The Archmage’s Destruction Strategy - Chapter 46

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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#046. Dungeon Entry (2)

Dungeon conquests in Japan are broadly divided into two types.

One is ‘clearing’ where large-scale conquest teams are deployed to understand the structure of entire floors and secure the safety of harvest sites scattered throughout.

The other is ‘conquest’ performed by small elite teams with the sole purpose of breaking through floors for artifact farming.

The Nagano Dungeon that Sung-jun challenged was a dungeon cleared up to the 4th floor, with conquest progressed up to the 9th floor.

“There’s a boss room every 10 floors, right? But why did they stop awkwardly at the 9th floor?”

Shirasaki Miyu, who had stopped in front of the boss room on the 10th floor, asked Sung-jun.

“According to information from the Guild Master, several parties attempted to conquer the 10th floor of Nagano Dungeon, but not a single party returned.”

“Is there no information about the boss room?”

“There doesn’t seem to be any. This is a ‘closed room.'”

“Closed room?”

There were broadly two types of areas where dungeon bosses appeared.

The type of boss room called a ‘closed room’ where the door closes the moment you enter the boss room and doesn’t open until the boss is defeated, requiring successful conquest on the first try without exception.

The other was ‘open room’ type boss rooms that appeared with large numbers of subordinates in open spaces like corridors or plazas.

Among these, closed room type boss rooms were famous for being difficult to conquer.

Unless it was a boss room that had already been cleared with conquest information passed down, there was no way to confirm information about the boss that would emerge inside.

“Among the parties that attempted conquest, there were quite strong parties composed of B-rank adventurers. The fact that everyone was annihilated by just a 10th floor boss means elements other than strength are needed to conquer this boss.”

“Elements other than strength…”

“Most likely poison that’s difficult to cover with antidotes.”

Sung-jun recalled the male adventurer who had immediately attempted to join their party upon seeing what appeared to be a support-type adventurer.

The appearance of the man who had desperately tried to join their party with an earnest expression as if he had discovered an incredibly precious treasure.

Sung-jun could easily find the answer to what might have caused such a situation.

“Do you remember the man we met at the Adventurer’s Guild? The man who desperately begged to join our party.”

“The man that Teacher sent away after casting mind magic on him?”

“Right. Actually, that man was the first to approach us, but thinking about what we saw inside the Adventurer’s Guild, other adventurers were also showing strong interest in us. Moreover…”

Sung-jun talked about the weapon shop they had stopped by to outfit the party’s equipment.

The equipment composition of the weapon shop that had a strangely high ratio of combat equipment with almost no equipment for support roles.

Then Seoa also chimed in, agreeing with Sung-jun’s opinion.

“Ah, right. Come to think of it, there was hardly any equipment we could use throughout that entire shop.”

“That means the adventurer parties commonly operating in Japan currently are running with abnormal party compositions.”

“What do you mean?”

“For example, parties like 3 warriors and 1 archer would be typical party compositions.”

Sung-jun told them about the seven Pioneers who had come to Earth.

Seven absolute powerhouses with transcendent abilities in their respective fields, including his teacher who was a mage.

They had cultivated Awakened suited to their own tendencies in the countries where they settled, just as Sung-jun’s teacher had raised Sung-jun as a mage.

“The alias of Pioneer Calostro who settled in France is ‘Stalker.’ Probably most French Awakened have abilities related to assassination, thievery, or espionage. Just like most Awakened from China’s Tianwu Guan are warriors, the Pioneer lineages likely resulted in highly skewed ratios of Awakened with specific characteristics by country.”

“Korean Awakened didn’t seem to have such a skewed feeling though?”

“That’s because Korea’s responsible Pioneer, my teacher, couldn’t use magic, so they developed Awakened forces through dispatch training to other countries. Excluding mages, the overall ratios would be distributed fairly evenly.”

“Not having Awakened training institutes might have actually worked as an advantage.”

“Not necessarily. While the overall balance might have improved, the overall quality of Awakened is much lower. In other words, if China extremely raised only high-level warriors in large numbers, Korea has low-level warriors, knights, archers, rogues, and healers balanced in combination.”

“Then Japan is…”

“Pandora’s Box is basically a magical artifact that extracts random artifacts from the Demon Lord’s Treasury and attaches them to the target’s soul. That means most abilities obtainable from it are items made by mages, and most artifacts made by mages aren’t for their own use but are mostly items made on commission.”

Seoa, hearing Sung-jun’s explanation, fell into thought for a moment.

What kind of commissions would mages receive in the other world where Minastrias, Sung-jun’s teacher and her grand-teacher, had lived?

Then, as if realizing something, she looked at Sung-jun and said.

“There would be a lot of war supplies!”

“Right. The world where Teacher lived was a world that had been fighting endless battles with Corrosion Entities for thousands of years. So most artifacts that Awakened in Japan receive now are likely magical weapons used by nobles from Teacher’s world. In a world with mages, there wouldn’t have been much demand for equipment with excellent utility performance.”

Finishing his words, Sung-jun immediately waved his hand to cast ‘Poison Resistance’ and ‘Curse Resistance’ spells on all party members.

Then he opened the tightly closed boss room door and said.

“Well, this is all just hypothesis anyway. We can find out for sure by going inside and checking, right?”

In Sung-jun’s eyes as he spoke, the characteristic confidence of a mage who could handle any situation that might occur inside without much concern was clearly evident.

***

As Sung-jun had predicted, the 10th floor boss of Nagano Dungeon that no one had been able to clear was a frog-shaped boss that spewed hemorrhagic poison mist from its entire body.

And seeing that appearance, Sung-jun immediately stepped back and said to his disciple Seoa.

“It’s not an enemy worth me stepping forward for. Try defeating it as practice.”

