/
Although they could not see it through the debris and smoke, the Minotaur had approached them before they knew it and was wielding its axe.
The barrier that was struck by the battle axe gradually widened the crack with an unpleasant creaking sound, probably because the minotaur applied even more force.
Ichinomiya was visibly upset when the strongest barrier she could use was about to be broken, but she quickly raised her voice.
“I’ll count to three, so fall back!”
At the sound of her voice, Tendo and the others prepared themselves.
“Three, two, one —now!”
As soon as the count was over, Ichinomiya broke the spell and the Tendo and the rest jumped back from the spot.
The Minotaur, on the other hand, had been leaning forward with all its strength, and when the barrier suddenly disappeared, it lost its balance and thrust its battle axe into the ground.
In the meantime, Tendo, Mogami, and Shinonome approached the Minotaur, and Ichinomiya unleashed her magic.
“Everyone shut your eyes!”
The moment Tendou and the others closed their eyes, Ichinomiya’s Light Magic, Flash burned the Minotaur’s eyes.
—Boo-moooow!?
The Minotaur, which had lost its stance and vision, let out a cry.
“Now!”
Hearing Ichinomiya’s voice, Tendo and the others opened their eyes and immediately went on the offensive.
First, Mogami uses all his strength to thrust his right fist at the Minotaur’s abdomen.
“Go to hell! You son of a b*tch!”
The Minotaur let go of its battle axe and fell to one knee.
Bmoooo…it made a pained sound, but still didn’t collapse.
Next, Shinonome sheathed her sword once and approached with the fast movement skill, Ground Shrink…
“Shinonome Style Technique Eight Stance—Shiden Raiko!”
She unleashed a swordflash.
At the same time as her blade loosened from its sheath, a blue-white lightning flashed around the blade, and the blade swung at ultra-high speed.
The Minotaur’s right arm, from the shoulder up, fell off, but there was no blood. This is because the cut was burned by lightning.
Shinonome has fused the techniques she learned at her family’s dojo with the magic and skills of this other world.
This is one of those techniques, and by using lightning magic to speed up the extraction of the sword, and then applying lightning magic to the slash, it is possible to apply a burn effect, as in this case, or to shower it with electric shocks even if it is blocked.
The Minotaur groaned, but managed to get up and tried to pick up the battle axe with its left hand.
But to stop it, Asakura cast an attack magic.
“No you don’t! —Fire Wolf!”
The fire magic created flames in the shape of three wolves. They ran on the ground with such sense of movement as if they were alive, and bit into the Minotaur’s left arm and both legs.
At the same time, more flames leaked from the wolves’ mouths.
“Just get burned to ashes!”
Just as Asakura had said, the wolves that had taken a bite at the Minotaur began to burn fiercely as it clung to the minotaur.
—BUMOOOOOOOOO!
The Minotaur, its entire body burned and screaming in agony, swung its left arm as if it was trying to muster its last bit of strength, and the flames disappeared.
Tendo immediately slashed at it.
The Minotaur tried to react as quickly as possible, but it couldn’t keep up with Tendo’s movements using both the Invincible skill, which the Holy Sword can only use once a day, and Ground Shrink.
“With this, it’s game over!”
Tendo leapt on top of the minotaur, wrapped the holy sword with holy magic, and swung it down with great momentum.
At the same time as Tendo landed, the Minotaur’s body split in half vertically and crumbled.
A moment of silence fell over the place…
“—We did it! We defeated it! We finally defeated it!”
Asakura’s voice echoed.
“Haa haa, phew, guess that finally did the trick…”
Tendo said, breathing heavily as his strength and magic power were severely depleted from the earlier attack.
“We did it!”
“That’s right!”
“If we hadn’t defeated it, we would have been in trouble…”
Ichinomiya, Mogami and Shinonome shouted with joy.
“Right. Since we defeated it! It looks like our level has risen, so let’s take a break and check it out.”
All four of them nodded at Tendo’s words.
.
<table>NAME: Koji Tendo LEVEL: 78 AGE: 17 SPECIES: Human (Otherworlder) GIFT: Holy Sword User (Ability to wield all holy swords.</tbody></table>
<table>Sword Arts and Light Magic levels increase more easily.) SKILLS: Sword Arts LV7</tbody></table>
<table>Fire Magic LV5</tbody></table>
<table>Water Magic LV4</tbody></table>
<table>Wind Magic LV5</tbody></table>
<table>Earth Magic LV4</tbody></table>
<table>Light Magic LV6</tbody></table>
<table>Growth</tbody></table>
<table>Detect Presence</tbody></table>
<table>Ground Shrink LV5</tbody></table>
<table>Physical Boost LV7</tbody></table>
<table>Appraisal</tbody></table>
<table>Language Comprehension TITLES: Otherworlder</tbody></table>
<table>Hero</tbody></table>
<table>Holy Sword User</tbody></table>
.
<table>NAME: Suzuno Ichinomiya LEVEL: 74 AGE: 17 SPECIES: Human (Otherworlder) GIFT: Holy One (Gains holy magic. Light Magic and Recovery Magic levels increase more easily) SKILLS: Light Magic LV7</tbody></table>
<table>Recovery Magic LV7</tbody></table>
<table>Holy Magic LV6</tbody></table>
<table>Physical Boost LV5</tbody></table>
<table>Detect Presence</tbody></table>
<table>Appraisal</tbody></table>
<table>Language Comprehension TITLES: Otherworlder</tbody></table>
<table>Hero</tbody></table>
.
