When I came back to the guild house after finally freeing myself from Loretta, Hwaya looked unusually happy.

“Hwaya?” I asked.

She exclaimed, “Shin! Listen, I became a Dimensional Mercenary!”

I immediately checked and saw that she had become a First Dungeon Gold rank explorer. Right before I had climbed up to the 65th floor, I had heard that she was near the end of the 79th floor. Before I noticed, she had become a Platinum rank in the Second Dungeon and had advanced to the First Dungeon.

If she became a Dimensional Mercenary, it meant she had obtained the magic she previously lacked, Dimensional Travel. In other words, she had defeated the 50th Floor Master Wendigo alone. Of course, it wasn’t surprising as Hwaya should have been the ice-wielding Wendigo’s natural enemy. In fact, it might have been killed the moment the fight began.

In any case, Hwaya shouted energetically after reporting to me, “Let’s go take on a Dimensional Mercenary mission! With just us two~!”

I immediately refused, “My Dimensional Travel still has over a month long cooldown.”

“Can’t you do something about that with your skill points and will?” she wheedled.

I shook my head. “Nope.”

“Tsk.”

She clicked her tongue. Then, she suddenly tilted her head as she stared at me.

“Shin, did you change somehow?”

I smiled vaguely. “Oh, I just obtained a new skill. A pretty good one.”

She raised her chin. “Mm, I think you’re not telling me all the details, you look more than just a little stronger…Hmph, I’ll surpass you when I obtain a god’s true name. Got it?”

Hwaya really was sensitive to mana. Seeing Hwaya clenching her fists, I replied with a smile, “Yeah, I hope you do.”

She grumbled, “Ugh, you’re so annoying…Whatever, join me for a drink. You won’t refuse this too, right?”

“That doesn’t have a cooldown time,” I quipped.

Apparently, I wouldn’t be able to enter the dungeon again today. I followed Hwaya as she led me forward excitedly, and smiled bitterly. Well, I could just rest today and work harder tomorrow!

The next day, around noon, I messaged Lebuik, “How was it?”

[…H-H-How what?] she stuttered.

I continued mercilessly, “Judging from your reaction, it looks like Ren took my advice.”

I didn’t want to think about this, but perhaps Ren really was an idiot. No, perhaps he was Ren because he was an idiot!

With a smirk, I interrogated Lebuik, “What happened?”

She sputtered, [H-H-How can I tell anyone that! Not…Not that anything happened.]

“…Eh?” Not believing my ears, I asked again, “Nothing happened?”

She replied sheepishly, [Y-Yeah. We just slept in each other’s arms.]

“…You want me to believe that?” I asked suspiciously.

She wailed, [What else was I supposed to do!? I was already frozen from nervousness! In fact, I deserve praise for being able to be with Ren-nim for that long without fainting!]

“Ah…” I chuckled.

Can a grown-up woman and man just sleep together in bed without doing anything? Well, I guess if they were tired… No, even so…

I clicked my tongue. “Just when I gave you the perfect opportunity…”

She responded somewhat dejectedly, [On another note, I’m more worried that Ren-nim slept so peacefully…He must not see me as a woman…]

I rolled my eyes. “Geez, that doesn’t matter. You should just...”

Lebuik interrupted [Can I tell the other girls what you just said?]

I shut my mouth and then pleaded, “No, please save me. I’m trying to help you here! Also, I’m different from Ren!”

[Hmph, that’s what you get for speaking as if it’s easy. But still, thanks…]

“Ehew, good luck.”

Not knowing what to say, I closed that line of conversation. Regardless of what actually happened, she should have gotten closer to Ren after this. I predicted that Ren would start visiting Lebuik’s bedroom more often. Then, one day…

Although I would need to wait longer until I could eat banquet noodles[ref]noodles eaten at a wedding[.ref], the current situation wasn’t so bad. With that thought, I went back to the dungeon.

The 66th floor surprisingly had bats once again. I could usually easily predict what monsters I would face. Though I couldn’t confirm my suspicion as the 66th floor only had bats, I knew someone who could tell me the answer.

Loretta confirmed it, “Yep, you’re right. It’s the incubus.”

“I knew it!” I shouted.

After reaching the 66th Floor Shop in just an hour and a half, I could get an answer from Loretta. Filling up 10 floors with just bats and Mares, isn’t that being too cheap? Ahem, I mean, it’s true that just sending out succubi is unfair.

She explained patiently, “Resistance against charming is very important. It’s something both male and female explorers need to possess.”

I sighed. “That’s true. I’ve been seeing the charm stat in a new light recently, but still… incubi…”

“Uhuhuhu, you want to know what happens to female explorers charmed by incubi?” Loretta asked devilishly.

“No!”

I blocked my ears, and Loretta smiled cutely and replied, “They only get their life force and mana drained to death. For the record, it’s the same for male explorers who get charmed by succubi. Shin-nim just never got to experience it. The dungeon is a place to help explorers grow, not a place to toy with their hearts and bodies. Are you perhaps disappointed?”

I rolled my eyes. “My friends are climbing the First Dungeon too. My sister and daugh…Ina included!”

“Oh? Hohoho, aren’t you glad I let you know before you started worrying profusely?”

Loretta smiled awkwardly and looked away. Though I gave her a glare, it was true that I had considered joining the girls if needed. Relieved, I left for Beyond.

Beyond’s 16th floor had the Dullahans…Right, Dullahans, plural.

