Level Eater

Cardina and others were forcibly sent back, leaving only Tatsuro and Ai.However, the dungeon was still the dungeon, with only 3 points remaining. Yet, the dungeon was alr

Cardina and others were forcibly sent back, leaving only Tatsuro and Ai.

However, the dungeon was still the dungeon, with only 3 points remaining. Yet, the dungeon was already confident of victory.

Until now, it had been fighting while dividing its consciousness among seven people. However, in this restricted body, it had no Dispel magic or 'Danger Sense' abilities, and could only know enemy movements through visual observation.

But with just two people, two eyes were enough.

While dark magic vision blocking was troublesome for the current dungeon, with the numbers reduced this much, it had no intention of even allowing them that luxury.

So the dungeon never took its eyes off the two, staring intently as it prepared to launch water cutters.

But Tatsuro and the others had anticipated this. That's why they had no intention of relying on petty tricks like visual blocking in this situation.

"Ai!" (Tatsuro)

"Tatsuro!" (Ai)

So Tatsuro and Ai launched an all-out attack, disregarding both spirit and magic consumption.

Tatsuro used his most familiar laser attack combining light and fire magic, but this time, since magic consumption was irrelevant, it was four massive laser beams from four giant spheres.

Ai swung her jeweled sword at high-speed multiple times to deliver Ki slashes and had Gundari Myoo launch mid-range attacks with spears and whips of spirit energy extended from its palms.

A single shield wasn't enough against this concentrated consecutive full-power attack from the two.

So the dungeon put up two shields. But doing this meant this dungeon body couldn't launch water cutters.

However, this was also because it knew such reckless attacks would quickly exhaust them.

The dungeon could attack at leisure after they were exhausted.

With this in mind, the dungeon focused entirely on defense, creating an impenetrable state that eliminated even the slightest chance of losing any more points.

"Ai, did that arrive?" (Tatsuro)

"Yeah, it came through properly. Is it okay to use it now?" (Ai)

"Yeah, it's fine. The enemy went defensive as planned. Now we just need to make it flashier!" (Tatsuro)

"Right!" (Ai)

"What is that!? Why do you have-- ugh"

Ai took the Ki spear and whip she had made Gundari Myoo hold and stored them in her [Item Box], then gave it the Celestial weapon spear Justina, and had it channel her full spirit/ki power to unleash a thunderous storm toward the dungeon.

When Jeanne was forcibly sent back, they had confirmed visually that this dangerous weapon had disappeared with her.

Yet now Ai was using it again, launching an attack powerful enough to potentially destroy the two water shields that had been sufficient until now, if not for serious concentration.

(This is impossible. Given this power, it's not fake, and the one sent back earlier was definitely real. Were there two of them? -- No, that can't be. There's no way identical Celestial weapons could exist in this world. Then, how...)

The dungeon's gaze was fixed on the two, thrown into a state of confusion.

Meanwhile, as it rapidly drained Ai's Ki power, Justina released power to levels that even its deceased master who had mastered it couldn't reach as if remembering them - levels unreachable by Jeanne or the monster who held it before.

Combined with Tatsuro's lasers and Ai's energy slashes, the enemy's shields were pushed to their absolute limit.

But at the same time, that was their current limit.

And they couldn't continue such reckless power usage for even ten more seconds.

That's why the dungeon desperately concentrated on the two before it, focused solely on maintaining this defensive line.

But that ultimately became the cause of the dungeon's defeat.

"Three" (Tatsuro)

"Two" (Ai)

"One!" (Tatsuro)

"-------!???"

Slightly before Tatsuro and the others completely ran out of magic and spirit power, from directly behind the dungeon where no water shields were deployed, a powerful fist combining spirit and magic slowly crept up and struck through its back.

In that instant, the dungeon turned around, neglecting shield control in its surprise and confusion with mixed emotions.

Then the defensive line collapsed, and Tatsuro and Ai's attacks hit directly from the front, creating a pincer attack with the Ki-magic combined fist.

Having lost all remaining 3 points this way, the dungeon vanished.

"Did we win..." (Ai)

"I'm so tired..." (Tatsuro)

The two let go of their weapons and sat down, leaning against each other.

Then, Tatsuro and Ai's bodies began to fade.

"Now we can return to our original bodies." (Tatsuro)

"Yeah. Compared to the beginning, there's almost no discomfort now, but it never quite felt like my own body until the end, so it was a bit weird." (Ai)

"That's--" (Tatsuro)

Before Tatsuro could finish saying "right", their virtual bodies completely vanished from this place.

When Tatsuro opened his eyes, along with the soft feeling of the reclining seat, his eyes met with Ai's, who was sleeping facing him in the adjacent seat.

