When Haring opened his eyes, the sun had already slipped past the center of the sky. They had arrived on floor fifty early that morning, and with that in mind, he had evidently fallen into a far deeper sleep than he’d expected. He shook his head to snap his mind to attention, when he heard a cheerful call from Eleanor.
“Oh, Haring up!”
Eleanor had made quite some progress in sorting. There were a number of rubble piles around where she sat on the ground.
“Wazzat... If you finished, you coulda woken me up.”
“When I try wake you, Yuri stop me! You were looking out for us all way here, so he says you rest for now.”
Sure enough, he’d had to keep an eye on both of them along the way, and he had been keeping alert to make sure no other duelists were around, so he was more worn out than usual. That must have been why he slept so soundly, but...he didn’t expect Yuri to notice something like that.
“...Damn brat. Too tactful for his own good.” He cursed at someone who wasn’t around and scratched up his hair. “So where is he?”
“Yuri? He probably still in there.”
Haring looked in the direction Eleanor pointed and lost his words. The rockface had barely been dented that morning, and now it had become a hole so deep he couldn’t see the end. Even now, destructive popping sounds could be heard echoing from its depths.
“...Has he been doin’ that this whole time?”
“Yuri do it the whole time. Doesn’t answer when I call, just keeps hitting and hitting wall.”
Just as Eleanor finished speaking, the destructive noises abruptly came to a halt. They were soon replaced by the footsteps of someone running.
“Ms. Eleanor! I brought more rubble!”
Carrying the debris from the tunnel in two arms, he let it clatter down in front of the entrance.
“Alright, I’m off again!”
“No you ain’t.” Haring grasped him by the neck before he could disappear.
“Mr. Haring. Did you sleep well?”
“Thanks to you. We’re workin’ on rotation from now on.”
“Oh no, I can still keep going!”
Yuri’s muddy, grimy face furled into a smile. But...his right hand was already in tatters. After hitting it into the wall so many times, its surface was worn out, bleeding all over. Likely from fragments that broke off more forcefully, there was an innumerable amount of scratches and scrapes running down his arm as well.
He had simply given his undivided attention to punching a wall. He would keep pressing forward until he was satisfied.
“...I see. No wonder they’re so overprotective of you.”
“Hmm? What are you talking about?”
“Nothin’, nothin’. Anyway, that’s it for today. You already got enough. We’ll all start sortin’ out the magic ores.”
After lightly tapping Yuri on the head, Haring turned back to Eleanor.
“Elf, show me the rocks you picked out. I’ll appraise them for you... But before that, throw away the useless scrap. Wouldn’t want them mixed in.”
Haring frowned, seeing that she had sifted through a small mountain. But Eleanor tilted her head with a blank look on her face.
“No, not useless scrap. This what pick out.”
“What? It’s hard to tell with that accent ’a yours.”
“Err, umm...this! These are one that glow!” She flapped her hands, gesturing at the mountain, doing her best to explain.
Haring furrowed his brow. He picked up one of the rocks and tried holding it up to the sun. When it basked in the sun’s rays, it filled with the glow of mana, which rippled across its surface like a surging tide. This was undoubtedly the sort of ore Eleanor was looking for, but...
“This...ain’t on the level of fermatite and sky-eye. Rouge-redstone, heavy crystal, scarletite, spring-jade...there are even stones here I’ve never seen before.”
“And they’re all pretty big too!”
“I-Is big discovery!?”
Yuri and Eleanor’s expressions lit up as they looked at the pile of raw ores. But Haring’s expression was gradually growing grimmer.
“Sure, it’s a mountain of treasure, but...this ain’t right.”
“Hmm? Is it that incredible?”
“Wrong. I’m sayin’ it’s impossible for there to be so much ore left untouched.”
As magic ores were only generated in lands rich with mana, they could only be produced in the deeper levels of the dungeons. They were consequently rare and valuable, enough so that at times duels would break out over ownership rights.
“Sure, we’re in the deeper levels, but we’re still at floor fifty. This is the sorta place seasoned explorers will come just for a light stroll, and even the lower ranks can make it here easy, so long as they got a guide like me. The valuable materials should all be stripped away.”
“In that case...were we coincidentally warped somewhere no one’s been before?”
“Granted, we entered right after the warp points shifted. There’s a chance we’re just lucky...but that doesn’t explain this one.”
