No. 50 Transference Maze (4)
Its true identity, of course, was a Dimensional Crow.
The creature carved a lazy circle through the air before fluttering down to perch upon a bough of the ancient, withered tree.
To beings capable of slipping between folds of reality, spatial dungeons served as both ancestral home and private villa. The Transference Maze was no different; tucked away in a handful of secluded corners among its hundreds of rooms, they had hollowed out sanctuaries of their own, dropping in whenever they felt like resting their wings. Of course, it had not come here to relax today. It had sensed uninvited guests trespassing on its retreat and swooped down to investigate.
The crow perched before me looked somewhat different from the 'Tailor' I had encountered back at Rainbow Lake. Atop its head sat a battered, pointed wizard hat, and one of its talons gripped a crooked wooden staff.
The Crow Great Sage.
Among the various breeds of Dimensional Crows, this was the individual most profoundly versed in the arcane arts. If one were to assign it a rank, it would easily surpass S-plus—perhaps even brushing against the realm of EX rank. Yet despite its terrifying pedigree, its demeanor toward me differed little from the Tailor's.
Ruffling its dark plumage in clear fascination, the sage croaked,
"Caaaw. Little Monarch, how did you find your way into this place?"
"Wasn't looking for it on purpose," I replied nonchalantly.
In moments like this, leaning into an enigmatic aura served you far better than begging for a favor.
"I was just passing through, caught a glimpse of something interesting, and decided to drop by."
"Caaaw, is that so? A young monarch is still a monarch indeed!"
The Crow Great Sage seemed readily convinced. One of the modest perks of my position was that whenever I pulled off something inexplicable, I could easily gloss over it with a shrug and say, 'Well, that's what a Monarch does.'
Before it could pepper me with further inquiries, I decided to seize the initiative. Feigning casual interest, I cast my gaze across the ancient tree.
"So, what do you actually do in this room?"
"This is a sanctum for researching magic, caaaw. Does it pique your interest?"
"A little."
"Just this once, I shall grant you a glimpse!"
The crow lightly tapped its perch with the crooked staff. At once, the mundane, withered husk shed its disguise, revealing the tree's true form beneath. It was a paradox of translucent obsidian, glowing with a soft, ethereal luminescence—like peering straight into a window of the midnight sky.
It functions as a medium for spatial magic.
Conduits like this were planted not only here, but across various hidden rooms throughout multiple dungeons. It offered a fleeting glimpse into the true, terrifying scope of the Dimensional Crows' power.
Still, to keep up my royal persona, I kept my expression carefully detached.
"Figured as much. Though the feng shui here feels a bit rotten, don't you think?"
"Caaaw! It was splendid until recently! It only turned foul just now!"
"Because of the Witch?"
"Precisely."
This dungeon had likely been left untouched for ages. Being an A-rank maze, its sheer brutality ensured that nobody would dare attempt a raid without assembling a coalition of world-class elites. The labyrinthine structure made hunters avoid it even more zealously. To have their peaceful retreat suddenly invaded by the Witch of Rot, who proceeded to spew foul Oublecks into every corridor, must have deeply displeased the crow.
I shrugged casually, as if wondering what the hold-up was. "Can't you just blow them to pieces? That shouldn't be much trouble for someone of your caliber."
"Caaaw—! Little Monarch, such violent words! That is not our way."
Dimensional Crows adhered to absolute neutrality. If it truly resolved to fight, the Witch of Rot wouldn't last a single exchange against it, but they never struck first unless an enemy crossed their sacred threshold. The Witch of Rot knew that full well, which was why she had scrupulously avoided disturbing their hidden sanctuaries.
"Still, they're clearly getting on your nerves."
"That they are. Will you resolve this matter for me?"
"I don't see why not. Provided the price is right."
Doing someone else's dirty work naturally demanded proper compensation. The Crow Great Sage seemed to acknowledge the logic, bobbing its head.
"Caaaw. What is it you desire?"
"Nothing more, nothing less: let's settle on a single branch. Paid upfront, if you don't mind."
My request caught it completely off guard. The sage began hopping excitedly in place, flapping its wings in agitation. The sudden flurry caused it to lose its grip on the staff, though instead of falling, the crooked wood simply hovered in midair nearby.
