Dungeon Hunter - Chapter 71

Chapter 71: Episode 19. Monster Combat (2)

‘A duel?’

I had to think for a moment what kind of bullsh*t he was talking about. Of course, I knew the meaning of the word duel, and I knew about Bizart Mendam. He was a Duke under Archduke Ufa who was known for his egocentric and opportunist character. He was known to change sides for his own benefit.

Pagan Grewoolly had been thrown out by Ufa, whereas Bizart Mendam left Ufa at the critical moment during the fight between Ariel and Ufa. It was probably because of Bizart Mendam’s betrayal that Ariel was able to cut off Ufa’s head.

Then, he joined Pandemonium but was thrown out later on. His fate was quite miserable, but up to that point, he was acting so confident and arrogant because he didn’t know any of that… That idiot was trying to have a duel with me…? That was bullsh*t. It also didn’t seem like a good idea for him.

“A duel? Do you want to pretend to be a knight or something?” I mocked him. A duel wasn’t really a thing in the Devils’ culture.

“You went a bit over the top with your deception. I can’t act blind around it anymore. Accept the duel. If not, I will assume that you are running away in fear!”

Bizart Mendam raised his voice to draw attention from the other Devils, and it worked a bit. He seemed so sure that I wouldn’t be able to avoid him. It was true that I had to accept a challenge when there was someone who wanted to fight me, and I had to fight back, because if I gave the impression that I was trying to avoid him, everything I had done until then would be in vain.

Survival of the fittest. Death to the weak. That was the general concept of living for Devils.

‘I thought this would come earlier.’

Bizart Mendam was doing this only because he was completely sure that he wouldn’t lose this fight.

I was certain that he thought he would be able to gain something by defeating me… But I was also certain that I would be the winner.

Moreover, I had been waiting for this. I was wishing for some Devils to provoke me, and once again, someone beneath Ufa was doing me a favor. I was more than happy to accept the duel!

I opened my Mind’s Eye and took my time to check the statuses.

Name: Bizart Mendam

Occupation: Duke of Devildom (Dungeon Master)

Title:

<ul>

Slayer in the Sky (Ex U, speed+7)

</ul>

Abilities:

Power 78, Intelligence 73

Speed 83 (+7), Strength 76, Mana 66

Potential (376+7/500)

Others:

Skill: Detecting Danger (U), Power of Sky (U), Wyburn Control (Ex U)

[Comparison]

Bizart Mendam

Power 78, Intelligence 73, Speed 90, Strength 76, Mana 66, Potential (376+7/500)

Randalf Bruciel

Power 89, Intelligence 74, Speed 77, Strength 82, Mana 93, Potential (392+23/500)

In my former life, he was the Duke who had controlled a magic dragon. Probably his skill to control Wyburn was the reason, and he would upgrade to a different name when he leveled up. The only ability of his that was higher than mine was his speed, but besides that, his abilities were far from remarkable.

The abilities were similar to those of other Dukes. Three hundred eighty-three was just around average, while mine was 415 in total. There were no outstanding skills, either.

Seeing this comparison, it wouldn’t be too difficult to overwhelm him.

There was no reason I couldn’t overwhelm him.

“I accept the duel.” I moved my shoulders up and down.

It wasn’t a great idea to make such a fuss in the Fairydom, but I wasn’t the one who had asked for a duel. And considering the Fairy King’s intention, he would stop it or make it go away if we really started a duel.

Bizart laughed mockingly. “I think you’re being delusional. It doesn’t make sense for a tiger to fight a puppy. I was challenging you to bring out a monster so that we could have a duel between mine and yours, Randalf Bruciel.”

“That makes sense,” I agreed without any more thought given.

The results would show who was the puppy in this fight.

I looked at King Wyburn standing behind Bizart.

It was a huge monster that was almost 16 feet tall. A high-level Level-5 sky monster… On the ground, slow Giantes was a high-level monster but still not a good opponent against Wyburn.

