Chapter 32: Dust Settles
TL: Potato-tan
Proofreader: Asianpotato
Whack!
Julia’s sword had a beautiful trajectory. Two crocodiles that were within the trajectory had their necks sliced off, and with that, the group of crocodiles were all dead.
However, there was still one left. It was the biggest one.
Gaaaaah!
The giant crocodile charged. It was fierce, as if it were trying to avenge its comrades. Julia calmly raised her non-sword-wielding hand. Particles of light began to gather, and soon, they became a sphere of light that shot out.
BAM!
The giant crocodile reeled from the sphere of light, despite its small size and seemingly formidable power. However, there were no visible wounds on the exposed hide. It was certainly tough, considering that it could blow away giant grubs, goblins, and walking corpses with a single blow.
The giant crocodile roared and approached again, opening its large mouth. It was a mouth that could swallow Julia in one bite. A red tongue and a dark esophagus were visible behind the sharp fangs, ready to chew and swallow Julia.
Instead of retreating from the terrifying snout, she went deeper into it and stabbed her longsword upwards. Enchanted with a spell that kept it sharp at all times, the blade pierced through the soft palate and emerged above the bridge of its nose. The crocodile’s yellow eyes bulged.
Gaaaaaaa━!
The crocodile reflexively clamped its mouth shut in immense pain. The crocodile’s bite force was tremendous. It could easily crush hard bones like crackers.
Julia was now standing inside its mouth with her sword stuck in its palate. The force that was trying to bring her up and down was about to meet.
A fierce battle ensued. The giant crocodile tried to crush the human in its mouth by clamping its jaws shut, while Julia inside resisted the force.
Magic power surged through her entire body. The techniques and skills she had accumulated to become equal to a monster, despite her frail body and weak strength compared to the monstrous beast, were being put to the test.
Gaaaaaaaaaaa-!
“Ugh!”
Remarkably, Julia did not immediately flatten out. Her full-body armor had hidden functions that helped her. It supplemented her deficient strength, helped circulate her mana, and radiated heat.
“Huff!”
Julia raised one hand from her awkward posture and gathered the light attribute. The external blows did not cause any significant wounds. But what about the interior?
The sphere of light condensed in her palm hit the inside of her gaping throat. A splat crushed the soft flesh, gushing out blood.
The giant crocodile, which had never felt such pain before, stopped clamping its mouth shut and shook its head violently. It was like a dog shaking its prey, but its large size and brute strength gave it an overwhelming force.
“Gyaaa!”
It tossed the relatively light Julia around like a ragdoll. She tried her best not to let go of her sword, but the blood flowing from the palate ran down the blade and onto the hilt. Moreover, the crocodile’s shaking was too violent. In the end, Julia lost her grip on the hilt and fell backwards.
Kwaaaah━!
With the sword stuck in its palate, the crocodile, unable to close its mouth, rushed towards her. Its jagged teeth, each the size of a small dagger, flashed as they tried to tear Julia apart.
Julia had lost her weapon, but she did not lose her fighting spirit. She extinguished the sphere of light that had been repelling the darkness above her head. In an instant, darkness fell, and the crocodile lost sight of Julia in the pitch blackness.
At that moment, as something hard touched its tongue, the sword stuck in its palate came out, splitting the upper snout in two. The crocodile’s eyes widened in excruciating pain.
A blinding flash of light came from the ceiling. The crocodile, which had its eyes wide open, lost its sight in an instant. Disoriented by the splitting pain in its mouth and unable to see, the crocodile saw the shadow of a light-covered armor fall upon itself.
“Haaaaaa!”
With a battle cry, Julia, holding her sword in reverse, stabbed the crocodile’s head with the tip of the blade. The blade sank deep into the tough hide, leaving only the crossguard and the hilt visible.
The giant crocodile let out a cry that was a mix of a loud roar and a scream, and it thrashed around. This time, Julia did not let go of the hilt and infused the sword with magic power.
Like a firecracker, the magic power that flowed from the hilt to the blade exploded in the crocodile’s head. The impact caused blood to gush out of the crocodile’s two eyes, nostrils, and mouth.
The crocodile’s thrashing stopped abruptly. Its last words leaked out.
━Gyaaaaa. . .
The crocodile’s brain shattered, trembled, and fell to the floor. It was dead.
“Ha, ha, ha.”
Only then did Julia exhale the breath she had been holding and catch her breath. She heard a clicking sound as the face guard and helmet folded back. Waves of her tied silver hair fell down.
Floating in the air, the sphere of light cast beautiful particles on her head and shoulders, and she knelt down with one hand on the hilt and crossguard of the longsword and the other on her knee, her head hanging low. Her appearance was more beautiful than any masterpiece.
Any painter who saw her now would not be able to help but pick up a brush.
However, she was too exhausted to think about her appearance now. Fighting with two people and fighting alone were more different than she had thought.
There was no one to watch her back, no one to deflect the attacks coming from blind spots, and no one to attack with her.
