35 Lead the Way

"Beyond this is a staircase.. If you break the rock, I think the blisters would fall into the path and block it." Jin-kyung gave her input on the matter, touching the rock lightly.

To be honest, Aria also thought the same. The amount of obviousness displayed by this gimmick was too much.

It was practically inviting the invader to break it, but those who knew that there was a staircase behind it would beg to differ.

"Then what do you think we should do?" Aria wanted to keep testing the girl.

"...Wait a second." This time, Jin-kyung hesitated a lot.

'The harder the problem, the harder it is to come up with a solution, huh.'

"We can chip at it slowly, but that'd take a while... We'll get tired. Why don't we.. Ah! Maybe your spirit can look for traces?"

'She figured it out.'

Aria also thought that it might be the same scenario with the previous rooms. That there were fragments that could destroy the rock, since it was obviously created and placed here.

This rock was sturdy, and locked in position. If they wanted to manually destroy this rock, she wouldn't have the strength to take it out in one hit. Instead, she would have to exhaust herself trying to remove it.

There was a better way. One that she used earlier.

She just wanted to test Jin-kyung, but the reaction levels went above her expectations.

'Fast.'

Jin-kyung's ability was fast.

"I also wanted to do that" Aria summoned Dianthe, telling her the instructions she needed.

Like before, she showed the room's elemental composition. The fragments showed up, but Aria did not immediately act on it. She wanted to test Jin-kyung more.

"Where do you think the fragments are?" Aria asked, even though the answer was right before her eyes.

"Hmm... Three fragments.. Somewhere in the upper left, middle right, and on the rock?"

"Slightly incorrect. There are four. The last one is on the ground... right here." Aria walked a few steps backwards, kneeling down on the ground and pointing to a place.

Dianthe assisted Aria's movements and destroyed the fragment on the ground beautifully.

The Earthen shard disappeared without a trace.

"Ah! Sorry..." Jin-kyung lowered her head, embarrassed at her failure.

Aria almost wanted to laugh. She was only able to discover this things due to Dianthe, whereas Jin-kyung relied on herself.

Jin-kyung really didn't understand her worth.

No wonder whoever is behind Jin-kyung wanted to hide her power. Everything about her was valuable.

"You did good, actually. Dianthe, destroy the other three." Aria commanded.

Dianthe went ahead and did her task, approaching each fragment and destroying them.

The moment the last fragment got destroyed, sounds of rumbling ensued.

The gigantic rock started shaking. Cracks formed on its body and sand drizzled out of the object.

The process lasted a total of three minutes. The rock practically vanished into nothingness. No residue was left behind, everything was absorbed back into the ground.

A staircase was revealed behind it, just like what Jin-kyung predicted.

"Any other info?" Aria made sure that everything was in place before stepping in.

The staircase spiralled downwards, and the path was narrow. It wouldn't be a joke if the ceiling collapsed on them when they were climbing down the stairs.

"It.. should be fine. Nothing seems off." Jin-kyung's ability gave her vague expressions of what she wanted to search, but even that was enough.

'Then the last thing to worry is..'

The boss.

How much stronger would it be?

Just like the previous dungeon, the disparity between wolf packs and vampire bats compared to the boss Red Ogre was groundbreaking.

Aria contemplated for a second but soon moved forward.

And so, as Aria moved closer to the center of the dungeon, she recollected her battle memories, the ones where she had to face goblin swarms.

If she wanted to become stronger, to gain her past level, she had to overcome adversities thrown at her way.

She was confident that at least her life would be spared, especially with the unconventional trump card she had in hand. The absolute defense skill.

Thinking about the incoming huge EXP injection, Aria shuddered. She might be able to break through to the next stage.

They followed the staircase, ending up in a much larger room than the previous ones.

There, they found one sleeping Large Goblin.

Approaching it carefully, Aria managed to land a blow without waking it up. Although it wasn't enough to kill the goblin, its health was lowered down by a lot after the critical strike.

It woke up in a heartbeat and started rampaging.

Aria sped up her pace and executed multiple blows, injuring the monster with haste.

Because she was in a much better position this time, the battle ended without a hitch.

After tens of enchanted strikes, the Large Goblin fell down.

[Level C Large Goblin <Mad > was successfully killed.]

[You have gained 10890 EXP.]

Wiping off some light sweat from the acceleration, she watched as the corpse once again disappeared before her eyes, not allowing her with the slightest chance of touching it.

According to Jin-kyung, this one was the last guard before they reach the Boss.

It was like the area increased the more they progressed through the stage, for unknown reasons.

Even as they came down to the middle of the room, nothing was triggered. No monsters jumped out to attack them.

It was pure silence.

"Jin-kyung, what do you think?" Aria had [Halvargg] out in the open as a precaution. She was also in her fighting stance, keeping her sharp senses intact for ambushes.

"T-there's nothing..." Jin-kyung panicked.

Her ability picked up nothing, but she had a bad feeling, like something is lurking behind them with each step they took.

She tried to use her ability again and again, but it always failed to catch anything amiss.

Jin-kyung couldn't believe that it was just a normal room.

'Strange.' Aria also felt something wrong.

'I don't like this. I don't like any of this.'

It felt like another set up.