This was a dream.

  The warrior from st time was wandering the nd, his robes fluttering in the harsh winds that covered his battered body.

  It had been days since his friends were destroyed by the towering beast of a monster; days since he began his aimless trip across the nd of the damned while sying any monsters that came to his path.

  Why had he alone been spared?

  Why did that monster not kill him?

  Why must he be the one to survive?

  Those questions continued to pgue the warrior since then, day in and day out he demanded an answer from the heavens above, and always getting nothing in response.

  Not once he had ever gotten rest, for visions of his lost friends invaded his dreams every time he closed his eyes.

  The memories of his time in the mercenary band, the ughter and tears he had shared with his comrades, they became a cruel reminder of the reality he now lived in, of how alone he had become.

  Eventually, he grew weary of his aimless drifting, and began to seek the only salvation out of his endless despair.

  He began to look for a pce to die.

  It had been about a couple of months since I had become Level 2 and I was allowed back into the Dungeon, on account of Otto having finished my new gauntlets; it was a pair of red leather gauntlets with armor covering only the parts of my request.

  In accordance with my increased Level and newly acquired Development Ability of Hunter, the Upper Floors had become somewhat of a cake walk for me, with every monster getting destroyed by a single punch or a kick.

  Seeing a Goblin’s head getting blown off its body from just a punch was quite a shocker.

  As such, I’d decided to take a gander and descend to the first couple of floors of the Middle Floors; if I were to become a Hero, I would need to fight tougher monsters to raise my Falna.

  “Rah!”

  “Guah!!”

  A Bad Bat turned to dust as I pierced its body and pulled out its magic stone, the dozenth of its species that I had sin so far; though it was only a small part of the stampede of monsters we were dealing with.

  “Look out! Hrgk!”

  Tris blocked a charging Hard Armored with her newly bought shield, gritting her teeth as she held it back.

  When Tris said she’s going to get stronger, she really meant it; and it looked like the lessons she’d gotten from Garos about handling a shield were beginning to pay off.

  “HrraAAAHHH!!”

  “Hyah!”

  “Grraahh!!”

  With a heavy heave, Tris pushed back the monster and exposing its vulnerable body; seizing this chance, I dashed past her and sharpening my enchantment magic’s aura around my hand; once it extended far enough, I swung my hand and let the bde of lightning seamlessly sliced its head off.

  “Nice, Dae.”

  “Don’t mention it—whoa!”

  My hand instinctively shot up and caught the stone axe being thrown my way; the Almiraj that threw it attempted to make a break for it and got the ndform weapon embedded into its back.

  “Your reflexes sure are as amazing as ever…”

  “Grr…!”

  “Shit, Tetra!!”

  Unbeknownst to us, a small pack of Hellhounds had gotten past us and snuck up on Tetra, the young amazoness too focused on chanting her spell to avoid them.

  When I saw one of them open its mouth and fmes began to roll around its sharp fangs, I quickly unleashed my newest magic spell on them.

  “Lightning Sprites, reach my target, and pierce through it; Piercing Thunder!!”

  A bolt of electricity fired out from my palm like an arrow and pierced through the monster’s head, it colpsing onto its side dead immediately after as the rest of its pack stumbled about in a panic.

  “Tris!!”

  “On it!!”

  Tris charged at the monsters with a cry, smashing her new fnged mace into the skull of one of them with a gruesome crunch; a fate that soon followed the rest of the Hellhounds moments ter.

  “GYAAHH!!”

  “Whoa!?”

  “Tris!”

  Immediately sying the canine monsters, a Dungeon Worm burst out of the ground underneath her and tried eaten her whole; and it would have if Tris hadn’t put her shield between her and its sharp fangs.

  “Electro!!”

  I immediately reactivate my enchantment and charged at the monster worm; with its anatomy clear in my mind, I pierced into its body and pulled out its magic stone, turning the monster into ash and letting Tris dropped back down on the ground.

  “That… That was a real close one…” She stuttered out.

  “Tetra, is it–”

  “My magic is ready!”

  ““Got it!””

  “Ignitis Lumine!”

  At Tetra’s announcement, we quickly stepped aside and allowed the amazoness to unleash her spell upon the monsters; the many streaks of fire bombarding the rest of the monster, turning them into cinders.

  “Hah…hah…”

  “You doing okay, Tetra?”

  “Y-Yeah… I’m fine…”

  Mishia advised me to party up with at least another Adventurer if I was pnning on going down to the Middle Floors, so I had asked Tris if we could party up for the dive; Tetra overheard our conversation and ended up asking if she could join up as a supporter.

  As such, three of us had been coming down to the Middle Floors for the past couple of weeks, though it was only for the first couple of floors. Any further down would be difficult for just the three of us.

  It would be different if we included another member, preferably another Level 2 Adventurer; but when I suggested that we included Drake into the party, Tetra vehemently refused, saying that she wanted to stop relying on him so much.

  Guess what happened with him previously had affected her as well.

  “I didn’t even notice the Hellhounds…” The panting amazoness chucked down a magic potion before turning to me with a tired smile, “Thanks for the save, Biriken.”

  “…Please don’t call me that.”

  “Are you seriously still sulking over that?” Tris rolled her eyes, “As silly as it is, it’s proof that you are now a proper High Css Adventurer. You should take some pride in it.”

  “I know, I know. But…”

  I could still remember that evening when Hecate returned from Denatus, a look of complete defeat on her face when she walked through that door.

