I spotted a slightly smaller Vaernox resting near a jagged rock. This one would do. I turned toward Lord Hugo and gestured to the creature. "Your turn, my lord."
Surely, with all the training he'd received from Lady Sylvia and me over the past few weeks, he could handle this.
The agility of this lizard-like monster was slightly greater than Lord Hugo's own, which is precisely why we made sure to demonstrate how to handle irregular movement patterns.
If he realized he couldn't win on the ground, he would need to improve his aerial movement. Especially in the confined spaces of a dungeon, mastering air-based maneuvers gave a tremendous advantage.
Or at least that was the idea.
But Lord Hugo had other plans.
He didn't do any of the things we drilled into him. No strategic dodging into attack ranges, no usage of the terrain.
He just casually sidestepped the Vaernox's venom spray, drew his sword, and with one upward swing, he sliced the monster's tongue clean off.
I blinked. That tongue moved faster than most trained eyes could follow. Frankly, I wasn't sure even Lady Sylvia could have pulled off a clean strike like that.
The Vaernox recoiled and began running in a panic. And again, Lord Hugo didn't react the way any of us had prepared him to. He didn't chase.
Instead, he lifted his sword, channeling mana into it, boosting his strength stat through circulation.
"Oh no, he doesn't," Lady Sylvia muttered beside me. She must have realized what he intended.
If this failed, I was ready to end the creature myself. It would be a painful lesson for the young master.
Then he smiled.
No, not smiled. Smirked.
A real one. Not his usual sarcastic or smug expressions. I'd seen this look before.. he wears it when he genuinely appreciates something or someone.
...Was he appreciating the... lizard?
Then, to our horror and awe, Lord Hugo hurled his sword. At a moving target. An irregularly moving, direction-shifting, reflexively darting target.
And it hit.
Dead-on. The blade pierced the Vaernox's skull and pinned it to the stone wall behind it. The creature crashed to the ground with a wet thud, its head split in half vertically.
"Wha—?!" Lady Sylvia gasped.
I managed to keep my reaction internal.
Lord Hugo stood in silence for a moment, staring at the corpse. I noticed the fluctuations in his mana. Erratic. Disrupted.
After-battle shock? Maybe. He was still adjusting to the experience of killing monsters. That must be it.
Lady Sylvia turned to me, her voice quiet. "Is it alright to kill monsters like that?"
I hesitated, then answered honestly. "If it was all calculated and executed with intent... then I suppose it's fine. But if it was luck... That kind of recklessness won't go well in future encounters. He should rely on institutional techniques."
She nodded in agreement. "Right. No one can know exactly where to throw a sword to hit a target moving like that. Not without something more."
But even as I said it, a suspicion curled in my gut.
My mind replayed the moment he stopped my attack during our spar, an attack where I moved at 40% of my top agility.
He didn't try to track my blade. He simply knew where I would strike.
And now he had predicted the endpoint of a movement pattern with no consistent rhythm.
That, paired with his uncanny mana control.. greater than Lady Sylvia's, and she had a B-grade psychological-type innate skill...
With an E-rank Inspect? No. Something didn't add up.
I caught Lord Hugo glancing at me.
I said nothing about my suspicion. I would wait.
Lady Sylvia, however, was relentless. She fixated on going deeper into the dungeon again. As if that last stunt hadn't been enough.
I had to stop her.
She was underestimating the danger. She always had. Because she'd never gone far below. Not really. I had.
And it wasn't the monsters' strength that scared me.
It was their intelligence.
The deeper we go, the smarter they get. Some hunt in packs. Some stalk silently for hours. Others lure with traps, and a few even set up ambushes.
I've seen monsters bait even veterans. I've watched peers with on par or greater talent than Lady Sylvia die before my eyes.
Even under the supervision of stronger instructors than I could ever be.
Yes, that was much deeper down... but still.
I can't take chances.
.
Lunch was light, warm, and surprisingly satisfying for a meal eaten inside a dungeon.
Clara had somehow packed roasted root wraps laced with aromatic herbs, crisp grain cakes that melted in the mouth, dried berry rolls folded with nut cream, and warm broth sealed in flasks that retained the heat as if she had just boiled it moments ago.
Not that I was complaining, a full stomach made dodging venomous monsters slightly less miserable.
That said, there are lines even I won't cross.
