When the guardian is defeated, the rift clears and a portal opens. Riding that portal allows return to the original entry point.
Well, at least that’s how it had been so far.
“Two portals...?”
And they’re even colored red and blue.
This isn’t so kind of pill.
“If we pick the wrong one, do we end up sowhere strange...?”
Unexpected situations made think a lot.
Sohow, nothing on this underground first floor ever proceeds normally.
Really feels like everything is shrouded in mystery.
‘Including this essence...’
The portals opened after clearing the rift don’t disappear over ti.
Though, whether this rule properly applies here is uncertain.
Anyway, I briefly took my eyes off the portals and examined the essence.
“A truly mysterious color...”
The Chief’s eyes were still full of curiosity.
Well, since he was from a ti before Hierarchs and rifts, it was probably his first ti seeing a rainbow-colored essence.
“Baron, can you explain what kind of essence this is?”
“I don’t know.”
“Oh, so even you are seeing this monster for the first ti?”
“No, that’s not it...”
Feeling frustrated, I sighed deeply and continued.
“The Soul Eater normally doesn’t drop essences.”
Not that I just haven’t gotten one yet.
Soul Eater is a monster that gives a huge amount of experience. Even if skipping other monsters, I always hunted this one when leveling a new character.
But not once has it dropped an essence.
Even with Beginner’s Luck, lton’s Soul Clover, and max essence drop rate buffs, the result was the sa.
So I thought it simply doesn’t drop essence...
‘Didn’t expect there’d be another way to obtain it like this.’
Then what’s the effect of the Soul Eater essence?
At least I expect it to include the active skill to summon ‘Soul Cavalry’...
But I’ll have to experint after acquiring it.
Oh, of course, I don’t plan to consu it myself.
“Gahun! Get up!”
I put down Gahun, who had been carried on my shoulder, and gently slapped his cheek. Since the essence dropped, there was no ti to wait leisurely.
The essence must be placed in a test tube within 30 minutes.
“Gahun! Gahun! Gahun!”
So I increased the slapping intensity gradually.
It wasn’t comfortable to do this to soone who had collapsed in pain...
But essence cos before people, right?
“Ugh...”
Luckily, by the ti his cheek had swollen, Gahun regained consciousness.
“Ba...ron? I’m... dizzy...”
He seed still dizzy from the fall’s impact as he spoke vaguely.
I briefly said the essentials.
Handling mages is similar anyway.
“While you were unconscious, the Soul Eater appeared as a guardian, and after killing it, guardian essence dropped.”
“W-what...?!”
As expected, Gahun’s expression instantly changed, and he jumped up. Right, how could a mage tolerate a new guardian essence?
“Uh... I can’t get up.”
“Obviously. Your legs are all twisted like that. Even a barbarian couldn’t move with those legs—”
“...Eeeeek!!”
Only then did Gahun check his legs and make a strange noise.
Still, he seed to value the essence more than his broken legs.
“Move ... move to the essence. I can’t walk.”
I brought Gahun to the essence and handed him the test tube as requested.
How much ti passed, I don’t know.
“Phew... it’s done.”
The essence slipped into the test tube, and Gahun carefully placed it in the essence storage box, ending the extraction.
“But... what are those portals...? Why are there two...?”
“Oh, that? We’ll think about that from now on. We don’t know yet either.”
“I see...”
“So, what’s your opinion?”
“If you ask what I think—”
“Anything, just say what cos to mind.”
“Hmm... I think one of them definitely connects to where we originally were...”
Gahun, randomly sharing his opinion, suddenly trailed off.
He made a sowhat blank expression for a mont, then—
“The blue portal...!”
He shouted with certainty as if he’d realized sothing.
“If we take the blue portal, we return to where we originally were!”
Clearly, his intuition, which had been sealed entering the Great Demon Mirror, reactivated.
“Then what about the red portal? Do you know anything about that one?”
