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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: FusionX
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“…It seems to have reached a stalemate.”
The fight appeared to be dragging on longer than expected.
Johann gently tapped the cheek of Elisa, who was sleeping soundly.
As his finger pressed against her soft cheek, Elisa suddenly sat up and shouted like a student who was late for class.
“I-I’m late for class!”
“Don’t worry, you’re not.”
“Ah…”
Elisa’s face quickly turned as red as a tomato.
Johann averted his gaze from Elisa, who was covering her face in embarrassment, and spoke to Sif, who was stretching.
“We’re heading out soon. You remember what to do, right?”
“Yawn… I remember. I’m not that stupid, you know?”
Well, that’s good then.
Johann tapped Elisa’s shoulder a couple of times as she was caught in a spiral of embarrassment, then took out a water bottle from his backpack and moistened his throat.
It was essential to stay hydrated for what could be a long battle.
“Everyone, at least drink some water. Depending on the situation, we might have to fight for hours.”
At his words, they all took out their water bottles and hydrated themselves.
Sif was even splashing water on her face.
Was she trying to wake herself up?
Well, that wasn’t Johann’s concern.
What mattered now was him and Elisa.
Johann put the water bottle back in his backpack and set it aside, he had no intention of fighting with a backpack on.
He gripped his beloved mithril shovel and turned to look at the two people behind him, their faces showed clear signs of tension.
Johann spoke to the two who were full of worry.
“I’m going up.”
“Okay.”
“…Y-yes.”
Me first, then.
Johann stepped onto the stairs he had created with his skill and emerged onto the battlefield.
As he had expected, the battlefield had turned into complete chaos.
Red. Blue. Severed heads. Fallen monsters. Piled up corpses.
The ground, which should have been yellow, was now in a state where even traces of its original color were hard to find.
People often called battlefields the hell of the mortal world, and this sight made it instantly clear why.
Johann observed the two races still wielding weapons and waging war.
The remaining number was several dozen.
Having survived this hell to the end, their appearances were miserable.
An orc warrior was swinging an axe with his left arm, his right arm severed, a lizardman was fighting precariously with its tail cut off.
Monsters continued their desperate fight while bleeding from all over their bodies.
“…This is brutal.”
“Ugh…”
“Ah, ah…”
“Pull yourselves together.”
Was this the first time they had seen such a sight?
Johann urged the two and then drove his shovel into the neck of a lizardman that had fallen at his feet.
The lizardman’s head was cleanly severed by the sharp mithril without any resistance.
These creatures had impressive vitality, befitting monsters.
Johann watched the severed head rolling on the ground, spurting blood, and then spoke to Sif.
“Sif. Take screenshots from here.”
“O-okay.”
“And Elisa.”
“…Yes?!”
Johann gave an order, no, a command to Elisa, who had responded with a startled voice.
“You come with me. I can’t do this alone.”
“What? But if I go with you, I’ll just be a burden…”
When he turned his head to look at her, a face stained with fear greeted him.
No matter how much he boosted her self-esteem with praise, she was fundamentally a coward.
People didn’t change so easily.
But considering what was to come, there was a need to fix Elisa’s personality at least a little.
The three years at the Academy would be anything but peaceful.
Just the next incident that was about to happen…
“Gweeeek!”
Ah, right, they were in the middle of a fight.
Johann advanced, stepping on the corpses that covered the ground.
Even as he did so, the orcs and lizardmen continued to steadily reduce each other’s numbers.
It seemed at least two or three more had fallen to the ground.
“To defeat those guys, I need your magic. Two second-tier spells. Are you sure you can do it?”
“Y-yes…”
“Orcs are weak to lightning magic, and lizardmen are weak to fire magic. Prepare your magic and cast it as soon as I give the signal. Understood?”
Elisa nodded, but Johann couldn’t completely erase his uneasiness.
This cowardly witch might panic and fail to use her magic properly when left alone.
