CHAPTER 805: CHAPTER 630: MONSTER FESTIVAL

This place is an underground space with only a faint phosphorescence, where vast areas are shrouded in darkness.

The space resembles a white palace, or a white labyrinth, clearly full of naturally rocky walls everywhere, yet the walls are all murky white, rendering this layer of the underground maze as if it were an ancient tomb relic. In scale alone, it even compares to the ancient relics of the Reinnaier clan.

In some part of this white labyrinth, not far from the central area of the maze, lies a cavernous chamber with an astonishing width and height, with the ceiling easily more than ten meters above the ground.

"Goo..."

"Woo..."

In the chamber, accompanied by low growling sounds, a large number of monsters are wandering about.

This is a group of skeleton monsters devoid of skin, muscle, and even internal organs, consisting only of their eerie white bones.

Various parts of the skeleton monsters jut out sharply like armor, appearing quite pointy, and they each wield bone swords, bone axes, and bone shields, with ghostly flames burning in their eye sockets, clearly indicating they’re not friendly.

The name of the skeleton monsters is Earthborn, which appear on the 37th level of the underground city, possessed of the highest level of combat abilities among monsters.

Don’t underestimate these seemingly empty skeletons and assume they’re just lifeless skeletons. In reality, they possess immense strength, swift movements, and can wield their various bone weapons skillfully in battle. Even powerful adventurers may not fare well against them.

Luckily, this is the 37th level, defined as a deep layer in the underground city, where ordinary adventurers can’t reach easily; if they do come, it would take them a long time, several days’ journey.

Therefore, the many skeleton monsters in this chamber usually can only roam aimlessly here, unable to wield their deadly weapons at living beings whom they inherently despise, to vent their violence.

However, today, an unexpected event occurred.

"Swoosh!"

In the vast, unvisited chamber, a figure appeared without any warning, instantly surrounded by a large group of skeleton monsters.

"————"

The skeleton monsters, which had been aimlessly roaming, suddenly stopped in unison, turning their heads in sync with a "clack clack" sound of bone friction, directing the ghostly flames in their eyes towards the person.

"......"

The young man who appeared in the chamber watched this scene in silence.

The two sides looked at each other, and finally, it was the young man who spoke first, breaking the eerie silence.

"Seeing you all, for a moment, I thought I had returned not to the Earth Mistake World but to the world of Overlord."

Reiger muttered to himself.

"To see so many Skeletal Overlords the moment I open my eyes, even I was nearly scared, okay?"

As soon as he finished speaking, the ghostly flames in the Earthborn’s eye sockets suddenly swelled, causing them to let out frightful roars.

"Guuooooooohhhhhh——!"

In such a thunderous roar, the skeleton monsters seemed angered by Reiger’s attitude, each charging towards Reiger.

As renowned monsters appearing on deep levels, the classification level of Earthborn is Lv.4.

A large group of monsters classified as Lv.4 charging from all directions towards one person, the scene would undoubtedly appear disastrous to anyone.

Unfortunately, these Earthborn attacked the wrong target.

"[Sunshine Burst]!"

In an instant, brilliance and scorching explosions akin to the sun appeared.

An area attack magic, capable of inflicting massive damage on evil creatures, undead, and those of low justice value, was unleashed in this unvisited deep layer, causing white light to explode in a hemispherical wave, bursting from Reiger at its center towards all directions.

"Guuooooooohhhhhh——!"

Undoubtedly evil creatures, low in justice value, and possibly defined as undead, the Earthborn were instantly engulfed by the sun-like brilliance and scorching flames in their charge, seeming to charge right into the white explosion, howling in pain as if purified, bit by bit evaporated by the white light.

When the white light dissipated, all the Earthborn in the chamber had been annihilated, leaving steam rising from the ground.

The scene was remarkably breathtaking.

If someone had been there to witness it, to see a large group of classified Lv.4 Earthborn annihilated in the blink of an eye, their hearts would surely explode in shock, right?

Similar feats can be achieved by those high-level Magic Guides.

However, they (he/she) need to painstakingly chant the incantation, need to strive for the chanting time required for releasing magic, and desperately evade monsters before magic is unleashed, or would need several front and mid-line fighters to protect them, buying time for their chant.

But Reiger doesn’t need that.

