About ten or fifteen minutes had passed when… I finally took a deep breath, grabbed my cane, and stood up.

First, I brushed myself off. There was quite a bit of dust on my clothes. Then I scanned the six people who hadn’t even twitched a hair. Next, I slowly approached them.

My mind was mostly at ease. After all, I was in a Salvos-type dungeon. Only a certain number of people were allowed inside. And after that, the entrance was completely closed off.

And the limit for this dungeon… was seven people.

A perfect number for my needs.

Neither less nor more.

So, without worrying that others might have entered the dungeon after me, I approached them.

The first person I reached was the only hannya among the Black Blood’s leaders. The horns protruding from his head resembled goat horns. With his black hair and slightly grayish skin tone, he looked like an ordinary hannya.

Without blinking, I aimed my palm at him, then unleashed blue flames upon him.

As his entire body was engulfed in the glow of deep blue flames, his eyes suddenly snapped open.

“Agh…”

For a brief moment, he stared blankly at the ground as if he hadn’t yet grasped what was happening. Then, as the pain washed over him, his eyes widened.

“Agh…! Ah, AAAHHHRGH!!”

His screams filled my ears. He began thrashing around on the ground like a madman. He started rolling around as if trying to escape the flames engulfing his entire body, but it was in vain.

His screams soon woke the other five.

At first, they too couldn’t grasp what was happening or where they were. But then, as if recalling what had transpired, their eyes widened. They saw their friend burning in flames.

One of the humans, even though nothing had happened to him yet, leaped to his feet, screaming, and tried to run away.

But I didn’t let him.

A single wind blade I sent toward his feet severed his legs from his body the moment it struck his calves, causing him to fall to the ground.

As his screams grew louder, the other four stood frozen, staring at him.

“Your deaths will not be painless, mark my words. And trying to escape will only make things worse.”

They couldn’t say a word. They couldn’t respond.

Here, without someone like Leon or the underground corridors they knew as home, they were completely defenseless.

And so… I burned them all with blue flames to feed A New Beginning. Not so they’d die instantly, but to ensure they suffered.

Finally, after about six or seven minutes…

There were only piles of ash before me.

The leaders of the organization that had tormented Piarlin for decades had met such a quick and pitiful end.

“Haaaah…”

I took a deep breath, cracking my neck by gently twisting it from side to side.

The mission to kill the leaders of Black Blood was a success. As for everything else, Alex, Lucas, and Thomas would handle it according to the instructions I’d left them.

By the time I left here, the Old Gundam would be largely purged, the Inferesse Family would have converted all their resources into the Tenebra Family, making me an even more influential figure, and Piarlin would be indebted to us for saving them from the cancer growing within them.

“Hmm…”

Of course, I need to get out of here first…

I looked around again. When I first entered the dungeon, I’d only given a cursory glance to my surroundings, but this time I scanned the area much more carefully.

Overall, it was a dry region. Finding water wasn’t easy, and the air was uncomfortably hot.

I squinted. I looked toward the mountain, which seemed quite far away and from which black smoke was rising.

That thing was an active volcano. While I was trying to survive here, it would likely erupt several times, and it was what this dungeon was essentially built around.

The creatures were mostly golems, lava elementals, and ash giants, though there were also more biological creatures like fire lizards, giant scorpions, and sandworms. I’d be meeting them all soon enough.

After all… they’d all be coming to hunt me down soon.

This was the central theme of Salvos-type dungeons, known as the deadliest dungeon type.

Survival.

There was no boss to defeat. There was no location to find or reach.

For days on end, I would face waves of creatures that moved as if they knew exactly where I was. The dungeon would only end once I had killed a certain number of creatures. And it was a lot.

The only thing that could be considered an advantage was the fact that those who entered the dungeon were given a certain amount of time before the creature waves began. That period usually varied randomly between half a day and a full day.

Well, it hadn’t even been half an hour since I’d entered here.

In short… I had plenty of time to prepare.

“Here we go…”

First, I took off my jacket and shirt. I changed out of my suit into something more comfortable. Then I reached for the thing that had been waiting inside my ring for weeks.

Blue particles appeared before me, slowly coming together and… forming a small, suitcase-like object.

I approached it and pressed one of the buttons on it.

Then, as if straight out of a sci-fi movie, it suddenly began to expand, breaking apart into technological components. It scanned my body, performed its own calculations, and then moved toward me like a parasite.

