"[Demon Vanquisher]… Trap deactivated. Now, [Detection]… found it. It's around the corner up ahead. Looks like a Lesser Fire Dragon."
Two months had passed since I defeated the black dragon.
That day, as I left the boss room, I immediately encountered a staircase, and going up led me straight to a Lesser Rock Dragon—nearly 10 meters long—causing me to panic.
Acting purely on reflex, I unleashed my Demon Vanquisher skill at full force and pummeled the rock dragon with my Flame Lance until it was mincemeat.
I was genuinely scared back then. After that, I made up my mind to always use Detection when going up stairs.
Now, moving to the second floor from the boss room was another experience—it was incredibly spacious.
Dragons that size can't be contained in cramped spaces, of course.
The ceiling was high, and maze-like walls wove across the floor, though they didn't reach the top. Dragons could definitely swoop down from above.
Hey, thats unfair! Monsters can get over the walls while I cautiously disable traps below here.
Here, the ceiling's practically sky-high. Yet, the stairs is the same length on every floor. Its beyond my logic
Anyway, after struggling through the enormous labyrinth, I've made it to the 9th floor.
It took two months to get here. It took too long to get up to the 3rd floor mostly because I was leveling up my Detection skill. From the 4th floor onward, I've been able to get up to one floor every 5days, so I think i can pick up the pace a bit from now on.
As for the skills, I managed to level up Detection and Appraisal to proficiency III. With Detection at level III, I can finally cover half of this wide floor;
Appraisal only reached level III recently. I appraise items daily in my tent, but it seems to be a slow-to-level skill.
Offensive skills leveled to II quickly, but getting them to III in this environment has been incredibly challenging. Since there were only a few of those monster up into this points.
So, I focused on honing the more practical offensive skills.
There are rooms big enough where the monsters sleep.
And there are some small rooms where monsters can't enter.
Though they're often filled with traps, I could nullify those traps with Demon Vanquisher.
Inside these rooms, about 15m2 in size, I set up my magic tent, activate a full powered Barrier skill, and a Concealment Barrier magic tool.
The Concealment Barrier magic tool consists of four black boxes placed on all sides; once activated, it forms a barrier that blocks magic, scent, and sound.
There were about 10 sets of this items, so it must be essential items for explorers
I initially thought I'd just use the Gate Key to skip to the lowest level's boss room, but the gate wouldn't activate.
Seems like it only works for the same floor, useless.
Each floor here has at least 15 A to A+ rank Lesser Dragons.
They're so large that they show up easily on Detection, but frequent checks are necessary since they occasionally appear from above.
Demon Vanquisher makes them drop from the air tho, taking damage on the fall, which is nice.
This skill is way too much of a cheat.
On the contrary, it would be scarier if dozens of Velociraptors appeared.
To mitigate that situation, I've been practicing area activation of the Demon Vanquisher skill over the entire floor. But, it doesnt really work well against the few traps in the hallway.
And while I've been hunting the Lesser Dragons whenever I find them, I imagine the skeletons near the black dragon tried to avoid them while advancing.
I've also found about 300 Lesser Dragons magic stones the size of a human head scattered here and there. I think those deceased explorers used Detection to avoid Lesser Dragons and only dealt the one that do surprise attack from the sky.
Probably, they gave up the magic stones and prioritize going deeper into the dungeon. Well, I'm a cheapskate, I will gladly collect those magic stones.
But even after all this, the Black Dragon's magic stone is like a black hole.
The stone is a black diamond about a meter in diameter, its color barely changing to a faint black even after I transfer mana with Demon Vanquisher whenever I have the chance.
It could sell for a fortune probably a billion yen, so I haven't given up on it yet.
Oh, a staircase! I found this one in four days—a good pace!
Wait, the tenth floor? That's a boss room, isn't it? Uh-oh… could it be something close to Vritra's level?
I approached cautiously, activating Detection. But my Detection was interrupted midway.
"Huh? That's never happened before. Why now?"
Climbing the stairs, I noticed a lid covering the top of the stairs where the exit was.
"What? Why can't I get through? Wait… it must be a boss room!"
The stairs opened after defeating the boss… so the stairs were blocked because the boss was still alive.
(For those who are confused, this is an example. We are at floor 1, we need to defeat the boss at floor 1 to go to floor 2. But for some reason, we are teleported at floor 2 and wanted to go back to floor 1. Unfortunately we cannot go there cz the path is blocked unless someone kill the boss)
That cover must have been blocking my Detection.
But wait! No! This means I might be trapped here forever! Crap, this is really bad!
Realizing that I couldn't go up the stairs unless someone defeated the boss above, I drew my massive iron sword, deciding I'd break that cover if I had to, and charged up the staircase.
And just as I was about to drive my sword into the cover, it suddenly vanished.
I stumbled forward with the momentum and ended up jumping out onto the surface.
"Whoa! Hey! What the…? Its like some automatic door, huh? Got worked up for nothing… Oh?"
Grrroooaaaar!
As I regained my balance, I found myself staring up at a massive red-scaled fire dragon, at least 40 meters tall. Looking down on me.
The stairs seemed to lead to the center of the boss room.
"It's not some treasure vault or anything… S-skill [Body Enhancement] activate!"
Fwooosh!
Seeing the dragon inhale sharply, I barely managed to activate my body enhancement skill which I had raised to level 3 and threw myself back down the stairs with all my strength.
