Chapter 35

Are You Hiding Something from Us?

What would have happened if I could use complete Dragon Tongue like the dragons, instead of this half-complete version?

The emperor’s words, preserved in the record magic, were impossible for everyone else to understand. Yet I had understood every word perfectly.

The others watched the recording without understanding anything, almost as if they were enjoying a silent film. But I couldn’t watch it so casually.

Dragon Tongue?

When I first met Rokan, he had told me that if I wanted to remove the restrictions on meeting Sia, I needed to gain complete control over the dragon’s power.

According to him, the first step toward achieving that goal was to master Dragon Tongue completely.

Yet the man in the recording had just admitted that even he had never been able to use Dragon Tongue perfectly.

As the recording had shown, the power of dragons was terrifying. It had turned an illegitimate prince, who had been mocked by his brothers for being unable to wield a sword, into an emperor who united an entire continent.

Naturally, I had assumed that the emperor had completely mastered the power contained within his sword and used it to conquer the continent.

Apparently, I had been wrong.

The realization sent goosebumps all over my body.

I searched through my memories, trying to recall everything I had heard about Dragon Tongue.

Rokan had once told me that he had never taught Dragon Tongue to a human before. He had also warned me that learning it would be extremely difficult.

Other than that, however, he hadn’t given me any detailed explanation.

Throughout human history, how many people had even managed to imitate Dragon Tongue?

He conquered an entire continent without even mastering it completely…

Then what would happen if someone mastered it perfectly?

No. I’m still nowhere near that level.

There was no point in getting ahead of myself.

In any case, whether I should consider it fortunate or frightening, I had somehow become able to understand every word in the record magic from that scene onward.

The recording continued to play despite my confusion.

Scenes showing the history of a continent I had never heard of and achievements that meant little to an outsider passed by one after another.

Just as my interest began to fade and the recording seemed close to ending, the emperor appeared, lying weakly in bed.

If you’re watching this, I suppose that means you know how to wield the power of dragons as well.

He spoke from his sickbed as though he were talking directly to someone.

His voice was weak because he lacked strength, but I could hear every word clearly.

His words sounded almost as if he had predicted everything.

Even the fact that I would someday stand here and watch the record he had left behind.

Let’s see, then. How different are you and I?

With those words, the record magic came to an end.

RUMBLE…

The stone wall bearing the inscription began to move, revealing another hidden passage behind it.

Naturally, monsters emerged as soon as the passage opened.

“Monsters!”

“Skeletons?”

“No, they’re different!”

At first glance, they looked like ordinary skeletons, common D-rank monsters often found in dungeons like this.

But a closer look made it clear that they weren’t normal skeletons.

Unlike ordinary skeletons, their bodies were covered in a strange-colored glow.

I couldn’t even find the right words to describe the color.

It looked as though someone had splashed brilliant rainbow light together with the gloomy black aura that had covered the Sword Wraiths earlier, then mixed the two colors wildly across a single canvas.

“Everyone, be careful. We don’t know what they can do!” Taeseong shouted.

Fighting an enemy without knowing anything about it was always dangerous.

What made things worse was that the original purpose of entering this Dungeon had been to train lower-ranked hunters. As a result, most of our raid team consisted of relatively inexperienced hunters.

The situation had become even more dangerous.

If there was one thing we could be thankful for, it was that the monsters were coming toward us from only one direction instead of surrounding us from every side.

SKREEEEEE!

The skeletons let out ear-splitting shrieks. Their eyes flashed as they charged toward us.

Under normal circumstances, these monsters should have been easier for me to fight than the ghost-type Sword Wraiths we had faced earlier.

As long as an enemy wasn’t a ghost-type monster, physical attacks from swords and blunt weapons should work normally.

But this place was different. I couldn’t be sure those basic rules still applied.

After all, this was now an EX-rank Dungeon.

So I abandoned the strategy I would normally have used.

Just as I had against the Sword Wraiths, I changed the structure of the mana coating my blade before charging forward.