But that was only applicable for regular Gianteses. My Giantes used to be the servant of God, so it was much stronger than others on the same level. Mine had different skills as well.

For example, Chest of Earth (Ex U) was the only skill a regular Giantes had. The Giantes species was treated as the top-notch monster because of its incredible physical abilities, but its other elements weren’t as good as other top-notch monsters. However, my Giantes had a skill called Gigantic Slash (Epic), which was grotesquely strong and unreal.

It was a skill that destroyed everything around it, meaning it would be effective to attack flying King Wyburn as well.

‘Against a regular Giantes, King Wyburn would win…’

Monsters with King or Queen in front of their names tended to be stronger than others on the same level, so it was clear that King Wyburn was a great weapon to use against a Giantes.

The only miscalculation on Bizart’s part was that my Giantes wasn’t a regular one.

I answered with a mocking smile on my face, “Giantes. Kill that chicken head.”

“Grrrr! Kill!”

Bam!

Giantes was in a rage and took one step forward. Giantes loved to fight and would do anything just to have a fight. It hadn’t had any chance to fight until now, so it was more than happy to fight and play with King Wyburn.

Fairies of Darkness selling items around us quickly ran away from the scene. Since there were no fairies trying to stop us, it seemed like they were letting us have a duel in silence.

Soon, there was only me, Bizart, Giantes, and King Wyburn left in a wide-open space.

I stood with my arms crossed and watched the fight begin.

Kieeeeeek!

When Giantes approached, King Wyburn spread its wide wings and flew up high enough that Giantes couldn’t reach it. It moved extremely fast considering Wyburn was also a gigantic monster.

But the next scene surprised me more.

It started to put all its weight on its beak and started a 90-degree descent. This wasn’t something that I had seen from a regular monster, so it was surely Bizart’s Wyburn Control skill (Ex U) that was making this happen.

‘That was the control skill?’

I was thinking of a simple skill like him being able to ride the monster, but it was far beyond that. It was a skill that enabled Bizart to control Wyburn even from a distance.

This made it one-on-two fight rather than a one-on-one duel, since Giantes had to fight against both of them.

Swing! Giantes swung its bat to stop the King Wybun, but King Wyburn spread its wings slightly and slowed down at the same moment that Giantes was about to swing. Suddenly, its whole body became silver and looked like it was made of iron.

That was one of King Wyburn’s skills: Iron Armor (Ex U).

Bam!

King Wyburn hit the ground, creating a crater in it. Giantes avoided it slightly but wasn’t quick enough to avoid any damage and severely injured its right shoulder.

Nobody would have ever expected a flying monster to make an irregular attack like this.

“Kill! Win!”

Giantes’ face became red.

Rumble—

Giantes quickly activated its Chest of Earth skill to fight back. The ground started to rise and created a wall to stop Wyburn from flying higher.

But King Wyburn wasn’t an easy opponent. Even before the Chest of Earth was fully activated, Wyburn flew up to the sky. King Wyburn obviously knew about Giantes’ signature skill, and its reaction speed was quite remarkable as well.

Giantes stopped using its skill and kicked the ground in anger. It was understandable that it was angered by the sudden attack.

That made Bizart, who was controlling King Wyburn, show a dirty smile on his face.

“If you surrender now, I’ll take it. I don’t want a top-notch monster to die, either.”

I didn’t even see a reason to answer that. He was way too arrogant, while he had only made one attack successfully. I had yet to show any of my Giantes’ abilities, because we were a bit surprised by an irregular attack.

“Kill! Win!”

Giantes swung his bat toward the sky. Others thought it was just a stupid gesture out of anger, but I noticed it was the Gigantic Slash.

It would be an absolutely destructive attack with the arc it was making!

The Mana was concentrated on the bat to spread out over its arc.

Kaboom!

