I Stopped Simping and the Heroines Lost Their Minds

The canopy of the Whispering Woods completely blocked out the moonlight, plunging the dense forest into absolute darkness.

Sylvia trudged through the thick underbrush, her hand resting habitually on the hilt of her worn broadsword. In her other hand, she carried a heavy, glowing iron rod—a Guild Association Claim Marker.

She was still waiting for the other shoe to drop.

When Arthur Vance had dumped seventy thousand credits on her desk and drawn a map to an unsealed dungeon, her desperate mind had wanted to believe it. But she was a veteran hunter. She had seen countless arrogant, overfunded academy brats march into the woods thinking their high stats made them invincible, only to end up as goblin food because they had absolutely no squad discipline.

She fully expected Arthur’s team to be a chaotic mess of inflated egos.

But as she watched the four students move through the dark forest ahead of her, that expectation slowly began to crack.

There was no loud chatting. No reckless sprinting ahead. They moved in a tight, textbook diamond formation. Felix, the massive shielder, took the vanguard, his boots stepping carefully to avoid snapping twigs. Emily covered the flank, her posture loose but ready to explode into violence at a second’s notice. Chloe, the healer, stayed perfectly protected in the center.

And Arthur walked in the rear, his pitch-black Shadow-Weave armor making him look like a phantom. He didn’t just walk; he scanned. His head moved in calculated, rhythmic sweeps, his high perception actively guarding their blind spots.

”Stop,” Arthur commanded quietly.

The entire squad froze instantly. No one questioned him. No one asked why.

Arthur stepped past Felix, crouching low near a massive, moss-covered oak tree. He pulled back a thick curtain of hanging vines, revealing a jagged, gaping sinkhole in the earth. The faint, metallic scent of raw iron and turned soil drifted up from the darkness.

”Subterranean Crawler Cavern,” Arthur announced, his voice a low murmur. ”F-Rank. The tunnels are narrow, which limits their numbers, but they attack from the walls and ceiling. Felix, you keep your shield angled upward at forty-five degrees. Emily, shatter the joints, don’t waste stamina on the thickest part of their carapaces.”

Sylvia stepped up to the edge of the sinkhole, peering down. Her heart skipped a beat.

The ambient mana radiating from the hole was completely pure, uncorrupted, and undeniably dense. He wasn’t lying.

”Drop in,” Arthur ordered.

They descended into the cavern. The air grew immediately damp and cold. The walls of the tunnel were lined with thick, dull gray veins of raw iron ore.

Click. Click. Click.

The sound echoed off the stone walls before they even made it fifty yards.

”Frontal assault! Three targets!” Felix barked, planting his boots and slamming his massive iron kite shield into the dirt.

From the shadows, three massive Subterranean Crawlers scuttled forward. They were terrifying, centipede-like monstrosities the size of large wolves, covered in thick, heavily plated iron carapaces. Their multi-jointed legs clicked frantically against the stone, and their mandibles dripped with a mild, acidic digestive fluid.

Sylvia drew her broadsword, preparing to step in and save the kids from getting overrun.

”Hold your ground, Sylvia,” Arthur’s voice cut through the dark, chillingly calm. ”Watch the farm.”

The lead Crawler lunged, throwing its heavy, armored body directly at Felix.

CLANG!

Felix didn’t flinch. He absorbed the kinetic impact perfectly, his heavy shield angled just enough to deflect the Crawler’s snapping mandibles upward.

”Emily! Third joint, left side!” Arthur called out from the back, already at full draw with his Whisperwind Longbow.

Emily didn’t question the exact anatomical callout. She blurred out from behind Felix’s cover, her Titan Knuckles glowing with concentrated white martial aura. She ducked under the deflected Crawler and delivered a devastating, upward palm strike directly into the unarmored joint connecting its legs to its thorax.

CRACK.

The Crawler shrieked, its entire left side collapsing as the joint shattered.

Before the beast could even hit the floor, a streak of glowing blue mana tore through the cavern.

Thwip.

Arthur’s mana arrow bypassed the thickest part of the creature’s head plating, sinking perfectly into the soft, unarmored gap beneath its mandibles. The Crawler twitched once and died instantly.

The remaining two Crawlers scrambled along the walls, trying to bypass the shield wall to reach the backline.

”Chloe, haste on Emily! Felix, step two paces right!” Arthur commanded seamlessly.

A pulse of warm golden magic shot from Chloe’s staff, washing over the brawler. Emily’s speed doubled. She launched herself off the cavern wall, intercepting the descending Crawler with a brutal knee strike to its face. Arthur pinned the final one to the ceiling with a flawless double-shot to its sensory organs.

The entire skirmish lasted less than twenty seconds.

Sylvia stood near the entrance, her broadsword hanging loosely in her hand, completely stunned.

