I had hoped that the way back would be as simple as the way down, but trouble awaited at the exit to the twenty-ninth level. I praised myself three times for my vigilance because a Hrum—a ninth-class monster—was positioned right in the middle of the path between the transitions.

  It was a creature the size of a two-story house, resembling a black mass of flesh that maintained a dome-like shape with numerous sharp, vine-like appendages. It had no legs or any other means of movement because it possessed space magic at a very high level.

  The monster encyclopedia stated that killing such a creature was extremely difficult due to its abilities. Typically, raids against them consisted of dozens of high-ranking adventurers, and success depended entirely on whether the hunting party could land a fatal first strike.

  Damn it! The monster was positioned next to a wide fissure from which thick yellow mana mist was rising, and it was slowly devouring it.

  I quietly took two steps back behind the magical protective barrier of the transition. What should I do? I definitely couldn’t pass through to the transition—I’d be skewered the moment I stepped outside. Attacking it wasn’t an option either; I’d likely need several people like me for that.

  I sat down on the floor and leaned against the wall, hoping that the Hrum would leave on its own once it had absorbed enough mana from the fissure. I began counting the slowly passing minutes, which turned into hours, but the creature showed no intention of leaving.

  The worst part was that the day I had promised the rector was almost over, and knowing their temperament, I wouldn’t have been surprised if they had already formed a team to search for me in the lower levels.

  Straight to their deaths. No seventh-class puppets, not even if I had left them five hundred of them, would have been able to withstand the monsters of the lower levels.

  Wait a minute—puppets… It seemed a plan was forming in my mind. A risky one, but still a plan.

  I pulled three puppets from my storage. What had Tot said? They could withstand an eighth-class core for about five minutes before breaking down? Fine, so be it. I just hoped that with the core’s explosion… heh-heh, yes, that was precisely my plan—to blow that bastard to hell.

  I extracted the cores from the puppets’ chests, causing the violet flames in their eyes to extinguish, and quickly installed new ones—eighth-class cores. A rainbow glow ran through the fine grooves of their bodies, their pupils flared to life once more, and the puppets awaited my command. Their steel bodies were compressed with a force that these dolls could barely contain.

  “Kill it!” I pointed at the Hrum.

  Three gray shadows spread through the air, shooting toward the creature. Unfortunately, not even my puppets, using my sequential step technique, managed to land a surprise attack. I watched as the monster instantly pierced their bodies through with its sharp, spear-like appendages, several meters long.

  And I had been worrying that the creature might teleport away from my attack, giving me the chance to slip past it to the transition… But it hadn’t even stopped devouring the mana mist.

  However, my puppets weren’t living beings. Feeling no pain from their injuries, they began pulling themselves along the appendages that had skewered them, inching closer to the monster’s body.

  Trying to stop them, the Hrum struck again and again, gradually tearing the metal into shreds. Damn it, at this rate, it would destroy them before the explosion even occurred!

  There was no other choice.

  I activated fourth-circle magic and cast a time-element spell on myself, accelerating by ten percent. Then, I pulled out my old spear, the one Crow had given me.

  “Don’t fail me, little one,” I whispered to it.

  I began preparing an aura strike, compressing a large amount of energy into the spear’s tip. A tiny black-and-white sun flared up at its point, sending small gray lightning bolts crackling through the air.

  I attacked.

  I was certain that I would take a hit from the Hrum in return. I just hoped it wouldn’t be fatal.

  Still, I had some advantages—many of its appendages were currently occupied holding back my puppets, who were still slowly crawling toward its body.

  My attack definitely exceeded the speed of sound several times over, but even that wasn’t enough.

  Two of the Hrum’s appendages pierced through me at once—one in the lower abdomen, the other in the thigh.

  I grabbed the appendage sticking out of my stomach with my left hand and, with all my strength, pulled myself closer to the monster.

  Damn, it hurt!

  The appendage was hard and cold, like a two-inch steel pipe, but far stronger than any steel I could crush with my bare hands.

  Holy hedgehogs, give me a little more strength, just half a meter more.