Picking out one of the stones, he held it up high for all to see. Black, so dark it sucked in even the light around it...it was as if the rock was an embodiment of darkness itself.
“Witching Stone... This one only forms on floor ninety and up.”
“F-Floor ninety...that’s practically the very bottom, isn’t it!?”
“That’s why I’m tellin’ you it’s impossible. This thing is sayin’ impossible things too.”
After tampering with his Proof, the three of them confirmed what it said.
Current Floor: ____ ___ [Helden].
The space where it should have displayed a floor number was left ominously blank. Next to this emptiness was a series of bizarre characters from some language Yuri couldn’t decipher.
“Any of you know what that says?”
“What could it be... I think I’ve seen that script in my father’s books.”
“This probably letters no longer used! Friend who gave me book, high elf who loves collect ancient document! Similar to what saw there!” Eleanor stared hard at the letters, but eventually dropped her shoulders disappointedly. “But cannot read...”
“That ain’t a problem. The problem is that our situation is impossible.”
Haring lightly poked Eleanor’s head before standing and looking behind. The transfer gate they used to reach the depths... As long as they passed through it, they would be able to return to the forty-ninth floor.
“We’re goin’ back this instant. No need to overstay our welc—”
The moment Haring was about to instruct them, the area surrounding the gate was blown away with a thunderous roar.
“...Voice, voice, beast?”
Words like an incoherent ramble pierced through the gale of dust.
“Nay...no beast. Only mortal, mortal.”
The three of them had fallen silent. At the site of the blast stood a single man. A giant. His scar-ridden physique far surpassed Haring’s large build.
“Mortal, mortal...mortals made it here.”
A face covered in an iron mask turned in their direction. A large spear with a golden glimmer leaned against each shoulder. A pair of decaying wings swayed like a cape on his back.
“Making it here...makes them duelists.”
The moment he heard those words, Haring grabbed his two companions and jumped down the cliff below.
“Dragonification!!”
Before hitting the ground, he gathered sand from the bare rock below him and used it to form a body. But the one he formed this time wasn’t as large as the one he made before. He made it just hard enough to endure the fall.
He had to omit anything unnecessary; otherwise, they would never get away from that man.
“Mr. Haring!? What’s wrong!?”
“Why we run from that person!?”
“Shut up! I’ll explain later, let me concentrate!”
Throwing the two of them onto his back, Haring slid down the steep slope, scraping away rock on the way down. He needed to create as much distance from that man as possible.
Bounding off and correcting his posture mid-air, he lifted his head to get one last look at the one on the cliffs. Just one look at the man readying his spears had him instinctively taking the next leap.
“Divine Might—Might of the Sacred Tree Meliades.”
No matter how calmly the words were uttered, they entered the ear like a cursed proclamation of death.
“No, no duelists here...only a fool doth present his back in battle.”
All manner of emotion mingling with his voice, the large man brandished his twin spears.
“May the fools receive—the retribution of the Morning Star.”
With his sing-song words, the man swung both spears towards his feet, and everything in sight was plastered over in a blinding red light.
The ledge he stood on had been sliced cleanly through without a sound. Only a few seconds later did it rumble and collapse as if finally remembering the law of gravity.
Gazing up in awe at the sight, Haring grabbed Yuri and Eleanor off his back and let his earthen outer body shatter to break their fall.
“—Oi! You guys better not be injured! Speak up!”
“W-We’re alright! More importantly, who is that guy!?” Yuri asked, staring at the man standing tall above the cliffs.
“That man’s a duelist like us!”
“A duelist... He is!?”
“You didn’t see? He had a Proof on his left arm, didn’t he!?”
The scarlet Proof visible on his left arm. It was precisely because he saw it that Haring chose to run faster than anyone. He knew the rumors about this dungeon.
“The reason even Adamant Duelists don’t try going to the very bottom of this place...is ’cuz no matter what happens, they don’t wanna have a run-in with that monster!”
An entity even highly-skilled duelists detested the thought of locking blades with. The monster who walked the dungeon’s depths.
“That thing there is the God of Destruction, Wallis Grigor...a bloody crazy angel who holes up at the bottom, going around killin’ beast and duelist alike, and—” Hesitant as he was, Haring spelled out a painful truth, “He’s Orichalcum Rank...he’s in the top ten.”