Live Dungeon!

Unlike Eunice, who had been gradually, sneakily moving her seat closer to Tsutomu, Lorena came at him with words as sharp as daggers,

“So the mentor pawns off all the trouble on his students while he chases skirts. Lovely. Die in a ditch, why don’t you?”

She stormed off toward the changing rooms, her retreating back radiating malice… though, if one looked closely, there was a faint loneliness in the way her shoulders drooped.

“Hey, go after her!” Alma snapped, jabbing a thumb in the direction Lorena had gone.

“What, and get myself arrested? I’m NOT going into the girls’ changing room.” Tsutomu replied blandly.

“That’s not what I meant! I don’t want people thinking I’m your girlfriend or something! Just go tell her it was a consultation!”

“…”

Tsutomu gave her a thoroughly disgusted look, but Alma pressed on, undeterred.

“And what the hell is wrong with you!? Why didn’t you run after her just now!? This is why, even though you’re at the top of the rankings, no one likes you! You’ve got zero initiative, you feckless lump!”

“I’m not in this line of work for the popularity contest, you damn hag…”

“H-Hag!?” Alma let out a shriek. “Agh! Hey, you there! Go after that girl! We can’t just leave her like that!”

“C’mon, Tsutomu, my man…” groaned Misil.

[Guess the Busybody Auntie never rests,] Tsutomu thought, watching Alma stomp off in a fit, dragging Silver Beast’s Clan Leader Misil with her.

He sighed as he noticed yet another ‘busybody’ type making her way toward him with that same overly familiar look in her eye.

“Excuse me…”

“I’d really like to focus on the fight now. Things are getting intense.”

“You were chatting quite freely with Alma just now,” Milway pointed out, sliding into the seat beside him with an ease that suggested she would not take no for an answer. Eunice, predictably, tagged along.

“That was a slow phase, but now we’re at the turning point. It all depends on whether or not they can destroy the heart soon.”

“Yes, I get that,” Milway said, glancing up at Monitor #1. “But it’s not like you can’t talk and watch.”

Her tone implied she saw through his excuse. Still, when she turned her gaze toward the Monitor, even she had to acknowledge the battle on-screen had entered its final, most brutal phase.

Korinna’s party had taken a drastically different approach from the one Tsutomu had used. Rather than play it safe and stall out the fight, they were aiming to destroy the heart as early as possible, but that meant facing a far deadlier transformation.

From the grotesquely red blood spurting from the Corroded Elder Dragon’s heart, the blood-forged clone and weapons possessed sickening speed and strength. Even Hannah, usually accustomed to handling new threats, had been skewered in an instant at one point. The blood weapons overwhelmed even Xeno, whose VIT was the highest in the party.

And the blood clone, though down to a single one, was now a monstrous hybrid blending Hannah’s agility, Diniel’s marksmanship, Xeno’s toughness, and Leleia’s melee prowess. The two frontliners were quite overwhelmed.

It was like watching the Corroded Elder Dragon itself pull puppet strings through its own corrupted lifeblood. The Absolute Helix party was practically under siege.

“AHHHHHH!! Come on, everyone! I need HELP, NOWWWWWW!!”

“[! Just hang in there a little longer!”

Hannah and Diniel were already down, waiting for resurrection. Xeno was barely holding on, his left arm pierced clean through, shield and all, by a blood weapon. The strike nearly reached his face before he tore himself free. Korinna’s healing had restored the limb, but a follow-up arrow, fired from the blood clone, had pierced straight through his armor and ripped into his solar plexus.

“This feels like the opposite of Tsutomu’s run.” Eunice observed. “That one had a desperate defense at the end, but this… this is a final, frenzied assault.”

“Yeah. Kind of like the Devourer Dragon’s last blast.” Tsutomu added, before he could stop himself. “…The pattern it goes with probably depends on how you try to kill it.”

“…!”

Eunice perked up, tail standing stiff and quivering with delight. Tsutomu quickly averted his eyes.

“So then it all depends on how long they can hold out!”

“…”

“Miss Korinna’s really holding her own,” Milway added. “She’s keeping her skill rotations tight. Is that something you taught her?”

[This is getting out of hand… now there are TWO of them!]

It seemed Eunice had decided that any Dungeon-related conversation was fair game. She kept up a steady stream of commentary while watching Monitor #1, with Milway occasionally chiming in. Tsutomu squirmed under the verbal barrage, resisting the urge to tell them both to shut it. After all, giving in would feel like losing.

“She’s amazing, really,” Eunice went on. “She’s not just fast; she’s reactive. You’d never guess she’s a Channeler.”

“It’s scary to think we’ll probably be seeing more like her soon.” Milway added.

“…I doubt we’ll get another Channeler quite like her anytime soon, actually. She’s special,” Tsutomu countered. “But I do want to keep raising the value of Healers. If Korinna can become a model for that, I’ll be satisfied.”

