“The boss rooms…… are increasing?”
The moment the startled Sereuhi finished speaking, a thunderous roar rang out.
BANG! BANG! BANG! KWA-KWANG-BANG!
The doors to every boss room were shaking. As if something inside were struggling to break free, the sounds of doors shaking and being struck vibrated through the air.
Sereuhi, who had been staring blankly at the bizarre situation, finally opened his mouth.
“……Did the bosses multiply or something?”
Gidan smirked, baring his teeth. It had been a while since he felt his blood boiling.
“Who knows. Guess we’ll find out if we clear them all?”
[Activating the skill ‘Violet Bloodstream’.]
[Activating the skill ‘Breath of the Lion’.]
A powerful wave of mana began to suck in all the surrounding air.
Groo, who had been diligently hoeing away, opened his eyes wide and tumbled backward.
“Uweh?”
“That bastard! Firing off skills without even checking his surroundings like a maniac!”
Sereuhi cursed Gidan and snatched Groo up.
Just as he tried to move to set Groo down in a safe place—
In that instant, the dungeon’s temperature plummeted. A frigid chill so cold it felt like even breathing would freeze bored into their skin.
The boss rooms that had been banging had all fallen silent before anyone knew it.
“…….”
“…….”
Amid the suffocating tension.
Gidan and Sereuhi’s gazes converged on one spot.
There stood a child.
Gidan closed the distance to the child at a speed invisible to the eye and thrust the tip of his sword forward.
“What are you?”
The child looked up at Gidan with the same listless face.
“I am—”
The child’s mouth tore open lengthwise.
“Roballi.”
The shadow that started from the tips of the being’s feet surged and writhed, then split into countless tendrils and began to swirl violently.
[Roballi Peoldok (SSS)]
“SSS-rank…….”
Gidan let out a low growl after confirming Roballi’s rank.
Then Roballi swung its surging shadows like whips, and Gidan barely blocked them.
The shadows whipped at him one or two at a time, horrifyingly precise and sharp.
A chill ran down his spine. It felt far stronger than the Mallikian he had fought before.
They had to run for now. If he was with Sereuhi, buying time should be enough.
However, there was one major variable.
Because there was no guarantee that the currently silent boss room doors wouldn’t open.
Judging by how the boss rooms had gone silent after Roballi’s appearance, the monsters were definitely under Roballi’s control.
‘In that case, the top priority is…….’
Gidan turned his head.
Sereuhi met his eyes and nodded as if he knew.
‘Protecting Groo.’
Receiving the tense gazes of Gidan and Sereuhi, Groo, hoe in hand, opened his mouth with a “Huh.”
*
Unlike Gidan and Sereuhi, Groo showed no tension whatsoever.
Beside such a child, Beillakeu held his head up like a meerkat, and Mephisto’s eyes gleamed with a flash.
The two were thinking the same thing.
‘It’s an SSS-grade nourishing dish…….’
Ever since tasting takoyaki, Mephisto had been unable to erase thoughts of nourishing food from his mind.
And now, a precious nourishing dish had rolled right in front of his eyes.
Greed overflowed from Mephisto’s eyes and mouth.
Mephisto clicked his beak once and pecked at the air.
Then a quest window popped up in front of Groo.
[Caregiver Quest: Let’s make a filial nourishing dish for caregiver ‘Mephisto’!]
[Caregiver Mephisto was not full from takoyaki. Let’s make an SSS-grade filial nourishing dish for Mephisto, who needs nourishment!]
‘Ta-tako!’
Groo recalled the memory of making takoyaki from an SSS-rank monster and feeding it to Mephisto.
‘He was a bad guy.’
Since he had tried to eat Mephisto first. He deserved what he got.
Groo raised his hand, gripping the hoe tightly.
‘Do I have to make it again?’
To think he had to use that dangerous power again. Today, the hoe felt especially heavy.
The sight that greeted his wide eyes was fierce.
He saw Serehhi stirring up sandstorms to obstruct the enemy’s vision while firing magic, and Gidan desperately swinging his sword and blocking with his body.
As if testing Gidan and Sereuhi, every time one shadow was cut, it became two; when two were cut, they became three—Roballi increased them one by one as it pressed the attack.
