Early TNG Vol. 23 Chapter 4 Part 2

Full title: THE NEW GATE

Note: If you found any typos/mistakes, pls write them in the comment. Thanks.

Translator: Canon

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When the others returned from testing their weapons, Shin listened to their minor complaints—odd sensations, small requests—and tuned the gear accordingly.

Next came accessories. However, he asked Retoneka to leave the area for the ones endowed with “secret skills,” such as the 『Age of Gods Earrings』.

By the time all work was finished, night had fallen.

Even within the dungeon, the floors naturally experienced day and night changes.

Traveling after sundown was risky, so they decided to rest without moving their base.

Until dinner, Shin prototyped with armadite. The metal was far harder than chimeradite; no amount of heat would soften it.

Striking it with mana-infused blows finally granted a hint of malleability, but shaping something as delicate as a ring by brute force was unrealistic.

“I guess the Moon Shrine’s equipment can’t handle this. It’s just too hard.”

It wasn’t a cursed material that damaged or afflicted its craftsman—on that front, it was easy to handle. But when a metal refused to change shape at all, there wasn’t much a smith could do.

“No helping it. I hate to compromise, but I’ll treat this as groundwork.”

He switched to chimeradite and began forming the rings.

They looked black at first, though surface coloration could be altered.

For Schnee’s, he imagined her hair and eyes: silver as the base, traced with pale blue lines.

He set a deep-blue magic stone, then added an enchantment to dull the reflective gleam; sparkle would hinder stealth.

For his own, he left the black surface and inlaid violet lines.

Schnee’s hair and eyes didn’t share a color, and if he mirrored that exactly on his, the result would be pitch-black, too stark. He instead matched the hue of his mana when he got serious.

The gem he inlaid matched Schnee’s.

“As for the enchantments... unbreakable is non-negotiable. After that, location sharing.”

There was no guarantee someone wouldn’t snipe Shin with a pinpoint teleport someday.

Event items or monster abilities might also whisk Schnee away. She had once nearly gone missing; this function was insurance against a repeat.

“Owner binding, obviously... and recovery effects, I think.”

He mulled over combinations of continuous-heal skills, trying every viable layering he could.

He worked up until Schnee came to call him for dinner.

𑁋

After the meal.

They finished the last prep—sub-weapons, backups—then it was time to sleep before tomorrow’s push... when a powerful presence entered Shin’s detection range.

Something was outside the window. Monsters shouldn’t be able to approach through layered barriers, yet when he looked, Full Vegas was waving.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

She must have slipped past the barrier because this dungeon was effectively her domain.

At least she didn’t feel hostile. Staying alert, Shin opened the window. Full Vegas rested her elbows on the sill and spoke.

“Good evening. Sorry to drop in so late.”

Twin hills pressed on the window frame, flaunting their softness, but this was no time to gawk.

“I’ve actually got questions, so this helps, but is it even legal, rule-wise, for you to contact us mid-dungeon?”

In the game, she only appeared as the final-area boss. Shin had never heard of meeting her midway.

“I tweaked the slot machine a bit, so I came to explain.”

“So the equipment destruction was deliberate. Is that really worth a personal visit?”

“I didn’t have to, but I dragged you into my little whim. An explanation is the least I can do.”

“Your whim?”

What did that have to do with breaking gear? With so little known about Full Vegas, guessing was hard.

“You were letting that girl watch you forge. That was my goal.”

“That girl, Retoneka? You didn’t look like acquaintances.”

“We weren’t. I only knew about her.”

“How? Were you on Parda Island?”

Given the dungeon’s spawn near Parda Island, that was Shin’s first guess.

But Full Vegas’s dungeon was supposed to appear randomly, and her interest in Retoneka was still a mystery.

“My ability lets me overlook a wide area around wherever the dungeon manifests. I sometimes watch that island when people go there to gather materials. I noticed the girl by chance.”

Even Full Vegas could tell Retoneka was unusual. When Retoneka was outside, she had kept an eye on her.

