Chapter 93

Chapter 93

"──Found him."

I run toward him, still glued to the screen, and throw a straight out.

"Huh? You're crazy!"

As if sensing the danger, he quickly pulls up his pickaxe to block the punch.

"How the hell did you......!"

"I took the elevator."

I smirked at the panicked man and released the aura in my fist, sending his body flying backwards with the recoil.

"How can there be an elevator in a dungeon......!"

He exclaims, grimacing as he realizes that my first ambush still worked.

Jin-woo chuckles at the sight.

"In this day and age, dungeons might have elevators."

"That son of a bitch......!"

It wasn't that I didn't understand Miner's anger.

I hadn't expected things to work out this way either.

"Don't be so hard on yourself. We were just a little luckier."

What we found on the first floor of the dungeon was an old freight elevator.

We knew that the dungeon we were in would overlap with the dungeon in the basement of the club room and have similar characteristics and terrain, but we never imagined that the elevator connected to the club room would be implemented.

"Wow, this comes out here too. Boss, can we take this?"

"Does this even work, anyway?"

The problem was, even if we found the elevator, how would we get down?

The elevators in the dungeon are designed to only light up on the floor they're on.

But...

[D1]

.

...

......

.........

[D10]

'Huh? Isn't this the 10th floor that's lit up? Oh, it's pressed.'

The villains had already occupied the lowest floor.

As soon as I pressed the 10th floor, the elevator started moving with a smooth mechanical sound.

[Ting-dong].

[──The 10th floor]

We arrived at the 10th floor.

It was quite a sight to see Miner with a frustrated expression on his face.

"You think you can get lucky and end up in this situation!"

He shouts, pointing his pickaxe at us as we walk out of the elevator.

Well, it's not that I don't understand his mindset.

For a normal person, it would have been normal to reach the 10th floor exhausted from fighting all the monsters upstairs.

They must have thought of that and planned for it.

But what am I going to do about it?

This dungeon is practically mine.

"It's funny how you're the first ones to try to break in, and you're the ones screaming at the owner......."

"What?"

"Well, you're the one who got caught in the first place because you were so unlucky, isn't that refreshing, and......."

I glance at the screen he's been looking at.

He's been monitoring the entire dungeon like that.

Judging from the other screens, most of the children were safely traveling through the dungeon under the protection of the instructors.

"Trespassing and voyeurism. I don't know when the Villain Alliance became the Pervert Alliance."

"......Watch your mouth, kid."

"Looks like you're the one who needs to be careful."

With a bang, the dagger Jin-woo threw hit Miner's hard hat.

"No, what kind of hard hat is that? I threw it with full force."

Jin-woo, who took advantage of the conversation between me and the miner to try to ambush him, says so with a wistful twist of his wrist.

"You think an attack like that...... will work on this body?"

"What do you think, boss? It'll be a quick fight between the two of us."

Jin-woo said that with a confident tone, but he had something else to do.

"Jin-woo."

"Yeah. I'm ready."

"Better than that...... you see that hole up there above Miner?"

"Hole? I see......."

In a low voice, I covertly instructed Jin-woo.

"When I give the signal, jump in there and help the ninth floor."

"Huh? Don't fight Miner and help the kids on the ninth floor?"

Jin-woo paused and repeated after hearing my words.

But I had my reasons for doing so.

"After all, if you want to escape from this dungeon, you'll need to defeat the boss on the 10th floor, so you might as well reserve your strength. So help the 9th floor first and then come back with the others."

"......You're going to take on the boss alone?"

"I can handle him on my own."

"Only if the boss says so......So what's the signal?"

Better an action than an answer.

"Now."

I focus my aura on my lower body and sprint towards him.

"Damn you, you little brat, did you think I'd let you get away with it again!"

Miner raises his pickaxe to block my charge and slams it into the ground.

The ground shakes, sending up a cloud of sandy smoke and making it harder to see where he is, but that's enough for me to consider Phase One a success.

"Boss, I'm going!"

We had succeeded in getting Jin-woo into the hole that Miner had used to infiltrate the 10th floor.

If it wasn't for us, he would have gone back up to the 9th floor and joined the 'Snowgirl Parr' to attack the children......but now that I was still on the 10th floor.