"Welcome back" (Ai)

"We're back" (Tatsuro)

They smiled and greeted each other, tightly gripping Tatsuro's right hand and Ai's left hand that had been connected before sleeping, then raised their seats upright.

By the way, the other members had long since gotten up from their reclining seats and had been watching the whole thing, but the two got up still holding hands, deciding it didn't matter if they were seen.

Then a dissatisfied female voice that sounded mechanical rather than natural reached everyone's ears.

[Well anyway-- congratulations on your victory everyone--]

"You sound unsatisfied" (Tatsuro)

[Of course, I am--. I still don't understand what happened even at the end--, what kind of cheating did you do--]

"We didn't cheat at all" (Ai)

"Indeed. We simply used all our wisdom to the best of our ability." (Tatsuro)

[Wisdom, is it--? In that case, would you mind explaining it to ignorant little me in a way I can understand--?]

She seemed to be sulking and making things difficult, so while there was no reason to challenge her anymore, they thought about explaining everything but held off for now.

"I'm happy to explain, but it seems wrong to do it for free. So how about giving us something interesting?" (Tatsuro)

[You greedy-- humans--. Getting cocky now--]

"No, stop that" (Tatsuro)

[Eh--, I was trying to show the dignity of a great being--. But it seems that wasn't very interesting--. Hmm~ something interesting... ah, how about a Locking Magic skill card--?]

"Locking Magic... you mean like locking things?" (Tatsuro)

[That's right--. It's a skill that magically locks things--. Specifically--]

Locking Magic apparently magically locks the entrance to a closed space, and only the master key - oneself - or those given a magical key by the skill user can open that lock.

However, since it's non-attribute magic, it can potentially be broken by dispel magic users.

So imagining it more complexly and making it harder to solve is apparently the trick to using this magic.

"Heh- that sounds interesting" (Ai)

"Then let's go with that" (Tatsuro)

[Yes yes--. Here you go--]

When Tatsuro decided immediately based on Ai's words, a colorless transparent skill card grew straight up from the floor, bare like with Cardina.

Tatsuro picked it up and after consulting with everyone, installed it in himself.

Having learned [Locking Magic], they moved on to revealing the tricks from this game.

"So, what do you want to know first?" (Tatsuro)

[Let's see--. Since we're here, from the beginning]

"Understood" (Tatsuro)

So Tatsuro began explaining the full picture of their strategy to the dungeon.

First, Tatsuro considered that from how the dungeon kept looking around restlessly, it might completely lack search abilities.

Furthermore, even against attacks that could have been avoided with a little movement, it tried to defend without moving. As a result, it lost 2 points to magic bullets.

So from this, he deduced that it either couldn't move or had extremely slow movement speed.

Secondly, due to the game's specifications, when an attack hits a point holder, that magic disappears - this was confirmed when the magic bullets that hit the dungeon disappeared with less explosion than expected, verified through search magic.

And thirdly, since it never shot water cutters while using two shields with both hands, he considered that it might not be able to produce both water cutters and water shields with one hand.

From this information, Tatsuro built this strategy.

First, to share this information and announce the strategy, he wrote notes during battle and sent them to Cardina and the others who were separated via the [Infinite Item Field].

And since this strategy was in some ways a suicide attack, he added this at the end of the message:

If you don't want to do it, please refuse. In that case, tear up or crumple this memo and send it back, and I'll think of another way.

However, the memo came back unchanged, so everyone agreed to this plan that seemed more likely to win, to avoid getting strange titles carved on them.

First, Athena used the Ring of Great Fortune and activated [All or Nothing Strike] to enhance something.

Then using those enhanced stats, she broke through the shield that the enemy thought only Ai could break, landed a hit, and had Nana and Leah who were riding on her back attack.

This method was only possible because the game promised there would be no injuries or pain, as normally the dragon armor was converted to lightning attribute by Athena, so being carried on such armor would cause electrocution.

However, to ride the dragon path, you need the same dragon power and attributes, so they need to do this momentarily to increase charging power with the armor.

So Leah and Nana overcame this by sacrificing their points.

That's why when they reached the dungeon, the two only had 1 point remaining.

Then Leah was completely a decoy this time, and since they had confirmed that magic-hitting point holders doesn't penetrate but disappears, she survived even while behind Athena, and by raising her voice to be Nana's camouflage, they were able to cleanly land two pincer [Bite] attacks.

If [All-Seeing Eye] could have been used it might have been different, but this time Tatsuro couldn't think of any other role to give them.

Next, regarding Cardina's earth doll, Tatsuro quickly made that before setting up the final preparation and sent it to Cardina's [Item Box] via the [Infinite Item Field].

