Dark Fantasy Guide for the Summoner - Chapter 52

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 52.
Abandoned Cemetery II
, recommended level 30 to 45.
As the name suggests, it’s a map where undead-type monsters primarily spawn, and it’s particularly notorious for its high difficulty among the early forest zones.
Kazen glanced around and spoke.
“It’s rather desolate for what I expected.”
“I don’t sense any undead presence at all, come to think of it.”
I surveyed the barren wasteland—a desiccated terrain—and felt the bleak atmosphere seep into my skin before I spoke.
“We’re still at the entrance. Push deeper and they’ll come pouring out. It’s night, after all.”
“What does night have to do with it?”
“The undead move primarily at night rather than during the day.”
“I see. So that’s why we reversed the cycle so forcefully.”
I nodded in agreement.
“Our goal is hunting. It’s only natural to align ourselves with our prey’s rhythm.”
“Ha. Rhythm, you say? That’s a rather amusing term to use for the undead.”
I couldn’t tell what he found so funny about it.
His comedic sensibilities were incomprehensible to me.
“Though it doesn’t appear this place truly distinguishes between night and day.”
He was right.
The desolate, desiccated gray earth—the where mist drifted like spirits wasn’t dark at night, nor did it brighten during the day.
Night and day.
Within that twilight realm between them, it maintained its eerie atmosphere, scattering pale dawn mist.
“It does feel rather… chilling, somehow.”
Seigrina rubbed her forearms.
“It’s not a late-winter temperature. You’re not just feeling the cold from the atmosphere alone.”
“No?”
“Look. Your breath is starting to show.”
“Hah… Wow, it really is. How is this even possible?”
And here I thought she had convent training.
“Undead inherently carry cold with them. When those corpses are buried en masse, a chill settles into the very ground.”
“I should have dressed warmer.”
“It’s not that severe. Don’t whine about it.”
Besides, such preparations would eventually wear on us anyway.
The in the mid-forest region, for instance, costs millions of Seed just to prepare cold-weather countermeasures. It’s inevitable—snow whips through year-round.
But that’s not what I need to think about now.
“From here on, stay alert. If we’re unlucky, we could face higher-tier undead. Fair warning: they’re stronger than those red Woodmen we saw before.”
“R-Really?”
“Absolutely.”
Their levels might be comparable or slightly lower, but they’re still Woodman Avenger event mobs—there’s an inherent gap between them and elite, named creatures.
“Beyond that, we might encounter undead with poor matchups against us.”
Perhaps because undead are such a topic of interest, Kria—who’d become a necromancer—asked with curious interest.
“For instance?”
“Spectral types, or ones where physical attacks don’t work at all. They won’t pose a major threat to our party, though.”
“And why is that?”
I let my gaze settle silently on the back of the blond man leading at the front.
How many words had this one spoken in the past four days? One thing was certain: I could count them on both hands.
“Ah.”
Seigrina understood at last and fell silent.
‘The White Knight Lorang.’
His class is knight, but to be more precise—Holy Knight. For reference, when I recruited him into the party, his status window revealed….
Name: Lorang Lefebvre
Level: 59
Class: Holy Knight
Trust Level with Target: 15
Stress: 31
Stats
Strength: 54