Leaning forward, the crow rasped with mounting intrigue, "How did you come to learn of that?"
"Who do you take me for?"
Unable to reveal that I was a crusty veteran who had plumbed every secret of this game, I played the 'gloss it over as a Monarch' card once again. True to form, the Crow Great Sage accepted it without a second thought.
"Caaaw! A Monarch indeed! Yet, do you not feel your greed overreaches?"
"I'd rather you view it as an investment. You'll be seeing plenty of me in the days to come, after all."
"……"
The crow stared down at me in silence, seemingly lost in deep calculation. I maintained my blithe, take-it-or-leave-it expression, meeting its beady gaze head-on. At length, having reached a conclusion, it parted its beak.
"Caaaw. Very well. I shall treat this as an investment."
Shuffling toward the far tip of the ancient bough, the crow snapped off a small twig with its beak and flicked it toward me. It was a scrawny, unimpressive stick barely two handspans long. But the moment the Great Sage gave its staff a subtle wave, the twig shed its humble guise, drinking in the starlight of the midnight heavens just like the great tree from which it came.
◈ [Caaaw—!]
◈ Usage Limit: 1 / 1
The very first S-rank item I had acquired since waking up in this game world. Its raw power and value were commensurate with its rank—utterly staggering. Even so, I kept my poker face intact, pocketing the branch as casually as loose change.
"Much obliged. I'll put it to good use."
"I shall be watching, Little Monarch!"
"Consider the job already done."
"Caaaw—!"
With a final cry, the Crow Great Sage leaped upward, traced a swift arc through the void, and vanished completely, shifting seamlessly into another dimension.
Only then did I turn back to Tang Gyu-young and Zhuge Soso, who had stood frozen as mute bystanders through the entire exchange.
"Well, it's gone."
"……"
A sly smirk crept across Tang Gyu-young's lips. Her eyes gleamed with pure devilry; I could already tell what was coming from a mile away.
"Don't you dare start."
"Ooooh, Little~ Monarch~! Flap, flap, flap~"
Tang Gyu-young flapped both hands at her sides like little wings. Zhuge Soso, clearly finding the display irresistible, flanked me from the other side to mount a coordinated pincer attack.
"Little Monarch~"
"Our Little~ Monarch~"
"So tiny~"
I had pegged her as a cool-headed strategist until now, but it turned out this senior had quite the mischievous streak herself. If left unchecked, they would keep this mockery going until sundown, so I firmly stepped in.
"Enough. Cut it out, both of you. You're giving me a migraine."
At my protest, Zhuge Soso reined in her teasing and smoothed her expression into something gentler, though her eyes still danced with curiosity.
"What kind of item is that? Considering it came straight from a Dimensional Crow, it can't be ordinary."
"You can consider it the master key to this entire raid."
"Really? What does it do?"
"It's tricky to explain all the mechanics right now, but it's spatial magic."
Which meant that despite being a single-use consumable, its potential output was monstrous.
This time, Tang Gyu-young pressed her own question. "And you received that just for agreeing to clear the dungeon?"
"Pretty much."
"Wait, weren't we going to clear it anyway?"
"That's also true."
"……Talk about creative economics. You basically sold water from the river!"
Even if our raid had fallen into the Witch of Rot's ambush, the academy's collective firepower remained immense. There were dozens of elite faculty members trapped down here. Even if I hadn't lifted a single finger, the subjugation would have inevitably succeeded in the end. And once the boss fell and the dungeon reset, all the foul Oublecks littering the halls would be scrubbed clean automatically.
It really was the equivalent of selling bottled river water to someone already standing in a downpour. Still, I had my own justifications.
"You heard the conversation. Half of it was an investment. Besides, even if the dungeon was bound to get cleared eventually, doing it with maximum efficiency is much better for everyone."
"Can't argue with that," Tang Gyu-young conceded with an easy nod.
Right now, the subjugation squad was scattered and bogged down in isolated skirmishes against the Oublecks. At any moment, lethal casualties could mount. If using the Crow Branch allowed us to conclude the raid cleanly and swiftly, it would spare countless lives.
