Endless Leveling Done Right!

Chapter 631: The Dungeon Of Beasts [Part 1]

"I’ll see you soon, Mother," Chuck said to Lady Dorothy while hugging her tightly.

"I’d love that," Lady Dorothy replied before kissing Chuck’s forehead. "Now let me go before your father changes his mind and drags me back to the residence."

"You don’t have to worry about that, Aunt Dorothy," Alex promised. "The duke will not bother you for a while."

"Marius is not a bad person, you know?" Lady Dorothy said. "It might not look like it, but he truly cares about me a lot."

To Alex’s surprise, Dim Dim nodded. In fact, the Dim Sum God had simply seen through the man. Marius only pretended to care so little about Chuck and Lady Dorothy so his legal wife wouldn’t persecute them too much.

He believed that if he showed that he favored Lady Tremaine and her children, she would stop harassing the person whom he truly loved.

Lady Dorothy’s departure meant that his legal wife couldn’t touch her anymore, but he was concerned for her safety.

For this reason, he sent his two personal guards, as well as her two most trusted maids, to protect her in her new residence in Harmonia.

Although she would be working at the Sunveil Orphanage, she would have her own residence in the city.

Princess Xenia had bought this small house on a whim long ago. She hadn’t had the chance to use it. Now that the house would get a temporary owner, she was certain it would become more lively.

This also gave her an opportunity to get closer to her mother-in-law, whom she rarely met due to her studies.

As the airship left the port, Alex patted Chuck’s shoulder.

"Now, time to go to the dungeon," Alex said. "Just so you know, Renard and I will go as deep as we can. If you don’t want to follow, just hang out on the upper floors, okay?"

"Are you kidding me?" Chuck casually flipped his hair. "You guys will be safer if I’m there. So I’m definitely coming with the two of you to the lower floors."

"Just don’t drag us down," Renard scoffed. "Or else I’ll kick you."

"Huh? I should be the one saying that." Chuck snorted. "Don’t drag me down, punk!"

Dim Dim giggled. From what it could see, Renard and Chuck had become closer.

After hiring a carriage, the three teenagers finally arrived at their destination.

At first, the guards had no intention of letting Alex’s party pass as this was technically a dungeon on private grounds. However, after seeing the permission slip stamped with the duke’s seal, they stopped making things difficult for the students.

"Just be careful, and don’t try to take unnecessary risks," one of the guards said. "The farthest the adventurer teams has gotten to is the Thirteenth Floor. There’s at least a dozen team that is currently exploring the dungeon. According to them, there are already Rank 4 Wandering Elite Monsters on that floor, so make sure to not go that low, okay?"

"Yes, Sir!" Chuck replied.

Alex and Renard exchanged a glance. They would go deeper than the thirteenth floor no matter what.

Actually, Alex planned to go as deep as the twentieth floor. While the monsters from the thirteenth and fourteenth floor were formidable, they were still manageable. Once he stepped foot on the fifteenth floor, however, he would be invincible.

His strategy was to avoid fighting monsters head-on so he and his friends could get to the staircases as quickly as possible and head down.

He had already shared his plan with Renard and Chuck. While the two wondered why Alex planned to tackle the dungeon this way, they already knew he must have a good reason.

Since they had first met Alex, he had always been filled with mystery. His background, his affiliation, as well as how he could know some events even before they happened...

Of course, they didn’t buy his excuse that he was a Seer. To them, that was just a convenient excuse Alex had come up with to avoid getting interrogated further.

Horned Rabbits spawned on the first to third floors. The deeper the young men went, the more Horned Rabbits they encountered. On the third floor, the Horned Rabbits typically showed up in groups of three and four.

They were fast and nimble monsters, but they were simply no match against Alex and his friends, who bulldozed their way to the third floor in less than an hour.

Starting on the fourth floor, the real danger began. They were attacked by Fang Rats, which were at least two-feet long and fought in packs.

They were vicious little critters. But in the end, they were merely Rank 1 Monsters, so Alex, Renard, and Chuck crushed them without problems.

When they reached the fifth floor, they entered the Boss Monster Room as soon as possible and fought with its Guardian.

The Guardian was a Greater Fang Rat three times bigger than the normal Fang Rats.

It also had four Fang Rat minions as bodyguards, but Renard turned them into meat paste with his punches and kicks.

On the sixth floor, they came across wolves, which were as strong as Rank 1 Monsters could get.

Alex suddenly remembered. Back when he had been weak, he had been forced to use hit-and-run tactics against goblins in order to beat them.

Now, a casual bash of his shield was enough to deal with a wolf who had thought it could attack the young man from his blind spot.

When dungeon monsters died, their bodies disappeared and turned into cores. Dim Dim and Chuck picked up these cores despite their low rank because they could still be exchanged for something.

The next floor was nearly the same, but wolves now attacked in groups of three.

But that was still not a problem for the teenagers.

An hour later, they finally arrived at the staircase leading to the eighth floor.

This time, they faced a Rank 2 Ironhide Boar.

Depending on the strength its opponent was, the Ironhide Boar could be a very easy enemy to kill or a very deadly obstacle to face.

Just like all boars, its specialty was charging at others. But this boar was actually quite big. It was a Rank 2 Monster and stood over a meter tall. Since the dungeon was full of dead ends and narrow paths, it was not easy to escape a boar after becoming its target.

But Renard made short work of them before following Alex’s lead to the next floor.

Five hours after entering the dungeon, the three of them reached the ninth floor.

The enemy was still the same, except they were now facing two Ironhide Boars instead of one.

Still, those pigs were no match for Renard. The trio managed to reach an ominous and gigantic gate in less than half an hour.

"Let’s take a short break," Alex said before sitting beside the Boss Room Gate.

The young man took out a picnic mat from his storage ring and unrolled it.

Dim Dim jumped off his head and started summoning bamboo steamers filled with dim sum for its friends.

They had made good progress, but Rank 3 Monsters waited for them on the eleventh floor.

With this in mind, Alex decided that they should take a short break first. It’s more prudent to recover as much stamina as they could before continuing the expedition.

While they were enjoying Dim Dim’s food, the group of adventurers commissioned by Duke Marius to map the dungeon reached the fifteenth floor for the first time.

And what they saw made them retreat back to the fourteenth floor in haste.