“Well... not really. It feels ambiguous. Dangerous, maybe... but not necessarily a bad choice.”
“Dangerous, but sure to have a reward... is that your interpretation?”
“Uh, yes. I have years of experience with Dungeon and Stone.”
Like clockwork.
Thanks to Gahun, the options narrowed down to two.
...Well, technically it was always two choices.
Take the safe blue portal and leave.
Take the red portal and try for extra rewards.
Before deciding, I had enough info to judge properly.
‘Since clearing underground first floor is top priority, leaving now isn’t bad...’
Never forget that entering the rift is just a stepping stone to escape the first floor.
And the rift is already cleared.
But...
‘Just taking one Soul Eater essence and leaving feels a ✪ Nоvеlіgһt ✪ (Official version) bit dull...’
I haven’t been here a week, but the scale was such that three, including the Chief, were trapped here for over half a year.
Is this all the reward?
I don’t know the Soul Eater essence’s power yet, and the Archbishop beca the Karui priest and disappeared without a trace.
“Ti to decide. You decide. I’ll follow wherever you go.”
“ too.”
The Chief and Elwen left the decision to , while Gahun urgently tried to persuade .
“Baron, give up greed. We lost the Archbishop already; pushing further is overambitious. Who knows what’s beyond?”
Gahun had a point.
But this isn’t just my personal greed.
The additional reward beyond that portal?
Fine. Whatever it is, it will help.
But I can live without it.
What I’m expecting from the red portal is sothing else.
‘If we cross there...’
Maybe we get closer to the labyrinth’s secret.
Maybe it helps to escape the first floor.
Also—and most importantly...
‘It’s too easy.’
The difficulty is way too low.
Yeah, we lost the Archbishop along the way...
But even considering that, it doesn’t add up.
‘...Still, sothing feels off.’
From experience, situations like this usually have traps mixed in.
So—
“For now, decision is postponed.”
“Postponed...?”
“If we return now, we don’t even know what will happen to the Archbishop.”
“That’s true, but...”
Gahun trailed off.
He nodded at ‘We don’t know yet,’ but both of us knew.
Returning now would most likely end it all.
“But it can’t be helped. Every event requires sacrifice. Several have already died since coming down here... If we die here, their sacrifices will have been in vain.”
A logically sound opinion.
Though there was a petty undertone prioritizing self-preservation.
I’m petty too.
“Regardless of the Archbishop’s fate, before taking the portal, we should explore more. We must have missed sothing on the way here.”
Four gorges.
The field debuff that sses with the mind.
The Lord of Silence and Karui’s priest.
The anticlimactic boss battle.
Though the rift cleared and portals opened, I’d missed so much.
And if I leave now, I might never find out.
“...Is that really necessary? I can barely move now.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll carry you well and protect you.”
“Sigh...”
Having heard many sighs before, I imdiately recognized Gahun’s as consent.
Okay, persuasion done...
“Now, let’s go.”
I morized the portal location again and set off, leading with the Chief.
“This isn’t the direction where that monster was?”
“Yes.”
The Lord of Silence, Silierat, was buried there.
Before full exploration, I intended to return there once more.
Because now Gahun was with us.
“That intuition still works, right?”
“For now... yes.”
“You won’t be able to talk near it, so investigate as best as you can. Don’t be too scared since it can’t move.”
“Y-yes...”
Gahun seed eager to jump beyond the blue portal imdiately, but soone who couldn’t even walk wasn’t escaping my shoulder.
Soon, we entered its domain.
“The character has entered the [Silent Curse]’s range.”
“All essence skills are sealed.”
Seeing the sound disappear, luckily, it still seed alive.
Soon, the Lord of Silence buried in debris appeared.
“...”
“...”
It still looked at with weak eyes, and I approached, bending down so Gahun could see.
“...!”
At first trembling, Gahun realized it wasn’t dangerous and even reached out to touch its skin.
So ti passed.
Tap tap.
