Chapter 234 – Breaking Through the Dungeon (3)

“Using mana so faint it’s impossible to detect instead of lasers or CCTV, and creating traps with physical bombs instead of magic or tricks. Honestly, this is really innovative, isn’t it?”

Yerim nodded with an impressed look on her face as she observed the dungeon corridor that had been shattered by the bomb.

A saintess admiring the work of the enemy Demon King.

It was a bewildering sight, but in truth, I, the hero, was equally impressed.

A trap that mixed science and magic.

Truly, the Demon King who had regained his senses was a terrifying enemy.

The Demon King who had tried to kill the hero’s party and make us suffer in various ways until now had transformed this dungeon into an unexpectedly terrifying place.

A dungeon where science and magic were combined, completely different from the Demon King’s dungeon that appears in hero stories.

If an ordinary hero’s party had entered this dungeon instead of us, they would have been seriously injured or someone would have died from this trap just now.

“That’s right. We’re fortunate to have Sir Knight, no, Hero with us.”

Everyone nodded at Yelena’s words that followed.

“The Hero has mana detection, heightened senses, and even knowledge from Earth. He’s perfectly suited to deal with this dungeon and the Demon King. There must be a reason why the gods of both sides chose him.”

I shook my head at Yerim’s words as she shrugged her shoulders as if she had made the choice herself.

“We’ve only avoided one trap so far. We don’t know what kind of traps lie ahead. It’s not good to get excited already.”

They had probably tried to lift the mood forcibly to calm their shocked minds, but it seemed better to increase the tension now.

The party nodded at my words, but one person, Princess Meliya, the saintess of Ea, continued to look troubled.

“Are you alright? What’s wrong?”

The others quickly noticed the princess’s expression, and Yerim asked her on behalf of everyone.

The princess opened her mouth with a gloomy face.

“To pass through this dungeon, did we need to know about lasers and that TV thing? We need to notice bombs from that other world, and sense minute mana… Was it really too much for Albert to fight the Demon King?”

It seemed that hearing the others praise me had made her compare me to the former hero who had given up his position.

But that was a misunderstanding on her part.

“It’s not that he did anything wrong. It’s because this Demon King is unusual. Why else would the gods of two dimensions appoint one person as a hero?”

Of course, before crossing over to Earth, he wasn’t much different from other Demon Kings, just an intelligent one who even disregarded the Empire.

But the Demon King who gained enormous mana from the nuclear shower on Earth was completely different from the Demon King of that time.

That’s probably why the gods appointed someone as eccentric as me as the hero.

“Once we defeat this Demon King, another one like this won’t appear again.”

In fact, once this Demon King falls, another Demon King probably won’t appear in Ea for decades or even centuries.

It had been that way in the past, and it would likely be so in the future.

Of course, a hero had never been appointed three times in a row like this before, but that was clearly because of this Demon King.

Even if that wasn’t the case, it wasn’t something I knew about.

Honestly, I couldn’t even gauge if we could win against this Demon King, so there was no reason to worry about when the next Demon King would appear.

After consoling the princess like that, we started moving again.

Fortunately, there were no other traps on this floor.

We walked for a long time through the destroyed corridor, past flickering torches, and then descended to the next floor via the stairs at the end of the corridor.

After walking for a while without any interference, Yerim cautiously opened her mouth.

“Um… I probably shouldn’t say this, but could that trap have been the last one?”

I smirked at Yerim’s words.

Yerim looked at me with puzzled eyes, and I raised my hand to point ahead.

“That’s impossible.”

Creeeeak.

The timing was impeccable.

The moment Yerim finished speaking, the walls on both sides of the long corridor rose up.

The passage in front of us for dozens of meters and the passage behind us that we had just passed through rose simultaneously.

And from inside the raised walls, undead walked out.

Seeing this, Yerim stuck out her tongue with a troubled face.

“I guess I shouldn’t have said anything after all.”

It was indeed the standard trope in dungeon stories for undead stationed throughout the dungeon to pop out after a trap.

We had fought skeletons in the corridor on the upper floor too.

However, the undead blocking our way now were different from the skeletons we met on the upper floor.

The undead that popped out now were wearing something different from the skeletons above.

It wasn’t something they wore when they were alive. It wasn’t a ghost prank cloak either.

“My goodness. They’re using suicide bombers here?”

What the skeletons that came out of the walls were wearing were dynamite and C4, all military-grade explosives.

“Don’t attack! Everything the skeletons are wearing are bombs! If they receive any impact, they’ll all explode!”

At my words, Irene, who was watching the rear, shouted.

“The ones coming from behind are all wrapped in bombs too!”

Good heavens, skeletons wrapped in bombs filling the entire dungeon corridor.

“Damn, he really learned only the worst things.”

It seemed the Demon King had learned only the most vicious things from Earth.

At my words, Yelena and Irene quickly spread their shields.

The shields they spread from both sides were imbued with physical force to prevent the enemy’s approach.

“Holy power won’t work either, right?”

I shook my head at Yerim’s words.

