The Hero Returns

* * *

Adel Castle took the initiative and led the others on the dungeon raids.

The location this time was a massive green-colored dungeon located in the slums.

The difficulty of this one was fairly high among all the dungeons left unraided not just in the San Francisco area but the whole of California.

Slice—, chop, splash—

Splat—!

Adel's sword sliced through the air a couple of times and tore a large toad-like monster about to pounce on him to shreds.

The bits of the monster's remains rained down on the ground. This monster was about mid-boss level, something fairly uncommon even within green-colored dungeons, yet it still couldn't stop Adel's advance.

"Hey, isn't he amazing?"

"As expected of Adel Castle. These are the skills of Europe's best!"

"Well, things might have gotten pretty interesting if the Ranking Wars continued on, don't you think so?"

Adel could hear murmurings coming from behind him.

They were doing their best to lower their voices as much as possible, but he could still hear them all. Adel's hearing had already exceeded the level most regular awakeners thought he had by now.

That's right. It's so obvious.

Adel thought a guffaw would explode from him any second now. He had to pay a particularly good level of attention to not show any hint of amusement on his face.

Everything was perfect—they looked at him with respect, and the current situation was good for him.

Things might get delayed in one or two places, but that can't be helped, I guess.

Right now, it looked as if he was taking the lead in cleaning up the mess that Gordon Rohan, as well as the Paragon Guild, had created.

Although it was not within his calculations that Su-hyeun would figure out this crisis so soon, there hadn't been any big deviation from what Adel had imagined things would turn out.

That's right. With the way things were going, it's basically done.

Nothing seemed too concerning at the moment.

However, when this crisis comes to an end, the Gordon Company that organized the Ranking Wars should suffer a major blow.

It was unfortunate that Adel wasn't the first one to shed light on the dungeon generation situation, but it was already enough to make him feel relieved of his pent-up stress.

That's why you shouldn't have shown off, you fools.

This wouldn't be the end either. There were still plenty of opportunities left to be exploited.

A hero? My foot.

Adel recalled Su-hyeun's face.

Even if you do right by the public one hundred times, they'll still turn on you with one mistake. I shall make you realize that from now on.

Spit—

The sole remaining toad-like monster spewed out green saliva out of its large maw.

Adel dodged the secreted saliva and dashed toward the toad monster. Right afterward, he swung his sword in a great arc to his side, slicing the monster in two halves.

Splash—!

Just as he finished cutting down the last monster…

Huh?

Adel reflexively swung his sword one more time.

Swoosh—

His automatic reaction was due to a figure covered in a robe that appeared behind the toad monster's sliced up halves.

Fwooosh—

Adel's sword simply cut through nothing but air.

Nothing stood in the spot that his sword sliced past. A robed figure was definitely standing there, yet "he" vanished in an instant even though Adel hadn't looked away once.

Maybe my eyes were playing tricks on me?

He stirred up his magical energy and pushed his senses to the max, but he still couldn't detect anything. He blinked a couple of times as he turned his head.

It was right at that moment that Adel's whole body froze up. "What the… hell is this?"

His raid companions following him from behind only a couple of seconds ago were nowhere to be seen.

The surroundings had fallen eerily silent. Adel gripped the sword in his hand even tighter.

"You're exactly the human I've been waiting for."

Shudder—

The deathly chill that Adel felt from that voice was similar to how countless blades would stab his whole body. He immediately leaped backward to create some distance between them.

He rose up a dozen or so meters in an instant and finally got to see a figure cloaked in a black robe.

In other words, he wasn't mistaken earlier.

Tap—

Adel landed back on the ground and remained alert against the figure. His eyes could see the robed being, yet he still couldn't sense its presence. This was the first time he felt something like this.

"What the hell are you?" he asked.

"I am a god."

That sure was an absurd reply.

"Claiming to be a god, huh? Then, you're just another insane bastard."

Rather obviously, Adel didn't view the robed being as someone with a sane mind. He simply thought that an awakener with mental issues had entered the dungeon without permission, that's all.

