Laid-Back Dungeon Raid And Edgar’s Serious Side

We made love even in the dungeon, and then the next day Liricia and I resumed our raid.

By early afternoon, we finally managed to track down the Dungeon Core room in the middle of the mountain range.

There was a round sphere in the center of the hall.

A black orb sat there in a pompous way on top of a red carpet.

The moment we stepped inside, the orb began to flicker rapidly in surprise.

— Wait, is that some kind of attack!?

I raised my sword and charged.

Liricia’s voice rang out from behind me.

“There’s a teleport tile on the floor! Five steps to the left!”

I dodged the tile she pointed out and closed in on the Dungeon Core.

Gagooon!

My thrusting sword pierced the core clean through from the side.

It let out a shrill, grating beeping sound.

Right then, there was a strange poof behind me.

When I turned, a whole roast bird had somehow appeared on the teleport tile.

White steam rose from it and a delicious smell drifted over.

— Why!? Is that supposed to be a kind of attack too…!?

While I was thrown off by the sudden roast chicken, the core’s light went out and it stopped moving.

— Looked like I’d beaten it.

Back when I’d studied how cores worked, I’d learned they were thinner at the sides, so it had been simple.

“So this is the dungeon core of the mountain range. That was anticlimactic.”

“Breaking it in a single blow… as expected, Master is so very strong.”

Liricia spread her angelic wings and came to my side.

Then I noticed the faint creaking tremor running through the hall.

“Uh, won’t the place collapse now that the core’s broken?”

My sub-core terminal vibrated.

When I pulled it out and checked the screen, a message from Kou had come in.

“Don’t worry, Master. Some dungeons crumble when you beat the core and some don’t.”

“So this one’s not going to fall apart. Good.”

“No, this one will fall apart.”

“That’s bad!”

The cracking sounds spread outward.

“Pour magic into the terminal while pressing it against the core.”

“Like this?”

I pushed the flat, plate-shaped terminal against the broken core while channeling Serâge into it.

From the point of contact, the black orb began to turn white.

Once it was entirely white, a panel on the side of the core clanked open.

A platform slid out, and on it sat four hexagonal gems, each about the size of a palm.

They were brightly colored jewels—red, green, and so on.

“Hijack complete. I’ve turned off the self-destruct. — And those are the core’s own cores. I can’t absorb them, so I’d like you to bring them back.”

“Got it… though I’m selling one of them as proof for the report.”

“Roger. Just don’t sell the green one, please.”

“That’s the one they stole from you, huh. All right. — Come to think of it, there weren’t any golems here. Where’s the Mithril Golem in particular?”

I asked as I put the gems in a bag.

If I powered Kou up, our living conditions would improve.

I’d wanted to bring back mithril, since that would mean a massive boost in strength.

“Let me see… I shipped it to the thirtieth floor of the Royal Capital Eastern Dungeon, Master.”

“I see. And now what?”

“If possible, I’d really like it, Master.”

“Then can you link a passage all the way there?”

“I can’t reach the thirtieth floor, but I can connect to the twenty-ninth.”

“Then do that.”

“Roger. The passage is going to be a little long, though.”

An entrance to a passage opened up in the wall.

Liricia and I stepped inside.

“Careful. There might be people around. Put the wings away.”

“Yes, Master.”

Liricia folded the wings on her back.

Our fighting strength dropped a lot, but it couldn’t be helped.

I walked in front with my sword at the ready while she followed behind, looking through her finger monocle as we made our way down the long passage.

Her slender fingertips brushed lightly against my back, and the touch was incredibly cute.

Meanwhile.

On the lowest floor of the Royal Capital Eastern Dungeon.

The Chaos Dragon, who had been sleeping in a small room, woke up when it noticed the ring of distant metal.

Something was fighting out there.

When it probed for presences, it found that most of them were golems.

— No meat… huh? Oh?

There were five small, tender-looking pieces of meat down here!

The Chaos Dragon got to its feet and started walking toward the tastiest one.

Edgar’s party was fighting on the thirtieth basement floor.

They were buying time until Marius’s party could retreat back to the base on the twenty-ninth floor.

The children held their formation, guarding firmly while slowly falling back.

They steadily defeated charging Goblin Knights and Rock Golems.

Edgar focused mainly on taking down the Iron Golems.

His short sword flashed as he shattered their golem cores in a single strike.

By then, they had wiped out all the monsters that had been trying to pincer Marius’s party.

Edgar let out a slow breath and lifted his head.

“Looking good. Let’s keep it up like this.”

“““Yes, Captain!”””

The kids answered him brightly.

At that moment, a chill ran down Edgar’s spine.

A creeping, formless terror rose up inside him.

— What is this…? Something’s bad. Really bad.

Sensing a primal fear, Edgar instinctively gave an order.

“Retreat! Cross Retreat Formation!”

“““Huh!?”””

The children froze in confusion.

The Cross Retreat Formation.

They had practiced many different formations under Edgar’s command.

But he had never once ordered the Cross Retreat Formation in an actual battle.

It was the formation they would use when an enemy appeared that they absolutely could not handle—so that the kids could escape alone, leaving Edgar behind.

