Live Dungeon!

Golden Tune’s strategy against this Stampede was to increase the involvement of Tanks and Healers.

Past Stampeded had never been all that dangerous, and were perfectly manageable with Attackers. This time, however, things were much riskier due to the addition of enemy Dragons. Although unlikely, the situation had at least some chance of going hard south, so Leon had persuaded his Attackers to work behind the scenes. Fortunately, there were already more than enough of other organizations’ Attackers.

As such, Leon was the sole Attacker of his Clan to be on the front lines. He and his Tanks and Healers worked to support other groups, helping to maximize their efficiency. The idea was to prioritize safety; it had been pitched by Eunice, which Leon had gladly accepted to put in action.

Additionally, at one point, Weiss of the Scarlet Devil Squad had personally requested Leon to support Alma. Weiss had also asked Leon to stay out of the way first, so he had not taken any action until the Ice Dragon started fighting back.

In addition to Alma, Leon had also saved the three other mortally wounded Attackers, quickly bringing them inside the barrier and delivering them to the medical-professional White Mages on standby. Thanks to that, four members of the Scarlet Devil Squad had avoided death.

As the Ice Dragon headed towards the barrier, multiple Tanks in its way unleashed [[Combat Cry]] at once. The Dragon seemed to recognize Leon’s appearance for being the one who had saved Alma, however, and exclusively pursued him.

“[[Enchant Flame]]!”

As soon as the Fire element was added to his sword, Leon disappeared — and reappeared the next instant to slash at the Ice Dragon’s wing. The flames on his sword trailed behind his movements, their sparks falling onto the Dragon.

With the [[Gold Bless]] and the band’s supportive effects, Leon’s AGI rating was now an S. Further buffed by [[Fly]], his movements were difficult to follow with the naked eye. Even the Ice Dragon was stuck at a standstill, unable to keep up with its target’s speed.

Leon focused his slashes on the wings and scales that had been damaged by [[Meteor Stream]]. The Tanks continued to use [[Combat Cry]], gradually building up aggro levels.

The Ice Dragon, irritated by Leon’s darting about, let out a roar and blew cold air from its body in an attempt to catch its opponent. By the time the cold air blast got to Leon, however, he had already backed away. He proceeded to dodge around until the air turned normal again.

It seemed that the Ice Dragon could not emit cold air constantly, as apparent from how its air blasts subsided after a while. Leon, having made sure of that, repeatedly attacked with his long sword by spinning in the air like a gyroscopic top.

“Gah, this is hard!”

The Dragon’s steel-solid frozen scales deflected his sword, which also numbed his hand. Fortunately, the scales and wing webbings that Alma had damaged could be sliced through. For a while, Leon focused his attacks on those areas, overwhelming the Ice Dragon by himself.

The Ice Dragon had been hit twice by the [[Meteor Stream]], and its wings had broken from the subsequent crash, so it was now moving slowly. And then, just when the Tanks’ [[Combat Cry]] wave was about to pull away the Ice Dragon’s aggro successfully, red streaks of light pierced the Dragon’s side.

Weiss, the Clan Leader of Scarlet Devil Squad, had a deep crimson-dyed crossbow in his hands, and was shooting red arrows with it in quick succession. The Ice Dragon was visibly intimidated by the crossbow bolts strengthened by [[Phoenix Soul]].

Weiss’ unique skill gave him a great advantage over the Ice Dragon. In fact, he had already killed one, and had just now returned here to help. The White Mage that had followed him was also back, flying behind him.

Weiss turned to the Golden Tune support group, so as to confirm that Alma was not with them. Then, he proceeded to wave his red crossbow as if to say that he could take things over from here.

“I’m not about to let you steal my kill, man!”

Leon grinned mischievously, and then stabbed the Dragon on one of the spots where Weiss’ bolts had pierced. The damaged scales were identifiable by their changed colors; they were much weaker than before, enabling Leon’s sword to get through with ease.

Weiss looked at Leon, who was now levitating beside him. The look he gave the latter suggested that he was cool-headed, in stark contrast to the super-heated blade in his hands.

“…I can do this myself.”

“I should be the one saying that, dammit!”

“…How’s Alma?”

“She’s safe. But that was a close call, mind you. If not for me, she and at least three others probably would’ve been dead, you know?”

