We Haven't Even Shown Our Trump Card Yet

ㅡDing

[_Princess_Eve has started a livestream]

[Yubuyasuking: What the heck, the gallery queen started an Insta live

isn't she in the dungeon right now?]

-ㅇㅇ : The gallery queen's dignity, damn. Turning on a live while dungeon-clearing.

-김흑간 : It's really inside the dungeon? That's insane.

[Gyahong: The princess is really a superstar

Live dungeon-clear broadcasts are on a whole other level, for real]

-맥시맥시 : Is this really okay lol? Watching the stream, she looks insanely hard-pressed.

ㄴ 갸홍 : But she's not filming it herself—it looks like some kind of camera drone?

The live broadcast suddenly started streaming on Instagram. Naturally, this wasn't Eve's idea—she was fully focused on dungeon clearing. It was Doggo's solo impulsive stunt after getting a SIM card and connecting to the internet.

* * * * *

ㅡRustle..!

"That maid girl can really fight..!"

Ophelia's combat power is that of an A-rank veteran mid-range bruiser recognized by the Yongsan Hunter Ability Assessment Center. She started shredding the tide of mummies surging in like a flood, taking out the monsters at astonishing speed.

ㅡRumble..!

After a while, the floor rumbled like thunder, and the right entrance that had been quiet for some time was smashed apart as a giant mummy emerged.

"Eek."

"Eve! You don't need to watch, so close your eyes!"

"I-I'm okay..!"

I did hate gross things to begin with, but this much I could handle. I'm an A-rank hunter now, so I can't just turn away from something like this.

Of course, turning my head wouldn't change anything.. but still.

"Yikes..!"

"Hey, hey! Something's weird!"

A giant mummy covered head to toe in metal shields and bandages. It had to be at least four meters tall, and its thick arms, made of interlocked steel shields, swept around like maces.

"Didn't you just say you ran into a mid-boss downstairs!"

"Maybe it's multiple entities!"

But even before we entered the dungeon, we'd already been told a team had met a mid-boss entity.

Chaerin unnie must have sensed something was off too, because she quickly bundled the mummy dog and the mummy corpse inside the thorn vines and smashed the giant mummy's head with a loud bang.

ㅡKwooooo!!!

With only a scream left behind, the giant mummy collapsed. As its huge body flopped down onto the floor, the usable space shrank in an instant. It was obvious the bruisers' room to maneuver had narrowed dramatically.

With that size, it's hard to blow it away with wind or shove it into a wall. At this rate, we might have to abandon this room, which could've bought us another ten minutes.

"I'll find the next room right away!"

"Thanks, Eve! That's a huge help!"

"Heheh!!"

I recalled Suri, had it hold the camera with its foot, and stretched Doggo's cheeks into a tablet.

"This room is too small... Ah, should we head up to the next floor..?"

Anyway, C Team's route was to keep going all the way to the top. We'd already cleared this floor, and the spiral staircase was already in sight.

"Suri! Please! Let's go upstairs!"

When I barked into the side mic on Doggo's monitor, Suri spun the camera around for a moment, then skillfully folded its wings and flew up the spiral staircase to the floor above.

"Ah! This works!"

"You found it, Eve!"

"Yes! I think we can go this way! Suri, come back!"

After recalling Suri with a skill, the raiding party moved toward the next fortress point under Suri's guidance just like before. Thanks to filling the narrow passage with thick thorn vines to block it off, we were able to stop the ones we hadn't finished off from following us from the previous fight.

"Phew..! There really are a lot!"

"Is it normal to have this many..?"

"It's rare, but not so rare that you'd never see it."

Ophelia seems to fight gracefully even in combat. I do wonder whether that outfit is really okay, though. Still, what can you do? A skirt would probably be a hassle in a fight.

"This time, we have to take the stairs up to the upper floor!"

"All right! Thanks!"

