Chapter 17: Arnos’s Dungeon
On the morning of the next day, the guild master Manda came to get us from the inn we were staying in. right now we are on our way to the Lord’s mansion, it seems that once the Lord was told about me arriving at his town he wanted to meet with me immediately and was about to leave his mansion and come to meet us himself in the inn, but he was stopped by Manda so that the people would not know about me being in this town, and then he suggested that we stay in his mansion but Manda stopped him again because inviting normal adventurers to his mansion as soon as they arrived at his town would raise suspicions, that’s why we are going to his mansion with Manda one day later after properly-staying at an inn.
Upon arriving at the Lord’s mansion we were greeted by an old man standing outside the mansion with two guys to his right and two girls to his left.
“Manda: Haaaah….. I expected that it’s going to turn out like this,…. Madi-sama! What are you doing out here? I told you to be aware of your position as this territory’s Lord!”
“Madi: And I told you to be aware of your position as the guild master and stop addressing me, one of your adventurers with ‘-sama’”
“Manda: You are aware that your request is impossible, right? You know that I am a citizen of this town and I can’t address the Lord without honorifics”
“Madi: Whatever you say I can’t hear it! Unless you address me normally or I’ll never be able to hear you!”
“Manda: ……… Stop acting like that!! Mind your age!! You damn old man!”
“Madi: Po Po! You did not use Honorifics! Hahahahah! It’s your loss!”
“Manda: …”
“Ryo: Hahahahahaha! What a strange Lord you are! This fun! It’s my first time meeting a strong guy who acts like this! Nice to meet you, I am Ryo The Divine Blacksmith and those here are Shin and Loti, my disciples”
“Madi: Hahahahaha! The pleaser is mine, I am Madi Lu Arnos an S rank adventurer and the Lord of this territory, Nice to meet you!”
Madi introduced himself and after that, he introduced the guys and girls to his right and left as his kids, after that, we were guided to inside the mansion, we were guided to the living room and once we sat on the sofas one of the girls went and brought tea for all of us, it seems that it’s the Arnos’s house policy to not hire servants nor guards for themselves, that’s why they are doing everything by themselves.
“Madi: I have always wanted to meet you! Ever since the incident in Donatis, I and my kids became your fans and have been eagerly awaiting news and information published by the guild about you, and each time a recording of you is published by the guild I’ll buy a copy of it, so we can watch it together at home whenever we feel like it, especially your most recent fight, the fight against the Holy Knights, before that fight most people thought that you were a tamer that was able to tame the Shadow Hounds by luck and that you lacked actual strength, but that fight against the Holy Knights proved the opposite, you are strong as a tamer, strong as a swordsman, and strong as a magician, and more than that you can make Soul weapons, a truly absurd existence that is fit for the rank SS”
“Ryo: You are mistaken about one thing, I’m not good with magic, and to tell you the truth the amount of mana I had is half that of a normal human, plus I had no talent for magic”
“Madi: Eeeh?! But during your fight with the Holy Knights, you used magic to kill them! That flame..”
“Ryo: Who told you that Magic is the only way to use mana? And that Flame you mentioned was not magic but the ability of my sword”
“Madi: The ability of your sword?”
“Ryo: Yeah, you know that soul weapons are made by affixing the soul of a strong monster to a weapon, right?”
“Madi: Yeah, but it’s unknown how to do just that”
“Ryo: The soul I affixed to my sword is the soul of the elder dragon who was living at the center of the Death Desert”
“Madi: Wait! You mean that dragon is dead?! No, you killed him?!”
“Ryo: Yeah, I challenged him and told him that I want to make a soul weapon out of him, he agreed but I had to kill him first, and so I did it”
“Madi: That’s awesome! You are better than I thought! I’m getting excited by just talking to you”
“Manda: Oi! Can we finish what we are here for?”
“Ryo: Oh! That’s right! Madi, I came to this town to ask for your permission to go to the Dragon Canyon”
“Madi: Oh, you want to go there? What is your business there?”
“Ryo: I want to train those two and I want to tame one of the earth dragons in there”
“Madi: Ok permission granted! But in three conditions, the first one is to join the raid team going to inspect the new passage discovered in Arnos’s dungeon, the second one is to make an artifact that has the ability to counter the Church’s {Divine Rain} for us, and the third one is to sell some of the meat you get from there to us. What do you say?”
