Since the demon king's announcement of his return, a month had passed and in another month, the first semester of my life at the academy was about to be over.
Unlike Earth which typically had its long break between semesters during Summer, this world had theirs at the beginning of Winter.
To catch you up to date, so far, I've had two days off; whenever there was a full moon, I was kept in a fortified room despite my parents telling me that it made me seem like a feral beast.
I had to play up the role of the demon curse so no matter what, I had to pretend like it was real.
Two weeks ago, despite my interference by killing Draven when he was vulnerable to attacks, somehow, someway, the artifact he was meant to steal was stolen by someone else.
If this was how the world intended to correct my interference then that me a little fearful of the future.
For instance, if I was to save the life of someone who was meant to die like in the novel, would they still end up dying later?
I prayed that wasn't the case but as the shitty god didn't answer me, I had no choice but to pray to a separate entity that this wouldn't be the case.
Currently, it's the weekend and I was dressed for battle. I had on the finest armor money could afford and in my hand was Gon who was still asleep.
It was a shame that I couldn't use its ability but its quality and sharpness were still enough to be my primary weapon.
With me were the Three Stooges: Jess, Francis, and Cormier.
Truth be told, what I wanted to do, I didn't really need their help. But because of how they were my closest friends in this world, I wanted to help them garner more experience.
Cormier, forever grateful for helping him win that magical egg, was carrying both my bag and his.
I told him that he didn't need to but he refused my refusal and carried my bag regardless of what I had to say.
If I were to describe the three in fantasy terms, Jess was a water-specialist rogue, Francis was a muscle-head tank/brawler, and Cormier was a cautious archer who could sense danger as if it was second nature to him.
In my bag were plenty of potions just in case the three of them needed them.
Instead of actively participating, I was putting the skills I developed in Beginner Leadership to use.
What are we doing?
We're going to raid a dungeon.
Yes, obviously this world has dungeons because why wouldn't it?
As if that wasn't enough, the shitty god even included towers that humans could challenge and climb.
Dungeons were the opposite as you were trying to make your way down.
The dungeon we were heading to was one that was not cleared on purpose because it didn't pose enough threat if it were to malfunction.
Aka, even if the monsters were to leak out and begin attacking the outside world, they could be dealt with by a single powerful human or multiple weaker humans.
Instead, the ability to be able to train adventurers and whatnot with the dungeon was a valuable benefit to mankind.
We weren't meant to be able to enter the dungeon because we were underage but as students of the academy who had proper training and permission slips with three teachers' signatures on it, we were allowed to challenge any dungeon of this caliber.
If I really wanted to though, I could just request Father or Mother to grant me access to one of the dungeons that they own.
But for the moment, none of them was useful to me yet.
"Come on Francis, what did I tell you about taking care of your teammates? You're a tank. You need to position yourself so that the monsters can't reach those behind you," I told him.
"My bad," Francis said. He had a few minor cuts on his body.
Cormier who was pulling his arrows out of the body of the goblins that we had killed, agreed, "That's right Francis. I almost had three of them gang up on me."
"I said 'My bad'. I'll do better next time," said Francis who was taking the criticism well and wasn't getting angry over it.
Jess was drinking a mana potion and she had drained most of it in battle. Her main form of attack was throwing her daggers and pulling them back with water magic almost as if they were attached to chains.
The monsters they were fighting were extremely weak but they were abundant in number so the struggles they were experiencing as a group weren't one to belittle.
"You guys want a breather?" I asked.
"No," said Francis. "We're good.
"Same."
"I agree."
I looked at the three of them and reminded them, "Hey, knowing when to take a break and regather some strength isn't a sign of weakness. It shows battle Intelligence."
The three of them looked at each other and laughed.
"You're right, I'm tired as heck," said Jess as she leaned her back against the wall and sat down.
Nodding his head, Cormier said, "I should take some time to sharpen these arrows."
As he was reusing arrows that didn't break after shooting them, most of the tips had begun dulling.
