VIP Chapter 268: The Hope of Escape (4k)
In reality, shouldn’t they have realized it long ago?
The fate they firmly believed in had begun to spiral out of control.
He believed himself to be their “teacher,” capable of guiding their growth, and even if they truly became corrupted, he was sure he could control them.
But… Treya, with a “worldview” and “settings” he had never heard of, yet had always been staring him in the face, had trapped him here.
She tried harder than he imagined.
She loved him more than he imagined.
She wanted him more than he imagined.
She was so resolute, believing in her ideals, goals, and desires more firmly than he had anticipated.
She had her own plans and arrangements.
Although Will was the one who raised her, it was only now that Will had to believe…
He had lost the advantage of using his knowledge of the original work to improve them.
They…
were becoming truly, completely corrupted, yanderes who could show intense love towards him.
And they wouldn’t be easily swayed by his actions.
“Since you say it’s a dungeon, then don’t blame me for using the dungeon’s rules—!”
“Treya—!”
Shuna’s voice shattered the momentary silence, piercing his brain like a bullet.
He raised his head…
Shuna stood there.
Back in the moonlight, her body appeared as “healthy” and “intact” as ever, speaking these words almost in a shout.
However…
She was covered in something entirely black, though its texture seemed more like “blood” no matter how you looked at it. This viscous substance dripped from her arm, little by little.
Shuna moved her body, then turned her head.
“…”
Treya also heard the words.
Her expression under the moonlight remained cold. She turned, and the black earrings she wore, a pair with Will’s, swayed with her movement.
“Hmph… Zero Demon City, it’s really a retro thing. ‘Black Blood Sludge’ that only attacks with blood like this, I last saw it in a book…”
Shuna twirled the dagger in her hand, which was also covered in blood. She walked step by step towards Treya.
Treya didn’t back down. Instead, as if to “block the enemy” and “protect someone,” she shielded Will behind her.
“What are you saying?”
Will didn’t feel “safe” because Treya blocked Shuna from him. Quite the opposite, he instinctively flinched back as if his body had a conditioned reflex of “fear.”
Shuna… Shuna was fine.
She was back.
That meant he…
still had a chance…
Yes, there must be a chance, a chance to escape from here…
The Shuna standing before him was like a lifesaver.
He felt his mindset shift slightly. All he wanted now was—
to escape, escape, escape, escape, escape.
To flee as far away as possible, away from the empress who had altered his memories, given him false dreams, and insisted on him falling in love with her.
To escape this dungeon, this place that seemed to be the source of all “demons,” filled with black, terrifying, disgusting things.
To escape…
To escape from Treya, who had completely surpassed his imagination and was someone he could never control…
“Ha… ha… fighting an elite monster from two hundred years ago was quite exhilarating. The attacks were direct, unlike these guys now who only play tricks.”
Shuna panted, her eyes fixed on Will.
She sensed “uncertainty” in Will’s gaze—it moved to her, then away, flicking back and forth.
It wasn’t like him. He avoided her gaze, with a hint of fear and rejection, and a sense of surrender.
—But, this is what “adventurers” often encounter, Will.
—If you still want to continue clearing the dungeon, you not only need to be persistent, act efficiently, and plan everything…
—You also need to learn to retreat and escape at the right time.
—Until you feel the threat to your life, the urge to back down, the courage to flee.
—Perhaps then you will truly feel what it’s like to live in a world that is a “real existence,” not “fate” or a “story.”
—If you are still the Will I believe in, and you hold onto that persistence, you are still worth standing up again after escaping.
—If you see this, you will understand in an instant!
“Will—”
And Will, who had been somewhat uncertain, looked up upon hearing this.
He saw it.
With a wave of Shuna’s left hand, the black mud fell away, revealing an obsidian pendant that, reflecting the moonlight, seemed to be coated in a faint layer of silver.
His eyes widened.
Even he, who had almost given up moments ago, could understand what this was.
It was a common, retro item dropped in dungeons, a cursed silver chain, usually found on elite monsters before the BOSS floor, on the twenty-ninth floor…
As if by reflex, upon seeing this item, his mind flooded with countless pieces of information about it.
This was the accumulation of years of his efforts, the “knowledge” he had gained to understand dungeons.
He understood.
This was something Shuna intentionally wanted him to see.
Solely to tell him how to utilize one of the most important “rules” of a dungeon.
“Shining Star is now…”
The moment Shuna’s and his eyes met, it was as if they had understood each other’s thoughts, synchronizing in an instant.
After all, this series of plans had been progressing to this point, all to save him now. They couldn’t stop here.
“Quit clearing the dungeon—!!!”
Their voices overlapped, leaving Treya, caught in the middle, with only their words echoing in her mind.
Treya’s expression froze on her face.
She immediately turned around.
Because she had “trapped” Will in the dungeon, in a trump card she had hidden very deeply, she had never considered the possibility of him escaping.
“Teacher Will—!”
In her urgency, she turned, and Treya reached out to grab Will’s hand, only to grasp empty air.
Before her, the hem of the white dress she had prepared for Will slipped into a door, which then slowly faded away, leaving only dust.
“Damn it—what happened?! How could this happen—I need to get out of here…”
“Retreat from the dungeon, now, retreat…”
Treya frantically touched her earring, speaking as if issuing a command.
“Heh.”
Shuna let out a soft laugh, tossing the silver pendant in her hand aside dismissively. She raised her dagger and charged towards Treya.
“A dungeon has a rule…”
“If you clear the floor before the BOSS room and defeat the elite monster there, you gain the right to ‘withdraw from here’.”
“The right to escape with your loot without choosing to fight the BOSS.”
“This is an insurance for adventurers.”
