"C-Captain! Something's strange!"

"What now?!"

While the survey team looked around in confusion, the translucent crystal ground around them began to glow violently.

Speaking as someone who knew the Celestial Spire from A to Z, I knew the mechanics of Floor 18.

The 'Introductory Battle' was a standard feature of every floor. Usually, monsters poured out of the gate.

But the Jewel Plains were different. Here, the enemies didn't come from inside. They were Phantasmal Bodies—constructs of light and mana that spawned from the environment itself.

And the trigger zone wasn't the gate. It was the approach to the gate.

"W-we're surrounded!" a mage screamed.

From the shimmering ground around Tony's team, dozens of jagged, glowing wolves materialized. They were made of hard light and razor-sharp crystal.

And they were behind them. To the left of them. To the right of them.

"Damn it! AMBUSH!" Tony roared, drawing his greatsword. "Everyone, prepare for battle! DEFEND!"

It was a chaotic scene. The Iron Fangs were completely encircled.

Meanwhile, Alicia and I stood in the open gateway—the only spot on the map where the spawn rate was zero.

It looked ridiculous. From an outsider's perspective, the elite Hunter team was fighting desperately to form a perimeter, while the two 'useless porters' stood safely in the VIP box, watching the show.

"…Excuse me. Boss."

"Yeah?" I leaned against the stone archway, watching a crystal wolf bite Tony's shield.

"I know this is a long shot, but… did you know it would be like this?"

"Who knows?" I answered lightly.

Alicia looked at me with a horrified expression. She shivered.

"…Remind me never to make an enemy out of you."

The battle raged for ten minutes. To their credit, the Iron Fangs were decent fighters. They smashed the crystal wolves, cast barriers, and healed their wounds. But because they were caught off guard, they burned a lot of potions and stamina.

Finally, the last wolf shattered into dust.

"Damn it! What the hell is this place!" one of the vanguard panted, bleeding from a cut on his forehead. "It's completely different from the intel!"

Tony stomped toward us. His face was purple with rage, his armor scratched and scorched.

"You trashy bastards!" Tony screamed, pointing his sword at my face. "Useless things! What kind of mess are we in because of you?! By the Commander's authority, I'll have you—"

"I don't think it's our fault," I cut him off calmly.

"What?!"

"You told us to go first and check the front, right?" I pointed into the dark tunnel behind me. "We checked. It was safe."

"…"

"We didn't receive any orders to participate in the battle happening behind us," I reasoned with cold logic. "We did exactly as we were told. We secured the entrance."

Tony panted, his eyes bloodshot. He opened his mouth to scream, but closed it. He couldn't refute it. Technically, I had followed his order to the letter.

He gripped his sword so hard his gauntlets creaked. He looked at his exhausted team, then at me—fresh, clean, and annoying.

"…Damn it!" Tony spat. "Fine! New rule!"

He glared at me with pure malice.

"From now on, Porters will also be obligated to participate in all battles! No exceptions! If you stand around watching again, I'll kill you myself!"

It was a ridiculous order. Porters were non-combat personnel. You didn't force the mule to fight the dragon.

But Tony wanted me to bleed. He wanted to force me into the fray so he could 'accidentally' let a monster take a bite out of me.

Alicia stepped forward to argue, but I put a hand on her shoulder.

I looked at Tony.

"Understood," I said simply.

"...What?" Tony blinked, expecting resistance.

"I said understood. We will fight."

I smiled.

I needed a stress test for my [Rune of Vitality]. I needed to get hurt to see how fast I could heal. And if Tony was offering me a front-row seat to the violence... who was I to refuse?

Alicia saw my smile. She trembled quietly.

She mouthed the words to me: Just how much do you plan to torment these people?

****

Tony hated this situation.

It wasn't just because he was jealous. Okay, maybe he was a little jealous. Why did Academy cadets get such preferential treatment?

The Hunter Association was supposed to prioritize its own. He had clawed his way up from F-Rank to B-Rank through blood, sweat, and cheap ale. He was a veteran.

And yet, here he was, babysitting.

He glanced back.

Lucien was strolling through the crystalline jagged wasteland as if he were walking through a royal garden. The girl, Alicia, walked a step behind him, alert but composed.

