Chapter 39: Is It Wrong to Seek an Erotic Situation in a Dungeon? (8)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 39: Is It Wrong to Seek an Erotic Situation in a Dungeon? (8)
Black smoke slithered up from the goblin's charred corpse.
It was a movement clearly distinct from the smoke caused by the burns.
I now reached for it instinctively, drawing it into my body.
I could feel the core where my heart was located grow just a little heavier.
Unlike the pure mana I used, this was a murky, mixed energy.
[Successfully absorbed mana from the goblin's corpse.]
The message appeared as always.
The amount had increased, but there was no visible rise in my stats.
“I guess that’s to be expected.”
It would be ridiculous if my mana stat went up after killing a single goblin.
“This is more boring than I thought…”
I felt a little deflated.
The goblins living here were the weakest of their kind.
They had no class, no nothing. To put it in terms of human society, they were like your average Citizen #13.
On top of that, my magic seemed to be more powerful than I’d anticipated.
They say Fire Missile causes a small explosion on impact, but if it could incinerate a goblin's entire upper body, could you really call that a small explosion?
Thanks to that, the number of spectators had grown from one to two.
With every goblin that appeared getting taken out by a single spell, Shin Yu-jeong had no chance to step in.
Before I knew it, we had reached the latter half of the dungeon.
「Lightning Bolt.」
Just as I successfully cast a spell from the lightning attribute—said to be the hardest to control due to its erratic nature—and sent it flying into a goblin’s body…
I heard a strange sound.
【…must…ve…】
A harsh voice, like scraping metal.
It was so faint and small that I couldn't make out what it was saying, but I was certain I had heard something.
Startled, I looked around.
Yoon Ji-an was jotting something down, her eyes darting between the tablet in her hand and me. Shin Yu-jeong was inspecting the goblin's corpse, looking for anything worth salvaging.
“Did either of you hear anything?”
“Hear what?”
“I didn’t hear anything…”
The two of them answered, looking at me quizzically.
Judging by their expressions, they really hadn't heard a thing.
Which meant I was the only one who heard that sound…
“Hey, what’s wrong?”
Shin Yu-jeong had approached me at some point and was now staring at me with a curious gaze.
“No, it’s nothing.”
For now, I brushed it off as nothing.
If I said I heard something now, I'd be lucky not to be treated like a weirdo.
The dungeon's fancy name came to mind again.
Kallashu's Trial.
If this was the start of something befitting the dungeon's name, wouldn't I hear that voice again sooner or later?
If not, oh well.
“Should we rest for a bit?” Shin Yu-jeong asked.
She seemed to have concluded that I was tired from just standing around.
“No, let’s just keep going.”
Anything can happen in a dungeon.
It was one of the adages passed down among Hunters.
I've never seen anyone who ignored that saying live for long.
That’s why I had been steadily accumulating mana long before entering the dungeon, without even using my secret arts.
The mana I’d stored up reached 25.
With this much, I could easily fire off dozens of basic spells with plenty to spare.
I had used a bit more mana than expected from experimenting with various spells, but it still wasn't enough to warrant a break.
Perhaps because of the robe I was wearing, which increased my mana recovery rate, my mana was regenerating more easily than usual.
“Let me know whenever you need a break, okay?”
“Yeah, got it.”
Her concerned tone was surprisingly sweet.
I could sense her blatant intent to move things to the next phase, to start something between us.
She still didn't seem to realize.
That the more her attitude toward me changed, the more she was the one being tamed.
In the distant future, when you've come too far to ever go back.
When you finally realize it, far too late, I wonder what kind of expression you'll have on your face.
I hope that day comes soon.
To make that happen, I’d have to leave a bigger impact in this dungeon.
And as it happened, I had just arrived at such an opportunity.
After killing goblin after goblin with a relentless barrage of magic, we reached a massive door at the very end.
Beyond that door exists the strongest monster in this dungeon.
Hunters call the space beyond that door…
The Boss Room.
“This is the boss fight, so let’s take a break.”
“Okay.”
Shin Yu-jeong plopped down on the ground and patted the spot next to her.
I hesitated for a moment before walking over and gently sitting down beside her.
She then wrapped an arm around my shoulder and asked me with a pleased expression.
“Hey, is this really your first time?”
“I guess so…?”
I could feel a faint hint of suspicion in her eyes.