“…I knew you were the right man for the job. You have my thanks.”

In the beginning, Weiss had planned to separate the Ice Dragons and kill them one by one, similar to Tsutomu’s approach to the Black Dragons. At Alma’s insistence, however, he had reluctantly allowed her to lead the rest of the Clan in fighting one. As such, when Leon expressed anger at what he had allowed, he thanked the wolfman despite still being somewhat disgruntled at Alma.

Weiss proceeded to tuck his mechanical crossbow into his Magic Bag and pull out a long sword instead. Once its handle was in his hands, its blade instantly turned a deep crimson.

“…Why not go somewhere else? I have an advantage over the Ice Dragon here.”

“Well, the other places’ already have all they need!”

The two continued to converse while fighting the Ice Dragon. Weiss’ crimson-dyed long sword melted its way through the monster’s scales, and Leon followed up by attacking those exposed spots.

“…The Black Dragon?”

“All the heavy hitters are there — Camille, Garm, Tsutomu and his friends… No point in me going to help them.”

“…The rulers?”

“Ol’ Melchor’s running the show.”

“……”

Weiss, ready to give up arguing at this point, said nothing more and focused his attention on attacking the Ice Dragon. Leon, while complaining in his mind how Weiss was as hard to please as ever, continued to chip away at the enemy Dragon together with the latter.

“…Whew.”

Golden Tune’s Tanks that had been repeatedly using [[Combat Cry]] down below heaved a few sighs upon the sight of the pair fighting however they pleased. Just the two men were already overwhelming the Ice Dragon, making the Tanks feel frustrated at how they probably would be a nuisance if they interfered.

In the end, the Ice Dragon was quickly taken down. Weiss proceeded to leave the scene immediately, ignoring Leon’s prompt for a high-five.

――▽▽――

The battle against the Dragons, starting in the morning, ended a little before noon with the Dungeon City’s victory.

The results were as follows: Ealdred Crow had taken down four Fire Dragons. The military force, once Ice Dragon and two Fire Dragons. Scarlet Devil Squad, two Ice Dragons. The Guild, two Black Dragons. The Security Team, the Lightning Dragon. Everything had been carried out successfully according to plan. Afterward, by Weiss’ recount of the events, the credit for one Ice Dragon’s defeat had been given to Golden Tune instead.

The nobility’s military force, making good use of their anti-monster magic tools, had been able to stall two of the crashed Fire Dragons; once Ealdred Crow’s four Eidolons arrived, the two organizations together made quick work of their targets. Melchor had fought and slain one of the Ice Dragons by himself. He claimed to be only good against humanoid monsters, but of course, no one believed him.

Bruno, the Security Team Director, had taken the lead in the fight against the Lightning Dragon, which was the least injured out of the initial barrage and had been considered the most troublesome. In the end, they were victorious. Bruno, having taken a few lightning strikes, grumbled at how their hair had totally been ruined; in contrast to the carefree attitude, however, their battle performance had been excellent. If Bruno’s team had not been able to defeat the Lightning Dragon, there would have been many casualties.

By the time noon came around, all involved organizations had reported their results, and to everyone’s surprise, the Dragon invasion had been overcome without any casualties. Even Tsutomu was surprised; he had initially feared that Scarlet Devil Squad, the Security Team, and the military force would suffer some losses.

He had been particularly worried about the Security Team’s face-off against the Lightning Dragon; them making it out totally unscathed had drastically changed his assessment of their capabilities.

Once the reports were over with, preparations were made for large-scale food distributions and the collection of the materials from the slain Dragons. One Dragon corpse after another was brought inside the barrier, the first few ones transported by the low- and mid-tier Explorers.

Even a single Dragon scale would sell for a large amount of Gold, which could be used to fund the reconstruction of the northern city. The corpses of the Dragons were dismantled on the spot by several specialized workers, and after being divided into parts as small as possible, they were stored in extra-large, custom-made Magic Bags.

After Leon had scouted the northern area and confirmed that the following Stampede was still far off, the Explorers were served bread and warm soup, and were free to help themselves to on-bone meat. A stark contrast between Amy and Garm was seen here, with the former eating her steak in a most refined manner, and the latter simply gobbling everything up.

[I don’t think she’s gonna fool anyone, though…]

Tsutomu thought back to when they had dined together at the Seafood Dining Hall, during which Amy had displayed some of the most barbaric table manners for all the other patrons to see. He decided not to remind her of that time.

