If something could be called "the Dungeon Battle's climax", then this would be it. That thought hit me when watching the all-out war happening on Damavand's 4th floor.

  Alf, who had been stationed on the 5th floor as the Dungeon's last line of defense, had decided to take some of his troops and start scraping off some enemy firepower before they reached floor 5. Alf is stationed by the entrance to the 5th floor, using a binocular and multiple terminals to stay in contact with the Goblins assigned as the "party leader" for each monster group, giving them orders while staying close to the 5th floor in case the enemies broke through.

  Not a bad plan at all. The 4th floor consists of 4 trap facilities plus 2 more, a "mineshaft" that we are using to "farm" more meteor metals, and a "black-market shop" that produces random materials daily that we, or intruders, can purchase. Speaking of which, why aren't those shady guys giving their Dungeon Master a discount? I can at least pay them with DP, but still...

  "Master, there are no more enemy monsters left on the 3rd floor and above!" - Bloom

  "Contact Flint and have him go down to the 4th floor. We'll flank them from both floors." - Garami

  We're 6 hours into the Dungeon Battle and I can finally see the end of the tunnel! Still, did we need a little over 1 hour (when breaks aren't counter) for each floor? Yikes. I hope we never have to challenge something like a 100-floor Dungeon in the future.

  "Flint is on the move. Now the only problems left are..." - Bloom

  "The 'reinforcements'..." I said while trying to prevent my ever-growing irritation from seeping into my voice. I failed.

  Returning to the screen showing the raiding party, I watched as Mira and her party of gold-loving goblins (the only guys stupid enough to join her when she first stormed off) fended off black crystals thrown by a large turtle sitting on the front end of the second cart chasing them.

  To recap, Mira's party advanced the nanosecond we mentioned the word "vaults". Runitos must have panicked because a whole new group of different D-rankers suddenly spawned on the 5th floor. All of them jumped into the remaining carts before chasing down our greedy forerunners. Revi had to command the long-range monsters, trying to shoot down the chasers from the platforms or join the chase using the few remaining carts that hadn't been taken.

  "And Iron STILL hasn't found that blasted thing?!" I asked, referring to our undead knight who had taken the monsters including the Giant Bats to start cracking the vaults open in search of the opponent's Dummy Core.

  "Nothing yet. Is it even hidden inside one of them?" - Noire

  "Hiding your valuables in a vault is common sense." - Garami

  "Maybe. But it could also be 'too common'." - Noire

  Oh, that might be true. Stuffing the Core inside one of the many vaults on the floor would be too obvious. If you want to keep the thing safe, a super-strong vault door won't be enough. I mean, the invaders (in this case, us) have already reached the deepest floor by now. Unless there's some juicy security added to them, the common vaults wouldn't last a minute.

  Even the Dungeon Monsters can easily break them open, and to be honest, those guys are idiots. Ehm, maybe except for the the Stygian Jesters. Those guys are piling up the number of open vaults like it's going out of style. The Dark Elves might also have been able to do the same, but they're busy firing arrows and magic spells at Runitos' last monsters.

  "And the new monsters are completely ignoring Iron's group to chase after Mira..." - Garami

  Why go after those guys and leave the key pickers alone? They're not even that enthusiastic in their attacks, compared to when they fire at Revi's long-range attackers when they get too close. The weakling shower of crystals that Mira fended off might have numbers, but the same turtle released a meteor-tier one earlier that squashed a group of Dark Elves and Gazers like bugs.

  "...Maybe...it's in the cart?" - Garami

  "Huh?" - Noire

  "The Core. What if Runitos hid his Dummy Core in one of the carts?" - Garami

  "Have you gone senile? That core thing is supposed to be the Dungeon's heart. Even I know that much. Having your heart shuffled around all over the place is bound to cause even a Dungeon to feel ill. It's an idea only an idiot could think of." - Noire

  "Hey!" - Garami

  "Ahahaha..." - Bloom

  "...No way. Please do not say..." - Noire

  "I tried the same thing? Sure did." - Garami

  This city Dungeon can even add functioning railways if you want to. The facility was a little too pricey, so that idea never born fruit, but I used a preview function to see if I could load the Dummy Core inside one of the train cars, and it worked.

  When I struggled with whether to spend some extra DP on the trains or not, I realized that kind of strategy would have been too risky. If the Core was moving around, it would be more than just "difficult" trying to keep it safe all the time. Heck, since the train would be moving around automatically, the raiders could just have waited on one of the stations for the train to come to them. And if that happened, our forces would have to desperately chase after the raiders while hoping they would be in time.

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  Kinda like what's going on now with the newly-spawned D-ranks.

  "Mira, try searching the cart you're on. The Dummy Core might be hidden there." - Garami

  [You serious!? But, Princess, there's no place for it to hide!] - Mira

  Tch, dead-on. The cart's got six (very large) seats and a set of wheels, and that's pretty much everything. No hidden luggage rooms or anything. The only thing out of place is a pillar attached to the front of the cart. It might have held a sphere light source or anything, but nothing's placed there or on the other carts. Runitos must have cheaper out on the complete cart package-.

