Chapter 200: Captain Kicks the Dragon to Save the Useless Elf (Patreon)

"So this is where it ends…? Alise…"

The despair lasted only an instant.

The next second, a near-obsessive resolve blazed up in Ryuu's azure eyes.

"No."

"She already sent me away once."

"I can't go before her again looking this pathetic."

She clenched her wooden sword, her leg muscles snapped taut, and she forced herself to leap into the air ahead of the dragon's breath.

But the two-headed dragon had read her move long before.

Its lowered head whipped around, its throat aimed squarely at her in midair.

"Damn it—"

The azure firelight drained the color from her face. The scorching wave of heat had already reached the ends of her hair, as if it would set her whole body alight any second.

Ryuu raised her short sword high, ready to make one last stand.

If she was going to die anyway…

she would at least take Jura down with her.

But in that very moment, a roar she knew all too well came from far away.

"You idiot, useless elf!!"

"Wait for me, damn it—!"

The voice was still far off.

Yet the next second, its owner had already arrived.

A pair of white combat boots wreathed in flame tore into Ryuu's field of vision like a shooting star.

Boom.

The kick slammed into the two-headed dragon's skull.

The enormous head was sent flying sideways, and the azure flames it had been about to spit veered off with it, crashing into the pit beside them.

"Hsssss—!"

"Aaaaaah—!"

A serpent's shriek and a human scream burst out of the pit at the same time.

Then came a dull thud.

Natsuka tumbled along with the force of the impact and finally smashed into a stretch of rock wall that was still burning with azure fire.

Ryuu dropped back to the ground, breathing hard, and her gaze locked onto the crimson figure.

"Why are you here!"

"This is no place for you!"

She slipped into the tone of a senior lecturing a junior almost by reflex.

But the next second, Natsuka, still on fire, came rolling out of the flames and frantically doused himself with a fire-extinguishing potion made by [Perseus].

Then he grabbed Ryuu by the collar and shouted right in her face.

"You dumbass!"

"Reckless idiot!"

"Useless!"

"Why do you always have to charge out in front alone every single time?!"

"Can't you give us even a little time to prepare?!"

"This is the second time!"

"The second time already!"

"Do you have any idea how much effort it takes me to clean up after you every time?!"

"Could you at least act a little like a proper senior?!"

"You try to carry everything on your own!"

"Do you even think of yourself as one of the Astraea Familia?!"

"Or do you figure that since you drove the Goddess away, you're flying solo now?!"

"Well, I'm telling you, no way!"

"The Wings of Justice are still carved on your back!"

"While you're alive, you're mine to work with, and if you die, I'll drag you back to keep working!"

"And I'm the Captain now!"

"You will listen to me!"

"Remember that!"

At first Ryuu had wanted to argue back.

When he called her a dumbass, she had even reflexively started to glare at him.

But as the words kept hammering down on her, she slowly froze in place.

Those words were far too familiar.

So familiar that it felt as though they had traveled through time from the past and crashed down beside her ear.

Back then she had been the youngest in the Familia, forever being hauled up and scolded just like this by Kaguya.

For a moment, the silhouettes of her old seniors overlapped one by one with Natsuka's figure.

The nostalgia made her eyes burn.

Yet mixed within it was an enormous shame.

She could almost hear Kaguya, hands on her hips, scolding her furiously in her ear.

You're a senior now, so how can you still make your juniors worry like this?

How are you still this useless?

Without everyone around, you really can't do anything right.

And also…

What did he mean, alive or dead, she was still a member of the Astraea Familia, and he'd drag her back to keep working?

Words like that…

She had long believed she'd abandoned justice.

Yet now he had dragged her right back, whether she liked it or not.

Countless complicated emotions surged up all at once.

Self-reproach.

Shame.

Humiliation.

And a faint, indescribable warmth.

In the end, all those tangled feelings squeezed into a single sentence that slipped softly from her lips.

"You really are a cunning human…"

"Captain."

"Call me Captain!"

Natsuka answered on instinct.

But the next second, his face changed and he whipped around and yelled.

"Don't zone out!"

"Run!"

The moment he said it, he seized Ryuu's wrist and bolted.

Behind them…

one head of the two-headed dragon was still spewing azure flames.

The other head had clamped its jaws around Lambton, who had just burrowed underground.

That seven- or eight-meter serpent with its frighteningly wide head looked like a mere worm in the dragon's mouth.

Crunch.

Crunch.

Amid bone-shattering sounds that made scalps crawl, Lambton was torn clean in two, and the deep-level monster's Magic Stone was swallowed neatly into the dragon's belly.

