Ordinary LV.2 monsters could no longer pose enough of a threat to Genichi now that his parameters had reached the hard cap of SSS1499, nor could they provide the "weight" of feat required to push him into his next level.
What he needed was the pinnacle of the LV.2 tier: elite monsters.
And among the known LV.2 elites in the Dungeon, the Infant Dragon was the most suitable target.
Killing a Infant Dragon was, without question, a heavy feat, the kind that would let any LV.1 adventurer level up with their head held high.
The problem was that Infant Dragons were rare elites. They didn't spawn on a fixed floor, and their movements were unpredictable. Finding one required either luck or precise intel.
Genichi chose depth.
With Lunoire in tow, he headed straight for the Middle Floors with clear intent.
Infant Dragons usually appeared between the Tenth and Fifteenth Floors.
After a stretch of searching, they reached the Twelfth Floor.
The terrain here was more complex, taking on the shape of a stalactite cavern. The light was dim and patchy.
The monsters were more diverse, and most of them hovered around the mid-range of LV.2.
Genichi was carefully scouting a wider cavern zone when an unusual sound traveled down the winding tunnels.
First came a few sharp, clipped screams, full of terror and despair.
Human adventurers.
Then a piercing dragon roar followed, high and young, yet carrying undeniable authority and ferocity.
The source was not far ahead, beyond the end of a forked passage.
Genichi paused for a beat, then resumed with steady calm.
He didn't rush in like a traditional hero, charging to the rescue. Instead, he slowed down, becoming even more concealed, like a patient hunter, silently closing in on the noise.
Lunoire moved at his side. She flicked her eyes over him and asked in a low voice, "You're not going to go save them?"
Her tone didn't sound like advice so much as plain curiosity.
Genichi turned his head and looked at her as if she'd asked something strange. His black eyes were flat and still.
"Why would I go save them?"
He paused, then asked back with the same matter-of-fact bluntness, "Do I look like some kind of saint?"
The sheer coldness of the question made Lunoire choke on whatever she'd been about to say. Her lips parted, then closed.
She knew Genichi wasn't a good Samaritan. A few days with him was enough to understand his indifference and his ruthless sense of purpose.
Still, being able to stand this close to other humans dying and choose to watch with that level of composure left her with a faint, unpleasant sense of wrongness.
Genichi didn't care about her silence. He kept advancing without a sound, speaking in a bland tone as if he were reciting a basic rule.
"Respect other people's fate. If you choose to enter the Dungeon and walk this blade's edge, you should already be prepared to die here."
"Not strong enough, bad luck, a wrong call. Whatever caused it, death is the result they chose and the price they pay. I don't have an obligation, and I don't have the interest, to buy the cost of a stranger's recklessness or weakness."
There was no warmth in his words, only the naked logic of the law of the jungle.
To him, the Dungeon was a vast hunting ground and a vast elimination ground. Everyone was a hunter, and everyone was potential prey.
Compassion was a luxury. Worse, it was a lethal weakness that could get you killed.
Even Lunoire, a bounty hunter who'd seen plenty of death and lived in gray zones, felt a chill crawl up her spine.
His disregard for life, his distance from others, went beyond ordinary "calm." It was almost inhuman.
Like a precision machine built to pursue a single core objective. Everything else, morality, emotion, even the instinctive empathy of the same species, was treated like redundant code that might interfere with the program. It had to be isolated or deleted.
They stopped talking.
Like two ghosts, they followed the sound and the blood-scent to the cavern entrance where the slaughter had occurred, then slipped into the shadows.
The scene was brutal.
Four or five adventurer corpses lay sprawled across the ground, gear shattered, deaths ugly. Some had been torn open by claws. Others were scorched black by flame. Blood painted the stone.
From the remaining insignias and the style of their equipment, it looked like a squad from a small or mid-tier noble house, probably trying their luck in the Middle Floors, and instead running into something they couldn't handle.
And at the center of the cavern stood the butcher, head lowered as it gnawed on a corpse.
A dragon.
But it wasn't the common Infant Dragon described in standard notes.
This one was covered head to tail in black scales, dark and deep as if they swallowed light itself.
It was a bit larger than a typical Infant Dragon, its musculature sleeker, more powerful, built for explosive violence.
Two small horns curved sharply from its head, glinting with metallic coldness.
Its tail didn't end in a simple fleshy club. Instead, a cluster of jagged, black-crystal bone spines had grown there.
Even the sparks that spilled from its mouth were an ominous dark red, warping the air around them.
A mutant.
Genichi's pupils tightened.
In the Dungeon's ecology, black often meant mutation.
Mutant monsters were usually stronger than ordinary individuals of their kind. They could carry special abilities, and some even pushed beyond their normal level bracket, becoming far more dangerous and unpredictable.
A normal Infant Dragon was already among the best of the LV.2 elites, strong enough to wipe careless parties.
But this black mutant Infant Dragon…
The oppressive aura it gave off, the denser draconic pressure, its size and the signs of abnormal growth…
It was likely brushing the edge of LV.3.
That was beyond Genichi's original expectation.
He'd wanted an elite strong enough to provide a feat for leveling up. What he'd found instead was a mutated, near-next-tier monster that could be several times more dangerous than his estimate.
The risk had jumped.
The black wyrmling seemed to sense new watchers. It lifted its head and stopped feeding. Its dark-gold slit pupils swept toward the shadows where Genichi and Lunoire hid. A warning growl rolled from its throat, thick with sulfur.
Lunoire saw it too. Her brown eyes sharpened instantly. Her body leaned forward by instinct, entering a maximum-alert stance.
She could feel that pressure clearly.
This was not what a normal LV.2 elite felt like.
The difficulty of this job had spiked several levels in one breath.
She looked at Genichi, the question plain on her face.
Do we keep going?
Genichi didn't answer right away.
His eyes stayed locked on the mutant Infant Dragon, cold and unblinking.
(End of Chapter)
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