Chapter 114

The God of the Treasure Room

That goddess had a personality like a spring dandelion. A cheerful, innocent yellow that bounces around in warm places where sunlight shines well.

After the flowers bloom, fluffy seeds rise up and when you blow on them, they flutter away with a poruru sound.

Small and insignificant, but cute and lovable.

She always carried a scroll with her. To write memos when she heard what her friends needed.

She had ten magical treasure chests. So that she could always bring out gifts whenever she wanted.

“Look at this! Samphriel.”

She would occasionally bring out those treasure chests in front of her friends.

“Guess what’s inside this!”

With her hands behind her back, face flushed red, smiling brightly.

“I put what you wanted in there!”

She is the goddess of gifts and scrolls.

In the age of myths, she was the most beloved goddess among the gods.

Until she was devoured by the labyrinth.

According to Nataniel, no gift that came from any of those treasure chests was more precious than her smile.

***

……I remember reading that passage.

Although I wasn’t an ancient document researcher like Dalstream, I had seen it somewhere while scraping and licking this insane game clean to the bottom.

That dandelion goddess had ten treasure chests.

They are the chests in the treasure rooms lined up from the 1st to 10th floors of the labyrinth. Although no one has ever found the 10th floor treasure room until now.

Even with the Compass of Greed, the treasure room couldn’t be found on the 10th floor.

And…….

‘The treasure room is a slot.’

Just like how stored magic can be retrieved from each magic slot in the Memory Book, the White Lion’s palm gate is connected to the treasure room.

He doesn’t know about the 10th floor treasure room either. Or maybe it doesn’t exist at all.

And he retrieved the Magic Tower Lord from the 9th floor treasure room, and the Spirit Lake from the 8th floor treasure room.

So maybe he could only retrieve the breakwater from the 7th floor treasure room? Because 8th-tier scrolls cannot be retrieved from the 7th floor treasure room.

“In the form of a spherical prison.”

Now it has become a situation where a Spirit Lake is contained within the Spirit Lake mass.

Or it’s like a giant air bubble formed underwater. Because the Spirit Lakes with different owners didn’t mix with each other.

The one on the outside belongs to Dalstream. Now the spherical prison is being dismantled and its form is changing into wave whips.

And from there inward, the Magic Tower Lord entered, while conversely, the White Lion goes outward.

“Spirit budding.”

Like an amoeba dividing.

Or like buds growing and budding from cnidarians like hydra or sea anemones.

The White Lion, wrapping his body in a lake about the size of two bathtubs, escaped from the spherical prison. Leaving me and Dalstream in front of the Magic Tower Lord.

To the surface.

***

The scene of that monster descending with the Spirit Lake wrapped around his body was like a scene from a nightmare.

And where he headed was.

“Yernil.”

The White Lion said as he lightly landed on the collapsed roof of the annex building.

“That’s your name, right? The professor called you that earlier.”

Yernil’s breath caught just like when she encountered him earlier in the Records Archive.

The first son reborn in the labyrinth and the lord of the 9.5th floor.

The right arm of the Labyrinth Master.

That demon had no intention of letting Yernil live from the moment he met Dalstream and Yernil in the Records Archive.

Because he didn’t know what she might have heard.

Or what she might have received.

-Caleb!

-Professor Dalstream!

The university wizards are too busy taking care of Caleb and Dalstream, who are caught between the Magic Tower Lord and the Corpse Explosion scroll.

Meldini and Isilof were rising with emergency magic. Rushing toward the Spirit Lake.

By Yernil’s side…….

Kwaaang!

Aimus struck down with all his might with the iron rod, but even his monstrous strength was meaningless in front of the White Lion.

“Good heavens.”

Smashing Gaia was stopped. He just grabbed it with his hand and subdued it.

Kwaaaaak.

The iron rod was dented in the shape of the lion’s fingers. That steel mass was crushed like an aluminum can.

Swaeeaek!

Mister Backstab reflexively swung his sword, but that was equally useless.

“Aaaaak!”

The lion grabbed his wrist and broke it, and Mister Backstab groaned in pain and collapsed.

“This bastard!”

Mister Backstab put strength into his broken forearm and spread his hand wide. Sleep gas spurted from his grasp. It was a skill he had newly learned during the 4th floor adventure last time.

The magical sleep gas had a fairly thick concentration when activated at close range, enough to put even the Zoin tribe thief from Ingelram’s party to sleep, but.

