Chapter 86

In chronological order, this is the story of when Ichizo obtained "D."

"Wow, you're amazing! The monsters around here are no match for you at all!"

Furio was hyping up Jofre and Elise.

Indeed, Jofre and Elise were cutting down the monsters in this area with their golden sword or felling them with Elise's silver whip. Their performance looked impressive even without Furio's bias.

However, that was just an appearance, not a fact.

This dungeon was a beginner's dungeon, used three times a month solely for new soldiers to level up. Over ten days, the number of monsters would increase to provide hunting opportunities for experience points and magic stones. This was the safest way to gain experience points.

In fact, even Furio and Sutino, members of the secret society Masakuru, came here without permission to hunt and gain experience points without getting injured, which indicated the low level of the monsters.

Jofre and Elise, who were unaware of this, declared confidently:

"Well, that's the power of a hero!"

"And I'm showing the power of a Monster Master!"

They genuinely believed they were getting stronger.

Incidentally, the thoughts of the remaining members, Sutino and Milky, were not so simple.

Sutino was the first to notice the anomaly.

(There are too few monsters.)

The military training had taken place four days ago, so the number of monsters should have been higher. So far, they had only encountered three monsters: two goblins and a baby slime.

Normally, they would have encountered three times as many monsters by this point.

This was clearly an abnormal situation. However, Sutino smirked.

(This is a stroke of luck. With so few monsters and those two not performing well, they won't demand a share. If I give them all the magic stones and items dropped by the monsters, they'll be satisfied.)

Sutino's shallow nature, which could only calculate the gold in front of him, led to his downfall.

Meanwhile, Milky was:

(Hehe, great, Furi × Jof, oh, it's happening! The best story is unfolding.)

She was still indulging in her rosy fantasies.

Incidentally, there was also a creature named Kentaurus, a slow donkey, who was quietly eating the grass growing in the dungeon, sometimes changing the taste by eating moss.

As a result, the five people and one creature did not notice the critical situation and reached the final corner.

"Mr. Jofre, the next room is the boss room! You can easily defeat it, Mr. Jofre!"

"Ah, right! Okay, let's go!"

When they turned the corner, what they saw was an unbelievable scene, one that defied the logic of this world.

The door to the boss room, which was said to be unbreakable by any monster's power, was shattered.

Beyond the shattered door, they could see the figures of five people.

To their surprise, it was Milky who reacted first.

(Silencing charms!)

She deployed five silencing charms around them and gestured for everyone to be quiet. The silencing charms made them harder to detect and their sounds less audible, but they still had an effect.

She then gestured for everyone to step back and move into the blind spots of the people inside.

"What are they?"

"The door was broken, thoroughly—"

Jofre and Elise said this without much tension.

Furio thought they were impressive, but Milky's reaction was different. She silenced the two,

(Those are Corat's operatives... I think... They seem to have received special training.)

At these words, the eyes of the four others changed. Jofre and Elise also understood that Dacat and Corat were bitter enemies and that the presence of this unit was not ordinary.

"What do we do? Jofre?"

"What do we do? It's obvious! This is sabotage. They're trying to destroy the statue of the goddess and ruin the dungeon's function."

"For what purpose?"

"For what... hmm... for what purpose?"

As the two continued their whispered conversation, Milky thought seriously.

If the dungeon were to disappear, it wouldn't just mean the loss of a stable place to level up. The function of collecting miasma would be lost, causing the surrounding monsters to become more aggressive, or the miasma would gather in Corat's dungeons, making it easier for the Corat army to level up. The strength of an army depends not only on the quality and quantity of weapons but also on the level of the soldiers.

Therefore, there was a reason for the destruction of the dungeon, and Milky thought it was not entirely wrong.

(But how did they break it? The door to the boss room can't be broken by ordinary means.)

If they had such technology, wouldn't there be a more efficient way to achieve their goal rather than resorting to such a roundabout method? Milky thought.

"What do we do, Furio? If they're there, we can't just leave this."

Sutino sighed and took a ball from his pocket.

"Why don't we just leave it around here? We can make it look like it flew out when the boss door was broken."

"That's it! You're a genius!"

The ball wouldn't logically fly out just because the boss door was broken, but Sutino, wanting to leave the scene, excitedly suggested to Furio and rolled the transparent ball towards the room before the boss room like a bowling ball.

"No!"

Milky tried to stop him, but the ball Sutino threw from the corner rolled straight and passed through the silencing charm she had set up, hitting the shattered boss door.

The sound made the people behind the door look in their direction. Milky immediately took a defensive stance.

The silencing charms were meant to prevent the people from focusing on them. Once they focused, if the operatives saw the charms, they wouldn't be able to escape.

Milky had already seen through the fact that Jofre and Elise's strength was not as great as it seemed.

"Let's run, everyone... Don't worry, with my imagination, I can still create a story with just the masked men whose faces can't be seen."

"Okay, I'll leave it to you!"

Furio grabbed Sutino's arm as he tried to run.

"Sutino, that's not an option. Relax, we have Mr. Jofre on our side! We won't lose."

"Th... That's not necessarily true! Even if it is, we'll just be a burden."

Sutino, who had been stopped by Furio's blind faith, collapsed on the spot, unable to move.

"Leave it to me! After all, I'm a hero!"

"I'm a Monster Master, so I'm fine too!"

The two rushed forward—

"Captain, two idiots are coming this way."

By chance or accurately, the man called the captain described Jofre and Elise. He said,

"Leave them be, it's time—Glory to our homeland."

As he shouted, darkness enveloped the man and the five others.

By the time they realized the darkness was filled with countless monsters, everyone had already fled.

I originally wanted to split this into a postscript, but it seemed better to post it all together. The next part will also be a side story.