The Twilight Continent is comprised of sixteen countries, four of which are superpowers. Of the sixteen, thirteen of them border one another while the other three are located outside the mainland and are separated by the vast sea.
Cape City is an economic hub of the Trizen State, a unified vassal region of the three bordering countries — Beran, Castras, and Amna.
As the area closest to the border between continents, the Trizen State receives a sort of special treatment from the sixteen countries. To put; the state operates with a degree of independence to further its strength in order to bolster itself in case an intercontinental conflict occurs.
Fortunately, the Trizen State boasts bountiful natural resources; including but not limited to ores and grains. In the long list of its assets, however, ‘dungeons’ top everything the state has to offer.
Dungeons are monster-infested areas—usually inside cavernous formations—that harbor not only dangers but numerous treasures alike. Some scholars believe they are remnants of ancient civilizations and that they are in fact, man-made. Others believe they are naturally-occurring domains that are part of the human ecosystem.
The latter belief stems from the fact that the leveling system reacts well with dungeons—i.e. a person can progress quickly if they are able to kill a dungeon-dwelling creature, No matter which theory is correct, one thing is certain — surrounded by a great number of these cavernous formations — the Trizen State is a treasure trove.
Around Cape City alone, there are in total forty-nine dungeons of varying sizes and difficulty.
Among the forty-nine dungeons, the Endro Dungeon can be considered mediocre in terms of difficulty, average at best. However, its duly ranked as ‘B’ for its unpredictable nature. It often generates weaker spawns, but every now and then, exceptionally stronger ones appear.
…
‘What just happened?’ Hanul sobered up due to shock. His mouth was wide agape. He turned his attention to the putty-like mass stuck on the walls, then to his sword, then back to the wall. It did not register immediately that it only took a few breaths for him to take down something he had a hard time dealing with for months.
He quickly checked his character sheet for any anomaly, but he saw nothing was out of the ordinary. That was it—it was only his sword dance and his new sword that took down the bane of his existence. Hanul felt as if all the alcohol inside his body would ooze out at any moment, his head was groggy from disbelief. “I should ease out on the drinking,” he muttered, smiling.
If he had not been drunk, a sober Hanul would have never had charged head-on without confirming the efficacy of his new weapon. In a sense, the booze helped him. Liquid courage, if you will.
Hanul shook his head strongly to jog his senses and took an awed look at the [Sea Severing Sword]. The weapon was undeniably well-made, but it was clear Ten did not spend too much time tempering the weapon after quenching it. It was far from a perfect weapon, but for it to cut through a fairly strong slime with ease and even prevent it from reforming? It was akin to magic!
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Hanul was clear, however, that the sword was of a [Fighter] type and not an [Arcane] weapon. It meant whatever cut and killed the slime was pure, untampered physical damage.
From the materials to the method of forging, the [Sea Severing Sword] was just like any other [Fighter] weapon. Nothing extraordinary except its shape. He himself theorized its use, but for it to be feasible was another story completely. Hanul was about to look for another wandering slime to test out the sword once more when piercing screams resounded from the deeper parts of the dungeon. The voices were shrill and likely came from a group of women.
‘It sounds close,’ Hanul roughly gauged.
Like other dungeons, it was unlikely for the Endro Dungeon to be completely empty at any given time. Others with permits from the Dungeon Guild—the intercontinental cooperation that organizes dungeon crawls and other miscellaneous dungeon-related incidents—would also have access to venture inside the same dungeon.
It only took half a minute for Hanul to reach where the voices were heard.
There, he saw a group of five men getting beaten and tossed around by an eight-foot-tall red slime. The terror-stricken men were squealing whilst trying not to get devoured.
‘Is this some sort of a fighting technique I don’t know about?’ Hanul, who was eager to come to the rescue, halted in his tracks. Were they a group of bards that have mastered a secret art of discombobulating the enemy through shrill noises? If so, their secret art did not seem too effective seeing how they were getting bodied badly. ‘Their armor…’ Hanul was too caught off guard by the scene that he failed to immediately notice the men’s clothes, “Imperial knights?”
The best of the best. Elites among the elite of a country’s military, those were the ‘Imperial Knights’-- a minute yet strong forces.
‘White armor with an insignia of a black beast… They’re imperial knights of Amna! What are they doing here? … And why does it seem like they’re being bullied by that slime?”
In his defense, Hanul only had a hard time dealing with slimes due to him having no spells effective against them. His arts also worked just as badly. What excuses would these people of legends have to be pummeled in such a manner whilst screaming like scared, little girls?
‘I won’t learn a thing just watching here idly. I guess I have to help.’ With his newly-found confidence, Hanul charged bravely against the giant, red slime.
Unlike ordinary slimes, the red slime had a tougher body due to it absorbing blood for a long period of time and reinforcing its fluids with iron. Judging from the deep red color of its body, this particular slime probably spawned about a year ago and since then had an uninterrupted life feasting upon dawdling dungeon crawlers.
If Hanul had a guess, its gooey body would be approximately ten times denser. However, this did not matter much. He executed the same sword dance as before, only this time he did it with grace and bravado. If the previous one was slow and wobbly, this time it was sharp and deadly. The [Sea Severing Sword] teetered slightly under the immense might of the move.
Slash!
The end result was the same as before, only it took a bit more time for the sword to make a clean cross-cut across the much larger slime.
If the previous encounter was impressive, this one was mind-blowing. The pale faces of the Amna imperial knights said it all.
Cough! Cough!
Realizing they weren’t alone all this time and someone had probably seen their shameful performance, the Amna imperial knights quickly acted as if nothing had happened and shifted to their domineering persona of an elite soldier. The abrupt change was even quicker than Hanul slaughtering the red slime.