"I wonder about that…"

Upon saying that, the figure pulled the hood of its robe back.

"…!"

"It is not I who claim to be a god. No, the countless underlings serving me say that."

The face that was revealed was made purely of bones with not a single bit of flesh on it.

It was a Lich.

"What's this? You're merely a monster."

Adel took the Lich as yet another monster that commonly appeared in dungeons. Up until earlier, he had to deal with toad-like monsters but now, even a Lich? Something didn't really add up, but he didn't think it would be too complicated regardless.

And his thoughts weren't really off the mark.

"Humans of this world see the existences crossing over from other worlds as monsters. Well, that isn't wrong, strictly speaking. In that sense, I too am a monster."

"Busy yapping on and on…"

Adel had no desire to waste any more of his time, but just as he tried to swing his sword again…

What's going on? My body…

His body had frozen stiff.

In a mere green-colored dungeon? Me?!

"It seems that you took far too long to realize that something is wrong."

Step, step—

The Lich King walked over to Adel and his frozen body and placed its bony finger on top of the latter's head. "You have led us here. Your greed, your desire for vengeance, all of your vile emotions have succeeded in calling the monster that is I to this world. For that, I thank you."

The Lich King's finger resting on Adel's head then slid down to his face.

Hiss, sizzle—

Aaaaaaahk—!

"Which is why I shall bestow upon you a suitable reward."

The skin and flesh covering Adel's face began melting.

For some time, only his screams could be heard inside the dungeon.

Act 10

An emergency was declared throughout California.

Numerous dungeons had been left unraided, so outbreaks could be expected to occur any second.

Evacuations of the citizens commenced right away. The American Association, the Awakener Authority, and the Gordon Company all worked together to create safe zones and helped out with the evacuation efforts.

At least a few days were needed until all of the dungeons were completely raided.

"What a mess this is. A total mess."

Lee Ju-ho also participated in the dungeon raids, his first in a long while.

It really had been a while since he last dove head-on into a dungeon raid as a still-active awakener. For a considerable time, he ended up focusing more on the Association's, as well as the Paragon Guild's, administrative work.

However, things were different this time.

Every able hand was needed at the moment; hence, Lee Ju-ho joined the raid. He was an A-Rank awakener himself. It's just that he was often overshadowed by the incredible individuals surrounding him most of the time.

He possessed enough abilities to raid an orange-colored dungeon by himself, as well as a yellow-colored one with a proper raid party. On top of this, he was skilled enough to contribute greatly in the raid of a green-colored dungeon.

After safely ending his raid, Lee Ju-ho accessed the information Su-hyeun sent through his smartphone.

Dungeons yet to be raided were dispersed evenly throughout the rest of California. Thankfully, the raids themselves were proceeding along smoothly due to all the S-Ranks from various nations that had gathered for the tournament.

Lucky for us right now, not many dungeons went on to become full outbreaks just yet.

A handful of dungeons did go on to become full-on outbreaks after the time limit to raid them had lapsed. However, the responses came in quickly, and the ranks of the dungeons themselves weren't too high. Therefore, the overall cost was restricted to some minor destruction of property.

Almost half of the dungeons had already been raided.

All that's left for us to worry about is finding the source.

Lee Ju-ho held his smartphone again.

Just what could it be?

Something was off about this whole event.

It had already been revealed that this was not a mere accident. Someone deliberately planned for the outbreaks to match the timing of the Ranking Wars.

The culprit is an awakener with hallucination-inducing skills. Which made the situation really troublesome. Catching a bastard like that won't be easy…

The media had been already informed—this incident was not the result of a mistake on the Gordon Company's part nor from trying to forcibly absorb the unrealistic scheduling, but someone out there had deliberately caused it.

Of course, they didn't believe any of it. After all, it was common to see the culprit pretend to know nothing when a problem occurred and come up with all sorts of excuses afterward.

Until the real instigator was caught and brought before the public, both the Gordon Company and the Ranking Wars would encounter problems in the future.

Well, that's not going to pose too big of a problem, anyway.