  I gripped the appendage again, pulling myself forward until I reached striking distance.

  “You slept through it all, bastard!”

  I drove my spear into its hard body and felt my aura strike penetrate deep inside, flooding nearly a quarter of its mass.

  The moment I detonated it, another appendage pierced me from behind, stabbing through my right lung and exiting through my chest.

  A loud explosion echoed across the twenty-ninth level.

  I was thrown several dozen meters back toward the passage where I had started my attack, along with the monster’s severed appendages still lodged in my body.

  Landing on my back against the hard rock, I watched as a massive, multi-layered magical seal of violet color ignited in the sky above the monster. Like a lilac flower, it bloomed, releasing hundreds of intricate smaller seals along its perimeter.

  It was a breathtaking sight!

  A thin white beam shot from the monster’s body straight into the sky, piercing through the seal. Its mangled mass vanished, taking my shredded puppets with it.

  I quickly swallowed several recovery pills, then sat up and began pulling the multi-meter-long appendages out of my body.

  The only way to remove them was to yank them through my wounds since I couldn’t even cut off a piece—they were parts of a ninth-class monster, and I simply didn’t have the strength for that.

  My wounds healed instantly under the effects of the pills.

  Twenty minutes. That’s how long I had to process them before they solidified into an unusable form for weapon crafting.

  I drove the spears into the black rocky ground and strung the appendages between them like taut strings.

  Seemed like I made it in time.

  A powerful explosion boomed somewhere in the distance—it had been just over five minutes since my fight with the monster had begun.

  “Hope you’re dead, you bastard!” I laughed darkly.

  I took out a sheet of paper and a stylus, then closed my eyes and visualized the magical seal I had just seen, sketching it as precisely as possible.

  This might have been the most valuable thing I had gained from that beast.

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  Now, all that was left was to clean up—I had spilled quite a bit of my blood on the ground and on the Hrum’s appendages.

  And I had no desire to burn this entire level to the ground.

  I used deep purification magic several times.

  In the end, I managed to collect about three hundred grams of my own blood.

  It might come in handy somewhere, I thought as I carefully sealed the bottle and sent it to my storage.

  That should be everything.

  I flicked one of the taut appendages, enjoying its high-pitched sound, then packed everything away into my ring.

  Time to go back.

  Moving cautiously and watching for any danger, I slowly made my way up to the twenty-fifth level, where I no longer sensed the auras of ninth-class monsters.

  I grinned wickedly—it was time for the dungeon creatures to pay for what had happened below.

  Finding a large pack of eighth-class Gossipers nearby, I attacked them instantly, slaughtering over a hundred in just a minute.

  I remembered how hard it had been to hunt them with the Nine-Tails.

  Now, this hundred cores had come to me almost too easily.

  Feeling satisfied, I resumed my climb.

  I found my team right where I had left them—none of the monsters that had repopulated the level dared to approach their camp. Even people kept their distance.

  “What?!” I reacted to their stares. “Yes, the monsters kicked my ass!”

  Some of the team stifled laughter.

  Irgen stepped closer and began poking her hands through the holes in my clothes.

  “That’s not just getting your ass kicked. That’s getting beaten half to death, in my opinion.”

  “So who did this to you?” the rector asked with interest.

  “A Hrum. Ninth-class monster.”

  Roman shook his head.

  “You haven’t heard of them? Did you find what you were looking for?”

  “I don’t know yet, I just have more questions. So, shall we go up?”

  I entered one of the tents and changed into fresh clothes. After that, we packed up the camp and began our ascent from the dungeon. We moved swiftly forward until, upon reaching the exit of the fifth level, I sensed more than a hundred auras blocking our path.

  “Rector, please prepare your glass orb for recording and keep it running as long as possible.”

  Roman gave a short nod and took out the glass orb. No one blocked the paths between dungeon levels just for fun—that was something even a child should understand. I stepped forward, leaving the group at the entrance of the passage, and quickly assessed the number and strength of our opponents.

