Volume 1 - CH 26

On the first floor of the Tower of Chalk, the party was met with a strange sight.

In the seemingly endless darkness, columns of white stood in disorderly rows like a forest of giant trees. There were no walls or partitions in sight, and only the relic lamps fixed to the columns here and there shed a dim light.

‘What is this place? I’ve never seen such a weird dungeon.’

‘Well, just about every dungeon has its weirdness, but—’

All of a sudden, Jade froze. He must have sensed something, because for the next few seconds he was silent, as if he were searching for something, before he signalled to the party with his eyes. In turn, everyone drew their weapons and stood guard.

Alina too noticed the set of heavy footsteps coming towards them.

Not long after, a giant, three-headed black hound emerged from the shadow of one of the columns—a Cerberus.

Grrrr

Known as the watchdog of Hades, the Cerberus turned all three of its heads towards the group, baring its teeth and emitting a low growl.

‘A—a Cerberus?’

Ririru’s voice cracked with tension at the appearance of the demon hound, so large she had to crane her neck to see it. Beside her, Loewe muttered words of disbelief.

‘Cerberuses are A-rank dungeon bosses. What the hell is it doing here?’

Jade raised his shield and motioned for Alina, who had started to step forward, to stop.

‘Miss Alina. When fighting as a party, the tank attacks first and takes the aggro.’

‘Huh.’

‘This is in order to make the fight go more smoothly. If the tank loses aggro, non-combatants such as Ririru are suddenly exposed to danger. To make it easier for the tank to take aggro, it’s important that the vanguard doesn’t make the first move.’

‘That makes sense.’

‘You’ve never fought in a party, have you? Then think of this as practice. Let’s go!’

GAAAAAAAA!

Along with a ferocious howl, the Cerberus spewed forth sorcerous flames from its mouths. Tongues of fiery red licked the floor and pillars as the blaze approached the party. Jade met the attack head on.

‘Activate skill: “Ironclad Guardian”!’

The flames crashed into his shield, but Jade’s skill blocked them with ease, scattering the fire in all directions. At the same time, he drew his sword and thrust it into the ground.

‘Beguiling Light!’

He cast the hallucinatory spell that unleashes a bewitching light that binds the target’s enmity to the tank alone, and for a brief moment the flash of mana-light robbed the hound of its sight. Immediately its three pairs of eyes turned towards Jade.

‘All right! Miss Alina, I took its aggro, the rest is up to—’

Jade didn’t have time to finish his sentence.

Alina grabbed the handle of her warhammer and sprinted past Jade.

Kicking off the ground, she reached the Cerberus in an instant and, as her hammer split the air with a shrill whistle, bore down on the distracted hound.

A dull thud ripped through the first floor dungeon, shaking the rows of columns to their foundations. With a sideway sweep of her hammer, Alina crushed the three lined-up heads simultaneously.

The beast let out a short, agonizing yelp.

The Cerberus, whose heads crashed into each other like a Newton’s cradle, was immobilized by a single blow, unable to even utter a death cry. The collapsed hulk disintegrated into a mist that dissipated and vanished in the darkness.

‘I see. So this is what party combat is like.’

Alina nodded heartily. She looked back to see Rururi and Loewe staring in her direction wearing blank expressions.

‘Ruru, I don’t think my magic is required today.’

‘I don’t think I’ll be doing much healing either.’

‘Eh? Did I do something wrong?’

‘…No. You did nothing wrong. Nothing wrong at all. Right. Except maybe that it kind of defeats the point of fighting as a party when you can kill monsters instantly with one hit. Just that.’

A disheartened Jade said, his shoulders slumped.

****

After that, Alina continued her monster genocide under the guise of “party combat practice”. The longest the hapless A-rank monsters monsters were allowed to live was until Jade took aggro, after which Alina booked them a meeting with their maker.

‘Still, your strength really is something to behold. It’s positively exhilarating to watch.’

Loewe nodded heartily as he watched the fourth victim of the day be turned to dust mere seconds after it appeared.

‘Since she takes down every enemy in a single hit, this feels easier than a C-rank dungeon.’

‘Does it? To me it feels like the purpose of my existence as a tank is being driven further into the ground every time she insta-kills a monster.’

Hearing Jade’s down-beaten voice, Alina scoffed.

‘I don’t have the time to spend on these small fry. The more we dawdle around here, the more my paid leave goes down the drain. I have no intention of showing any mercy.’

‘Of course, of course.’

‘By the way, leader. I’ve been thinking. Until now, no one was aware that the Tower of Chalk existed, right? But since there were already monsters here even before we arrived, does that mean that the dungeon has been here all this time, even if people couldn’t see it?’

Loewe stroked his chin and expressed his doubts.

‘That’s probably a fair assumption. Still, I have no idea why it was hidden up to now.’

Jade replied, looking around the dim darkness of the first floor.

‘Just what were the Ancestors thinking?’

‘Speaking of the Ancestors, they all disappeared one day, right.’

Alina didn’t know a great deal about the Ancestors. What little she did know was the general theory that the Ancestors who inhabited the continent had one day suddenly vanished without a trace.

‘It’s the wrath of Dia.’

It was Ririru who provided the answer.

‘The wrath of Dia?’

‘We know that the Ancestors were strongly inquisitive and were absorbed in research in pursuit of increasingly greater power. The powerful relics we have today are a remnant of that. Many believe that the dungeons housed their research facilities, and the century festival too was a ceremony to obtain power from their god. I’m sure that by becoming too absorbed in their research, they touched upon the wrath of god and were subsequently destroyed.’

‘That’s a rather far-fetched story.’

‘Perhaps, but nothing else can explain why all signs of the Ancestors just disappeared one day.’

Jade went on to explain.

‘For example, assuming that there was a ridiculously powerful monster on the Helcassia continent of old that defeated the Ancestors in a struggle for survival, it couldn’t possibly have killed every living person on the continent in a single night. There’s also no evidence of a major natural disaster having occurred that could’ve caused it to happen. Their sudden disappearance can only be explained as an act of God.’

‘Hmm.’

Keeping a cautious eye on the surroundings, Jade continued.

‘Two centuries ago the adventurers made the voyage to the continent, founded the guild and began to investigate the Ancestors. However, most of the evidence has been damaged by monsters, hindering the progress of the investigation. The discovery of this dungeon could be a welcome development in our inquest into the Ancestors.’

‘Well, I for one don’t need to discover any more of these. It’ll just mean more overtime.’

Alina grimaced as she remembered the endless days of overtime hell.