Dexterity: 38
Endurance: 101

Magic Power: 25
Talent
Body: ▓▓

Mind: ▓▓
Art: ▓▓

Intuition: ▓▓
Skills
, , , ,
Traits
, , , ,
▶ Overall Stats have significantly declined due to prolonged fasting, continuous stress exposure, and mental deterioration.
His Level is high, his Stats exceptional.
There’s hidden information, but unlike the others, it doesn’t matter much.
He’s such a famous NPC that I’ve memorized his starting Talent Stats and Traits.
‘Of course, an NPC’s abilities do fluctuate depending on circumstances and timeline.’
Only Skills, Level, and Stats are subject to random variance, so there’s no real need to worry.
In short, I have most of Lorang Lefebvre figured out.
The only drawback is that I can’t fully utilize his capabilities on this expedition.
‘Is it because he’s been locked in the Punishment Chamber since the last exploration?’
Lorang is currently in a state of severe physical and mental deterioration, requiring rehabilitation.
Naturally, all his Stats have dropped to about half or less.
But that’s not really a serious problem.
Even in that condition, he’s unmistakably our party’s ace.
“Have you ever been to a cemetery before?”
I broached the topic casually, and Lorang answered without so much as glancing back.
“No.”
“That’s surprising. The monsters here are the type you’d be good at handling.”
“It’s already dead land.”
“What do you mean by that?”
…….
A quiet sigh.
He wasn’t making any effort to hide that he didn’t want to talk.
“What do you mean by that.”
Curiosity is curiosity, though.
Pressing the matter a second time, Lorang finally responded.
“Materials are difficult to find in a place like this. There’s no real need to come here and explore directly. A Delver’s purpose isn’t hunting, is it?”
“Fair enough. You could’ve just said that from the start.”
Then he fell silent again.
At the same moment, a certain conviction crystallized in my mind. This man is deliberately keeping our party at a distance.
‘Guilt?’
……No, probably not. There might be some other agenda at play.
It’s unsettling, but with a Trust Level below twenty, pressing him would only sour the mood.
“……Is that really true?”
Seigrina cut in.
So she’d been listening to our entire conversation while pretending not to.
“True about what?”
“About materials being difficult to find.”
“It’s not wrong.”
“Can you really afford to be so calm? If we don’t fill the Exploration Meter, we can’t even use the return spell.”
“It’s not that we can’t get anything at all. There’s a method, so don’t worry.”
After saying that, I looked around at the group and explained.
“Let me give you a brief rundown of this place. The Abandoned Cemetery divides into three major zones.”
Those three zones are the Outer Zone, the Burial Ground, and the Royal Tomb, respectively.
Of course, the difficulty climbs steadily, and so do the rewards—but to advance through each zone, you need special items.
For instance, to enter the Burial Ground from the Outer Zone, you need a key, and the key drops from Outer Zone Undead at a certain probability.
That probability is……
“Five hundred monsters……?”
About 0.2%.
Simple math: kill five hundred and one should eventually drop.
I spoke while watching the faces of those who looked like they were thinking, ‘Here we go again.’
“That’s being conservative, anyway. It could come faster, so don’t worry too much.”
Of course, the opposite happens too.
‘I’ve killed a thousand without seeing it drop.’
I had some sense, so I decided not to state that fact outright and dampen their spirits.
At that moment, Lorang suddenly stopped in his tracks and gave a quiet warning.
“Enemy.”
The party formed up immediately.
Lorang and Seigrina took the front, I stood one pace behind them, and Kazen and Kria held the rear.
A simple formation, but effective.
Clang……
Soon the sound of metal scraping came from beyond the mist, and a cluster of skeletal figures clad in tattered armor emerged.
[Lv.35 ‘Skeleton Knight’]
[Lv.35 ‘Skeleton Mage’]
[Lv.35 ‘Skeleton Archer’]
These things, of all encounters?
A pack of skeletons—at a glance, a dozen or more.
‘Why this probability?’
They’re common enough in the Burial Ground, but they shouldn’t be in the Outer Zone.
“Be careful. They don’t die easily.”
“How do I kill them?”
“Smash the skull.”
“Got it.”
A thin thread of tension wound through the air.
This was the first time the five of us moved in sync, so it was natural.
In the meantime, I noticed that Seigrina was withdrawing into herself.
The way she kept glancing sideways at Lorang standing beside her.
“Seigrina.”
“What.”
“Don’t waste your worry. I’m watching everything.”
“……I wasn’t worried.”
She might as well be chewing glass while she lies.
Still, as Seigrina released some of her tension with a sigh, Lorang moved first.
Leading with his great shield, he charged forward and collided with the nearest Skeleton Knight.
Boom!
The moment the shield struck, a roar erupted from Lorang’s mouth.
Immediately after, every skeletal gaze in the vicinity snapped toward him.
[Ally ‘Lorang’ casts .]
Taunt.
A broad provocation in the truest sense.
As a tank’s virtue, someone with Lorang’s attributes could indeed draw the attention of most enemies in the vicinity.
‘I was out here swinging a whip I don’t even have, forcing aggro.’
As a slight smile crossed my lips, Kria’s voice rose from the back.
[Ally ‘Kria’ casts .]
Spectral hands tore from the ground and seized the Undead even as a chain of lightning poured from the tip of Kazen’s staff.
[Ally ‘Kazen’ casts .]
The binding effect of Hand of the Dead and the paralysis from Chain Lightning created synergy.
Even the muscle-less bodies of the dead could be halted, if only for a moment.
“Seigrina!”
Now it was the dealer’s turn.
I rushed forward, gripping the new sickle I’d bought through Side Master Carmellin—roughly three hundred thousand Seeds—in my hand.
A beat later, Seigrina followed.
“You handle the Knights!”
The Skeleton Knight, for all its pretense of knighthood, wore a helmet as if it had the right.
At my current strength, I could cut through them, but the efficiency wouldn’t be ideal.
The moment I saw Seigrina nod, I finished off the defenseless archers and mages.
Slash!
After swiftly severing the necks of three creatures, I spotted a ghostly flame flickering to life in the eyes of the distant Skeleton Mage.
[The ‘Skeleton Mage’ is casting Death’s Embrace.]
[All debuffs on the enemy are dispelled.]
The rigid corpses, as if freshly oiled, began moving smoothly again.
Faster than I’d anticipated, but in that window, Lorang killed one and Seigrina took down two more.
‘We’ve cleared about a third, I’d say?’
Not a bad result for our first coordinated effort, but…
The real fight is just beginning.
* * *
“Haah…”
Moments later, I exhaled heavily, my breath hot and ragged.
My body was flushed from the violent exertion.
Scattered bones rolled haphazardly across the ground around us.
“Kazen. How long did that take?”
“Approximately thirty minutes.”
Thirty minutes. Sixteen kills.
Looking at the experience, I could estimate the hunting ground’s efficiency.
‘For a first attempt, this is… no, well. Hmm.’
Still feels slow.
Speed is definitely the issue.
‘New location, new enemies, even a new skill acquired—’
An adjustment period is inevitable for now.
I’ll need to patrol the Outer Zone and keep working on combat synchronization for a while longer.
The odds of encountering high-tier Undead in the Outer Zone are almost nonexistent.
In exchange, there’s barely anything worth harvesting except shards, but honestly, there are almost no hunting grounds that meet all three requirements: difficulty, experience, and rewards.
“Let’s rest a moment, then we move again.”
“Understood.”
“Wait—Kaindel?”
“What?”
Kria’s voice was tinged with excitement.
“Is this the key you mentioned?”
“…Let me see that.”
I examined the key Kria handed me.
Lukbara Common Cemetery Key
A key usable at the main gate of the cemetery. Entering the cemetery by any other means is not recommended.
…It drops already?
“Oh! So we can head straight into the Burial Ground now?”
“Wow…”
“Ha! That’s fortunate!”
The party’s mood brightened considerably, but mine remained uneasy.
‘…Why do I feel off about this?’
If asked for a reason, I can’t really point to one.
But from experience, it’s always been this way.
Good fortune is always followed by something wretched crashing down—that’s what I’d learned from a game called Popop.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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