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“Damn it!”

Hildegard let out a short sigh.

“This dungeon is truly vicious!”

How long had it been since they entered the dungeon? By the time they reached the 6th floor, their assessment of the dungeon had completely changed from what it was on the 1st floor.

On the 2nd floor, they encountered a massive slime blob that took over the entire dungeon passage. The Nun Knights had to carve their way through the slime-filled corridor, as if digging through a mine, to move forward.

On the 3rd floor, they faced a dungeon where the passages themselves were made of golems, constantly shifting and changing. After wandering around for a while, the Nun Knights finally figured out the situation and had to smash through the passages until they found the golem’s core to clear the floor.

The 4th floor presented a narrow stone path formed over a magma lake. The problem was that some of these paths were real, while others were illusions, and some were invisible but still solid. To make matters worse, fire-attribute or fire-and-rock dual-attribute monsters kept popping up, making it hard to focus on finding the right path. Thankfully, Sophia, who had keen senses, guided them through this section without much trouble.

The 5th floor required solving puzzles every time they defeated a monster blocking their path. The catch was that if they failed to solve the puzzle within the time limit, they would be forcibly teleported back to the entrance of the 5th floor, and all the monsters they had defeated would respawn. Fortunately, Conra had a talent for puzzles, and after a few tries, the party managed to clear the floor.

And so, they arrived at the 6th floor. Coincidentally, the 6th floor was the open-type dungeon that Sophia and Hildegard had been dreading. To make things worse, it was a notoriously tricky subtropical jungle terrain.

Still, since it was a dungeon, the items they had acquired from defeating the gatekeepers of the previous floors contained clues to clear the 6th floor. These clues were a map, a compass, and a parchment with cryptic hints.

The problem was that the process felt eerily similar to the quest progression in the MMORPG that Sophia had played in her past life as Lee Beom-seok. They had to follow the hints on the map and compass, enduring all sorts of hardships to reach the indicated locations, only to find another hint pointing to a new destination. After scouring the entire jungle like this, they finally arrived at an altar located just 100 steps away from the 6th floor entrance.

When the three of them reached the altar, it was glowing blue in real-time, as if summoning something.

It was at this moment that Hildegard sighed.

They say that when people get too angry, they become eerily calm. At this moment, the three of them were staring at the glowing altar with stiff expressions, as if they had made a silent agreement.

If the hints they had gathered so far were correct, this was undoubtedly the final location of the dungeon. Suddenly, Hildegard spoke.

“This dungeon feels a bit too artificial, doesn’t it?”

“Hmm. It’s definitely not the type of dungeon I’m familiar with,” Sophia replied.

The dungeons Sophia knew were usually one of two types: either ruins-like dungeons or dungeons that recreated some past time and space. The former could be cleared by simply exploring like a spellcaster’s hideout or ancient ruins, while the latter required figuring out the dungeon’s desired clear conditions within the recreated time and space.

“At least none of the dungeons I know are as childish as this one.”

Hearing Sophia’s response, Conra nodded at the phrase “childish” but soon tilted his head with a strange expression.

‘No matter how I think about it, calling a dungeon that would wipe out even the “powerful individuals” Master and Wolfstein mentioned as “childish” seems a bit too much, doesn’t it?’

Of course, Conra knew Sophia wasn’t talking about the difficulty.

Something was definitely off. Although this was his first dungeon experience, he could still sense the atmosphere. Frankly, the dungeon they had just cleared felt more like an intellectual plaything or a toy for nobles rather than a genuine challenge.

Someone had set this up as a prank. That much was clear.

“Anyway, if we want to figure it out, we should probably deal with the gatekeeper that’s about to be summoned first,” Conra said.

As Conra suggested, their priority was to take down the gatekeeper that was about to be summoned and then think about the rest.

The blue light from the altar grew increasingly intense, to the point where it felt like it could burn their eyes. The three of them closed their eyes and heightened their other senses. Then, Hildegard whispered softly.

“It’s coming!”

Whoooosh!!!

With a heavy sound, a slash that seemed capable of splitting a mountain swept through the spot where the three had been standing. They dodged the slash by stepping back lightly, and then, as if by agreement, they charged forward even faster toward the enemy.

The moment they opened their eyes, they saw their opponent.

It was a giant figure clad in massive armor. The 6th-floor gatekeeper, with a body as sturdy as bronze, wore a helmet resembling that of a bird of prey and was fully clad in bronze armor.

“Whoa!”

Crash!

The moment they opened their eyes, the summoned gatekeeper was raising a greatsword high. Instinctively, Hildegard raised her halberd to block the vertical slash that came down like lightning. Her lips twitched.

‘This guy’s attacks are heavy.’

But Hildegard’s expression remained calm. She had seen Sophia, who had already leaped into the air, flying toward the enemy’s back. However, her smile faded immediately after.

With a screech, the bronze giant twisted its upper body and swung its greatsword in a half-rotation. Thud! Sophia, who had blocked the greatsword with her longsword, was sent flying far away.

“You bastard!”

With a shout, Hildegard swung the axe blade of her halberd toward the back of the bronze giant’s knee, aiming to restrict its movement. But the bronze giant swiftly deflected the axe blade with its greatsword.

Of course, Hildegard wasn’t disappointed. She hadn’t expected it to be easy in the first place. She immediately stepped back and aimed the spear tip of her halberd forward, carefully adjusting her stance.

Conra, seizing the moment, leaped in. With a beast-like movement, he stepped on the bronze giant’s knee and thrust his spear with all his might toward the gap in the helmet. However, the bronze giant simply turned its head, causing Conra’s spear to slide off the helmet’s surface and bounce away.

“Hey, turning your head like that is cheating…!”

Before he could finish his sentence, Conra, whose ankle had been grabbed by the bronze giant, was mercilessly slammed into the ground.

“Ugh, d-damn it.”

Conra, with broken bones and shaken organs, coughed dryly as he lay on the ground. Through his blurred vision, he saw Hildegard successfully thrusting the beak of her halberd into the bronze giant’s helmet.

Is this it? Conra’s hope was shattered the next moment when the bronze giant skillfully performed a half-swording maneuver with its greatsword. Hildegard, now unable to use her halberd effectively, was forced on the defensive against the bronze giant’s half-swording.

If it weren’t for another force in the party, even the mighty Nun Knight Hildegard might have been in serious trouble. As Conra coughed and chanted a spell, he slammed his spear into the ground, causing vine-like tendrils to snake out and grab the bronze giant’s ankles.

Immediately after, Conra, having swallowed an alchemist’s elixir, transformed into a werewolf using druid magic and charged at the bronze giant once more.

At the same time, Sophia, who had been sent flying earlier, reappeared near the bronze giant like a ghost. Her golden hair fluttered as her blue eyes glared at the bronze giant with killing intent.

 

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