"Hot! Ouch! That was close! Any later, and I'd have taken the full blast… You're gonna pay for this! Take this! 'Demon Vanquisher!'"
I run up the stairs again and charging back outside. I released my skill at the fire dragon and at the same time transferred its mana to the atmosphere
As I drained its magic with my skill, it staggered, eventually collapsing sideways.
I went for the magic stone in its chest, but noticing it was no longer moving, I held off on using my skill.
"Huh? Didn't even drain the magic stone… so Vritra was an exception, staying active even with its magic drained? Well, even by then Vritra was extremely weakened. I guess lower grade dragons wouldn't hold up as well. In that case…"
I climbed up its collapsed body, reaching its head, and drove my magic-sword deep into its eye
Then just to be sure, I twist the sword repeatedly.
Grooooaaaar…
"[Glacial Shift]… There, that should do it. This skill works way too well on big creatures."
The fire dragon let out a final cry as its brain was destroyed, then went completely still.
To be safe, I stepped away and froze its head.
With the rush of experience points flooding in, I took my enchanted sword and sliced into its chest, and pulling out a massive red magic stone the size of the one from Vritra.
"Whoa, that's huge! This thing must be pretty high rank too. Let's take a look… 'Appraise!'"
Species: Dragon
- HP: S+
- Magic: SS-
- Strength: S+
- Agility: S+
- Dexterity: SS-
- Race Magic (Bloodline Ability): Dragon Magic [Magic Barrier], [Fire Breath], [Intimidation]
- Note: Fire Dragon King
"A king-class? I missed the rank on Vritra back then… Wait, if there's a king and a lesser dragon, does that mean there's also a higher tier and maybe a regular one? There are even more out there? I'll have to be more careful next time."
I was a bit shaken, but I'm not who I used to be.
I now have this "Demon Vanquisher" skill that's effective enough to call me a dragon slayer, plus some powerful skills and a razor-sharp sword.
I even have a barrier skill that should block at least one full powered breath attack—although I dont want to test that out.
"Let's see if my rank has increased. 'Appraise!'"
Name: Hikaru Akutsu
- Species: Human
- HP/Stamina: S+
- Magic: SS-
- Strength: S+
- Agility: S+
- Dexterity: SS-
- Unique Skills: [Demon Vanquisher], [Barrier]
- Skills: [Appraisal III], [Detection III], [Night Vision II], [Body Enhancement III], [Small Heal II], [Alchemy I], [Synthesis I], [Wind Blade I], [Harden II], [Flame Lance III], [Ice Spear II], [Middle Heal II], [Glacial Shift III], [Crushing Pressure III], [Terrain Manipulation II], [Thousand Spears II], [Hawk Eye III], [Silence II], [Concealment III]
- Note: [Master of Demons]
"Nice! My S+ went up to SS-! It took two months of hunting down lesser dragons and defeating a Fire Dragon King to move up just one rank. It really gets harder at this level. And this note that appeared with Appraisal III… is it a title or something? Maybe it's connected to my Demon Vanquisher skill."
A little cheesy, but it's the dungeon system. I guess that's how it works.
It seems that as my rank goes higher, it's harder to gain experience.
Even when I took down all those lesser dragons, the stats that were already S+ didn't budge until I took down this big one.
If it's this slow even when hogging the experience for myself, it'd probably take forever to reach SS class in a party or raid.
Maybe that's why those corpse wearing those Stagnation Ring.
Guess it'd take 300 years or so for them to level up.
"But what's up with this ranking? My strength is S+ just like the Fire Dragon King, but if I went up against it in a pure strength test, I'd lose for sure. I'd get squashed.
The rank must mean strength within each species. Sheer size is a weapon on its own, so S or SS shouldn't really compare."
Hmm, idk. Its only been two years since the dungeon first appeared. I am probably the only one who's ever fought such strong monsters. There is not enough information.
Brushing these thing off from my mind, I stored the fire dragon in the Spatial Storage Bracelet.
"Whoa, jackpot!"
On the place where the fire dragon was, there was a golden treasure chest.
Was the dragon guarding this all this time?
Just to be safe, I set up a barrier and opened the chest.
"Yes! A thick white skill book! This has to be an advanced healing skill! And there's potions in here too. Jackpot!"
I was thrilled to find a rare healing skill book.
Even a mid-level skill like "Middle Heal" had incredible healing effects.
I tried it once on a lesser dragon and it was so effective to the extent of attaching severed tails.
And this book was even thicker. [Appraise]
[Large Heal Skill Book]
"Large? That means 'big,' right? If Middle is 'medium,' then this must be a big heal!"
I was so excited to get the skill book i was hoping for, so I opened it immediately and learn it.
"Awesome! Exactly what I was hoping for. This skill can regenerate lost limbs and even has blood-replenishing ability! I'll need to level it up as soon as possible."
Images of injuries healing and limbs regenerating and blood replenishing flowed through my mind.
This is probably the highest tier of healing skill.
With enough mastery, it'll close wounds and regrow limbs instantly.
"Haha! What an incredible skill! And 6x Grade 2 potions! Alright, time to pick up the pace! Without hitting any traps, I should get out of here faster. Let's make it to the surface!"
At the time, I underestimated the dungeon.
I had no idea that this dungeon had 100 floors.