Chapter 296: S-Rank Dungeon (2)

The siege engine collapsed inward and shot away like a crushed can kicked down a slope. It bounced and tumbled, shearing through its own escort. A dozen monsters caught in its careening path were flattened to pulp, limbs folding the wrong way as the wreckage rolled over them and left them twitching. No one understood what had just happened. Both demons and humans could only stare in stunned silence.

Ketal lifted his head and let his gaze sweep the battlefield. His eyes moved once, left to right, then settled.

“Three,” he said under his breath.

There were three demons. He moved before any of them could make sense of the instant between the ram’s ruin and the shock of silence. He crossed open ground as if stepping from one stone to the next in a shallow stream and stopped in front of the closest demon.

The Holy Sword’s hilt smashed forward. The demon’s skull caved with a sound like wet timber snapping. Its body rocked and sagged to its knees, then tipped.

“Wait!” another demon barked, finally realizing something had gone wrong.

That was as far as it got. Ketal turned his wrist. The broken hilt reversed in his grip; the jagged shard of blade that remained flashed out in a flat, clean line and took the demon at the neck. Its head thumped and rolled. The body stood a heartbeat longer, then folded.

“You little...!” the last demon snarled.

It had the sense to raise its hands and start the first motion of a ward, but the motion never finished. The snapped blade punched through its breastbone and out between the shoulder blades. The demon shuddered.

“You filthy—”

The light left its eyes, and it dropped as if someone had cut its strings.

Three demons, each strong enough on its own to erase a small nation, fell in the space between two breaths. They were not merely killed—their forms unraveled, and the world summoned them back to where they had come from. Ketal had banished them with force that brooked no argument.

He turned to the monsters that still gaped at the sight, too slow to run. His shoulders shifted once. Bodies burst and sailed. Spines twisted as claws and fangs lost the thread of movement and fear took their place. Those who came to themselves late bolted. Lines of beasts broke and fled down the slope, cries climbing higher as they tripped over one another in their panic.

Humans watched with their mouths open.

“What... what...”

“This cannot be...”

They looked from the crumpled ram to the demons’ vanishing bodies to the man who had done these things, but the mind sometimes balks when reality refuses to keep to the rules it knows.

The Guildmaster was the first to move.

“Charge!” he shouted, the command cutting through the fog. “Help that man and cut the monsters down!”

People stirred. The shout took root in the chest and turned to motion. Mercenaries and mages surged forward, and without their demonic pivots, the monsters had no spine left to steady them. They collapsed in knots and were hacked apart.

“We did it!” someone yelled.

Cheers rose up raw and loud. Men who had hung seconds ago on the edge of despair found their legs again and stamped the ground and howled. The miracle had taken them by the collar and dragged them back into the realm of the living. Naturally, their eyes swung to the one who had made that miracle happen.

The Guildmaster ran at Ketal with his face lit bright.

“Ketal! Welcome,” he cried. “I told you that as a mercenary, you would be welcome in our hall if you ever came, but I never dreamed you would come this soon, and at a time like this. Thank you. Truly, thank you.”

He pitched his voice to carry. Men over by the shattered gun emplacements turned their heads when they heard the name. The line stiffened.

“Hold on.”

“That’s Ketal?”

Enough of them knew the name to make the reaction visible.

“Is this real? He is actually a mercenary?”

“I thought the Guildmaster was puffing the story.”

The mutters were not quiet. Ketal’s mouth curved, his amusement open.

“They’re quite blunt,” he said.

The Guildmaster startled, then laughed and bowed his head. “I apologize.”

“It is fine,” Ketal said. “I

am

a mercenary.”

“Thank you for understanding. This way, please.”

He ushered Ketal into the headquarters and not into any stray office either. They took him to the best reception room the guild possessed, the one used for princes, for kings, and for those Heroes who did not belong to any court. The Guildmaster took the chair opposite and bent at the waist in a deep, formal bow.

“Once more,” he said, “thank you. If you had not come, we would all be buried under a fallen mountain.”

“I saw it from a distance,” Ketal said. “It looked bad, so I came straight here.”

“It is not good,” the Guildmaster admitted, a wry line cutting his face.

