Chapter 39 – Buffalo Dungeon (3)

===================

Translated by Jinmu

Read only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

======================================

Just over an hour had passed since Kang Geom-ma and the others entered Buffalo Dungeon.

The employee at Buffalo Dungeon’s checkpoint hurriedly made a phone call somewhere. Worried that someone might overhear, he watched his surroundings and pressed the phone tightly to his ear.

Beep. Beep.

The ringing continued briefly.

Click.

Soon the other party picked up. At that, tension became obvious on the employee’s face. Silently clearing his throat, he began to speak in a deferential tone.

“Ah, Instructor. About an hour ago, Kang Geom-ma and his party arrived and entered the dungeon.”

I’ve made the preparations just as I told you to, right?

A woman’s voice replied indifferently, accompanied by the sound of something being chewed.

“Yes, yes, of course. By now, those brats have probably run into the buffaloes that were driven berserk by the mana stone. There should be around fifty of them too, so you don’t need to worry too much. No matter how talented they are, aren’t they just little blood-clots in the end? By now they’re probably already mashed into pulp under buffalo hooves.”

Well, sure. Not that I trust you.

The woman let out a sardonic laugh.

Did you see the other thing too?

“Ah, yes. I did as you said, but….”

Trailing off, the employee carefully watched the reaction of the person who was not even in front of him and spoke cautiously.

“Personally, I think the berserk buffaloes will probably be enough to finish them.”

Excuse me.

A voice as cold as frost. At the killing intent thickly laid beneath that voice, the employee’s body froze stiff. He forcibly swallowed his urge to gag along with a dry gulp.

You know what happened if you fail, right?

“……”

The employee nodded, answering only with the chattering of his teeth.

The faint laughter of the woman on the other end of the call lingered by his ear. Soon after, she added in a tone full of playfulness.

Well, I’m sure you did a good job. Once the result’s out, call me right away and let me know what happened. Good work!

“Y-yes, understood.”

Click.

Even after the call ended, the employee checked the phone screen again. Only after setting it to do-not-disturb mode did he finally let out the breath he had been holding. His collar was damp with sweat.

Wiping the sweat running down his temple with his sleeve, the employee turned his eyes and stared blankly at the dungeon entrance. Then he muttered bitterly.

“Dead this way or dead that way….”

A few days ago, he had driven dozens of buffaloes berserk through a mana stone handed to him by the woman. They were normally docile monsters, but buffaloes driven berserk in a group were, quite literally, no different from living tanks.

Even a party made up of adults would be turned to pulp if they got hit by them. And though they might be cadets of the world’s most prestigious academy, Hoakin Academy, they were still just inexperienced teenagers.

Besides, just in case, he had even forced open the gate to that place, so the odds of them surviving inside the dungeon would be close to zero.

‘…But.’

Yet a suffocating sense of anxiety kept swelling up inside him. The employee suddenly recalled the brief moment when his eyes had met Kang Geom-ma’s.

At first he had wondered why that female instructor was being so concerned over this, but after seeing Kang Geom-ma in person, he changed his mind.

Black hair with the tips gone gray as though dyed ash-colored, and the gleam of jet-black eyes that induced fear.

Under the stare of those eyes, which seemed to pierce straight through the depths of him, his body trembled on reflex.

The employee shook his head to scatter the thoughts, trying to stop thinking. He had done everything he could as the woman had instructed. He had done the best he could .

‘Still.’

He turned his eyes back toward the dungeon entrance. For some reason, the anxiety would not go away. With a grim expression, the employee rubbed at his mouth and hardened his resolve.

‘I’ll go in and check.’

After giving a word of notice to the coworker standing with him, the employee gathered his gear and entered the dungeon entrance.

So as not to leave behind even the slightest possibility of failure. Yet the fingers clutching his weapon were visibly trembling.

* * *

Saki Ryozo stood there stiffly with a vacant face, her mind seemingly gone elsewhere. Her lips moved before the thought could pass through her brain.

“…What the hell.”

The yokan in her mouth dropped to the floor with a plop.

The cool air was now mixed with a fishy dampness. A sticky stench that unpleasantly stabbed at the nostrils. The thunderous noise that had echoed as though shaking the dungeon had also fallen silent.

Wondering if she might be dreaming, Saki Ryozo rubbed her eyes, then looked ahead through half-open lids. But the sight before her did not change.

A mountain of flesh piled up from the corpses of monsters. Beneath it, bright red blood had pooled and spread.

The blood splattered across the dungeon wall like some work of modern art was gradually cooling and hardening stiff.

Saki’s dazed eyes rose a little higher. Her pale blue pupils widened all the way.

Standing with one foot planted atop the summit of that cooling mountain of buffaloes was Kang Geom-ma.

The sashimi knives in both his hands gleamed between his fingers, thinly smeared with sticky blood. In his shadowed face, only the gleam in his eyes shone pale.

The colors of that twisted sight were black and red. Horrific, yet harmoniously mixed together to create a scene of carnage. Her gaze fixed on it, her cheek twitched.

An emotion she could not explain spread across Saki Ryozo’s face. She forced strength into her wobbling knees and straightened her body. Then she narrowed her eyes and looked around.

‘What is this.’

Time. No, a moment would be the right word. A mere instant that had not even lasted a minute.

The herd of buffaloes, which had numbered in the dozens, had been transformed into chunks of meat losing their heat. She could not believe it even as she saw it.

When Kang Geom-ma fanned the blades between his fingers, the monsters’ bodies were sliced away on clean diagonals as if they were sliding apart.

Of course, that included Chloe, who had scattered the buffaloes’ attention left and right at tremendous speed, Speed Weapon, who had diligently blown his recorder to buff them, and Saki Ryozo herself, who had loosed arrows to break apart the enemies’ formation.

