Episode 475 The Devil’s Land, That Underground (1)
As morning approached, the dungeon hallway gradually became brighter.
There are no special torches, much less windows, but it is amazing that there is light.
After avoiding monsters in the dark hallways all night, Ray was finally able to relax.
Being chased by the goblins and wasting his energy, his appearance was quite haggard.
In addition, since he lost his room in the meadow, there was no place to rest.
All he has now is a few berries in his pocket and scraps of beef jerky.
Feeling extremely hungry, I put the jerky in my dry mouth and chewed it.
Saliva did not come out well, so I had to chew the tough beef jerky for a long time before I could barely swallow it.
“How long do I have to stay here?”
Could it be that a large-scale rescue team was formed outside?
I thought with hope, but it’s not possible.
I had been here for quite a while, but I didn’t feel the presence of people.
Besides, if the rescue team had come, they would have been screaming for people from upstairs.
However, I have only heard goblin cries day and night, but I have no memory of hearing a human voice.
As I was about to move my seat with a sigh, a six-legged wolf approached me little by little, crying low.
“Kreurreu….”
He probably thinks of himself as a tasty prey with no strength to resist.
It is difficult to move the body.
I feel like I don’t want to do anything because I’m no longer bothered.
Still, I had to move if I didn’t want to die.
As expected, there seemed to be no place to properly rest in this dungeon.
* * *
The 4th floor of the demonic realm.
A young man with a black cloth wrapped around his neck and shoulders deflected a dagger and ran through the monsters.
It was a tiny slime, but its power was incomparable to those on the second floor.
grasp-!
When the acid that protrudes from the slime’s mouth touches the rock, it instantly liquefies the hard rock.
The young man easily dodged the slime’s attack and destroyed their core with a dagger.
Passasac-!
When the core was destroyed, the slime, unable to maintain its shape, turned into a simple liquid and died.
Their mana flowed into the young man.
Uh-oh,
he murmured, clenching his fists.
“This much is not going to be enough.”
The identity of the young man was Ray.
I threw away the existing white robe and wrapped a black cloth around my neck and shoulders without knowing why.
Compared to her white hair, her appearance was oddly fitting.
“I have to go down one more floor within the next week…”
I don’t know how many floors there are underground, but it’s certain that it’s still far away.
It took a month to reach the 4th basement floor.
At this speed, going down to the lowest floor and checking the core of the dungeon didn’t seem easy.
“There…”
Just once.
It was only for a short time, but there was a time when I went down to the 5th basement floor.
However, there was a monster that he couldn’t even dare to guard the hallway.
The mana he felt was on a different level from other monsters.
From the 5th floor, monsters of that level would probably come out one after another.
Just thinking about it made me salivate.
To be honest, I have already become proficient at dealing with the monsters on the 4th basement level.
But even so, if you’re not careful for a while, there will be situations where your life comes and goes.
Then, what about the 5th basement floor?
Even if I did my best, I didn’t know that the situation where my life was at stake might continue.
Of course, there will be no place to rest.
In my mind, I wanted to go to the 5th floor and go straight to the 6th and 7th floors, but in reality it is impossible.
So far, there is no choice but to pursue growth on the 4th floor.
“A few slimes would be enough.”
Unlike the beginning, mana didn’t even respond to a few monsters.
As I walked down the hallway with a sigh, the aisle gradually widened.
Strangely enough, monsters don’t roam around in this strangely wide aisle.
Is it a characteristic of the 4th floor?
It wasn’t long before he also found out about this.
It could be said to be a suitable place to spend the night.
Here, a fire is lit skillfully with precious wood.
A bonfire shimmered in the dark hallway of the dungeon, brightening up the surroundings.
It’s a little better because there’s a fire.
Ray hung monster meat around the bonfire.
The strange smell mixed with the stinky smell makes most people reluctant to even put it in their mouths.
Hana Rei was looking at the meat with her mouth watering.
“Rip quickly.”
Thanks to this unique disgusting smell, monsters avoid this place even more.
In other words, you can eat and defeat monsters at once.
It’s delicious, no matter what you ask, it’s not delicious.
no.
It’s not just tasteless, it’s disgusting enough to make you sick to your stomach.
Due to the fishy smell like unprepared fish and the unique fishy smell of raw meat, most people would not dare to dare.
Fortunately, the texture alone is chewy.
Should I say that it tastes like tearing meat?
The icing on the cake is that the juices that cause vomiting at the moment of chewing do not leak.
Ray ate it well.
“Meat should also have a chewy taste.”
Rather, it is better to put a few more pieces of meat on the grill.
As the days of facing monsters while starving for food continued, for Ray, this amount of meat was not even part of the axis that hurt his stomach.
