Before the party could get into proper formation, the lycans were already on top of them. As the main tank, Lizzy charged ahead and used her AOE taunt skill, [Dragon’s War Cry], to grab their attention.

The lycans quickly pounced on her, but this gave her party members enough time to gather themselves to support her.

Maria was the first one to react because she somewhat expected something like this to happen. She had her fair share of unique dungeons and one of the first ones she raided had caught her off guard like this before.

Her reaction was swift as she appeared next to Lizzy with her Calamity in one hand and her Zantetsu-R in the other as she began unleashing a barrage of attacks on the lycans who were caught in Lizzy’s skill.

The rest of the party quickly reacted as well and they rushed in to help the 2. Sky was the only one who hung back a little and stayed beside Cindy. She was the secondary tank and was in charge of protecting their healer, Cindy.

She also needed to tank the enemies that weren’t aggroed onto Lizzy, but thankfully, all of the monsters had their attention on her, so she was properly doing her role as the tank.

Of course, Sky still had to be cautious because there were sometimes monsters that were completely unaffected by a player’s taunt skill and would directly aim for the backline players.

Those monsters were usually unique monsters or had roles as backline killers and would act that way, but who was to say that the normal monsters inside a unique dungeon wouldn’t be able to act like that?

It was great that Sky took that precaution because a Lycan assassin suddenly materialized out of thin air behind Cindy with its dagger moving towards her neck. Sky quickly raised her glaive and blocked the attack before throwing it and nailing the lycan onto the ground.

“GROOOOAARR!”

Cindy didn’t even notice that the monster had suddenly appeared behind her until it started roaring. She was shocked, but saw that it was pinned to the ground already and heaved a sigh of relief.

“W-Woahh! T-Thanks! That nearly gave me a heart attack!”

“Don’t mention it. I think you should always keep a [Barrier] and [M.Barrier] on you. I don’t know if next time I’ll be able to react as quickly, so just in case, right?”

“Yeah, good idea.”

Sky cast one of her skills, [Water Chains], and chained the lycan down before she started raining down blows on it and killing it. She took a look around to see if any more of those Lycan assassins were around, but couldn’t find anything.

She didn’t let her guard down even though she couldn’t find anything. This didn’t mean that they weren’t around. It just meant that their stealth capabilities were just really strong and she couldn’t find any of them.

Once Maria and the others finished dealing with the Lycan warriors and knights they were fighting, the party regrouped and Sky quickly informed them about the assassin-class lycans that attacked Cindy.

“Keep an eye out for them. I think there’s still more out there but they didn’t attack earlier because of me. Their battle AIs are much smarter than usual dungeon monsters,” Sky warned.

Maria nodded and said, “That much is certain. Unique dungeon monsters are usually like that, but let me deal with them.”

Lizzy gave Maria a look and said, “Okay, go ahead.”

“Let’s take care of the ones around us first.”

She had her skill that let her detect the presence of others as long as she felt a slight bit of killing intent from them and, thankfully, the Lycan assassins weren’t extremely powerful ones because they couldn’t conceal their killing intent to the point where Maria couldn’t detect them.

In the open space of the castle’s courtyard, the hidden Lycan assassins were like stationary targets to Maria. She slightly opened her wings and disappeared from her spot.

With her extreme speed, she appeared behind an unsuspecting lycan who was hidden behind some bushes with its stealth skill. The Lycan assassin couldn’t even react properly to the sudden appearance of an enemy behind it and helplessly got impaled by Maria’s sword.

This broke the lycan’s stealth and Maria kicked the monster over to her party members, who immediately began hailing on it with numerous attacks.

Maria continued to do this for the next few minutes. Going around the courtyard, breaking the Lycan assassins’ stealth one by one before tossing them over to her friends, who killed them in seconds.

She stopped only after she was completely sure that the courtyard was completely free of the hidden lycans.

“Alright, I think we’ve completely cleared the courtyard! Let’s head into the castle!” Maria said as she took one last look around the place.

“Mary, you’re completely sure that this place is safe now?” Lizzy asked.