He only needs a single magic name, and in a mere instant, he can achieve what Magic Guides of Lv.4 and above spend their lives striving for, what requires a slow and painstaking incantation of wide-range annihilation magic to accomplish.

Looking at the now silent chamber, even Reiger couldn’t help but sigh.

"If it were the me from the last time I was in this world, I definitely wouldn’t have been able to do this, right?"

Even right before leaving this world, though I had already reached Lv.5, I still couldn’t have done this.

"Does this count as returning in glory?"

Reiger smiled slightly, and removed the hidden blade he had always worn at his waist, storing it in the dimensional cube’s storage space.

This blade was something the me before leaving did not have, so it’s better not to draw attention by carrying it around.

Instead, Reiger took out the fool’s blade that his current self rarely used and wore it at his waist.

This was the weapon used by the me before leaving this world.

"Let’s go back to the clan."

After doing this, Reiger finally lifted his head to look at the towering ceiling, his gaze seemingly penetrating through each level and returning to the surface.

Originally, wanting to return to the surface from the deep 37th layer would take at least two to three days.

During this time, one had to figure out how to deal with the many warrior-type monsters that appeared on this layer, such as the barbarian warriors with physiques equal to the mighty Minotaur, the elite lizardmen that first appeared on the 19th floor, and the obsidian soldiers with obsidian bodies.

These mid-sized monsters, similar in construction to humans and extremely adept at hand-to-hand combat, wandered around the 37th layer’s various corners. Though they weren’t as tough to deal with as earth-dwellers, they were still formidable foes that ordinary adventurers had to go all out to overcome.

Especially the obsidian soldiers, whose bodies were composed of stones known on the surface as anti-magic stones, capable of weakening the power of magic – in other words, highly resistant to magic. If a Magic Guide encountered them, it could truly be dangerous.

Faced with so many high-category monsters, even Reiger, who had just reached Lv.5 at the time, would struggle considerably to cross this floor and return to the surface.

But now...

"[Teleport]."

Reiger activated the highest tier of teleportation magic, turning the space black.

A semicircular gate of darkness unfolded before him.

On the other side of the gate was the surface.

......

The labyrinthine city, Orario.

At this time, the surface was in the most bustling period of the day.

In a corner of this city lauded as the center of the world and the liveliest city globally, in an empty alley, a semicircular gate of darkness silently opened.

Reiger slowly stepped out from inside the gate, looking at the scene lingering in a corner of his memory. Before he could feel nostalgic, his attention was caught by an excessively noisy sound.

"Why is it so lively?"

Reiger was somewhat surprised as he walked out of the alley, immediately seeing a street much more lively than usual in Orario.

The streets were crowded with people, filled with sounds of joy and excitement.

During this time when many adventurers would dive into the underground city to explore, the streets of Orario were packed not only with regular citizens but also with adventurers that were rarely seen outside the Babel Tower’s central square at this time, presenting a bustling scene.

Humans, beastmen, dwarves, elves, Amazons... people from different races formed a crowd, either lingering at countless stalls lined up or walking along streets decorated with ribbons and beautiful flowers, moving toward a large coliseum where cheers could be heard.

Above the heads of the passersby, colorful flags threaded through strings fluttered in the wind, with designs representing monsters’ fierce lion outlines and elephant head emblems.

The former is perhaps inconsequential, but the latter, the flag with the elephant head emblem, Reiger recognized it.

"The flag of the Ganisa Clan?"

The Ganisa Clan.

This is one of the foremost clans in Orario, not only immensely powerful but also having an extraordinary relationship with the guild.

It is a major clan only second to the Loki Clan and Freyja Clan. In terms of member count, it even surpasses the twin monarchs of Orario. The clan is most proud of having the most first-tier adventurers in Orario. Although it doesn’t have Lv.6 members like the Loki Clan or Freyja Clan, it boasts a total of eleven Lv.5 members.

Furthermore, due to its close ties with the guild, it has a semi-official status in Orario, often representing the city’s authority institutions; even the Loki Clan and Freyja Clan dare not underestimate it.

Now, the clan’s flags hung all over the streets, which were filled with crowds and stalls, giving the impression of a major festival taking place.

"Could it be..."

Reiger’s heart moved.

"I returned on the day of the Monster Festival?"