“She’s undeniably gifted as a blacksmith. The Black Faction’s used that gathering site for ages, I’ve seen generations of members and their work. Even measured against them, Retoneka’s pieces don’t fall short. She could—maybe not yet, but one day—stand at the very top.”

“You rate her that highly.”

Praise like that from a Divine Beast was no small thing.

For now she was “merely” excellent, but she had the talent to break limits normal smiths could never cross.

Her special origins likely played a part, but without her own will, talent would go to waste.

“I knew she was struggling, but there was nothing I could do from here. So I’m glad you brought her off the island.”

“That wasn’t my intention.”

“I simply made use of coincidence. If you came close enough, I could reel you in with my power. For the record, aside from the equipment-destruction effect, everything else is random. You got shrunk because your luck pulled that slot.”

“Yeah, I figured. No complaints there.”

Only the equipment-destruction debuff had synchronized too neatly.

Everything else had hit the party differently.

“You didn’t fiddle with anything else, right? I’d rather not have monsters ahead tuned above spec.”

Full Vegas lifted a shoulder. “I wouldn’t ruin my dungeon’s selling point. If this zone’s monsters feel strong, that’s just luck.”

“Fine... So that’s all you came to say?”

“That’s the gist. But—consider it a thank-you—if you clear the final area, I’ll give you information along with the item reward.”

She winked. Shin eyed her warily; this smelled like the seed of another uproar.

“Don’t look at me like that. It won’t be bad news for you.”

“Can I at least hear the outline?”

“Sure. It’s about your contracted beast.”

“About Yuzuha?”

Shin had expected intel on hostile monsters like Miasma Demons. At Yuzuha’s name, he tensed.

He had a bad feeling.

“You’re taking her back when you return to your world, right? As things stand, that could cause... complications.”

“What kind of complications?”

Knowing about Shin was surprising enough, but anything that might endanger Yuzuha mattered far more.

Full Vegas’s tone dropped a shade. Shin almost manifested 『True Moon』 on instinct, but forced himself to hold back; fighting now wouldn’t get him the answers he wanted.

“There’s Retoneka to think about too, and I would tell you right away, but I can’t hand things out unilaterally. Whether it’s tangible or not. It’s the price of my wide-view ability. I can bend the rules a little... so I’d like you to clear the final area.”

So whatever concerned Yuzuha lay beyond the limits of what she could “fudge.”

“After hearing that, I’ll give my all. But if it turns out to be trivial, I won’t be amused.”

“I wouldn’t have come in person for trivia. I believe the payoff matches the effort. Still, even if you didn’t know, nothing would blow up tomorrow. And I’m not the only one who knows this. Don’t let your zeal burn you out.”

With that, Full Vegas pushed off the sill, vaulted, and vanished from sight.

Shin used 【Clairvoyance】 to peer outside, but she was gone.

“That doesn't sound like something a dungeon boss would say.”

Even so, his resolve had hardened. If it concerned Yuzuha, there was no room for a casual approach.

He shut the window and turned in, determined to be ready for tomorrow.

◆◆◆◆

At daybreak, fully prepared, Shin’s party reached the edge of the forest the area boss had ruled. After breakfast, he relayed his conversation with Full Vegas to everyone.

Yuzuha looked confused, but Shin didn't miss the brief moment her eyes wandered.

There might be circumstances she couldn’t share, but with Retoneka present, clearing the dungeon came first.

Learning Full Vegas’s intent left Retoneka astonished; she had never imagined a Divine Beast would take notice of her.

Even so, that didn’t mean there was only one path forward. Her talent and the road she chose didn’t have to be identical.

“I don’t know how far I can go, but creating things is still fun. So I want to hold a hammer again.”

Hearing that, Shin judged it as a good sign.

Letting her watch him smithing had stoked her motivation in just the right way.

With everyone’s spirits rising, they advanced. To the naked eye, the grassland ahead was empty of monsters.

