[Good News] After My Childhood Friend Was Stolen by a Playboy, I Woke Up With a Crazy Fast Level-Up Ability and Turned My Life Around in One Year ~ Then a Famous Streamer Broadcast Me Without Permission and I Went Super Viral!~ - 86

Chapter 86: Hesitation Brings Tragedy

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Since then, the Levia Guild’s investigation of the Dragon’s Den proceeded smoothly, and thanks in part to Piyoko’s skillful conversational tactics, they finally arrived before the boss room at the deepest point without any major trouble.

By this point, several battles had occurred, but there were no injuries in the party. With weapon wear and consumption kept to a minimum and magic power replenished by the items they had brought, they could be said to be in near-perfect condition for the pre-boss state.

On the other hand, I had spent the idle time observing the surroundings in various ways, but I still hadn’t been able to find anything that could be called unusual. At this rate, it really wouldn’t be any different from a social studies field trip.

Perhaps…This dungeon was a dud that didn’t match the keywords I was looking for?

Anxiety washed over me as the possibility of a worst-case scenario gradually expanded in my mind. Even so, I couldn’t afford to give up yet. I had no choice but to bet on the boss room waiting ahead.

“Everyone, we’re about to charge in! Are you ready?”

At Ikeda’s call, all the members quietly nodded. After confirming this, Ikeda slowly opened the massive stone door.

He opened the door and looked inside the room. In the back of the room, I could see countless yellow lights floating. Looking closer, every single one of those lights was actually an eye belonging to the master of this room. Below those glinting eyes, several red lights appeared, and I could see them gradually growing larger.

“..!! Look out, everyone, get down!!!!”

Along with Ikeda’s sudden shout of warning, those red lights were unleashed, and massive fireballs came flying roughly toward us. Fortunately, thanks to Ikeda’s instantaneous command, no one took the hit from the surprise attack.

Because the attack missed, something in the back slowly approached us, and its true identity was revealed immediately. There stood a monster with a massive torso from which multiple long necks extended and writhed like snakes, each ending in a giant face with sharp yellow eyes.

” ” ” ” ” ” ” “GYAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!” ” ” ” ” ” ” “

A massive roar rose from each of the necks as if to intimidate us for entering the room. The sound pressure was so intense that all twenty of us were overwhelmed.

“Is this… the boss?”

The sheer scale of it caused Ikeda to let out a leaked whisper, and a single drop of sweat rolled down his forehead.

“Captain, orders!!”

Having been momentarily entranced by the mighty presence, Ikeda snapped back to his senses upon hearing the voice of one of his party members.

“S-Sages, analyze this thing immediately!! Enchanters and Mages, use reinforcement magic!! Vanguard, protect yourselves and don’t launch careless attacks until the analysis is complete!”

Ikeda’s orders were slightly delayed, but the party members’ swift actions allowed them to somehow pull their formation together. However, watching from a short distance, I thought something about Ikeda seemed off.

During the battles leading up to the boss room, he should have been leading with dignified and decisive commands, but now he looked somewhat flustered. He didn’t seem like the kind of captain who would show fear as if he were a different person just from being overwhelmed by a boss’s presence, but…

While I was thinking that, things were moving forward. The multi-headed dragon’s eyes flashed, and this time, it gathered cold air in each of its mouths and fired off countless blades of ice. This magic was (Icicle Rain), the same ice magic the mages had cast earlier by combining their power. The ice blades unleashed by the multi-headed dragon rained down toward the rear guard, including the mages and enchanters.

“Uwaaaaaa!!!!”

“Kyaaaaaaa!!!!”

Members whose evasion was delayed had their bodies pierced by the ice blades, and the party’s rear guard was half-destroyed.

“Did this thing seriously do that intentionally!?”

The fact that it could so easily cast a large-scale spell among ice magics, and that it realized which spot it needed to attack first and did so intentionally, showed that it possessed intelligence incomparably higher than any enemy we had faced so far.

“C-Captain Ikeda!! Numerous casualties in the rear guard!!”

When Shiina’s voice, having barely evaded the attack, reached him from behind, he instantly shot back an order.

“Rear guard, deploy a barrier and treat the wounded! What about the remaining healers!?”

“There’s only one!!”

Shiina’s report was the moment despair first gripped the party. Ikeda was thinking. Should the vanguard buy time until the rear guard recovered, or should they abandon the recovery and grind themselves down with only the vanguard, or should they inevitably retreat once…?

It would take a considerable amount of time for a single healer to restore the rear guard.

Fighting with only the vanguard carried a massive risk. Retreat? Was he going to miss the chance to grab a great accomplishment for the first time ever?

(What should I do? What should I do? What should I do? What should I do? What… should I do?)

At that moment, the eight dragon heads lunged toward Ikeda, whose mind was filled with thoughts. By the time Ikeda noticed, they had reached a point where evasion was impossible.

(…Ah, I’m going to die.)

Just as he thought that, his body was suddenly blown sideways. It felt as if a giant boar or bear had slammed into him. When Ikeda glanced to the side, the Second Captain, Kishida, was standing where Ikeda had been.

“Ki… Kishida!?”

The dragon heads, mouths wide open, were closing in on Kishida at any moment.

“I am the shield of this partyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!!”

Kishida instinctively activated a skill and tried to block the attack with his massive Greatsword, but he couldn’t block the dragon heads coming from all directions, and his arms and legs were bitten off.

“UWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGH!!!!”

Kishida’s death cry echoed through the room.

“KISHIDAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGH!!!!”

“Captain… give the order… to… retreat…”

Before Kishida could finish his final words, the dragon took his head into its mouth and crushed it. Red blood flowed from Kishida’s torso, which was now just a trunk, and pooled before the dazed Ikeda. His trembling hand touched Kishida’s lukewarm blood, making him realize that he had truly perished.

“Th… that’s… impossible… Because of… because of me…”

Only the sound of the five dragons messily chewing could be heard.

“This is bad… this is bad bad bad, Keita-sama!?!?”

Piyoko immediately evacuated to where I was standing at a distance.

“Keita-sama, this is really bad! At this rate, everyone in the guild is going to be wiped out!!”

Piyoko pulled on my sleeve, looking like she wanted me to help them. It was certainly pitiful enough that I wanted to help, but this thought was just our one-sided ego. After all, they had told us… “not to participate in our work at all, and to stream until the very end.”

Their purpose in bringing us here was a publicity stunt using our name recognition. They bound us with various conditions, but since we also benefited from this exploration, it was established upon the mutual agreement of my conditions and theirs. So to speak, this was business.

Looking at the conditions we both agreed upon, there was no merit for us to help them. However, an exception existed.

“Hey! Ikeda! Want a hand?”

I called out to Ikeda in a loud voice from a distance.

“A… hand?”

“But there’s a condition! That is, you cancel every single one of the previous conditions! What’ll it be!? Are you going to run away like this!? Or fight by yourselves!?”

The exception I spoke of was to make him choose.

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