One shouted arrogantly, [Human, fight me one on one with honor!]

[Are you a knight? Fight me!]

With over a hundred so-called knights asking for ‘fair’ fights, I gave up on fighting fairly immediately. I already had a plan in mind since I knew I would face Dullahans. Resolved to stay on the 16th floor for a long time, I initiated my plan – setting things on fire.

“Haaaaaaaa!”

After enveloping my Chaotic Spear with a whirlpool of chaos flames, I shot it forward. Of course, once wasn’t enough. With everything that happened, I now had over 110,000 mana. I swept through the entire floor by increasing my mana to create chaos flames.

[Gah!]

[These flames!]

[Outburst!]

Hit by the chaos flames, the Dullahans panicked. They didn’t even think to charge through the wall of flames as they tried to attack me with their skills.

However, the rock shards created by Outburst became tiny fragments as they burned up when they passed through the chaos flame wall. By the time they hit me, they were no different than ant bites.

“Wait, what’s that?” I exclaimed as my eyes widened.

[Kuaaaaaa!]

A strange scene entered my eyes, and I shook. The floor’s special property! I’d forgotten to consider the 16th floor’s special property! On the 15th floor, monsters split when they hit the walls, and even the Dragon Zombie’s bone spears multiplied and shot out. The 16th floor, on the other hand, fused everything that hit it. For example, the rock shards that fell to the ground after hitting me returned to the floor and restored the hollowed walls.

The reason I used the term ‘fuse’ instead of ‘absorb’ was because even the chaos flames I shot out fused with the floor. The entire floor became hotter and was dyed in a more reddish-black color. If every magic and technique I used transformed the floor’s environment, it was possible for me to be hurt by my own attacks.

That said, I was thankful that I found out about this now rather than when I used a different attack. Chaos flames burned indefinitely, but they could never hurt me, their creator.

[Kuaaak! Painful!]

[Extinguish this flame! If you’re a knight, fight me fair and square!]

I smirked. “You shouldn’t say that when there’s over a hundred of you!”

Even though I didn’t do anything, the floor affected by chaos flames caused the Dullahans to writhe in pain until they died.

Apparently, they had realized that the chaos flames would disappear if I died as they changed their tactics and began to charge at me. However, I had no fear for the Dullahans without Outburst. I simply fought them using Lightning Spear Storm along with Heroic Strikes infused chaos flames to finish them off.

[He’s strong! Attack with Outburst!]

[But if we do, the walls will fuse again…!]

[Knights don’t fear death! Knights only fear cowardly defeats!]

It seemed the walls’ fusion property didn’t activate randomly. In the first place, everything was designed to give the monsters an advantage. The fusion only took place when the Dullahans used Outburst. I understood that through their conversation. When I saw the thousands of rock shards caused by the Dullahans that didn’t fear death, I did not hesitate to create especially large chaos flames.

[Kuaaaak!]

[Coward!]

[I might die here, but I didn’t lose!]

To be honest, it was stupid.

Regardless, because chaos flames spread across the whole floor, I broke through Beyond’s 16th floor by simply running for 5 hours, all the while thinking that this might be a new record.

After leaving Beyond, I drank the Fatigue Recovery Juice that was worth 10 gold as I always did and headed to the guild house. Surprisingly, Yua was there as well.

“Yua, shouldn’t you be at school?” I asked.

She gave me a look. “Oppa, it’s 9 P.M.”

“Eh?”

I checked the clock, and it really was 9. With how much time I’ve been spending in the dungeon, I must have lost my sense of time. With a bitter smile, I patted Yua who approached me.

“My bad.”

She asked, “Weren’t you going into Beyond? What happened?”

“Mm, well, I got lucky, so I finished it quickly,” I explained.

“Oppa really is amazing…” she gushed.

Nice! I naturally raised Yua’s respect for me!

She then said, “Oppa, I became Gold rank today.”

“Already!?” My mouth gaped open.

She had defeated the Wendigo!? Of course, Yua must have grown stronger, but the Wendigo’s freezing energy shouldn’t have been so easy to deal with… In shock, I examined Yua from head to toe. Yua then said with a hint of embarrassment, “I’m fine, Oppa. I’m not hurt.”

“Really?” I asked, not sure whether to believe her.

She explained, “The Floor Shop owner treated me kindly and sold me equipment to deal with the freezing energy at a cheap price. Our guild is really amazing.”

“Uh, yeah,” I replied weakly.

Loretta must have done something in the background…Since I didn’t want to ruin Yua’s good mood, I chose to stay silent.

However, I soon noticed Yua staring at me intently, almost as if she wanted to ask something of me, but was hesitating.

She finally got the courage. “Um…Oppa.”

I looked her in the eye. “If there’s anything you want, tell me. For you, I can even pluck the moon.”

I was truly confident in being able to do so. It would be difficult to pluck both moons, but Earth’s original moon should be possible if I used all my power…! However, Yua laughed and shook her head.

“I’m happy with just looking at the moon. We don’t have anywhere to put it anyways.”

“Right.” I smiled.

She glanced at me before continuing, “Instead…You see, I want to tame monsters other than mantises. I know I can get stronger than way… If you are busy, it’s fine, but when you have time… can you go with me to monster territories on Earth, Oppa?”

I replied without a shred of hesitation, “Actually, I’ve been planning on taking care of a few monster territories. How about a week later?”

“Really? I love you, Oppa!” she shrieked happily.

Just like that, the reclaiming of the Philippines began.