We'd already climbed upward three times. It felt like we'd been fighting for quite a while, but only about 35 minutes had passed since we entered. That's because the Desert Mausoleum's aboveground section is about 180 meters tall, and each floor's ceiling height ranges from 8 meters on the low end to as much as 20 meters.

That meant we'd have to repeat the process of going up a floor like this a few more times before we reached the top.

ㅡThud, thud, thud..!

"Ugh, there's one of those here too..!"

In the hall with the spiral staircase leading up to the upper floor, one of those giant mummy-like things from before appeared again. This one was a bit smaller than the last, but it was a warrior mummy with desert scimitars in both hands.

"I'll hold it off, so hurry and go!"

"Thanks! I'll have your funeral money ready!"

"Quit saying ominous stuff and get lost, idiot!"

The other hunters were still lively enough to trade jokes with each other. I was once again carried in Ophelia's arms and went up the spiral staircase.

ㅡClang-clang!

"Wow... that swordsman really fights well...."

There's just something about a fight between swordsmen. Maybe that's the appeal of watching swords after all. Once the entire backline team had climbed the spiral staircase, the swordsman cut off the creature's left arm and, in an instant, jumped straight to the middle of the stairs.

The man grabbed the railing with one hand, used the recoil to launch himself up again, and in the end came up to the upper floor with us, moving on to the next battle area.

ㅡCreak, creak....

"What, what's that sound?"

"Sounds like it came from ahead?"

While we were moving through the corridor toward the spacious area Suri had found, an odd sound started to ring out. A foreboding, rusty-metal screech echoed from both sides.

"Hey, hey..!!"

"It's the side!! Everyone, be careful—!!!"

At the front line's cry, the giant warrior statues filling the side walls all moved at once, beginning to encircle the passages at both ends of the corridor.

An insanely narrow battlefield that made fighting difficult. They'd be awkward too because of their size, but on our side even a small wound becomes dangerous if it keeps nagging at us.

"Unnie, I'll use this first..!"

"Sorry, I'm counting on you!"

One of the backline teammates, with a determined voice, tore off the racket hanging around her neck and threw it to the floor.

ㅡShatter!

A bright yellow force barrier spread out in a hemispherical dome with a glass-shattering sound. The front line skillfully dodged the warrior statues' attacks and slipped inside the barrier.

"Ugh, what a pain."

"S-sorry!"

"No, it's fine. If we hadn't known, we'd have been hit anyway."

Because Suri had guided us this way, we got trapped by the statue trap and cut off. The other hunters, young and old alike, didn't seem to mind much, but I couldn't help feeling guilty.

After taking a moment to catch our breath, we planned to break through the front passage in sync with Chaerin unnie's ability.

"Then I'll just use an artifact."

"Thanks, Hyunsoo. I'll charge it to supplies for you."

"No, Team Leader Yu, of course you should."

"This guy?"

The plan was to have the frontline hunter smash the statues ahead with his super-secret ultimate, while we squeezed into Chaerin unnie's vine spinning top and got shot through the passage like arrows from a taut vine string.

That was the plan.

"Uh, uh..?"

When we still hadn't come out of the physical barrier, the statues' eyes suddenly glowed red, and they started slamming the floor with their huge weapons.

"If they keep hitting it like that, the floor..!"

ㅡCrack....

As feared, the floor tiles were mercilessly smashed by the statues' attacks and began to split apart all at once with ominous cracking sounds. Chaerin unnie quickly pulled out a radio and contacted the other team.

ㅡKshhh..!

"This is Team C! The floor is about to collapse, so everyone be careful! We need to check the coordinates and move clear!"

"Team B! We're currently encountering a weird one too! The wall is alive and moving!"

Over there, it wasn't statues but the wall itself that had come alive and started moving. Then a radio message came in from Team D as well, saying that as soon as they entered their own route, their retreat was blocked and the terrain had turned into a maze.

"What the hell is this..!"

"O-Ophelia! What do I do..?!"

"It's okay. I'll definitely protect you, Princess."