“It should be. Unless there’s a boss monster or mini-boss that’s still hiding.”

“Alrighty then. Before we head in, let’s search the courtyard and pick up the loot that’s lying around.”

“Oh, okay!”

Maria nearly forgot about that. Usually, she wouldn’t pick up any loot from the dungeon mobs because she didn’t need them and would only take the items she got from chests or from the dungeon’s boss monster.

It had been a long time since she had raided a dungeon with a proper party of players. Usually, she would just move to the next area once she cleared the current area she was in.

It wasn’t the case this time. She had to help pick up all of the loot the mobs had dropped and properly explore the place to find if there were any hidden places or chests in the area.

“Heh, this is nice~”

Lilith, who was nearby, went up to her and asked, “What’s nice?”

“Raiding a dungeon with a proper party. I’d usually do dungeons alone or with my NPC subordinates!”

“O-Oh! Well, you were all alone on this planet until just recently. It must’ve been hard on you, Maria.”

“No, not really. NPCs can also make good conversation. They talk about a lot of different things, so it’s fun in its own way.”

“Everyone finished looting? If you are, start looking around and see if there’s a hidden area. If not, we’ll enter the castle next!” Lizzy yelled from the middle of the courtyard.

Although she said this, Lizzy was mostly directing it towards Rafflesia, who was the party’s thief and scout. Only she possessed the necessary skill set to find if there was a hidden mechanism or room nearby.

Unfortunately, she and everyone else didn’t find anything in the courtyard, so they could only continue on into the castle.

“Be prepared. I’m sure the lycans have set up an ambush inside of their castle. If we get caught in a trap, we might wipe out!”

“Got it.”

“I’ll cast buffs and barriers on everyone first then,” Cindy spoke up and quickly began casting her spells.

Maria followed her lead and began doing the same, “I can help. Even though I’m like this, I’m still a priest~”

Everyone was a bit surprised after remembering this about Maria. They didn’t know what class she was, but they all remembered that it was still within the priest class branch.

“Oh yeah, I forgot that you were a priest, especially since you’re always waving around that giant ax of yours in one hand and that sword in the other,” Lilith said with a chuckle.

All of Maria’s priest-related spells, which were buffs, were all at max level since she frequently used them. The only skills that weren’t max level were the healing type spells, since she hardly ever used them.

Her weapon skills gave her a passive lifesteal and her titles also gave her lifesteal. Not to mention that she had her unique race skill that substituted as a better healing skill than the healing spells.

“Okay, we’re all buffed, let’s head in!” Lizzy said as she moved to push open the castle’s giant doors.

Maria quickly stopped her and said, “Wait, Liz! If there really is an ambush waiting for us behind those doors, let’s send a bait inside before we head in!”

“Okay, what do you have in mind?”

“Wait a moment.”

Maria began parallel casting a few spells and multiple large magic circles of varying colors appeared on the ground nearby.

“Rise, [Fire Golem], [Frost Golem], [Terra Golem], [Breeze Golem]!”

From the 4 magic circles that Maria conjured, 4 large golems of different elements emerged. They were pretty large, but since Maria didn’t modify the spell by pouring too much mana into it, they weren’t as big as they usually were.

The golems Maria summoned were usually as big as buildings, but these ones didn’t have any additional mana added to their casting, so they were at their normal sizes. They were still big, however, towering at around 10 feet tall.

The castle doors were a bit bigger so they could easily fit through the entrance. Maria gave them an order and the rest of her party members marveled at the 4 golems who moved over to the castle doors and kicked them down.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Just like they had predicted, there really was an ambush set up behind those doors. The ambush was even more brutal than the one they faced in the castle courtyard.

There was an archer and mage formation waiting inside and when the castle doors were knocked down, they immediately began firing their attacks on the intruders. Unfortunately for them, it wasn’t Maria’s party that they attacked, it was the golems that Maria had summoned.

“GUWOOOHHH!!!”