There was no way he would have given up on the 10th floor under these circumstances.

On top of all that, would Miner run away from one freshman?

"No way."

That's not the kind of character he was.

The dust slowly began to settle, and the landscape around began to come into view.

He was nowhere to be seen but I had already been through something like this before, and I knew what to do.

"Like this, was it?"

I explore the ground around me, sending out aura through the soles of my feet.

It's a method of navigation that I've seen Kwak Chun-sik use as we've tackled the kobold dungeon.

Now that I've practiced controlling my aura through the bracelet the old man gave me, I can vaguely make out the shape of the creature hiding in the ground.

"You were hiding there."

Apparently, he was trying to break through the ground and ambush me at any moment.

"I don't really like mole hunting."

At the same time, I jumped towards it and slammed my fist into the ground.

-Boom!

The ground explodes, creating craters around me.

"Crazy! How the hell did you......?!"

In the midst of it all is Miner, pickaxe in hand, blocking the punch with a shaky arm.

"You know, there was one person who knew how to find you, and I learned from him."

His expression crumples as I focus the aura in my fist.

"An Aura user with detection......? No way. You're Kwak Chun-sik's disciple!"

Anger flared in his eyes at the mention of the man who had put him in Niflheim.

"Then what will you do? For your information, I will not accept your apology even if you are on your knees begging."

I said that with the intention of provoking him, and he gritted his teeth.

"You brat......!"

At the same time, a flash bursts from his headlights, blinding me for a moment.

"I'll turn you into mincemeat!"

I guess he thought that by taking away my vision, he could create a gap.

Maybe the old me would have been intimidating but...

[Activate 「Skill: Aura Sonar」]

The aura emanating from my body spreads out into the dungeon, illuminating the landscape around me.

Miner stands directly in front of me, pickaxe raised and ready to strike but I reach out and grab his pickaxe and bring it down on what I assume to be his head, and I feel something snap with a loud noise.

"Kyaah!"

Was it his nose?

If so, I struck again──

"──Get off!"

With his shout, Miner's breath caught in his throat as a tremendous wave of pain washed over him but that wasn't enough and his body was sent flying backwards.

"Hmph!"

After cushioning the blow with a fall, I looked in the direction of Miner with my eyes slowly recovering.

"Jaw......! Jaw......!"

I could see him stumbling towards me, his nose dripping with blood.

Just before the attack, I wrapped aura around my abdomen, so if I made a mistake, I would not have been severely wounded.

'I kicked him with the intention of ...... blowing him to bits, but he's pretty sturdy.'

He snorted out a blob of blood from his nose and glared at me, muttering.

"Was that a kick? I thought a mosquito bit me."

"What? Hahahaha!"

"You don't look too happy about that......so why don't you just stick your head out cleanly, it'll be less painful that way."

At his offer of a painless death I offer my middle finger instead of my head.

"Why don't you speak with your crushed nose? Earthworm."

"......what?"

His face hardens at my words.

"Did you just call me......this Miner a worm?"

"Oh, he gave you that nickname, too, didn't he? Why are you suffering from PTSD or something?"

It must not have been a very good memory for him.

There was probably only one person in the world who had ever called him a worm.

"Old man Kwak Chun-sik said so. Miner should have changed his name to Earthworm. If a guy who can only dig and shit is not a worm, what is he?"

Well, that was mild enough.

Lest anyone think I'm being a dick, I'll be honest, there were a few nutmegs thrown in for good measure, as well as comments about the Miner's upbringing, the health of his parents, and his humanity......that were too vulgar to come out of my mouth.

So I had to call him a nickname.

"It suits you, Worm. Don't you think your parents would like their son to be called Villain Earthworm?"

But my mild provocation proved to be quite humiliating, as his head dropped and his body began to shake.

"Yeah......earthworms......yuck. And you, do you know that?"

He picked up the pickaxe as if he were holding a golf club and took a swing.

"Kwak Chun-sik, that bastard!"

With a bang, the pieces of rock destroyed by the pickaxe began to rush toward me at a tremendous speed.

The rocks were coated with magic power in the process, and they even emitted an ominous glow as they flew towards me.

No, no matter how you slice it, this is a bit──