They didn’t fight like academy students trying to show off. They fought like a ruthless, highly-tuned industrial machine. There was no wasted movement. No panicked shouting. Arthur didn’t even use his most destructive skills; he conserved his mana, relying on his squad’s synergy to dismantle the mobs with surgical, stamina-efficient strikes.

This isn’t a raid, Sylvia realized, staring at Arthur’s cold, calculating expression. He’s treating this exactly like a factory assembly line. He’s built a squad specifically designed to farm.

”Clear,” Arthur announced, lowering his bow. ”Harvest the carapaces and the cores. Leave the meat for the scavengers.”

As Emily and Felix got to work breaking down the valuable insect plating, Arthur stepped back against the cavern wall. He winced slightly. During the brief scuffle, a razor-sharp shard of shattered carapace had ricocheted off the wall, slicing a shallow line across his exposed arm.

”Chloe,” Arthur called out quietly. ”Patch this up.”

The healer jumped slightly, gripping her mahogany staff. She hurried over to him, her white robes rustling against the stone.

”Y-Yes, Arthur,” Chloe stammered.

She stepped up close to him. Because he was leaning against the wall, she had to stand practically flush against his chest to reach his arm properly. Her hands began to glow with soft green healing mana.

But her hands were trembling.

The moment she stepped into his personal space, the memories flooded her mind. It wasn’t just the dark tavern hallway. It was the suffocating, terrifying tension of the academy medical bay just days ago, when he had trapped her between his knees and commented on her ”warm” mana.

Her heart hammered violently against her ribs. She could smell the faint scent of leather and sweat radiating from him. The phantom memory of his dark, amused eyes pinning her down made her breath hitch.

She tried to focus on the spell, her breathing turning shallow and ragged.

Arthur looked down at her. He noticed the violent shaking of her hands. He noticed the dark flush crawling up her neck, and the way she refused to meet his eyes.

He didn’t pull away. Instead, he leaned his head down, his lips hovering just a fraction of an inch from her ear.

”Your hands are much steadier,” Arthur whispered, his voice a low, dark rumble meant only for her, ”when you stop pretending you’re innocent.”

Chloe let out a sharp, choked gasp.

Her entire body locked up. The healing spell flickered wildly, threatening to drop entirely. He knew. The absolute, terrifying realization that he was fully aware of her dirty little secret sent a massive, paralyzing jolt of arousal straight down her spine.

She bit down hard on her lower lip, desperately fighting the urge to whimper, and forced her trembling hands to finish closing the wound.

”G-Good as new,” Chloe squeaked out, practically fleeing backward the moment the skin knit together, her face burning like a furnace.

Arthur smirked, adjusting his leather bracer. ”Good work, healer.”

”Hey! We found the end of the line!” Emily shouted from down the tunnel.

Arthur and Sylvia walked past the harvested corpses, following the squad into the deepest part of the cavern.

The tunnel opened up into a massive, circular chamber. The walls glittered with raw, unmined iron and low-tier magical ores. Sitting directly in the center of the room, resting on a pedestal of natural rock, was the Dungeon Core.

It was a large, spherical crystal, glowing with a dull, steady gray light. It pulsed rhythmically, perfectly stable. Small, newly spawned Crawlers were already beginning to scuttle out of cracks in the far walls.

”It’s completely untouched,” Sylvia breathed, stepping up to the core.

She looked around the massive chamber, doing the mental math. Iron ore. Carapace plating for low-level armor forging. A steady supply of F-Rank mana stones. If she rotated two squads through this cavern in eight-hour shifts, she could generate thousands of credits a day.

It was a literal goldmine.

Sylvia turned around and looked at Arthur. The arrogant academy brat she had assumed he was had completely vanished. Standing before her was a calculating, cold-blooded strategist holding the absolute keys to her salvation.

She reached into her leather belt and pulled out the heavy iron Guild Association Survey Beacon.

She walked over to the stone floor right next to the Dungeon Core. She drove the spiked end of the heavy iron rod into the dirt and twisted the dial on top.

Click.

The beacon let out a sharp, mechanical sound, and a small green light began blinking steadily.

There was no mystical flash of light. No grand, poetic display of obsidian mana. It was pure, sterile bureaucracy. The beacon simply locked the GPS coordinates and time-stamped the discovery to the Obsidian Hand’s registry identification.

Sylvia let out a long, heavy exhale. For the first time in months, the crushing weight of impending bankruptcy lifted off her shoulders.

She looked up at Arthur, her expression hardening into absolute, unwavering business resolve.

”The coordinates are officially logged,” Sylvia stated, her tone shifting entirely to legal pragmatism. ”But the claim isn’t finalized until the paperwork is filed.”

She gestured toward the exit of the cavern.

”We need to go straight to the City Council,” Sylvia instructed. ”We have to file the discovery deed, draft the equity transfer, and legally register fifty percent of the guild shares under your name before the Association opens its public ledgers on Monday.”

Arthur nodded, thoroughly satisfied with her efficiency.

”Let’s go sign some papers,” Arthur said.