The Villainous Me Turned the Losers into Blackened Bosses-Chapter 188 - An Unexpected Visitor

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“Almighty Goddess, please grant us the gentle waters to heal the burning pain…”

There were many spells to treat burns, perhaps because fire-element monsters were quite common in dungeons.

But…

“Tch, can’t this spell be more effective? What kind of useless goddess came up with such a slow and barely effective spell?”

The burns from the witch’s ancient magic seemed to circle back to the initial problem Will encountered.

The goddess’s healing magic alone wasn’t enough to fully heal the wounds. Even slight movements of her arm caused tearing pain in the injuries.

“Forget it, let’s see if any of the monsters from Moonlit Ice Extreme dropped something useful on the way back.”

Realizing the healing wasn’t sufficient, Shuna flexed her wrist, adjusting to the pain, though it made her wince.

Then she looked at Will, lying on the chair, draped in a simple witch’s robe, like a sleeping beauty waiting for a prince to wake him.

“Let me take you back.”

—As for the witch, by the time she wakes up, they should be long gone. She’d leave it to the clever Will to figure out how to deal with her later.

But…

As Shuna took steps toward Will, she noticed something was off.

Why?

Was her own mental state also faltering?

The ground seemed to be shaking, more violently than when she was drunk.

Her condition shouldn’t be this bad.

Bang—

It wasn’t until a chunk of ice fell from the dungeon “ceiling” that Shuna realized something was wrong.

Wait… wait?

As an unchanging battleground, the dungeon suddenly began to shake violently.

“Huh?!”

Shuna, with her extensive adventuring experience, had never encountered an “earthquake” in a dungeon…

Let alone seeing the ceiling start to collapse, with massive chunks of ice falling.

“Tch… what’s happening…”

Shuna started running.

Her mind raced with analysis.

The dungeon was collapsing. Excluding the possibility that this area created by the witch was being dismantled by Kolodai—Kolodai didn’t seem like a ruthless dungeon ruler.

That left only one reason, though Shuna had no concrete evidence—it was just a guess.

The dungeon had been… “conquered.”

Usually, when a dungeon was conquered, it took a long time, at least half a day, and by then, everyone would have evacuated. No one had ever seen what happened inside a dungeon after it was conquered.

But it was very likely… from the inside, a conquered dungeon would collapse.

However…

The biggest question with this theory was…

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Who conquered it?

Shuna remembered that after she left, no adventuring team had entered from the 51st floor—entering from the 51st floor required a key, and not many teams had one.

She and Leah had gone from talking to fighting in less than half an hour.

How could anyone have fought from start to finish in half an hour and killed Kolodai? And not just defeated, but even waited for the dungeon to collapse.

Unless.

Shuna glanced back.

By Leah’s feet was the table she had used in the fight, with a pile of tools she had prepared.

Since entering, Shuna had felt the flow of time in this room was strange. Leah seemed to have accomplished far more than one hour’s worth of tasks in that time.

One of the tools was… a small hourglass. It stood upright, with sand still flowing.

Hmm?!

If that’s the case…

This wasn’t good.

Shuna quickly moved, with hail-like ice chunks already scattered on the ground around her.

“Will! Little~Will~. Will! Wake! Up! Don’t sleep, the situation is very bad.”

“Ugh… my body feels… so weak… especially around the waist…”

He opened his eyes, struggling to sit up in the chair.

“Hmm, no wonder you’re weak.”

Shuna glanced disdainfully at the “indecent” fluids on Leah’s chair, though now wasn’t the time to dwell on it.

“Ugh… so, Shuna, you won? But this is the first time I’ve seen you so injured. Let me heal you…”

He raised his hand, thinking of a healing spell, but the pain made him wince before he could speak.

“Ugh…”

Shuna pressed down his half-raised hand.

“Good, you’re awake. It’s okay, we can heal the wounds later.”

