As Beatrice stepped to the front and we fell back—Rumble—.From within the darkness, a massive body nearly several tens of meters tall rose to its feet.Alloy giants, each armed with a spear, sword, shield, axe, and mace.They were ancient dwarven mechanical guardians symbolizing the power of the Five Elements.Their glowing single eyes looking down on us from the darkness were the picture of arrogance.Without a word, Beatrice thrust her staff forward and murmured.A 5th-circle fire-attribute specialized spell.“Explosion.”Vmmm—.At her incantation, immense mana gathered in front of the large jewel set in her staff.At the same moment—Flash—!Blazing flames were fired at the enemies in the darkness.And then—Kra-boom—!!With a vibration that seemed to shake heaven and earth, the entire boss room flickered white.A massive hemispherical mana explosion burst outward.Fwoooosh—.In the next instant, thick, choking blast smoke and mana clouds from the explosion rushed over us in a wave.Still, thanks to the barrier Beatrice had cast in advance, no one took any damage.I stared blankly at the overwhelming spectacle before my eyes and swallowed.'…As expected of Beatrice.'So this was the kind of power she could unleash when she went all-out.It was an overwhelming output that couldn’t be measured by in-game effects or damage numbers; I could feel it through my whole body.However—Clink—.Despite Beatrice’s overwhelming expenditure of mana, most of the Dungeon Keepers were fine.Only faint scorch marks marred the surface of their alloy armor.Of course, among the five Dungeon Keepers, the one with the “Steel” attribute, which was weak to fire, had taken enormous damage and was lying on the ground, twitching.By contrast, the wood-attribute Dungeon Keeper, which you might think would be weak to fire, and the rest were completely unscathed.Beatrice nodded as she took this in.“As expected. Just as you said, Loen—if it’s not a counter-element attack within the Five Elements, the damage converges to nearly zero.”“Yeah. Even if you think ‘wood burns well’ and blast it with fire magic, it doesn’t really do anything.”The Five Elements weren’t so much attributes in themselves as they were an organic representation of energy interactions.You could only bring them down with attacks of counter-element ★ 𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 ★ affinity.As we exchanged a few words, the Steel-attribute Dungeon Keeper lying on the floor began to move again.Crackle—.Small mechanical arms, hidden inside its thick alloy armor, were soldering damaged parts, repairing them, and overlaying new armor plates.In the blink of an eye, the Dungeon Keeper completed its self-repair and got back up.Its single eye flashed as it swung its mace.“…Very well. Then let’s do this properly!”Eyes gleaming, Beatrice raised her staff high once more.At the same time—Vwooom—.Complex magic circles formed behind her all at once, and brilliant five-colored rays shot out from them, each one striking a different Dungeon Keeper.Kwoooooom—!Beatrice cast five different spells, each with a different elemental attribute, simultaneously.'Quintuple Casting!'Screeeech—.[Guoooo!]The Dungeon Keepers let out monstrous roars, yet they were swept up by Beatrice’s rays and couldn’t even keep their balance.They had been hit by ‘weakness’ attributes and fallen into a kind of groggy state.It looked like they were being blasted away by a high-pressure water cannon.And they weren’t just being pushed back. Every time the brilliant light of her rays touched them, their thick alloy armor melted, and the mana engravings etched on their surface were erased.Watching the overwhelming sight, I slowly smiled.'…The ancient dwarves who made those Dungeon Keepers probably never imagined this.'Under normal circumstances, to clear the Dungeon Keeper fight, you needed to bring five specialized mages, each aligned to a different element.And those five had to coordinate their output organically to suppress all of the Dungeon Keepers at the same time.If even one of them remained operational, the other four would continuously self-repair and get thrown back into the fray.But if you evenly land all five elemental spells on every Keeper like this, there’s no problem.Their HP would drop simultaneously, and they’d go down in one go with no time to repair.'On the surface, it looks easy, but it’s anything but.'I thought back to the hundreds, thousands of RPG bosses I’d fought in my gaming life.Once you play enough games, you inevitably run into twin-type bosses.With those, even if you kill one, if the other still has HP left, the fallen one will revive, driving you into a stress spiral.That was just with twin bosses—and here we had five such enemies.Dealing evenly distributed damage to all of them and dropping them at the same time was by no means simple.'Across all of Union, the only ones who could perform such a delicate yet overwhelmingly powerful operation alone would be Beatrice and the Director.'Of course, there were several professors ranked higher than Beatrice, with greater mana output.But the only person besides her who could control all five elements so evenly was the Archmage Director.Clink—.The Dungeon Keepers, pushed back steadily by Beatrice’s rays, activated every available core to boost their output.Shhhhh—.Just like when Meyer’s magic armor ramped up its power, steam vented from vents on their backs.At the same time, a red glow ran over the surface of their armor as they entered [Rampage] state.Clank—.Once they entered Rampage state, the Dungeon Keepers endured even Beatrice’s powerful ray attacks and began stepping forward, one step at a time.In Rampage, their tenacity increased and they gained resistance to crowd-control effects, making it possible.“…!”As they closed in, Beatrice flinched and shuddered for a moment.When the Dungeon Keepers started moving, Yulina and Bell tried to intervene, but I stopped them.