Welcome to the Impregnable Demon King Castle

144 – The _____ Relationship Between You and I Part 2

Adventurers who decided to challenge the Impregnable Demon King Castle only to become Monsters that block off the way of future Adventurers is astounding.

Well, Kimaris was pretty depressed when ol’ Fenix came and almost destroyed all his Zombies though.

Since gaining the Avatar of the Frost Hero Bella in the tenth stratum battle, he has gotten quite a few new strong Avatars in his collection.

「However, that young boy truly is outstanding. He deserves a point for inviting Lem into his party, he certainly has a discerning eye.」

「…Wraith is a good study. I was surprised too.」

Wraith and Fran was the central duo of the second stratum.

However, they are only a party of two. Instead of charging out in front, they gave well-thought-out instructions to the first-rate parties.

They mainly relied on the Scathach party. Perhaps they having earned their trust in the previous battle, Scathach and company acted according to Wraith’s judgment.

The others also moved with those two as the lead.

Stretching out Theo’s threads towards their intended direction to check for the presence of traps.

The powered-up pitfalls…sadly could not show their efficacy.

They anticipated an enemy assault when they reached the intersection and limited where the enemy can come from to only one road by having Aerial and Ewan form an Air Wall at separate locations.

Each member of the Hervor party crushed the oncoming enemies.

He showed his leadership by making the most of each asset.

Even more surprising was…

「You are speaking of that, right? How he handled the Zombies was certainly eye-opening…」

Wraith himself participated in the battle.

Fran’s grotesque right arm was fearsome, just a graze is enough to blow that part away.

Their fight had a charm to it that prevented you from looking away.

For Fran, it was utter devastation.

A small frame with a massive right arm.

it’s probably the root cause of many problems in everyday life. But she was like a raging storm.

Everything that approached was blown away, destroyed, and had their Magical Energy particles scattered.

She was the very embodiment of her Destroyer Job. Such destruction.

In contrast, Wraith was truly elegant.

Knowing his opponents very well, he takes out the Zombies with perfect coordination.

I expected as much.

「I believe he checked up on them. The Clear videos of the parties who advanced to the Demon King Castle’s second stratum and had their allies turned into Zombies.」

Just counting who was defeated is no big deal.

But researching the previous Clears of the Zombified Adventurers in order to memorize their fighting style is a huge task.

Zombies are controlled by Kimaris but he has two ways of controlling them.

He can assume direct control, manipulating them perfectly.

Or he can semi-control them by giving them a simple order and let the Zombies carry out the order as they please.

If the body still has its brain intact, it can move with the same thinking speed as the original.

It’s for this reason that Kimaris can sit in the Floor Boss area and control the Zombies.

Most of them are semi-controlled, so there is merit in researching how the original Adventurers fight.

「…He’s like Lem.」

「Ahaha… I’m not the only Adventurer fanatic out there.」

There definitely aren’t many Adventurers who watch the Clear videos of their fellow Adventurers.

Most of them just check out the videos of the top-ranked parties, hot topic parties, and any promising newbies.

Just because you are a novelist doesn’t mean you read every genre of book, no matter the age rating or country of origin.

You have your own preferences and you also have your own manuscript to write.

Adventurers are the same.

You need a Terminal in order to view Clear videos, and it’s not something you can just carry around.

Inevitably, you can only use it when you’re in a town that has such a facility, but you normally have other businesses to attend to in the town.

After finishing your business, by the time you finish your meals and have a nice bath, it’s dark out. You’re tired and sleepy.

And once you’re popular, it becomes harder to check out your fellow Adventurers.

…Well, I had an unexpected amount of free time for a 4th rank party member, so whenever we weren’t Dungeon Clearing, I could focus on watching videos.

While the other four were busy taking interviews, appearing on TV, or shooting commercials.

「As a Lem fan, I meticulously collected your videos and researched you, but that did take a fair bit of time. If it’s something I enjoy, I’ll do it anyway, but if it is research for the sake of winning, it can’t be all fun.」

「If it’s him, he’ll do it.」

At any rate, his goal is the Unyielding Hero.

He’ll continue to march towards victory, never giving up.

Incidentally, the two people who were defeated were one member from the Hervor party and another member from the Aerial party.

That Hervor party member was too engrossed with her fight against a Zombie Adventurer and got hit by Leraje’s arrow and corroded.

There was a moment where Hervor destroyed an entire building in order to take down one person and she was buried in the rubble, but she just crawled out of the destroyed building and laughed it off.

Actually, despite the Hervor party being among the high-ranked parties, they often suffer casualties when Clearing Dungeons.

It’s due to their simple but powerful strategy of facing things head-on and figuring things out later.

「Hard to believe he’s only ten-years-old… Far from being fearsome in the future, he is already fearsome now.」

The fallen member of the Aerial party is the Gale Hero Ewan.

Ever since that matter of being shaken up by Gla-la in the first stratum, he has been able to keep his cool and contribute to the Clear.

However, when confronted with Bella’s Avatar, his movements became sluggish and he was stabbed in that moment of weakness, resulting in big damage and after some time, he was defeated from Magical Energy loss.

I wonder if he hesitated because he and Bella graduated in the same year from the School.

Like Bella, even those who are top-notch in terms of fighting ability can fall apart depending on their mental state.

Aerial is surprisingly hard on his students when it comes to letting them gain experience on the big stage of a Raid Battle.

…No, perhaps that’s because he has high hopes for Ewan.

Meanwhile, Wraith’s calmness stood out.

Kimaris was utterly defeated by the combined attack of the Wraith and Fran pair.

Having been childhood friends since they were babies, their breathing was in sync.

The shallow strata have many parties that reach them. The same goes for the number of videos.

And there’s a limit to how much the strength of the Floor Boss itself can be increased in this short period of time from this Raid Battle program.

Adding Wraith’s research and countermeasures on top of that, it’s as good as having no plan at all.

Heroes are extraordinary existences, but in addition to being a main Four Great Spirits contractor like Aerial and Fenix, he is a threat.

「But you’ll win, right?」

She nodded confidently.

「Yes…! I am where I am today because I met you. Just as how you dashed up the ranks to the 4th rank, I was specially chosen to become one of the Demon King Castle’s Big Four. Ever since that day, I have always watched you. This time…would you please watch me?」

「Yes, of course.」

The challengers have been reduced to fourteen people.

They have defeated two Floor Bosses but have chosen to reserve their right to revive.

They have decided to advance to the third stratum with their group of fourteen.

Who shall lead this time? The Aerial party? Or perhaps the Hervor party?

Either way, one of the top three parties will take a leading role and hunt Vampires.

On the other side are the outstanding Vampires under the Vampire Queen Carmilla who serves as a Big Four.

Their battle is almost at hand.