  "STOP! There, I saw it!" shouted Noire all of a sudden. I gave her a look that asked what in the world she was asking about, and her answer threw me for a loop.

  "The Dummy Core, you dummy! It's there, on the front of the cart! Mira's cart!" - Noire

  No way! I can't see it now. Let's rewind the recording a little...AHA!

  On the recording, when Mira's cart passed a large, black wall, on its shining surface, we saw the Dummy Core settled on the pillar attached to the cart's front.

  "It's the walls! Rather, the floor's attribute! Runitos, he's using 'Obsidian' for the 5th floor's attribute! That's what concealing the Dummy Core!" - Garami

  When I studied Dungeons back in Velantas, I came across multiple records of key objects for proceeding deeper into Dungeons being hidden inside the reflection of the mirrors there. The Obsidian attribute has similar properties to Mirror, so it wouldn't be strange for it to have access to similar tricks.

  "Mira, look at the reflective walls! The Dummy Core is hidden inside the reflection!" - Garami

  [This isn't the time to-, too close-!] - Mira

  I called at a bad time, as the turtle from before rained another downpour of obsidian crystals at Mira's group. Mira jumped behind the seats to take cover, which gave her a split moment to look to the side of the carts and found a reflective wall. Her eyes widened as she saw the glowing, green sphere on the front of her cart, before turning her gaze at the real deal, which was unfortunately still empty. A stray obsidian crystal made sure to demonstrate that.

  "Not the real cart, but its reflection-!" - Garami

  [Roger that! Hey, you! Get us closer to one of those walls again!] - Mira

  Further explanation wasn't needed here. Mira swiftly ordered the goblins to take them to another wall close to the cart rails and the group's weapons. Behind me, Bloom started giving out orders to the rest of the raiding party to blast the reflection of the Dummy Core to kingdom come should they get the chance. That's the only way to destroy it unless there's some gimmick facility we can destroy to disable this annoying feature. Not that we know what it looks like, or if it even exists.

  The D-rankers must have noticed that we had busted their secret, cause now they've gone completely rabid in trying to blow Mira's group off the cart. The buff turtle dude from before even started throwing the knight-looking goblins that were on the same cart. Mira punted them like baseballs using her greatsword before they could board the cart. OUR goblins are looking at the scene with dread painted over their faces. Sorry about that...

  AH! A D-rank snake jumped onto the rails in front of our crew! Is it planning to body-blow them off the cart!? I'm not sure if I should call it absurd or macho but don't block the path leading to the closest mirror wall, you ****ing snake bastard!!

  And here comes the solution to our problem! Iron, dangling from the legs of a Giant Bat, came charging at the Obsidian snake with his shield poised! After hearing a nasty sound from Mira's communicator (she had forgotten to turn it off), I saw the snake getting thrown right into the abyss below. Too bad it will only reappear on the 4th floor. TCH!

  Iron charged at the enemy carts, but the buff turtle, which I can only assume is the leader of their group, retrieved its head into its shell before firing pellets of obsidian like a machine gun at our undead knight. The Giant Bat got its wings torn apart, forcing Iron to jump off, and barely managed to score a landing on one of the platforms. And wait just a damn minute. How multi-talented is that turtle?! No wonder it got appointed to be the leader of this hastily-created monster group. If he ever kidnapped a princess, you'd need more than just a plumber to save her...? Hey, ain't that bad news regarding me and my newest nickname?

  A-anyway, now there shouldn't be any more distractions..., or so I said, but that blasted turtle! Now he's retrieved his legs and started shooting pebbles from there, acting like he's got some sort of rocket legs! How veritable is this kaiju turtle!? Mira, and the goblins, keep your guard up!

  ...Never mind, he got shot down. By a ray of dark-green magic. Changing the "camera" a little, I see Revi holding her dragon doll, its mouth still emitting green fumes, busting her as the perpetrator for this anti-climatic ending of the boss turtle's life. Ehm......, what goes well ends well? Is that the right saying here...? Still, props to the turtle. Even that death beam wasn't enough to kill him! He still has to start from scratch on the 4th floor though.

  Despite the boring finish of the boss turtle, the other D-rankers are not giving up, though I can see them having grown a tad more, what's the word, "desperate"? "Despair-filled"? "Scared to death"? Something along those lines. Too bad for them, fear always slows you down, and in this scenario, that's fatal. Mira's cart finally got close enough to the reflective wall, and...

  [*Crash*!]

  Aaaand there, along with the sound similar to shattering glass, the Dummy Core inside the wall's reflection broke into a thousand pieces. Mira ordered the goblins to slow down the cart and then jumped off, allowing her to stab the Core with her greatsword. It's settled. We won.

  Hey, confirmation~. Nice~. But what the ****ing ****!? Why is everyone else getting EXP here and leaving me bone dry!? ...I'm not feeling left out. Not at all...*sniff*..., I hate this kind of development...

  Sinful Ruins]