Chapter: 324
Arthur chuckled as he looked at the corridor he would first encounter upon entering the final exam dungeon.
What on earth was I doing inside that dungeon?
How could I have blanked out so completely that I didn’t notice any of those clues?
Ignoring the gazes around him, Arthur brushed his face and recalled one by one the various clues that Lucy had just pointed out.
A perfectly intact ceiling.
Windows that showed nothing outside.
A blurry portrait and the ridiculous year written below it.
A broken clock.
Besides these, there were countless clues Lucy had highlighted that were clearly detailed in the Dungeon Studies textbook.
At the end discussing gimmicks. Under the phrase “exceptional cases.” When entering a high-difficulty dungeon. It noted how to distinguish whether this place was real or not.
Having memorized the entire content of the Dungeon Studies textbook, Arthur grabbed his bangs as if to pull them out.
I was being played by the dungeon boss.
I mistook the illusion created using existing rooms as a new dungeon.
It wasn’t really that; it was just the path we had already taken.
Thinking back, it makes sense.
All the things we faced while strategizing the dungeon from the 0th Floor were merely repeats of the trials we had already overcome!
We thought at that time that the previous strategies would help us, but they didn’t!
Of course, it felt similar since we were trying to tackle something we had already cleared once before!
The more he thought about it, the more Arthur reflected on how foolish he had been and suddenly remembered what he told Lucy yesterday.
How he had confidently claimed that it was a hard dungeon he had tackled brilliantly.
“Gah!”
What was Lucy Allen thinking while watching him brag?
How pathetic must she have thought of a fool who couldn’t spot a single thing he designed.
No wonder the gaze coming to meet us after finishing the strategy felt odd!
It wasn’t just sadness about losing a bet, but simply finding us pathetic!
With a sigh, Arthur’s face turned crimson.
I dread to think about what Lucy Allen will say when I face her again.
Given that he had already messed up several things, the need to keep silent even while knowing was terrifying.
While Arthur pondered whether to swap the bet reward for this situation, Lucy Allen stepped onto the staircase leading down.
“I’m tired of explaining that you fools are just idiots, okay?♡ So just enjoy and feel how much of a waste you all were♡ Shoddy trash♡”
As soon as she finished speaking, Lucy Allen fell silent, stepping down the stairs.
The first sight that met her was the training grounds.
Numerous soldiers were wielding their weapons in front of those taking the exam.
Lucy leisurely observed the scene, briefly glancing at a boy lying flat on the stone floor and the girl nagging him before she left the training ground.
The next location was a cave. At the end of the space dominated by a giant wolf stood a party.
In the center stood a man resembling the boy who had just collapsed, awkwardly smiling at those around him while glaring at a wolf of ordinary size with fearful eyes.
Lucy shrugged off the scene, just as before, and moved on to the next place.
The following sight was a plain.
That place was filled not only with golems resembling demons, but also real corpses of demons along with a few bodies presumed to have fallen victim to those demons.
And in the middle stood a man who had survived alone.
Covered in blood, the man merely stared vacantly at the void, making no other movements.
Lucy, observing him with an expressionless gaze, slowly moved her feet towards the fourth room.
She arrived at a corridor.
Not the first corridor, but one that had transformed into a ruin past the 4th Floor.
Intent on filling the corridor with the sound of her footsteps, Lucy headed towards the end.
“Welcome.”
There was no grand opponent guarding the dungeon’s end.
Leaning against the closed door, the weak voice of the “Paein” was not that of the monster that had led Arthur’s party to countless deaths; he was just an ordinary man who had lost the strength to survive through the years.
The creator beyond the stage was such a pitiful existence.
“I had prepared the stage with care, yet to have it all ignored is truly sad.”
The Paein finally moved away from the door and drew a sword from his waist.
“But since you’ve made it this far, it’s only right that I greet you as the host of the stage.”
Instead of the horrifying red aura Arthur’s party had encountered, only a faint gray aura lingered.
“Please come.”
At that moment, Lucy finally drew her weapon.
In her right hand, she held the white mace that represented her symbol; in her left, the white shield that seemed to encapsulate the light of the sun.
As she filled the room with her divine power while keeping her mouth closed, those who knew her true nature couldn’t help but exclaim in admiration.
The moment the duel between Lucy Allen and the Paein began, everyone present in the examination hall could only be certain of Lucy Allen’s victory.
*
When designing the Academy Dungeon, I focused on two main aspects.
One was that all students of the Academy must be able to strategize through the dungeon.
While a student’s individual ability also plays a role in tackling dungeons, it has been said that there’s no problem if dungeons exist that lower-ranking students can’t tackle.
