21 – #021 Garden of the Beast King (3)
The moment I opened the dungeon door and stepped in, the first sense I reacted to was not sight or hearing, but smell.
The fragrant scent of flowers, as if standing alone in a vast field of flowers, and the stench as if it had fallen on a heap of sachet reached my nose.
When the two conflicting scents reached my nose, I felt a creepy feeling even though I hadn’t encountered the monster yet, and my body shrank.
“… Sun?”
As I regained my composure and opened my closed eyes, the sun, which had been hidden by buildings in the alley a while ago, smiled and greeted me.
No, now is not the time to worry about that. First of all, I looked around to understand the situation, and the confusion increased.
Statues of lions and various beasts were erected here and there, and all the buildings in the garden were made of the bones or skins of unknown creatures.
Not only the bricks in the flower bed, but also the pavilion and fountain in the distance were made of bizarre shapes made of bones and leather.
Even that statue was thought to be a plaster-like white stone when viewed from a distance, but when viewed up close, it was made of ground bones.
Fortunately, I haven’t seen any bones or skin that look human yet, but even if it’s a monster, it doesn’t feel bad.
“What the f*ck is this… ?”
I can’t stand in one place all the time, so I don’t know where to go even if I want to go somewhere.
Most of the dungeons I’ve been to so far are insipid structures with passageways leading down or up.
But this is a garden. There was nowhere to go up or down, so I couldn’t figure out where to go.
‘Let’s go ahead….’
Maybe the correct answer is to go behind instead of forward or cross the flower bed, but then you just have to come back and do that.
‘No. 1, No. 2.’
Immediately summoning a long spear and a short spear, I proceeded forward along the road that I did not know where it led without relaxing.
From noble mtl dot com
So far, I cannot see or hear anyone but myself.
All you can see are the fresh flowers and traces of decay.
If I kept walking for a while, my guard would have softened, but I couldn’t get my guard down as I kept looking at this bizarre sight.
I moved forward with the spear pointed forward so that I could respond at any time if the enemy appeared, and soon a forked road appeared.
Looking at the forked roads, I remember the time when I entered a dungeon with my father one day.
I remember going in to the left and encountering a monster, but suddenly another monster came out from behind and attacked me from both sides.
‘Since I took care of everything on the way back, it’s probably the guy on the right side of the road. There are many cases like this, so be careful in the future.’
Back then, I had my father so I didn’t have to worry about being attacked, but now I’m alone.
As I did then, I proceeded slowly along the left path, periodically peeking behind me so as not to be ambushed.
How much time had passed, while the sun was still shining in the same place, someone’s footsteps could be heard on the other side of the road.
I’ve heard many footsteps while fighting a lot of beast-type monsters, but it was the first I’d heard.
After a while, seeing it appear from the other side of the road, the question of why I hadn’t heard these footsteps until now was instantly resolved.
‘…… Crow?’
The monster with the head of a raven was holding a pair of scissors used for gardening in both hands, which a raven would not have, and on its back were wings that had grown so large that it was so huge.
He is about 2m tall, and for some reason, his lower body looked relatively weak compared to his muscular upper body.
[Lv 41 Gardener: Caesar Crow]
The level is 41, which means that the system judged him to have a little less power than me.
Although the level is lower than mine, the difference is insignificant. As I slowly moved forward with maximum vigilance, he screamed and charged at me.
“aaa!!!”
A huge screeching sound is too loud to be a crow’s, and a pair of scissors come crashing down on me.
As the two blades of the scissors spread like the jaws of an animal aimed at my body from both sides, I bent down just as the two blades of the scissors overlapped.
As I leaned down, the scissors cut through the air. I took advantage of the gap and swung my spear to cut off my poor legs, but it jumped up faster than that.
“Can you fly with that body? .”
I thought that even though it had wings, it would not be able to fly because of its huge body, but as if mocking that expectation, it flew high into the sky.
“aaa!!!”
As Caesar Crow flew high, he roared and his comrades began to gather around him with a fluttering sound.
“Five, six, seven….”
At first, there were only a few of them, so I counted them one by one.
“f*ck… That’s roughly a lot.”
The army of Caesar Crow, who has dyed the sky black, approaches me with scissors forward.
I deliberately didn’t avoid it until it was close, and then I threw myself into the distance right before their scissors reached me.