“Then how are you so good? You don’t even seem nervous.”
Of the various excuses that came to mind, I picked the one that would score me the most points and said it.
“Well, you said you’d block everything from the front… so I trusted you.”
Perhaps because it was a completely unexpected answer, Shin Yu-jeong's eyes went wide.
But that was only for a moment. A smile spread across her lips as she poked me in the side.
“Hehehe, so you weren’t nervous because you trusted me?”
“Yeah.”
Then, as if about to say something important, she cleared her throat and finally spoke.
“I’ll always have your back, so you just trust me, only me. Got it?”
She emphasized the words ‘only me’ and shot a quick glare at Yoon Ji-an, who was sitting a short distance away.
Then she looked back at me.
“And you’d be better off not trusting that woman too much.”
“Why…?”
When I asked in a clueless tone, Shin Yu-jeong spoke with a frustrated expression, enunciating each word carefully.
“She’s from the Association! You probably don’t know what kind of bastards they are…”
A torrent of curses about the Association followed.
She went on about how they were trying to get their hooks into me, and how that woman was only being nice to me for that reason.
Her efforts to drive a wedge between me and Yoon Ji-an were rather cute.
“So, don’t, like, get counseling from her or anything.”
“Hmm… Ji-an seems like a good person, though.”
As I casually let the words slip, her expression changed completely.
“Hey, what did I just say?”
At her low, chilling voice, this pathetic body of mine naturally flinched again.
This is so frustrating, seriously.
I peered into her eyes, glimpsing her emotions.
Desire and obsession, slowly beginning to boil.
Whenever those clear, pure, dark emotions flickered, they pricked my heart in a strange way.
I felt like this was the real beginning.
“Uh… to only trust you?”
The arm around my shoulder tightened slightly.
Our faces naturally drew closer.
“Right. I’m telling you this because I’m genuinely worried about you.”
“R-Right, of course.”
“But that woman isn’t in a position to be worried about you and only you. Understand?”
“…I get it. If you say so, it must be true.”
I played along with her words, putting on the most naive expression I could muster.
A deep smile formed on her lips.
“From now on, if you have any worries, tell me everything.”
“Can I really tell you everything…?”
I'm curious what she'd do if I told her I get an erection every time I look at her.
“Yeah, anything. This unnie will take care of it all for you. Got it?”
“Yeah.”
For now, I said I understood.
This series of actions made one thing perfectly clear.
Shin Yu-jeong planned to turn me into a fool who couldn't live without her.
Did that seem like a bad thing? No, not at all.
In fact, I was thinking something similar.
To her, my greatest value was being a talented magician.
In other words, she wanted an outstanding dealer who could reliably finish off monsters while she was tanking, didn't she?
I planned to focus on that aspect.
I was now certain that if I could remodel her into a body that couldn't be satisfied by any dealer but me, everything else would naturally follow.
“I’m all rested now.”
“Yeah? Then let’s go get the boss and head back.”
Shin Yu-jeong brushed herself off, stood up, and positioned herself in front of the door to the boss room before asking me.
“I’m opening it, okay?”
“Okay.”
She placed her hand on the center of the door.
Instantly, the lines etched across the door began to fill with a blue light.
The door would open only when that light had spread across its entire surface.
It was then.
【…prove your…】
That same unsettling voice from before echoed again.
It was still faint, but louder than last time.
It seemed to be asking me to prove something, but I still couldn't catch what that "something" was.
But it didn't seem to be a major problem.
The fact that the voice was louder than before meant I was getting closer to its source.
Once that heavy door opened and I heard the voice again, I would probably know what I needed to prove.
The blue light finally spread across the entire door.
Krrrrr…
The massive door began to open slowly, scattering stone debris everywhere.
“Get ready.”
A wide space, large enough to easily accommodate dozens of people, was revealed.
In the center stood a goblin with green skin tinged with red. It wore a worn-out helmet and armor, and held a chipped sword and a battered shield. It was glaring intensely in our direction.
A Hobgoblin.
It was about my height, with a hulking, muscular build.
This Hobgoblin, known to be at least ten times stronger than a regular goblin, though it varies by individual, was the master of this boss room.
Beside me, Shin Yu-jeong patted my shoulder encouragingly.
“Just keep doing what you’ve been doing.”
“Okay.”
