Chapter 18 18 : Dungeon Reset

"MOTHER! MOTHER! MOTHER! WAKE UP! MOTHER!" Allen repeatedly shouted, cried, and called Queen Orc again and again.

Leofric, who was bleeding because Queen Orc broke his hand, called Blanche to stop the bleeding. He looked at Allen, who was crying in front of Queen Orc's corpse, which was very strange to him.

'Queen Orc on the 1st floor, and now a black-haired little boy who can speak the monster language. He called her 'mother,' what does that mean? How could an orc give birth to a human child? There's definitely something strange about this dungeon. For now, we should retreat and investigate further.'

Leofric was going to ask Allen later. The most important thing was that the Queen Orc was dead, and since his hand was hurt, he wanted to go back and get better first.

While walking back, Leofric recalled his battle with Queen Orc.

'Queen Orc's last attack… what exactly was her plan? It was obvious that Queen Orc sacrificed herself just to take my right hand. Her strategy was not to kill me but to sever my right hand. But why? If she dies at the end, there is no point in taking my right hand. I didn't think that clever orc thought so briefly.'

Heit, as Leofric's weapon connect with his master's mana, so she could sense his master's hesitation.

"Master, you are overthinking it. Queen Orc is already dead; there is no need to think of such a useless thing," said Heit.

"You're right."

Leofric continued walking, getting closer to Mathias.

BUT SUDDENLY

There was a massive quake.

"What now?!" said Leofric in surprise.

The dungeon's walls shifted, and the altar at the end of the room slowly sank. The ceiling, the walls, everything was moving.

The torch's blue flame, illuminating the room, suddenly went out.

"!!!"

The soldiers panicked; there was a sound of armor insistence in the back when everything went dark.

The chamber became bone-chillingly cold. Everyone there had no idea what was happening, except for one person who was aware of the situation; it was Mathias.

"YOUR HIGHNESS! THIS IS A DUNGEON RESET! RUN HERE! QUICK!"

As soon as Mathias said that, the flames in the torches on the wall lit up again, but this time the color of the flames was not blue, but green.

Even though green flames were shining down on the room, it still looked dark

The soldiers shouted

"WAAAAAAA!!!"

They shouted because of the figure standing behind Leofric.

"YOUR HIGHNESS! GET AWAY FROM THERE!"

The figure behind him swung his giant bludgeon at Leofric's right body.

"GAH!!!" Leofric was thrown to the side of the chamber; his body hit the wall very hard.

"YOUR HIGHNESS!" Blanche and Mathias shouted.

"Mother!" Allen shouted happily.

That figure was Queen Orc, who had been badly injured later, but was now standing without any wounds on her body. But there was something different about Queen Orc. Her body looked more extensive and more muscular. There were two horns above each ear, her eyes became sharp, her pupils were red, and her nails were getting longer and sharper. Queen Orc looked at her broken left hand that was broken off earlier and tried to move it freely.

"So this is the power of the overseer who watched the dungeon reset ten times," muttered the Queen Orc.

Leofric, who had been knocked down, slowly stood up and wiped the ashes off his clothes.

"Oya oya oya, now I understand why you focused on breaking my hand before dying. From the beginning, you didn't intend to die at all…"

Then he continued,

"The dungeon reset, so you're buying time for this. There must be some special impact if a monster can experience the dungeon reset up to ten times; you've even become fluent in human language. Does your intelligence also relate to the dungeon reset?"

Queen Orc looked at Leofric, who looked unharmed from the attack earlier.

"I didn't expect you to be completely unharmed after being hit by that attack earlier," said Queen Orc, who ignored Leofric's question.

As the Queen Orc was speaking, Leofric's body glowed green. Seeing that, Queen Orc immediately looked towards Leofric's party caster, Petronella.

"Papaver sap swathe" It seemed that Patronella had finished chanting a combination of soil and water amnis. It was an amnis, which could alleviate pain.

'He pretended to look refined and engaged me in conversation to buy the caster time to activate the amnis,' thought Queen Orc.

Far behind the Queen orc, Allen smiled, his tears gone.

"Mother! Are you really okay now? Let's just run!"

Queen Orc didn't look at Allen. She ignored him.

Mathius, who was far behind Leofric and was concerned about the Queen orc's change, immediately warned Leofric,

"Your Highness! Be careful of her abilities! She's not a Queen Orc anymore!"

A dungeon reset occurs every 50 years. When a dungeon reset occurs, the dungeon will reconstruct itself and unleash an incredible amount of demonic mana inside the dungeon.