Rather, starving is more painful.
You need to move to live, and you need nutrients to move.
Since he was Ray, who lived to death and ran away, his outlook on life had changed considerably after entering the dungeon.
After eating a few pieces of meat, the rumbling stomach calmed down.
When I was full, my thoughts suddenly went all the way to the outside.
“Anyway, how did it go outside? Now, a little over a month has passed…”
If he had lost his mana alone, he would have sent a scout from the outside to save himself.
No matter how strong the monsters on the 5th basement level are, if the soldiers of the Holy Kingdom armed with divine power or the armed forces of Celia decide to attack, they won’t have the ability to defeat them.
However, seeing that it hasn’t happened for over a month, it must mean that the dungeon is wider than he imagined or that something has happened outside.
The latter seems more likely than the former, though.
‘If the people outside have lost their mana… You must never come inside the dungeon.’
There is no way out of the dungeon.
I didn’t know if it would be possible to enter the dungeon from the outside, but if I did, I would definitely regret it.
Endless monsters and somehow vast inside.
In addition, the structure that changes once in an irregular cycle drives people crazy.
This place could be called a trap, so to speak.
In the worst case, even the people outside will lose all their mana, unless there is only one dungeon like this.
Ray, who continued his imagination, shook his head at the terrible future.
He stopped thinking and started eating the meat.
* * *
A large-scale scouting party was set up in the Holy Land and Silia.
The troops belonging to it were not only made up of soldiers from the Seongguk and Silia.
Everyone on the continent lost mana.
This was a serious problem.
For this purpose, the Lesian Empire promised to strengthen the Holy Kingdom’s scouting party, and the other kingdoms joined forces to send supplies and troops to Silia.
The upper half of the group, knowing that Ray was swept away by the Demonic Realm, went into a fit of rage and rolled up their arms.
Once they moved, the entire eastern continent moved.
Of course, there were kingdoms that saved supplies and troops, but they were not viewed favorably on the continent.
The arrows of criticism were directed at them, saying that they were so-called scumbags.
But what can I do?
They say they won’t help, but you can’t force them to match the assortment.
It wasn’t until a little over a month after Lessian’s soldiers arrived in the Holy Land and after the dungeons appeared that they were ready to send a reconnaissance party.
Supplies were loaded into wagons, and even mere soldiers wore full plate armor.
Now, the line between a knight and a soldier has become blurred.
It’s all the same that he can’t handle mana anyway, so the one with the upper hand in swordsmanship rose to the position of knight commander.
Of course, there was never a case where an existing knight commander degenerated into a soldier.
For a long time, they were heavily armed with the wisdom of tactics and strategy.
As a result, even if he was pushed out as vice-captain, he never became a soldier.
Since the official announcement that the knight commander will be re-appointed, there have been occasional cases in which one of the decennial commanders overpowered the existing knight commander based on their actual combat experience.
The soldiers cheered, but it was a bitter defeat for the knights.
It’s been a week since I fixed the wagon and checked the ingredients and dry blankets.
Finally, everything was ready and we were waiting for departure.
The man who rose to the rank of Knight Commander with the body of the Ten Seal looked at the high priest and said.
“It would be better to start slowly. It’s a situation where you don’t know how wide the inside of the dungeon will be. If we don’t find survivors as soon as possible, we will be wiped out.”
If there were survivors, it could be said to be a jackpot.
With more than a month of dungeon experience in the current situation, they would be a great source of information for planning the future.
That is, of course, if you are still breathing.
The high priest nodded.
“I know. Deor, my old friend, is imprisoned in the Devil’s Realm, so I want to save him like a chimney. But… wouldn’t it only increase the sacrifice if we started recklessly? Wait a little longer.”
I’ve been listening to that sound for a week.
If it was the original Knight Commander, he might have stepped back with courtesy, but as the Knight Commander who ascended vertically at once from the decathlon, which was no different than a soldier, the thoughts of the High Priestess were just frustrating.
“What are you so hesitant about? All preparations for the Demonic Realm are complete. The number of troops has reached 20,000. Don’t you know very well that, no matter how wide the Devil’s Land is, if 20,000 soldiers swarm, a moderate threat cannot even be included in the axis of threat?”
“It seems to me that you are too complacent. Do you remember the Holy Son?”
The knight commander nodded slightly at the stupid question.
“yes. You cannot live in the holy kingdom and not know him.”
“He is currently imprisoned in Celia’s demonic realm.”
“yes?”
“Even the current saint, who has unrivaled abilities among the saints of the past, has not been able to come out of the dungeon for a month. What do you mean by that?”
“…”
The knight commander did not open his mouth any longer.
The high priest looked at him silently, then threw a word as if muttering.
“Wait a little longer.”