Zhuge Soso followed up with the next essential point. "How do you activate it?"
"There are no special requirements, but since it's strictly one-time use, we need to save it for the absolute climax."
"Meaning we pop it in the boss room."
"That's the plan."
With the Crow Branch safely stowed, it was time to refocus on our original objective: reaching the boss chamber as fast as humanly possible.
After catching our breath and double-checking our gear, we stepped out of the hidden sanctuary and resumed our push through the maze.
Just as before, Tang Gyu-young's shadow stealth enabled us to bypass the vast majority of chambers without drawing steel. But tricks were bound to hit a wall eventually. The moment we stepped through a teleportation circle into the subsequent room—
Clank.
A towering Oubleck Knight snapped its torso in our direction.
It appeared to have devoured multiple armored warriors; six muscular arms sprouted from its torso. Five of them gripped longswords, while the sixth held an ornate wooden staff.
Looks like it digested a mage along the way.
Furthermore, even though Tang Gyu-young's stealth shroud remained fully active, the beast stared straight at our position, stomping forward with heavy, purposeful strides.
Tang Gyu-young murmured under her breath, "……We've been spotted, haven't we?"
"Dead to rights."
An elite variant capable of detecting stealth.
Judging that we had entered its engagement zone, the Oubleck Knight unleashed a violent flurry, slashing all five longswords through the air simultaneously.
Sh-sh-sh-shriek—!
A torrential storm of jet-black sword qi erupted outward. We scattered in three different directions to evade the deluge.
Zhuge Soso ducked beneath several shrieking blades of energy and parried the rest with crisp, fluid sword strokes before calling out, "Same strategy? We pin it down?"
"Yes, same drill!"
The tactic was identical to the one we had used against the Greatsword-Bow Oubleck: Tang Gyu-young and Zhuge Soso would lock the abomination in place, and I would obliterate it with Inferno Fist.
Though it won't be quite as simple this time around.
Unlike the previous brute, this creature operated primarily as a ranged skirmisher. Rather than locking horns in melee, it used its five longswords to pelt us with continuous waves of sword qi while zipping across the chamber at astonishing speed to maintain distance.
Sh-sh-sh-shriek—!
To make matters worse, with five blades working in concert, the intervals between volleys were terrifyingly tight. And judging by the haste and offensive buffs radiating from the staff in its sixth hand, that arm clearly belonged to a support caster.
Flowing through her clan's evasive footwork, Zhuge Soso darted between the flying crescents and closed the distance with the Oubleck Knight. Her rapier-like blade lashed out in a sequence of supple thrusts and sweeping cuts. The monster staggered under the impact, but instantly scuttled backward on rapid, skittering strides to re-establish the gap.
Next, Tang Gyu-young flicked her wrist. The shadows beneath the creature's feet surged violently, erupting into a thicket of jagged shadow spikes. Yet because the knight darted about with frantic speed, the black thorns missed their mark by a fraction of an inch, merely screeching against its corrupted armor plates.
"Tough bastard," Tang Gyu-young gritted out.
"Stay composed and keep pressing," I urged.
"I know, I know!"
Zhuge Soso maintained relentless pressure; I hurled gusting gale spells to entangle its footing, and Tang Gyu-young steadily multiplied her volatile shadow butterflies in the air. Just as the three of us were tightening the noose around the skittering Oubleck Knight—
Flash!
A far corner of the chamber erupted in blinding brilliance, and three figures strode out from the portal's light.
A faculty member, Jeong Chong-myeong, and Kim Gab-du.
By a stroke of fortune, the teleportation circle they had taken happened to dump them straight into our battle.
Sh-sh-sh-shriek!
As a stray blade of sword qi shrieked toward their flank, Jeong Chong-myeong calmly raised a hand, deploying a translucent barrier of white magic that dispersed the impact without yielding an inch.
Beside him, Kim Gab-du's stoic gaze swept between the thrashing abomination and our squad. Sizing up the battlefield in a single heartbeat, the Martial Arts Club President stepped forward with iron resolve.
"Looks like someone beat us to the punch. Allow us to assist."