“Again, congratulations!” the receptionist, whose name he had embarrassingly forgotten, said with a smile. Manna took her tag from the table and noted its new material.

“Thanks, Sharon!”

Ah, so that was her name.

Matthias took his and Soleil’s tag. All three of them had brand-new ones. Their bronze tags had been replaced with iron, polished neatly to an almost mirror-like shine.

Yes, they had been promoted. Matthias’ party, which still did not have a name, had reached D-rank.

After they returned to the surface, they were greeted by Nail’s team and several other adventurers. Before Manna came down, she lit a fire on the entrance and smothered it with green branches and other moist foliage, which created a dense smoke column. Despite not saying that she will mark where the entrance was, Nail, who led the adventurers who were tipped off about the second access point, had somehow connected the smoke to them.

They all had flabbergasted looks while they listened to their story. After all, that town did not have any strong monsters in its immediate territory. At most, all it had were the rare sightings of lower C-ranked monsters which were promptly dealt with. It was utterly unimaginable for them that an undead drake had spawned in the boss room of what the guild thought was a D-ranked dungeon. However, they had no choice but to believe their word, as they had brought back two of the monster’s horns as their trophies.

Each of them was so large that it dwarfed both Matthias and Soleil who carried them back.

Upon confirming what the horns were, the guild sent an invitation for them to take the promotion examination the following day. After all, E-rank was only there to welcome new members, and it was easy to prove oneself enough to be promoted. They only had to take the academic test, as the guild deemed a party that could take down an undead drake to be more than worthy and did not need to be tested for their martial ability. All three of them passed, with Soleil even scoring one point higher than Manna.

It was excruciatingly heartbreaking for the latter.

Before that, the guild had sent out another wave of adventurers to confirm if that passage was truly a second entrance to the dungeon that had just appeared. They did it by sending two groups through both entrances at once. Sure enough, they met in the same floor boss area.

Whether or not the second entrance Matthias’ party and the others had discovered was manmade would be investigated later.

Strangely enough, though, no undead had spawned again. The dungeon was a ruins-type, just like the upheaval suggested. By the time the adventurers had met in the boss room, the occupant was a King Hercules, a middle D-class insect monster. Nobody knew where the undead had come from, especially the supposed undead drake that Matthias’ party had fought.

The drake horns themselves fetched a staggering price. It was valuable research material, and a merchant purchased it from them for several tens of gold coins each. It was enough money for them to not worry about lodging and food for several months. But Matthias estimated that the money won’t last long. He wanted to buy new equipment for all three of them. That fight made him realize that regardless of how strong they were, if their gear was not up to par, then they couldn’t fight to their fullest.

As for the other half of the money, Matthias and Soleil insisted that the high priestess and her apothecary friend keep it. They were the only survivors in their party, so the money would greatly assist them in whatever endeavor they pursued next. Plus, the high priestess had been essential in that battle. Without her, he couldn’t imagine how to defeat the boss without Demon Culling.

After they had gone to the surface, Soleil had actually tried to invite the high priestess to join the party without Matthias’ permission. But that was fine for him since he had the same idea but was just one step behind her. However, she politely refused, saying that she wanted to return to the church and never go back to adventuring again. Perhaps the death of her friends and the near-death experience against an absurdly powerful enemy had traumatized her. As for her friend, the apothecary named Jelyn, she had decided to apply for an apprenticeship at the Pharmacy Guild. She, too, wanted to stop adventuring.

“Thank you so much. I’ll never forget what you’ve done for us.”

The high priestess, Ellen, bowed her head deeply. Jelyn followed suit with the same amount of appreciation. However, for some reason, Matthias felt that the latter was trying to avoid Manna.

Well, whatever.

“Don’t mention it. Thank you, too. We couldn’t have done it without you.”

Matthias gave them a pouch of the gold they earned each. It had already been divided such that they received half of what one of the horns sold for.

“Ah, shame. We do kind of need a healer. Potions aren’t free, yanno?”

“Wanna try recruiting that apothecary then?”

Manna laughed and stabbed him with her elbow as they watched the two walk away.

“Funny! Try’na kill me with laughter?”

He couldn’t help but laugh as well. Manna’s unrestrained high-pitched laughter was very contagious. He had no idea why, though. It was a serious suggestion, after all.

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

They walked out of the guild together, ignoring the seething commotion inside. Nail had suggested that they celebrate their quick promotion and even offered to pay for everybody’s food. It must be nice being a high-ranked adventurer; their spending money was quite enviable. However, Matthias refused. He was still quite tired from the ordeal and wanted to spend at least half a day more resting.

And it wasn’t like they didn’t have something else to do.

Soon, they joined up with Soleil, who was waiting for them at a bakery. Manna ran up ahead of him and hugged her.

“I waited for you for thirty minutes. You should be grateful.”

Soleil had a proud smile on her face for some reason as she greeted him. Matthias’ eyes narrowed, and he felt the exhaustion in his body take hold.