In fact, many places in-game cannot be strategized without a certain level, so it shouldn’t be that different now that it has become reality.
Knowing this, I still put in the effort to ensure everyone could strategize the dungeon.
I wanted the dungeon I created to assist the students of the Academy.
When this world was merely a realm beyond a monitor, students at the Academy generally were just extras. Aside from a few characters with illustrations, they were entities not worth remembering.
But not now.
Everyone enrolled in the Academy lives their own life.
They’re people who breathe beside me, writing their own stories.
Before even considering whether they show me goodwill or not, I hoped that at least one of them could learn from the dungeon I created, to survive outside dungeons.
I wanted them to turn the dungeon into their own sacrifice rather than being the sacrifice of the dungeon.
So I did my best to ensure every student at the Academy could strategize the dungeon.
Of course, that wasn’t the only reason I was so stubborn.
There was certainly some personal greed too.
The dungeon I first created, the countless ideas etched into my head as the Veteran Gamer of Soul Academy became murky water.
I genuinely wanted everyone to enjoy my culmination of effort.
I wanted anyone to strive and see the end, to marvel at what lies beyond the dungeon.
Because of this, I had to forgo compromises, and I almost thought my head was going to burst while truly designing the dungeon.
Having not even once opened the study material since entering the Academy, I flipped through it more than ten times that night alone.
I had to do my utmost so that students who studied Dungeon Studies properly could spot the oddities while surveying the dungeon.
And I wanted them to realize how their knowledge could be utilized by strategizing through the gimmicks.
But despite all this effort, it didn’t bear the proper fruit.
The strategic abilities of the Academy students fell short of my expectations.
No, it’s true I devised tricks to make it difficult to detect the gimmicks.
It’s simply unreasonable to say that only two parties in the entire Academy Dungeon detected the gimmicks!
To be precise, it’s not even two parties!
It’s just two people!
Toby and Jeff.
Aside from these two, no one seriously contemplated the dungeon’s gimmicks! Does that even make sense!?
I thought not many would notice the gimmicks, but this is excessive!
Had I known this would happen, I would have made an easier dungeon.
If I had known you were this helpless, I would have simply finished designing the dungeon in an hour and hit the bed!
“It makes sense now why everything you said was filled with venom. Were you just heated up?”
“Isn’t it strange not to be heated up?! I put my heart into making that dungeon!”
Just how much effort I put into ensuring the Academy students could learn from it.
Instead, I find myself hearing nonsense like “you accidentally made it possible to wake up,” without even a smidgen of appreciation!
Being calm about it is abnormal!
“I understand you’ve made efforts, but the students, lacking experience, would also have their say.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?!”
“Well, it’s rare to have a dungeon where you must suspect everything.”
“…That’s true, but.”
A dungeon not only tackling the dungeon but needing to suspect everything about it isn’t common.
To accurately say, it’s not that it can’t be common.
Most dungeons existing on land originate from the Evil God Agra’s authority.
In other words, every time a single dungeon is created, Agra’s powers are consumed.
So there can’t be many high-ranking dungeons.
To create a high-difficulty dungeon, Agra must spend a considerable amount of his authority.
“If they don’t know about such dungeons, they could easily die in the worst case.”
This isn’t a game.
Failing this time doesn’t mean you can try again next time.
To say “if you don’t know, you die” is no joke; that’s someone’s last words in this world.
Other students must know about these risks too, so how can it be explained that none prepared for high-ranking dungeons!?
Especially when those idiots are rambling that dungeon strategizing is a noble’s duty!
“Haha. Well, thanks to your struggles this time, the students of the Academy will also come to know that such dungeons exist and how to strategize them when they appear. Good job.”
“Now you turn your attitude around? That just sounds like you’re afraid of retribution.”
“To twist my goodwill like that, this old man is saddened.”
Hearing the old man’s banter, I couldn’t help but let out a snicker and glanced around the room where all the battles had wrapped up.
Instead of stepping towards the door leading out of the dungeon, I placed my hand on the gem beside it.
“What are you trying to do, young lady?”
“A little venting.”
Until now, what I showed was how to properly strategize the dungeon.
There are quicker routes, easier paths, and numerous tricks formed during the dungeon’s creation that I ignored and only chose the orthodox method.
I held back from doing it as I usually would to produce a video for the helpless, but now I should enjoy it!
“Wait! Young lady! If you show them how you strategize the dungeon as you usually do, it’ll end poorly for them!”
“I don’t care. The Academy’s fools need to know how pathetic they are.”
A veteran gamer lecturing newbies is a failure.
From now on, the newly opened class will be a speedrun lecture of rotten water.
I’ll show them how it’s done.
Let’s see if they can even try to follow along.
You shoddy trash.