ㅡBeep!!

The floor that had been barely holding out finally split apart helplessly under the statues' relentless attacks. The thorn-vine-wrapped physical barrier inside came tumbling down with a clatter like a hamster ball.

The biggest problem was that hundreds of tons of flooring material had come crashing down from a fifteen-meter-high ceiling.

Of course, there was no way the floor below could withstand that.

"This is insane..! We're still falling!"

"Unnie! This looks like it's going to break!"

"I'll do whatever I can!"

Even though the outside had been wrapped in sturdy thorn vines, the physical barrier inside couldn't hold out forever. With the third collapse in a row, the barrier shattered, and then the thorn vines were torn apart by sharp stone fragments, causing a disaster that split the raiding party in two.

"Aaaah!!!"

"Ophelia! Please take good care of Eve—!!!"

We'd been separated from Chaerin unnie, and after tumbling through the air a few times, Minyumi's core that I had been carefully holding in my arms flew off somewhere.

Thanks to the hard thorn-vine sphere Chaerin unnie had squeezed shut around me at the last second, I wasn't badly hurt. I just rolled around a bit and ended up sore all over.

Rolling around in a hamster ball just big enough for only me, dust seeped in through the gaps and stung my eyes.

"Ughk.. everyone, come back..!"

I called everyone back, but I couldn't see them, as if they were trapped in the rubble. Only Doggo, small enough to barely fit inside the sphere, popped into view in front of me.

"Ugh.. Doggo..!!"

ㅡBeep!! Beep-beep!!

Doggo switched on a bright light and lit up the area around us. It definitely felt like we were buried under rubble. And judging from the thudding sounds echoing outside, those statues were still alive.

ㅡBOOM..!

"Princess! Are you all right!"

"Ah, Ophelia! I'm here!!"

"I'm about to rescue you-"

KWAANG—!!!

Ophelia's voice cut off in the middle, and a huge shockwave swept past, enough to flip over the rubble I was pinned under.

"Aaaah!!!"

Luckily, I was inside the ball and fine, but from the situation outside, it looked like the giant hammer-wielding statue had smashed Ophelia against the rubble I was pinned under, knocking me free.

ㅡCrash!

"Ughk...."

ㅡBeep..!!

After emerging from the rubble, the scene in front of me was grim.

"Where... am I..?!"

As three or four floors caved in, we were funneled into one place along with what looked like B Team. Of the twelve statues on our side, four had been smashed, but eight remained, and outside the thing B Team had radioed about—the moving wall—was visible.

"That's... a Sphinx, isn't it..?"

The giant sphinx, which had only looked like a sculpture, was alive and moving. I could also see Ophelia far away, and mummy dogs and giant mummies were swarming in huge numbers. The warrior mummies we had thought were mid-bosses were just ordinary mobs that showed up now and then; in reality, these things had been hiding themselves and acting as the bosses.

"O-Ophelia..! Please get up, please..!"

ㅡBeep!!

"It's okay, Princess. Please calm down..!"

Luckily, the hammer statue's attack had flung me into the middle of the raiding party. But everyone was already worn out from combat, so if this kept up, we could end up surrounded and killed.

ㅡThud! Thud!! Thud!!!

The sphinx once again stomped its giant forepaw down and shattered the floor, and the statues resonated in response.

"Hey, hey..! We're falling again..!!"

"Damn it!! Grab onto anything—!!!"

The ceiling had already been blown open, linking about five floors together. And even from there, mummy eagles and mummy dogs were raining down overhead.

ㅡKWAAAAAAANG!!!!!!!

"Wh-what was that just now..?"

A huge boom suddenly echoed out.

An unknown blue flash sliced past the giant sphinx's neck and left an afterimage in its wake.

ㅡThud!

Rattle-rattle-rattle....

When the sphinx's head fell off, the giant warrior statues all turned to stare blankly to one side.

And standing there was none other than...

"Minyumi..?"