About two hours in, the situation abruptly changed. At that time, my father and I were cooking some pork belly over a hot grill. Although the soldiers on the battlefield looked and acted like humans, we stopped caring whether they killed or partied with each other once we realized they were simply monsters created by the dungeon.

I asked, “Father, why do you have pork belly in your inventory? Nom, nom.”

He answered in-between bites. “Gulp. Don’t you know? If you put meat in your inventory, it’ll stay fresher than if you stored it in the most high-tech refrigerator! You can store it right after you cut it for maximum freshness!”

“Ah, I’ve tested that before too!”

So that’s why Father carried around meat in his inventory! As expected of a dungeon explorer of 27 years! So he didn’t just hunt orcs for 20 years! I had used the same principle when I bought Yua a hamburger. Although I frequently ate my meals in the dungeon, I had never thought to bring fresh meat.

My father grinned. “Here, have a drink.”

“Oh, I should really be the one to fill your glass.”

After exchanging some soju shots, we joked around as we talked. Suddenly, however, I felt a gaze on me.

“Father, did you notice that?” I asked while looking around.

My father looked startled. “Eh? Notice what?”

This thought had crossed my mind in my past, but this just showed that my father had weaker senses than me. I asked Peika, who was sitting on my head drinking drops of alcohol from her mini elemental-sized cup.

“Peika, can you go survey the area?”

[Hmnya? Master, what’s a sumvay?]

“Ah…”

That’s not even a word... I realized that Peika was immobilized. I didn’t know that elementals were weak to alcohol, but it was my mistake. I had fallen for Peika’s cute antics of asking me for a juice she’d never seen before!

While I was distracted by Peika’s drunk appearance, the gaze watching us had disappeared. It seemed my father had finally noticed something as he was looking around, but it was too late.

“Hm, was it the zombie?”

“Maybe it was a wild animal that wanted some meat.”

Peika screeched, [Masteeeer! What’s a sumvay!?]

Of course, I didn’t think it was nothing. Even so, there was nothing we could do now except continue eating meat. As such, I decided to just let things be. Also, Peika, sumvay isn’t a word!

The twilight had passed and night time approached.

Father was the first to sleep, and I stood guard. Three hours later, my father got up and I slept. When I got up after three hours of sleep, it was still the middle of the night. Under the dark, starless night sky, only a pale moon was lighting up the world.

Apparently, the soldiers didn’t want to fight at night, as both sides had returned to their camps. However, the corpses of the dead soldiers were still on the battlefield. The nose-piercing stench of blood had permeated the battlefield and had even reached where I was.

“It looks like those corpses will rise.”

“Of course. Where else would zombies come from?”

As we kept an eye on the cruel battlefield, we snacked on some instant ramen. The thought suddenly struck me that partying with my father was making me eat things. Usually, people ate less as they aged, but my father always had something in his mouth and he justified this by saying that a martial artist needed to eat well. I had a feeling that this habit didn’t change when he was in the dungeon, so it was likely that his inventory was filled with food.

Once I started focusing on the dungeon, I didn’t like to eat anything before I cleared a floor. As such, it was a bit hard for me to match my father's style. Peika, on the other hand, seemed to like ramen noodles, as she happily ate one ramen noodle strand at a time.

She exclaimed happily, [This is yummy. It doesn’t exist in the Spirit Realm.]

“Eat lots.”

[Master, I love you!]

When I patted Peika on the head as she slurped up more ramen noodles, my father interrupted, “What have you been talking to this whole time?”

“I told you, I became an Elementalist,” I explained.

He asked, “Can I adopt one too?”

I shook my head. “Elementals aren’t pets.”

“Ah, three got up.”

“Don’t count elementals like…what?”

He repeated, “Three got up.”

I turned to face the battlefield. Under the moonlight, the once dead soldiers were rising. We were able to notice this as we had heightened senses from level ups. It would take a while before each camp found out.

Father asked, “What do you want to do?”

