Chapter 59: Centennial Death

BONK!

"Ugh..."

It was five in the afternoon, the sun just about to set. At that moment, the last one standing, Khamish, finally fell to Raive’s attack.

Even Hershey, who’d done nothing but heal everyone since the start and was only ever targeted a handful of times to keep her alert, had passed out long ago.

Raive scanned everyone once, then smiled.

"Alright. I guess today’s training ends here. Tomorrow, we’ll do the same!" He said.

Of course, nobody could hear him by then.

All of them were unconscious for one reason or another—skills overused, stamina wrung dry, or simply beaten to an inch of their lives.

Raive walked over to Hazel, the toughest of the group, and placed a hand on her shoulder. His hand glowed a gentle green, the sign of a skill activating.

A skill the girls had picked up while farming the previous day.

One Raive valued highly, with serious utility.

Healing Touch (S).

Others had wanted it too, but there’s only one of the said skill’s scroll. in the end, Raive claimed it through careful logic.

As the strongest among them, he’d inevitably outlast everyone. With a healing skill, he could help the others back on their feet after a beating.

But the real reason he wanted it traced back to his fight against the unbeatable monster.

He’d been hit hard once, and it had turned him into a liability.

With a healing ability, he had a real shot at standing back up and rejoining the fight after tending to himself. This new skill filled exactly that gap.

"Hazel, I’ll leave things here to you." Raive said once she’d come to. "I’m going to go farm a few dungeons for now. I’ll be back by midnight, so you don’t need to wait for me."

"...Got it."

Hazel, even though she was healed, wasn’t back to full health.

Pain lingered all over her body, and she could barely lift her arms. Every muscle felt spent, the way they do after a brutal workout that tears them apart.

Left unhealed, there was no doubt she’d wake up tomorrow unable to move.

Once she’d given her word, Raive left them in the park.

Right now, he had only one thing on his mind—farm every nearby open dungeon to extinction.

Two goals drove him this time.

One was to gather more skill books. The wider their range of abilities, the more flexible they’d be in emergencies—dungeon exploration, or the god’s trials themselves.

Second...

’I’m worried about leaving those dungeons out there.’

He couldn’t put his finger on it, but knowing a dungeon still sat nearby left him inexplicably uneasy, like having an itch that he couldn’t quite reach.

Not that he had any reason to leave most dungeons standing, so it worked out either way.

Using Hershey’s home as the center, Raive had already built a mental map of every dungeon nearby. He didn’t even need to visit them directly—his senses alone told him where they were and their respective difficulties.

That morning, he’d counted roughly 80 dungeons scattered around. Now that the sun was about to set, only 60 remained. Twenty had been cleared in the meantime.

And the cleared ones were all green or weaker, leaving only the tougher ones behind.

"Guess this’ll take a bit of time..." Raive sighed.

And with that, he took off for the nearest dungeon, planning to clear everything counterclockwise around Hershey’s home before midnight.

His method was simple.

He’d save before entering a dungeon, waste time mapping out its type, dangers, and exit path, then restart with the Rotten Rose poison and clear it again, far faster the second time.

Efficient, sure—but it still meant dying at least once per dungeon.

And thanks to that, he had his back gouged out seven more times.

Since he could heal himself now, though, it wasn’t nearly as dangerous as the first time. He pushed through without much trouble.

For dungeons dropping skill scrolls he wanted everyone to have—like a passive strength boost, or an active stealth skill—he held off clearing them, planning to come back with Reinhardt later.

"Phew..."

It was now a little past midnight.

Raive kept going until he reached the last dungeon: a red one roughly 5 kilometers from Hershey’s home.

By then, his haul had piled up into a small mountain.

Thankfully, a space item—a magic bag that had dropped earlier—let him carry it all without trouble.

Raive saved before entering the red dungeon, the second one after the Tree Knight’s. He wasn’t nervous, exactly, but he was wary of whatever puzzle waited inside.

The moment his vision cleared after stepping through...

"...!"

Fear hit him.

He could feel it in his bones. Death was closing in faster than the speed of sound!

By reflex, he snapped his neck to the side. A blurred shape tore past right where his head had been a second earlier. If he hadn’t dodged, his skull would’ve burst like a dropped watermelon for sure!

Raive raised the Tree Knight’s sword and scanned his surroundings.

"Fuck...!"

But he dropped the idea of fighting almost immediately.

Before him stood a handful of monsters radiating the exact same pressure as the ones back in C City. Different shapes, different faces—but the dread crawling up his spine when looking at them were identical.

He still didn’t know the dungeon’s gimmick, but he was sure of one thing. The goal wasn’t to kill everything in sight, as that would be an impossible task.

Realizing that, Raive didn’t hesitate.

He ran.

He sprinted, doing everything he could to keep the enemies from locking onto his position. But—

"GAH!"

Even that wasn’t enough.

Something struck him—something he never even saw. The next thing he knew, he was face-down on the ground, his right foot gone.

That single beat of stillness, lost in confusion and shock, sealed his fate.

More attacks landed, one after another, tearing into him.

His arms flew off. His legs shattered into a dozen pieces. A hole punched clean through his stomach. Half his head vanished. Blood pooled beneath him, a spreading crimson bed, then turned black and rotted away just as fast.

Raive never saw what hit him.

But he knew one thing, at least.

’This dungeon... Is fucking insane!’

Through pain sharp enough to break any sane mind, his vision went black. And then...

"GRAAAAAAAAAH!"

A guttural roar tore out of him the instant he loaded back.

This was his hundredth death.

And as if to mark the occasion...

Something from within him—something that wasn’t Raive—took over his body.