"Just wake up already, you doofus!"
Though no one else said it aloud, Arezu's protest reflected what everyone was thinking.
They had survived Alex's catastrophic spell Avalanche, countered only by Arezu's timely use of skill Shockwave, and were saved from the collapsing cave thanks to Lynn's powerful Glacier spell, which froze the entire cavern.
But their survival had come at a steep cost. Though they were still breathing—each exhalation forming clouds of cold mist—they were all far beyond exhaustion.
Arezu thrust his halberd into the ground, leaning heavily on it to stay upright.
Lynn collapsed to her knees, drained completely from casting such an advanced spell with what little mana she had left.
Compared to them, Liz and Hannah—along with the other adventurers and the village guard—were in better shape. But the villagers they carried on their backs were a grim reminder of the price paid. Each one was wounded, and suffering from the very spell that had saved them.
Spells like Obelisk and Avalanche had nearly caused the cave's collapse, and Glacier, cast in such a confined space, had nearly frozen them all to death. But there had been no other option.
It had been a choice between being buried alive or die with lungs frozen solid.
With that grim realization, Arezu stepped forward, leaving his halberd planted firmly in the ground. Slowly, he shrugged off his coat—scorched by fire and now stiff with ice—and let it fall to the ground.
"I guess we're down to the last option, then… I'm gonna beat you like a busted appliance until the shock restarts your damn system—ARGH!"
—ROAR!—
The fight had devolved into a fistfight.
Arezu charged barehanded, and Alex—berserk and naked from the waist down—met him head-on.
As they collided, Arezu surged forward, tackling Alex to the ground. Straddling him, Arezu unleashed a flurry of punches straight to Alex's face, holding back nothing.
"Aren't you supposed to be a fucking hero?!"
—ROAR!—
"You were supposed to protect everyone!... You were supposed to defeat those damn monsters!... You were supposed to save your world!... So how dare you lose control over some stupid curse and rampage like nothing matters?!"
Half of those words sounded like Arezu was yelling at himself—or at least that's what Lynn thought, watching him bear an expression that mixed guilt, regret, and self-loathing.
—ROAR!—
Still trapped in his rampage, Alex summoned another spell—a jagged rock spike burst from the ground beside him, aiming for Arezu's head. But Arezu dodged just in time with the spike grazing his cheek.
Without hesitation, Arezu grabbed Alex by the collar and hurled him into the air with all his strength—ripping away what remained of Alex's clothes in the process.
Alex crashed against the dungeon core's barrier. Before he could recover, Arezu dashed after him, scooping up his halberd along the way and raising it to strike.
Everyone thought he was going to cut Alex down.
Instead, the halberd's axe blade missed Alex's head by an inch—and struck the dungeon core's barrier.
The axe blade cracked on impact with the translucent white sphere. But before it could snap, the barrier shattered and Arezu's halberd connected with the dungeon core, breaking it in half.
A strange tremor rippled through the cave—not just the ground, but the air itself. For a moment, everyone braced for another collapse. But no further destruction followed.
Alex lay unconscious on the ground, no longer in agony and freed from the torment.
As Arezu sank to his knees beside his broken weapon, Lynn sprinted past him—not toward Alex, as he expected, but toward the shattered dungeon core.
She grabbed the reddish-black crystal and stuffed it into her bag. Then, glancing back at Arezu with a sardonic smile, she said:
"What? You're not expecting me to carry that disgusting—I mean, him. Right, Mr. Arezu?"
Surely a delicate girl like her wouldn't carry a naked man on her back, Arezu thought—though he wasn't sure if delicate was the right word to describe her anymore.
Sighing in resignation, Arezu strapped the broken halberd to his back with more care than he used picking up Alex. He slung the unconscious man over his shoulder and urged the others to move—before the cave came down on them.
Lynn, however, made one final stop—at the corpse of the headless giant goblin.
"Hurry up, Lynn."
"Just a moment, Mr. Arezu."
Without hesitation, she snatched the dagger from Arezu's belt, stabbed the giant goblin's chest, and tore it open. Her hand burrowed into its innards and pulled out the monster core.
"Now that we've looted everything valuable, this place can collapse for all I care."
"At least say that after we get out!"