“Ryo: I accept! But for the artifact, you’ll have to wait till I am back from the Dragon Canyon”
“Manda: Is it possible to make such an artifact this easily?”
“Ryo: Yes, I was originally planning to make it during my stay in the Dragon Canyon and to distribute it to all the adventurers' guilds in this kingdom”
“Manda: I see”
“Madi: Then we have a deal?”
“Ryo: Yeah!”
“Madi: Let’s sign a contract then, and once that done I’ll draft permanent permissions to enter the Dragon Canyon for all three of you”
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In the holy city Tris the capital city of the holy theocracy Trista, in the underground artificial dungeon under the mansion of the Rosewald household, Armonis Lira is training alone by advancing through the dungeon killing monsters.
This dungeon was made by Rosewald Rose the head of the Rosewald family and the headmaster of the Royal Academy, and the teacher of Lira as well. Rose is in possession of the soul weapon Dungeon Maker and because of that, she is respected even more than the nobles in this country.
This dungeon was made especially for Lira when she started training under Rose, she would clear the dungeon and then ask Rose to raise the difficulty of the dungeon and head to clear it again, at the moment Lira possesses the power of SS rank, but she still wants to get even stronger, and the reason for that is the existence of Ryo.
For some time now, her mother has been telling her stories about Ryo and how he trained back in the village, and about when he would face a problem how would he proceed to solve it, about his personality and attitude, and that led her to think more and more about him, and every time that happens, she would become excited about the prospect of them working together and would run to the dungeon and clear it again and again just, so she becomes stronger.
After clearing the dungeon today as well, she went up to the mansion to ask Rose to raise the difficulty of the dungeon again, but when she made it there she saw that her mother along with Rose and her husband are all looking at a crystal ball placed on top of the tea table in front of them.
“Lira: … Mom, what is that?”
“Lyra: Ohh, Li-chan! You are done for today? Come here and sit next to me, I have received something nice from Ryo-kun!”
“Lira: From Ryo-san?”
“Lyra: Yes yes! From your beloved ‘Ryo-san’! It’s a recording crystal, he must have recorded something on it and wants us to watch it, that’s why he sent it to me through my storage ring!”
“Lira: ‘Beloved’ is unneeded!... For now, let’s watch what is recorded on the recording crystal”
Lyra channeled her mana through the crystal and what is recorded in the crystal started playing back, they watched as Ryo went to Wolfia and had them agree to let him fight the Holy Knights, and when the Holy Knights reached the village they tried to use beastmen kids as meat shields and how Ryo rescued the kids from them and how he fought against the Holy Knights and killed them all, and how he declared war against the Holy Church and how he sent the Renzhe to save the Kids’ parents, and how the Renzhe fulfilled their mission and how they destroyed the churches responsible for the attack, and how he finally connected Wolfia to Armonis and how Armonis is looking right now.
“Oster: …. What can I say…. That was amazing is all I can think of”
“Rose: Yeah, but them using the kids as meat shields pissed me off a lot, that’s why seeing him kill the Holy Knights like so made me feel so good”
“Lira:…”
“Lyra: As expected of my son! That was more than I could ask for, and the Renzhe seem to be happy working with him as well! ….. come to think about it, Ro-chan who is stronger Ryo-kun or the seven Heroes?”
“Rose: From what I saw right now, I think he is as strong as 4 of them at the same time, but he didn’t use his full power against the Holy Knights, Right?”
“Lyra: He didn’t even use one of his skills properly, he made it look like he did use his full power but in reality, he didn’t use even 1% of his power that is if his skills are still the same since I last saw him”
“Rose: I see, if, so then he is way beyond the seven heroes…”
In the middle of their conversation, Lira stood up and dashed towards the dungeon underground.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
“Rose: Li-chan!! Wait! I still didn’t raise the difficulty of the dungeon!!”
Rose stood up and dashed after Lira.
“Lyra: Fufufufu! It worked it worked!”
“Oster: Good to see that your plans are working…”
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After three days since we met with Arnos’s Lord Madi, the time to go to the dungeon finally came. The original plan was for us to go in the same carriage as Madi and Manda, but then Manda came up with another plan, that plan is for us three, Me, Shin, and Loti to go in another carriage that belongs to the Arnos Household and to arrive 10 minutes late.
We did as we were told and arrived 10 minutes late, upon exiting the carriage we found ourselves in front of four groups of adventurers and all of them were annoyed about something.