<table>NAME: Shinya Mogami LEVEL: 76 AGE: 17 SPECIES: Human (Otherworlder) GIFT: Diamond Force (Gains might*. Barehanded Arts and Physical Boost levels increase more easily) (TLN: Monstrous strength) SKILLS: Barehanded Arts LV7</tbody></table>
<table>Earth Magic LV5</tbody></table>
<table>Might LV7</tbody></table>
<table>Physical Boost LV7</tbody></table>
<table>Tenacity LV6</tbody></table>
<table>Detect Presence</tbody></table>
<table>Appraisal</tbody></table>
<table>Language Comprehension TITLES: Otherworlder</tbody></table>
<table>Hero</tbody></table>
.
<table>NAME: Aoi Shinonome LEVEL: 75 AGE: 17 SPECIES: Human (Otherworlder) GIFT: Master of the Blade (Ability to acquire skills to handle swords and blades, and to increase their levels easily) SKILLS: Sword Arts LV6</tbody></table>
<table>Blade Arts LV7</tbody></table>
<table>Wind Magic LV5</tbody></table>
<table>Lightning Magic LV6</tbody></table>
<table>Physical Boost LV7</tbody></table>
<table>Quickdraw Arts LV5</tbody></table>
<table>Ground Shrink LV6</tbody></table>
<table>Flying Slash LV4</tbody></table>
<table>Detect Presence</tbody></table>
<table>Appraisal</tbody></table>
<table>Language Comprehension TITLES: Otherworlder</tbody></table>
<table>Hero</tbody></table>
.
<table>NAME: Natsuki Asakura LEVEL: 73 AGE: 17 SPECIES: Human (Otherworlder) GIFT: Blessed by Nature (Fire, Wind, Earth, and Water Magic levels increase more easily) SKILLS: Fire Magic LV6</tbody></table>
<table>Wind Magic LV5</tbody></table>
<table>Earth Magic LV5</tbody></table>
<table>Water Magic LV5</tbody></table>
<table>Physical Boost LV5</tbody></table>
<table>Detect Presence</tbody></table>
<table>Appraisal</tbody></table>
<table>Language Comprehension TITLES: Otherworlder</tbody></table>
<table>Hero</tbody></table>
.
After checking each of their levels, Tendo and the others shouted in surprise.
“Wasn’t Suzuno and Natsuki’s level around 69 or something? Their levels seem to have gone up a few.”
“Yeah, maybe because it’s a boss monster, and they got all the experience points they needed from it.”
After taking a short break while talking about this, the party headed to the lower floor.
～
“…Is it just me or are the monsters that have been appearing for a while now as strong as the Minotaur…?”
“That’s true…maybe because the next floor is the boss monster?”
Mogami tilted his head at Tendo’s words.
The group had reached the twenty-fourth floor over the course of a day.
Up until the previous floor, the number of enemies had not increased, but they had gradually become stronger, but here on the 24th floor, in return for the number decreasing significantly, the power of each and every one of them had increased.
Back in the Royal Capital, they were impacted with knowledge regarding dungeons, and have even been in a few.
But this was the first time they had seen such distribution of monsters.
With irregularities like this, it would be better to take every precaution and challenge the mid-level boss monster.
At Tendo’s suggestion, they decided to take a rest in front of the mid-level boss room on the 25th floor.
The next day, Tendo opened the door to the middle boss monster’s room and muttered to himself.
“I knew it…”
Normally, the mid-level boss monster on the 25th floor would be about as strong as the one on the 20th floor.
But the Chimera in front of them was clearly much stronger than the Minotaur.
The pressure was overwhelming on Tendo and the rest of the party.
“Something may very well be going on in this labyrinth in particular.”
They all nodded at Ichinomiya’s words.
The reason why this dungeon has suddenly become bizarre is probably due to the boss monster at the lowest floor.
It’s certain to be stronger than this middle boss, and I’m not sure if we can defeat it…
Tendo shook his head and put that thought out of his mind.
Anyway, for now, we have to defeat this chimera.
Together with Tendo, who had readied his weapon, the heroes dashed towards the Chimera.
～
—Two hours after the battle began.
“Haa, haa……fi, finally, we, won…”
Tendo and his party won the fierce battle and were able to defeat the Chimera.
It was Shinonome who dealt the finishing blow. This time, Tendo used his Invincible skill as a shield and she took advantage of the opening he created to send the chimera’s head flying.
And now, battered and bruised from the battle, Tendo and the others were lying on the ground.
“We somehow managed to pull it off…”
“True…”
“I thought I was a goner this time…”
“Me too honestly…”
“It was tough…”
Tendo, Ichinomiya, Mogami, Shinonome, and Asakura each shouted in exhaustion.
After a while, the five of them finally recovered and resumed their raid.
That day, they reached the 28th floor, and the next day, they finally broke through the 29th floor and were standing in front of the boss room on the 30th floor.
“So this is the last room…”
“Seems like it.”
Mogami nodded at Tendo’s words.
“Finally.”
“Yea. It was quite the hurdle.”
“I wonder how many times I almost died.”
Asakura, Ichinomiya, and Shinonome muttered as they looked at the door in that order.
Tendo looked around at the four of them with a serious look on his face.
“We may very well die here. But…”
There is a possibility that they could die here. Which was why Tendo emphasized it again.
“But, I’m not turning back now!”
The four of them nodded in agreement to his words.
The expression on their faces was full of determination.
—They were determined to see it through.
Tendo and the others put their hands on the door of the boss’s room.