A Tragic End

When I returned to the place where the Awakened were fighting the spiders, I found that the battle had already concluded.

All the spiders had been killed, including the Tier Six Spider that suddenly appeared.

But in exchange, over half of the Awakened died during the battle.

Of the original forty-four people that participated in the operation, only twenty-one survived, and five of the survivors were seriously injured.

It was a tragic result.

I saw several Awakened standing silently and mourning the deceased. Some of them had clear traces of tears in their eyes, and others were sobbing silently.

At that moment, I heard someone calling out at me.

"Jane!"

"Jane!"

"Brother-in-law!"

Andrew, Karime, and Jessica rushed toward me with excited expressions, followed by Karime and Mary.

"Brother-in-law, are you alright?" Jessica asked concernedly as she checked up on my body once and again.

When she confirmed that I was alright, she let out a sigh of relief and looked at me with tears in her eyes.

"B-Brother-in-law… I-I thought…"

"Silly, nothing happened to me," I said with a moved expression and stroked her head. "Sorry for worrying you."

"Mm."

I smiled and looked at the others.

"Fortunately, none of you is injured."

"You should be worried about yourself," Mary said with an exasperated expression. "We were worried about you, you know? You were attacked suddenly, and then, you disappeared among the spiders with that man chasing after you. I thought that you were going to die. Why didn't you run towards us?"

"Sorry. I panicked and didn't know what to do." I apologized again with a small lie.

Mary sighed before hugging me tightly.

"Be more careful next time, okay?"

I hope that there is no next time.

"Jane, what happened to the robber?" Andrew suddenly asked. The others immediately looked at me.

"He is dead." I shrugged. "The spiders killed him."

I then told them a slightly modified version of the story while hiding some things such as the fact that I dealt the blow that provoked his death.

Perhaps it's hypocrisy, but I don't want to be seen as a murderer, even if it's a fact that everything was a plot to kill the robber from the start.

My friends believed my story, but unlike them, Mary looked at me with a playful smile.

"… Well done." She mouthed at me when nobody else was looking.

I felt a shiver running through my spine.

I don't know how much she knows nor when she discovered it, but it's obvious that she realized at least part of the truth.

Fortunately, she did not seem like she planned to dwell on it.

"By the way, what happened after I left?" I finally asked.

Immediately, Jessica became excited.

"You won't believe it, brother-in-law! Andrew killed the Tier Six Spider!"

"Huh?" I looked at Andrew stunned, only to see him scratching his cheek embarrassedly.

It can't be.

"It's true!?"

"It is." Mary nodded with a complicated expression. "I don't know he did it, but his power suddenly increased greatly and he used [Lone Sword] to deal the finishing blow to the monster."

"Hahaha, about that, I was just lucky. One of my skills, [Limit Breakthrough], became stronger all of sudden so I managed to release that attack. I don't think I can do something like that again."

I was stupefied.

Really?

That was a Tier Six Spider, man!

Looking at the embarrassed expression on Andrew's face, I did not know what to say.

[I told you, he is a Hero.] The demon suddenly spoke.

A hero, huh.

Being a hero sure is amazing.

[Heroes are like that. They are born with the highest talent and are supported by the entire world. To them, every obstacle they face is just a stepping stone toward greatness. A whetstone to make them sharper. They are the chosen children of the heavens.]

My expression became complicated.

Was I feeling jealous?

In the end, I shook my head and decided to stop thinking about that hero thing.

I should not care about that.

"Hey, what is going to happen now?" Jessica asked at that moment.

"Well, I think that we will have to kill as many spiders as we can before the dungeon overflows," Mary replied. "There should be three hours left before the overflow. After that, we can leave."

Just then, a middle-aged man came out of the nest.

John, the Tier Seven Awakened of the association that entered the nest to fight the spider queen.

By the way, the spider queen ended up dying at the demon's lightning bolt. I wonder what he thinks about that.

Well, he shouldn't know that it was me (the demon) who killed the queen.

"It looks like the battle here finished as well," John spoke calmly. "The spider queen has been killed. This operation was a success."

The Awakened looked at each other, but nobody cheered.

Too many people had died today, so even if the queen was killed, nobody was excited.

John noticed that and put on a complicated expression.

"… The injured can go back to the base to rest. The rest of you, help us to kill the remaining spiders. We need to kill as many as possible before the dungeon breaks."

The Awakened nodded.

To be honest, I was really tired, but I decided to continue killing spiders. Anyway, there should not be that much danger anymore. Mary, Andrew, and the two sisters helped as well.

While we were clearing the remaining spiders, I learned that Keltie died and Josh was gravely injured after I left. He was the only survivor in Mary's original group.

I felt a bit complicated when I learned that, but I only let out a small sigh.

A lot of people died today, learning about another death doesn't affect me that much.

Plus, I barely knew Keltie. I felt a bit downcast after learning about her death, but that is it.

Now, I only want to leave this place and take a long bath.

Just like that, the last three hours in the dungeon came to an end.

A bit after the third hour, the dungeon started to shake, then, the core of the dungeon became unstable before shattering.

That marked the end of this dungeon.

A few minutes later, the survivors of the dungeon returned to the outside world.

...

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