  Sixty mages, fifty Battle Masters, and Battle Ancestors. Quite a decent squad. But I had been in a foul mood ever since that damn chrum beat me up. I rose into the air to get a good view of them and shouted:

  “You have one minute to get out of my way.”

  A thunderous laughter erupted from the other side.

  “Looks like you haven’t figured out the situation you’re in, boy.”

  A bald giant with a red face was approaching me. A high-ranked Battle Ancestor—seemed to be the leader of this gang. Odd… his aura was human, but his appearance was hardly so.

  “I heard your group cleared an entire level. Congratulations, of course, but rules are rules, and taxes must be paid! So, you leave half of your loot here, and you can go freely. The Adventurers’ Guild will even be grateful and offer you its protection.”

  “Taxes? The Guild’s protection? So this wasn’t just your dumb idea, but something cooked up by the Guild’s upper ranks… Thirty seconds.”

  “Are you stupid? If you won’t cooperate, so be it.” The red-faced man turned to his squad. “Kill him!”

  They shouldn’t have done that.

  I activated magic of all five circles. Noticing this, my team retreated behind the protective barrier of the passage.

  Inferno.

  No need to be gentle—let them all burn to hell. A dense wave of fire spread out from me in all directions, covering the area far beyond the level transition points.

  The defenseless mages burned so fast they might not have even realized they were dead, their bodies reduced to ash in an instant. The Battle Masters managed to resist the flames for a few seconds, but they too ended up as nothing more than ashes.

  The Battle Ancestors could have escaped the fiery trap—not unscathed, but they could have. If not for the pressure of my aura, which slowed them down for just a few crucial seconds. I watched as their armor ignited with bright flames, as their eyes burst like soap bubbles, as the charred phalanges of their fingers fell to the ground, and as their final screams of pain tore from their lungs.

  Here’s your tax, scum. Enjoy it.

  My conscience remained silent, for I could only imagine how many people they had robbed and killed in the dungeon. What happens in the dungeon stays in the dungeon. No one would investigate whether an adventurer died at the claws of a monster or by human hands. And lowlifes like these exploited that fact to the fullest. Well, not anymore.

  I dispelled the magic and returned behind the barrier where my team was waiting. Behind me, the inferno still blazed, turning the stone a glowing red.

  “Grass, please cool the ground, and let’s move on.”

  Grass approached the exit and activated sixth-circle water magic—White Desert. Frost clashed with the heat, causing the ground to crack and explode, sending tons of black stone flying into the air. When things finally settled and the temperature outside became bearable, we stepped out of the barrier.

  “Let’s go!” I was the first to move forward.

  “Captain!” I heard Irgen’s voice behind me. “What about the loot?”

  I glanced at the charred, jagged landscape around us.

  “Is there anything left to find?”

  “Heh-heh, Captain, storage rings are magical items, and those are easy to locate with a simple magic detection spell!”

  How could she be this greedy? I looked at the others’ faces. They seemed to support the long-ear’s idea.

  “Fine,” I agreed. “But be quick about it!”

  “What do you plan to do next?” Roman approached me.

  I scratched the back of my head, still unsure myself.

  “You know, I really want to march straight into the Guild and wipe out its entire upper echelon for covering up crimes like this. But I’m already exhausted from this dungeon, so we’ll probably just get as far away from here as possible.”

  “Killing that many adventurers will trigger an investigation. They’ll quickly trace it back to you.”

  “So what?”

  “They’ll definitely want revenge.”

  “Haaaaa… Let them come.”

  I watched as my team rummaged through the area, collecting storage rings.

  “Is there a way to spread the recording you made? But cut out the part where I kill them all?”

  “That would be pointless. Everyone will say it’s an internal matter of the Guild.”

  I shrugged.

  “Spineless pieces of crap… Whatever, let it be.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah. Let’s head straight to another dungeon on the way to the capital, or somewhere nearby.”

  “Alright. We have plenty of time before the tournament.”

  Meanwhile, the team had gathered nearby. Looking pleased, they dumped all the storage rings into a single bag and handed it to me.

  “Captain…”

  I shook my head from side to side, refusing.

  “Keep it.”