Though they had all faithfully carried out their assigned roles, the one who had ultimately butchered most of the enemies was none other than Kang Geom-ma.

Whenever he swung his shoulders and arms with force, the multiple blades cut through the enemies like lightning. It looked as though he was slashing them down indiscriminately, and yet the buffaloes fell in single blows.

As if there was not even the slightest catching of the edge, the buffaloes that died split in half revealed slick, smooth cut surfaces.

‘……’

She had known Kang Geom-ma was extraordinary through the subspace duel and through the plentiful rumors, but the performance she had witnessed directly was on an entirely different level.

Amid flesh falling away in chunks like tofu, he moved with a fluidity like a sword dance. Seeing that, Saki Ryozo forgot that she was supposed to fire even while an arrow was hooked on her bowstring.

Hands that left her speechless. When she slightly turned her head, Weapon shrugged as though he understood her reaction.

“I told you. Not to be surprised.”

“…How the hell am I not supposed to be surprised after seeing that, idiot.”

“Puhaha. Well, when I first saw it too, I couldn’t say a word. Even now it’s still absurd. Every time I see Kang Geom-ma, that bastard blows away all the common sense I’ve had until then.”

Wearing a complicated expression, Saki moved her faintly trembling lips.

“…What even is Kang Geom-ma?”

“I don’t know either.”

Weapon shook his head with an awkward smile.

“But, well.”

Stopping mid-sentence, Weapon suddenly lifted his gaze. Saki’s eyes followed it.

Standing there as if reigning over everything, Kang Geom-ma flicked the knives to shake off the blood. The blades of the sashimi knives flashed white as if nothing had happened.

Kiiiiing.

As if still unsated, an ominous sword-note scattered mournfully. Kang Geom-ma indifferently slid them back into their sheaths and brushed off his hands.

Soon after, Kang Geom-ma took out a coping saw and began sawing through the buffaloes’ horns. Chloe was beside him, helping gather materials.

Quietly staring at Kang Geom-ma, Weapon tossed a low single word toward Saki.

“Legend.”

“……?”

“Well, wouldn’t it be something like that?”

Weapon rubbed the bridge of his nose with a subtle smile toward Saki. Then he started walking toward Kang Geom-ma.

Saki remained standing there alone.

“Hah.”

At last, she let out a hollow laugh.

* * *

“This should be enough.”

A cloth bundle packed full with buffalo materials. Stroking my chin, I checked it again. We had killed over fifty of them, but the amount I could carry was enough for maybe twenty.

It was a little disappointing for the effort involved, but since I didn’t have an item like a subspace pouch, I decided to take only as much as I could manage by weight.

Actually, even this was more than satisfying enough of a haul. Nodding to myself with satisfaction, I smiled.

“Geom-ma, you were amazing again today!”

Chloe smiled brightly, wagging an invisible tail from side to side. Her hair, which had been whipping about in the wind while she drew the buffaloes’ attention at high speed, was now completely mussed up.

With how it matched her cute impression, she really looked like a fluffy little puppy. I smiled at her with my eyes.

“Chloe, you worked hard too. It could’ve turned into a dangerous situation, but thanks to you it went smoothly.”

“Hehe, thank you.”

Dropping her gaze with a flushed face, Chloe looked shy. I gazed down at her quietly.

Chloe and the others had pushed themselves for my sake. Because each of them had faithfully carried out their role, we were able to deal with all those enemies without so much as a scratch.

I had no intention of sinking into sentiment, but there was also no reason to hold back a few words of thanks from the people who had moved for my sake.

‘And the gamble paid off to some extent too.’

The biggest gain from this situation was that I had found a measure for fighting many enemies at once. Going forward, I would be diving into dungeons often in order to strengthen my weapons.

Most dungeons housed monsters in groups, and I could not borrow my party members’ help every single time.

If I could not find a solution for many-against-one combat, the risk of dying alone in a dungeon in an emergency would be high. That was why I had spent the whole night working out a method, and it had worked fairly well.

Of course, the active time was still under a minute, but the duration of the Blessing of Painlessness would gradually lengthen the more often I used it. Besides, the higher the grade of my weapon, the less the agony would become, so the prospects were quite encouraging. Thinking that way, the corners of my mouth rose.

“The dungeon clear condition was killing twenty buffaloes, but somehow we ended up taking down more than twice that. Well, honestly, you basically killed all of them by yourself, so I feel kind of shameless….”

Speed Weapon spoke while awkwardly scratching at the bridge of his nose.

“During the midterm, when we took down that merman group, I didn’t do anything. Just think of this as evening it out.”

“Hey, back then you handled the merme….”

Weapon glanced toward Saki Ryozo and trailed off. Then he let out a deep sigh and nodded.

“Well, yeah. Anyway, thanks. Forget clearing the dungeon, we almost all died screaming. More importantly, why were those buffalo bastards in that kind of condition today?”

Weapon pressed at the space between his brows and fell into thought. At those words, Saki Ryozo swept her gaze over the buffalo corpses and was about to speak.

Ssssss.

In an instant, a chilling wind blew from the center of the dungeon. A thoroughly unpleasant sense of foreboding. At the same time as that cold air came rushing in, my party members’ faces turned pale.

At that artificial current, the sensation etched into my body expanded, and my brow slowly began to knit.

The resonance of mana. A brutal presence enough to make the aura the mermaid had emitted during the midterm feel laughable. The goosebumps on my arms would not go away.

‘Something has gone wrong.’

Figuring out the situation came second. First, we had to run.

The moment I thought that, an eerie mass of mana wrapped itself around our bodies in the blink of an eye.

“Fuck, what is thi…!”