“Hunt them, of course. I hate being backstabbed… so!” As I answered my father’s question, I threw my spear into the darkness. I didn’t have enough time to use Spirit Aura, but Heroic Strike was still activated. With its radiant white light, it flew through the air like lightning, and it was much faster than before. I was surprised as I did not know the 15 percent speed increase I got from the Hermes title applied to thrown weapons.

“Gah!”

[You have obtained 1,500 gold.]

“Beldon died!”

“Those guys found out!”

“Kill them before they kill us!”

Immediately afterwards, I pointed toward where the voices came from and ordered Peika.

“It’s already too late! Peika!”

[Thunder Blast!]

After gulping down the ramen noodle in her mouth, Peika shouted as she shone with a golden light. A bolt of lightning as thick as my arm shot out from her body, lighting up the darkness.

“The shield!”

“Agh, the shield magic got broken!”

“An elemental? Who are they!?”

Immediately after I called Peika, I grabbed the Silver Spear from my inventory and charged forward. Thanks to Dash, my running speed was incomparably faster than before. My goal was to engage the crowd in the distance. I suspected they were the ones responsible for making the zombies.

My father and I had both noticed them at the same time we noticed the zombies. There were five… no, four of them, since one of them had already died. They all had black hoods draped over their heads and were carrying small wooden staves. The staves were quite small and were the kind that magicians would carry around to hide their identity. With all the clues in front of me, I figured they were black magicians.

“S-Shield isn’t enough to stop him!”

“Damn it, r-run!”

“We should have been under stealth magic!”

They might have been able to deal with us if they immediately used magic, but instead, they panicked and hesitated. It might have been that their magic chants took too long or that they didn't have the materials to cast any. However, I didn’t care about any of that.

“W-Wait! Even if you kill us, you can’t stop what’s happening!”

One of them shouted in a high-pitched voice. It was a woman. However, since I had already decided to kill them, their gender did not matter. They were monsters. They were monsters.

Right. They were monsters.

“If we don’t kill you, what are you going to do to us?” I asked.

“Of course we’d kill—”

“Elemental Tempest!”

[Heh heh heh, the owner of a strong power calls me.]

[Destruction. Flowing blood amidst ear-splitting screams. That is what I want.]

[He tore apart the black magicians. He’s just my type!]

Since I was in the middle of a blood-soaked battlefield, all the elementals that came to assist me had the dark element. Hopefully, they wouldn’t be weaker because of it. My spear was glowing with black light from the elementals. I thrust forward, and a storm swept through the entire area.

“Darkness Arrow! Kuaaaak!”

“S-Shield! Argh!”

Elemental Tempest was a skill that could gravely injure even the Floor Masters, so it was obvious that some random magicians couldn’t block it. Three of the black magicians failed in their attempts to block Elemental Tempest and were instantly torn to shreds. Although it was only for a moment, my eyes caught sight of a rather gruesome scene.

Damn it. I had used Elemental Tempest to kill them quickly, but I ended up seeing something unsightly. It was a good thing that the monsters that died in the dungeon disappeared into thin air, only leaving behind their loot and not their remains.

“Gahhhhhh! Haa, haa…damn it, so strong…!”

Coincidentally, the only black magician who managed to escape the range of Elemental Tempest was the one who had talked to me briefly. Apparently, she gave up trying to block it with magic and instead gave her all in using her legs to run. Despite her attempts, she could not completely dodge it. Her hood had been ripped apart and her back was severely injured. As she coughed up a mouthful of blood, she opened her mouth with great difficulty.

“Cough, Odd Winged Ravens’ dream won’t end in a place like this…!”

I tilted my head to the side. “Odd Winged Ravens?”

“T-That’s right. From this war, we will make the world know of our exist…” she gasped.

“Ah, okay. Well, goodbye.”

I cut off her head with my spear. I just had to beat the Event Dungeon, so I didn’t really care about the detailed lore. As if to prove she was a monster created by the dungeon, she became particles of light and scattered into the air.

[You have obtained 2,000 gold.]

[You have obtained Odd Winged Ravens’ Journal.]

[You have succeeded in sweeping the masterminds! Points will be added to your final clear score.]

I picked up my Black Earthen Spear as I spit on the ground. Nauseating things were nauseating no matter what I told myself.

