur much faster.
The blessing Iris gave me.
If I had fought the Minotaur while under the effects of this ridiculously powerful blessing, which was still active, the result would have been very different.
I wouldn't have had to take the risky move of doping myself with an elixir.
In the first place, it was strange for a gatekeeper to abandon its post at the gate to the next layer just to hunt down an intruder.
If it hadn't been for that, I could have recovered my stamina, received the blessing, and taken it down without much difficulty.
Thinking about it again, it was a truly shitty situation, but what can I do? This is just my lot in life.
It's not like I can complain to my dead parents.
“Sigh.”
Still, this made me feel a little better.
Ting—
[Scanning information on the newly acquired item.]
[Old Thread Spool]
[Grade: Epic]
[Finds weaknesses in barriers.]
The moment I read the item description, I knew this was the artifact the World Tree had mentioned.
The single-line description might seem lacking for an Epic-grade item, but on the other hand, it also meant this was an item that had everything poured into that one ability.
1,000 coins, an A-rank magic stone from a sub-boss, and an artifact that would allow Iris and me to escape the underground cavern.
At first glance, that seemed to be all I gained from this battle, but the biggest reward was yet to come.
I lightly extended my hand toward an empty space.
[Fire Ball]
A fireball formed in an instant and shot forward in the blink of an eye.
BOOM!!
An immense explosion and a wave of intense heat, incomparable to my previous fireballs, swept through the air.
I watched the scene for a moment, then closed my eyes and focused on my mana circles.
Typically, a mage's realm was indicated by the number of rings encircling their heart.
“...How is this possible?”
No matter how many times I checked, nothing changed.
The number of rings, which had clearly been only two, had somehow increased to four.