“Huk.“

The White Lion lightly spat wind from his mouth and pushed Mister Backstab aside.

“Don’t be bothersome. I don’t particularly want to kill you.”

And he swung the iron rod to throw Aimus aside as well.

Claws suddenly sprouted from the White Lion’s hands.

“You too.”

The monster approached right in front of Yernil.

“Think of it as bad luck.”

Yernil couldn’t move.

She knew in her head that she should use Guard Repositioning right away, but her legs felt stuck to the annex roof.

It was a kind of paralysis felt when encountering an overwhelming predator.

For example, the kind of motion error where a rabbit freezes when facing a tiger.

“Magic Shield!”

It was Neko who reacted instead of Yernil.

Just before the monster’s claws pierced her, Neko cast magic from behind Yernil’s back.

A small magic shield glittering in silver was summoned in front of Yernil’s chest. However, the monster’s claws split it like tofu.

Just before the sharp tip pierced her chest.

‘Guard Repositioning!’

Yernil, who barely came to her senses, fled in panic.

She moved to a spot about 20 meters away, still on the annex roof, then drew her bow.

But the target was no longer in that spot.

“Uh……?”

“Yernil!”

Aimus shouted.

Everyone was looking at Yernil with shocked expressions.

More precisely, at her back.

That lion was excellent at magic manipulation to the point where he could retrieve and activate magic like Spirit Lake with scrolls, but if we’re talking about class, he’s far from being a wizard.

It was ‘Leap Ambush’.

“Huk……”

Something warm is felt at the waist. In Yernil’s slowly lowering field of vision came the sharp claws that had pierced through her side and protruded.

“Uh……”

Strength drains from her legs.

Blood flows down jurureuk.

Neko’s shocked expression is visible. Aimus’s hardened face too.

Even Mister Backstab, who usually just complained, had his face turn white at that worst situation that happened in the blink of an eye.

“Huk…… Huk……”

It’s hard to breathe.

Now the spot where the claws have withdrawn is hot.

She can feel air coming in. It feels empty. And there’s too much blood pouring out.

Even when she tries to grab and block it with her hands, it flows out jurureuk through the gaps between her fingers.

“Eu……”

This is bad.

That thought came first, and then suddenly the fairy forest came to mind.

That day when she was driven out of the forest also comes back.

When crying and clinging desperately was useless.

The faces of those who coldly sent her away come to mind.

Without even lying down, her cheek was somehow touching the ground.

While lying on the ground with her dizzy consciousness spinning ping ping, she could see the sky.

The night sky.

Unlike the fairy forest, stars weren’t clearly visible in Soren’s night sky.

It’s cold.

All body temperature seems to be escaping through the side where blood is flowing.

It looks cold.

Caleb inside the lake.

Yernil had also fallen into that water before. It was cold.

Caleb seems busy fighting the Magic Tower Lord.

It’s a strange feeling.

Lonely.

Just looking up at his profile from below is lonely.

That he’s not looking down at her dying self is lonely.

It’s mysterious that loneliness feels greater than fear at this moment.

Something as hot as what’s flowing from her side also flowed from her eyes.

‘I wanted to fight there too.’

Tak!

The White Lion tore off the sack tied to her waist. And took out Dalstream’s incomplete thesis from inside.

“I thought something like this had been passed over.”

The White Lion tore the thesis to shreds.

***

The White Lion looked up at the sky with a calm feeling. The battle was still continuing inside the Spirit Lake, but there would be no chance of victory for Dalstream and Caleb.

No matter how strong an archmage was, it wouldn’t be easy to compete with the Magic Tower Lord inside a lake. Especially if it was a lake made by an ‘enemy’ so the spherical prison tightens around them. Especially if they’re fighting while protecting one student.

Moreover, Isilof and Meldini outside would also find it difficult to help the two.

Because carelessly using big magic might only break Meldini’s Spirit Lake.

And because the Magic Tower Lord inside the lake is too fast to snipe.

It didn’t flow as smoothly as planned, but as expected.

It’s a natural result.

There’s no way it could fail since the White Lion stepped forward directly. However.

‘Uneasy.’

Not because of Dalstream, but because of Caleb.

That young man was someone who kept deviating from the White Lion’s predictions in many ways. He was definitely suspected of being a possessor, but when he cast lie prevention magic in front of Meldini and proved he wasn’t, or when he took Enver to Black Dog and killed him.

Could some unexpected development unfold this time too?

Or.

“Should I help out a little here?”

