"I told you ages ago—don't just summon the Troll the moment you stop thinking! You have other Magic Guide Spirits!"
"But Emma, the Troll is my strongest Magic Guide Spirit!"
"I know it's powerful, but can you stop bringing it up over and over?"
"You brought it up first."
"What I mean is, can you size up the situation before you act? Not every monster can be dealt with using the Troll."
"So far they all can."
"I, I, I…"
...
As an opening soundlessly appeared in the wall on the left side of the abyss, a fierce quarrel suddenly came spilling out of it.
The voices were extremely loud. The two arguing parties seemed utterly unconcerned that this was a dungeon teeming with monsters, raising their volume entirely as they pleased.
And amid the bickering of that man and woman, there seemed to be a faint voice trying to mediate—but it was clearly of no use whatsoever.
Devimon's five senses were sharp; with a single glance it discerned the identity of that group, and it couldn't help but frown.
It wasn't that it minded the sudden appearance of the trio—only that their loud quarreling was very unfavorable to its current situation.
Sure enough.
Devimon immediately sensed that the terrifying monster hidden below in the pitch-black abyss had stirred noticeably.
"Not good!"
Its mind flickered, and it glared fiercely toward that passage opening, then abruptly beat its wings, accelerating sharply.
Devimon's abrupt movement and the suddenly emerging quarrel caused Dark and his two companions, hidden at the corner, to immediately raise their guard as well.
Light was already flickering on the Magic Guide Cards in Diana's and Rose's hands.
Dark, however, thought a bit further. He cautiously poked his head out toward the direction of the quarreling, and when he saw that a passage opening had actually appeared in the wall on that side—where there had originally been nothing—he immediately got an extremely bad premonition.
But before he could think it over carefully, he saw that Devimon had already landed on that platform.
Yet before Devimon could even touch the treasure chest, the ground beneath its feet began to shake violently.
Just as Hawlucha had experienced earlier, two dazzling red beams of light suddenly shot out, dyeing the walls and ceiling blood-red like searchlights.
Then, that familiar ear-piercing shriek tore through the space.
Black shadows crept upward from the bottom of the abyss.
As the red light receded, darkness invaded, and granular black mist spread rapidly.
That terrifying tentacle covered in suckers shot out from within the black mist, lashing wildly through the air.
It did not immediately attack Devimon.
For a moment.
Whether it was Dark's trio or Devimon, all of them ceased moving.
And the quarreling that had been coming from that newly opened passage also came to an abrupt halt.
Virt and Emma were walking in front, and just as they rounded a bend, they witnessed the very instant the gigantic tentacle burst forth.
Horror struck both their hearts, and they hurriedly clamped their hands over their mouths.
Only then did Robert come out from behind.
Before forming the team, he had never imagined that he—the one who was supposed to have the worst relationship with Emma—would end up having to play the role of peacemaker.
That was decidedly not his role.
But Virt, who had taken the initiative to go invite Emma, had ended up arguing with her right after they encountered their first wave of monsters.
This left him feeling utterly incredulous.
It seemed the two of them held diametrically opposed views on dungeon exploration, and that had gradually turned into an irreconcilable conflict.
But fortunately, both of their abilities were still solid, and he himself had a desperate trump card for critical moments, so the journey thus far had gone fairly smoothly.
It was just that the atmosphere was getting worse and worse.
Seeing that if they kept arguing they might well be forced to turn back, Robert had been doing his utmost to salvage things.
But as expected, it had no effect at all.
Just as he was feeling despair over this, the ground suddenly shook violently, and a shriek came from nearby.
Virt and Emma, walking in front, fell silent at the same time.
Full of doubt, he stepped out from the corner—and finally saw that terrifying tentacle, even thicker than Virt's Troll!
"Ahh—"
Robert's loud voice could no longer be held back.
He suddenly clutched his head and let out a scream of terror.
"Shut up!"
"Shut up! Robert." Emma and Virt hurriedly turned their heads and hissed in a low voice.
Seeing the urgent expressions on their faces, Robert sharply sucked in air even as he was breathing out, and his scream was abruptly cut off, after which he broke into violent coughing.
Emma and Virt, however, had no time to mind his condition. The two hurriedly turned their heads back, staring fixedly at the giant tentacle that had suddenly stopped writhing because of Robert's scream.
The motionless tentacle seemed even more terrifying than when it had been thrashing wildly.
Emma and Virt could clearly hear their own hearts pounding violently.
