‘This is insane......!’
CLANG—!
The instant their swords clashed for the first time, Adelia instinctively realized it.
She could not win. Absolutely not.
That monster was several times stronger than she was.
All she could do was desperately fend off its attacks. Even that, however, was becoming more and more taxing with every exchange of offense and defense.
‘Think calmly......! There has to be a way......!’
Adelia clenched her teeth.
There was no way the Swordmaster had thrown her into such mortal peril without reason.
Hold out to the very end and find a way through.
Use the insight gained through this battle to advance to the next realm.
“Urgh!”
But no matter how firmly she resolved herself.
There was nothing she could do about her body failing to keep up with her will.
An attack she had failed to block grazed her shoulder. A searing pain shot through her, but Adelia forcibly ignored it and blocked her opponent’s next strike.
......No, to be precise, she ‘tried’ to block the next strike.
‘Ah.’
SWIIISH—!
The greatsword had already reached right before her eyes.
It was too late to defend or evade.
Sensing her own end, Adelia squeezed her eyes shut.
***KRAAAAAASH—!***
At that moment, a deafening roar echoed through the cave.
Along with that ear-splitting sound, a violent wind whipped Adelia’s hair in every direction.
The surroundings fell silent in an instant.
The monster’s roar had abruptly ceased. So had the sound of it swinging its greatsword.
“......?”
Sensing that something was wrong, Adelia perked up her ears and focused all her attention on her hearing.
Drip, drop—.
The sound of water droplets falling from the cave’s stalactites.
Hah, hah—.
The sound of her own ragged breathing, caused by the vigorous movements.
And......
***THUMP—.***
***THUUUUD—!***
......the sound of a large object losing its balance and collapsing.
“......?”
Adelia slowly opened the eyes she had squeezed tightly shut.
Her vision gradually brightened, and the surrounding scene began to come into view at a glance.
“I made a misjudgment.”
About five steps ahead, where the monster should have been.
A man stood still with a sword in his hand.
His utterly tranquil eyes were sweeping over the ground.
Adelia, who had been frozen in place, belatedly followed the man’s gaze and slowly turned her eyes.
‘Ah......’
The enormous corpse of the monster lay sprawled carelessly on the ground.
Its upper and lower body had been cleanly severed.
“It seems it was a slightly overwhelming opponent for you after all.”
SHING—.
While Adelia stood there with her mouth agape in complete shock.
The man wiped the bloodstains from his sword and merely murmured in the same utterly calm tone.
“So. Did you gain any insight?”
***
Ding—!
〔Dark City Dawnguard: Hidden Dungeon II Boss Defeated.〕
Peterpan was dead.
The corpse, split in half, lay at my feet.
One of the bosses with the most troublesome patterns in Lost Elder had been cut down in a single stroke without managing to react at all.
‘This is such an absurdly overpowered skill that it is almost ridiculous......’
Soul of the Swordmaster.
This twelve-star mythical skill possessed power that was practically an instant-death cheat.
It could one-shot a level 82 boss after being active for merely 0.01 seconds. It made my head spin.
‘There aren’t even any side effects. It puts no strain on my body at all.’
Considering Loel’s system, this was an exceedingly strange situation.
As I had said before, a player needed an appropriate ‘foundation’ to perform a given action.
However, the movement I had just performed was something my current Strength, Stamina, and Agility stats could never withstand.
Normally, the muscles and bones throughout my body should have failed to endure the recoil and shattered.
Yet my body was perfectly fine, which meant......
‘......Could it be that only for the moment I use the skill, my physical abilities rise along with it?’
Well.
According to the description, I reached the ultimate realm while the skill was active.
My physical stats must rise during that time as well.
Thinking of it that way made it understandable that there was no reaction even after such intense movement.
‘That aside......’
Rustle—.
As I continued considering this and that, I turned to Adelia.
She was still staring blankly into space.
That one strike must have shaken her badly.
‘......She still hasn’t snapped out of it.’
I don’t know.
If I leave her alone, she’ll come to her senses on her own.
I looked away and lowered my eyes to Peterpan’s corpse once more.
I could not spare a moment to worry about Adelia. First, I had to accomplish the purpose that had brought me here.
‘So it was hidden here.’
SQUELCH—.
As I rummaged around inside the corpse with my bare hands, I pulled something out of Peterpan’s torso.
Viscous mucus, blood, and tangled blood vessels came out with it.
After cutting all of it away with the Feather Sword, I stared intently at the ominously colored crystal that fit in one hand.
At that moment, Adelia, who had suddenly come to her senses, asked a question.
“Th-that is......?”
“It is a ‘Trial’ prepared by the great Elders.”
Sacred Piece.
Remnants scattered throughout the continent by the ancient gods, who had now lost their power.
To obtain this power, I had to prove my qualifications by passing the Trials they had prepared.
“It is also the most important mission in the Revelation I received.”
CRUNCH—!
After finishing my words, I clenched my fist without a moment’s hesitation.
The crystal in my hand shattered into powder.
Dark crimson energy began to envelop my body. Along with the chilling screams of children, my vision grew dim.
“......”
Before long, a cold stillness descended.
Ding—!
〔Entered the Trial arranged by the ‘Master of the Second Hand and the Moment’.〕
***
Lost Elder’s storytelling was never direct.
Through the clues they were given, players had to infer such things as the pasts of NPCs and the background behind each faction’s birth.
It was truly a hardcore style of game design.
‘Among them, Dawnguard’s abandoned factory possesses an especially brutal story.’