It wrapped around my body, covering my arms and legs. As it grew thinner and thinner, the pieces slowly fell into place, and when it was all over…

I was wearing armor.

‘Wow.’

I didn’t respond to Sith’s comment. I raised my arm and moved my body.

There was no difficulty in my movements. In fact, it was as if… there was no armor on me at all.

It was something I’d specifically requested from the dwarves before coming to Piarlin. It was a lightweight armor equipped with advanced technology. The only issue was energy consumption, but since I didn’t plan to use the energy-draining features often, it wasn’t a problem.

It was there solely as an extra layer of protection covering my body; everything else was just a bonus.

However, it would also be quite useful for my survival in this dungeon.

So, I fixed my gaze on the volcano once more.

Under normal circumstances, I could have set up camp right where I was. As I said, the only thing I needed to do to clear the dungeon was to kill a certain number of creatures.

But I wasn’t exactly without a purpose in this dungeon either.

On the contrary, I’d been eagerly looking forward to entering here for quite some time, precisely because of that volcano.

It wasn’t ordinary. It was special. It was likely the only one of its kind in the entire universe.

I had to get there no matter what.

“Sith, roughly how far is it from here to the top of that volcano?”

‘About eighty kilometers.’

Eighty kilometers…

If I spend the entire preparation time I’ve been given just walking, I’ll probably cover about thirty kilometers. Getting through the remaining fifty, with the raids starting and all… will probably take me about four days.

“Hmm…”

Considering I plan to get out of the dungeon in about two weeks, there’s no need to rush.

Great.

Actually, fantastic.

Because with time not being an issue, the only problem is that the creatures I’ll face in this A grade dungeon will give me a lot of trouble—but… I didn’t prepare all this time for nothing, after all.

My ring isn’t filled with all sorts of things for nothing.

Clearing this dungeon will be a piece of cake.

*******

“…”

As I reviewed the reports on what had happened, I had nothing to say.

Never mind saying anything—I didn’t even have a single thought.

For minutes on end, I’d been sitting there, doing nothing but twitching a muscle.

I couldn’t stop my eye from twitching slightly. I slowly lifted my watch and looked again at the notification that had come in about ten minutes ago, trying to imagine it wasn’t actually there.

But it was there.

Just like the first time I saw it.

<<——————————

Aiden: The city will be a bit—not too much—in chaos. I won’t be around for about two weeks. Try to get everything sorted out until I return. Aiden: Additional_Details_For_Alex.txt

——————————>>

…

<<——————————

Aiden: Oh, and… I’m sorry for hiding it, Alex. But I chose this method because I didn’t want them to extract anything related to the plan from your mind if we were ever caught. You can find everything I didn’t tell you in the text file above.

——————————>>

…

…

<<——————————

Aiden: Good luck.

——————————>>

I lowered my arm.

I stared into nothingness for a while longer.

My eye twitched even more.

A feeling I hadn’t felt in a long time began to resurface inside me.

Anger.

But…

“Haaaah…”

I swallowed it down as best I could.

Now wasn’t the time to get angry.

Not only was Aiden’s decision quite reasonable, but everything I needed to do had already been predetermined.

It was just… the chaos he’d left behind before plunging headfirst into that dungeon was so immense that even thinking about dealing with it gave me a headache.

A massive city where mana levels in the atmosphere had skyrocketed. Animals transformed into different creatures on every street. Reports of mana poisoning coming from all directions…

Under the pretense of purging the city of Black Blood, the city was literally being wiped out.

Setting that aside, innocent people were continuing to die with every passing second.

I narrowed my eyes slightly and glanced at the official death toll in the news.

The number had long since surpassed a thousand and was rising steadily.

And the one responsible for this… was Aiden.

Aiden, who would never have thought of doing something like this before.

There was such a massive difference between the Aiden I first met in our first year at the academy and the one I saw now that it was hard to believe they were the same person.

His girlfriend’s death had changed him so much that I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d seen him smile.

…

Though… I didn’t really have the right to make that comment.

After all, I’d changed too after my mother died, just like him.

What had brought both of us to this state was the death of someone we loved.

After a few more seconds of silence, I let out a deep sigh and stood up. I opened the text file Aiden had sent and began reading everything written there, line by line.

If I delay any longer… we might face even greater losses than usual and be left with a city in ruins.

I have to hurry.

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