Others Summon, I Forge Beast Armor

This hunter party was very strong. They weren’t Gold-rank hunters for no reason, especially Count Lucius.

The vampire was the reason they had survived Scarlett’s Pyrokinesis. Somehow, the man was just hard to kill.

But despite being less experienced, Luke’s team was ready to fight back. They had more people on their side, after all, and Count Lucius was the only powerhouse among the intruders. The others were nowhere near his level.

”What do you want from us?!” Raven demanded angrily.

”Yeah! Why do you want to kill us?!” Vivian added, equally angry.

Count Lucius chuckled and lifted both hands, looking relaxed even with four enemies ready to attack him.

”What’s with all the jumping to conclusions? Why are you judging us like that? We never said we came here to kill you.”

Scarlett narrowed her eyes at him. Did he take them for fools? Who would clear the floors so quickly after knowing another party was already inside? They weren’t just following behind. They wanted to catch up.

”You said, ’No mercy here. Slit my throat,’” Scarlett reminded him.

”Of course we said that!” the woman with the bear argued. ”You unleashed a fucking Mythic beast! Were we supposed to stand there and let you make a bonfire out of us?”

”Be quiet,” Count Lucius told his allies while he glanced over the children, especially Luke, the masked enigma.

He remembered that throw from Luke.

From that throw earlier with his spear, Lucius knew Luke was strong. No fluff: literal strength. As raw as cattle meat.

Also, for all these girls to be under him, they must trust him and have faith in him.

Count Lucius looked at Scarlett again. He was tall and imperious, dressed in a coat with a mediaeval-Victorian face.

”If I wanted to kill you, I would have done it when I captured you,” he said. ”But I didn’t. Isn’t that mercy?”

”Then why didn’t you show that same mercy to those outside?” Luke said, fishing out his lie. ”There’s no way you entered here without killing the men stationed around it first. So don’t tell us you came here not looking for blood.”

Count Lucius didn’t argue. It was a fair point.

”Okay, fine. Maybe you got me there. Maybe we could have killed the party we found here. Or better, pursued them out if they begged and didn’t fight back. But now that I can see this party is like no other, especially with the heir to the country here, perhaps we can finally be on the same page.

We aren’t here to kill anyone. We aren’t here to steal your gate either. We only came for the master core. The sole core on this final floor. That core is too concentrated for students like you to handle.”

Count Lucius’s words fell on the ears of silence.

They were here for the dungeon core, according to them.

Luke’s party didn’t really care about that master core. As nobles, they had hundreds of monster cores at home. What they came here for was to slay monsters for the Joint Term Trials.

Only Luke himself was interested in the core.

A concentrated core like that could help him in many ways. It could improve his Soul, and it might even give him enough energy to get the Draft Card for the breastplate of the Dark Dragonlord.

If this party thought they could just run through any manifestation they hadn’t sealed first and demand whatever they wanted, then they were wrong.

Luke refused.

”No. You’re not hunting here, and you’re not taking the core.”

Vivian tried to keep things peaceful. ”Luke, maybe we should just let them have the core. They might need it more than we do.”

”No, sister. If we let them take it, they’ll try this thing again.”

Count Lucius, who had been smiling and thinking they would get along, now frowned, disappointed.

”That’s the problem with you students,” he said. ”You’re too naive. Do you really think hunters of our calibre will simply back off because you told us to?”

”No, we didn’t,” Luke replied, his gauntlet hissing.

Face-off... The atmosphere suddenly became tense.

The woman pointed at her bear.

”Grow!”

The bear’s body started getting bigger as Raven’s Crimson Hellhound lowered its head and roared back. The young man with the weapons took his stance, while Count Lucius narrowed his red eyes at Luke.

It seemed like these hunters had forgotten where they were.

This was the final floor of a pentegate!

Suddenly, the ground began to tremble.

”What the—?”

The entire dungeon started flickering. The walls, floor, and broken chapel began changing and reforming, as if the dungeon was moulded to something else while they were inside it.

This strange phenomenon went on for many seconds until everything went blank.

Later, the system filled the darkness.

〖Warning: Abnormality detected.〗

〖Dungeon mutation has occurred.〗

〖You have been selected for trial in Act 1〗

The world spun around and around for a while until it cleared up, and Luke found himself down on his knees. He dusted himself off and got up, looking around the area. He was alone.

The hall looked like the same place from before, but it was slightly different now. Everything looked more twisted and nightmarish. The system had said Dungeon Mutation. So this was what happened after a mutation.

Scarlett soon appeared beside Luke, looking around with caution as well. When she saw that she had been put in the same Act with Luke, she smiled and hugged him tight, and they kissed for a really long time.

However, another entry interrupted them.

It wasn’t Raven or Vivian, and it wasn’t the vampire Count Lucius. It was that young guy with a dozen weapons strapped to his body.

Luke clenched his fist, dissatisfied. Why didn’t the system pair him with his sisters? Now he didn’t even know what was happening to them because they were stuck with that dangerous vampire!

”Raven will find a way. They will clear their Act,” Scarlett reassured.

Then the system appeared again with a buzz through the mutated dungeon.

〖Warning: You are entering a Sigma-Rank Dungeon: Abyssal Chapel〗

〖Objective: Defeat the Boss and earn rewards!〗

Luke gripped his spear.

”Alright. Let’s begin.”

Then he looked at the system again.

”What?”

His eyes widened.

”Sigma-grade?”