Chapter 25
Chapter 25
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 25
Chapter Title: Gold Solis Party
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‘Damn it!’
Bugs Lucky Lionel.
The man who believed he was being groomed as a future executive of the Annihilation Clan was utterly confused by the current situation.
‘What the hell is this?! Why am I in this mess?!’
His right arm hung uselessly, wracked with excruciating pain.
Unable to use one arm, he gasped for breath while resisting Yohan’s relentless assault.
‘Why! Why! Why the hell?!’
Was he really losing to this damn brat right now?!
He was one of the clan’s future pillars, a crawler who had reached the 28th floor, a being on a completely different level from this lowly scum!
Lionel stared at Yohan, who clung to him like a leech no matter how many times he shook him off, wondering how the hell this had happened.
Strength.
He couldn’t feel any superiority in strength over that rookie.
He had adapted 28 times, while the kid had only managed about 8 adaptations in the upper floors, barely scratching the surface.
Even with a body amplification blessing, his muscles should have been overwhelmingly superior!
The kid’s movements were clumsy as hell, but he just couldn’t gain the upper hand in raw power.
‘…Rusted Silver!’
Lionel’s gaze flicked toward Arjen, who was smirking at him with contempt for a brief moment.
He should have known something was off from the start when that sly bitch took his side!
She must have pulled some dirty trick on this rookie.
And this scumbag rookie never threw punches—he just stuck like glue.
If he’d tried some amateur striking, Lionel could have exploited the opening and beaten him senseless.
Hell, even if nothing else…
‘If only one arm had been fine!’
In this tangled mess with no real technique, the kid had two good arms while he had to block everything with one.
It was just brute pushing, but one wrong move and it could be over, so he couldn’t let his guard down.
‘…Doesn’t this damn rookie ever get tired?’
He was tasting blood in his mouth amid the frantic rolling, but the rookie was sweating from the intense exertion without any sign of ragged breathing.
‘…That bitch again!’
What the hell had she done to this rookie’s body?
Not just strength—his stamina had turned monstrous too.
“Get off!”
He tried to pull his leg back in the tight space and kick the kid’s gut to create distance, but the rookie just grimaced for a split second and grabbed the inside of his extended leg, pulling even closer.
‘Damn it, damn it!’
Once more, they grappled and rolled across the floor.
No one-sided beatdown like he’d imagined—just low-level street brawl scrapping.
And the other crawlers smirking at him for struggling against the rookie.
‘You filthy bastards. Don’t look at me like that. I’m on a whole different level from you!’
All around him were people praying for his defeat, mocking him.
He wanted to yell at them to cut the crap and pulverize the rookie in front of him into mincemeat.
But his breathing was ragged now, his head foggy, his body heavy like it had soaked up water.
He hated to admit it, but defeat was looming, and it was driving Lionel insane.
“Ah.”
And in that exhausted state, he allowed it.
Just one slip-up.
Yohan burrowed under his arm and took his back.
Immediately, the rookie’s right arm snaked out from behind like a snake and wrapped around his neck, the ulna inside his forearm pressing against Lionel’s carotid.
‘Danger.’
Before his left arm could complete the grip, instinct drove him to wedge his arm in somehow, but
“Guhk.”
His off-hand left arm, already fatigued, moved too slowly.
As it clamped down on his left bicep—now acting as a brace—a choked gasp burst from his throat.
Breathing heavily, Lionel clawed at the arm choking him like a noose or thrashed his head to resist, but even that ended when his left hand gripped the back of Lionel’s head.
‘Ah.’
A deep despair, like being trapped in some unyielding structure.
His vision rapidly filled with black spots.
His struggles grew feeble, like drowning, senses fading, only the pounding of his heart ringing in his ears like tinnitus.
‘Fuck.’
With a final curse in his mind, Lionel lost all sensation and slipped into unconsciousness.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
I watched Lionel go limp like a corpse and spoke up.
“It’s over.”
It was a sloppy figure-four grip from Yohan, but the rear naked choke was more than enough to knock out Lionel, who was already exhausted.
“Honestly, not a fight I’d want to see twice.”
This was exactly why ground fighting arts weren’t popular.
No flashy striking exchange—just two sweaty guys grinding on the floor. What’s the fun in that?
“But it ended well, right?”
I grinned at Gold Solis.
Yohan had beaten Lionel.
A dungeon newbie had triumphed over a veteran who’d reached the 28th floor.
Or from another angle: a 28th-floor crawler got utterly wrecked by a newbie.