Looking at them closely and looking at Madi’s and Manda’s expressions told me everything, three of the four groups of adventurers were looking at the fourth group with eyes full of hate, and the fourth group, in turn, are looking at us with eyes full of hate.
“Mard: Oi Oi Oi!! You make this great me wait, and they turn out to be kids! Oi! You kids over there! This place is not for kids like you to come to”
As we were told, we completely ignored Mard and greeted Madi, Manda, and the other three adventurers groups, as we were doing that I noticed that I recognized one of the adventurer's groups and it seems that they did the same.
“Adventurer: I’m glad to be able to work with you again, Ruler-sama”
“Ryo: Why are you calling me ‘Ruler-sama’?”
“Adventurer: Everyone from Donatis, no everyone from The Divine Blacksmith’s Domain are calling you like that”
“Ryo: So how is life in the Domain?”
“Adventurer: It’s getting better and better day by day, I never thought that using the taxes the people paying to make the town better could lead to such fast development and the education provided to everyone has increased the strength of adventurers and soldiers and increased the production rate of the towns a lot, right now I feel safe leaving my family in Donatis and come all the way here in a quest knowing that my kids are going to school and my wife who is able to read and write is working comfortably copying books and learn from them and gain money at the same time, really thank you for becoming our Ruler”
“Ryo: Don’t thank me, as you said yourself everything is done by you the people, and all I did was going from town to town having fun”
Because I was talking to the adventurer from Donatis in a quiet voice no one heard us, and that caused Mard to boil with anger for ignoring him.
“Mard: You Little!! You dare ignore this great me! You must be prepared to die for that!!”
We ignored him again and started walking towards Madi and Manda in the back, and with “You Little!...” Mard placed his hand on the handle of his ax and was about to attack me with it when…
“Madi: Mard, I told you that these three are my guests. If you are not going to respect that then you may take your friends and leave”
“Mard: Tsk…. But bringing those kids with us would just slow us down! What can they do?! All they are good for is serving the strong and nothing more!! And this great me is the strongest here!!”
“Manda: That’s not for you to decide, who is strong and who is weak is for me, the guild master to decide, and let me tell you this, those three kids are way stronger than the likes of you”
“Mard: You dare talk like that to this GREAT me!!”
“Manda: If you don’t shut up I am going to break both of your arms this time…”
“Mard: ….Tsk”
Mard returned to his group and started talking to one of his guys in a quiet voice and after that, the guy nodded and started running towards the town, leaving Mard and the rest of his guys looking at us with a disgusting smile.
“Manda: Now then let’s depart!”
We started walking towards the gates of the dungeon and the guards by the gate opened it up, and we entered the dungeon, we started walking down the stairs till we reached the first floor.
The first floor was filled with Giant Fire Ants, and so everyone other than us started fighting the ants and rabidly killing them, only us three didn’t do anything, Mard seeing that made him look at us hatefully mare and more as he killed the Giant Fire Ants.
We continued like that walking down the floors doing nothing as the other adventurers killed the monsters, right now we are on the fifth floor and us three didn’t do anything other than walking, the reason for that is the contract I signed with Madi, the contract stated that we three are to do nothing at all other than ensuring that everyone finishing their job in the dungeon today without anyone dying, which means that we are not allowed to fight unless someone is going to die or the leader Manda decides that the monster in front of them is beyond their strength and our strength is needed to defeat it, but Mard didn’t know that.
“Mard: Look what I told you!! Those three are nothing but a burden to us!! Since entering they didn’t do anything at all!! That’s why I told you that kids are not to come with us!!”
“Adventurer: Are you stupid or what?”
“Mard: What?!..-!”
“Adventurer: To enter the dungeon you must receive some kind of request from the guild, and them being here means that they did receive a request and them not doing anything must be in line with the contents of their request or the guild master would have told them off”
“Mard: I didn’t hear anything about such a thing!! What do you mean in line with the contents of their request?! All they did was nothing!”
“Adventurer No.2: Of course you didn’t hear anything about their request, all of us here received our requests separately so you don’t know about the requests of anyone other than your group, and isn’t that a common sense for adventurers?”
“Adventurer No.3: And one more thing, it’s not for you to decide whatever they did nothing or not, did you forget what the guild master said before entering the dungeon? It’s up to him to decide that”
“Mard: Shut up! You no name Adventurers!! You dare talk back to this GREAT me!!”
