[...]
[You have leveled up.]
[Your stamina, magic points, and health points have been restored!]
[Player: Jack (Lvl 56)]
Isaac opened his eyes with his body covered in black blood from head to toe.
His smile, which had never left his lips, was beautiful (according to him) but demonic for the one who looked at him.
But he frowned when he realized that the zombies were no longer showing up.
'It's strange. There are always ten inactive graves. But why don't zombies...?'
His attention was attracted to his sword, which had only half of its blade.
[Knight's sword.]
[Durability - 10/100]
'Sigh, it's regrettable, but this sword will no longer be of much use to me.' He throws his sword and looks at his other notifications.
Meanwhile, Maria had an idiotic expression; for lack of a better word.
'He didn't use a single skill apart from the sword mastery skill I had given him; it's not even funny anymore.
-But more importantly, how is it that his sword mastery is more refined than mine when he has not even obtained the superior skill's scroll?' With all the questions raging in her brain, she approaches Isaac who had just finished checking his notifications.
"You have shown yourself to be more useful than expected; you have my gratitude." She speaks in a haughty voice.
But being used to her superior air, Isaac only gave her a nonchalant smile. "Then surely you would have nothing against increasing my payment, to show your appreciation?"
"We had agreed on everything before coming here. Should I understand that you are minding to break one of our...-
"Relax, relax, I'm joking, that's all. Why are you as tense as usual!?" Isaac interrupts her when he sees her grumpy look.
But following Maria's gaze, Isaac also frowns. "Information about our next step?" He asks while looking around.
'We have not been teleported to the next floor, nor have we obtained information to be able to access the next floor; this means that our work isn't finished yet.' Isaac mutters in his mind while looking at the ten graves which still didn't react.
The second after, Maria shakes her head and answers Isaac's question. "As I said three hours ago, I don't have any reliable information about this dungeon. But there are rumors which said the second floor contains a guardian monster and the final boss."
Isaac frowns. "A guardian monster? Not a guard or a monster?"
"I know what you think. The guards are unable to die, as for the monsters, the latter attack all the intruders. But there are guardian monsters that cannot be killed but are likely to kill players who fail their tests." Maria explains herself briefly.
"I know that, but the guardians hostile to players are none other than the ancient minions of the gods. They only appear in divine areas or towers that are the vestiges of the ancient demigods or fallen gods." Isaac adds this detail to Maria's explanations while picking up the failed potions he had created.
Maria, for her part, contented herself with taking the weapons and other drops that the zombies had left behind.
"Do you have another weapon to defend yourself?"
"Yes, I have my dagger and some low-ranking weapons that I stole from the players during the tutorial," Isaac answers bluntly.
"Do you intend to fight with such weak weapons in such a dangerous one?"
"Heh, it's not like I have the right to have my share in these loots. The zombies had interesting weapons, but I don't have any right to have their Drops."
"...Sigh, take this sword. You will be more useful to me by being alive than dead." Maria throws him a sword similar to her old one.
But Isaac frowns. "Do you give me a weapon whose durability is half? It won't last long."
"Are you so greedy?" Maria asks with a twisted smile.
"...Sigh, do as you wish."
"Hehe, you're strange, Jack." She mutters under her tongue while giving him another sword similar to the old one; except that the durability of the latter was about 90%.
After this exchange, the two began to wander in the desert without a specific destination.
'I think half an hour has already passed. But I don't feel hungry or thirsty. To believe that my body and my metabolism had been strengthened to this level.' Isaac mutters with a deep sigh.
'I'm lucky; thanks to the levels up, I was able to restore all my stats points, including my LPs. But I still don't know how to accomplish this mission.
-The system didn't give me specific deadlines or instructions. One-sided was to make sure that my feelings were not one-way. Sigh, I'll check this in detail after finding a quieter place.' Despite his haste, he had no expression of panic on his face.
After a few more minutes, the two arrived near a strange paradise pond with dozens of palm trees and wild grasses around it.
"It's there," Maria mutters while looking at the pond fifty meters from them. "It's also possible that this place is a safe zone." She continued with suspicious eyes.
Isaac raises one of his eyebrows. 'It's possible, indeed. But given the high level of this dungeon, I doubt that we can reach this place safely.' He also mumbles in his mind while looking at the pond in the distance.
The two advanced at a wolf's pace toward the pond.
-Whooooo!!
But once they arrived thirty meters from the pond, both stopped when they saw a sand slide followed by a sudden tempest that heralded a bad omen.
Aware of the danger, Isaac and Maria retreated a few and stood ten meters from the gale.
"Do you think it's the famous guardian you were talking about?" Isaac asks with dark eyes and focuses on the gale.
"...I don't know, but it looks like it." Maria gives him this ambiguous answer.
But a few seconds later, their two expressions turned darker than the anchor when they noticed the shape that the sand took in front of them.
A pyramid of one hundred feet high and thirty in diameter.
In front of the pyramid resembling those of ancient Egypt, there was a strange creature whose body was made of sand.
It had a humanoid head and a beast's body; lying in front of the pyramid that stood between the two players and the pond.