When all the shadows had been cut and blown away, a brief lull occurred.
“Is that finally the end? What else can you do now?”
Gidan caught his breath and sneered.
But Roballi merely stared at Gidan without moving a muscle.
Then, Sereuhi shouted.
“Gidan! Look in front!”
KWANG!!
In an instant, Roballi’s surging shadows were drawn inward.
And the moment its body seemed to waver, Gidan’s figure flew backward with a thunderous roar.
There, standing alone where Gidan had been, was Roballi.
Gidan, embedded in the ground, didn’t move an inch.
*Gulp.*
‘Fuck……. I couldn’t see it.’
Swallowing dryly, Sereuhi gripped his magic staff tightly, unable to take his eyes off Roballi.
*Swish.*
Roballi’s head tilted sideways, making eye contact with Sereuhi.
Roballi’s face, which had remained expressionless the whole time, began to contort grotesquely.
The corners of its widely opened eyes tore open, and multiple pupils spun around frantically.
Once Sereuhi’s image was reflected in the pupils and the busy-moving irises stopped, its mouth tore open lengthwise, forming a horrifying smile.
Brrr!
Every hair on his body stood on end.
Sereuhi instinctively felt death in that instant.
The moment he unknowingly closed his eyes.
A cold chill that seeped down to his lungs constricted his body. Frost was slowly spreading from beneath his feet.
“Ha—”
Sereuhi’s breath came out white.
No matter how much of a frost realm monster it was, an S-rank shouldn’t be assailed by such bone-chilling cold…….
Carefully opening his eyes, he saw that Roballi’s attack had stopped mere inches away.
Roballi seemed frozen solid, as if turned to ice on a snowy plain.
Sereuhi’s eyes trembled violently.
And soon, what entered his sight was…….
‘Groo?’
Roballi was staring at the small figure trudging through the snow as if looking at something terrifying.
Roballi swallowed.
Though the opponent was just a small child, fear and awe engraved in its genes surged forth.
It was the moment it instinctively tried to kneel before its sovereign.
“Urk!”
Suddenly, pain like its skull shattering washed over it.
‘Mother……!’
“Krrgh!”
Roballi defied its instinct and attacked Sereuhi once more.
It was when Sereuhi, unable to defend in time, sucked in a breath.
*Vroooom—*
*Vroom. Vroom.*
Groo’s bag opened, and drones began taking flight like bees whose hive had been attacked.
They were cooperative drones Groo had devised after seeing an aircraft carrier.
The drones that rose in perfect unison unleashed concentrated fire upon Roballi.
*Pew!*
*KWAKWAKWAKWAKWAKWAGWANG!!*
Pummeled by railguns fired incessantly from eight drones, Roballi couldn’t come to its senses.
Its entire body was being shredded apart by the focused bombardment that stunned its soul.
Unable to dodge due to an unknown dominating power, Roballi’s figure didn’t take long to collapse while taking the beating.
Roballi couldn’t believe that it had been knocked flat on the ground without even being able to resist once.
Its mind was filled with nothing but the desire to get up right now and kill all the humans in the dungeon.
But.
“Naughty kids have to be punished.”
The little child thrusting a sharp hoe before its eyes was engraved as an endlessly gigantic and terrifying existence, so it could only tremble while collapsed on the ground.
*
Mother’s order was not difficult.
With its power, it could easily drive humans into a corner.
Roballi had thought so.
But me? Why?
How can a human open the cradle?
Putting that aside, do I have to look this horrible?
Roballi couldn’t believe it.
Before it knew it, it was inside a clay pot.
While shivering from a chill—whether from the harsh cold of the snowy plain or from fear of the little child, it couldn’t tell—warm water was continuously poured over its body.
With bewildered eyes, Roballi looked at its stubby arms. They were the wings of a typical flightless bird.
SSS-rank monster, Roballi Peoldok.
It had now become a plucked quail inside a clay pot.
It wasn’t just Roballi who was bewildered.
Gidan, who had been wiping the blood from his mouth as he got up under the influence of the green-glowing drones flying around, and Sereuhi, who had been recovering his depleted mana.
They were all looking at one person with blank expressions.
The one who became the center of that gaze snorted through his nose and spoke solemnly.
“You are Mephi’s filial nourishing dish.”