Then most of them got entangled and bumped into each other, and some were stabbed by the blades of scissors, but those wounds healed quickly.
‘… It’s better not to try the tremendous regenerative power, the method of targeting the arteries and killing them with blood loss.’
Even crows have good forage and have good brains. After using this two or three times, dozens of them waited and waited for the opportunity to throw their bodies.
“Ugh… !!”
Enemy attacks attack me not only from the front and from the left and right, but even from the sky.
Cold sweat ran down my forehead like a waterfall at the perfect encirclement, which was incomparable to the one the bugs spread in the classroom the other day.
Sometimes I cut off the attacks that poured down without rest, sometimes I let them flow, and I cut and stabbed their heads and hearts with a spear, reducing the number of enemies one by one.
‘There are monsters like this in the world….’
They were brutes, but their connection was reminiscent of well-trained elite soldiers.
He pushed me with great coordination and even if one of his comrades died, he used that comrade as a shield and tried to get closer to me even if it was just one step.
As they desperately came out, the encirclement gradually narrowed, and as they approached right in front of them, one of them suddenly threw away the scissors and ran at it with his bare hands.
While panicking with a sudden craving for something, he reflexively pierced his chest.
“Huh?”
As they attacked me all at once, taking advantage of the gap in my hand, I had no choice but to give up my long spear and throw myself away from them.
However, it was the same that they were waiting for them even in the place they avoided. In front and in the sky, they flapped their wings and approached me.
“Whoa… “
After taking a breath, he filled his short spear with energy and threw it at the enemies flocking from the sky.
The dagger pierced the head of one of the four flying in a gray trajectory, but there were still three remaining, and with this, all weapons in both hands disappeared.
Those who confirmed that figure rushed at me without hesitation. And the moment I was about to cut my body with huge scissors, the spear that should have escaped from my hand came back.
As they panicked and flinched at the unexpected situation, I grabbed the spear with both hands and swung it, cutting off their heads.
‘No. 2.’
This is not true during javelin training, but if the weapon gets out of hand, it can be re-summoned with the quickslot as long as it doesn’t fall too far.
The short spear has been summoned again, so now the spear is back in both hands, but there are still a lot of enemies left before your eyes.
“Ha ha ha ha!!”
But for some reason, I can’t stop laughing with joy, even though I’m sure if I made a wrong choice, it would end up being either fertilizer for the garden or that unpleasant building.
I haven’t faced an enemy equal to me since I was a kid.
The only enemies that appear are worms that can be knocked out with a single stab, or strong people that are still out of reach.
But these guys are different. I don’t know about intelligence or skill, but my physical strength and mental strength matched or exceeded mine.
“You chicken heads!! If you are going to come, come at once!!”
As if responding to that voice, the guys who were looking for an opportunity from above rushed at it all at once.
When fighting a powerful enemy like Vivian, who was out of reach, I felt helpless as if I was punching into the sea, and when I was fighting a weakling like Louise’s gang, I felt only the futility of stepping on an insect.
In a fight where the winner is decided, whether it is on the winning side or the losing side, you can’t feel the real feeling of fighting.
But now it’s different. In a tight battle where a single mistake could lead to a winner, I felt the realization that I had been fighting for the first time in a long time.
At the same time, I realized my own strength. If even one of the monsters here is released to the streets or the academy, it is certain that the road to hell will unfold.
But right now I’m fighting not just one monster like that, but dozens of them at the same time.
That fact makes me even more happy.
I never fall behind them.
No, it’s not that I’m not behind, it’s that I’m superior.
Throwing my two spears forward and throwing myself into the endless swamp of monsters, I moved forward, cutting and stabbing obstacles.
While constantly moving and fighting, various enemies other than Caesar Crow invaded and made it even more exciting.
Before I knew it, my body was covered with the blood of the monster, and there was no place where blood was not stained from head to toe.
“Huh? What is it, where are you guys going?”
When hundreds of monsters were cut and pierced like that, the army of monsters that were still left began to leave as if they were running away from something.
– Kung kung!
That doubt was immediately resolved with the sound of huge footsteps that followed.
When I turned my head to the place where the footsteps sounded, I saw a black dog with its red eyes shining and its teeth baring at me.
“Ah, it’s a boss fight.”
[Lv 47 Guardian of the Garden: Black Dog]
The first enemy I met in this dungeon, with a higher level than me, rushed at me.