Whatever the case might have been, it was still true that the source of this crisis had to be uncovered no matter what.

Ti-ring—

While he was contemplating that, Lee Ju-ho's smartphone received a text message. He checked the message and muttered to himself, puzzled, "Why is he sending me this?"

The text was from Adel Castle.

* * *

[It's too difficult for me to destroy this dungeon alone. If there's anyone free who can lend me any support, then as many of you as possible need to come. Except for me, everyone else has already been decimated.

But, when you arrive in the location, you must not enter until I give you the signal. It's that dangerous.]

That was how the text message read.

Over 30 people arrived at the slums after they received that message. Half of them were S-Rank awakeners who were participating in the Ranking Wars.

"Don't you think too many have shown up?"

"Looks to me everyone who's not doing a raid, as well as all of Adel's acquaintances, have gathered here. Look over there—even Daian Gedeck showed up."

"Well, the message did say as many as possible. Maybe the matter's not as simple as it looks."

"I can't figure out what's going on here, man."

The awakeners that gathered in the slums stared at the green-colored dungeon before them. Since they didn't know the situation inside, they chose not to haphazardly waltz in. However, at least from the outside, it looked like a regular green dungeon to them.

It was the kind of a dungeon that all of them had already experienced at least once before.

Lee Ju-ho went over after receiving that message, and now, he stood among the other awakeners to look at this dungeon's entrance. Just like them, he also felt a strange sense of discord at the moment.

What's different about this one?

Seeing how Adel Castle couldn't raid it, there must have been some kind of an issue with this dungeon, for sure. That guy wouldn't talk about his lack of power to summon other awakeners for no reason, after all. That analysis came about because he knew very well about the size of Adel's ego.

"What's going on here?"

"Ah, you're here too?"

Su-hyeun's hand lightly patted Lee Ju-ho's shoulder. His appearance in the slums drew the attention of the awakeners to him.

"Hey, even Kim Su-hyeun's here now."

"What the heck! Maybe there was no need for us to gather around after all?"

"I mean, he's someone who can solo raid an indigo dungeon, so…Looks like us being here won't even make a difference."

Su-hyeun's presence caused the tension that permeated in the air to disperse instantly. No matter how dangerous a dungeon was, they thought that raiding it wouldn't be a challenge with him around.

Lee Ju-ho looked around them and shrugged his shoulders. He also felt like a huge weight was lifted off his back with Su-hyeun's arrival.

"As you can see, quite a few people have shown up. But the atmosphere here is too strange, and we're just waiting to see what would happen next."

"Okay, I can see that, but what exactly is going on?"

Su-hyeun's question caused a puzzled expression to surface on Lee Ju-ho's face, and the latter quickly asked back, "Didn't you get the message?"

"I left my phone back at the Authority, you see. Did you message me earlier?"

"Not me, but Adel Castle should've sent you one."

"…Adel Castle?"

"Yeah, him. Here, take a look."

Su-hyeun furrowed his brows deeply, and as he read Adel Castle's text message, his expression changed to one that showed suspicion. However, he wasn't the type to distort his expression this much just because a guy he had bad blood with sent out text messages to other people.

"Did something happen? Also, how did you get here if you didn't get the message?" Lee Ju-ho asked.

"I was taking care of something else, you see. Since the stuff this side is more urgent, I was planning to deal with Adel Castle's matter later, but well, it looks like things have lined up pretty nicely."

"Just what happened?"

"Haven't you noticed that something is strange here?"

Just as Su-hyeun finished saying that, the dark alleyways of the slums began trembling ever so slightly.

He continued on, "This, here, is basically the inside of a dungeon already."

"What?!"

"What's this?!"

"Why are the streets suddenly…?"

The ground wasn't shaking. No, it simply looked like it was, and the majority of the awakeners instantly realized what the current phenomenon signified.

"A magic circle…?"

"Are we trapped in here?"

This phenomenon commonly occurred when a space-related magic circle was activated.

The entirety of the slums they arrived at after receiving Adel's text had been isolated and blocked off by a special magic circle.