“Another grassland. Something’s cloaking itself.”

“Perhaps every non-forest zone here is treated as the same area.”

Using 【Detection】 to search for hidden foes returned scattered pings. High-level monsters rarely formed packs, so he inferred enemies of roughly Gigiratis class.

Schnee, likely sensing the hidden presences as well, faced the same direction as Shin.

“That’s probably it. In a sense, the forest with only the boss and its underlings was a ‘safe area.’”

“Some ‘safe area,’ considering the welcome we got.”

Milt wasn’t wrong; it had been a rough reception.

“They’re at a tricky distance. If the fight drags on, the rest will converge on us.”

“Yeah. If we choose a bad starting point, we’ll be swarmed from the first exchange. They've made their placements difficult.”

Combining perception skills with vision-affecting ones, Shin sketched enemy distribution on a memo, just enough coverage for them to maneuver, if not all the way to the zone’s edge.

“Shall we cloak ourselves and move?”

Shin nodded to Schnee’s suggestion.

“We’ll do that as long as we can. These types are also good at finding others who use the same tactics, once we’re spotted, that’s it. Kill them quickly and push through.”

With their gear in order, they could now finish enemies faster and more reliably.

Compatibility still mattered, so not everything would drop in one hit.

They took as much distance as possible, then advanced along routes with fewer pings, guided by 【Detection】.

As they crossed an “empty” stretch, the map’s reactions began to shift, something had sensed them despite remaining unseen.

“Their movement isn’t great for us.”

“They’re trying to encircle us. Perhaps a single species?”

Just as Schnee said, the map responses moved to ring them in. The Gigiratis they’d fought on the second floor didn’t form packs, so this kind of coordinated motion didn’t fit.

Other monsters might share the zone, but for all the signals to behave this way felt off.

“No reason to wait for the net to close. Increase speed and break through the front.”

Gaps still remained in the encirclement. At Shin’s command, they accelerated.

Tiera mounted Kagerou; Retoneka climbed onto Yuzuha, and they sprinted as one.

Shin led, erecting barriers to block ranged attacks: quills and claws that didn’t reveal their owners until impact.

“I’ll fire a spell at the ones ahead. Be careful.”

“I’m going too!”

Schnee’s lightning and Milt’s wind blades slammed into the monsters lying in wait.

They likely hadn’t expected to be tracked, the presence ahead vanished.

“One hit?”

“I felt no resistance. Illusions, perhaps?”

The lack of feedback made Milt and Schnee exchange looks.

“Try a wide-area strike. It doesn’t need to hit hard.”

If they were mirages, that would erase them.

Schnee invoked the water-element magic skill 【Snow Hail】, scattering a spray of tiny ice pellets. Where they fell on the marked positions, they fizzled without striking anything.

“Settles it. But if even you two couldn’t fully see through them, they’re pretty advanced, huh?”

“Likely a concealment-specialized type. If they’re insectoid, a few candidates come to mind.”

Answering Milt, Shin ran through possibilities.

With Gigiratis, they’d been ambushed during an area transition, delaying detection; in the same field with distance, vision-type skills could pierce most mirages.

But concealment specialists were different; some traded other abilities to project illusions even High Humans couldn’t see through.

“Or they’re receiving a dungeon-side buff?”

Shin nodded at Schnee’s thought.

“Odds are better it’s that. The ones I know don’t leave certain habitats.”

Monster abilities were sometimes enhanced inside dungeons, one of Full Vegas’s standard gimmicks.

Whether the gimmick was active, however, even that depended on luck.

“If they’re only throwing illusions at us, we could ignore the boss and head for the exit, right? Boss kills aren’t the pass condition here.”

“Agreed. This is probably one of those floors with lots of bosses and lots of fights. Your plan fits.”

In Full Vegas’s dungeon, you could often infer a floor’s clear condition from its layout.

The first floor was famously about movement alone.

Floors requiring puzzle solving were easily identified at the entrance, and boss rush floors were easily identified by their arena-like appearance.

