“Lucien, you all go ahead and gather the materials. I need to step away for a moment.”

After finishing off the Three-Headed Serpent, Hulim Heyerar spoke up suddenly.

“Sure thing. Should we wait for you?”

“I won’t be long. I’ll be right back.”

With that, Hulim headed deeper into the Dungeon Lord’s chamber.

Lucien glanced in the direction she’d gone, but made no attempt to pry into her business. Instead, he silently pulled out his tools, ready to harvest the valuable materials from the serpent’s massive corpse.

“Where do you think she’s off to?”

Russell asked, curiosity getting the better of him.

“Why do you care?” Eileen scoffed, “A second ago you were acting like you’d cross the street to avoid Hulim for the rest of your life. Now you’re already forgetting how scared you were?”

“I wasn’t caring—just asking a casual question!”

“You two—if you’ve got time to bicker, come help me collect the materials.”

“Coming right up!”

“Alright, alright! Guess this team can’t function without me even for this trivial stuff……”

While Lucien and the others busied themselves with harvesting materials, Hulim reached the true deepest part of the dungeon.

“Let me recall… the way to open the core chamber……”

Following the method she’d committed to memory, Hulim unlocked the hidden room and stepped inside.

After walking down a short corridor, a sealed small chamber came into view. The entire room was covered in incredibly intricate magic arrays, and in the center of the room floated a peculiar crystal-like sphere.

This was the most important thing in the entire dungeon—the Dungeon Core.

After examining it carefully, Hulim frowned.

“……Just as I suspected. The dungeon’s operational output is several times higher than normal.”

This meant the dungeon was running in an overloaded state.

The upside was that the speed of purifying Demonic Miasma Particles had skyrocketed—but correspondingly, the rate of Mana Particles accumulating within the dungeon had also surged, causing the strength of the monsters inside to rise rapidly.

This explained why they’d encountered an abnormal number of high-tier monsters along the way, and why the final floor had been completely shrouded in Black Mist—all because the dungeon’s efficiency had gone haywire.

While a boosted purification rate sounded like a good thing, it was by no means beneficial when coupled with overloading.

The Dungeon Core could never sustain such prolonged overloaded operation. It wouldn’t be long before it malfunctioned—and eventually collapsed entirely.

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And if the Dungeon Core collapsed, the entire dungeon would crumble along with it.

The catch? The monsters inside wouldn’t vanish with the dungeon. Instead, every single monster would pour out, forming a catastrophic Monster Tide.

“Why would something like this happen……”

Staring at the Dungeon Core before her, Hulim fell into deep thought.

Abnormalities in Dungeon Cores weren’t uncommon. There were countless causes—natural aging, external interference, severe damage to the dungeon structure, and so on.

To be honest, given the current situation, it was nearly impossible to pinpoint the exact cause of this dungeon’s malfunction.

“Forget it. The priority is to restore it to normal first.”

Abandoning her search for the cause, Hulim set to work repairing the Dungeon Core.

Not to boast, but there were very few people in the entire world who could repair a Dungeon Core—after all, it was a Divine Artifact. And as luck would have it, Hulim was one of them.

A few minutes later.

Click!

The overloaded Dungeon Core ceased operation.

After about three seconds—

Hum!

The Dungeon Core let out a soft hum and began operating again. Apart from Hulim, no one else in the dungeon would ever know that the dungeon had been completely non-functional for those three seconds.

After checking it several more times to confirm it was running smoothly now, Hulim nodded in satisfaction, then turned and left the core chamber……

“Huh? You’re back already?”

Seeing Hulim reappear in the main chamber, Arthur asked in surprise, then smiled.

“You were gone for less than ten minutes. We haven’t even finished gathering the materials yet~.”

“Do you need me to help?”

“No! Absolutely not, Hulim—just stand there and watch!”

Eileen quickly cut her off, “If you even steal this little bit of work from us, we’ll truly be completely useless!”

“……Very well then.”

Hulim had no choice but to step aside, watching as the others busied themselves with harvesting materials.

The Three-Headed Serpent’s body was enormous—even though Hulim had crushed it into a mangled heap, collecting all the valuable materials would take far more than a few minutes.

After roughly another half-hour—

“Alright! Done!”

As the last piece of material was stuffed into their bags, everyone in the Silver Party broke into excited grins.

“This is a huge haul~!”

“Haha! I can’t wait to get back and drink myself silly!”

Hulim glanced at the bulging material sacks on the ground and asked, “Aren’t there too many? Won’t we need to gather more on the way back?”

“No need.”

Lucien shook his head, “The most valuable thing in this dungeon is the Three-Headed Serpent—or rather, the Four-Headed Serpent now.”

“Even though its evolution was incomplete, it has already crossed the threshold to Rank A. That final head is the genuine body part of a Rank A monster.”

“Materials from Rank A monsters are worth several times more than those from Rank B monsters! To put it plainly, the value of just that one head alone exceeds the total value of everything else we’ve collected in this dungeon combined.”

“So there’s no need to gather any more materials. From here on out, we can avoid all unnecessary fights.”

“I see. Then… shall we head straight back to the surface?”

“Of course.”

Lucien nodded, then turned to his party members.

“Everyone grab the loot—we’re heading back to the surface!”

……

……

That same night.

Golden Pavilion Tavern in Bongisto.

“To celebrate our massive haul!”

“Cheers, everyone!”

“Cheers!”

Hulim and the others held a victory feast here after returning from the dungeon.

“Whoohoo! That hits the spot!”

Russell downed his drink in one gulp, slamming the empty glass down on the table.

“Nothing beats a good drink after a successful quest~!”

“Don’t get too drunk. No one’s carrying you back later.”

“Eileen, you just don’t get it~! The whole point of drinking is to get drunk!”

“What kind of nonsense logic is that?”

“Hmmph! You’ll never understand.”

“……Ugh, I’m done talking to you.”

Eileen turned her head to look at Hulim.

“Hulim, are you free tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow? I don’t have any plans, actually.”

Hulim replied.

“Perfect! How about we go out and have some fun tomorrow? We earned a fortune this time, after all.”

“Hm……”

Hulim thought for a moment, then nodded, “Sure.”

“Great! It’s a date! Oh—and—”

“Little Alice! Wanna come with us tomorrow? Sister Eileen will take you out to play!”

“E-Eh? Me?”

Alice blinked her big eyes, then looked up at Arthur beside her, seemingly asking for his permission.

Arthur smiled and said, “Go ahead, Alice. It’s not easy for you to get out and hang out with other girls. This is a perfect chance to have fun with them.”

“Brother… then I’ll go?”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep