Chapter 115: You Don’t Deserve an Explanation

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While the Denatus convened on the surface, another hunt had already started on the Dungeon's 18th floor.

"Found it."

"Lord August, it's right here. I smell people." Lili used her transformation magic to pick up the faint scent left in the air.

The eastern part of the 18th floor ended in a dead end. Adventurers almost never came this far. The smell of people covering up the usual monster odor meant someone was hiding here on purpose.

"Good job, Lili. The Beastman nose comes in handy."

August looked around the cavern. It was huge, even bigger than Orario's central plaza. Blasting the walls at random to find a hidden door would only stir up the monsters.

Thanks to Lili's tracking, he didn't have to deal with that.

Following the scent to a blank rock face, August raised his weapon.

"Opening fire."

He swept the sector Lili pointed out with a burst of gunfire. The bullets chewed through the stone until the acoustic feedback shifted.

He lowered his gun. The rock face here was a facade.

With a snap, August brought forth a kinetic pile-bunker from his spatial void. He fired the anchor straight into the rock.

BANG!

The fake wall shattered, collapsing into a hidden tunnel.

"This is it."

Waiting for them at the end of the tunnel was a heavy, reinforced metal door.

"Whoa... AN ORICHALCUM DOOR." Lili's eyes widened.

She wasn't a blacksmith, but she knew how much things were worth. Orichalcum was a rare, super-strong metal. It could resist magic and hold powerful enchantments.

Making a whole vault door out of it was a crazy show of wealth!!

"Lord August, let's tear it down," Lili urged, her capitalist instincts kicking in. "Scrapping this would make us a fortune."

A big chunk of pure Orichalcum would sell for millions in Orario and might even start a bidding war among defense companies on Earth. They needed to take it.

"Done." August didn't hesitate. If it had value, they were taking it.

He reached into his inventory and pulled out a huge, shoulder-mounted cylinder. It was a special tool made to break open military-grade bank vaults.

Now it was time to see if this fantasy super-metal could stand up to a modern kinetic penetrator.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

The heavy machine started up, its deep, steady beat filling the tunnel as the kinetic charge built up.

"Let's see what breaks first: your magic door, or my Tungsten Drill."

He pulled the trigger—

The impact was resounding. Sparks showered the tunnel as the high-velocity industrial drill bit ground into the enchanted metal.

The Orichalcum held its ground, but the surrounding stone walls—engineered by Daedalus himself—began to spiderweb and crack under the concussive force. The metal door shrieked as hairline fractures spread across its surface.

Fantasy metals were tough, but the focused power of industrial machines was slowly wearing them down.

...

At the same time, on the other side of the vault.

The Ikelos Familia had gathered in their staging area.

"Guh!" Dix Perdix clutched his cursed eye, stumbling forward.

The tainted blood of Daedalus flowing through his veins screamed in agony. It was a biological alarm. The Dungeon door was failing.

"Dix, what's wrong?" Gran, his second-in-command, noticed his captain writhing in pain.

"We have a breach," Dix hissed, panic bleeding into his voice. "Something is tearing through the gate."

The Orichalcum door—reinforced by generations of the Daedalus family's cursed magic—let out a metallic creak.

And then, it gave way.

...

"WE'RE THROUGH," Lili cheered.

The massive slab of Orichalcum buckled and crashed backward, kicking up a cloud of dust.

"Fifteen minutes," August muttered, checking his chronometer.

He was honestly impressed. It took fifteen minutes for a powerful breaching drill to break through the metal. Orichalcum lived up to the hype.

Severed from its magical power source, the door was now just a very expensive pile of scrap metal.

"Salvaging." August made sure not to leave anything behind. He swept his hand over the wreckage, pulling the huge door and every broken piece into his spatial void. He cleared the floor completely.

"Let's move."

Lili nodded and followed him into the dark hallway. The man-made maze of Knossos stretched out ahead of them.

"I smell them," Lili whispered, her nose twitching as she caught the draft. "Amazon. Beastman. The Ikelos Familia is definitely holed up in here."

She took another deep breath, trying to isolate the numbers, but suddenly recoiled, coughing violently.

"Ugh," She covered her nose, stumbling backward. "I lost the trail. They sprayed a chemical masking agent down the hall. It's designed to blind a Beastman's olfactory senses."

"Easy." August caught her by the shoulder, keeping her upright.

Knossos was filled with traps meant to block Familias from tracking. It was a common trick used by the Evilus.

He didn't care about their traps. His goal was evident: find the Ikelos Familia and wipe them out. He hadn't broken into this underground base to play detective. He was here to take them down.

August kept his rifle raised, guiding Lili through the winding corridors until the narrow tunnel opened up into a massive staging area.

This place was a hub for smuggling monsters to the surface. It also served as the main base for the Ikelos Familia.

And standing right in the middle of the cavern was the entire roster of the Ikelos Familia.