A wide zone with monsters scattered everywhere was a war-of-attrition floor. Another hallmark of such floors: there was no special requirement to descend. Unlike other floors, you didn’t have to defeat a boss or solve a gimmick.

“Still, odds are high there are real ones mixed in with the illusions. Keep alert and advance with ranged fire.”

They pressed on, prioritizing ranged attacks.

Even unseen, the map marked positions and their senses caught the killing intent. Shin and Schnee peppered targets with spells; when a hit wasn’t a mirage, one of them closed instantly to finish it.

As they moved, the number of phantoms swelled, evidence that the illusion-caster’s true body was nearby.

Tiera’s voice carried a thread of worry.

“Hey, are we okay like this? The illusions are multiplying and there are more monsters mixed among them too, right?”

“Yeah. We’re closing in on the source. I thought we’d broken through the thin part of the net, but we may have been funneled.”

“Isn’t that bad...?”

“Not with our team and current debuff situation. The problem is we still haven’t found the stairs down to the third floor. If the illusion-maker is guarding them, that’d actually be convenient.”

It wasn’t unusual for monsters to be placed as chest guardians. Rather than fret, Shin actually hoped that was the case.

“Right, we don’t know the goal’s location.”

“That’s the nasty part. If you’re unlucky, you end up trekking the whole zone.”

Focused on fighting, Tiera had lost track of their bearing. Milt sighed. Where the stairs would spawn was, again, a matter of luck.

“For efficiency, we’d sweep the perimeter, then fill in unexplored map tiles from the edges. But illusion types often play guardian to chests or stairs, so I’m betting on that and pushing straight.”

“Yeah, we cut straight across the grassland to get into the forest zone.”

If their gear hadn’t been destroyed, they would have patiently worked the outer rim inward. The area was broad, but a dungeon’s size was finite; if you combed it thoroughly, you were guaranteed to find the stairs to the next floor.

Even so, the party’s current state didn’t allow that luxury.

For the record, players called this type of floor a “dud.”

“Right. It’s not a straight corridor like at the start. I honestly thought Shin could just tell where the stairs were.”

“The staircase location changes every time. If there were a pattern it’d be great, but… it doesn’t look like there is one.”

The so-called verification teams had tried to find rules, but no pattern was ever confirmed.

Hence, people said the spawn point was random.

“Time to focus on the fight, maybe?”

“Yeah. Most of the ones hiding up ahead aren’t illusions anymore.”

They kept their speed even as they talked.

Shin judged they were closing in on the real body.

“Big reaction—front right, farther back.”

Ahead in their path, one signal was larger than the rest. The smaller reactions surrounding it were clearly denser than elsewhere.

“Did we hit the jackpot?”

“Looks like it. No holding back, hit them hard.”

“I’ll open. Since we can’t see it, there’s a chance it’s a decoy.”

“I’m counting on you, Schnee.”

Leaving Milt and the others to handle the perimeter, Shin and Schnee unleashed their magic.

As declared, Schnee struck first.

She raised her right arm overhead and droplets formed in midair.

They swelled rapidly into a massive sphere of water over five mel across.

When Schnee leveled her arm toward where she judged the body to be, multiple water lances extended from the sphere and streaked through the air.

—Water-element magic skill 【Flood Fang】.

At the target point, the tips of the lances warped into enormous jaws and fangs, lunging at where the body should be.

One of them suddenly split cleanly in two, and then, as if wiped away, the water lance vanished.

“Looks like we hit the mark.”

“Much appreciated.”

The attack dispelled the monster’s concealment, revealing the identity of the illusion-caster.

“An Ashmand, huh.”

Its form was that of a chimera: a mantis’s upper body sprouting from a spider’s abdomen, dragonfly-like wings on its back.

Its “mantis head” was deformed into something crocodilian, and its fangs were venomous.

