Elliot was at a loss for words. In the web novels he had read, the classic monsters that always welcomed adventurers on the first floor were always "the green-skinned, short, and senseless goblins who only knew how to swing their sticks around."

But instead of that, on the very first floor, he was face to face with an incoming horde of purple-eyed and dark-tinted humongous crabs. "Aren’t they supposed to be in the sea? What the fuck are they doing in a desert?"

Elliot mused with annoyance. Well, his question could only be answered by whoever the fuck created the dungeon.

The curving of their pincers made an eerie jittering sound as their legs scrolled over the sand in their rapid movement, dispensing fumes of dust around them.

Neither Elliot nor the Four Seasons were prepared to just sit idly and be gobbled whole by these land crustaceans or run away like sorry-ass cowards.

They were prepared to fight to the bloody end (but didn’t plan to die; it wasn’t that deep).

Elliot noticed that Seria had been looking at him a lot these past few days. As in all day, every day whenever they were together. But he just saw it as a sign that their connection had deepened, and he was more than happy to be her staring tool.

Even now, in this dire situation, instead of paying attention to the looming threats, she kept on looking at Elliot with her sparkling blue eyes that clearly said (I love you so much, please look at me). When he was supposed to notice something dark growing inside of Seria, he shrugged it off as her showing him she cared about him deeply.

Being the obsessive simp that he was, he only doted on her peculiar act. At this moment, he thought, ’Even if I were to die now, I won’t regret it.’

That’s what happens when you get overly attached to your fiancée too quickly, but Elliot didn’t see it that way. To him, "their love had just started to blossom."

The others took on their battle-ready positions. 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

Deria squinted her eyes backwards.

"But in an ’I am about to pummel these bastards’ kind of manner."

She didn’t care about their aims. For her, this was a dream come true. She had been itching for a fight over the last month. (All that aside, she hated crabs ever since one that was supposed to be dead on a plate for lunch grabbed onto her tiny nose.)

"I’m never going to forgive that chef."

Brown pupils constricted in anger. Wisps of brown mana surrounded her. She leaped into the air. Sand flowed from the ground into her clutched fists. In mid-air, a hammer was forged in her hand from pure sand solidified to perfection.

What made it even more surreal was that the hammer was at least fifteen times her size. (That was not a normal hammer sold in the market or crafted by blacksmiths; it was an abomination.)

The humongous crabs stopped in their tracks. Even though they didn’t possess any intelligence, their survival instincts told them to make a run for their lives. Before their eight legs could make a roundabout escape turn, the shadow of the hammer loomed, predating its hellish descent.

It was already too late. The heavy weight of the mace, hammer, whatever it was called, because the others were at a loss upon the sight of it, couldn’t classify or name it.

"Die! You eight-legged bastards!"

The hammer of doom dropped on the lustrous exoskeletons of the giant crabs and smashed them into puddles of green sticky ooze, causing the sand to erupt upwards from the great BOOM.

"13th Tier Spell: Caldion Impact."

Not only did she destroy their exoskeletons, confirmed to be hard enough that adamantite (one of the strongest metals in existence) paled in comparison, but she destroyed thirty giant crabs in one fell swoop with just one spell.

Not only did she live up to her reputation as one of the Four Seasons, but she also satisfied her urge for destruction.

"Hahahaha. I enjoyed killing you bastards!"

Elliot was still paying much attention to Seria and very little attention to his surroundings. Three giant crabs leaped towards him with their pincers directed at his head. Before the warnings of Edith or Taumus could reach him—

Seria appeared before Elliot. (She had been monitoring him the whole time, so...)

"Keep your filthy claws away from my fiancé!"

The sand froze over into a blue ice field. Jagged spikes of ice pierced through the ridged exoskeletons of the crabs. The cold was so intense that not even their green mucky blood was spared from the freeze.

She grabbed Elliot’s face with her ice-cold palms, blue crystal eyes filled with worry and concern.

"My honey, are you okay? Don’t tell me you are hurt."

She rapidly checked all over his body for injuries that were nonexistent.

"Don’t worry, dear. I’m fine."

He replied to her with a warm smile that immediately melted her heart.

"Ok-okay, if you say so."

Her entire pristine face, that was once as white as the snow in the far north, turned red, with steam erupting from her head like a kettle of water that was about to boil.

Elliot could have handled the situation himself. He knew Seria was well aware of that fact. But yet, he didn’t think that her jumping in front of him was a little bit weird. (He took it as a show of affection.)

’Ahhhh, my lovely Seria.’

Taumus tipped over like spilt milk on a table. He was single and bitter. His boyfriend broke up with him because of the rumours that he was a playboy. And yet his roommate was getting all lovey-dovey with his fiancée. Anger and irritation surged within him at the same time. But he was still very much happy that they were together. (For the fact that it wasn’t Alex, he was all good.)

"Tsk, couple goals."

Deria, being Deria the brute, smacked him on the shoulder.

"Only I get to say that line. You thief."

She folded her arms. She wouldn’t allow words that she didn’t even create to be used by others.

"Shouldn’t you be worried that the crabs you killed are currently regenerating?"

Edith cut in with a devastating concern.

"How are they still alive?"

They all wondered. The crabs that were supposed to be puddles of green muck were currently fusing into one huge mass.

Their fusion birthed a gigantua that was ten times their former size. Its humongous shadow loomed over them. They looked up at it like a moving mountain. (The ’I am gonna eat you alive, radioactive goo is dropping from my jagged mouth’ kind of overly gigantic crab.)