“The hell are you talking about? We were supposed to meet here half an hour later,” he thought.

“Oh, I’m sorry, “demon lord”. I’ll be sure to get here an hour early next time.” The sarcasm in his voice was gracefully, or rather graciously ignored by his peer. “Anyway, here’s your share of the reward.”

He gave her a pouch that was bulging with money. As she palmed the bottom of the pouch, her eyes narrowed in displeasure.

“What’s wrong?”

“There… seems to be a mistake.” She was looking at the pouch that was hanging on Manna’s belt. “Why do I have more than you?”

There was no use beating around the bush with her, so Matthias got to the point.

“We didn’t do much. You’re the one who did most of the work. It’s only fair.”

Besides, Matthias still had a lot of money with him. It wasn’t like giving her a larger share would put him in the red anytime soon. But instead of accepting his reason, she instead looked more nonplussed than earlier.

She reached into the pouch, took a handful of coins from inside, and dumped it onto his hand. He didn’t know if it was a coincidence, but the amount she left inside the pouch was almost exactly what her share would be if they had split the reward evenly between the three of them.

“How is that fair? We agreed that all loot will be divided equally,” she said unhappily. As if to say that she wouldn’t take the money back, she tightened the string on the pouch opening and stored it inside her cloak. “A deal’s a deal. And a proper demon lord doesn’t go back on her word.”

Manna laughed on the side while shaking her head. Matthias had trouble holding himself back but was admirably able to do it.

“What an easy character,” he mused. But that was also why she was a great person.

“You’ll get swindled one day if you keep that up.”

“At least it won’t be by you.” She gave him a toothy grin in reply. Then, she raised her hand, with the palm facing towards him, and beckoned.

“Same time tomorrow, yeah?”

He smiled and met her palm with his own.

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

The dungeon was much brighter than it was before.

In light of the previous incident, the guild had installed additional glowstones on every corridor of the first floor. Even though it wouldn’t do much for adventurers who were already used to the dark, it was just a measure taken to reduce everybody’s tension. After all, it was no secret that a party of adventurers had encountered an undead drake on the first floor of a D-Rank dungeon.

However, after reclassification, the undead no longer spawned in the dungeon. The smell of decay that had once permeated every corner had already been replaced by the sickly-sweet smell of the plant monsters that regularly appeared. Giant insects prowled the walls and floor, traveling between plants like they would on the surface. Though some of them were extremely aggressive, they largely ignored the various-sized golems that roamed aimlessly.

Some areas opened up into large caverns. There, stone formations that look manmade sprung up from every direction, seemingly at random. It was as if the dungeon was trying to mimic human architecture. There, innumerable monsters made their homes and lived predictable lives guarding the dungeon.

A lone figure, large in build and hunched slightly, made its way through the halls. As the monsters noticed him, they swarm and attack with abandon, only to be pulverized to the walls without the figure moving.

It moved as if the vicious monsters attacking and dying around him were of no consequence. Its steps were relaxed like a stroll in a park. But because of its large steps, it didn’t take long for it to arrive at the boss room. Unlike the previous areas, the boss room remained largely unchanged. The addition of dozens of glowstones did not affect the visibility of the area, as the ceiling was too high and the diameter, too large. A Bullet Queen served as the floor’s boss that time.

“It really “died”?”

A dozen Bullet Flowers suddenly burst out of the ground and fired their seeds at the figure. It was a troublesome move by those monsters that was difficult to defend against. However, what made them low-ranked monsters was that the seeds weren’t lethal unless they hit the brain through the eyes. In a way, it only hurt like being hit by a slingshot. The problem was that there were a lot of them, and the Bullet Queen shot larger seeds that were the size of fists.

But none of that mattered. The seeds were all blocked and at the same time, all of the Bullet Flowers and the Bullet Queen were crushed.

A gigantic skeletal arm protruded from the figure’s shadow, the size of which was enough to completely smother the group of plants at once.

“… Still here. Good.”

Another arm appeared and it pulled itself out of the ground. First, the ribcage appeared. Then, the creature’s half-shattered skull. Another pair of limbs clambered out and finally, a large bony tail. Hot flames burned in place of its eyes. There was a red stain on its ribcage that spread out like broken glass. A section of its tail was also missing. There was only bone. All of its internals had disintegrated. It no longer had armor of rotten flesh.

A skeletal drake. That was the only way to describe the mishappen monstrosity that had risen.

The figure gazed at its eyes. It was bright and seething, like a wildfire scorching a forest. At the sight of this… development, it smiled.

“You’re angry.”

The monster bellowed in response. Its rage was prominent despite lacking vocal cords, rotten or not.

“Very well,” the figure said. It smiled viciously, revealing a long row of razor-sharp teeth. Its slit eyes, dull but ambitious, glistened over the eerie purple light.

“The experiment has failed. We’ll have to move on.

“But first, we need to “claim for damages”.”