The color and shape of the aura surrounding these skeletons were different from those of the Sword Wraiths. However, I was certain that there was some connection between the strange energy covering both kinds of monsters.

That meant starting with the same basic strategy was the right choice.

Without hesitation, I took the front line and began swinging my sword at the skeletons.

I had worried that I might struggle against them, but fortunately, my blade cut through them more easily than ever.

I had changed the mana around my sword from emission to absorption, causing the aura covering the skeletons to be drawn straight into the blade.

For a moment, I worried that the sword might escape my control and fly away again, just as it had before.

Fortunately, nothing unusual happened this time. At least, not to me.

“Aaaagh!”

The rest of the battlefield was a completely different story.

While I cut down skeletons almost as easily as monsters of my own rank, absolute chaos broke out among the other hunters.

“Heal! Give me a heal!”

“How strong are these things?!”

“Aaaah! Somebody help me!”

“Wounded hunter over here! We have a casualty!”

Even though they were hunters, they could barely fight back against the skeletons.

Most of them were D-rank or higher. Under normal circumstances, they should have been able to deal with monsters like these without much trouble.

Instead, even their strongest attacks barely affected the skeletons, while every strike from the skeletons hit the hunters like a critical blow.

Why?

I might have possessed unusual power and enormous potential, but it was still only potential.

Even after considering everything I could do at the moment, I couldn’t honestly claim to be the strongest person in the party.

Taeseong alone was an experienced B-rank hunter, which made the situation even harder to understand.

“Why is Minjun completely fine over there?”

“Minjun!”

“Minjun! Please help us!”

Before I could think any further, desperate cries for help came from every direction.

The others had realized that, for some reason, my attacks were the only ones working properly against these skeletons.

Their desperate shouts made the situation clear to me immediately.

I would have to deal with almost all the skeletons by myself.

I can do this.

I twisted my body and swung my sword deeply at the skeletons attacking the rear line.

Until now, I had only needed to focus on the monsters in front of me. From this point onward, I would have to fight the enemies at both the front and the rear at the same time.

Naturally, that meant I would need to pay much more attention to everything happening around me.

Once the party understood that I was the only one who could resolve the situation, they began concentrating every available buff on me.

In a way, everyone’s lives now depended on me.

I couldn’t allow anyone to die because I had failed them.

I’ll clear the rear first.

Considering my position, dealing with the monsters in front of me would have been the safer choice.

The skeletons at the rear were attacking the other hunters, while those at the front were focused on me.

Turning toward the rear meant exposing my back completely to the enemies in front.

Even so, the other hunters could die at any moment. I had to deal with the immediate danger first.

Besides, I had the terrifyingly powerful artifacts Sia had given me.

Even if the skeletons managed to land a few hits, those artifacts should keep me from suffering anything immediately fatal.

I sprinted toward the rear line and began swinging my sword without holding back.

Perhaps the blade was speeding up because of all the energy it had absorbed, or maybe the buffs were responsible.

Just as it had during my fight against the Sword Wraiths, the skeletons began falling faster and faster.

Fortunately, the number of new skeletons coming through the opening in the wall also began to decrease.

At last, after a battle that had seemed as though it would never end, the final skeleton fell.

“Whew…”

As soon as the tension eased, the strength left my legs, and I dropped heavily to the floor.

The injured hunters received treatment from the healers and drank potions, while the others began collecting the piles of skeleton bones scattered across the battlefield.

Meanwhile, I replayed the battle in my head.

Why had only my attacks worked properly against these skeletons?

When we fought the Sword Wraiths, the other hunters’ attacks had clearly worked as well.

But down here, everyone except me had been unable to fight anywhere near their normal ability.

Is it because of the dragon power inside this sword?

Or was it because of the emperor’s will, which refused to allow anyone who wasn’t a wielder of a dragon sword like himself to enter?

While I was still thinking about it, Taeseong approached me.

“No matter how I think about it, this is strange. You feel the same way, don’t you?”