If that happened… it wouldn’t be a big problem, but he might have to consider removing her from the plan he had been thinking about recently.
After all, he needed at least some reliable companions to see the ending.
…Well, let’s get started.
Johann gripped the handle of the shovel on his back.
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Corpses. Blood. The stench of gore.
Elisa raised her gaze upwards.
If she looked at the ground she was stepping on, she felt like she might collapse at any moment.
“Lightning magic for orcs, fire magic for lizardmen, lightning magic for orcs, fire magic for lizardmen…”
She kept repeating to herself, staring into space.
‘A few skill uses should take them down quickly.’
Johann thought as he assessed the monsters’ condition with his eyes.
Though it was his first time seeing these monsters in real life, he had killed them countless times in the game.
He couldn’t remember how many playthroughs he had done, but he remembered coming to this dungeon multiple times.
It gave a lot of experience points due to the number of monsters, and the rewards were decent too.
‘It’s better to target the orc side.’
“We’ll take down the orcs first.”
This was Johann’s conclusion after surveying the lizardman side, which was relatively losing ground.
Attack the stronger side to balance things out a bit.
If they attacked the lizardmen first, they would be overwhelmed quickly, which would require less effort, but they would have to deal with more orc attacks.
He wasn’t one to be defeated by such monsters at this point, but Johann wasn’t the type of man to deliberately make troublesome choices.
“Li-lightning…”
And Elisa wasn’t the type of woman to abandon her task.
Though trembling, she slowly began her incantation.
A powerful incantation to end the Orc Great Warrior.
‘She’s doing well.’
Johann thought with relief as he glared at the two orc warriors who had noticed him.
Those two orc warriors were swinging their axes madly.
They had been butchering lizardmen, but upon spotting Johann, they charged at him as if they had found new prey.
“How annoying. Crafting.”
“Gweeeek!”
In an instant, the two orcs that had spotted him and were charging were impaled on sharp pillars and perished.
With a nonchalant face, Johann easily dispatched the two orcs and felt an intense gaze.
Without looking, he knew the gaze belonged to the Orc Great Warrior.
The Orc Great Warrior looked back and forth between Johann and the Lizardman Great Warrior with fiery eyes.
‘He’s probably wondering who to attack first.’
This guy didn’t have enough intelligence to fall back and regroup or to pit Johann and the lizardman against each other.
Meanwhile, as the situation turned strange, the lizardman took a few steps back and began to observe the situation.
Tired from the long battle, he intended to catch his breath at this timing.
He knew that even if his intention was obvious, no one could touch him now.
It was a situation where he would benefit even if the Orc Great Warrior and the unknown adventurer fought and both suffered losses.
The Lizardman Great Warrior ordered his subordinates to deal with the orc warriors and began to observe the fight between the two and so, a duel between the Orc Great Warrior and Johann Quartz was set.
Johann moved first.
Johann took a few steps forward, intending to provoke the warrior to attack him.
Five steps.
Johann narrowed the distance, considering the reach difference between him and the great warrior.
‘It’s almost a 3-fold difference.’
It was natural, given that there was about a two-fold height difference.
As the distance closed, Johann adjusted his grip on the shovel, preparing to swing.
He was obviously at a disadvantage in close combat, but he wasn’t a warrior who fought in close quarters anyway.
Seeing Johann with his weapon, the Orc Great Warrior grinned and picked up his massive axe.
An axe covered in blood and flesh.
Johann didn’t know how many lizardmen had been sacrificed to that axe.
He didn’t particularly care either.
His only concern was how to bind the Orc Great Warrior’s body.
“…I suppose I should greet him first. Crafting.”
He lightly used his skill to create a wall.
A 3-meter high barrier.
A normal human might feel anxious without being able to see, but for the Orc Great Warrior, it was a fragile wall that could be kicked down easily.
Knowing this, Johann watched the great warrior swing his axe at the wall and used his skill again.
