Infinite Competitive Dungeon Society - Chapter 140 – The Third Explorer (4)
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Chapter 140 – The Third Explorer (4)

Occasionally, Orc Lords dropped their meat. With a bit of expectation, I checked their description. After finding out that eating it won’t raise my stats, I burnt the meat decisively. After all, why would I eat orc meat if it didn’t raise my stats? My inventory already had a hefty amount of food! The Orc Lord meat was likely there for explorers who didn’t prepare food beforehand.

Compared to the First Dungeon, Beyond was incredibly big. Plus, other than the attack reflecting walls, there were tons of other traps, making it completely different from the First Dungeon, where I could simply charge forward on Ruyue’s back. Here, I had to constantly observe my surroundings, look for traps, and hunt Orc Lords.

New pathways and Orc Lords appeared endlessly. Because I had to keep the maze’s map in mind and accurately calculate the trajectory of the crossbow bolts bouncing around, I felt like I was overtaxing my brain.

Of course, I got some benefits as well. Crossbow Marksmanship broke through low-rank and became mid-ranked. Perhaps because calculating the bolts trajectory gave a lot of experience, it was already level 2. My Elementalist skills also grew greatly. More difficult situations led to increased experience. Whoever thought of this system had to be a sadist.

I shot a bolt forward.

“Hey.”

“Kak!”

In the blink of an eye, the bolt bounced around from wall to wall, collecting more power, before it pierced the head of an Orc Lord that had just made its appearance. Since it had not used Warcry, it became paralyzed after taking lightning damage. I leisurely swung my spear and killed it. I had fought Orc Lords here for two weeks. Now, they were no longer my match.

This was the result of repeated learning. Once I understood the dungeon’s structure and the Orc Lords, it wasn’t that hard to conquer them. When I heard an Ord Lord’s footsteps, I would shoot my bolt out preemptively. They were all sized the same, so as long as I knew where the footsteps were coming from, I could figure out where and when they would pop out. Using the sounds of their footsteps, I calculated the distance between us and shot my bolt out so that it would hit them straight in the face. The results were obvious.

Hunting a single Orc Lord was very easy. When there were two or three, the calculations got a bit trickier, but I could still manage it.

The problem was when there were over twenty of them.

“Kuaaaaaa!”

“Kuaaaang! Human!”

I cussed, “Agh, those bastards are doing that shit again.”

On the first floor, there were spacious areas, which were always filled with dozens of Orc Lords. It wasn’t even big enough for them to all lie down and sleep, so I didn’t know what the hell they were gathered for. Almost as if they were suffering from insomnia, they all waited with their eyes wide open. Once they saw me, they waved their hands in greeting and shouted. Seeing the Orc Lords swinging their glaives, which never dropped, was infuriating to say the least.

“Kuaaaang!”

“Kuaaaang!”

“Tsk, like I’d let myself be hit by your crappy spears!”

However, if I fought them straight on, I knew I would end up dying. Instead, I fell back, dodging their charges. I raised my crossbow and shot out hundreds of bolts towards the walls as I continuously moved. After doing the same thing for the past two weeks, I had gotten quite good at this.

The troll bone bolts ran out on the third day, and I was subsisting on skeleton bones. But now, I was running low on those as well. Once I completely ran out, I would have to resort to elemental magic, which took three times as much mana. Considering the number of Mana Potions I had left, it wasn’t a wise choice.

“Kuhak!”

“Ugh!”

The bolts I shot out bounced around without hitting each other, then assaulted the Orc Lords. I ducked or moved to the side to dodge the flying crossbow bolts as I shot even more out. Naturally, Ruyue was dematerialized. It wouldn’t be funny if she was hit by my bolts.

[Mid-rank Crossbow Marksmanship has reached level 3. Even without imbuing mana, you can damage spiritual bodies.]

After continuously shooting bolts and cutting down Orc Lords for five minutes, they were finally wiped out. My Crossbow Marksmanship also leveled up.

I couldn’t remember exactly when, but I was able to hit spiritual bodies with my spear when my Spear Technique became high-ranked. I didn’t know whether my Spear Technique affected this in any way, but I became able to attack spiritual bodies with crossbows at just mid-rank level 3. In truth, it was quite unexpected. It meant I had already become skillful enough to apply the principles of Spear Technique in marksmanship.

Damn it, I’ve been using the crossbow too much! But I swear I’m a spearman!

Right then, I heard the ground tremor from far away. It gave me a sense of unease. Other than myself, only the Orc Lords were able to make the ground tremor.

At the same time, the dungeon walls shook and began to transform. The twisted pathways became straight and a new pathway opened up. It seemed to be about…three miles long? It was a distance I could easily cover within thirty seconds, but that wasn’t important.

“Gate…!” I shouted involuntarily.

There, I saw the same gate I used to cross over to Beyond. I tried to regain my composure as I felt the mana emanating from the gate. At the same time, I dispersed my mana out to check for any traps on the way. The result – they were both clean. The gate was real, and there were no traps.

Mana detection and mana dispersion were both things I had learned in the past two weeks. I had naturally developed a habit for scanning periodically as I constantly used them to locate the damned Orc Lords and to check for traps. Although they were so basic that they didn’t even register as skills, they were probably my biggest gain.