"Yo," August called out casually, stepping into the light. "Nice to finally meet you."

"The Monster rookie..." Dix Perdix kept a hand over his cursed eye, staring at August in disbelief.

How did he get past the lock? The main route back to the 17th floor was sealed off. Dix's contacts in Rivira had warned him that August was on the 18th floor, so he had pulled his men back to regroup. He never thought August would actually break through the vault.

"HOW DID YOU GET IN HERE?" Gran demanded, his eyes darting between August and the Pallum Supporter. "THE GATE WAS LOCKED!"

"I kicked it down!" August answered flatly.

He reached into his inventory and tossed a shattered chunk of the Orichalcum door onto the stone floor. It clattered loudly, echoing through the cavern.

"Took a bit more effort than I expected."

"He broke the Orichalcum..."

"What kind of monster is this guy?"

"That gate was custom-forged! It's supposed to be indestructible!"

Panic spread through the Ikelos group. Realizing that a single rookie had turned their unbreakable vault door into scrap metal scared them badly.

"Alright, Ikelos Familia." August racked the charging handle of his rifle. "Time to pay the toll with your lives."

He hadn't come here to talk. With all of them gathered in one place, it was time to finish the job.

"Are you out of your damn mind??" one of the thugs yelled, stepping back. "You massacre another Familia, the Guild will banish you from Orario forever!"

August's reputation was well known.

Everyone knew his fighting style was a relentless meat grinder.

At first, the Dark Faction had dismissed him as just another overhyped rookie. But after he single-handedly destroyed the assassin camp the previous night and wiped out the killers they had hired for 10 million Valis, their confidence vanished.

Being trapped in a room with him made them nervous. None of them wanted to fight him directly.

The thugs hoped Guild law would protect them. Adventurers weren't supposed to kill each other. Without proof that the Ikelos Familia ordered the attack, August had no legal reason to execute them. Even if they were caught smuggling monsters, the usual punishment was just a fine, not death.

"Shut your mouth!" Dix barked, glaring at his panicked subordinate.

Guild exile? That didn't matter to someone with an interdimensional portal. It would only set him free.

"August, I know exactly what you are," Dix stepped forward, playing his trump card. "You aren't from Orario. You're an anomaly. A traveler from another world."

Dix had asked his Patron God, Ikelos, why the gods were so interested in the Monster rookie. Ikelos told him the truth. August was a real outsider—a mortal who could travel between worlds. The Gods were fascinated by someone who didn't fit their world's rules.

That truth had shocked Dix.

"There's no reason for us to spill blood today," Dix lied smoothly. "Whatever happened to you on the surface, my Familia had nothing to do with it."

Because August was mortal, he lacked divine lie detection. Dix shamelessly played the victim, pushing the blame onto the assassin brokers. The other Ikelos thugs whispered in confusion, surprised to learn the rookie was from another world.

Dix was desperate to talk his way out of this trap. If he couldn't, they were all dead.

But August didn't care about his excuses.

"Are you done babbling?"

He cut the villain's monologue short and pulled the trigger—

"BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMM!!"

A high-caliber round tore across the cavern, ripping straight through the pelvis of a scruffy, middle-aged smuggler standing near Dix.

"AGHHHH!"

The smuggler collapsed, shrieking in agony as blood gushed from his ruined groin. The bullet had pulverized his crotch. The rest of the Familia recoiled in horror.

He just fired without warning.

"ARE YOU DEAF??" Dix yelled, his hands trembling. "You aren't from this world! If you broke in here to save the talking monsters, fine, I get it! But you can't slaughter us over property! Everything we do operates in the gray areas of Orario's laws!"

Dix tried to use words to buy time. He thought he could convince the rookie to back off. He was completely wrong.

August didn't hesitate. He was here to exterminate them.

Dix couldn't match the man in front of him with the rumors he'd heard. People said the Monster rookie was a kind saint, a miracle healer who could fix severed limbs. Bards sang about him in taverns.

But the man with the rifle didn't give a damn about mercy or due process. He wasn't a saint. He was an executioner.

"Rules? Laws?" August let out a cold, sharp laugh. He raised his weapon array.

"Scum like you don't get a trial."

He opened fire.

A relentless barrage of high-caliber rounds and tactical ordnance flooded the cavern, leaving zero blind spots. It was a localized meat grinder designed to wipe them off the map.

"RUN!!" Dix screamed.

Knowing August intended to kill them all, the captain abandoned his men and bolted toward an escape tunnel.

Uninjured and fueled by adrenaline, Dix moved fast.

But the lower-level thugs left behind as meat shields weren't so lucky.

Before they could even turn to run, the gunfire hit them hard. Bullets ripped through their cheap armor, cut into flesh, and broke bones. Fast-moving rounds bounced around, causing serious injuries.

"Help! Save me!" the smugglers wailed, collapsing into the dirt.

The only answer they got was the deafening sound of gunfire, tearing them apart on the cavern floor.

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