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Yes, Speed bumps...
And who, exactly, had been throwing themselves against the front hull of August's tank like speed bumps?
The Hellhounds.
Forgive us, Mr Tank. We gave it our all, but we couldn't halt your advance.
As the Hellhounds rushed the frontlines, their last thought was simple: they hadn't managed to impress the steel giant.
They were rcilessly flattened.
The tank didn't stop. Even though it was colliding with dozens of dense, heavy monsters, its montum didn't hitch for a second.
Why?
Because of the Labyrinth's fundantal chanic: when a monster died, its body exploded into ash, leaving only a Magic Stone behind.
Each ti the tank ran over a monster, the body disappeared right away. With nothing in its way, the tank kept moving, crushing Hellhounds one after another.
The result was a one-sided massacre.
August didn't want the tank to handle everything, so he opened the hatch.
Shotgun barrels bristled from the top of the hull.
August aid toward the cavern ceiling and pulled the triggers.
A blast of buckshot tore through the Bad Bats hanging from the ceiling. The bats fell, turning to ash before they landed, and left a shower of Magic Stones behind.
The monster coalition stood absolutely zero chance against chanized warfare.
The havoc was so intense that the nearby Adventurers stopped in their tracks.
"..." Whether they were descending to the Middle Floors or heading back to the surface, the Adventurers froze in terror. Watching the monster army get pulped into ash, they stayed far back, listening to the agonizing shrieks traveling down the tunnels.
Adventurers knew their limits.
If a Level 4 or Level 5 ran into an army of this scale, they could probably fight their way out. But for a Level 2 or Level 3? Facing a coordinated horde of thousands ant a guaranteed, grueso death.
No mid-tier party could survive that at grinder intact.
Right now, all they could do was listen.
The dying monsters scread much louder and longer than what Adventurers usually heard during normal hunts.
"Is that rookie planning to exterminate every single monster on this floor?"
"He is ruthless..."
The Adventurers stayed back. Hearing the steady blasts and the monsters' cries, they could tell a massacre was happening. The noise alone made their skin crawl.
The slaughter dragged on.
Eventually, a few lucky monsters managed to slip past the tank's kill zone, desperately fleeing down the tunnels... straight toward the spectating Adventurers.
The two groups collided.
"Don't let them escape!"
"If these Middle Floor monsters leak into the upper levels, it's going to be a massacre!"
The Level 2 Adventurers watching quickly jumped into action.
They weren't saints, but letting Middle Floor horrors slip into the rookie zones was a severe violation of Guild law. If a horde reached the upper floors and caused a mass casualty event, the Guild would track down the Adventurers who let them pass and punish them severely.
It did feel a little like stealing kills to finish off the fleeing, wounded monsters.
But according to the Guild's ironclad rule: whoever secures the kill claims the Magic Stone. And given the large number of fleeing Hellhounds, this was a massive, unexpected payday.
"Push them back!"
For mid-tier Familias, this was easy money. The Adventurers rushed in, glad to clean up after August.
Even the high-tier parties passing by, including squads with Level 4, joined in and easily took down the fleeing monsters.
But despite the Adventurers picking off the stragglers, the vast majority of the monster army died beneath August's treads.
The cavern eventually fell dead silent. The only sound left was the soft ringing of thousands of Magic Stones settling onto the bedrock.
But the nonstop attack wore down the tank.
The tank's armor handled the magical flas and hits without trouble, but the constant heat badly damaged its treads and sensors.
August and Liliruca Arde were forced to disembark, storing the battered tank back into the spatial void.
It was ti to ship it back to Earth for repairs.
Losing a tank to wipe out more than a thousand Middle Floor monsters seed like a great deal to August.
Stepping onto the ash-covered floor, they began the tedious task of harvesting the loot.
August looked around the cavern. The floor was covered in Magic Stones and patches of acidic blood. He also saw that the Dungeon had stopped spawning monsters.
It was clear that his act with the jerrycan had tricked the Labyrinth.
The Dungeon had assud he was vulnerable. But there was no vulnerability. August's 'feint' lured the entire monster coalition out of hiding, allowing him to wipe them out in a single, concentrated strike.
The sentient Labyrinth had witnessed the entire slaughter.
It realized his weapons didn't consu his physical stamina. Pretending to refuel a stalling machine was just a sick joke. The monsters had rushed forward only to die instantly under his artillery.
After learning its lesson, the Dungeon stayed quiet. The walls didn't move at all.
August decided to push his luck. "Crap! I'm completely out of ammo! My weapons are useless!"
"I have no firepower left! What should I do?" August spoke in a flat, sarcastic voice as he looked up at the ceiling and walls.
"..."
Zero response. The Labyrinth wasn't taking the bait again.
Lili just stared at him as she vacuud up the Magic Stones.
Traveling with August had been surprisingly easy. This Dungeon trip felt more like a big harvesting job than a dangerous adventure. His modern weapons were as powerful as the famous Crozzo Magic Swords, maybe even stronger.
"Dammit, give a break! Spawn so more monsters!" August yelled, kicking the charred cavern wall.
"Can't you drop a few more hordes?"
"I ca all the way down here! Don't make this a wasted trip!"
August shouted his complaints at the ceiling. He was really frustrated. This trip had brought in thousands fewer Magic Stones than his last two. The Level 2 stones were bigger and worth more, but he still needed a huge pile to et his trade deals with the Earth military.
Even with all his shouting, the Dungeon ignored him. It acted as if his complaints didn't matter. 'Spawn more? So you can slaughter them again? Are you insane? If I keep feeding you, I won't have any monsters left for this floor!'