“Don’t interfere. If you break the damage balance, it’s over.”While she was pouring perfectly even damage into all five of them, any other magic interfering would shatter that balance.If that happened, everything Beatrice had done so far would be for nothing.Now it was my turn.Clatter—.I shot out every chain of mana I could use and bound the Dungeon Keepers’ legs.Then I stepped in front of Beatrice, ready to block their attacks.'If this is the attack pattern that triggers when they’re in [Rampage] and caught in two or more crowd-control effects…'Fwoosh—!Just as I’d predicted, the Dungeon Keepers hurled their massive weapons at Beatrice from where they stood.Whoosh—.Their weapons, almost the size of houses with only a bit of exaggeration, cut through the air at terrifying speed.“It’s dangerous!”Ciel shouted and rushed toward me, but I silently pulled out a magic scroll and tore it.[Spirit Magic – Wall of Earth]Kra-rumble—!With the activation of the scroll, multiple earth walls surged up from the ground.Their weapons, like the alloy arrows from before, had the property of breaking down magic-made barriers.'But it’s different with spirit magic.'These earth walls were not mana-woven constructs but literal piles of earth raised by the power of spirits.Of course, the massive weapons the Dungeon Keepers hurled still crushed through the walls purely by physical force and came crashing toward me.Thud-thud-thud—!But the walls hadn’t been useless; their speed was noticeably slower than at the moment of launch.Trusting in the physical defense of the Aegis shield and Altair’s suit, I braced myself to block.KRA-BOOM—!!A tremendous impact shook my entire skeleton as if it would break me in half.“Ghh.”The damage was several times worse than when I blocked Meyer’s punch, and a huge chunk of my HP disappeared at once.Even so, I was still standing in this spot.I wiped the blood trickling from the corner of my mouth and steadied my breathing.'…That was close.'All stats decrease due to reduced HP.HP is at a critical level. Healing is recommended.Thud—.The guardians’ weapons, blocked by the flesh-and-blood wall that was me, fell uselessly to the floor.That was the end of my role.I turned my head and looked at Beatrice.Hopefully she understood that the rest was up to her now.Meeting my eyes, Beatrice bit her lip and squeezed out every last drop of strength as she continued casting.Rumble—.Under the waterfall-like torrent of five-colored mana pouring down on them, the Dungeon Keepers gradually lost strength and collapsed.Thud—.Their bodies, melted down by overwhelming magic, all dropped to their knees and crashed to the ground at the same time.[Guoooo!]But their resistance lasted only a moment. Soon, with a dying roar, their lights went out and they shattered completely.Kra-kra-crash—.Like buildings collapsing, the Dungeon Keepers crumbled, spilling mechanical parts everywhere.“Haa, haa.”After firing off excessive mana for nearly ten minutes, Beatrice panted heavily, using her staff as a support.“Good work, Beatrice.”“…You’re too kind. More importantly, you saved me again.”“Saved you? Protecting party members is just my natural duty as the leader of this expedition. Get some rest. You did well.”“……”At my words, Beatrice simply closed her eyes and collapsed.I caught her limp body in my arms.'Mana exhaustion, huh.'It seemed she’d simply used too much mana; there didn’t appear to be any health issues.I broke a mana recovery potion over the unconscious Beatrice and let it scatter over her.With that, the Aether Dungeon was cleared.***A bright light filled the boss room as if to announce the dungeon’s conquest.I gently laid Beatrice, who had fainted from mana exhaustion, down in a suitable spot.Afterward, once I’d restored my HP with a health potion, I addressed the party before checking the clear rewards.“As with last time, we’ll distribute rewards from this expedition according to contribution. But the blueprints for the next-generation core are excluded. We’ll share that information together.”Rumble-rumble—.The boss room shook.At the same time, a large altar rose up from below.An altar shaped like a pyramid.I climbed onto the altar and checked the clear rewards.A treasure chest far larger than the one we’d seen when we cleared the Spooky Dungeon.More of a crate than a chest, size-wise.Click—.When I opened the lid, the first thing I saw was a neatly rolled document tied with a cord.I checked it and my eyes widened.'The blueprint for the next-generation core!'It was the very item that had been the main objective of this expedition.It would take some time to reproduce it with current technology, but it was an invention capable of causing upheaval in the current field of magical engineering.This alone was an enormous haul.With trembling hands, I stowed the blueprints, then turned my gaze to the ten gems lying beside them.Pairs of elemental stones, each one containing the power of one of the Five Elements.Extremely rare materials used in crafting all sorts of high-grade artifacts.I just so happened to need materials for forging the Azoth Sword, and these would do nicely.I’d keep one of each type for myself and distribute the rest among the party.Next to the gems, more rolled-up papers lay in a bundle.These were blueprints for the dwarven mechanical guardians we’d taken down earlier, as well as schematics for automated production lines.If I built these and released them alongside autonomous golems in Union, they’d make for an incredible security force.I tucked those away inside my coat as well.When I lifted the last of the blueprints, I saw a mass of yellowish gold bars filling the space beneath.“……”I stared, jaw dropped, at the glittering gold bars.'How much is all this even worth?'Judging by the size of the crate, there had to be at least a hundred at a glance.Hopefully the dwarves who built this dungeon hadn’t cheaped out and stuffed wood underneath to fake the volume.After pocketing a full set of elemental stones, I called out to the party.“Come help. There’s no way I’m hauling this many gold bars by myself.”

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