The demonic mana given by the dungeon will be absorbed by the monsters inside, and the monsters that receive the demonic mana will evolve into a new-more powerful type. Queen Orc had already passed the dungeon reset ten times. which means she has received a large amount of demonic mana up to ten times. And as a witness of the dungeon reset for the tenth time, she evolved into a more vigorous and higher monster, namely

"Orc demon lord," said Mathias.

The highest level of orc, the orc demon lord, can only be found on the tenth floor. And currently, that monster is on the first floor.

"The most dangerous thing about the demon lord is that, because it receives a large amount of mana, just like humans who have an ability called god's blessing, it also gets a special ability called the demon's curse," Mathias explained.

With a big smile, Leofric strolled towards the Queen Orc, no, this time she is...

"Orc Demon Lord... I'm grateful to be able to fight you on the first floor."

For Leofric, the advantage of fighting the demon lord on the first floor was that he could fight her in better conditions than on the tenth floor. If he met the demon lord on the tenth floor, he could have fought her while exhausted and out of mana.

"But even you evolve… You're still weaker than me," Leofric said with great confidence. The aura from his mana overflowed outside Leofric's body like an aura.

Emotions affected mana, and for Leofric, his confidence was the most substantial and needed emotion for his mana. The more confident and excited he was, the stronger his mana would be.

Leofric set up his stance. He was preparing to attack. But it wasn't Leofric who started the first attack. The Queen Orc marched with incredible speed towards Leofric. She struck her bludgeon at Leofric's face, and Leofric parried it with his lance.

The Queen Orc's speed increased, but Leofric could still keep up. More specifically, their speeds were now more or less balanced. Every impact from the Queen Orc's bludgeon to his lance, created sound waves, and the air around them looked chaotic.

In the middle of the battle, the Queen Orc thought,

'Even I've broken off his hand and evolved into a demon lord, my chances of winning are still small. My speed and strength may be on par with his, but I'm still no match. That's because he has that adfeqtus reliqua-Lance weapon.'

Adfeqtus Reliqua is a relic born within a dungeon. Each weapon represents the emotion of the dungeon itself. This weapon could only be obtained by people who successfully completed the dungeon, Leofric being one of them.

The difference between an ordinary weapon and an adfeqtus reliqua was in its soul. The adfeqtus reliqua is almost like a human being, it has its own soul and consciousness and is not just a piece of matter. And because they had their own souls, they also absorbed mana and had their own abilities.

Queen Orc thought that adfeqtus reliqua was the reason she could not win against Leofric, because this weapon synchronized its mana with the owner's mana. Which means they can share feelings and thoughts. That's why the user of this weapon has a parallel mind; the user can ask the weapon to control his body while his brain thinks of a plan to beat the opponent.

'My situation is getting desperate. He can think of a strategy to defeat me while attacking me brutally. If this continues, I will lose.'

Queen Orc then used both hands to swing her bludgeon at Leofric. Leofric, who was ready to dodge the bludgeon, was surprised. It turned out that she was doing the trick again. She threw her bludgeon at Leofric and then retreated.

"You think the same tactic will work on me? Your left hand is mine!" So actually, he did not surprise, he had ignored the bludgeon since the beginning, and he was betting the Queen Orc would let go of the bludgeon when he saw her use both of her hands. So defenselessly, he advanced forward.

-SPLAAT

The Queen Orc's left hand was again severed, and of course, it would not regenerate because of Heit.

"Oya… Now we both only have one hand, huh?"

"I already predicted that," said Queen Orc, who had also deliberately sacrificed her right hand to widen their distance.

"What?"

Queen Orc somersaulted backward, moving up to ten meters away from Leofric.

Queen Orc raised her hand; there was a sort of black-colored spherical aura above her palm.

"MASTER! DON'T LET HER DO THAT!" said Heit.

Leofric quickly aimed his lance at Queen Orc's body. But before his lance could reach her, Queen Orc pressed her palm to the ground, then said:

"DEMON'S CURSE : ORC's RAGE"

The Queen Orc's shadow spread rapidly throughout the room.

Leofric, who was attacking the Queen Orc, stopped because the tip of his lance hit something. In front of Leofric, another orc was coming out of the Queen Orc's shadow. The orc immediately fell because it received Leofric's attack.

One by one, orcs came out of the Queen Orc's shadow all over the place.

"Damn it, so this is Queen Orc's demon's curse!"