Isaac's eyes were something else when he saw the sphinx. His heart began to fiercely beat in his chest as ever!
"-!? What does this Anubis's bastard's sphinx do in such a place!?" He swore in a loud voice while looking at the creature as imposing as the pyramid behind it.
"It's here!" Maria yells with joy; unlike Isaac, she doesn't seem surprised by the sphinx's appearance.
Her cheerful voice momentarily diverts Isaac's attention to the sphinx. But seeing her silly smile which resembled that of an explorer, who has just discovered an ancient sarcophagus a million years old, Isaac's expression has become something completely different.
'This girl hid her game well.' Isaac immediately concludes in his mind when he saw that Maria had an expression other than surprise.
[You discovered the guardian of the tombs.]
[Anubis' sphinx was stolen by the owner of this dungeon, who wanted to use it to take revenge on the person responsible for his decline.
[But at the same time, he attracted the wrath of Anubis; the latter then cursed him with immortality with his balance of retribution.]
[Two paths are now available to you. Decide to assist the sphinx test and you will free the mage and his apostles from the curse of immortality, or defeat the mage and his apostles to recover the holy grail.]
[You have half an hour to make a decision; then you will be convened to make them hear your verdict.]
With this last bit of information that Isaac and Maria saw in their notifications tab, the sphinx and the pyramid turned into sand.
'That's the rest of the anecdote. I now understand why the mage was cursed. The Queen of Babylon had only defeated him; not killed or cursed. This madman attacked a god.' Isaac mutters while trying to keep his cool.
But at the same location, the two saw the ten tombs, which they had left behind, reappear infront of them.
[Countdown 29mn:58 sec]
Seeing this countdown, Isaac looks at Maria, waiting for her to explain herself.
As for the latter, feeling Isaac's hostile eyes on her, she looks at him with confused eyes. "What's popping with you? Why do you look at me with those eyes?"
"...Finally, these aren't my problems. But this mission wasn't part of our agreement." Isaac's monochord tone was dark enough to show his discontent as he walked toward the pond.
Maria's expression also darkens she heard the hostility behind his words.
"What exactly is your problem? What wasn't part of our agreement?" She asks in a loud voice without following Isaac.
The latter stops and gives her a dark look. "You have deceived me until now! But I expected everything except to see you lie about the existence of the sphinx in this dungeon. Do you think you can beat the sphinx? This bastard is...-
"Who told you that I intend to pass the Sphinx test!?" Maria interrupts him before he continues his sentence.
"..."
Seeing him throw a silly look at her, Maria became more bored because of the sudden and mysterious anger of Isaac, who accused her without concrete evidence.
"As I said rather, I am only interested in the holy grail; the sphinx does not interest me!" She says between her clenched teeth to keep her rage under control.
At that moment, Isaac had a bad premonition when he saw the serious glow in Maria's eyes. But he immediately shakes his head. "Stop pretending not to know what I'm talking about. It's impossible to finish this dungeon without going through the Sphinx. Unless you want to end up like the other zombified players."
"What!? What do you mean by that!?" Maria's eyes also showed panic in them.
"...The information was nevertheless very clear from the beginning. To finish the dungeon, we must free the black mage from his curse. And there, we have just been informed that the curse suffered by the black mage was lobbed by this fucking Anubis, the ancient Egyptian god and protector of tombs. Do you get it now!?"
Throughout his accelerated-paced explanations, Isaac constantly pointed to the tombs that appeared on the former location of the Sphinx.
But Maria's expression proved that she had still not understood exactly where Isaac was coming from.
The latter massages his temples with a ridiculous smile.
"Sigh, it's only now that I realize how much I had made the wrong decision." He said while sitting on a mound of sand.
"Do you regret accepting the mission."
"No, it's not that, what I regret is having left you in the reins so far."
Maria darkly frowns when she listens to Isaac's words.
But the latter doesn't take her mood into account.
"To put it simply, if we decide to face the black mage and his minions, we will end up like the living dead we had faced." He then continued his explanations.
As for Maria, despite her pride, she took a deep sigh. "What makes you say that?" She asks in a heavy voice.
"...??" Isaac looks at her eyes with skepticism.
"Sigh, It seems you are really not simulating your ignorance. If we kill the mage to help him find rest, he will still come back to life. This is his sentence for daring to steal the property of a god.
-And since the sphinx will always be present in the dungeon, we will also be affected by the curse for daring to interfere with the power of retribution which is the exclusive power of one of a deity. Do you understand now?
-It is mandatory to go through the sphinx test and send it home. Only in this way can the vicious circle of the curse stop."
After listening to Isaac's explanations, Maria nods with understanding eyes. "I have never attended the sphinx event, but according to statistics, only 1/100 players manage to pass its test." She mutters as if she were thinking out loud.
She then looks at Isaac. "You think you can...-
"No chance! I hate this Anubis bastard for a good reason; the sphinx is the only monster I had not been able to respond to its enigmatic challenges. I was planning to settle its account after." Isaac interrupts her immediately.