Everything had started going wrong from the moment my sword flew into the statue.

And since I was always at the center of every strange event, there was no way the others could have failed to notice.

“Minjun, what exactly is your connection to this Dungeon?”

“What connection? Today is literally my first time here. How could I have any connection to it?”

“I seriously can’t make sense of any of this… Minjun, you aren’t hiding something from us, are you?”

His question sent a chill down my spine.

How was I supposed to explain any of this?

I couldn’t exactly tell them the whole truth: that my girlfriend had reincarnated as a dragon, that the sword in my hand was a Dragon Bone Sword like the one the emperor buried here had wielded, and that I also carried dragon power within me.

Even if I told them, they probably wouldn’t believe me. And if they did believe me, that would create a completely different problem…

I did my best to act as clueless as possible.

“I’m confused too. Honestly, this situation is putting a lot of pressure on me.”

“…Right. I suppose you’re just as confused as the rest of us. Once we get out of this Gate, let’s investigate what happened together. For now…”

Taeseong took my hand.

“We need your strength.”

“…I’ll do everything I can.”

Fortunately, Taeseong didn’t press me any further.

The other hunters stopped asking questions about it as well.

After resting long enough to recover our strength, we resumed our descent toward the lowest floor of the tomb, with me leading the way.

All Gates were dangerous because no one could predict what unexpected situations might arise. But this place was especially dangerous, so not a single person let their guard down.

Sure enough, almost every time we took a few steps, skeletons or other undead monsters attacked us.

Each one was covered in the same bizarre aura, which looked like rainbow light mixed with black energy.

Just as before, none of the hunters except me could deal any meaningful damage to them.

The party once again concentrated every available buff and support spell on me while I hunted the monsters alone.

We fought our way through one section after another, continuing deeper toward the bottom of the Dungeon.

Finally, the seemingly endless stairways came to an end, and a space that appeared to be the lowest floor opened up before us.

Until now, we had passed through little more than corridors and stairways. But this area looked like one enormous underground cavern.

Various patterns that seemed to belong to the emperor’s era decorated the walls. Apart from those decorations, however, the place was almost disturbingly empty.

“It’s actually creepier because there’s nothing here.”

“Still better than having monsters everywhere.”

“True… but what was this room used for?”

Nothing was visible at the moment, but monsters could attack from anywhere at any time.

For that reason, I stayed at the very front, carefully watching our surroundings as we moved forward.

Then, without warning, a loud impact sounded behind me.

THUNK!

I turned around and saw the hunters who had been following me standing together several meters away, as though they had all been stopped at exactly the same point.

What happened?

I stared at them in confusion, but they looked just as bewildered as I was.

“What’s wrong?”

“Minjun.”

Taeseong called my name and knocked against the empty air as though he were tapping on a door.

THUD. THUD.

The sound was unmistakable. It was just like someone striking a solid wall.

“How did you get inside?”

“What?”

“There’s a magical barrier here. We can’t pass through it.”

Juwon, who was standing beside Taeseong, lightly kicked forward.

His foot struck the invisible obstruction with another hollow THUNK.

Apparently, everyone except me had been unable to pass through the unseen wall.

“Why can only Minjun cross it without any trouble…?”

A strange feeling of unease came over me.

Could it be…?

This time, I walked back toward the others.

I tried to cross the barrier I had passed through without even noticing earlier and return to their side.

THUNK!

This time, the wall stopped me too.

“Uh…?”

Before I could even begin to understand what was happening, the barrier, which had been completely transparent, began to turn opaque.

At the same time, the ground beneath my feet started trembling faintly.

“…!”

Then the floor itself began to sink.

The vibration apparently didn’t affect anything beyond the barrier, because the other hunters appeared farther and farther above me as I descended.

“Minjun!”

Taeseong shouted my name urgently, but no matter what anyone tried, the barrier refused to break.

Meanwhile, the floor beneath me continued sinking deeper into the earth.

What happens now…?