Gahun tapped my shoulder, signaling to leave.
“How was it?”
After quickly leaving the area, what I heard was simple.
“...It definitely doesn’t seem like our enemy. When our eyes t, an alarm rang in my head not to kill it.”
...Hmm.
“My guess is... maybe the guardian was weak because of your actions, Baron.”
“My actions?”
“You didn’t kill it but passed by. I think that’s the cause.”
Simply put, if we had killed it, the boss battle might have been much harder.
‘If true, it explains the easy boss fight...’
Then what about the Archbishop?
Suddenly he switched to being Karui’s priest and disappeared.
Is that a planned event?
Or sothing we could have stopped with better handling?
Feels more like the latter.
If it were the forr, it’d be too unreasonable.
Ka-BOOM!
Suddenly, an explosion from afar shook the ground.
The source was near the Lord of Silence.
“The Sealant Silierat has died.”
What the hell was that?
I got the answer from Gahun’s mouth, carried on my shoulder.
“The Lord of Silence, Silierat, has died.”
And...
“We have to run! Now is no ti to worry about what we missed!”
“Calm down and explain properly—”
“The portal’s closing soon!”
“No way!”
No need to ask how he knew.
Surely, his intuition was active again.
“Run!”
There’s still ti to think later.
For now, we sprinted full speed toward the portal.
“Sir! Behind! The Archbishop is following from behind!”
As expected, it seed that the Archbishop was the one who killed the Lord of Silence.
“How’s the speed?”
“About the sa as us... Be careful!”
Careful of what?
I don’t know, but twisted my body a little.
And at that mont—
Thud!
Sothing sharp pierced my left shoulder.
The wound wasn’t deep.
I was carrying Gahun on that shoulder after all.
“Ugh, ugh!”
Blood Gahun vomited dyed my upper body.
“Uh... huff... huh...”
Gahun was barely breathing, but it wasn’t a big problem.
Luckily, the portal was right in front.
Once through, intense treatnt from nurous priests could save him.
So then...
Thunk.
As soon as we reached the portal, I pushed Gahun’s body inside.
Whoooooosh!
It was about half the size from earlier, but thankfully the portal worked properly.
“Elwen, you too.”
“Sir! What about you—!”
Before it shrank further, I quickly pushed Elwen through.
“And you? Why aren’t you going?”
“No matter how I think, this doesn’t feel right.”
I turned and saw the Chief frowning, and beyond him, the approaching Archbishop.
The Archbishop’s spine was grotesquely bent, surrounded by tentacles, floating in midair.
Just looking was horrifying.
“You don’t plan to take the other portal, do you?”
“First, I need to check one thing.”
“You’re consistent, even now. What do you need to check?”
“Earlier... you said if I go all out, I can kill the Archbishop... Is that still possible?”
The Chief paused a mont before answering.
“Well...”
Though he said that, his eyes showed no doubt.
“No one else will see this. No matter how wrecked the body is, once you die once, you’ll be fine again...”
“Get to the point.”
“Hmm, looks like you can.”
The Chief shrugged and asked .
“But why the sudden thought? It’d be easier to leave now, right?”
“Didn’t I say? I have to check. So will you help?”
“...Promise to keep it.”
As he said that, aura blood over the Chief’s sword.
Whoooosh!
The pure white aura was Count Saintred’s trademark.
But the Chief’s aura was a bit different from the original owner’s.
‘What the—?’
The aura around the sword kept growing.
As if it had no limits.
Whoooosshhhh!
Even the Archbishop, who was about to lose control and rush madly, stopped briefly.
And...
“How is this possible...? Can you really use your living powers?”
I muttered unknowingly.
“Well, if that’s called living powers, then yes.”
The Chief chuckled.
“The knights of this era are terrible, you see.”
“...?”
“Aura isn’t ant to be used like that, you know.”
After that—
——————!
A flash of light.
[Special Condition - Third Record Achieved.]
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