“Manda: You shut up!! Those ‘no-name’ adventurers as you called them are all S rank, all of them are far greater than you who is still A rank, we are the adventurer guild don’t discriminate between our adventurers but if you provoked them, and they killed you it will be your own fault so you know!”
“Mard: Shut up! Shut up! I am never going to approve of those kids following us, and I am not going to change my mind! My group would not move another step unless those kids leave here!”
“Madi: Then you can go back up to the town. If you are going to defy orders then you are not needed here anymore”
“Mard: B-B-But….”
“Manda: No buts! This is your last chance! If you dare to cause a fuse again then you are excluded from this mission”
“Mard: Tsk…., I’ll get you for this, damn old man!”
Mard took his group and headed to the stairs leading to the next floor, and after that, he never caused a fuse again and just silently hunted the monsters of each floor. Once we made it to the ninth floor and reached its end, there were two passages one going down, and the other one the new passage was going to the left.
We entered the new passage going left and the monsters that attacked us in here became a lot stronger than the monsters of this dungeon, this means only one thing, the existence of an abnormal boss, abnormal bosses are known to increase the strength of the monsters around them, and they themselves are extremely dangerous monsters where most of them are SS rank monsters.
After walking for some time the scenery around us started to change, the walls and ceiling are covered with cobweb and the floor is covered with deep cuts as if they were made by some kind of huge spear, and finally, we encountered the abnormal boss responsible for all of this, it was a 10m high spider with its legs shaped like blades.
“Mard: I-I-It’s t-the Bladed Demonic Spider!! It’s an SS rank m-monster! W-W-We have no chance against such a monster!! Retreat! Retreat!!”
Mard screamed such and along with his group ran away without looking away, but no one spared him a glance and started to discuss what to do.
“Adventurer No.2: All of us here are S rank so defeating it is not impossible, but some of us are going to die”
“Adventurer No.3: Even, so we have to fight it or it might get out of this new passage and attack adventurers on the other floors”
“Adventurer No.2: I agree with that, what does everyone else think?”
“Adventurer(From Donatis): I think it’s going to be alright, those three are for such situations, right guild master?”
“Manda: You knew about it?”
“Adventurer(From Donatis): Yeah, because I have met Ryo-san before”
“Manda: I see”
“Adventurer No.2: What do you mean?”
“Manda: You’ll see”
“Madi: Ryo, if you would please”
“Ryo: Leave it to us”
I started walking towards the spider with Shin and Loti walking closely behind me, without me needing to say anything Shin equipped his armor, sword, and shield and started running towards the spider with his shield held in front of him and attacked the spider with a shield bash sending it crushing on the wall behind it and at the same time Loti fired her bow once sending 16 arrows towards the spider, the arrows each hit an eye or leg rendering the spider unable to move. I unsheathed Scarlet and used {Teleport} to appear right next to it and cut the spider in half killing it.
“Adventurer No.3: That Sword! Could he be….”
“Adventurer(From Donatis): Yeah that’s him”
“Ryo: Sorry for my late introduction, My name is Ryo I am the adventurer known as The Divine Blacksmith and this time I received the request to ensure that all of you leave the dungeon alive, those two here are my students...”
“Shin: My name is Shin, nice to meet you”
“Loti: I’m Loti”
We explained to them about the last chance given to Mard and his thirty man party and how they failed it, I placed the spider and all its cobweb in {Storage} and started walking back to the surface with everyone else, since killing the abnormal boss is enough to make that new passage safe for adventurers to explore we decided nothing further.
When we reached the surface we were greeted by the scene of Mard blocking people from entering the dungeon and talking to them in a loud voice.
“Mard: … The Lord Madi Lu Arnos has died because of the incompetent of the guild master Manda! He brought kids with him to stand in our way and when we tried to have the kids leave he excluded us Mard’s Fame from the request to inspect the new passage and made us leave, but we didn’t do that and remained on the ninth floor when Lord Madi came out of the passage without half of his limps and told us what happened in there!! They were attacked by an abnormal boss the Bladed Demonic Spider and those three kids were the first to die and after that those incompetent adventurers Manda brought with him tried to escape by themselves but were killed along with the guild master Manda, and the Lord Madi was the lone real S rank adventurer amongst them was the only one who was able to make it back to us and told everything, and before breathing his last breath he said this to me ‘I leave Arnos to you, please take after me as the new Lord of Arnos’ and so to fulfill his here I am Mard announce myself as the ruler of this territory and the establishment of the new Domain the Mard Domain that is going to rival The Divine Blacksmith Domain”
“Mard’s Followers: All Hail Mard-sama!!”