Giantes almost looked like it was slashing the sky. The air was shaken by its power, and the Mana went straight toward the enemy. Even the Wyburn with its iron armor skill, if hit by this directly, would fall down and stay down forever.

Fortunately for Wyburn, the aim wasn’t perfect, so it was able to avoid the direct attack, but it was scared enough for its heart to shrink with fear.

“What kind of skill is that?”

“…”

A few Devils wondered while looking at the slashed cloud in the sky caused by the Gigantic Slash. It wasn’t difficult to understand that it hadn’t been a regular attack. Archduke Ufa’s face looked stiff.

In the past, Ufa had hunted down a Giantes that was an adult, but it had never used such a skill. The Chest of Earth skill was a Giantes’ signature skill, so he had seen it a few times before, but he had never seen such a crazy attack skill before.

And that was the game-changer. Giantes was huge but quite slow in its movements. Therefore, it was easy to defeat it once one knew how to hunt it down, and the method wasn’t even rocket science—one just couldn’t get caught. This wasn’t a difficult task for Bizart with his Wyburn Control skill.

However, this new attack skill enabled attacks from a distance. Even a slight hit would damage the flying skill or any of Wyburn’s other physical movements. Although the Giantes couldn’t keep using the skill over and over again without time to cool off, their tactic had to change from not getting caught to not getting caught and avoiding the attack.

But Archduke Ufa was wrong about Giantes once again.

Giantes kept using Gigantic Slash without any recovery time at all. The ground around it already looked like a slashed rug, and there was no cloud left that wasn’t slashed.

Was that an unlimited super skill?

King Wyburn was becoming quite passive.

The Devils on Ufa’s side couldn’t even breathe while watching the fight. They thought this would be a clean-cut win, but this was heading in a strange direction. If Bizart didn’t make it, the other three Archdukes would laugh at Ufa, which Ufa couldn’t accept.

But it was impossible to avoid this limitless super attack skill. It had already been difficult to avoid the attacks, and there wasn’t any chance to counterattack, but suddenly, King Wyburn’s right wing was hit directly by the Gigantic Slash.

King Wyburn lost its balance in the sky and wavered.

Giantes was too smart to miss this chance. It swung the bat one last time…

Kaboom!

King Wyburn split into two.

Splash!

King Wyburn’s dead body dropped on the ground, gushing blood like a fountain. Everyone was silent.

Bizart’s face became blue, and Ufa was shivering slightly out of rage.

I spoke very quietly. “A puppy.”

The roles were clear.

I was the tiger, obviously.

Ufa and the Devils under him left quickly as if they were evacuating. I was watching them leave and laughed mockingly.

They had lost a fight they were certain they would win in front of all the other Archdukes. I couldn’t even begin to imagine how terrible that felt.

Anyway, on top of what had happened last year, this event officially made me Archduke Ufa’s enemy. I was just “a nouveau riche who seemed to have something” but now became “a nouveau riche with something strong.” Maybe some Devils would consider me an annoyingly unknown force to deal with.

I didn’t really care what they thought of me, so I tried to find the item that the Fairy King left. I had to spend 30 minutes investigating everything on the table to find one interesting item.

I used my Mind’s Eye to check the item.

Name – Recipe of Fairy King

Description: Some formula written by the Fairy King on a piece of paper.

++ Observation skill of Unique Level is required to read the recipe.

‘I think this is it.’

This was the only item with Fairy King in its name.

‘A recipe?’

Was this a present?

I wasn’t really convinced but purchased the old paper anyways.

But then…

[Incredible achievement! You just passed the test of the Fairy King of Darkness. This achievement was set by the Fairy King of Darkness, so no achievement points will be added, but the present reward by the Fairy King of Darkness will be rewarded.]

[1,000,000 points have been rewarded.]

[Obtained ‘Seed of World Tree.’]

[The Auction of Devildom is ending. Prepare for forced displacement. 30, 29, 28…]