’Does this mean this place is a dungeon? Then why didn’t anyone receive a notification for entering a dungeon?’ he wondered.
As the group continued deeper into the corridor, Alex quietly pieced together everything he had observed so far. The Supermart had somehow remained standing despite the earthquake, nobody had been able to see inside through the windows until recently, and now those windows were gradually becoming transparent again.
On top of that, the building contained lingering Origin Energy that closely resembled the remains of a cleared dungeon.
The more he thought about it, the more those clues seemed connected. It didn’t feel like a collection of coincidences anymore. Something important had happened inside this building while everyone outside had been occupied with the Wild Orc.
Rae looked around the empty corridor before speaking quietly. "This is strange. Wasn’t this place supposed to be full of monsters? Did we already kill them all when they rushed outside?"
"Not us," Alex replied as he continued walking.
"What do you mean?" Rae asked, keeping her eyes forward.
Alex adjusted Charlotta with one arm before continuing to push Rae’s wheelchair. At the same time, another short arm made entirely of Mana extended from the side of his chest and pushed from the opposite side, letting him share the workload while quietly training his mana control.
"I think this place became a dungeon after Ben’s group entered. If that happened, they might not have received a notification because they were already inside. It must be the Dungeon’s Origin Energy that attracted the Wild Orc to this place. Then, either while we were fighting the Wild Orc or shortly after we killed it, someone entered this dungeon, defeated the boss, and absorbed most of the dungeon’s Origin Energy," Alex explained.
Rae frowned as she considered his explanation.
"There are a lot of assumptions in it," the old lady said, a lot more gentles in her voice than when they first met.
"There are. But I think it’s more or less correct. The strange part is that whoever cleared the dungeon apparently ignored the remaining monsters and left the survivors behind. Of course, something else might have happened instead of someone clearing this dungeon. We’ll need to keep looking for clues before reaching any conclusions," Alex said.
"I think Big Brother is one hundred percent right! Big Brother is always right," Charlotta said confidently from Alex’s arms.
Alex smiled as a small hand made of Mana reached over and gently patted her head, making the little girl stare at the disproportionately small mana in surprise before bursting into cheerful giggles.
Even while faintly smiling, Alex kept thinking about his own theory. If someone had really slipped inside and defeated the dungeon boss alone, then that person had to be extremely powerful.
At the same time, it didn’t make sense to ignore the remaining monsters because they were valuable experience, and it made even less sense to leave so many survivors trapped inside.
There wasn’t any point guessing further without evidence. Alex pushed those thoughts aside and focused on the corridor ahead. Whatever had happened inside the Supermart would eventually reveal itself if they searched carefully enough.
A sudden scraping sound echoed through the hallway. Moments later, a giant salamander crawled out from behind a row of collapsed shelves, its dark red scales covered in patches of hardened black skin that resembled cooled lava. It opened its mouth, exposing rows of needle-like teeth before charging straight toward them with surprising speed.
The little girl immediately grabbed Alex’s sleeve with both hands and pressed herself tightly against him. Although she had acted cheerful earlier, it made sense she was frightened.
Still, she stayed completely quiet and did not cause problems for them. Alex gently reassured her before the small mana hand dissolved into two tiny pieces that floated toward her ears.
The two pieces reshaped themselves into soft mana earplugs before settling comfortably into Charlotta’s ears. Rae would be firing from only a short distance away, and Alex didn’t want the repeated gunshots damaging the little girl’s hearing.
As for himself, Advanced Body Reinforcement already strengthened his body enough that the noise wasn’t much of a concern.
Rae calmly raised her rifle and fired the moment the salamander entered her effective range. The sharp crack echoed through the corridor, but the monster reacted at the last instant by twisting its head. Instead of entering its eye, the bullet slammed into the thick bone beside it, leaving a bloody wound without piercing the skull.
It made sense Rae missed, she had no one to distract monster for her this time.
The salamander hissed angrily but didn’t slow down at all. It had already covered more than half the distance between them, and its heavy claws scraped loudly across the floor as it continued charging. Before the two ascendants from Stefan’s team could move, Alex decided this was the perfect opportunity to test the spell he had been refining since an hour ago.
The Titan Reef Crab Leader’s ranged attacks had given him the initial idea, and repeated experiments with Mana Sense had convinced him the theory should work. Now he only needed to see whether he could reproduce the same principle with his Mana Bullet.
A bullet of condensed Mana slowly formed in front of him as he carefully controlled every part of its structure.
Unlike his earlier Mana Bullets, this one wasn’t simply a dense mana compressed into bullet shape. Alex deliberately built it in three layers, starting with an extremely dense core before surrounding it with a thin shell made of elastic Mana. Finally, dozens of incredibly fine Mana threads connected the shell to the core.
He stretched the outer shell to its limit as it floated before him. Once it could stretch no further, Alex released it while continuing to hold the entire structure in place with his mana control. The elastic shell instantly snapped back, transferring all of its stored force into the dense core through the thin Mana threads.
The compressed core shot forward like a released arrow. A split second later, the overstressed Mana threads snapped apart one after another, while the emptied elastic shell remained suspended in front of Alex under his control.
The entire process happened so quickly that it was almost impossible to follow with the naked eye.
The dense Mana core punched cleanly through the salamander’s front leg. The sudden impact threw the monster off balance, causing it to crash heavily onto the floor with a loud screech as its mouth opened wide.
Rae immediately pulled the trigger, sending a bullet through the open mouth and into its brain before it could recover.
The salamander’s body stiffened for a brief moment before going completely limp.
"Charlotta, heal my and Miss Rae’s stamina, please," Alex said.
The little girl nodded and immediately channeled her Faith, bathing both of them in a gentle light.
Alex had barely spent any stamina during the fight, but that wasn’t the point. As long as Charlotta contributed to the battle, even through healing, she would receive experience along with everyone else. A moment later, several familiar notifications appeared before Alex’s eyes.
[Level 5 Scorch Salamander killed.]
[Mana Bullet Spell has leveled up. Level 5 → Level 7.]
[Elastic Thread Spell has leveled up. Level 3 → Level 4.]
..
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