Suppressing their horror, the two slightly bent their bodies and edged backward, while their fingers carefully crept toward their card pouches.
In the dead silence, the atmosphere seemed to be compressing toward the center of a whirlpool, growing ever more acute.
"Ssssha!"
Seven cracks suddenly split open at the tip of the tentacle.
Then in an instant it spread open into eight petals, forming a gaping blood-red maw.
The inner wall of each petal was covered with fine, dense sharp teeth, and viscous saliva trickled within the mouth.
A blood-red tongue with a mouth of its own extended out from inside the tentacle, making a "hissing" sound.
Then that tentacle aimed its head at the passage opening where Virt and the others stood, the terrifying maw slowly contracting.
Emma and Virt quietly exchanged a glance, then retreated toward the corner at the same time.
They moved extremely slowly, their eyes fixed on the tentacle from start to finish, not daring to look away in the slightest.
They were being so very cautious.
And yet Robert still could not stop coughing.
Against the backdrop of that noise, Emma and Virt—so carefully refraining from making the slightest sound—gave off an extremely odd impression.
It couldn't help but make one wonder.
What exactly was the point of what they were doing?
Only a brief pause.
The tentacle, its eight-petaled maw spread wide, suddenly moved.
From stillness to launch, the tentacle's head darted out with extreme speed, swift as a thunderclap too quick to cover one's ears.
"Run!"
Virt abruptly grabbed Robert's arm and dragged him toward the corner.
In front of Emma, a Golden Beast shaped like a Suanni instantly condensed into being.
"Roar!"
That Golden Beast let out a roar, erupting with a ferocious aura.
At the Magic Guide Master's command, it fearlessly charged at the tentacle that had already bored into the passage opening.
But the eight-petaled mouth at the tentacle's tip snapped open and, like swallowing something whole, gulped it entirely into its mouth.
Before it slid into the interior of the tentacle, Emma had already clearly seen that its hard golden body was effortlessly corroded and dissolved by the mucus inside the tentacle.
This discovery caused Emma's pupils to dilate instantly.
Even though she had realized at first sight that this tentacle was likely a terrifying monster beyond imagination, she still hadn't expected that her Golden Beast couldn't even hold it off for a single exchange.
No—it couldn't even block it for a moment.
Even as the tentacle swallowed the Golden Beast, it continued to surge forward.
Robert had already, under Virt's pulling, fled into the corner.
Emma herself had also backed away; after that single glance she turned in a panic.
Then the three of them said nothing, only running headlong at full speed.
That tentacle actually bored entirely into the passage, turning around the corner as nimbly as a giant python, continuing its murderous pursuit!
"Troll!"
Feeling the tentacle's pungent, rank stench almost licking at her spine, Emma suddenly let out a scream.
The Magic Guide Card in Virt's hand instantly blazed with intense light: "I told you the Troll would be useful!"
But the Troll he was so proud of had barely been summoned before it was smashed apart by the tentacle's charge.
The Troll's howl was drowned out in the blink of an eye amid the friction of the tentacle against the passage walls.
Robert, who had only just managed to recover, forced down the discomfort in his throat and fished one of Vampire Vlad's legacies out of his card pouch—but his speed at performing Normal Summoning was simply too slow.
The ten-second summoning time, at a moment like this, was truly far, far too long.
Just as the three of them were nearly in despair, the tentacle's forward charge came to an extremely abrupt halt.
Before the three's incredulous eyes, the eight-petaled mouth at the tentacle's tip actually retracted.
And then that entire tentacle actually began to recede!
"Has it reached the limit of its length?"
Virt panted heavily, his whole head drenched in sweat.
Emma braced herself against the wall, feeling her legs go as soft as cotton.
Robert simply plopped down on his backside.
The three had escaped death by a hair, yet their minds were a tangled mush.
They were completely unable to react to everything that had happened in that extremely short span of time.
"What on earth is going on?"
Faintly, they seemed just now to have heard someone's voice.
...
On the other side...
Dark Demon watched the tentacle charge into the passage from which the quarreling had come, and his pupils instantly contracted; instinctively he stepped out from behind the wall.
"Dark…"
Rose called out softly.
But Dark's attention was entirely on that tentacle.
His gaze moved down along the body of the tentacle, trying to see the tentacle's main body through the black mist.
But within the black mist only two clusters of red light showed through, seemingly two enormous eyes.
When his gaze turned to those two clusters of red light, he suddenly felt an eerie pulling force, as if it meant to stick to him and suck him in.