In the middle of our brief exchange.
“Kieeeeeeh!”
The creature let out a monstrous sound—whether a scream or a war cry, I couldn't tell—and began to charge toward us.
“Haaah!”
Seeing this, Shin Yu-jeong also charged forward as if she’d been waiting for it, letting out a spirited shout.
Her movements were more powerful than ever.
Kaaang! Clang!
The goblin’s shield met Shin Yu-jeong’s sword.
Shin Yu-jeong’s shield met the goblin’s sword.
Their swords and shields locked together.
“Kiiii…!”
While the Hobgoblin struggled with all its might to push her back, Shin Yu-jeong blocked it with a much more relaxed expression.
Truthfully, with her skills, Shin Yu-jeong could probably take down about three Hobgoblins by herself with ease.
The reason she was maintaining a defensive stance was because this was a place for my combat practice.
Using the mana that had replenished during our break, I drew in the ambient mana around me.
I could clearly see the flow of mana centering around me.
Do you know one of the metrics used to test a magician's ability?
It’s multi-casting.
At least two, and as many as ten.
It refers to the method of simultaneously drawing multiple magic circles to cast several spells in a single breath.
Simultaneously drawing magic circles, each with a different number of strokes and directions, is no different from drawing a triangle with your left hand and a square with your right.
That’s how difficult and complex it is.
When Director Park Cheol-su told me about multi-casting, a question occurred to me.
For me, who could use magic without drawing magic circles, would multi-casting be easy or difficult?
To get straight to the point, it was neither easy nor difficult.
For me, who used magic more intuitively, it was simply a matter of dividing the mana to be used for each spell, imbuing it with the desired color, and then arranging the mana differently.
I split the mana flowing around me in half, one for each hand.
Then, I imbued each with a different color.
A red sphere the size of Shin Yu-jeong’s head formed in my left hand, and a translucent sphere of a similar size formed in my right.
These were the Ball-series spells, a step above basic magic, in the elementary tier.
「Fire Ball & Air Ball.」
Fire Ball, honestly, isn't much different from Fire Missile except for its destructive power.
Being bigger, it just creates a bigger explosion when it flies.
Air Ball is, as the name suggests, a sphere made of compressed air.
The moment it reaches its target, it releases the compressed air, creating a shockwave.
When I learned these two, a more powerful way to use them came to mind.
Wouldn't it be much stronger if I put the Fire Ball inside the Air Ball and threw them together?
The moment it hits the target, the Air Ball explodes, scattering the air, and the flames of the Fire Ball surge along that path?
I brought my hands together, merging the Fire Ball and Air Ball into one.
Of course, they didn't just combine by pushing them together; I manipulated the mana to prevent any interference between the two until the moment of impact.
A spell that looked like a flame burning inside a transparent glass marble was formed.
What would be a good name for it?
“Hmm, Fire… Bomb?”
The flame would burst out in a satisfying explosion, so a straightforward name like this wouldn't be bad.
I aimed the Fire Bomb at the Hobgoblin and shouted to Shin Yu-jeong.
“Get back!”
At the same time, trusting her to react, I input the incantation I had just created and fired the spell.
「Fire Bomb.」
Just as Shin Yu-jeong quickly retreated, the spell I fired reached the bewildered Hobgoblin’s torso.
The Air Ball surrounding the outside burst, releasing the compressed air.
Next was the Fire Ball's turn.
The blazing flames devoured the scattering air, swelling in size.
“Uh oh.”
There was a problem.
The size of the expanding flames was much larger than I had anticipated…
If I left it as it was, the flames would likely reach Shin Yu-jeong.
“Ah…!”
Noticing this, Shin Yu-jeong also flinched in surprise and raised her shield.
That idiot!
The flames are flying everywhere, how does she expect to block all of them with a shield that only covers her torso!
“That's the problem with tankers.”
They're so confident in their durability that they choose to block instead of dodge, and end up getting hurt worse.
I’ll have to teach her footwork from the ground up later.
I immediately gathered mana and formed a dense barrier around Shin Yu-jeong.
「Shield.」
As I input the incantation, a hazy protective barrier formed around her.
And at that moment.
BOOOOM—!
Eeeeeee—
A deafening roar, and finally, the flames exploded.
A sickening ringing filled my ears as a wave of intense heat washed over me.