Dark City Dawnguard.
It was a lawless zone where every kind of illegal experiment was carried out.
One day, a mad mage joined hands with the continent’s leading pharmaceutical company, pursuing the preposterous goal of creating an elixir of eternal life.
They established a factory in Dawnguard and pushed the experiments forward.
‘Hundreds of spirits and thousands of children were sacrificed for nothing.’
The Tinkerbells, who had witnessed those horrific experiments, were enraged.
Peterpan, who had bestowed dreams and fantasies upon children, also lost his reason.
In the end, those who made a contract with ‘them’ for the sake of revenge......
became monsters who mercilessly slaughtered the adults who had carried out the experiments.
『KIIYAAAAAAH—!』
The Corrupted Tinkerbells descended upon the factory.
With piercing screams, they destroyed the factory and turned its machinery into useless lumps of scrap metal.
Every employee at the pharmaceutical factory was reduced to lumps of meat by Peterpan’s greatsword.
Thus, the abandoned factory of Dawnguard, having lost its owners, became the new home of the Corrupted Tinkerbells and Peterpan.
***[That is cruel.]***
“......”
I was the one who had killed Peterpan and the Tinkerbells.
I had killed the monsters who had exacted revenge on behalf of those who had unjustly lost their lives.
***[The Tinkerbells and Peterpan merely returned the same suffering we had received...... Why did you kill them......?]***
At this point, you could probably figure out the nature of this ‘Trial.’
***[I hate you.]***
***[I hate you.]***
***[I hate you.]***
***[I hate you.]***
A space where nothing but darkness could be seen.
Voices brimming with resentment rang chaotically from all directions.
Scarlet ghosts began to appear one by one.
Before long, their numbers became great enough to dye the formerly pitch-black space entirely red.
***[......So you, too, will pay the price with your death.]***
Ding—!
〔Trial Begins.〕
That was right.
At last, the Trial of 【Hidden Dungeon II】 had begun.
......Within the 【Mental World】, I had to confront the vengeful spirits of the experimental subjects who had been unjustly sacrificed.
‘It is frightening, all right.’
KIIYAAAAAAH—!
The ghosts began screaming as they rushed toward me.
Was it because their numbers reached into the thousands? It was as though a towering crimson mountain were charging straight at me.
‘In the game, you have to dodge each of their attacks.’
Physical attacks did not work.
Since I had been dragged into the Mental World, magic and attacks based on divine power were ineffective against the enemies as well.
All a player could do was evade.
I had to endure a high-difficulty bullet-hell shooting game until the Trial ended.
‘Of course......’
━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Passive Effect]
The ‘Mental Power’ stat is permanently set to ‘MAX’.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
‘......Their attacks do not work on me.’
KIIYAAAAH—!
One vengeful spirit brushed past my body.
It was a deadly attack that removed 25 percent of total HP, regardless of the player’s health stat.
That meant even brushing against three or four of them would leave someone at death’s door.
‘I don’t feel a thing.’
But none of that applied to me.
All damage sustained in the Mental World was regarded as a ‘mental attack.’
In other words, thanks to the passive effect of 【Soul of the Swordmaster】, my Mental Power stat was at its maximum, meaning......
Ding—!
〔Mental Power ‘MAX’ nullifies the attacks of the vengeful spirits.〕
......within this 【Mental World】, I could become an invincible existence.
‘I entered 【Hidden Dungeon II】 with this in mind from the very beginning.’
I left all the dungeon’s regular monsters to Adelia.
I defeated the boss monster, Peterpan, with an active skill.
Then I coasted through the subsequent mental-type Trial with a passive skill.
Considering the rewards that followed, this truly could not have been a more perfect dungeon for me.
***KRAAAAAASH—!***
The vengeful spirits surged like a storm.
A blood-red vortex assailed me from every direction.
My ears felt muffled. My clothes and hair were whipped wildly by the wind.
The gusts kept forcing my eyelids shut, blurring my vision.
......It was getting tiresome. If I had endured about this much, would the master of the Trial not acknowledge my qualifications?
After reaching that conclusion, I slowly opened my mouth.
“That is enough. Such a crude illusion will not work on me.”
Snap—!
In an instant, the world fell quiet.
The blood-red vengeful spirits rushing in from every direction disappeared in the blink of an eye.
As if all of this had been a lie, the same stillness as when I first set foot here descended once more.
***[I acknowledge you.]***
It was in the very next moment that someone’s voice began to ring out from all directions.
***[You are more than qualified to receive the ‘remnant’.]***
WHOOOOSH—!
The moment those words ended, the darkness lifted and the original world began to reveal itself.
“......”
I raised my head.
In the underground clearing of the abandoned factory, Peterpan’s corpse, which had been sprawled at my feet, had turned to dust and was slowly rising into the air.
The starlight visible through the partly collapsed ceiling was beautiful to an eerie degree.
And......
Ding—!
〔Cleared the Trial arranged by the ‘Master of the Second Hand and the Moment’.〕
......a familiar notification window began to fill my vision.
〔Reward: Authority Skill 【Ritardando】 Acquired.〕
Upon seeing it, I broke into a radiant smile.
‘I did it.’
The reward I had desired so desperately had finally fallen into my hands.
***
‘This cannot be.’
Tremble—.
Adelia could not possibly believe her own eyes.
As a member of the sacred Goldheart Family, she had been taught everything about the Elders from childhood.
That was why she knew. She knew what an unbelievable feat that man had accomplished.
‘An ancient god’s Trial...... He passed through it so casually......?’