Chapter 696 Securing the Target

The moment Kisuke left, an Evilus member, Jura Halmer, appeared. He escaped from the Knossos and was the mastermind behind the floor's destruction for the sole reason of summoning the Juggernaut.

Because he couldn't forget the destruction it brought at the end of Orario's Dark Ages seven years ago, his dream was to tame and control the monster that annihilated multiple parties of top Adventurers by just swinging its claws.

He didn't know what had happened and why the Juggernaut was injured, however, he didn't really care about the reason behind it as this was his golden ticket to success. Using his Crimson Whip, Jura tried taming the Juggernaut in the same way like all the monsters he had tamed before and immediately commanded it to find the Gale and rip her apart, transferring his own hate to the Juggernaut.

And what he did was a success, sort of. Aside from setting off emotions that shouldn't have been possible for a temporary existence like the Juggernaut, Jura wasn't able to do anything to control it and only earned his death for even trying.

Recalling the man who almost killed it, Juggernaut ignored every other Adventurer and started digging the ground. Since it normally couldn't stay alive longer than the Dungeon allowed it, it knew that it had to do something to extend its time. So when it reached the next floor, instead of adventurers, it went after other monsters, devoured their Magic Crystals and used their body parts to restore the damaged parts on himself in an attempt to prolong its existence and realize its revenge.

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It was only until the entrance of the 38th floor that Kisuke was finally able to catch up with the Lambton and rip it apart with his bare hands, extracting the almost naked Elf with burn marks from the monster's stomach acid.

After carefully conjuring a bit of water to wash her, Kisuke removed the coat of his Shihakusho and wrapped it around Ryuu. Although the right sleeve was already gone, it was still better than nothing. 'I have to find a place to rest and regulate my insides.', thought Kisuke as he recalled a certain cave on the 37th floor.

Since he only had one arm right now, Kisuke did a fireman's carry on Ryuu and picked up her weapons before going on his way. Entering the giant white labyrinth on the 37th floor, Kisuke was immediately besieged by Spartois wielding different weapons. Of course, except for the girl on his shoulder, they weren't a threat to him so he just kicked them away, crushing both their weapons and bones.

After an hour of brute-forcing his way through, Kisuke finally reached the cave where no monsters spawned. As soon as he laid Ryuu down, Kisuke immediately sat down and closed his eyes. Due to what happened earlier, Kisuke forcefully stopped his regeneration so that there wouldn't be much movement in his energy.

Now that his target was secured, he could finally fix his energy flows and figure out what happened back then, 'Since I'm already here, I might as well continue experimenting with my spells.'

He then looked towards Ryuu and estimated that she would be out for at least half a day, 'She may have thought that she's already dead. Oh well, I can use this time to stabilize myself and get some supplies from the 39th floor.'

Since he could neither use a space bag nor open his own space, he didn't have anything on him right now as he didn't need anything from the start. However, if he wanted to stay here, he would need food to keep Ryuu alive.

Naturally, he also had the choice to immediately return to the surface, however, due to his energy berserking earlier, Kisuke wanted to fix that as soon as possible and at least be able to cast a few spells before returning. In other words, he just couldn't wait.

Another hour later, Kisuke was finally able to regenerate his arm and stabilize himself. Next, he started reviewing his spells and wanted to at least cast a barrier around the cave before he left.

It took Kisuke another hour just to conjure a suitable barrier and even then, the energy inside his body still ran wild, forcing him to rest for half an hour. However, this was already a big improvement and it could only get better after further practicing, 'Looks like I'll only need a week or so to cast half of my Kidou repertoire and more than that if I want to safely use my high-level spells.'

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Sitting on damp bloody grass, Ryuu horrifyingly stared at her companions being slaughtered one by one. As the last one of them exploded into flesh and blood, the Skeletal Dragon turned to her with its fire-lit eyes which sent shivers down the spine to anyone that it stared at.

Behind the monster that annihilated her noisy but precious companions were her most hateful enemies who were the cause of tragedies in Orario. Gritting her teeth, Ryuu wanted to cut off their heads, however, in face of the absolute enemy that was manifested by the Dungeon's rage, Ryuu couldn't do anything aside from staring at the bloody claws that were about to land on her.

Opening her eyes, Ryuu immediately stood up and held her aching head, 'That dream again... It has been a while.'

A few seconds later, her memories resurfaced, and recalled what happened before she lost her consciousness, 'Wait, I'm alive!?'

All of a sudden, she heard a voice in front of her, "Don't move so much. You're still injured and those abrupt movements will only make it worsen. Besides, that single piece of clothing is all that you have on you, so all sorts of things will be visible if you're not careful."

Ryuu immediately looked down and saw the state of her entire body. A single piece of familiar clothing and under it was a body with various burnt spots. Carefully tacking in her cover, Ryuu slowly looked back up and saw the person she was expecting facing away from her, "...Thank y- !? W-what happened to you!? Are you alright!?"

But as soon as she processed what was in front of her, she immediately panicked. The Kisuke in front of her was bloodied all over to the point that his green shihakusho couldn't be recognized anymore. Strangely enough, his bucket hat seemed to be untouched.

"Hmm?", Kisuke turned around and saw her worried expression before laughing awkwardly, "Ahaha, well, 'tis but a scratch."

Despite her aching body, however, Ryuu stood up and sat beside Kisuke before chanting her only healing spell, Noah Heal. But before she could invoke her spell, Kisuke suddenly grabbed her forearm, disrupting her concentration by suddenly touching her, "Save it for yourself. I'm sturdy and these injuries won't take too long to heal themselves."

Of course, Ryuu didn't believe him, "What are you doing here? What happened?"

'For him, who can play around the top fighters of the Loki Familia to be injured, did he perhaps come across with the Juggernaut?', she thought.

Kisuke unhandled her and replied, "On behalf of someone, I came to rescue you. Though thanks to my current situation, I can't really fight properly so I ended up like this. Don't worry though. I'll be sure to bring you to the surface alive."

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AN (Dec. 13/21): I certainly didn't forget to update my webnovel from the last time... Yep... Certainly not...

I'm sorry.