It was right at the moment when the White Lion was about to change targets.

Kwagwang!

Suddenly, a huge and sturdy green hand shot up from the ground.

“Finally caught you.”

The grip that snatched the White Lion’s ankle pulled him down with tremendous force. The demon’s leg was instantly sucked into the debris of the collapsed roof.

“Keuk!“

Monstrous strength on a different level from mid-tier adventurer Aimus.

The White Lion struggled to pull his leg out, but his opponent was no ordinary monster either.

Kwagwang!

The roof collapses.

On the chest of the White Lion, who was slammed to the ground, his shoe came down heavily like a steel stake.

“Chrome!”

“I’ll send you to Lactanius.”

Black Dog’s Orc Berserker raised his axe high.

“So that guy can get his revenge.”

Now the White Lion remembered too.

When he attacked Black Dog during the labyrinth eruption 12 years ago.

The White Lion had devoured a wizard named Lactanius, and Chrome was beside him.

He thought he was dead, but as time passed, he had shown himself again in Black Dog.

He’s built like a bear but naturally gifted at hiding his presence.

Enough to pull off the current surprise attack.

Kwaang!

The axe that had killed Enver fell toward the White Lion’s head.

***

“Professor!”

The Magic Tower Lord swims through the Spirit Lake. And we trapped in the spherical prison will soon fall into silence and suffocation.

There’s no time.

-Caleb!

-Professor!

Isilof and Meldini floating outside the spherical prison find it difficult to help us.

“Caleb.”

Professor Dalstream pointed his wand at me.

“I’ll use Spirit Budding to send you out.”

“No!”

Because if he does that, what’s attached to the wand tip now will be released.

‘Spirit Lake, in the form of whip waves.’

Right now, an entire lake is attached to the professor’s wand tip.

One that brings down massive waves following the direction it’s swung. No, it’s closer to a tsunami than waves.

If hit by that, the Magic Tower Lord would have no choice but to be smashed. Since it’s a summoned creature with tremendous life force, it would slowly recover again.

“We can get out if we catch it!”

“Honestly, I’m not confident.”

Because the Magic Tower Lord is swimming around us both at tremendous speed.

It’s a clichéd scene that often appears in animated movies.

The villain spinning at high speed around the protagonist in the center.

“I’ll……”

Usually that cliché goes up to the protagonist catching the high-speed moving villain, doesn’t it.

“I’ll catch the direction for you.”

“How?”

“I’ll hit it with Frost Ray.”

Magic-origin summoned creatures like the Magic Tower Lord have unique status abnormality judgments.

For example, think about a judgment like ‘wetness‘. Would that work on something that’s already semi-liquid to begin with?

It has 100% immunity to lightning attacks, so it never gets electrocuted. Freezing also never works.

Instead, if hit by something like Frost Ray, there’s a 100% chance of ‘slow’ being applied for 1 turn.

“Hit it with the whip when it gets slowed.”

“I understand. But can you hit it with Frost Ray?”

Dalstream asked incredulously.

Honestly, hitting that monster spinning around us at more than ten rotations per second with Frost Ray is like reaching for the stars in the sky. A normal wizard could never do it. Even Yernil couldn’t do it. But.

“I’ll try.”

Because I have the hourglass.

Honestly, I don’t really want to do this kind of thing in front of Dalstream.

This professor knows too much.

“Don’t miss the timing.”

Still, it’s better than dying.

We’ll be silenced soon, so I need to hurry…….

“Huh?”

There’s a strange message floating next to the hourglass.

[Yernil]

※Combat Incapacitated (Death in 3 turns)

What’s this now?

***

“Huk……! Huk. Crazy!”

Mister Backstab came out carrying Yernil.

It was close.

Thanks to Chrome grabbing the White Lion’s ankle, the timing was created.

“Thanks! Chrome! It was worth spending money at the casino!”

At that timing, he entered with Leap Ambush and escaped with Shadow Leap.

Together with Yernil.

“Ah, she’s not dead yet!”

“Neko!”

Orc warrior Urgash was running over. Along with priest Mikhail, who was out of breath.

Both were Security Officers belonging to Neko’s team.

“Mikhail! Help! Quickly!”

There’s already a subtle camaraderie among those who fought together against strong enemies at the steel mill.

Urgash, who became too anxious, threw Mikhail up onto the roof, and Mikhail rolled around with a kwadangtang but activated magic first.

Priest Mikhail of Nataniel quickly stopped Yernil’s bleeding.