“Now, even if something happens to Yohan later, Mayer will handle it.”
Gold Solis’s decision to boot the problem child Lionel from this expedition was spot on.
In the dungeon, uncooperative, erratic, incompetent allies were more dangerous than enemies.
Mid-layers were one thing, but lower down, factoring in guest care, he couldn’t afford that risk.
But sending Lionel back now, and having the Novis crew return via the 10th-floor recall stone…
It was obvious Lionel, seething with grudge, would retaliate against Yohan.
And Yohan, with no backing, would get crushed—directly or indirectly—by a veteran crawler with Annihilation Clan at his back.
“…Thanks to the new weapon?”
Gold Solis, who’d been silent after witnessing the unexpected outcome, finally spoke.
I tapped the hilt of Keseff Heyrel in agreement, and he nodded slightly before approaching the two who’d finished their duel.
‘He wasn’t clueless.’
He just didn’t concern himself with post-expedition matters.
Yohan’s future was predictable, but it was a personal spat from a minor argument—Gold Solis lacked the justification to intervene.
It was self-inflicted on Yohan’s part anyway.
Lionel might be at fault, but without power, you don’t pick fights, no matter how unfair.
People in this world weren’t virtuous enough to tolerate powerless fools mouthing off.
So I escalated it.
Not a passing squabble, but a public duel everyone witnessed.
Not a sloppy draw, but a clear victory and defeat.
Now, even if they both returned to the city, Lionel couldn’t touch Yohan directly.
‘Mayer won’t sit idle.’
The Crawler Guild doesn’t tolerate crawlers spilling each other’s blood.
Especially when powerful ones exploit or harm the weak—they react sensitively.
Well, that’s the principle; corruption exists everywhere people do.
‘With an incident this big.’
Handicap or not, a mid-layer crawler gunning for lower floors got smashed by a dungeon newbie—a huge scandal.
And thirty people saw it.
Once they return from this expedition, it’ll be tavern fodder for weeks.
Might spread faster than the Festival of Receiving Flesh.
If anything happens to Yohan now, the grudge and connection would be crystal clear.
Something happens to Yohan, and Mayer’s wrath—the Guild’s iron fist—comes down on Lionel, maybe even Annihilation Clan.
‘If the clan’s willing to get wrecked over it, that’s on them.’
Not my responsibility.
I popped a mana herb in my mouth and lit it.
“Hoo—”
I inhaled and exhaled, glancing at Yohan, who was surrounded by excited people chattering away.
I stood a bit apart, flicking ash from the mana herb while chuckling at Lionel, sprawled on the ground with eyes rolled back and tongue lolling.
Serves you right for picking a fight.
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“Did you think he could win?”
Delinger asked during the resumed dinner.
“To some extent.”
I swallowed some stew and replied.
For bare-handed fighting, once my buffs kicked in fully, I figured the odds were about fifty-fifty.
No crawler trains in fisticuffs, after all.
In my subjective class tier list since coming to this world, thieves were at the bottom.
Bottom of the bottom: martial artists.
Human fists, no matter how trained, lack lethality compared to blades. By a lot.
Bare-knuckle is bad enough; seriously practicing grappling? No crawlers do it.
No one wrestles monsters.
Plus, Lionel didn’t seem to have reached the 28th floor through ‘normal’ means.
Kaiden’s party hit a wall at 20, but they had that veteran edge from dancing on death’s doorstep.
This guy? Everything was amateur hour for a 28th-floor crawler.
Probably a spec-stuffed wallet warrior like now.
High weight class, but lacking combat sense, experience, fundamentals.
Even setting that aside, with amplified physicals throwing off control, precise strikes were tough either way.
A proper crawler who reached 28 on pure merit? Even with conditions, I’d give odds no higher than 10%.
“But Yohan. Is he really okay?”
Ellis looked worriedly at Yohan, who lay there without eating.
“He crammed excessive power into an immature body. There’s backlash.”
Two body amplification blessings.
One vitality supplier.
Amplified through Keseff Heyrel with my mana and shoved in.
His muscles and bones couldn’t support the output.
“He’ll probably need to focus on recovery till we hit the 10th floor.”
Not an injury treatable by recovery blessings—he’d rely on natural healing.
Maybe 2-3 weeks?
Plus longer to readjust senses twisted by amplified abilities.
‘Hm.’
Still, he beat a guy he absolutely shouldn’t have, and the aftermath’s sorted.
Cheers to that.