A flash of a blade passed before Treya’s eyes. She evaded it with the highest agility in the entire team, but a strand of her silver bangs was cut off.
“You probably didn’t notice, but the floor you chose to pull us into—”
“Is the twenty-ninth floor.”
“The most elite adventurers… no, someone like Will can clearly recite the drop rates of equipment. This is something even I might not be able to do.”
“So, he just needs one look to understand. I believe in him.”
Treya listened, her hand sliding from her earring.
“…Cannot retreat.”
Then, she drew her sword from her waist.
Shuna had used the same method as the “Dungeon Empress” entering combat mode to trap her here.
Although she was just taking a gamble, it seemed to be working to trap the “monster” by entering combat on a floor where the “Emperor” was not present.
“You know, perhaps… you should still call him teacher.”
Shuna looked at the door that had already vanished behind Treya and smiled with relief.
It was good. He had successfully escaped. And… there were some things he would probably only find out after he had gone far away, completely out of his unease.
Once everyone in a team had withdrawn from the dungeon, this door would disappear.
This was originally a “protection” for the “Emperor” of the dungeon, allowing them to confirm if the entire adventuring team had left.
But now…
Shuna had used this to counter Treya, the newly arrived “new Dungeon Empress.” Since she couldn’t reach the door, it gave Will a chance to escape further.
As for why Shuna remained here.
This was the place she felt relieved about, that Will wouldn’t be thinking about her and could escape with all his heart.
After reaching the Adventurer’s Guild in the capital, she had casually, in a fit of pique, completed the procedure to leave the team.
She had thought that when she met Will again, he… he might even beg her to join the team again—but she never told him this later because it was too embarrassing.
“You want to hold me off here?”
“Yes. I just tried. With close combat, I’m evenly matched with you using short weapons. Holding you off for a while shouldn’t be a problem, right?”
Shuna twirled the dagger in her hand. No longer needing to cover for Will, she seemed more at ease.
“I see. You discovered that he develops resistance to your methods of altering memories and creating illusions…”
Shuna revealed Treya’s psychological activities without reservation.
“You found out that no matter what, he will think of escaping, and no matter what, he will leave.”
Shuna’s rapid attacks forced Treya to retreat step by step.
“So you wanted to control him at least before the ‘wedding,’ to make him despair, to make him fall into the sweetness you created…”
After saying this, Shuna saw Treya’s eyes light up with purple again.
“Yes. So what?”
Treya’s swordsmanship was flawless.
Shuna considered her close-combat skills to be excellent; otherwise, she wouldn’t have used short weapons for so many years without changing.
But…
Treya was indeed taught by Will. Besides her good use of demonic abilities, her combat and movement awareness were also good.
“You know, isn’t your possessiveness a bit too strong? Maybe he would be happier running away…”
“He won’t be.”
Only at this moment did Treya find an opening with her sword, interrupting Shuna’s attack both with her sword and her words.
“Impossible.”
Shuna had to let go of her dagger to dodge this move.
“It shouldn’t happen.”
Shuna retreated a short distance. She still had a folded dagger on her legband.
“I am already stronger than he was back then. Being by my side is definitely the best choice for him.”
But Treya pressed on.
“More importantly, I cannot leave him.”
With a calm tone of voice, she spoke the most heavy words for a single person.
“That’s too heavy. You’re…”
Before Shuna could finish speaking, Treya interrupted her—
“So you see, you can’t compare to how much I love him, can you?”
A chilling smile spread across Treya’s face, making Shuna’s skin crawl. It was a sense of oppression she hadn’t felt from any other dungeon boss so far…
“However, it’s fine. I’ve thought of a method. Your so-called ‘conquest’ will end here immediately.”
“?”
Shuna felt her feet go soft, as if stepping into a swamp.
Illusion again?
Or memory alteration?
Impossible…
She had clearly superimposed on herself…
“Superimposed countless Goddess buffs on herself to resist illusions?”
“It seems you’ve been attacking my spirit quite a bit just now.”
“You just said that I don’t know what adventurers are like…”
“Yes, yes, you still have much to learn.”
“You might not know that each level of a dungeon is determined by its ‘Empress’.”
Shuna’s eyes widened, unblinking.
“This is the reality of the dungeon’s BOSS floor—”
But her vision flickered, constantly flipping through still images, yet through this flickering, the world before her became dynamic.
“When you can leave depends on when you can conquer it.”
Treya continued, her voice growing more ethereal, as if emanating from a music box.
“This is…”
Finally, the world before her stopped flickering.
She stood in a world composed purely of uncolored white cubes.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dawn broke.
Will was running forward.
He ran out of that royal palace door.
Straight ahead.
The first thing he realized was that he didn’t know how long Shuna could hold her off. But in a dungeon that belonged to Treya, she had more trump cards and options.
So…
He couldn’t just aim to “escape as far as possible.”
Either he had to trick Treya—for example, by confusing her.
Or find support—wait for Shuna.
To trick Treya, he couldn’t choose the road, where she could advance quickly. He wasn’t confident he could outrun a horse.
As for finding support…
Will thought of something.
He quickly checked his wounds. First, he needed to heal them to run further. This only required minor healing magic, which was not a problem for a top-tier healer.
But…
He smeared blood from his leg wound.
He wrote words on the ground next to the gate—
296.
If he remembered correctly…
His own book… should… maybe… probably not be wrong.
This was the hope he could count on.
What if “he” suddenly disappeared?
Seeing this number, one person would understand.
Next…
He would use indirect methods to make it impossible for Treya to find him—she didn’t have any particular ability to find him, and once out of the palace, the demonic energy would weaken.
“This is Shuna…”
“The hope she fought for me…”
“So… I must go forward…”
He didn’t choose to advance along the road. Instead, he stepped into the nearby forest.