In the East, the Mercenary Guild’s headquarters stood shoulder to shoulder with the Mage Tower. Mercenaries and mages were fighting together to blunt the demons’ advance. In raw quality, their defensive forces were worse than those elsewhere. That was why their situation had been the worst for months. In the two months since the invasion began, they had nearly lost everything more than once. Somehow, they had survived each time.

The Guildmaster had been the reason. The headquarters received information fast; the Guildmaster pushed that information out even faster. He set mercenaries at the right places, at the right times, and balanced a teetering board on a single pillar. It was a miracle done with sweat and ugly choices.

It was also exactly why the demons struck here, now. He had made himself a thorn; they had decided to pull it.

Ketal listened to the summary and nodded. “You are working hard.”

“I have not slept,” the Guildmaster said dryly, and the truth sat under the tone. The bruised hollows under his eyes all but reached his cheekbones.

“Where is the Tower Master?” Ketal asked him.

“At the front,” the Guildmaster said. “Holding the worst lines. Without that one man, the East would already be ashes.”

The Tower Master was not ordinary. Among the Heroes living on the Mortal Realm, he stood in the small circle at the very top. Whole fronts had buckled, then steadied, because he was there to brace them.

“I understand,” Ketal said.

𝗳𝗿𝐞𝕖𝘄𝗲𝕓𝗻𝚘𝚟𝕖𝐥.𝚌𝕠𝕞

The Eastern front wobbled and shook, but it stood. The Guildmaster, careful even now to mind the respect he owed a man like Ketal, broached the obvious question.

“Where have you been, if I may ask?”

“In the North,” Ketal said.

“Of course,” the Guildmaster said. A Barbarian would go to the North. He had expected as much.

“Did it go well there? What is the state of things?” he asked Ketal.

“There are no demons left in the North,” Ketal said. “Once they settle their internal matters, they will come to help the world.”

The Guildmaster’s eyes went wide. “You mean... You repelled the demons?”

Ketal made a small sound that could be read as assent.

It was not strictly precise. The Ugly Rat had done the final sweeping clean-up by drawing all the pollution back to itself, which had erased the lesser fiends. On the other hand, Ketal had chased the rat back Inside and kept it from ever stepping Outside again. He chose not to split the truth in front of a man who needed the headline more than the footnote.

“There are no demons left in the North,” he said.

“Praise the gods,” the Guildmaster breathed, then clenched his fist and grinned. The news hit him like a draft of strong drink.

The barbarians were illiterate more often than not. They were blunt, impatient, and impossible to manage in numbers. Yet they held the North. They did so because their strength justified it. If they came out to help, even with all the obvious frictions, the balance would tilt. For the continent, this was the best news in weeks.

“Their king has worked himself ragged,” Ketal added.

“And none of it would have been possible without you,” the Guildmaster said, the grin not fading. “As expected of Ketal. You have already cleared the North. Remarkable.”

“Thank you,” Ketal said.

The exchange of necessary facts and polite thanks had run its course. The Guildmaster set his elbows on his knees and leaned forward, eyes bright.

“Then you came to aid the East, yes?”

With Ketal at their side, lines would straighten like backs at a commander’s inspection. The shift would be immediate and visible. The Guildmaster’s hope colored his tone.

“I will,” Ketal said. “But first I have something to do.”

“Something to do?” the Guildmaster repeated.

“Yes. You are the Guildmaster. You know Dungeons.”

“No one knows them better than I do,” he said at once.

“Good,” Ketal said. A small light came into his eyes. “A question. The higher a Dungeon’s rank, the better its rewards, correct?”

“Correct,” the Guildmaster said. “Sometimes treasure. Sometimes a catalyst.”

“What sort of reward would an S-Rank Dungeon give?”

“We do not know,” the Guildmaster said honestly, rubbing his jaw. “No S-Rank Dungeon has ever been cleared. But it will not be ordinary. For that difficulty, I would expect something on the order of a Dragon Heart, or a thing to match it.”

Even the highest-level Transcendents could not clear S-Rank Dungeons. They were built for Heroes. The reward would have to fit.

“I thought so,” Ketal said, and the line of his mouth turned up.

The Guildmaster saw the direction of his thought.

“You mean to challenge one?” he asked him.

“I do,” Ketal said. “Is there an S-Rank Dungeon near enough to reach quickly? Guide me to the closest.”