“Crafting.”
A pillar with a sharply carved tip sprung out, but the Orc Great Warrior, proving why he was called a great warrior, dodged the pillar with agility unbefitting his size and kicked it, breaking it.
Seeing this, Johann slowly began to use his skill in rapid succession.
“Crafting. Crafting. Crafting. Crafting.”
Pillar. Pillar. Pillar. Pillar.
Pillars kept emerging, aiming for the great warrior’s body.
It was a bewildering sight, but the great warrior repeatedly dodged and broke the pillars, sometimes with his movements, sometimes with his reflexes.
Judging by his movements alone, he was among the top-tier monsters Johann had encountered.
But seeing this, Johann grinned.
‘This should be enough for the test.’
He was as strong as expected.
As the estimate became clearer than he had thought, Johann lifted his feet that had been firmly planted like tree roots and approached the Orc Great Warrior.
“Elisa! When I shout ‘now’, fire your magic!”
“Y-yes!”
A monster with a body that seemed to be at least 4 meters tall looked down at him.
Just being kicked by him would probably send Johann straight to the afterlife.
But no matter how strong the Orc Great Warrior was… he was just an early-game monster.
Johann charged at the Orc Great Warrior as if he was a suicidal attacker running out of mana.
The Orc Great Warrior, seeing a tiny human charging at him, roared and began to move his limbs that were thicker than logs.
One step. Two steps. Three steps.
As the two drew closer, Elisa’s body began to shake violently.
‘If I m-make a mistake, J-Johann will…’
She didn’t know Johann’s combat ability and she had no experience entering dungeons.
Therefore, Elisa felt tremendous pressure.
If she made a mistake, Johann would die.
Just that fact made her heart, which had lived as a coward all her life, pound as if it would burst.
‘I can’t make a mistake. I can’t make a mistake. I can’t make a mistake. I can’t make a mistake. I can’t make a mistake. I can’t make a mistake. I can’t make a mistake. I can’t make a mistake. I can’t make a mistake. I can’t make a mistake. I can’t make a mistake. I can’t make a mistake. I can’t make a mistake…’
She kept repeating this to herself as she gathered magical power in her hands.
The magic was ready to be fired from her hands at any moment but the order hadn’t come yet.
Elisa gritted her teeth and watched Johann’s actions.
Finally, Johann and the great warrior’s weapons clashed.
The impact was so strong that Elisa’s legs went numb and she staggered.
Nevertheless, her magic wasn’t canceled.
‘Elisa, you can do it.’
The sound of explosions and flying dirt echoed everywhere.
It was a situation where it was difficult to confirm whether Johann was alive or dead.
Fear crept in but she didn’t fall into panic.
Because Johann had told her she could do it, told her not to be afraid.
She waited for Johann’s order even in a situation where the great warrior had turned his gaze and was looking at her.
He was a man who took care of her despite knowing she was a witch, a man who encouraged her and told her she could do it.
…A man who reminded her of her father’s kind days long ago, before he tried to kill her.
Could she ever meet such a person again?
Elisa, who had always kept her head bowed low, raised her will.
‘I can do it. I can do it. I can do it. I can do it…’
“…Crafting. Elisa! Now! Aim for the head!”
A familiar voice filled with pain, along with the roar and the voice that had encouraged her reached her.
Elisa immediately fired her magic.
“Lightning… Spear!”
A yellow lightning spear shot from the small girl’s hand.
The lightning spear, flying at the speed of an arrow, pierced the Orc Great Warrior’s head.
The impact was so powerful that even the fighting orcs and lizardmen looked up at the ceiling where the lightning had struck.
“Excellent.”
Johann, who had pretended to swing his shovel before colliding with the great warrior and instead rolled to embed a pillar in the great warrior’s vital point, stood up and dusted himself off.
“Now that we’ve succeeded once, the second time should be easier.”
The first time was always the hardest.
