Clearing the Hard difficulty wasn’t "hard" at all, since it was basically the same difficulty as the original dungeon we had already run through.

And for us—who had already leveled past the required threshold, with the girls fully accustomed to the map’s layout and monster behavior—rushing to the finish line took significantly less time than even our first full clear.

Of course, I didn’t nuke the monsters this time. If I had, Miyabi and the rest would’ve gotten caught in it too.

Thus, we cleared the map as normally as we could, moving in tight formation, cutting through monster waves without slowing down, before finally arriving at the end and killing the Basilisk in just five minutes flat.

With the debuff potions on hand and me handling the boss from start to finish, there wasn’t much suspense in it. It was less of a fight and more of an execution with extra steps.

"Good! After we clear up our inventories, let’s tackle Hell difficulty next!"

The boss had dropped quite a lot of items this time around. I even found a solid flag to replace the one I had been using since level one—which, thinking about it, was long overdue. The drop rate for flags was genuinely abysmal.

A shame, given that it was my main weapon, but that was just the hand the class had dealt me.

After swapping equipment, and with the girls finished checking through their loot, we tapped exit and were washed in a flash of light.

"...?"

But the moment we stepped out, the hair on the back of my neck stood on end.

This feeling... Bloodlust!

I couldn’t see the specifics yet—the exit flash was still fading—but I could already feel presences arranged from multiple directions. Deliberately positioned.

They had us surrounded, and every single one of those presences carried the unmistakable weight of hostile intent, coiled and ready to release at the earliest viable moment.

"Breeze, Sanctuary!"

I didn’t even bother with full IGNs. Every syllable lost was additional risk.

The light faded. Figures came into view ahead, armor bearing a familiar insignia that tugged at my memory before I could place it. No time to think.

"Cloud, Kristal, take care of the back! I’ll handle this side!" I continued without pause.

The back had fewer long-ranged attackers from what I could read of the formation, which made it easier for the girls to manage. They were already positioned well enough to hold it naturally.

Just in case, I pushed a mental command to Ram and Gwen—to get ready to jump and cover the girls if anything slipped through.

I, on the other hand, focused everything forward.

Blocking this many attacks at practically point-blank range wasn’t something normal methods could handle cleanly. I swapped weapons fast—a rapier, light and quick, suited exactly for what came next.

I drove the flag into the ground first, then gripped the rapier and moved.

A simple thrust, tip tracing tight circles in the air. On the third circle, I cancelled the motion and flicked my wrist, redirecting the spin to grow vertically instead.

"Eye of the Storm!"

Technically an offensive technique—haphazard, lacking the precision for reliable micro-control, which was why I had largely shelved it. But for this specific situation, with projectiles coming in at blinding speed from multiple angles simultaneously, it was exactly right.

The moment my voice landed, a tornado appeared between our group and the attackers. Small—barely two meters in diameter—but strong enough to drag every incoming attack downward, all of them slamming into the earth well short of their targets.

’Fuck! Lucky I made it in time!’

A single millisecond of delay and a few of those faster projectiles would’ve punched straight through before the vortex could intercept. But the danger was averted.

Nobody had taken a hit.

"Sanctuary!"

Eri’s barrier expanded around us almost simultaneously, the soft light of it pressing outward and sealing the space. Another layer between us and anything still looking to finish what the ambush had started.

I glanced back. Miyabi and Kiki were both standing firm, weapons out, the rear formation holding cleanly. No casualties on that side either.

Good.

With the barrier up and the immediate threat neutralized, the situation had shifted from reactive to controlled in the span of a few seconds. I finally had the breathing room to properly look at the insignias on their armor.

It didn’t take long to place them.

"Ah, the Justice Guild?" I whispered, letting the smile come naturally. "Looks like you crooks finally couldn’t hide your true colors. PK in broad daylight? Hah!"

Each word was a deliberate poke. Each casual gesture of my free hand, an additional twist of the knife. I watched the expressions across the group for the one that reacted the hardest—and found him almost immediately.

The young man near the center, whose gear practically radiated purple aura from head to toe—SR equipment across the board. That kind of investment didn’t come to someone who wasn’t used to being in charge.

"Crook...?"

The boss-man’s expression curdled fast. "You’re the ones stealing what’s mine! I’ll kill you. I, Henry Clive, will fucking kill you...!!!" He roared.

Seeing his twisted expression, if it was in the real world, it wouldn’t have looked out of place if there was foam at the corners of his mouth. He’s acting like a rabid dog, ready to bite anyone that comes across its path.