After the meal, Rook and the Summoners brought along their Eidolons to meet the people, creating quite a chaotic scene of people cheering for them and the journalists trying to make news coverages. Tsutomu slipped out of the wave of frenzy, heading out through the city’s northern gate. He sat on a bench just outside and observed the landscape up ahead.

The Dragon attack had been prevented, and not only that, without a single casualty. Tsutomu was happy and relieved about that, but going by the Banquet of Dragons, a more powerful Dragon would be appearing later. It would be a single Dragon randomly selected from a list of candidates, but all of them were quite troublesome.

Being randomly selected meant that making preparations would be difficult, so Tsutomu tried to predict what it would be by making some calculations in his head and thinking up countermeasures. The nobility’s barrier magic, the anti-monster magic tools, the Explorers’ strength — all would have to be used right in order to defeat this new Dragon.

“Not joining the celebration, young man? It’s a great opportunity to get your name out there.”

A voice called out to Tsutomu as he pondered things over — it was Melchor, approaching with his hands behind his back. Tsutomu at least knew that this man was an important person of noble relations, so he stood up and straightened his posture, a little nervous. Melchor waved his hand, communicating that he cared not for formalities.

“Don’t worry about it. I’m just some random old man.”

Melchor, while stroking his well-groomed white beard, sat down on a bench a respectable distance away from Tsutomu.

“…Thank you, sir.”

This was Tsutomu’s first meeting with Melchor. He had always had the negative impression that the nobility cared little for Explorers, so upon encountering one, he naturally felt stiff in the shoulders.

“We’ve survived this extraordinary Stampede without casualties. It’s frankly hard to believe… And I see that you’re feeling quite gloomy. Why is that?”

“…The Stampede hasn’t ended just yet, sir.”

“But all that’s left is just a horde of monsters, so there’s no need to steel ourselves so… Anyway, I’ve heard from Camille — you’ve made great contributions defending against the Black Dragons, didn’t you? Are you not happy?”

“I… am happy, yes. Sorry for worrying you.”

The Guild staff had seen that Tsutomu was not all that happy despite his help in defeating the Black Dragons, so they had tried to lift his spirits. Remembering that, Tsutomu now felt apologetic that he had somewhat ruined everyone’s celebratory mood.

“But I have a feeling that something isn’t quite right… By the way, Sir Melchor, you are the leader of the military force, yes? I would like everyone to be on guard for a while longer, if that’s possible.”

“Something isn’t quite right? Do you have any reason for feeling this way?”

“Actually… no, I don’t. The Dragons’ sudden appearance makes me feel uneasy, that’s all,” Tsutomu gave only vague clues, unable to say straight up that he was following his knowledge of the game.

Melchor immediately noticed that Tsutomu was hiding something, but did not pursue the matter. He knew that Tsutomu was a mysterious individual, but not a harmful one. On the contrary, the young man was seen as beneficial, having provided valuable knowledge and assistance.

Considering the possibility of Tsutomu leaving Dungeon City if he pried too deep, Melchor kept his mouth shut and crossed his arms, wondering what to do.

“Hmm, is that so? Now, I can’t allow you to talk with my employer directly, so I’ll keep that in consideration myself instead. The information you’ve provided us has been most helpful, Tsutomu — surely your worry isn’t completely unfounded either,” Melchor said and tapped his temple lightly with his fingertip.

“Thank you, sir.”

Tsutomu, relieved, bowed deeply to Melchor. Not even a moment later, another voice called out to him, this one coming through a megaphone-like magic tool.

“Hello, hello, is this thing on? Hey, Tsutomu! Can you hear me? Please come to the central square immediately! There’s a journalist waiting for you! C’mon, hurry up!”

Amy’s amplified voice echoed through the city. Tsutomu facepalmed, complaining to himself how it sounded like she was making an announcement to find a lost child, while Melchor laughed like a stereotypical wise hermit.

“Be on your way then, young man,” Melchor insisted, cracking a smile.

“Yes. Thank you for listening to what I had to say, sir. I’ll excuse myself now.”

Tsutomu headed in the direction of the voice. Once he found the megaphone-holding Amy, he gave her a grumpy look, prompting her to semi-taunt him by sticking out her tongue.