Volume 3 Chapter 16: The Rugar Ruins 2/4

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Author: 夜州 (Yashu)

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Cain proceeded down to the eleventh floor.

He descended down a long staircase, and what awaited him at the bottom was a forest.

The height of the trees exceeded ten meters, blocking his field of view.

“What’s a forest doing here… and it’s bright here too…”

Cain looked up, and saw that the whole ceiling was emitting light. He tried to get a grasp on the situation by using Search.

He was in a space that stretched out for some kilometers, and he could feel what were likely groups of adventurers and monsters here and there.

Cain carefully stepped into the gloomy forest.

He proceeded through the forest, avoiding any adventurers.

He met monsters along the way though, namely monkey-like ‘Forest Monkeys’, which were classified as B-Rank. They had long arms and legs, were somewhat smaller than two meters tall, and often lived in groups, attacking their prey by swinging and jumping from branch to branch, shooting [Rock Bullet]s. Evading attacks from multiple monkeys simultaneously, Cain responded with his own [Rock Bullet]s, exterminating all of them.

While the individual Forest Monkey’s strength was not all that much, because they lived in groups and attacked from the treetops, where swords couldn’t reach them, they were classified as B-Ranks.

However, for Cain, using Search, he could easily find out monsters’ locations even if they hid in the trees, so he could retaliate without much effort.

“This much is no big deal… I guess I’ll go further then.”

Cain proceeded further into the depths of the forest, storing the monsters he killed in his Item Box one after the other.

As he went further into the depths of the forest, the ground began shaking. The branches on the ground crackled and snapped, and a four-meter-large, gorilla-like monster appeared in front of Cain. Its chest muscles were huge, and its whole body including its thick arms and legs was covered in black fur.

It was a monster classified as A-Rank; a Forest Kong.

The Forest Kong stared at Cain, holding a huge tree as wide as a person.

It seemed like it thought it had found something that could put up a fight against it.

Cain shot a [Rock Bullet], just like the Forest Monkeys.

The Forest Kong didn’t move even after seeing Cain’s Rock Bullet.

Forest Kongs and Forest Monkeys lived in coexistence in the forest, so it had thought Cain had used the same magic as the Forest Monkeys.

However, Cain’s magic was an order of magnitude more powerful.

The Rock Bullet entered through the Forest Kong’s chest, and exited straight out its back.

The Forest Kong seemed to make a surprised expression at the unexpected power, ––and died.

Confirming that it was dead, Cain stored it away in his Item Box.

He also encountered a pack of Forest Wolves in the forest, but they were no match for Cain.

And, about an hour later, Cain was already descending down the stairs to the next floor.

The twelfth floor was full of rocks, and Cain proceeded onwards toward the lower floors, exterminating the monsters there too.

And, before he’d even noticed it, he was on the fifteenth floor, the lowest one that had currently been reached.

Stretching out in front of him was a grassland. There was nothing obstructing his sight anywhere; it was just kilometers of grasslands off into the distance.

“So this is the deepest people have come so far…”

It had been explained to Cain previously, but he had not been told what it actually looked like.

They had not been expecting him to descend down to the lowest level known by the adventurers’ guild on his first time in a dungeon.

Cain used Search, looking for any reactions to it in his surroundings.

He walked along, and Earth Dragons kept popping up everywhere.

A huge group of them. They were surrounding what seemed to be a ten-meter-tall, small, rocky mountain.

Earth Dragons were usually solitary, meaning they didn’t live in groups.

And now, in front of Cain, there were tens, no, a hundred of them. The ground was teeming with Earth Dragons exceeding five meters in size, it was quite a scene to behold.

Cain now understood very well why the adventurers’ guild considered the fifteenth floor the limit to their exploration.

Earth Dragons, classified as A-Rank, appeared in groups. Normal adventurers would not be able to deal with them at all.

One needed a whole party of adventurers to take down a single Earth Dragon, so just how many adventurers would one need for this many Earth Dragons? If one had hundreds of A-Rank adventurers, defeating them all would be possible, but having that many A-Rank adventurers at one’s disposal was absurd.

The adventurers who had seen this sight had then escaped, fearing for their lives.

And then, the resting Earth Dragons all raised their heads together and looked at Cain.

“Eh, what’s with there being so many of them!? Are you serious!”

Even Cain nervously swallowed his spit at the situation.

Then, five Earth Dragons, which had been the closest to Cain, started running at him.

He involuntarily used [Fly] to float up into the air.

The Earth Dragons raised their heads to look straight up at the now unreachable Cain, and roared.

Cain gazed down at the group of Earth Dragons, floating ten meters up in the air.

“It looks quite grand with this many of them in the same place… now, how to defeat them all… if I used Inferno, it would definitely defeat them, but then the materials would go to waste… I guess it’ll be Rock Bullet after all.”

Cain poured magical power into both his hands. He condensed the magical power more than he would for Rock Bullet normally, then eventually let it fly.

[Rock Meteor]

More than a hundred rock bullets appeared around Cain.

Then, he attacked the Earth Dragons all at once.

The dying screams of the ones that had had their heads or bodies pierced reverberated over the grassland.

After Cain had used the magic three times, there weren’t any monsters left moving any more.

“That’s a lot of materials.”

Cain descended from the air, his eyes glittering at all the materials he would be taking to the adventurers’ guild.

Then, he put the dead Earth Dragons away one after the other.

As he approached the small rocky mountain while putting away the dead Earth Dragons, his Search found a reaction.

Suddenly, the earth began to move, and the small mountain the Earth Dragons had been surrounding began to move.

The rocky mountain lifted itself up, legs appearing out from it, and eventually a neck also appeared.

It must have exceeded twenty meters in length. It was a monster with a head more like that of an alligator snapping turtle¹ than that of a dragon, its neck was nearly two meters thick, and it had a shell like a rocky mountain.

And while Cain didn’t know this, this monster was a Rock Dragon, and was classified as an SSS-Rank monster.

Not only was its size no joke, it had an extremely thick, rocky shell, which neither magic nor swords could leave a mark on that easily. It was even stronger than the Red Dragon that was out on display in Cain’s mansion.

And while its movements might have been slow, there was nothing that would be able to obstruct them; it was truly a legendary-rank monster.

If this monster appeared in the town, the town would surely be destroyed.

It was a monster that wasn’t guaranteed to be defeated even if a country put its prestige on the line and sent in its whole army to deal with it.

The Rock Dragon unhurriedly inspected the scene of a disaster surrounding it, then stared at Cain.

Its eyes full of hatred staring straight at Cain, it slowly opened its huge mouth.

And from its mouth, a number of rocks the size of a person’s head came flying at Cain.

“Dangerous.”

Surprised at the sudden magic flying at him, Cain avoided the rocks with Transfer.

Then, from a little bit away, Cain observed the whole Rock Dragon.

“Wow there was such a massive one too… awesome! But… how do I defeat it…”

Due to Cain having used Transfer, it had lost sight of him, and was now slowly turning its head back and forth, searching for its target.

Meanwhile, standing on top of its rocky shell, Cain was racking his brains on how to defeat it.

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¹Alligator Snapping Turtle

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