Chapter 22

"Who would have thought they would have intruded even to the fourth underground level..."

Titan, the Guild Master of the 'Dragon of Mithril Gold,' muttered this in the large room of the fourth level. He left his subordinates, who were standing dumbfounded behind him, on the spot and walked to the center of the large room with Cradle, making him pick up the crushed organs that lay there. It was the core of the slime that Lambert had crushed.

"T-Titan-sama... Could this be the mysterious monster...?"

"It's hard to believe, but it seems the man in armor did dispose of it. I was surprised to see the ogre's body cut down so cleanly... Indeed, he seems to be more formidable than I imagined."

Titan said this with a grin.

"I thought I had gathered all the information and prepared thoroughly for the black creature, but it seems the bonus turned out to be a dark horse."

While the adventurers of the 'Dragon of Mithril Gold' were confused, Titan alone was trembling with excitement. He felt that this was a rare opportunity to give it his all.

Titan was a born combat maniac.

A large body with overwhelming power.

Among the many top-tier adventurers, there were few who could match Titan in a physical contest.

Since joining the 'Dragon of Mithril Gold' and obtaining the 'Claw of the Mithril Gold Dragon,' he had been invincible.

The only thing he was dissatisfied with was that the only worthy opponents for his 'Claw of the Mithril Gold Dragon' were monsters.

The highlight of battle was, after all, against humans rather than monsters.

The mutual training, the strategy in battle, and the aftertaste of victory—these were entirely different when fighting humans compared to monsters.

"There are ten lookouts left upstairs, and about forty here... Cradle, you come with me. I'll show you how to tear him apart. After that, bring three people to ward off the monsters. The rest, split into three groups and continue exploring other areas."

"W-We're only five! Shouldn't we bring more...?"

Cradle suggested with a slightly strained smile.

"I can handle ten men by myself. Got a problem with that?"

Titan glared at him, and Cradle nodded nervously.

"S-Sure... No... No problem..."

Titan snorted.

Then he turned his gaze to Anju, the mage, and nodded.

"Alright, alright."

Anju nodded and raised her staff.

"Footprints, rise up!"

Glowing footprints appeared on the shallow water that spread across the room. It was a magic spell that revealed the footprints of those who had passed through in a short time.

"It seems we're on the right track. Anju, any signs of disguise?"

"None at all."

Anju brought her thumb and index finger together and replied playfully.

"Hehe... Don't die too soon, armored man. Entertain me."

Titan led four subordinates, including Cradle and Anju, down the corridor.

The remaining members of the 'Dragon of Mithril Gold' formed three teams of about a dozen each and started exploring other corridors.

"Hey, hurry up. You newbies, your job is to be shields! Hahaha!"

A man was walking with his arm around a woman, letting his subordinates lead the way. He was a thirty-year-old swordsman named Emeric, the third strongest in the 'Dragon of Mithril Gold.' He was skilled with a sword, but his love for women and alcohol often led to trouble, making him a significant problem in the guild.

"Run faster. This is so troublesome."

"Emeric-sama... But we don't know what traps there might be... We're checking carefully with detection magic, but..."

"Shut up, you're talking back to me."

Emeric said this while drawing his sword from its sheath. The sword, made from a magical mineral called mithril, absorbed ambient magic while in the sheath and released it as heat.

He pressed the heated blade of the sword vertically against his subordinate's face.

"Aaah, aaaaaah!"

The sound of burning flesh filled the air. The skin stuck to the blade as it was pulled away, and the subordinate fell to the ground, clutching his face and vomiting.

"Sorry, I meant to stop short. Hey, if you don't want this to happen, hurry up and go ahead. Do you want to embarrass me!"

"H-H-H!"

Seeing his subordinates run ahead, Emeric smiled satisfactorily.

"Hahaha! If you die in the dungeon, your name will be on the guild's memorial! Isn't that great? The highest honor! What, you don't like it? You can't become strong like me because your awareness is so low. Right, Carmilla...?"

When he turned to call the woman next to him, her head had already fallen to the floor with a thud. It splashed into the water, and her face, distorted with fear, was no longer beautiful. On the severed neck, a black slime was hanging, its body drooping.

Emeric understood.

The black slime had been lurking under the water, targeting their backs all along. Making his subordinates lead the way was a big mistake, a counterproductive move.

"Uaaaaaah! Why here! Why are you coming here!"

Emeric roared and tried to stab the black slime with his sword, but then kicked the woman's body and retreated.

According to the information gathered by the 'Dragon of Mithril Gold,' the black slimes in the fourth underground level moved in a straight line. If one could maintain a sufficient distance and counterattack from the side when the black slime attacked, it might be possible to deal with it.

Emeric remembered this and prioritized keeping his distance.

He took a step back, then another, while keeping his sword at the ready, and glared at the black slime crawling on the corpse.

"Shit! You guys! You're here! Detect it, you idiots! What are you here for, you amateurs!"

The black slime was almost undetectable while in hiding. If they had taken the time to detect carefully, they might have noticed something amiss, but Emeric had prevented that.

"Don't just stand there, get back here quickly..."

Emeric checked on his subordinates with a glance.

They were already fleeing, screaming, further ahead.

"I'll kill you all! Get back here! Shit! Shit! The black guardian of the fourth underground level was the one that was crushed earlier, right? There were two of them?"

Emeric, sword in hand, took one step back, then another.

The black slime continued to feed on the corpse but suddenly shuddered and lunged at Emeric.

However, he knew the position of the enemy.

He had anticipated the speed and knew it could only move in a straight line.

He had taken sufficient distance.

Emeric jumped back and thrust his sword forward.

The sword pierced the black slime perfectly.

Sizzle, the heat of the sword burned the black slime.

Emeric tried to pull the sword down and knock it off.

But despite the large cut, the black slime did not slow down as it continued toward Emeric.

"Huh...?"

The black slime leaped onto Emeric's chest.

"Gah, aaaaaah!"

His clothes melted, and a pain like being doused with a deadly poison shot through his chest.

In agony, Emeric thrashed and howled, but when he looked down at his chest, he was too terrified to make a sound. He could see his ribs exposed through the melted skin.

It was clear he wouldn't survive.

"Aaaah..."

Emeric fell on his back.

In his fading vision, he saw two black slimes emerging from the water, heading toward him.

(There were so many... so many...)

Emeric's consciousness faded.

The three black slimes feasted on the two adventurers' corpses and then submerged back into the water to pursue the fleeing adventurers.

In contrast, Titan's exploration was straightforward.

"There are a lot of what look like the remains of those monsters."

"They might not be as strong as rumored. Well, that doesn't matter anymore."

Behind the path Lambert had taken, only the dead bodies of black slimes remained. The surviving black slimes had already fled from Lambert's path.

"The 'Candelabra of the Witch' was wiped out by these guys? How pitiful. With five of us, we could easily handle this."

Cradle laughed, covering his mouth as he looked at the pieces of slime's organs floating in the water.

Of course, they had no idea that the third strongest member of the 'Dragon of Mithril Gold,' Emeric, had been brutally killed by the black slimes.