A direct strike to the brain.
With its brain scrambled, the three-meter-tall giant didn't even manage to let out its final scream before it got stuck in its throat. The violent momentum behind its charge instantly turned into uncontrolled inertia, and its massive body crashed to the ground like a collapsing mountain of flesh, sending dust flying everywhere.
A moment later, the Orc turned into black ash.
At the same time, as Mary flicked the blood from her rapier,
"Roar!"
A rock just behind her right flank suddenly exploded apart.
A slightly smaller Orc burst out from behind it.
Its thick arm swung up a spiked club as thick as a thigh, and with the advantage of a sneak attack, it brought the weapon smashing down toward the back of Mary's unguarded head with a vicious howl of wind.
If that strike landed, forget a skull, even an iron melon would have been pulped.
"Mary!"
Rin had only just turned her head when she saw the scene, and her pupils shrank sharply.
Fortunately, in the very next second, the entire scene froze.
Slash!
The Orc remained locked in midair, still holding the club high in its attack posture. The savage grin of imminent success was still plastered across its face.
Then, without warning, an extremely fine line of blood appeared across its thick neck, a neck so sturdy that ordinary blades would have struggled to cut into it.
Shhk!
Blood burst out like a fountain.
Then that enormous pig head slipped cleanly from its neck.
It hit the ground and rolled twice.
Only then did the headless body seem to realize it was already dead.
Poof.
It dissolved into a cloud of thick black ash and scattered with the wind.
"Tsukuyo?!"
Rin had thought Tsukuyo was the one who moved.
Instead,
"It was little Satori who did it~"
"You'll have to be more careful next time~"
Standing behind the drifting black ash was Satori.
She was smiling with her eyes curved sweetly, looking completely harmless.
If not for the blood at her feet that had yet to dry, she would really have looked like nothing more than a cute girl next door.
…
Seeing that scene, Tsubaki, who was standing atop a rock and overseeing the entire battlefield, felt the corner of her mouth twitch slightly.
She lowered her head and glanced at her pocket watch.
"The twelfth floor…"
"How long has it even been?"
Three hours?
Four?
For a normal rookie party, even one led by experienced Level 2 or Level 3 adventurers, pushing from the first floor all the way to the twelfth would take at least two or three days.
After all, the Dungeon was not some garden for a leisurely stroll. With each floor, they had to adapt to a new environment, new monsters, and steadily increasing psychological pressure.
But this group…
They were practically on a picnic.
And not even a relaxed one, but the kind where they were in a hurry.
At the beginning, they had all been fighting for kills separately.
Later, as the number and strength of the monsters rose, Tsubaki had thought that might finally slow them down for a while.
Who would have guessed that they would naturally develop an eerie but highly efficient sense of teamwork all on their own?
Amou was responsible for charging head-on and drawing the enemy's fire.
Rin and Warabi, along with the black bear called Kyoubou, handled the flanks and cleaned up the lesser monsters.
Mary took care of precise executions, picking off stragglers or high-threat targets.
Satori drifted along the edges of the battlefield like a ghost, specifically dealing with the enemies that liked to launch sneak attacks.
As for Tsukuyo,
This blind girl was like the anchor holding the entire formation steady.
She rarely drew her blade, but as long as her hand rested on the hilt, the rhythm of the entire team became terrifyingly stable.
"This doesn't look anything like a rookie adventuring party…"
Watching the girls below, who were even now discussing who had killed more monsters just moments ago, Tsubaki couldn't help sighing.
"It's more like a pack of monsters that were just released back into the wild."
"At this rate, it won't be long before they turn even the middle floors upside down."
…
At the same time, up on the surface,
Orario.
North Main Street, high-end commercial district.
The place was lined with luxury stores, their display windows filled with rare goods from all over the world. Even the air seemed to carry the scent of money.
Inside a high-class furniture store called Heart of Oak, however, the air felt almost frozen solid.
The silence was so complete that the only sound was the ticking of the wall clock.
The owner, a plump old man already past fifty, was standing behind the counter, wiping the sweat from his forehead over and over with a handkerchief.
And he really was sweating.
From the corner of his eye, he nervously stole glances at the figure standing in front of the counter.
A full set of regulation armor.
Metal gauntlets on both hands.
That always stern and beautiful face.
Those blue eyes.
Captain of the Ganesha Familia.
Elephant God's Staff, Shakti Varma.
If the monsters inside the Dungeon feared adventurers' blades the most, then in Orario's commercial district, what merchants feared most was without question this captain of the military police suddenly appearing in their store.
After all, Shakti rarely went shopping.
Whenever she appeared in full gear inside a shop, there were usually only two possibilities.
Either the shop was suspected of smuggling contraband.
Or it was suspected of hiding a wanted criminal.
No matter which it was, the result was the same.
Seizure.
"Gulp."
The shop owner swallowed hard. His legs were already starting to tremble as he desperately racked his brain, trying to remember whether there had been any problem with his recent supply channels, or whether one of his dim-witted employees had accepted something they absolutely should not have taken.
"Um… Captain Shakti…"
The owner forced out a smile that looked uglier than crying and hurried over, rubbing his hands together.
"May I ask… what official business brings you here today?"
"If this is a routine inspection, we will definitely cooperate! Fully cooperate!"
"The account books are all still here, you can inspect them however you like!"
As he spoke, he was already about to reach for the ledgers.
"There's no need."
Shakti's cold, hard voice rang out.
The owner's heart immediately skipped a beat.
It was over.
She wasn't even looking at the ledgers, did that mean they already had hard evidence and had come to arrest someone?!
But in the very next moment, Shakti stepped slightly aside and revealed Haimer standing behind her.
"I'm only accompanying this lord here today to purchase some daily necessities."
"To purchase… daily necessities?"
The owner froze.
He blinked his tiny eyes twice, looked at the stern-faced Shakti, then looked at the relaxed Haimer standing there with a spear in hand.
His brain stopped working for three whole seconds.
The captain of the military police… accompanying someone to buy furniture?
What kind of combination was that?
A secret inspection?
Or entrapment?
…
No matter which it was, the owner understood one thing.
This god's identity was definitely not an ordinary one.
To have the military police captain following behind him like a bodyguard, just how deep was this man's background and authority?
"Ah! So that's how it is! So that's how it is!"
The owner snapped back to himself instantly, and the smile on his face at once became much more genuine.
"May I ask what this lord is looking for?"
"Our shop is one of the finest furniture stores in all of Orario. Whether you want elegant elven-style woven furniture, dwarven-style stone carvings, or even, well… Amazon-style…"
"Something simple is fine."
Haimer cut off the owner's enthusiastic sales pitch and glanced around at the dazzling selection of expensive goods in the shop.
"I want something sturdy and durable."
"Something that can take a beating would be best."
After all, thinking about the terrifyingly destructive members of his Familia, especially Amou, who could probably dismantle a suit of armor with her bare hands, ordinary furniture likely wouldn't survive more than three days.
"And I need a lot of it."
"Enough to furnish seven or eight rooms, roughly."
"No problem! No problem!"
The owner nodded repeatedly.
"Then as for the price, "
"Price is not an issue."
Before Haimer could even speak, Shakti had already answered first.
Expressionless, she pulled out a checkbook stamped with the crest of the Ganesha Familia from the pouch at her waist.
"Put it all on the Ganesha Familia's account."
"Or I can settle the payment in full right now."
"?!!"
The moment he heard that, the shop owner's pupils shook again.
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
Read Advanced Chapters
p(a)treon.com/Shalltearr
Drop some POWERSTONES to push the story forward!