He moved the next moment.

The sword in his hand came down in a clean vertical arc, following the basic activation pattern of a classic sword-class skill.

"Mountain Cleaver...!"

Fast and simple.

But precisely because it was simple, the dodge was easy—this kind of skill was usually a feint, used to bait a reaction before cancelling into something nastier mid-animation.

I stepped aside and held my ground, watching for the cancel, waiting for the follow-up combo to reveal itself.

It didn’t come.

"Tsk! Slippery bastard...!"

He just... didn’t cancel.

Let the skill run its full course, hit the end stiffening, and stood there frozen for a moment like an apology. I stared at him for a half second, feeling briefly like an idiot for having given him more credit than he deserved, then sighed and drove the rapier into his side.

A casual, unremarkable attack. No skill activation, no particular aim.

But the level gap did the rest.

CRITICAL!

1,040!!!

Lucky crit. His HP dropped by a quarter in a single poke.

Henry didn’t freeze up after the stiffening cleared—he came back into it immediately, swinging into his next skill without hesitation. A horizontal arc this time, faster and harder to sidestep cleanly than the vertical had been. "Horizontal Slash!"

I didn’t give ground. I was already reading the chain he could follow it with, calculating forward.

I brought the rapier across and struck the center of his blade at the exact right moment—a perfect parry. He should have cancelled just before contact and redirected into something else. A good player would have. The parry window was right there to read.

But the first vertical hadn’t been a feint, and neither was this. The horizontal came in fully committed, hit the rapier clean, and Henry’s arm flew back from the impact with a sound like a heavy door slamming.

"Fuck...!"

The veins along his forehead surfaced visibly. He was rattled—not just in health, but in composure, the kind of rattled that came from realizing mid-fight that the gap was wider than anticipated, but refused to accept it.

I didn’t give the moment time to breathe.

A rapier could attack multiple times a second if the footwork supported it. I planted my feet, stepped forward into his stagger, and stabbed five times in a single exhalation.

Both eyes, throat, heart, stomach—each target picked in the same motion, the sequence flowing out of the positioning without needing to think about it separately.

Three of the five landed as critical hits. The remaining two registered as normal attacks.

But it didn’t matter. With each critical carving out a quarter of his HP, the bar hit zero before the last stab had even fully registered on screen.

Henry Clive shattered into fragments of light.

"..."

The silence that followed was the particular kind that comes from a crowd that has just watched something they weren’t entirely prepared for. Or maybe one seeing the end that they had imagined so perfectly it was appalling.

His entire guild—both parties combined—stood completely still, staring at the spot where their boss had been standing.

Then they looked at each other.

Something passed between them, some unspoken consensus reached at speed.

"Sorry for the trouble! We’ll take our leave!"

And with that, every single one of them turned and ran. Melting into the trees with the practiced urgency of people who had already decided this wasn’t worth the severance package.

Not one of them made a move to avenge their leader, challenge the outcome, or even linger for a dramatic exit.

I almost felt bad for Henry. Almost.

The ambush had wrapped up faster than Eri’s sanctuary lost its efficacy. When the thin barrier of light finally faded, the members of the Justice Guild had already long disappeared beyond the trees and underbrush, not even the sound of their footsteps remaining.

"What the heck was that?" Miyabi grumbled as she sheathed her sword.

"Dunno," Kiki shrugged. "Must be someone jealous of WhiteGod’s fame and clear speed. We’re basically monopolizing most of the game’s rewards, after all. Can’t really blame them for trying, I guess."

Eri sighed, lowering her staff at last. "Couldn’t they just play nicely...? Attacking all of a sudden is too barbaric. Don’t you think so, everyone?"

As if summoned by her voice, the chat flooded with agreement almost instantly—messages stacking on top of each other in a continuous, enthusiastic wave.

They were agreeing with her so readily that if she had claimed the earth was flat, I suspected they’d still nod along without a single moment of hesitation.

’Since when did our viewers become Eri’s simps?’ I shook my head, smiling wryly.

"Alright, that’s enough." I raised my voice, pulling everyone’s attention back. "If you girls are fine, we should enter the Hell difficulty, clear it, then move on to the next map!"

Right now, thanks to the sheer volume of monsters we had hunted across every difficulty and the skirmish just now, our levels had all reached 48.

Just two more levels and we’d be eligible for the first class advancement—

—and to finally leave the Beginner Map behind.