Johann, seeing Elisa’s improved expression, shouted.
“Next is fire magic!”
“Yes!”
With Elisa’s magic, now bolstered by confidence, the battle came to an easy end.
After all, he had been intentionally not killing them to boost Elisa’s confidence.
He looked down at the charred corpse of the Lizardman Great Warrior, then turned his gaze at the sound of someone collapsing.
It was Elisa.
“I… I did it…”
“Yes. You did well.”
He carefully picked up Elisa, whose face was etched with exhaustion.
Too tired to even feel embarrassed, she fell asleep like she had fainted as soon as she was in Johann’s arms.
It was because she had no strength left after experiencing her first real battle.
Johann carried her and rejoined Sif.
Sif was in the middle of examining numerous photos one by one.
“Did you take many photos?”
“I took so many that I’ll have to sort through them to pick out the good ones.”
“I see.”
Fortunately, the hastily devised plan had ended relatively well.
“Ahem, payment for my hard work, payment…”
Sif hummed as she stuffed the photos into a small pouch.
Watching this, Johann turned his gaze to look down at Elisa sleeping soundly in his arms.
She was in a deep sleep, likely due to the large amount of magical power she had consumed.
He handed Elisa over to Sif and instructed.
“Lay her down over there and gather any usable materials. I’ll go check the rewards.”
“What? Me? But I want to go see too!”
“Stop speaking nonsense and take care of Elisa.”
‘The rewards won’t be that great anyway.’
He walked towards the reward chest, leaving behind Sif’s grumbling voice.
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“…Miss Elisa. Is the content of this report true?”
“Y-yes… I even got certification from the Exploration Guild…”
Elisa looked at the professor with a very nervous face.
Regardless, the professor was engrossed in scanning the report.
“Frankly, I was worried about you, Miss Elisa, but discovering a new dungeon and clearing it… This is amazing! This deserves more than an A! Miss Elisa, you get an A+!”
Many talented students had come and gone from Kalon Academy, but none had ever found a new dungeon and cleared it.
And with just three people!
Professor Grandel of Dungeon Exploration Studies examined the photos attached to the report with keen interest.
Though Elisa was bewildered by his almost manic appearance, it wasn’t her concern.
‘Discovering and clearing a new dungeon! There’s going to be an uproar in a few days!’
For someone who had dedicated his entire life to dungeon research, this was a very interesting type of dungeon, and he planned to rush there as soon as official exploration was permitted.
A new dungeon with a new type of floor.
A dungeon where hostile monster types appeared simultaneously.
A blue crystal that revived petrified monsters.
While dungeons with unique gimmicks weren’t uncommon, he had never seen a dungeon with this kind of mechanism before.
‘I hope it becomes accessible soon!’
It usually took a week for a cleared dungeon to reset, and about a month for the Dungeon Exploration Guild to grant permission.
The professor began to form plans in his head to explore the dungeon as soon as permission was granted.
“Um… Professor?”
“Ah, you can go now.”
“Oh, then…”
Elisa carefully closed the door of the research room and sighed.
‘Thank goodness…’
Despite the penalty of having to do the assignment alone, the professor’s evaluation was very good.
This was good news for her, as she wanted to earn a scholarship to avoid burdening Professor Lennon who had paid her expensive tuition.
As she walked absentmindedly down the corridor, she suddenly stopped and began to laugh in a gloomy manner.
“Hehehe…”
‘…Mr. Johann would be happy if he heard this, wouldn’t he?’
He was one of the few men who treated her kindly.
Elisa unknowingly blushed as she thought of the man with a somewhat fierce face, but who was kind contrary to his appearance.
“My, Miss Elisa, why are you laughing so gloomily in the middle of the corridor?”
“Eek?!”
Until Martina, who was looking at her with concerned eyes, spoke to her.
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[Damn this was a long ass chapter but im telling u guys elisa is for sure becoming a yandere]