Once that Magic Stone went down…

the two-headed dragon's body swelled up another size.

Barbs sprouted from the scales and muscle of its belly, and its body began to gain a stronger ability to crawl across dry land.

It threw back its head and let out an ear-splitting roar.

Then both pairs of dragon eyes, spewing azure flame, fixed on Natsuka and Ryuu racing through the tunnel.

The tremors underfoot grew heavier and heavier.

Behind them, stone pillars were being smashed down one after another, and rubble rained down with a clatter.

Only then did Ryuu snap out of her daze. She shook off Natsuka's arm and sped ahead on her own.

"What on earth is that thing?!"

"The floor boss!"

Natsuka yelled as he ran.

"I know that much, obviously!"

"What I'm asking is why it crawled up onto land!"

Natsuka narrowly dodged a breath attack that came streaking past, and his reply was practically a roar.

"It's an Strengthened Species!"

"You blast the Dungeon to pieces and expect it to just take that quietly?!"

"It ate Lambton's Magic Stone!"

"A deep-level monster's Magic Stone set off an adaptive evolution. What's so strange about that?!"

It was similar to how adventurers grow.

The amount of Magic Stones an Strengthened Species consumed in its first few evolutions wasn't excessive.

The real trouble came later.

Once it was allowed to keep feeding and growing, sooner or later it would become a catastrophe that nobody could contain.

Not to mention that this guy had been hiding in the water.

If it wasn't dealt with in time, it could lurk around until the end of time.

Natsuka sprinted and shouted.

"We can't let it turn into the Shilipo Sword God!"

"We have to find a way to kill it right now!"

Ryuu forced herself to calm down and finally regained the judgment expected of a senior.

"There's no way the two of us can take down a floor boss alone."

"Unless…"

"Unless I update my Falna right now and level up here."

Her Excelia had been enough for ages.

It was only that for these past two years she had treated her Falna as the last act of charity the Goddess left her.

And since she believed she had long since betrayed justice, she had never gone to update her status again.

"It's not completely hopeless."

Natsuka was far calmer than she was.

The two-headed dragon's main offense was fire.

And Natsuka had both [Sprite Blood Pact] and [Crimson Stitchwort] protecting him.

Ordinary flames weren't really a lethal threat to him.

Especially since the Amphisbaena's breath was a sustained-burn type, which was actually easier to withstand than burst-type magical fire.

The real problem was this:

he had to keep a trump card in reserve to deal with the [Destroyer], which could emerge at any moment.

The Dungeon's riot just now clearly hadn't reached its limit yet.

With the two-headed dragon on the loose, who could guarantee the Dungeon wouldn't keep going berserk and break through that last line?

At the rate it was rampaging everywhere, leaving nothing but ruins in its wake…

it might really force the [Destroyer] out in the next second.

But they had no more time to think.

Seeing that its breath hadn't burned the two little bugs ahead to death, the two-headed dragon simply writhed its huge body forward and bore down on them like a mountain of flesh.

Natsuka didn't even look back. Starlight flared around him.

"—Constellation of Stars, pierce the Star River!"

He kicked off hard, the incantation tearing out of him.

A Spatial Gate no bigger than half a door opened behind him.

The next second:

"Water Release: Great Exploding Water Colliding Wave"

Rumble—

The outlet was barely two square meters, but it connected to the depths of a great lake.

A terrifying high-pressure torrent, as if it had finally found its spillway, gushed out in a frenzy.

The surge carried lake water and floating debris and slammed squarely into the two-headed dragon.

It not only shoved the beast back a good stretch.

It also scattered and swept away the breath it had been about to unleash.

Taking advantage of the gap, Natsuka and Ryuu dashed down a narrow passage and ducked into a much smaller chamber.

The chamber wasn't large. A few scattered glowing plants and crystals gave off a faint light.

Probably because the Dungeon was busy repairing itself and had no time to spawn monsters here, the place was empty.

"It shouldn't be able to squeeze in here anytime soon."

Natsuka sat down against a boulder, his breathing finally turning a bit ragged.

Ryuu leaned against the other side and quickly began chanting Heal on herself to mend the injuries from her earlier fight with Lambton.

After several seconds, she finally spoke in a low voice.

"…Captain."

"What do we do about that thing now?"

Natsuka raised a hand to the [ST] at his ear, reporting the situation to the upper-floor unit while answering her.

"Don't panic."

"First, we wait for reinforcements."

"It's only a two-headed dragon."

"As long as it hasn't eaten materials on the level of a Lv.7, I think we can still find a way to handle it for now."

"Lv.7…"

Ryuu's expression grew even grimmer.