“Leah, she—”

“She’s behind us, unconscious. I knocked her out.”

Following Shuna’s gesture, Will saw the “Ancient Flame Staff: Prototype” he had brought, now in Leah’s hand.

“She still…”

Seeing Leah with the weapon made Will oddly happy.

Despite everything, he had never been “angry” at Leah for binding him here.

Though much had happened, he had finally handed the weapon to her.

Will stood up from the chair, trying to walk, but…

!?

Pain.

More intense than the pain from casting a healing spell.

It wasn’t pain from a physical “organ,” but from the “magical circuits” that no one fully understood.

It wasn’t a sensation traveling from a nerve along the spine to the brain.

It felt like the magical circuits were directly stimulating his soul with pain.

Was the witch’s blood causing irreversible rejection?

Normally, if the blood types didn’t match, he would have died twice over in four or five hours.

No problem…

Stand up…

Standing up would make it better…

Will gritted his teeth. He didn’t know what Shuna meant by “the situation is very bad,” but he trusted her judgment. If she said it was bad, it must be urgent.

He needed to follow her out of here.

!?

Just one step, and his legs gave out.

Then…

He felt his body supported by a warm shoulder.

The clothes on this shoulder seemed burnt, though he couldn’t see, he felt the worn fabric.

“If you can’t walk, I’ll carry you out. Hang in there.”

Shuna used her uninjured hand to wrap the witch’s robe around Will, then hoisted him onto her shoulder.

“Thank you.”

Will took a deep breath.

Leaning on Shuna’s shoulder, he let his consciousness drift.

“……”

Listening to Will’s breathing, Shuna felt for the first time how unreliable he could be.

“I’ll find a way to get him out. Since the dungeon is conquered, the exit should appear. The exit should be here by now, right?”

She looked at her twisted ankle and burned arm…

“You said it yourself, a competent logistics person should consider all possible scenarios. Do everything to get everyone… safely out of the dungeon.”

“So…”

Shuna looked up at the unconscious Leah.

The falling ice chunks were still small, only lightly scattering around her, not injuring her.

“She… is also a teammate.”

“She’s also a member of your ‘Morning Star.’”

“Ahaha, the fight was intense.”

“But it’s okay, we fought and got to know each other.”

“Though I’m really upset about her sneaking around. But I got to beat her up, so we’re even.”

Shuna, carrying Will, walked step by step toward Leah.

How strange.

Will seemed so frail, needing protection.

Yet now, he felt so heavy on her back, making the short distance feel like an eternity.

Especially with the ground still shaking…

Making her wonder if her balance was off.

“Huff… huff… almost there… Will, hang in there.”

“Whether it’s you, or you… no, our teammate, I’ll get you both out of here.”

Shuna reached out, just a little more…

Just a little more!

Then, she stepped on a fallen ice chunk, her foot slipping, not comically falling, but her knee hitting the ground.

“Ugh…”

She was fine, but she heard Will’s knee hit the ground too.

She didn’t mind getting hurt, but she couldn’t let Will get injured.

“It’s okay, still time, get up first.”

Shuna braced herself to stand, looking up to see a pair of slender hands, like those of a twelve-year-old child, in front of her.

“Huh?!”

Seeing no reaction, the hands grabbed her wrist, pulling her up.

Though Leah felt a surge of “strength enhancement magic” pass through her hands.

“I say, you’ve been burned by the witch’s ancient fire magic, you shouldn’t be moving so much. Don’t you know that excessive movement in a short time will exponentially drain your magical circuits? Young people these days, so lacking in common sense.”

Shuna was stunned.

Who else would be in this dungeon?

Following the clean sleeve of what looked like a mage’s uniform…

Shuna saw a witch, wearing a large hat similar to Leah’s.

She had already lifted the unconscious Leah… with such force, her whole body seemed to be burning with strength enhancement magic.

Then, her red witch’s eyes turned to Shuna.

And…

The Will on her back.