I grumbled, “I feel disgusted.”

My father replied, “That’s normal. They talked like humans too.”

“But they’re monsters, right?”

“Yes, they’re monsters. So don’t worry about it, son.”

I felt much better with my father's reassurance. Although I didn’t expect much from him before entering the dungeon, I was thankful now that he was here. He truly was reliable.

I didn’t say my thoughts out loud because it wasn’t necessary between the two of us who were father and son.

I had also realized something important. Event Dungeons were cleared when their boss monsters were killed. However, we received a message saying that points were added to our final clear score. In other words, the Event Dungeons’ clearing process was also important.

I wondered if our score would have been even higher if we went wild on the battlefield. However, I stopped thinking about it, as it was too late.

Instead, I opened Odd Winged Ravens’ Journal. It showed how much they hated their countries, the things they had done, and what they planned to do in the future. I skimmed through most of the information and looked for the part that helped explain the current situation. With luck, I thought I might find a way to further increase the final clear score.

Yes, it was there.

“There’s only one thing left to do then. Huk!”

At the same time I tried to change the subject to alleviate the morbid mood, I turned my head to the battlefield and couldn’t help but gasp when I saw the zombies getting up one by one. Both armies had realized what was happening, but the number of zombies was increasing too quickly for them to properly respond. In the end, the commanding officers of both armies led their soldiers into a night battle.

“Those bastards used black magic on our comrades in arms!’

“Kill them! Let our comrades rest in peace!”

“Guooooo!”

“Oh no, it’s too late.”

The magicians swept the zombies with a large-scale magic, and the foot soldiers began to fight afterwards. What were they thinking? Unless they were like me or my father, they would become zombies the moment the zombies even scratched them! The commanding generals who sent their soldiers out to battle in a situation like this couldn’t be sane.

It turned out, the commanding officers really weren’t sane.

After reading the journal a bit more, I found out that the black magicians had not used black magic on just the corpses. In fact, they had already made their moves on the commanding generals. Being able to affect the higher ups of both countries meant that there were spies infiltrating both governments. Surprisingly, the Odd Winged Ravens might be a pretty large organization.

Of course, I didn’t really care about all this. I simply wondered if stopping their plans would net me more in the final clear score, but it seemed it was too late.

The soldiers were fighting each other while zombies interrupted and bit them. Slowly, the number of zombies on the battlefield was growing. I trembled as I watched what was taking place on the battlefield. What I was witnessing was surely worthy of making me feel fear. However, a fear-shattering voice then reached my ears.

“When is the giant zombie going to appear?”

“Father, I really respect this side of you.”

Father was stretching his legs like he was unhappy that he had missed the chance to fight the black magicians. He was almost like a puppy waiting for someone to say ‘catch!’ My tension died along with it.

“Wow, what are they, cockroaches? They sure are multiplying fast.”

“They’re seriously creepy. I feel like there are bugs crawling all over me.”

In the blink of an eye, the zombies were overwhelming the humans. The knights who knew how to wield mana and the magicians must have noticed something was wrong, as they had either escaped from the battlefield a while ago or had returned to complain to the higher-ups. However, the zombies were rising from their camps as well.

When they realized that the commanding officers had become zombies who could only make groaning noises, the knights and magicians blasted their mana and slaughtered the zombies. The problem was that there were just too many zombies. In the end, most of them ran away after realizing the situation they were in. Now, only ordinary soldiers were left on the battlefield. They were simply food for the zombies. By now, there were more than 100,000 of them. When I was feeling nervous about the sheer number of zombies, my father spoke up.

“Let’s see. Every two or so drop an average of 70 gold, so that’s 35 gold per zombie. Since there’s two of us, I divide that by two… which means 17 gold per zombie. So if I kill them all, that’s 1.7 million gold. That’s 340 million won! That’s an expensive necklace for my wife and even solves Yua’s marriage fund. Ooooh, son! This place is a gold mine!”

I exclaimed, “That’s what you’re thinking of in this situation, Father!?”

I cancel what I said about him being reliable! This person didn’t have a moral dilemma in the first place!