What cleaved through Schnee’s 【Flood Fang】 were auxiliary arms growing from its back, each ending in a great scythe. Far longer and keener than the main arms, those scythes carried a magic-negating effect. That was why the water lances vanished.

“Why did they place it in such a place with no obstacles?”

Milt’s question drew a response from Retoneka.

“Is something wrong with that?”

“Well, I feel a bit sorry for it. I mean, it could have been somewhere it would shine.”

Ashmand’s level was 883. Combined with its small escorts, it was troublesome in a straight fight if the battlefield were tighter.

“I'll set the attack.”

“Understood.”

Shin held a hand above Ashmand. Lightning orbs crackled into being over the monsters’ heads.

Seeing that, Schnee snapped her fingers.

Her water lances lost shape, collapsing into a sweeping downpour.

All attention fixed on the sudden lightning orbs; the now-harmless water drew no notice.

Ashmand, too, seemed to be timing its swing to carve the orbs with its scythes.

But the orbs fell not onto Ashmand or the other monsters, but toward the ground.

—Lightning-element magic skill 【Thunder Bomb】.

The instant they touched earth, shock—not blast—burst outward in all directions.

The indiscriminate bolts raced through the water Schnee had spread, surging into every monster.

It was an old trick, but brutally effective. Water conjured by magic paired especially well with lightning; douse first, then shock, and the damage bit deeper.

The synergy between 【Thunder Bomb】 and water attacks was famous: the non-directional electricity, which would otherwise be wasted, was focused onto targets via the water.

“Finish it.”

Shin drew back his right hand like a spear thrower, and a blue-white fireball bloomed over his palm. He hurled it high.

It flashed upward and began to split—ten, fifty, a hundred—multiplying as it climbed, then arced and fell toward Ashmand and its pack.

—Fire-element magic skill 【Avalanche Flare】.

A “snow slide” of fireballs swallowed the monsters massed along its path.

Slowed by 【Thunder Bomb】, Ashmand couldn’t fully bring its scythes to bear. Crushed beneath the rain of flame, it couldn’t even relocate.

Ashmand’s HP plummeted.

In exchange for its concealment prowess, its resistance to magic was low. The scythes existed to compensate, but once weakened the way Shin and Schnee had arranged, it was nothing more than a target.

“Overwhelming, isn’t it.”

“It wouldn’t be this easy in a cramped spot, though.”

Their voices carried through the roar.

With Yuzuha and Tiera pinning the outskirts with ranged fire, they even had room to talk.

“Just to be clear, don’t think that is normal, okay? Head-on, it’s plenty strong.”

Indeed, Ashmand showed terrifying strength where lines of fire were limited, like in caves. Even knowing how to weaken it, pulling it off was another matter.

This time, however, they had options to spare, hence the outcome.

When Ashmand fell, monsters outside the blast zone and those Tiera’s group had engaged withdrew from the party.

“Luckily this turned out to be a grassland stage.”

“The only real chill was that first ambush.”

While collecting materials with Schnee, Shin swept the surroundings with his eyes.

If Ashmand had also been tasked with guarding the stairs, the objective should be close.

“Oh, that’s lucky.”

Roughly fifty mel behind where Ashmand had stood, Shin found a staircase leading down. It really had been the guardian.

“Easier to find than I expected.”

They’d just been saying the search might be a slog, so finding it so quickly left Schnee a little nonplussed.

“Yeah. Almost like we were being guided onto the correct route.”

They thought they’d chosen a path that was simply easier to break through.

Halfway along, it had seemed they were being steered into Ashmand’s ambush, but the fight was absurdly favorable, and once it ended, the stairs were right there. As if urging them to hurry on.

“Could this be consideration for the intentional debuff you mentioned this morning?”

“Maybe. She even came to explain. Wouldn’t be strange if Full Vegas felt it was a bit much. Hard to know without asking her.”

Either way, the fact remained: Floor Two had been easy to conquer. Whether it was Full Vegas’s doing or just good luck, the result didn’t change.

After a brief rest, they moved on.

𑁋

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