The children understood it meant losing Edgar.

The youngest girl, their healer, trembled as she pleaded.

“W-we can’t live without you, Captain Edgar! You took in us orphans and raised us… We can’t die before we repay you! My healing magic will—”

She got that far before she flinched and fell silent.

From beneath his shaggy bangs, Edgar was glaring at her with a fearsome intensity.

“The traps haven’t reset yet. If you run straight back to the base, you’ll be fine. Mok, Seema, you remember the route, right?”

Mok, the bespectacled boy hunter, and Seema, the girl ranger, nodded with grave expressions. Seema’s short black hair swayed.

“Then get going.”

The healer girl looked up at Edgar, eyes brimming with tears.

“Captain, why!? We’ve come this far together!”

“Quit yelling! You want me to say you’re just dead weight?”

At that, the girl jumped and clamped her mouth shut.

In that instant, Mok the hunter and Seema the ranger hooked their arms under her shoulders and hoisted her up.

“Let’s go, Yuma!”

“Yeah. Keely, you take rear guard!”

“Leave it to me.”

With the boy swordsman Yuma’s shout in the lead, the healer in the center, the ranger and hunter flanking her, and boy warrior Keely bringing up the rear, they formed a cross-shaped formation and ran back the way they had come.

The girl’s sorrowful voice echoed down the passage.

“Wait! Don’t leave Captain behind! I’ll protect you, I will—!”

But little by little, her voice grew fainter, and then it vanished.

They had probably retreated up to the higher floor.

Perhaps because it heard her voice, the monstrous presence pressed in even more viciously.

Edgar chuckled under his breath and reached into his coat.

“Even if I go all out, I’m not sure I can win…”

He pulled out a whole bundle of kunai, throwing stars, and spirit talismans threaded on a string, like a magician producing props.

He wrapped the string around his waist like a belt.

This was Edgar’s serious loadout.

There was a reason he always acted like he had no motivation.

He’d been holding back so he wouldn’t reveal who he really was.

In terms of raw ability, he was on par with S-rank.

But whoever was coming down that hallway was on a completely different level of strength.

Sweat began to trickle unpleasantly down Edgar’s forehead.

Then the thing finally appeared around the bend in the passage.

It looked like a lizard about a meter long, its filthy scales a mottled mix of black and green.

He also realized it had taken heavy injuries. It shouldn’t have been able to use even half of its true power.

Even so, it radiated such a murderous, corrupt aura that just being exposed to it would be enough to stop an E-rank adventurer’s heart.

Edgar’s knees shook uncontrollably.

“I haven’t had battle jitters like this since I was a kid… This thing’s seriously strong. I don’t know if even the Guildmaster and the Knight Commander together could win… I might not even be able to buy five minutes…”

The lizard’s eyes met Edgar’s.

In the same instant, it charged at him like a launched arrow.

Edgar put two fingers to the side of his mouth and shouted.

“Fire Style — Crimson Purgatory Flame Art!”

A torrent of searing hellfire blasted from Edgar’s mouth.

It corkscrewed forward, filling the corridor.

But the lizard plowed straight through the flames as if his art were nothing, racing directly at him.

At the same time, Edgar had thrown his throwing stars and kunai.

They pattered against the lizard’s face, failing to so much as scratch it, but they made it reflexively squeeze its eyes shut.

Edgar moved in that opening.

He formed a hand seal and yelled.

“Earth Style — Great Elephant Gate!”

A thick earthen wall surged up from the floor.

It rose between the two of them, blocking the view.

But against the lizard’s headlong charge, a wall of dirt was meaningless.

It swung its claws, smashing the wall to pieces in a single blow and lunged forward.

— Except.

Edgar, who should have been right there, had vanished.

The lizard whipped its head around, searching for him.

Then Edgar’s voice rang out from directly overhead.

“Up here. — Water Style — Water-Thunder Blossom!”

The lizard reacted to the voice and glanced up at the same moment Edgar kicked off the ceiling and brought his kunai down.

The kunai, sheathed in blue lightning, pierced the lizard’s left eye.

Then the spirit talisman wrapped around the kunai bloomed into a flurry of small explosions.

“Gugyaaaah!”

The lizard screamed, lashing out with its claws and tail at the same time.

Edgar shouted.

“Ninja Art — Substitution!”

There was a puff of smoke.

The lizard’s attack only shredded a wooden log into splinters.

Edgar was already gone.

“Hisshaaaa!”

Raging amid the swirling wood chips, the lizard rampaged wildly.

Then it paused to sniff the smell of blood and calmed down.

The tip of its tail was stained red.

It flicked out its long tongue to lick the blood and shuddered.

Then, after sniffing the scent on its tail, it turned its shining right eye toward the matching scent and started walking.

Meanwhile, Edgar was a short distance away.

Leaning against the wall, he walked while clutching his blood-soaked side.

Every step he took squeezed fresh, bright red blood out between his fingers.

“Gods, that hurts… Spent everything I had and all I bought was one eye in exchange for my guts, huh… Odds are pretty terrible.”

His eyes, hidden under his bangs, narrowed as he let out a wry chuckle—then he still forced himself to stumble onward, one step at a time.