Francis joked, "Fine. Since these two weaklings need the rest, I'll take one with them... in solidarity."
"Sure," Jess said, rolling her eyes.
Although there was no service in the dungeon, I was still able to check the time on my phone so after taking a peek, I concluded that we had time for one last floor.
But before that, "While you guys rest up, I'm going to clean up the rest of this floor."
With the power of money, not only were we allowed to access the dungeon through our permission slips but we had the entire dungeon to ourselves.
So I didn't have to worry about stealing away monsters from the other adventurers as by the next day when the dungeon is reopened to the public or whoever rents it out, the monsters will have regenerated by then.
"I'll be back in a bit," I told them.
Well, that was just an excuse. Just like when I told the three of them that I needed to use the bathroom when in reality I was heading to the rooftop, I wasn't heading out to kill mere goblins but instead, was going to access a secret room.
I had planned our route perfectly as the location the three of them were resting at, was the opposite of the floor where the room was located.
Casually strolling while slaying the monsters that I encountered on the way, I reached my destination without breaking a sweat.
Looking for the certain stone block on the wall that looked a little off, I pulled it out to reveal a black wall on the other side.
With a secret passcode that involved tapping the black wall in a certain pattern, the rest of the stone wall which this floor of the dungeon was made out of opened up.
On the other side was a white room that was completely empty.
Taking a deep breath, I drank the two potions that I had in hand.
As I stepped in, the stone wall behind me closed and I was alone in this room.
Immediately a hole opened up in the middle of the room and the sound of a platform raising could be heard.
As I waited for it to reach the room, I was gathering magic into my left hand while my right had already positioned Gon in a manner where I could swing with full force.
Activating Kimi's ability so that the white dots appeared, as soon as the golem appeared in front of me, I sent a powerful stroke of lightning that struck the core in the middle of his chest.
Then I followed it up with a perfect swing that struck the core as well.
But as you'd expect from a secret room, the hidden boss obviously wasn't meant to be defeated so easily so despite the crack and damage I did to the core, the battle wasn't over.
Leaping, I dodged the attack it threw at me.
Its body was made up of numerous giant rocks and it was able to detach them from its body and throw the rock like a catapult.
Then like a magnet, the thrown rock would fly back towards the golem and would reattach itself.
Like a creature that was designed to only do a single thing which was to kill, no emotions could be seen in its blue eyes that glowed.
I continued to dodge while shooting lightning.
The room was so massive that the golem which was at least four times my height was able to move around freely.
Kicking off the wall, I spun and landed on the shoulder of the golem.
As it tried to smush me with its arm, I blocked it with a forearm that was wrapped in a thick shield made of mana.
Although there was recoil, it gave me enough time to stab my sword into the core.
Jumping off the golem before another strike could break my shield I watched as its torso spun 180 degrees.
"You're one tough bastard," I said, dodging the rocks being swung my way.
I could use Liona and skip space toward him for quick attacks but Liona was my get-out-of-jail-free card and if I could help it, I wanted to keep its ability available for any emergencies.
"Woah, that one almost got me," I said, letting out a sigh of relief as I dodged one by mere inches.
Running around the room in circles, I watched as his torso continued spinning to trace me.
It wasn't mentioned in the novel because the way that the main character defeated this hidden boss was absolutely bullshit but I wondered if his eyes actually mattered.
I thought since he was a golem, he didn't have organs and no senses.
'If he's not seeing me through sensory of mana then...'
I dropped Gon carefully to the floor.
As four rocks were thrown and were about to start flying back to him, I grabbed onto one of them, and just before it could reattach itself, I pushed myself up into the air, and shot two quick and concentrated lightning bolts at its eyes.
Retrieving, I got a little distance between us and watched as the golem struggled to follow me.
Although he was able to make out my general location, his throws were far less accurate than before.
"One more time," I said as I grabbed another one of his rocks on its way back to the main body.