The times when she was alone were rare. Julia was a princess. Similarly, it was safe to say that she had never fought alone. She was someone who gave orders, and she had plenty of knights and soldiers who would gladly take up arms and bring her enemies’ heads.
Now, things are different. She had to face the darkness alone; wield her sword alone; and face numerous enemies alone. This was her first time experiencing this.
Her heart was pounding, and her breath smelled sweet. In a tightrope walk where a momentary mistake or judgment could mean the difference between life and death, Julia had barely managed to choose life.
The sensation still lingered on and within her skin, generating a burning heat. Julia felt so hot that she wondered if she was burning.
However, as her breath gradually steadied and her heated body cooled down, she regained her senses. Julia was not alone here now. Wasn’t Russell fighting the basilisk below this passage? She could not afford to indulge herself in the sensation of having survived.
Gurgle.
Perhaps because her tension had eased for a moment, her stomach let out a loud noise. Julia looked at the crocodile she was still standing on without realizing it and shook her head. ‘I’m not going to eat it. Never!’
Kwaaaang!
At that moment, a deafening roar shook the space. Julia, startled, looked toward the source of the roar.
“Russell?”
Even during her battle with the giant crocodile, a thunderous sound echoed from the far end of the passage. However, the sound just now was louder than any that had come before.
She hurriedly pulled her sword out of the crocodile’s head and dashed towards the end of the passage. ‘Please don’t be dead, please don’t be dead. I said I’d kill you myself, so don’t die yet.’
Julia, whose heart was racing as fast as her feet, looked down at the end of the path. There was an unbelievable sight waiting for her.
🔷🔷🔷🔷🔷🔷
━What, what the hell did you do, graargh, kuurlaaaaark!
The basilisk, with empty eye sockets, coughed up blood before it could finish speaking. The pitch-black blood, devoid of any trace of red, splashed onto the stone floor with a sizzle. As it dissolved the stone, it bubbled and hissed, its potency evident.
“I wonder about that myself. Just what did you see in my eyes that made you all tremble like that?”
Russell approached the blood-spewing basilisk, drawing his claymore.
Clack, clack, clack, clack.
The eerie sound echoed through the chamber as he dragged the flat of the claymore’s blade against the floor.
━No matter how much I asked, they wouldn’t tell me. They said that if they did, they’d die. And I said that I wouldn’t kill them. But it wasn’t me that would kill them, they said. ‘She’ would.
Clack, clack, clack, clack.
“Who is she? There are already plenty of scary women around me, you know. But there’s another one I don’t know about?”
The basilisk recalled, unbidden, the darkness it had sensed earlier from Russell’s words. It was as if its very mind was melting just by remembering it, but the dragonkin, who had lived for over two hundred years, found itself thinking of a memory it had subconsciously tried to forget.
A black mantle. A face is completely hidden by a tightly drawn hood and veil. It only remembered the whiteness of the arms that extended from beneath the mantle. The unnatural whiteness was so pale that it seemed to glow. And that hand had reached out and, in an instant, gouged out its eyes.
“Can you tell me?”
━If I tell you this, I’ll die.
Russell’s voice and an unknown voice spoke simultaneously.
The basilisk let out a roar instead of answering the question. And it charged at Russell. Despite losing its eyes, it retained an organ capable of detecting the heat of living things.
Guided by that organ’s image, the basilisk, its form wreathed in white flames, lunged at Russell with its maw wide open. Russell sighed as he looked at the gaping maw that seemed to grow larger with each passing second.
“You won’t tell me either.”
At the last moment, he dodged the gaping maw that was trying to swallow him whole by rolling to the right. The snake’s sharp fangs narrowly missed Russell, grazing him. Russell raised his claymore and brought it down on the basilisk’s torso as it passed by.
Russell’s strength was too much for the scaled hide, repeatedly tempered over the years until it was as hard as steel, and it split open with a crack.
K-aa-aa-aa-aa-!
The serpent thrashed and writhed, resembling an impaled earthworm on a twig. Its enormous, elongated body, spanning twenty meters, slammed violently against the passage’s walls and floor. As it did so, the amount of dust and rubble falling from the ceiling gradually increased.
Russell, who had been looking up at the ceiling, suddenly turned his head.
Swoosh!
The basilisk’s tail was lashing out at him with terrifying speed. There wasn’t even enough time to dodge. Russell braced himself for the impact, holding his greatsword straight out in front of him.
Boom!
The sound of a shattering rock sent Russell flying. The intersection where they were located wasn’t small, but it wasn’t particularly large either. It was literally just an intersection with branching paths.
Russell slammed into a wall. Russell’s body shaped the solid wall by more than a hand’s breadth. He spoke, still crumpled up.
“Dammit.”
Crash, clatter!
As Russell pulled himself out of the wall he had become embedded in, gray chunks of stone fell like rain. Russell, covered in dust that had turned ashen, spat.
“If you’re not going to tell me, then fine. You can go.”
━Kaaa-aa-aaa!
The basilisk slithered across the floor and opened its maw. Its forked tongue flickered, and a yellow, transparent liquid shot out of the pink maw beneath it. Russell leapt away without thinking.
