Chapter 87 — Anomaly (Part 4)

  Several hours passed. We were moving through the dungeon and had just returned to the Rank-4 zone.

  I thought we would run in order to report this anomaly to the Adventurers’ Guild as quickly as possible, but Rem and Sherial were walking at a normal pace.

  That was probably the right choice. We needed to conserve our strength. What if some monsters or sufficiently strong people appeared on the way, and we were exhausted after a long run? Maybe I was exaggerating, but still…

  On the other hand, it was a little irritating. At this speed, we might not even get out of this dungeon by evening.

  "Hey, don’t worry. In a few hours, night will fall, and then we’ll be able to make a proper run," Sherial said.

  "But why not now? We could get out of here much faster if we started running right now. And besides, there’s no one around," I said.

  "Hey, there’s no need to rush. Sometimes it’s better to just enjoy the silence and peace," Rem said.

  "Yeah, she’s right, but just walking without doing anything… Well, I can walk like that for many hours in a row, but there has to be some kind of purpose. And right now, we’re just going to report an anomaly to the Adventurers’ Guild."

  Although, alright…

  Lately, it seems I’ve become kind of irritable and impatient.

  I need to be more patient.

  Yes. I’ll treat this as patience training.

  Suddenly, it felt like the ground trembled. And almost immediately, it was as if everything around us became darker.

  I looked at the sky. The sun was still there.

  Then why had everything around us suddenly gotten darker? Was something wrong with my eyes?

  I rubbed my eyes. No, nothing changed.

  And apparently it wasn’t just me, because Rem and Sherial had also stopped and were warily looking around.

  "GRRRRRRROOOOOAAARRR!!!"

  And then, from all directions, a monstrous roar rang out. It felt as though every monster in this dungeon had roared at full volume at the same time. Even the air vibrated from the sound.

  A moment later, the ground began to tremble slightly. At first it was almost unnoticeable, but the shaking was growing stronger and more distinct.

  As if some enormous herd was approaching this place.

  Magic circles began appearing around us, and one after another, eight-meter stone golems rose from them.

  Yes, they were Rem’s golems.

  And then Rem and Sherial grabbed my arms.

  For a moment, I was confused, but it didn’t last long. I quickly understood what they wanted.

  And immediately teleported us to the Training Room.

  "What was that?" I asked as soon as we were safe.

  "I think someone attacked the dungeon core," Rem replied.

  "What kind of idiot would attack a dungeon core? That’s just stupid. Who would want to die?" I said. It seemed completely illogical to me. It made far more sense to just fight monsters, earn money, and level up. You’d have to be a complete idiot to attack a dungeon core and become a wanted criminal who would be executed after being caught.

  "Well, you know… there are all kinds of people in the world," Sherial said.

  "Right now, we need to prepare," Rem said.

  "Prepare for what?" I asked, interested.

  "As far as I know from the Adventurers’ Guild textbooks, if someone attacks the dungeon core, all monsters head toward it to destroy the intruders. After that, they begin moving toward the dungeon exit and attack everything in their path," Rem said.

  "Wait. I thought that if the dungeon core was destroyed, the monsters disappeared too. Doesn’t it work that way?"

  "No, it doesn’t," Rem replied. "All the monsters that already exist will remain. They will continue to exist until they are destroyed. They’ll just start attacking everything around them uncontrollably. They won’t stay inside the dungeon—they’ll come outside and attack all living things."

  "Then that’s bad," I said.

  I almost cursed.

  Considering how many monsters there had to be in this dungeon, plus those anomalous zones with huge concentrations of monsters… I didn’t think this would end with only the destruction of the small city near the dungeon.

  The big cities might be able to defend themselves.

  But all the villages around it… most likely, they would be destroyed.

  The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  Damn. I can’t allow that.

  Although… why am I so worried about all those villages? Probably because I’m a good person and I care about people.

  "What will our plan be?"

  "I don’t think we have many options right now. Our task is to reach the dungeon exit as quickly as possible and join the defense. The walls there will serve as excellent protection," Rem replied.

  Yes, I think she was right. Those huge walls would make an excellent defense. We could build a solid defensive line there. If we reached it, the three of us would be of great use in the defense, considering our current strength.

  "Alright, what’s our escape plan?" I asked.

  "The plan is simple," Rem said. "I’ll summon golems from here. Sherial will go out with you from time to time to attack and thin out the monster ranks when necessary. And you’ll move together with the golems. And try to stay in a safer area—don’t risk your life."

  "Alright. Excellent, I’m ready," I said.

  Finally, a fight.

  Well… technically, this was just an escape. But it was unlikely to go without battle. Most likely, I would still have to fight.

  "Oh, if you need extra mana potions, I have some supplies there," I said, pointing to the place where I stored the remaining mana potions I had bought at the Adventurers’ Guild.

  "Alright," Rem replied.

  I teleported back into the dungeon, onto the road.

  As soon as I appeared, the golems immediately began moving forward, toward the dungeon exit. And they were moving fairly quickly. I think around 35–40 kilometers per hour. Considering that speed wasn’t their specialty, that was a pretty decent pace.

  There were more and more golems around me. Every few seconds, several more appeared. The new golems lagged a little behind us, but I think they would catch up to us soon.

  And then I saw the first monster coming out from a side path.