It was not worth staying silent anymore, or so he decided. As soon as the topic shifted to Healers, he finally joined the conversation.

As always, Korinna’s uncanny ability to predict deaths came through. Thanks to her foresight, Hannah and Diniel were swiftly resurrected, allowing the party to regain its footing. Meanwhile, Xeno, who had been barely holding his ground against the blood clone and weapons, finally collapsed in midair and crashed to the ground, unconscious.

“Leave it to me!” Hannah shouted, forcing herself forward with the reckless energy of someone who had already tasted death.

The blood clone and weapons had been too much to handle at once on first sight, but now that she had experienced it firsthand, Hannah’s survival instincts were sharper than ever. Her body moved before her mind could catch up, honed by the lesson pain had burned into her.

“The enemy’s bleeding itself dry. You’re better off sticking to support,” Diniel said calmly to Leleia, drawing her bow.

“Understood. [!”

Realizing from the increased bleeding of the heart that there was no need to rush the offensive, Diniel focused on keeping the others alive. She offered quick directions to Leleia as she took aim, shooting down blood weapons one after another.

“Ugh…”

Still, the movements of the ever-morphing blood clone were not so easily predicted. One of its arrows grazed Hannah’s upper arm, drawing a red line that began to spill down her skin. Her instincts screamed: ‘This thing will kill me again if I hesitate.’ She channeled magic into her blood-soaked wings through a Colorless Magic Stone and stole a glance toward Korinna.

“Kh… hah…!”

Korinna had burned through her mental reserves in a flurry of skill channeling. Nausea and dizziness wracked her as she dropped to her knees, but she refused to pass out. Clenching gravel in her fists, she clung to consciousness, trusting the [ to slowly restore her depleted spirit.

“Is that Birdkin trying to use a Lightning Stone again?” Eunice muttered, her voice laced with disappointment. “She’s going to fa–”

“It’s fine.” Tsutomu said without taking his eyes off Monitor #1.

Surprised, Eunice clammed up mid-sentence. Even Milway tilted her head, puzzled by his uncharacteristically gentle tone.

“Better than someone who freezes up and chooses safety every time,” Tsutomu went on. “Besides… she’s thinking for herself now.”

Unlike her earlier charge, where she had thrown herself at the enemy in a fit of emotion, this time Hannah had made a choice. Maybe it was still instinctual, but she had chosen it with awareness. Tsutomu saw that clearly, too. The odds of success were slim, but she must have realized that unless she cloaked herself in lightning power, she could not keep up with the blood clone.

And she made it work.

Lightning arced across the wings at her back. Static electricity danced through her hair, lifting strands of blue as her magic surged. She dodged the blood arrows with golden blurs of speed, outmaneuvering even those blood-forged weapons that Leleia could not intercept. She was so fast, not even the God Eye could follow her.

With Korinna and Xeno still recovering, Hannah danced through the Corroded Elder Dragon’s frenzied barrage like a living thunderbolt. She knew the Lightning Magic Stone’s charge would not last much longer. As the final sparks reached their peak, she drove forward, raising her right fist to strike.

“EAT THIS!”

The casual shout belied the blinding force of the blow. A flash burst from her arm like a lightning strike, and gasps erupted from the crowd as the brightness overwhelmed the whole screen of Monitor #1, briefly turning it all white.

“Tch… damn it…!”

Somehow, the blood clone endured. All thanks to the durability it had inherited from Xeno’s VIT. But it was damaged, unable to draw another arrow. Instead, it hurled its weapon directly at Hannah, whose body trembled with the numbing backlash of her lightning surge.

She could not move in time.

“Knew you’d try that.”

A [ slammed into the projectile mid-flight, sending it spiraling away. Diniel, having tracked the weapon even amidst her own chaotic sniping, followed through with a second arrow, this one piercing straight into the clone’s chest with crushing force.

“…Gah…” A wet, sputtering noise burst from the creature’s throat.

Blood gushed from the wound, then the clone dissolved into mist. At the same moment, its source, the Corroded Elder Dragon’s heart, ceased its unnatural pulsation. Particles of light began to leak, drifting skyward.

Korinna, seeing it, collapsed backward onto the ground like a rag doll. Xeno, his armor shredded nearly to the waist, raised a weary arm in triumph. And inside the Guild venue, the Explorers who had gathered to watch let out cheers and applause, and even outside, the roars of celebration could be heard echoing in the streets.

“That makes all of Absolute Helix official hundredth-layer victors! Congratulations! Uh… Tsutomu? You okay?” Eunice’s voice shifted, her cheer fading as she saw the look on his face.

“…? Oh. Yeah. It’s nothing,” Tsutomu replied faintly.

But his expression remained pale, eyes fixed on the Monitor. In Diniel’s hands, held with a look of puzzlement, was a paper card he recognized instantly.