Whoosh !
Russell, who had twisted his body in mid-air, saw the wall he had been leaning against dissolve at an astonishing speed. It was even faster than when the black blood had melted on the floor earlier. Had he become entangled in that, he would have bid farewell to this world.
The basilisk, using its heat-sensing organ instead of its eyes, detected Russell, who was still high in the air. The serpent coiled its body like a spring, then uncoiled with explosive force. Its snout was closing in fast.
Russell used one hand to generate a shockwave to propel himself, then twisted his waist to gain power as he swung the flat of the greatsword in his other hand.
Clang!
The basilisk flew sideways as if struck by a giant’s fist, and there was a sound like two giant hands clapping.
The force of the blow also sent Russell flying in the opposite direction. However, unlike the basilisk, which rolled violently across the floor, he landed on his feet in a stable stance.
And then the two of them charged at each other again.
Cheeeee-aaa-aaaak-!
The same tail that had sent Russell flying earlier tore through the air once more. The speed was so great that it produced an audible sonic boom.
Russell, however, had no intention of sending himself flying like before. So he continued running without stopping, infusing his claymore with magic as he raised it. Lightning crackled along the blade of the greatsword.
ZWACK!
Russell sliced through the thick tail in one stroke. Black blood gushed out, and he rolled forward to avoid the corrosive liquid. The aftermath of their battle covered the floor in large and small chunks of stone. Russell stood up, feeling the sensation of stone fragments hitting his back.
The basilisk, its tail severed, charged again. In its blind rage, there was no trace of the ancient dragonkin. It was merely an instinct-driven beast.
Russell didn’t move from where he stood. Close combat was dangerous because of the acid.
He wasn’t wearing any armor, so his upper body was bare, and Russell wasn’t sure if his flesh could withstand the corrosive liquid.
And even if it could, he’d rather not experience the agony of his skin melting while he was still alive. That acid would render the meat inedible. ‘Damn it.’
Russell raised his greatsword, holding it in a reverse grip. The grip was akin to that of a javelin thrower holding a javelin.
“Whoooosh.”
He closed his eyes. The sounds faded away. He was now in a state of complete tranquility. From a distance, he couldn’t see the basilisk charging at him, nor could he hear the sound of stone fragments kicking up as the floor beneath it crumbled.
The magic power that filled his body burst forth at his will and circulated through his limbs. The magic powers that had spread out gathered just as quickly.
Russell planted his right foot firmly on the ground, took a step back, and extended his left foot forward. The force that surged up from the ground where his foot had landed traveled through his ankle, knee, waist, shoulder, elbow, and wrist.
Magic power also flowed through the same path at almost the same speed, amplifying the force. The greatsword in his right hand trembled as it absorbed an amount of magic power beyond its limits.
The basilisk’s maw was now right in front of him, about to swallow him whole.
Russell’s eyes flared with magic power from within his eyelids, and the greatsword glowed as well.
His eyes opened, and his cocked arm moved at the same time. A beam of light shot out.
Booooom━!
The blast’s force rippled through the air, pushing it out in all directions. The compressed air on the inside and the stagnant air on the outside collided, creating a thunderous roar.
Swooshhhhhh. . .
A current of air arose, creating a ‘wind’ that shouldn’t exist in an underground labyrinth. The newborn wind was surprised to find itself born in a place that was neither a mountain range, a meadow, nor a cliff, but deep underground.
The ‘wind’ darted here and there, filled with surprise. The dust particles that had clung to her tunic fluttered along with her. And then a man appeared, brushing away the dust with his hand.
In this world, the ‘wind’ wrapped itself around the man who had given birth to her. Despite his dust-covered and disheveled appearance, his handsome features and clear blue eyes shone through it all.
The man opened his mouth, and the ‘wind’ looked up at his face, anticipating her father’s first words. Her father’s first words were these:
“Cough, cough. Ugh, damn dust. Cigarettes. . . There isn’t one. Dammit.”
With a dumbfounded expression, the ‘wind’ looked at her father. Of course, those words wouldn’t have been strange coming from any other father in the world, but they sounded strange coming from the mouth of this young man.
However, the ‘wind’ no longer felt such emotions. In this underground world where there was no sun, there was no longer any force that could guide the wind to new places. And so the wind slowly subsided.
Even as she subsided, the ‘wind’ looked up at the man, who stood tall. As if it did not want to miss a single moment.
Russell spoke.
“Whew, it’s finally settling down. I guess I should have taken it a little easier. . . .”
“Russell!”
At that moment, a clear and refreshing voice echoed through the space. Russell looked up and saw Julia standing at the end of the passage where he had been earlier. She shouted, her expression a mixture of shock and relief.
“Are you okay?!”
“I’m fine. What about the crocodiles?”
“I got it! No, more importantly! What’s that behind you?!”
‘What indeed.’ Russell chuckled.
As the dust settled behind him, a form came into view. It was something long and cylindrical that had been split in two vertically.
Wisps of white smoke rose from the split’s charred black cross-section. Without a filter, the basilisk lay dead, its insides exposed to the outside.
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