“People: …….”
“Mard’s Followers: All Hail Mard-sama!!”
“People: …”
From the start of his grand speech, we were standing behind him and the people were looking at us from the start, but he was way too engrossed in his speech notice that, but now after he was done with his speech he noticed that the people are not looking at him but at us, he did the same and his face instantly became blue.
“Mard: Ahhhhh! Madi-sama! You survived! Thank goddess you did! Just now I was telling the people about what happened in there!”
No one responded to him, and he started to frantically think about how to get away with what he did when…
“Follower No.1: Ahhh! Aniki those brats over there are the ones who attacked us some days ago in the guild building!”
“Follower No.2: That’s right! They came out of nowhere and attacked us for no reason!!”
“Follower No.3: And even though the guild master saw what they did to us he did nothing to stop or banish them!”
“Mard: What? …. So it was you brats who dared to attack my men! If I knew about it this morning I would have killed you there and then! But you have nowhere to run from me right now! Guys let’s teach them a lesson!!”
“Ryo: You mean me breaking the arms and legs of those assholes over there? If that’s the case then, yes that was me indeed”
“Mard: And you dare to say it to my face!! I’ll put you in your place!!”
Mard’s followers came attacking me, and he hid behind them doing nothing, to start with I used Ryuken to break the weapons of those that came attacking me and right after that I started breaking their arms and legs as well to prevent them from running away, right as I was done with them I used {Teleport} to appear right behind Mard who is sneaking behind the crowd of people trying to move to behind Loti, he must have thought of using her as a hostage to get away from here, from the start he intended to use this fight as cover for him to escape, but right now he is frozen in his place with Loti’s bow aimed at him along with Shin’s sword, and once I appeared behind him I used Scarlet and cut his left arm off.
“Mard: ARRRGHHH!! What are you doing here?! Shouldn’t those guys be teaching you a lesson?!”
“Ryo: I broke their limbs and came to say hi to you”
“Mard: Don’t get cocky with me!!”
Mard used his right hand to attack me with his ax but I caught it in my hand by the blade and sent a shockwave through the ax turning it to dust, and then I slashed at his right hand with scarlet cutting it off and placed my sword at his neck indicating the end of this fight.
“Mard: AAARRGGHH! Who the hell are you?!! Why are you standing on my way?! Don’t you know that I am the GREAT adventurer backed by the Lord of this town?! Do you think that you can get away doing this to me!!”
“Ryo: Sorry for not introducing myself earlier, I am The Divine Blacksmith, nice to meet you! And the Lord who is backing you is he the same Lord you repelled against just a moment ago? Ah! And that Bladed Demonic Spider you talked about was killed by us three in less than a minute”
“Mard: W-W-What d-d-did you s-say?!...”
“Ryo: Now, Madi do you have anything to say to this idiot and his followers?”
“Madi: Before that, we need to heal him before he dies”
“Ryo: You are right, {High Heal} … and so just he will not try to escape {Fear}”
“Madi: Thank you, Mard you are to be executed publicly in front all the people of the town for your many crimes, starting with Harassment to the people of my town and bringing the adventurers guild’s reputation down with your actions all the way to repelling against me the Lord of this town and spreading false information about my death and me giving the Lordship of this town to you, and as for all of your followers all of them are to be turned into crime slaves under the position of The Divine Blacksmith and the adventurers guild”
“Mard: … Y-You can’t execute me! I’m under the protection of the adventurers guild! As long as I remain, adventurer, you have no right to harm me even if you are the Lord of-!”
“Manda: About that, as of this moment you are no longer an adventurer along with your followers, and that’s all because of your behavior in the past and what happened today, starting with disobeying the orders multiple times and badmouthing other adventurers for no legit reason and at the end escaping in fear of the Bladed Demonic Spider without waiting for orders from the leader of the raid team and then spreading false information about the raid team and adventurers guild and then attacking the adventurer in front of you with your followers”
“Mard: …No way…”
*NOTE: Thank you DestroyerMon for proofreading this chapter*