Clara, in her ever-efficient seriousness, had picked a quiet spot on the Vaernox floor, right beside a giant, very much dead, lizard monster, and laid out a picnic sheet like she was inviting us to a weekend lunch on a garden lawn.
Sylvia and I didn't exchange words. No dramatic gasps. No horrified protests.
We simply looked at the corpse, then at each other, then back at Clara.
And in perfect unison, without a single word of protest, we each grabbed one corner of the cloth, folded it with all the grace of annoyed but determined nobles, picked up the food containers, and turned around.
Clara blinked at us, halfway through pulling the broth container from her satchel, utterly confused.
"My lord?"
"First floor," I said flatly, already walking. Sylvia followed, carrying the still-folded sheet. Clara sighed, packed up the lunch like a scolded schoolgirl, and trailed after us.
Eating lunch next to a monster corpse that had just bled out enough to drown a child? Yeah, no.
So, we had lunch on the first floor.
After that, the plan was simple: return to the Vaernox floor, practice a little more until evening, then head back to the mansion in one piece. Emphasis on one piece.
Earlier that morning, Clara had turned into a drill sergeant with a maid outfit, making me practice aerial maneuvers against hypothetical reptilian enemies.
Sylvia, too, had been encouraging me to rely more on air arts when dealing with ground-based threats. Apparently, high-ground advantage wasn't just a Star Wars meme here, it was a valid combat strategy.
I had yet to encounter any earthworm-type monsters, but something told me this dungeon was just waiting to traumatize me with that experience.
For now, I was content training on the Vaernox floor without running into subterranean nightmares.
Sylvia had, of course, tried to drag us deeper. Again.
And Clara had won the argument by pulling the dad card. "Lord Orion asked me to bring you back if you attempt to go further," she had said, her eyes sharp and her tone final.
Sylvia gave me the look, you know, the pleading kind. The 'help me convince Clara to let us flirt with death' kind.
I very politely looked away.
Sorry, Lady Sylvia. I have no desire to die again.
We took a short break, the dim dungeon lighting casting soft glows over our group. I turned to Sylvia, stretching my arms.
"Lady Sylvia, do you know anything about dungeon cores? Their mechanism, perhaps?"
I need to gather as much information as possible to gain a deeper understanding of those outlined spheres.
She looked thoughtful for a moment before replying.
"Not much. The instructors who trained me focused on combat techniques against various dungeon creatures. But what I did learn at the academy is that dungeon cores are theorized to lie at the lowest floor of any dungeon. Mana, being one of the manifestable forms of energy, is supposedly converted into matter by the core. From there, life is formed. Some of the successful creations even develop organs and intelligence."
"Theorized? no one has actually seen one?"
Sylvia shook her head. "No. Entering the final floor supposedly results in immediate disintegration. The time flow there is vastly different from the rest of the world. Some theories say that difference in time is what accelerates evolution within the dungeon. The core creates matter, and the flow of time helps it evolve quickly. The resulting creatures are then teleported to the appropriate floors."
Interesting.
So the last floor isn't just dangerous. It's like a god-tier incubation chamber. The dungeon core acts like a cosmic sculptor, tossing evolved beings out onto the floors like test subjects.
I was still turning that over in my head when Clara, now done packing the lunch gear, joined in.
"There is one recorded incident of someone seeing a dungeon core. Or rather, a myth."
Both Sylvia and I turned toward her.
"According to ancient texts received from the God of Light, Caelumis, the Time God—a divine being with control over temporal flow... He managed to retrieve a dungeon core from a dungeon in one of the higher realms."
"Wait, really?"
Clara nodded. "It was considered an impossible feat. The cores in higher realms are said to be much more advanced than the ones in lower planes like ours. But that was the only recorded instance across all known realms."
Ah, so all our current knowledge about dungeon cores comes from one time-traveling deity pulling a cosmic smash-and-grab? Sounds legit.
Next time I run into that four-faced glowing narrator guy, I should ask him if the story's real. Hopefully, I won't have to die to get there.
Clara stood, stretched like she hadn't just dropped a theological bombshell, and smiled politely.
"Well then, shall we head back to the dungeon, my lord?"
I stood as well, brushing nonexistent dust from my knees.
Ah yes, blood and sweat, I'm coming.
Sylvia, still buzzing with excitement, was already half a step ahead, practically glowing.
She smiled.
And none of us realized…
That smile was about to vanish, shattered by one very stupid, very careless decision.