'Look at them,' Tony thought, spitting a wad of phlegm onto a glowing rock. 'They're still wet behind the ears. They haven't even hit puberty properly.'

To Tony, this looked like a farce. The boy was a sheltered noble playing adventurer. The girl wasn't even a cadet; she was dressed like a servant—a battle maid or something equally ridiculous.

'What does he think this is? A picnic with his maid?'

Tony gritted his teeth. His team was being harassed by Ghouls and Crystal Wolves every fifty meters, sweating in their heavy armor, while those two were clean, relaxed, and worst of all… bored.

He had planned to use them as meat shields. To let them taste a bit of reality. But his predictions were going wrong at every turn.

"You maggot!" Tony roared, swinging his greatsword to decapitate a Stone Lizard. "I told you to participate in the battle obligatorily! Stop sight-seeing!"

Lucien looked up, blinking innocently behind his sunglasses.

"Yes, Captain. So I participated."

"You stood there!"

"I was guarding the rear flank."

Technically, he wasn't lying. He did participate.

It was just that, for some 'unknown reason', no Demonic Beast ever approached the position where Lucien and Alicia were standing.

When the monsters spawned, Lucien would take a half-step to the left. A monster would lunge and miss him by an inch, targeting one of Tony's subordinates instead.

When a rockfall occurred, Lucien would casually stop walking a second before the boulder crushed the path ahead.

It was infuriating. It was as if he had the dungeon's blueprints tattooed on the inside of his eyelids.

In the end, while the "Porters" moved with sluggish, casual efficiency, the elite survey team was forced to tank every single hit to survive.

"…Kill at least one of them properly!" Tony screamed, pointing his sword at a fresh wave of monsters. "Stop dodging! Make yourself useful, you worms!"

Lucien sighed, adjusting his gloves.

"Understood. One kill, coming up."

A massive Crystal Golem rumbled out of the earth. It was an Elite Mob—ten feet tall, encased in armor that deflected steel, with mana stones pulsating all over its body.

"That's a fortress type!" one of Tony's mages yelled. "We need to flank it! Aim for the joints!"

Tony braced himself. This would take at least five minutes of coordinated attacks to bring down.

Lucien walked up to it.

He didn't draw his shotgun. He didn't draw a sword.

He simply walked into the Golem's attack range.

The Golem raised a massive fist to squash the insect.

Lucien didn't look up. He side-stepped the smash with lazy elegance.

CRASH.

The fist buried itself in the ground.

While the Golem was stuck, Lucien hopped onto its arm. He walked up to its shoulder. He looked at the glowing mana stones covering its body—decoys meant to distract hunters.

He ignored them all.

He pulled out a small dagger and tapped a tiny, hairline fracture on the back of the Golem's neck—a spot invisible to the naked eye unless you knew exactly where the texture file overlapped in the game model.

Clink.

It was a light tap. Like knocking on a door.

CRAAAACK.

The sound of shattering glass echoed through the valley.

The hairline fracture spread instantly. The Golem froze. The light in its eyes died.

Rumble… Crash.

The ten-foot giant collapsed into a pile of harmless rocks.

Lucien hopped off the debris, dusting off his hands.

"Phew," he exhaled, wiping a non-existent bead of sweat from his forehead. "Wow, that was tough. It's so hard trying to do this as a porter."

And saying that, he sat down on a rock to 'rest' from his exertions.

The battlefield went silent.

Tony's subordinates were struggling with smaller golems, hacking away with all their might, while the Elite Boss lay in pieces behind the porter.

"Th-th-this bastard…!"

Tony's blood pressure spiked so high he saw spots.

"As you said, Captain," Lucien called out, giving a cheerful thumbs-up. "I somehow managed to kill one. It was really dangerous. I might need a break."

Tony almost flew into a rage. His hand twitched toward his sword hilt, a genuine urge to commit murder rising in his chest.

'I'll kill him. I'll kill him right now.'

But he held back.

Attacking a fellow Climber inside a Dungeon was a taboo among taboos. If he did it, the Hunter Association would hunt him down. He would lose his rank, his money, and probably his head.

'How dare this bastard mock me?'

Tony turned away, spewing curses under his breath, taking his anger out on a poor Crystal Wolf that had wandered too close.

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