  I was sure it was all just junk. The real loot, the best of it, had already been handed over to their bosses.

  “Give that here, I’ll distribute it myself.”

  Roman snatched the bag from their hands.

  “Rector!!!”

  We moved forward.

  At the dungeon exit, we showed our plaques to the guards once again. I expected them to be alarmed, but I noticed no signs of it. Were they uninvolved in the robberies, or did they assume we had simply paid our way out? It didn’t matter—let them stew in their own pot.

  I pulled out the flying boat, and within minutes, our team was high in the sky. I called Ramaan over to the navigation map.

  “Rector, there are two dungeons near our route. One is two and a half thousand kilometers away, the other three. Which one should we choose?”

  “And what’s stopping us from choosing both?”

  “Hahaha, Rector, I like your appetite!” With these words, I tapped my finger on the nearest dungeon on the map.

  “I’ll go distribute the trophies among the students before they tear me into ten pieces.”

  “Alright, but don’t forget our magic lessons either.”

  Ramaan went to the common room, while I sank into my thoughts, accompanied by the quiet hum of the wings.

  Gray stone cubes with incomprehensible human remains inside them… Are they truly the seeds from which dungeons sprout? I definitely need to study several of them to be sure.

  And if that’s the case, then what? Just collect them in my storage? I don’t need them, they’re of no use to me… But leaving them as they are… I remembered all too well what these cubes were capable of. No guarantees that lunatic wouldn’t try another genocide.

  So the more I collect, the lower the risk of an entire region being poisoned again. Damn it, but combing through the entire continent for dungeons would take years… Or should I just investigate and collect cubes from the dungeons near Lygote Kingdom and let the rest be someone else’s problem? I grimaced.

  Selfish bastard. It’s not that you care about people—it’s just that you want comfort and peace in the place where you’ve settled your ass. And if millions die somewhere far away, it won’t concern you.

  Ah, Aney, Aney… Don’t pretend to be someone you’re not.

  Irgen came up to the deck.

  She silently moved around, looking down from the right side of the ship, then the left. I gently wrapped my aura around her and sat her down on the bench next to me. That seemed to help—she no longer ran around the cockpit. I watched her from the corner of my eye, noting the expression on her face and the small movements of her long ears.

  “Why did you decide to stay with me?” I suddenly asked, even surprising myself.

  “Well, we’ve already divided everything down below, so…”

  “That’s not what I meant. I mean in general.”

  Irgen lifted her eyes to the sky.

  “Do you want the truth from my heart or the answer people usually want to hear?”

  “I like honest people.”

  “Because with you, I’ll gain far more than I ever could on my own.”

  I remained silent.

  “Disgusting?” She tried to catch my gaze.

  “Why would it be? On the contrary…”

  “I don’t expect you to understand, but until recently, I was a broke student. The money I could earn wasn’t always enough to even pay for my studies. That’s why I pushed myself to be the first… the best. First in my course, then in the academy. I even became the team captain for that reason. Or did you think I learned household spells just for fun? Not at all… I simply couldn’t afford to shop around with a fat purse like the others…”

  “Irgen…”

  “Be quiet!”

  “And then you showed up… That’s why I lost my mind when the Rector said you were joining the team. I didn’t want a stranger ruining everything I had worked so hard to build. But your power…” She smiled. “Power and charisma, that’s what I wanted to see beside me. What gave me the ability to stop worrying about tomorrow, or the day after. I forgave even my broken nose for that… That’s why I’m with you.”

  She stood up and placed a hand on my shoulder.

  “That’s the whole reason.”

  “Irgen…”

  “No, not now. Think about it, Captain. And I… I am your shadow, remember that.”

  The girl left, heading below deck.

  Well, I asked for honesty, and I got it. Is she using me? Without a doubt. But am I against it? It seems that as long as she doesn’t go against my moral principles, then no—I’m not. Everyone uses someone. I, for example, use my teacher’s reputation and people’s fear of him—so who am I to judge others?

  And those words she keeps repeating, “I am your shadow”… Maybe they mean something entirely different from what I understand?