***

The enemy was strong. Creatures like the Ugly Rat from the White Snowfield could force their way Outside. Demons at the level of the Four Pillars existed and moved upon the world. Their true bodies, when they chose to act with them, would not be simple opponents for Ketal as he was now. He could face them, but he could not yet say he would win cleanly, every time, without giving the outcome to a coin.

He needed to grow stronger. To do that, he had to bring Myst up to the threshold of Transcendents. He lacked a single drop to spill over. He needed a catalyst to bridge the lip of the cup. The water had already climbed and trembled; it would not pour for anything less than excellent. A Dragon Heart, or anything of equal power, would suffice.

An S-Rank Dungeon was the most likely place to find such a thing. That was why Ketal had come to the Mercenary Guild.

“I understand,” the Guildmaster said, thinking quickly and letting the shift from emergency to opportunity snap into place. “As Guildmaster, I grant you entry to an S-Rank Dungeon. Who else would we entrust it to?”

It was good for him as well. An S-Rank was a realm of calamity. If Ketal cleared one, the Mercenary Guild’s name would rise with his. He had no reason to say no.

“There is an S-Rank Dungeon nearby,” he added at once. “Less than an hour from here. I will take you myself.”

“Good,” Ketal said, pleased. “What kind of dungeon is it?”

“The Monster Nest,” the Guildmaster answered.

***

Ketal had heard of Monster Neset before.

“It’s the Dungeon the Mercenary King attempted, then failed and returned from, right?” Ketal said.

“That is the one,” the Guildmaster said. “Many have tried. Only the Mercenary King brought back anything that counted as progress. Shall I brief you?”

“Please,” Ketal said. “I would be grateful.”

The Guildmaster summarized what they knew.

“I will guide you,” he said, standing up. “Follow me.”

Mercenaries glanced up and exchanged looks as the Guildmaster himself led Ketal out of the headquarters. More than one face asked what their boss thought he was doing, leaving at a time like this.

Ketal noticed and spoke mildly. “If you tell me the location, I can go alone. You have enough to do here.”

“It is fine,” the Guildmaster said, waving a hand. “My secretary will manage. Do not worry.”

He did not bother to hide his priorities. If he could tie even the thinnest cord between the Mercenary Guild and Ketal, he would. The Guild would be stronger for it. And, as he had said, he had staff to manage the next hours of defense.

They left the mountain and crossed broken ground into a stand of forest left mostly untouched by the fighting. The trees closed overhead, light dapped, and then the earth yawned. They stopped at the lip of a hole punched straight down into the world.

“This is the entrance to the Monster Nest,” the Guildmaster said.

At a glance, it looked like nothing. It was just a strange, round hole in the ground. Someone who did not know better might mark it as a sink or the first mouth of a cave. A proper look revealed how wrong that would be to do.

Monster noise climbed up from the dark. If one leaned in and squinted, one could not see the bottom. It was deep enough to swallow sound and light in uneven gulps.

Ketal’s interest showed like a line of sunlight in his eyes. “How does one enter?”

“You jump,” the Guildmaster said. “It is deep, but the first descent is protected. There is a force that keeps challengers from breaking on the ground.”

“And to return?” Ketal asked him.

“You send a signal,” the Guildmaster said. “We lower a rope. We used to leave ropes in place, but monsters learned to climb them.”

“I see,” Ketal said. “Then I will be back.”

“I will wait here,” the Guildmaster said. “If anything happens, shout. I will lower the rope at once.”

“There is no need,” Ketal said.

He did not wait for another word. He put his weight forward and dropped. An S-Rank Dungeon was rated so high that only Heroes were ever expected to clear it. Air clenched around him and hissed past his ears as he fell. From below, monsters howled.

They were welcoming the intruder. They were promising to kill him. The killing intent in their voices would have made a weak man’s knees give out. It pressed, like heat against the face when a furnace door swings open too fast.

This is going to be fun

, Ketal thought.

Dungeons were the blossom of fantasy. Acquiring strength was well and good, but they were not what quickened his pulse or sharpened his grin. The North had not been bad, but it had not been good either. The Ugly Rat had soured it. He had not been able to enjoy the shape of the story purely for its own sake.

His first purpose had not changed since he had stepped Outside. It was to savor the fantasy in front of him. He had never once lost sight of that.

Let us enjoy this,

he thought.

He fell toward the dark with an easy heart and a bright, anticipatory smile.