"Lord August, you don't need to yell at the walls," Lili pointed out the obvious. "The environnt is completely destroyed."
Unlike the big open spaces on the eleventh and twelfth floors, this small cavern was destroyed.
Tank shells left craters in the walls, heavy buckshot tore them up, and napalm burned them black. The whole place looked like a warzone.
"Ah. Right."
August realized why the Dungeon had stopped spawning.
The Labyrinth was always fixing the damage from Adventurer fights. But until an area was fully repaired, the Dungeon almost never spawned new monsters nearby. It focused on healing itself before making more monsters.
"Until the floor is fully restored, nothing is going to spawn here. And even if it does, it'll spawn far away from this blast zone," Lili explained.
For now, the hunting ground was closed. All they could do was gather the loot.
While Lili collected the stones, a few Adventurers quietly entered the cavern and stared at the destruction. It was easy to imagine the massacre that had happened here.
The floor was a sea of Magic Stones. It was a tempting sight.
But when they looked at the monster rookie standing in the center of the crater?
They felt a shiver run down their spines.
Even the experienced Level 4 felt uneasy. If they had faced such a huge horde, they would have had to retreat. But this guy had defeated them all.
A high-tier, all-female Adventurer party stepped into the cavern, observing the aftermath from a distance.
Once the dust settled, the squad's leader approached.
"That's Shakti Varma. The Captain of the Ganesha Familia."
Soone in the crowd recognized the woman instantly.
"A [Level 5]. Alias: Ankusha."
"What is the city's peacekeeping force doing all the way down here?"
Hearing the whispers, August turned his attention to the mature, commanding woman approaching him.
She was beautiful and carried herself with strength and discipline. The other Adventurers moved aside to let her pass.
"Hello. I'm August of the Hestia Familia," August introduced himself, giving her a quick visual assessnt.
"Shakti Varma, Ganesha Familia."
Shakti analyzed the young man standing before her. He looked a bit younger than her, but his deanor was unflappable.
With her experience, Shakti noticed August was breathing calmly. He didn't look tired, even after such a big fight. The huge pile of Magic Stones his Supporter was collecting showed he had just beaten an army of over a thousand monsters by himself.
She had never seen a human do sothing this wild before. Except for Ottar from the Freya Familia, this rookie really deserved the title of 'The Strongest Rookie.'
Seeing him in person was a stark realization.
"An impressive display," Shakti praised him.
She didn't mind that he used unusual weapons. In the Dungeon, anything that helped you survive deserved respect. More importantly, August had pulled this off with his own skills. She respected that kind of ability.
"Honestly, if our Familia had been able to communicate with you when you first arrived, we would have recruited you..." Shakti admitted.
If August had joined the Ganesha Familia, he would have quickly risen to their top ranks. It was too bad that the language barrier kept them from recognizing such talent.
But missed chances happened all the ti in Orario. Shakti didn't let it bother her.
"Thanks for the complint," August said with a smile. He could see she showed a little regret, but she accepted it and didn't hold a grudge.
"If you don't mind asking, Captain Shakti, what brings you down here?"
August noted she was fully geared for a deep-strata expedition.
The Ganesha Familia usually managed crowds on the upper floors or kept order in the city above. It was rare to see the Captain herself working in the Middle Floors.
"Because of you, actually. A massive flood of Middle Floor monsters was attempting to breach the upper levels."
"To prevent a mass casualty event among the rookies, I personally led a suppression squad to drive them back down and eradicate the overflow. We just finished securing the periter," Shakti explained.
The reason for all this was August.
A coalition of monsters from multiple floors had massed together specifically to hunt the Hestia Familia's rookie.
After seeing August's firepower up close, Shakti understood why the Dungeon was after him. If she were the Labyrinth, she'd do the sa. He was like a one-man extinction event. No wonder the Dungeon wanted him gone.
"Ahaha... right."
August rubbed the back of his neck, embarrassed. He hadn't expected his little skirmish to trigger a multi-floor security breach.
"But I'm innocent here!" August protested. "How was I supposed to know the Dungeon would rally an entire army just to jump ?"
August was honestly confused. Why did the Dungeon hate him so much? He was just a traveler from another world and had no history with this place. He never planned to wipe out so many monsters when he got his Falna. But in just a few days, the Labyrinth kept sending wave after wave of monsters after him.
It felt personal... What did he do to deserve this much hate?
"The Labyrinth noticed you because of the spectacle you caused during your initial Falna contract."
"Lord Ganesha theorized that when Lady Hestia granted your blessing, her unsealed divine aura blanketed the sky above Orario. Because you are her contracted child, the Labyrinth's malignant will locked onto your specific mana signature."
"As long as your presence remains in the Dungeon, the Labyrinth will aggressively target you."
Shakti relayed her Patron God's deduction, explaining the harsh reality to the confused rookie.
Ganesha had known from the start. The Dungeon never sent thousands of monsters after new Adventurers.
Any normal rookie would have died right away... But August didn't just survive—he defeated every group sent after him. These attacks proved Ganesha's theory.
The Dungeon's hatred wasn't random. It began the mont he caused that bright, divine light during his awakening.
"Wait, seriously? That's why?"
Lili, who was still vacuuming up Magic Stones, froze in shock.
She had thought August was just unlucky. But that wasn't it. The Dungeon was out to get him because Lady Hestia had shown off too much during his contract ritual.
Lili slowly raised a trembling hand. "Um... is it too late for to quit the Hestia Familia?"
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