Under normal circumstances, adventurers regularly purge monsters precisely to stop the Dungeon's creatures from snowballing without limit.

That was why the Guild issued those near-mandatory expedition requests.

But if the twenty-seventh floor truly raised a floor boss equivalent to Lv.7…

it would be an absolute nightmare for every adventurer.

But the next second, Ryuu noticed another problem.

"The reinforcements you mentioned… who are they?"

"The rest of the Astraea Familia, of course."

Natsuka answered as though it were obvious.

Ryuu's eyes went wide.

"Are you insane?!"

"They're only Lv.1, Lv.2 at most!"

Natsuka's voice stayed steady.

"But you can't deny their magic is strong."

"Two Lv.4 combatants, plus one Lv.3, plus a dozen or so adventurers who can fight in coordination."

"That lineup is already close to a standard floor-boss subjugation party."

"And do you really think we took this big a risk coming to the twenty-seventh floor just for fun?"

"Let me tell you, we even prepared a subjugation plan for [Juggernaut] in advance."

"You of all people should know why."

Hearing that, Ryuu's head sank little by little.

Of course she understood.

Someone like Jura was one of the very few people, other than the Astraea Familia and the Guild, who knew how to artificially summon a [Juggernaut].

Now that she had calmed down, she finally realized it fully.

She had truly been blinded by hatred.

So blinded that she had made a mess her juniors had to chase all the way here to clean up.

"I'm sorry…"

Her voice was so soft it was almost a whisper.

Natsuka looked at her, and his tone eased a little.

"Don't apologize to me."

"I just want you to remember."

"You're not alone anymore."

Ryuu's lashes trembled slightly, and in the end she repeated in a low voice.

"…Sorry."

Natsuka sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

"The original plan probably can't be used as is anymore."

"I'll have to work out a new subjugation plan with Sora."

His expression turned serious again.

"If there's really no other way, we'll use the Flame Stones to blow this Strengthened Species to pieces."

"Even if that forces the [Destroyer] out too."

"If it comes to that, you'll have to understand."

"No!"

Ryuu objected almost instantly, her voice urgent.

"We absolutely cannot let that thing out again!"

No one knew better than she how terrifying Juggernaut was.

It was a monster that truly deserved the name [Despair].

And yet.

Faced with Natsuka's current judgment, she couldn't find words strong enough to refute him.

Left alone, a [Destroyer] would, given enough time, rot away bit by bit into a skeleton.

As long as everyone was evacuated before it truly hatched, that was enough.

But a Labyrinth's Lone King born from an Strengthened Species was different.

That thing might truly mutate step by step and grow into something even more terrifying than Leviathan.

Ryuu's face went pale, and then a fear she couldn't suppress surfaced in her eyes.

Her shoulders trembled faintly, and even her fingertips stiffened.

Natsuka put a hand on her head, his palm gentle and reassuring.

"Don't panic. Didn't I tell you before?"

"This time is different."

"We came prepared to take down Juggernaut, so we won't be caught off guard and beaten down like back then."

His tone was even, as if he were gradually pressing down the turmoil in her heart.

"When it comes down to it, it's only a Destroyer on the twenty-seventh floor."

"Didn't Alise fight that thing on the thirtieth floor on her own for a long time back then?"

"We're far better prepared this time. Nothing major should go wrong."

His gaze sank slightly as he spoke.

"Or is it…"

"you don't want revenge at all?"

That seemingly calm remark pierced the deepest part of Ryuu's heart like a fine needle.

That wound had always been hidden.

Now, at the slightest touch, it throbbed with pain.

But she didn't lose her judgment.

She understood better than anyone that at this hour there were few adventurers in the Dungeon to begin with.

Especially in the lower levels, where she could hardly see another soul.

Apart from the two of them, the only others there were probably those Evilus thugs.

And Natsuka controlled spatial magic.

If things really fell apart, sending some of the people away would not be hard.

In other words…

even if this subjugation failed, they still had room to retreat with dignity.

Thinking this, Ryuu slowly lifted her head.

"Then what should we do?"

Natsuka switched off the [ST] and spoke crisply.

"Simple."

"First, we lure the two-headed dragon's attention."

"Then we wait for Sora to set the stage."

His gaze was deep, like the boundless surface of water at night.

"You can fully trust a companion whose brain is nearly divine."

"At least when it comes to playing games, he's never let anyone down."

In truth, the scariest thing about Juggernaut had never been its raw strength alone.

It was that "first-encounter kill" trait, which could knock people senseless the very first time they met it.

Mind you, Sora was confident he could kill even the deepest-floor Juggernaut within a few minutes.