In any case, now that I knew the gate was real, I knew what to do.

“I have to kill all the Orc Lords…!” I muttered to myself.

“Kuaaaaang!”

“Kuoooong!”

“Human meat!”

“This is the only chance to eat it!”

There was a simple reason that the pathway became straight. It was to make it impossible for me to dodge the Orc Lords’ attacks. About a hundred Orc Lords came from behind, and there were even more coming from the front.

As expected, they all shouted Warcries as if they were competing, and, in this narrow space, they amplified each other to a horrifying extent. My ears rang from their repeated shouting, and their endlessly amplified spirit almost caused my body to stiffen.

“Whoa…I didn’t think I would have trouble moving my body…!”

Could it be? Did the maze continue on endlessly for the past two weeks to help me grow my ability to handle them all at once? Was it all of this last charge? Looking at the walls that still had their reflect and amplification properties, I became certain. However, as the pathway changed shape, I had to recalculate the trajectory from the beginning.

That said, once I defeated all the Orc Lords and arrived at the gate, I could proudly say that I had completely cleared this place.

Even though I had gotten used to Crossbow Marksmanship in the past two weeks, I didn’t think there would be such an annoying final hurdle. I shouted while I inwardly groused about the sadistic person who made this, “Crimson Roar!”

Since the Orc Lords were all clumped up together, I easily sent them to their death with Crimson Roar. Then, I jumped into the gate and left Beyond. Hehe, with such an easy method of getting through, why would I trouble myself and use my brain!?

[You have conquered Beyond’s 1st floor. You can challenge the dungeon’s 52nd floor.]

[Your maximum HP and MP has increased by 2%. You have obtained 5 bonus stats.]

[Experience has been added to skills you frequently used to progress through Beyond’s 1st floor.]

[Mid-rank Crossbow Marksmanship has reached level 4. Your bolts piercing power has become greater, and they can pierce through two enemies at once.]

[Mid-rank Spirit Mastery has reached level 9. Taking a step forward in handling all souls connected to you, it has become easier for you to feel a sense of unity with them and their destructive power increases.]

[Mid-rank Spirit Aura has reached level 7. Spirit Aura’s power has increased and less mana is required to maintain it.]

[Mid-rank Elemental Control has reached level 7. You can draw out the power of your contracted elementals almost perfectly.]

[Mid-rank Elemental Contract has reached level 7. Your contracted elementals have become even more powerful.]

Just by clearing Beyond’s 1st floor, I gained incredible rewards. First, I obtained the same amount of stat points as when I leveled up. Then, the skills I used to fight the Orc Lords all jumped up in experience. I could feel that I was much stronger than I was just a moment ago.

Beyond was truly amazing. Of course, as great as the rewards were, Beyond was a huge pain in the bum. The monsters were stronger, and the traps were annoying. It would only get harder as well. However, now that I tasted the fruit of my efforts, I vowed to conquer this place. There was someone fanning my resolution. It was Loretta, who was sweating and fanning me with a folding fan.

“Shin-nim, don’t be mad, please?” she pleaded.

I grunted. “I’m not mad. I just think that you could have explained more about Beyond in the time you spent fooling around.”

She sputtered, “F-Fooling around!? That was the most important thing to me!”

I had to restock my mana potions and repair my weapon, but I decided to put it off for later.

“I’ll be off then. Because of a certain someone, I didn’t go home for two weeks, so my parents must be mad.”

“Ah, aaah! Shin-nim, I’m sorry! I’m sorrrry! Forgive me!”

I couldn’t go outside while I was trapped in Beyond, but fortunately the explorers’ communication channel still worked. More importantly, phones still worked. It was a mystery I would never solve.

Although my parents and friends were shocked when I told them I couldn’t go back for a while, they weren’t too concerned since I could call them.

Well, except for Ludia.

After returning, I said hello to my parents, took a shower, and got changed. Immediately afterwards, Ludia came back from the dungeon in a hurry and embraced me. Because her pale expression scared me, I couldn’t force her off of me.

Because I had disappeared for two weeks, I couldn’t make any excuses either. Especially because I didn’t say anything beforehand. From Ludia’s perspective, I had basically left her behind. Tsk, just when her condition was getting better…!

“You won’t get off, right?” I asked helplessly.

“Mhm.”

Like a kitten, Ludia rubbed her face against my arm and marked her territory. How did a proud princess become like this…? With that thought, I patted her head in pity. My mother always had impeccable timing and appeared suddenly while giving me a thumbs up. I was now certain that my mother had an ability that I wasn’t aware of.

After spending a somewhat comfortable and somewhat itchy time together, Ludia regained her composure and suddenly said something absurd, “Ah, our guild house’s environment changed.”

I frowned. “What? The environment changed?”

“Mhm. If you go out, it’s dark, regardless of whether it’s day or night. But the area I walked around became a bit brighter. Also, there was a message that said something like 0.5% of Beyond’s Residential Area being explored.”

“Uh…Mm…”

I suddenly remembered something. When I became a Beyond explorer, I had heard a notification message saying that my residence and resort had changed their affiliation to Beyond. My guild house had been sent to a strange place!