“OOONNNGGGHHH”

The numerous arrows and magic spells quickly depleted the golems’ health bars and it didn’t take long until they crumbled under the immense amount of damage that was inflicted on them.

They completed their job as the bait and this gave Maria’s party the opportunity to charge into the castle’s main lobby while their enemies had to reload and recast their attacks.

“Now! While the archers are reloading and the mages are still charging up for their next attack!” Lizzy commanded as she rushed into the castle, breaking through the cloud of dust that had been kicked up thanks to the golems collapsing.

She had rushed in with her [Dragon Rush] skill and collided head first with the barricade that was protecting the archers and mages. Maria was right behind her and with her attack, she tore down the barricade and continued on to attack the enemy soldiers behind it.

“Die!”

“Lilith, Rafflesia, stop the mages from casting their spells!”

“Got it!”

“Sky, you can do range attacks, right? Help them but keep an eye out and protect Cindy!”

“Roger.”

“Maria!”

“HAHAHAHA DIE DIE DIE!!!”

Lizzy lagged for a moment after seeing her friend attack the enemy mobs in a frenzy, but she quickly gathered herself.

“Uhhh…yeah, you keep doing what you’re doing…”

The lycans should’ve shown a little restraint instead of just sending out all of their attacks together right away. It was enough to destroy the golems, but they were only distractions.

If they had carefully paced their attacks instead, Maria and her party members wouldn’t have been able to rush into the castle’s lobby and charge into their formation after quickly breaking past the barricade that they had set up.

“Defend! Defend! Gahhh...”

“Warriors and knights, to the front! To the front!!!”

The formation was good, but unfortunately, Maria, Lizzy, and the others just got the jump on them. The lycans couldn’t move back their ranged attackers in time because of the suddenness of their enemies’ attack.

Their tanks and warriors were still behind the archers and mages, so while they were hastily moving forward to the front of their formation, their enemies were cutting their allies down as fast as they could.

Lizzy saw this and quickly yelled out, “Their tanks and warriors are coming! Kill as many archers and mages as you can and get into formation!”

-------------------------

Despite being in the heat of the moment, Maria made her way back to her party members despite already pushing rather deeply into the enemy lycans’ formation.

The Lycan knights and warriors were moving to surround her, but using her extreme speed, she disappeared from her spot and reappeared next to Lizzy and the rest of her party.

The girls were pretty used to her speed at this point, but it was still a marvel to look at. She wasn’t using any skills at all, just her enhanced movement speed that she boosted using her incredible flight speed.

“It’s truly fun to watch you do that, Maria. Why not always fight by moving around like that? Since your attacks are always hitting their marks, it’ll only confuse your enemies and you practically have no fear of getting caught up in any of their attacks!” Cindy said rather excitedly, despite their enemies rushing towards them.

In the earlier skirmish, Maria was moving around using short bursts of her [Bahamut Wings] flying speed to move from one target to another after she killed one. She had long since mastered the use of her wings, so moving around like this was second nature to her and it didn’t interfere at all with her attack execution and skill execution.

Since it looked so practical, Cindy wondered why Maria didn’t just battle like this all the time. If she moved like that all the time, her opponent would hardly be able to get a lock on her position, rendering any of their attacks completely pointless and futile.

“If your enemies’ attacks don’t hit you, then it’ll only be wasted effort on their part, no?”

Maria scratched her cheek and replied sheepishly, “I-It does look cool and practical, but if I use it continuously I get motion sickness…”

Hearing her answer, the rest of the party were rather surprised that it was such a simple and silly reason.

“Eh???”

“Really?”

“You’re joking, right?”

“N-No, I’m not. I seriously mean it! Just think about it, if I were to constantly move around like that, my field of vision would always keep changing. At best, I’d only feel a little sick, but sometimes, I even get the [Confused] debuff and become incapacitated for a few seconds…”

“...Judging by what you just said, it’s from experience, huh?”

“...Yeah…”

“HAHAHA!”

The girls laughed at Maria’s response but braced themselves since the Lycan knights and warriors were already on them. However, they still had the leisure to talk while in the midst of battle.