  It looked like a huge lizard. It was hard to say exactly how big it was, but clearly larger than a human. It was still far away.

  Then from another path came something that looked like an ape.

  No… more like a gorilla.

  And it headed straight toward us.

  And then another monster appeared.

  Another.

  Another.

  Another…

  Damn. They poured out like a wave of water from all the surrounding paths.

  I turned around.

  Damn… I couldn’t see anything because of the golems. Too many golems.

  I jumped into the air.

  Yes, it was the same picture behind us. Lots of monsters. But the ones appearing behind us weren’t moving in our direction. On the contrary, they were going farther back, as if they didn’t notice us at all.

  Good.

  That meant I wouldn’t have to worry about monsters behind us. Only the ones in front.

  I looked ahead.

  The road we were moving along was already completely packed with monsters.

  Oh, the first golems had already entered battle, easily crushing the monsters. But some monsters were still breaking past them.

  I had just cut off the head of a lizard-like monster.

  [Dungeon monster defeated: Velkris (Lv. 101)]

  [Received: +17,091,105 experience points]

  Not a bad amount of experience points.

  And then…

  Hey!

  New golems started appearing in front of me from magic circles.

  Damn, they’re stealing my experience points!

  I dashed forward.

  I was much faster than the golems and dove straight into the stream of monsters.

  I started cutting down everything ahead of me. After twenty seconds, I retreated back into the ranks of the golems.

  Well… a few scratches here and there.

  Nothing serious.

  But when there are too many monsters, close combat stops being the most convenient idea.

  Damn, one of the golems was destroyed.

  Though in place of one destroyed golem, four new ones appeared at once.

  Our advance slowed down a little.

  But honestly, that suited me just fine.

  Even though there were a lot of golems in front of me now and they were destroying most of the monsters, enough were still breaking through that I wasn’t bored.

  One ape-like monster jumped over the golems.

  But it won’t get away from me.

  Though… to be honest, it was the one that threw itself at me.

  I jumped into the air and split its body with my sword right through the middle of its torso.

  [Dungeon monster defeated: Gorath (Lv. 98)]

  [Received: +15,082,691 experience points]

  Interesting name for that monster.

  I think this is going to be a fun trip.

  So far, I hadn’t encountered anything truly dangerous. All the monsters were fairly weak.

  Well, yes, sometimes some golems were destroyed. But their numbers were growing faster than they were being killed.

  For some time, I kept destroying monsters and moving forward, but soon I noticed that too few monsters were reaching me.

  I jumped into the air.

  Oh, I see.

  There were too many golems ahead of me now. They were barely letting any monsters through anymore—they destroyed them all before they could reach me.

  Oh no. I can’t let them steal all the experience points.

  I moved forward, jumping over the golems.

  And then, far ahead, I noticed a very strange monster.

  It looked completely different from all the others.

  The monster was gigantic.

  But even stranger was the way it looked.

  When I got closer, it became clear that this monster was not moving toward the dungeon core like the others, but in the opposite direction—toward the dungeon exit.

  Very interesting.

  As I got closer, I finally understood what it resembled.

  It looked like a huge stone table walking on legs.

  It was about ten meters tall. Massive stone legs were striding forward, crushing monsters beneath them.

  And on top…

  On top was a massive flat section that looked like a stone table.

  In the center of this "table" was a strange bulge—as if something was inside it.

  Hm.

  This monster is mine.

  I sped up so I could reach it before the golems managed to damage or destroy it.

  I decided to hurry a little, because if I hesitated, the golems would get to it first.

  Destroying monsters along the way, I made long leaps forward. And finally, I ended up right next to this strange creature.

  I jumped and landed directly on top of the monster’s surface.

  From the feel of it… it really was stone.

  It didn’t look like an ordinary monster at all. But this was a dungeon. Even stranger creatures could exist here. It was just that I had never encountered anything this strange before.

  Oh.

  The monster wasn’t reacting to me at all.

  That was pretty suspicious too.

  But whatever.

  I decided not to use my sword and to strike with my fists instead—just like back when I fought Rem’s golems.

  I jumped into the air and slammed my fist down with all my strength.

  A third of the monster’s stone body instantly exploded into pieces—stones and fragments flew in all directions.

  And the entire body of the monster collapsed to the ground.

  That turned out to be pretty easy. Though considering that a third of its body had been destroyed and the rest had simply fallen apart on the ground… I think I killed it.

  Strange.

  Why didn’t its body disappear into light?

  And more importantly… I didn’t receive a system message for killing a monster.

  Damn.

  I had to switch back to the ordinary monsters around me. Though these monsters were already much weaker.

  Looks like these were Rank-3 monsters.

  Yes, the system message confirmed it—these were Rank-3 monsters.

  But I was still interested in… what exactly was that stone "monster"?

  Was it some kind of golem?

  After all, golem-type monsters do sometimes appear in dungeons…

  "Hey, you damn idiot! Why did you destroy my golem?!"

  I heard a human voice.

  An old man’s voice.

  I turned around.

  Standing on top of the pile of stones left behind by that "monster" was an old man. Gray beard, messy hair, a bald spot on the top of his head… and mad red eyes full of rage.

  He was staring straight at me.

  "Why are you silent, idiot?! Do you know how much I spent to create it?!" the old man shouted.

  Damn.

  Looks like… I destroyed not a monster.