“Yes, Teacher.”

Hearing Sung-jun’s instruction, Seoa immediately began chanting spells and preparing to attack.

However, before she could complete her spell, the giant frog-shaped monster extended its long tongue, trying to interfere with her chanting.

“Just as magicians divert the audience’s attention elsewhere to hide their tricks, mages also need to divert the opponent’s attention to complete spells. Don’t try to finish with a big spell from the start, but calculate the casting time and try to understand the opponent’s attributes.”

“Yes!”

Seoa, who had canceled the spell she was about to cast, this time quickly cast a low-level spell that could be cast rapidly at the boss monster.

Judging that since it was a frog-shaped monster it was likely water-attributed, she cast an earth-attribute attack spell expected to deal effective damage to water attributes.

However, the earth-attribute attack spell Seoa cast slipped like it had touched lubricant the moment it touched the frog-like boss’s skin and bounced outward.

‘Then is it fire-attributed?’

Thinking the lubricant covering the monster’s skin might be a plastic liquid, Seoa this time used a fire-attribute attack spell to attack the monster.

But Seoa’s flames that touched the frog monster’s skin extinguished instantly like a candle dipped in water, dealing no damage whatsoever.

Then Sung-jun, who had been watching Seoa fight, asked Shirasaki Miyu.

“What do you think?”

“The opponent seems to be an enemy that reduces impact with elastic skin and is covered in slime that nullifies fire-attribute attacks. How should I put it, it’s like characteristics that deliberately twist the common sense RPG players have?”

“Then how would you handle it?”

“If it’s a monster made with such twisted intentions, conversely water-attribute spells should work well? That slime probably has water-soluble rather than plastic characteristics. I’d use large amounts of water to wash away the slime, then pierce the enemy with penetration-focused spells. Or summon large amounts of rocks to crush it from above.”

“That’s good too.”

“What would you do?”

“Shooting ultra-high pressure water to cut through would be effective. Even if there are other defensive measures, that method could neutralize most defensive measures.”

If strategically choosing appropriate spells to fight was Shirasaki Miyu’s style, Sung-jun preferred using a few powerful attack methods with versatility as his focus, even if it meant losing efficiency.

Like ‘Void Spear’ that simultaneously neutralizes ‘evasion,’ ‘defense,’ and ‘regeneration’ by launching ultra-heated projectiles at hypersonic speeds to break through the opponent’s defensive abilities while preventing wound regeneration, or ‘Hydro-Rock Burst’ that shoots extremely compressed high-pressure water streams mixed with stone powder created by rock-type spells.

Or ‘Thousand-Armed Demon Equipment,’ an integrated offense-defense casting support spell that simultaneously performs attack and defense by swinging high-circle defensive spells crafted into giant arm shapes like fists, while each summoned arm serves as a medium for spell casting.

Most spells Sung-jun created were spells that mixed multiple spell types to produce powerful effects.

Unfortunately, due to the Grimoire’s characteristic of only being able to cast a maximum of 2 spells simultaneously, those spells weren’t included among the spells Sung-jun had written for Shirasaki Miyu.

“But the spells you use aren’t very efficient at all. Using Hydro-Rock Burst, a 10th circle spell, just to catch something like that – isn’t that like using a butcher’s knife to catch a chicken?”

“A lion always does its best even when catching a rabbit.”

“That’s a line that would make rabbits feel wronged if they heard it.”

Actually, just because Sung-jun valued versatility didn’t mean he indiscriminately threw high-circle spells at all types of monsters.

He simply used spells powerful enough to easily ignore weaknesses only against enemies where finding weaknesses seemed bothersome.

For Sung-jun, the frog-type monster on the 10th floor of Nagano Dungeon was exactly that type.

At that moment, Seoa, who had been fighting the frog-type monster under Sung-jun’s command, finally defeated the monster and smiled brightly.

“I defeated it! Teacher!”

Hearing Seoa’s words, Sung-jun immediately examined the frog monster’s corpse.

To find out how his disciple had defeated such a troublesome opponent.

“She precisely targeted only the parts where the slime was dissolved with water-attribute spells using magic…”

“That’s a good method. It doesn’t really require high-circle spells either, though aiming would be somewhat difficult.”

If Miyu preferred using spells strategically and Sung-jun preferred using spells destructively, the method Seoa used was using spells in an extremely delicate manner.

Aiming projectiles at parts of a fast-moving enemy could still be considered difficult for Seoa’s level, having learned magic not long ago.

However, she was acquiring her own methods using only her innate ‘sense’ even without Sung-jun’s help.

‘It’s not a bad method. If the range of spells she can use expands, Seoa’s sense could be a great help in using spells.’

Contemplating future training methods for Seoa, Sung-jun put the entire frog-type monster’s corpse into subspace.

Then he spoke to the two people who were packing up to return to the guild.

“What are you doing now?”

“We defeated the boss. We should return and regroup for now. We need to report to the guild too.”

“No, let’s continue from here.”

Sung-jun said.

More than anything else, now when information about dungeons is overwhelmingly lacking, gathering information about dungeons, which could be called the enemy itself, should take priority above all else.

Moreover, in Sung-jun’s subspace, the support supplies that had been provided by the Chinese Government when leaving China still remained intact.

“I can procure drinking water and hot water with magic, and sleeping won’t be much of a problem if I set up barriers. Let’s continue exploring for now. To understand why the apocalypse-class Corrosion Entity that appeared in Japan created something called a ‘dungeon,’ and what it’s trying to accomplish through that dungeon, it seems we’ll need to clear as many deep floors as possible.”

“When you say as many as possible… how many floors are you planning to go?”

“Usually in situations like this, this expression would be appropriate.”

Sung-jun declared.

“Let’s clear it with one coin.”

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