They didn’t want to drop the conversation because it was quite interesting to learn about one of Maria’s unique techniques.

“Can you tell us more about how you’re able to move around like that and the consequences of excessively using it?”

“Hmmm, sure–Heaahhh! Die!” Maria cut down one of the Lycan knights in front of her before she started talking again.

Maria gave the girls a brief run down of her wings’ ability and how she got it, then went on to tell them how she executed her [Blink]-like technique.

“Ohh, so that’s how you use it!”

“I keep forgetting that your class is in the priest branch, so you don’t have the mage-class spell [Blink]. It doesn’t matter though, since your self-made technique is practically similar to that,” Lilith said with a sigh.

“It’s too bad your wings are the legacy type of upgrade. I doubt any other player will be able to obtain it in the future.”

“Despite it being cool and all, it still has its limitations, guys,” Maria iterated once again.

Just like what she explained earlier, she couldn’t use it for prolonged periods of time because it disoriented her. 90 to 120 seconds was the longest amount of time that she could continuously use it.

This was her being generous. As far as she knew, 90 seconds was enough to make her start feeling a bit sick and once she hit 120 seconds, she’d go completely dizzy after stopping.

It was easy to recover from the dizziness, but if she extended her use, the system would outright afflict her with the [Confused] debuff.

“Have you experimented on what would happen if you kept on using it despite being [Confused]?” Lizzy asked as she shoved back a Lycan warrior and pierced it with one of her spears.

Maria shook her head and replied, “I can’t. Once I get [Confused], all of my movement is locked down and I just stumble around like an idiot…”

“Ah, okay. I guess that would be bad if it were to happen to you in the middle of a battle.”

“Yeap, and that’s why I only use it while moving around to my next enemy or when I need to escape.”

“It’s quite handy. This is something good to know. Typically, flying speed is much faster than walking or running speed. If players with wings started to use your movement mechanic, they’d be able to emulate what you do, though it wouldn’t be as fast,” Lizzy said with a pondering look on her face.

“Leader, keep your focus on the enemies while you talk and think!” Sky quickly warned after seeing that look on Lizzy’s face.

“Thanks! Hmm, anyway, I think we should keep this information to ourselves for now. If our enemies learn of this, they’d be able to take advantage of it.”

“By enemies, I’m taking that you mean those angels and devils, right? All of them have wings…”

“Yeah, I’m especially talking about them. Maria would originally be part of their faction if she hadn’t done something that pushed her into our demon-human realm.”

The discussion was over and the party focused on clearing the castle’s main lobby. A few minutes later, they finally cut down the last lycan in the room and began looting the corpses.

Once they finished looting, the girls began exploring the lobby to find any hidden rooms or chests. The path forward was quite obvious since it was marked on the minimap as the big hallway that led to the castle’s great hall.

Since this was a dungeon, the girls deduced that the door of the great hall at the end of the hallway was locked and they needed to explore the other paths to find the key–or keys–to unlock it.

Just to be sure, Maria went ahead and checked the door. Their deduction was spot on when she returned saying that it really was locked and they needed to find the key to open it.

After reporting this to the rest of the party, a system window popped up in front of everyone.

*DING*

Quest: Find the Key Description: The [Great Hall of the Lycan Castle] is locked by a powerful enchantment! Find the key to dispel the enchantment. It is being held by the [Lycan Empress] who is in the [West Wing] of the castle! Objective 1: Get access to the Castle’s Garden! (0/1)

Objective 2: Obtain the Key to the West Wing (0/1)

Objective 3: Defeat the Lycan Empress and obtain the [Great Hall’s Key] (0/1)

Maria tilted her head in confusion when she saw the quest screen and spoke up, “Hm, this is the first time I have seen a quest window in a dungeon. Usually, I’d have nothing to go on and have to find everything myself without any hints.”

“Huh?”

“What?”

“...Mary?”

Maria looked at the rest of her teammates and asked, “What? Did I say something wrong?”