She took this out of her [Item Box] and dropped it from above, and while the enemy was distracted by that, her real body attacked.

And since Ai had sent Justina to Jeanne via [Item Box], Jeanne forcibly attacked using her high defense capabilities, wind magic, and Justina's lightning storm all at once.

This impressed upon the dungeon that Jeanne had Justina.

Then Jeanne, who was forcibly sent back after successfully stealing points, sent Justina that was forcibly stored in her [Item Box] to Ai's [Item Box].

This is how Ai was able to use Justina again after it had disappeared with Jeanne.

[Is that 'Item Box' transfer really possible? I've never heard of that--]

"I thought a being like a dungeon might know, but I guess you didn't" (Tatsuro)

[While dungeons can be said to have their own small worlds, we basically only know what we've experienced ourselves--]

Since she seemed half-doubtful even after the explanation, they demonstrated that items could actually be transferred via [Item Box] using Justina, then moved on to the final reveal.

Actually, Tatsuro and Ai had started acting from the moment they blocked the dungeon's vision with dark magic.

First, while having Ai carry his body, he quickly made a Cardina doll containing dark magic and sent it to Cardina's [Item Box].

Then while the vision-blocking dark magic was active, they went around to the dungeon's back.

And while everyone was drawing the dungeon's attention by reducing its points, they created a fist with enormous power combining Ki and magic.

However, if they just fired it normally, it might have been blocked. So even though it reduced the power somewhat, they decided to change the image slightly.

Rather than shooting it out forcefully or making thunderous sounds, they created it to creep up slowly, moving quietly.

The two of them couldn't have managed such precise control in the beginning.

But now their stats had increased and their control of the Ki-magic combination had improved somewhat, which helped. That's why they became capable of such tricks.

Then after launching a silent strike toward the dungeon that wouldn't move or even show signs of moving from that spot, they went back to the front and held hands.

This allowed them to hurriedly recover magic and spirit power.

While recovering and waiting for the right moment, after confirming Jeanne had been sent back.

To create a situation where it had to use both shields without room to look back, they attacked as flashily and powerfully as possible to make it concentrate on them.

For this purpose, they even brought out the heavenly weapon spear Justina that was thought to be gone, narrowed the enemy's field of vision, and landed the Ki-magic combined fist on its unguarded back.

That was the full picture of this strategy.

[Hah--, the [Item Box] transfer function. I guess not knowing about that was the biggest cause of defeat--]

"More like, if you'd gone all out from the start, wouldn't we have been eliminated immediately?" (Tatsuro)

[Well, yes--, but that would be boring, wouldn't it--? For us, this is also partly a way to pass time--]

"You're not even denying it..." (Tatsuro)

[Yes--. When things got dangerous for us, the standard approach until now was to take fatal points from all remaining challengers with an unavoidable super wide-range magic--. So unless you could make us misread our advantage until the end-- and then take all points at once, no one could win--. And you brilliantly targeted exactly that point--...]

This wasn't just making excuses for losing - everyone present understood that this unavoidable super wide-range magic probably really existed.

That's because throughout, this dungeon was visibly holding back.

So if it had perceived them as dangerous, there was likely a high chance of it revealing other hidden tricks besides the super wide-range magic.

Therefore, even if it meant taking some risks, it seems challenging it to a short decisive battle was the right choice.

[Well then--. Since everyone won--, it's about time to distribute rewards--. Here you go--]

The moment the dungeon said this in an unmotivated voice, the first level-up announcements came to each person. The breakdown was as follows:

For Tatsuro: |Level: 71 has been achieved.|

For Ai: |Level: 49 has been achieved.|

For Cardina: {Level: 49 has been achieved.|

For Jeanne: |Level: 49 has been achieved.|

For Nana: |Level: 46 has been achieved.|

For Leah: |Level: 49 has been achieved.|

For Athena: |Level: 42 has been achieved.|

"Wha-" (Tatsuro)

"Eeh!?" (Ai)

"Pewee" (Cardina)

"Neigh" (Jeanne)

"Indeed!?" (Nana)

"Forty--" (Leah)

"Wow..." (Athena)

Even as everyone was doubting their ears, the announcements kept coming.

|||||||Skill Points (100) have been granted.|||||||

"-------"

|||||||||Title [Amazing!] has been acquired.|||||||

"What's with this title name... My first title being so casual..." (Leah)

"Good thing I got the Pioneer series first~" (Athena)

"Ah... Who came up with this title?" (Tatsuro)

[That would be us--]

"I thought so..." (Tatsuro)

And so Tatsuro and the others first received all rewards except the prizes.