—
Will was stunned.
This was actually…
The first ti he had seen Shuna in action within a dungeon. Although he had so idea from her letters, seeing it firsthand was a whole different experience.
Of course, he wasn’t the only one dumbfounded.
Will glanced behind him.
There were about ten people in total.
The five with simpler gear were likely the first team that entered. So of them had severe burns, with skin peeling off their arms and covered in blisters.
The remaining team was better equipped and uninjured, but their shields and armor were heavily scorched.
It was easy to imagine what had happened before Will and Shuna arrived—
The first team had fought a brutal battle, resulting in severe injuries and forcing them to send a distress signal. The second team, reasonably strong, tried to minimize damage while fighting the three-headed dog to rescue the first team but eventually had to switch to a defensive stance.
But all of that was in the past now, thanks to Shuna and Will’s arrival.
“What… what just happened?!”
“Did that terrifying Cerberus just… disappear?!”
After a brief silence, the group erupted in astonished exclamations, their jaws practically hitting the floor.
Alright…
Will admitted that even though he had imnse confidence in Shuna’s abilities, he hadn’t expected her to be this powerful.
When he said “one-hit kill,” he was just joking!
“Uh… don’t panic. We’re from the Morning Star adventurer team. We heard you were trapped and ca to help…”
Will approached and began casting cooling and healing spells on the severely burned team mbers, hoping to alleviate their injuries.
“No, that’s not what I an. You two… ca to rescue us alone?! Isn’t that too reckless?! What if sothing happened to you? You’d be trapped here too!”
“Uh…”
To be honest, Will had thought the sa thing.
But…
“Never mind that. Just tell if it worked or not.”
Will flicked his hand, continuing to cast his healing spell, causing the injured adventurer to shiver from the cold.
“…Thank you both for saving us!!!”
anwhile…
After achieving the one-hit kill on the Cerberus, Shuna didn’t imdiately go to the people she had rescued. Instead, she stayed near the Cerberus.
“Shuna, what’s up?”
After Will finished his “rescue” efforts about fifteen minutes later, he walked over to Shuna.
“Oh, I’m looking for that thing in the corpse.”
Will understood—she was looking for the Green Wraith Stone.
Shuna seed to be fixated on this matter.
“How are the injured? Have they been evacuated?”
“Yeah, they’re mostly evacuated. The situation isn’t too critical. Their team leader seems quite experienced.”
“Great, let keep searching then.”
She specifically searched around the central “main head” of the Cerberus, understanding that if the Green Wraith Stone was an enhancent item, it would likely be in the core area.
“By the way, there’s sothing that’s been bothering . I hope it doesn’t happen this ti.”
Shuna didn’t mind getting her hands dirty, sifting through the still-smoking remains of the Cerberus, her hands covered in blood.
“What is it?”
“The last ti with the Green Mane Lion, I didn’t get a complete fragnt like the first ti. It turned into unidentifiable shards.”
“Yeah, you an the fragnts you showed before, with the white edges?”
Will rembered.
The first ti Shuna had sent him the Green Wraith Stone, it was a relatively complete piece.
But the second ti, it was just small shards.
The shards looked strange, with white calcification marks, which seed off.
“Exactly.”
She nodded.
“Shards make it hard to study the internal structure and test other properties.”
Shuna squatted down, seemingly finding sothing.
“I’ve been thinking about it. The first ti I got a complete fragnt here, I used a similar one-hit magic spell. But with the Green Mane Lion, I used physical ans. If I use the sa magic with similar power, could I get a complete piece…”
But Shuna stopped mid-sentence.
“No, it didn’t work.”
Her fingers stirred the mixture of at and blood at her feet, finally pulling out a small shard.
Indeed…
It was just a shard.
She held it up to Will, the sticky, hot blood still dripping from the shard in front of him.
Fortunately, Will had taken several courses on dungeon monster dissection at school, so he wasn’t too grossed out.
He leaned in, carefully examining the shard in Shuna’s fingers.
“Yeah, it’s the sa as before. The shard has those white edges.”
“I suspect this stone was tampered with, possibly after I got the whole piece. Maybe… soone doesn’t want to get a complete one?”
“That’s a bold guess. Who would do that?”
“It’s not too bold.”
Shuna rubbed the shard in her hand, cleaning it off a bit to reveal the edges more clearly. She held it up to her eyes, scrutinizing it.
“At first glance, it looks like a naturally broken stone, but since it’s so close to the ti it broke, you can see… hmm, the edges seem to have been magically altered.”
“Indeed.”
“An ice-based spell, perhaps? If it were a fire-based spell from here, it wouldn’t leave white marks…”
“Yeah. That’s a reasonable guess. Maybe it was processed in another dungeon and brought here… I an, if dungeons could communicate…”
Shuna’s eyes lit up at this.
“You’re right! We should investigate this further!”
“Sure, we can go out and find soone to analyze the magical residue…”
Will’s words were cut off.
Because Shuna used a water spell to clean her hands, put the shard in her bag, and then grabbed Will’s hand—
“Why ask? The simplest way to find out is right in front of us!”
“Wha… what?”
Shuna pulled Will to the door leading to the 30th floor.
The door to the “Boss Room.”
This door was shrouded in a layer of black mist, looking quite ominous. Red letters in an unreadable dungeon language were scrawled across it, giving off a clear “Do Not Enter” vibe.
But Shuna looked at the door…
With excitent.
“Let’s just go ask the ‘Ironfire Bastion’ manager sitting on the 30th floor—wouldn’t that be easier?!”
“Huh?”
“The boss is an intelligent being, right? Isn’t that common knowledge among dungeon explorers?”
Oh, right. Otherwise, how would the original story have a certain Dungeon Queen going out to party and drink?
“Common knowledge, sure…”
“A little questioning might get us the answers we need.”
“Wait, do you think it’ll just tell us?!”
Without waiting for Will to finish, Shuna pushed open the door to the Boss Room.
“If it doesn’t talk, we’ll just beat it up—”
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