But the instant he sensed the abnormality.
With a slight exertion of strength, he lifted his head and shifted his gaze away.
As far as his eyes could reach, that tentacle was still continuously stretching out from within the black mist, frantically boring into the passage opening in the left wall.
His mind, which had just gone into a daze because of those two clusters of red light in the abyss, instantly regained its clarity.
Dark's gaze gradually turned sharp.
In an instant he analyzed the situation and grasped the key point of the moment.
Then he immediately issued a command to Devimon.
"Devimon, open the chest!"
...
After the shout rang out, Devimon on the platform immediately understood.
Without the slightest hesitation it bent down and reached out, grabbing the iron clasp of the treasure chest, then wrenched it forcefully, flipping up the chest's iron clasp along with the lid all at once.
The gold foil, pearls, and gemstones hidden within the treasure chest gave off luxurious colors, and that sheathless, rusted short sword still lay quietly in the midst of the treasure.
A treasure chest piled with such riches—if it had been discovered in a dungeon outside, the adventurers would very likely have abandoned that rusty sword that looked like junk at a glance, and then carried off every last bit of the gold foil, pearls, and gemstones.
Those riches alone would be enough to let a poor adventurer leap the dragon's gate and become a wealthy man in some small place.
With that money, buying a modest plot of land, building a house, setting up a small farm—one could live out the rest of one's life in comfort.
But this was St. Marian.
No one would be blinded by such a paltry amount of treasure.
After becoming a Magic Guide Master, the means to acquire wealth were as numerous as the hairs on an ox.
If those pearls and gemstones were exchanged for a single "10,000-credit" monthly pass, it would probably be far more enticing.
And so Devimon directly ignored those glowing gemstones that would drive Meowth into a frenzy. Its long arm, hanging down past its knees, abruptly extended, and the huge, sharp demonic claw snatched at that rusty, broken sword.
Not the slightest reaction.
As the rusty sword came into its grasp, Devimon felt not the faintest fluctuation from it that could be called "value."
But it did not throw it away because of that.
According to Dark's plan, after grabbing the rusty sword, it would immediately turn around and prepare to perform "Teleportation," moving directly from atop this platform to the passage opening where Dark was, and then immediately flee.
But suddenly it heard Dark's loud command again: "Fly over here!"
"Fly over there?"
Devimon's eyes couldn't help but glance toward that tentacle that had bored into the passage.
Of course it didn't think a mere tentacle like this could threaten the powerful self, but being entangled by such a disgusting tentacle would always do harm to its image, wouldn't it?
So…
Although it found it repugnant in its heart, Devimon nonetheless beat its wings and took off in accordance with Dark's command.
From the platform to the passage opening where Dark was, was a distance of barely a hundred meters.
But after the rusty sword was in hand, it could clearly feel the malice from the bottom of the abyss pouncing over as if it were something tangible.
"Hmph."
A sudden cold snort.
Devimon broke through the malice, charged across the abyss, and rushed into the passage.
"Ssssha!"
The commotion behind it suddenly grew louder.
Devimon whipped its head around and saw that the tentacle which had bored into the left passage had already retracted, and was now spreading that terrifying eight-petaled maw, biting at it from behind.
"Ten Thousand Deaths Claw!"
The decisive command reached its ears.
Devimon abruptly raised its left hand, and the huge, sharp demonic claw swept forward.
The power of darkness surged turbulently.
Countless Death Claws condensed and emerged, densely blanketing the field of vision.
"Roar!"
But Devimon's Ultimate Move only blocked that tentacle for a moment before it continued to pounce forward fiercely.
Devimon frowned and was about to use "Teleportation" to dodge.
But Dark's voice came again from behind: "Death Claw!"
"Death Claw?"
Devimon's head went blank.
Even "Ten Thousand Deaths Claw" could only stop that tentacle for an instant—what use could a single, solitary "Death Claw" be?
But the next moment, it saw a glaring white light blaze up on that tentacle's body—that was the light of a psychic power!
"The chance lasts only an instant."
The thought flashed through Devimon's mind in an instant.
Then it let go of that rusty sword, allowing it to fall to the ground, and chose its accustomed right arm.
Sure enough, when its right arm swelled and the sharp Death Claw fiercely snatched at the tentacle that had already pressed in close, a surge of turbulent power breaking past its limits erupted forth!
"Yibu! Yibu!"
╭（ ???）? ?? guh!
...
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