“No, it’ll explode the moment it burns. The same goes for magic attacks.”

Fire and shock were equally dangerous.

Moreover, it was even more dangerous for a knight who specializes in close combat.

If I approached and it exploded, I would be caught in the blast.

To be safe from the explosion, one would need to be at least at the level of a Sword Master who could attack from a distance with sword energy.

And even then, it would have to be a knight with swordsmanship capable of defeating the enemy without touching the bombs.

It seemed like an enemy that would be difficult for heroes who only had holy power to deal with.

Of course, I wasn’t a hero with only holy power.

Bwoong.

As I extended my sword energy, Zahina, who was next to me, turned around and said.

“I’ll take care of the rear.”

When I looked at her with puzzled eyes, she held out her hand to me.

“Give me my rifle. At this distance, I can hit them while avoiding the bombs even with my eyes closed.”

At her words, I immediately took out her sniper rifle from my pocket and handed it to her.

She checked the rifle, then shouldered it and immediately started firing.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

It looked like she was firing wildly without properly aiming, but the bullets she fired shattered the heads of the approaching skeletons one after another.

Skeletons falling to the ground one by one, still wrapped in explosives…. Seeing her take down the skeletons like that, I also rushed forward and started swinging my sword.

Bwoong.

The sword energy I swung vigorously swept through the corridor.

“Ah! Didn’t you say we shouldn’t do that…?”

I heard the princess’s surprised voice from behind, but I didn’t stop and continued swinging my sword.

It was difficult to pay attention to her words right now.

Even for me, it was an extremely difficult technique to freely move the sword energy in this narrow corridor, cutting off the skeletons’ heads without touching the bombs.

It wasn’t about overwhelming with power or suppressing with holy power, but about adjusting the direction and length of the sword energy in real-time within finely divided moments of time.

It was something I could barely do thanks to years of experience, the ability to handle mana, and the swordsmanship I rediscovered after reaching the level of Sword Master.

Moving the continuously extended sword energy like that, I cut off the heads of all the approaching skeletons.

From the skeletons at the front to the ones at the very back.

I had cut off the heads of all the skeletons without detonating a single bomb.

Leaving behind the princess who was staring at me with her mouth open, I removed the detonators from all the bombs wrapped around the fallen skeletons.

Fortunately, removing the detonators wasn’t difficult.

Once I finished removing all the detonators, the gunfire also stopped.

Zahina had taken care of all the skeletons coming from behind.

“Should I remove the bombs from the skeletons I took down as well?”

I shook my head at Zahina’s question.

“We’re not going back, so it should be fine to leave them.”

I had removed the bomb detonators from the skeletons in front to prevent them from exploding while we passed through.

The ones that had rushed us from behind had all fallen before they could even approach, so it didn’t matter if their bombs exploded now.

“Will it continue like this? It’s not easy to defend against these constantly new methods of attack.”

Yerim nodded vigorously at Yelena’s words as she lowered her shield.

“Really, I tell you. The Demon King should act like a proper Demon King and follow the clichés. What’s with suicide bombers? There’s no romance at all. No romance.”

Yerim, who had been amazed by the bomb trap set by the Demon King on the upper floor, was now extremely angry at the skeleton bombs.

Somehow, the reason for her anger seemed strange, but certainly, if it continued like this every time, it would be difficult to defend against and take a long time.

‘Come to think of it, something’s odd. Why did he make traps like this?’

It would have been much easier to just station powerful undead as guards, or simply block the corridor to prevent us from going underground.

Of course, if we hadn’t known about these unfamiliar methods, we would have fallen right into the traps, but even considering that, it didn’t make much sense.

‘Could it be that the Demon King is conducting new experiments in this dungeon?’

That seemed more plausible, but the problem was that now wasn’t the time for such experiments.

As I was pondering while looking at the fallen skeletons, Yerim, who had approached me without me noticing, pointed at the decapitated skeletons and asked.

“By the way, how did you cut the heads of the skeletons hiding in the back? I was watching the whole time, and I thought it would be impossible to cut them with sword energy since the skeletons in the back never showed themselves.”

“Ah, that’s… huh?”

I was about to answer but then opened my eyes wide.

‘That’s right? How did I do that?’

Yerim was correct.

Clearly, the ones in the back were hidden behind the skeletons in front and weren’t visible.

Even if I could finely adjust the length of my sword energy, unless I could curve it, I shouldn’t have been able to cut the heads of the skeletons hiding in the back.

And I didn’t know how to make sword energy curve.

“But you cut them all down.”

As Yerim said, I had unconsciously cut down even those that were hidden behind others and not visible.

It wasn’t like I had cut them down together with the ones in front either.

If I had, the bombs would certainly have exploded.

Something was tickling at the back of my mind, about to surface, but I sighed and erased all the emerging thoughts.

At any other time, I would have continued pondering the reason here, but now wasn’t the time for that.

The floors we had descended so far were to the 4th basement level. We had come down more than halfway anyway.

We were close now.

Although questions continued to pile up as we descended underground, we needed to meet the Demon King first.