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Chapter 308: Lambton
In Orario, adventurers like Jura were not entirely uncommon.
Constantly hovering on the line between life and death, living each day as if it were their last, many adventurers inevitably developed psychological issues of varying degrees.
And among those, a "monster fetish" was undoubtedly the most despised and disgusting of them all.
While Jura was immersed in his twisted world and the werewolf youth wavered between fear and hope, a slender figure lurked silently in the shadows of a crystal cluster some fifty meters behind them.
Ryuu's emerald eyes were wide with disbelief as she stared at the man acting like a deranged lunatic in the distance.
She simply couldn't comprehend how someone so repulsive and twisted could exist in this world.
A wave of intense physiological revulsion surged through her, and for a split second, she had the urge to just turn around and leave.
As far as she was concerned, Jura's actions were no different from suicide.
She absolutely refused to believe that a monster like the Juggernaut—an entity condensed from the Dungeon's purest malice—could ever be "tamed."
It was pure fantasy.
So, even if she didn't lift a finger, this man named Jura would eventually get himself killed playing with fire.
However, the very instant that thought crossed her mind, a lethal sense of danger abruptly spiked from right beneath her feet.
Without a shred of hesitation, Ryuu's body reacted faster than her brain.
The muscles in her legs coiled tightly, and her toes kicked fiercely off the fracturing ground. Like an arrow shot from a taut bow, she launched herself backward and upward into the air.
CRACK—BOOM!
Almost at the exact moment she vacated the spot, the ground she had just been standing on violently erupted, sending dirt and shattered rock flying in all directions.
A massive snake head, covered entirely in deep blue scales, burst from the shattered earth and shot straight into the air.
The head was hideously grotesque. Its gaping maw alone was large enough to swallow an adult Minotaur whole in a single bite.
But the most eerie feature was the nine pulsating, gill-like holes lining the sides of its open mouth, and the six pairs of amber eyes gleaming ominously across its sharply angled snout.
"—!"
Ryuu was mid-air, yet her body extended with the grace of a forest bird.
Using the momentum, she twisted her waist, lightly pushing off the tip of a jutting crystal spike nearby. She executed an impossible mid-air flip.
Immediately after, her toes tapped against another crystal for leverage. With a few rapid flashes of movement, she landed silently on a higher, more concealed rock platform over ten meters away.
The entire sequence flowed like water, without a single wasted movement, perfectly demonstrating the origin of her alias, "Gale."
The massive commotion instantly shattered the uneasy peace within the cavern.
"What the hell is that?!"
The werewolf youth flinched violently. He spun around, instinctively drawing the dagger at his waist, staring in panic at the spot Ryuu had just occupied and the colossal beast that had breached the earth.
Jura, too, was jolted out of his sickly fantasies.
He turned his head slowly, his twisted face clouded with dark displeasure at being interrupted.
But when his eyes caught the slender figure draped in a green cloak landing on the high ground, his expression froze.
Even though she wore a hood, even though a mask covered the lower half of her face, and even though her hair color was different from what he remembered… that physique, that aura, and those eyes that remained chillingly calm even in the face of despair…
Jura's body gave an uncontrollable shudder, an involuntary reflex born from the dominating terror he had experienced on a certain rainy night years ago.
But a second later, that fear was swiftly swallowed by an even more intense, twisted exhilaration.
"Hahahahahaha!"
He let out a laugh even louder and more manic than before. "I was wondering what foolish little rat was tailing us. So it's you. It's you, Gale."
His voice echoed through the cavern, brimming with a fateful, twisted ecstasy.
"This is… fantastic. This is just too perfect. For you to show up here… it's a blessing from fate!"
Ryuu ignored his raving. Her face darkened as she locked her eyes onto the massive serpentine monster, squeezing its name out from between her teeth.
"…Lambton."
I was careless, she cursed inwardly.
Lambton was just the nickname adventurers gave this monster. Its official species name was the Wormwell.
It was a powerful monster native to the 37th Floor of the Dungeon, possessing the terrifying ability to tunnel through solid earth.
The reason adventurers feared it wasn't just because its latent potential rivaled that of a Level 4 adventurer, but because of its rule-breaking, almost cheating behavioral trait.
The Wormwell could bore vertical tunnels between the bedrock of different floors like a massive drill, moving freely between the upper and lower levels.
For the normal ecology of the Dungeon, a monster from the deep floors appearing in the upper floors was an absolute "Irregularity"—an omen of disaster. But for the Wormwell, it wasn't an anomaly; it was merely its natural habit.
Ryuu's gaze fell to the underside of the Lambton's hideous head. There, flashing with an ominous red light, was a blatantly man-made collar.
A tamed… Lambton…
Ryuu's heart sank heavily.
She finally realized her mistake.
She had assumed Jura was just a normal tamer relying on conventional stealth and scouting methods, which was why she had been so confident her own stealth techniques wouldn't be detected.
But she never imagined that Jura was actually controlling a Lambton capable of tunneling through the earth.
This meant that from the very beginning, while she thought she was flawlessly tailing Jura, his "pet" had been tracking her every move from deep underground.
She was an arrogant fool who had blindly walked straight into the hunter's carefully laid trap.
The massive Lambton rolled its six pairs of amber eyes, locking twelve icy glares simultaneously onto Ryuu's elevated position.
The tip of its sharp head lowered slightly, its massive forked tongue flicking in and out with a loud hiss. A corrosive, foul-smelling breath vented from its nine eerie holes.
"Didn't see that coming, did you, Gale?"
Jura's voice dripped with mockery and smug triumph. "Did you think you hid well? Did you think I didn't know you were back there? In front of my little cutie, all stealth is meaningless."
As he spoke, he reached out, gently stroking the Lambton's cold, hard scales as if caressing a lover.
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