“N-No but…man, you’re actually being serious!” Lizzy said with a surprised look on her face.

“Of course I am. Anyway, this is convenient. Since we have hints, this will make the dungeon a whole lot easier!”

What Maria meant was, naturally, the unique dungeons. Normal dungeons would have system windows appearing just like usual, but unique dungeons–at least the ones she’s raided–never had any quest windows appear in them.

She would just explore the dungeon and clear it in her own way. The Transylvania Palace’s dungeon that she raided to get control over the vampire’s capital city was like this. However, Maria forgot that she had her vampire subordinates around telling her what she needed to get and where she needed to go to advance through the dungeon.

Maria didn’t need a system window to show her her objectives, since her vampire champions did that for her.

“Anyway, since we need to gain access to the Castle’s Garden, I’m guessing that’s where the West Wing’s key is. That means, the only area we have free access to at the moment is the East Wing! Let’s get going guys!”

She quickly deduced this and began walking in the direction of where she thought was the East Wing.

“Mary, thanks for deducing all of that for us, but that’s the wrong way!” Lizzy called out to her.

“Oh?”

“Just follow us, Mary. Anyway, you said that we needed to go to the East Wing, right? It’s this way…”

“Alright~”

Lizzy was already used to Maria’s rather goofy side, but her other party members were only just seeing this now. The previous times she had partied with them, the setting was usually somewhat serious, so they only saw her serious side and the side of her when she was in battle.

Some of them never saw this side of her or knew about it but only experienced it for themselves right now.

“My idol isn’t good with directions. I guess this is really true and isn’t something she does just on stream,” Rafflesia mumbled to herself and noted it down on a small notebook that she kept.

She was naturally recording the dungeon run and privately streaming it to her friends in the Blackhand Mercenary Company. Her private stream chat was blowing up because of her friends, but she wasn’t paying attention to it since all of her attention was on the raid and on her idol, Maria.

“Hehe, I’m glad to know that, despite being so ‘perfect’, Maria still does seem human at times like this,” Sky said with a chuckle.

“Hey~ what’s that supposed to mean, Sky?” Maria asked with a pout.

“I’m sure it’s not just me who’s thinking like this. Normally, it would take a few minutes to figure out where we’re supposed to go after reading the quest details, but you deduced it in a second, what the heck…”

“Ehh??? But it’s obvious, isn’t it?”

“See?!"

"This is exactly what she meant, Mary,” Lizzy said as she tapped her friend on the head.

“Ehhhh?”

Maria and the rest of her party members continued with their leisurely chatting as they walked through the long corridor leading to the castle’s East Wing. Surprisingly, there weren’t any monster mobs in their path.

The group soon found out why, because right as they entered the East Wing, they were met with another ambush.

“Seriously? Again???”

“No use moaning about it! Get into formation!” Lizzy commanded before asking Lilith, “Lily, do you know [Hellfire] or [Flame Burst]?”

“I do! Give me a few seconds to cast it!” Lilith quickly replied.

Maria stepped back and began casting, “I’ll help! I know [Hellfire] too!”

The two girls began casting their spells and immediately launched them straight at the Lycan formation once they were finished.

““[Hellfire]!””

The two spells stacked on each other and combined into an amplified version of the high-level fire-type spell, causing even greater devastation to the lycans than if the spells were cast on their own.

“Nice!”

The lycans’ battle formation was broken and Lizzy ordered Maria and Rafflesia to charge into their ranks with her.

“On me! Charge!”

From afar, Maria used [Calamity Cleave] and threw her ax at the enemy formation. The ax struck in the middle of their ranks and stunned many of the lycans. Lizzy appeared a moment later with her [Dragon Rush] and knocked back a few lycans that she crashed into, sending them careening to their allies and knocking them away as well.

Rafflesia appeared like a wisp behind the ones who were on the verge of death and silently ended their lives with a single skill. It wasn’t a second later that magic spells from both Lilith and Sky arrived next to further devastate the mobs.

Once the fight was over, they continued further into the castle’s East Wing after picking up their loot.