  Jirou had ughed his head off when my alias was revealed, while Jeanne and Lisa reprimanded him for doing so as Garos tried to comfort me on it; but it all did me no good.

  It didn’t change the fact that I was now known to the world as Biriken; a really silly sounding alias that literally transted to Shocking Fist, no doubt it was chosen due to my enchantment magic and bare hand style combat.

  My expectations weren’t that high that it would be as cool as Jirou’s Bloody Bde or Jeanne’s Orthus, but I wasn't expecting it to be something as silly as Biriken!

  What kind of hero would have a title like Biriken!? Weren’t the titles of heroes supposed to be mesmerising and cool!?

  “The path of a hero truly is a difficult one…”

  “What are you mumbling about?”

  “Oh, it’s nothing.” I assured Tetra, “We better help Tris collect all these magic stones.”

  “Okay. Ooh, a Drop Item! Lucky!”

  After collecting the magic stones from the non-burnt monster corpses, along with some lucky Drop Items, we took a short break to rest up; we had to after fighting that

  “Damn those bastards…!” Tris growled as she checked through our supplies, “If we ever encounter them on the surface, I’ll give them a piece of my mind!!”

  “You and me both.” Tetra growled, while I nodded in agreement.

  The reason we were fighting that horde of monsters wasn’t due to the Dungeon, but due to fellow Adventurers that had performed a Pass Parade on us; an unethical act of forcing unsuspecting Adventurers to fight monsters in order to get away.

  I had been warned that such a thing might happened regardless of the floor; and it was often the cause of death to many newbie Adventurers.

  Dragging us to deal with their mess; those kinds of bastards gave Adventurers a bad name!

  “So, how are we doing on supplies?” I asked Tris.

  “We’re still somewhat okay on rations.” She noted as she handed me a piece of jerky, “But we are running low on potions, especially magic potions.”

  “Sorry…”

  “Ah, you don’t have to apologise, Tetra.”

  The amazoness’s only offensive spell, while extremely powerful and destructive, drained her too much per use, forcing her to keep drinking magic potions to prevent getting a Mind Down; it was one of the reasons why we only kept to the 13th and 14th floors so far.

  Though it was becoming less of an issue as of te; she could fire at least a couple of them before needing magic potions.

  “And we have been down here for quite a while.” I pointed out as I chewed on the smoked meat.

  “Should we stop here and head up?” She suggested.

  “Hm…”

  We had been down here for at least several hours now, and our bags were almost full with all the magic stones and Drop Items we were lucky to get; anymore and it would be bursting at the seams.

  And while I would prefer to fight more monsters to raise my strength, it would be counter productive if it endangered the party.

  “Yeah, let’s go up.”

  “Okay!”

  After eating some rations to fill our stomachs, we slowly made our way back up to the surface; thankfully, there were barely any monsters in our path, so it had been somewhat calm.

  In fact, it was too calm; and if the Dungeon was too calm, it meant that something terrible was about to happen—

  “Hm? Do you guys hear something?”

  At Tetra’s words, it became clear that the sounds of heavy footsteps could be heard echoing along the stone corridor; it was actually causing the ground to tremble somewhat.

  “Is it just me, or is it getting louder—”

  ““RUN AWAY!!””

  “EHH!?!?”

  Running towards us were three young girls, newbie Adventurers judging by their gear, with a horde of Killer Ants chasing after them with a tenacity that I didn’t think was possible for them.

  “K-Killer Ants!? And so many of them!?”

  “Shit, they brought them right to us!”

  “Run!!”

  Tris scooped Tetra into her arms and we began running as fast as we possibly can, with the newbie Adventurers not too far behind us.

  “Grk… and we’ve just gotten through a Pass Parade too!!”

  “We’re sorry!!” One of the newbies, a pallum with green hair cried out, “We didn’t mean to!!”

  “Less apologising, more running!!”

  Killer Ants were notorious for swarming Adventurers if they didn’t kill one quickly enough; it was due to that trait of theirs that Killer Ants were infamous for easily destroying ignorant newbie Adventurers if they weren’t careful and were nicknamed the ‘newbie killer’ by the Guild.

  That must be what happened to those two; though this was the first time I had ever encountered so many of them coming at us at once.

  “They are gaining on us!” Tetra cried out.

  “W-What do we do!?” The pallum cried out in tears, “A-Are we all going to d-die like this!?!?”

  “You can’t say that, Coco!” Her companion, a silver haired hume bunny told her.

  “B-But…!!”

  “No one is going to die!” I shouted, “Not on my watch!”

  There was no possible way for us to get away from them, not with those numbers; if we were to survive this predicament, we had to take them all out here and now.

  And for that to happen, we would need to find a pce were we could safely protect Tetra while she prepared her magic.

  Gncing around, I took notice that one of the corridors looked to be smaller than the one we were in; perfect for a defensive battle.

  “This way!!”

  “R-Right!”

  Once we entered into that corridor, I got to the rear before turning around to face the incoming monster horde; most of it were being funnelled in by the corridor’s small entrance.

  “Tris, I’ll leave Tetra and the newbies to you!”

  “…Got it!”

  “I’ll prepare my magic!!”

  “W-We’ll help too!”

  As Tris, the hume bunny, the pallum took up a defensive position in front of Tetra as she, along with the st of the newbies, a bck haired renard, began chanting their respective spells, I charged at the Killer Ants and began my assault on the insect horde.

  “Strike, and break through; Electro! Hyah!!”

  “Krk!?”

  My lightning coated fist smashed through the horde’s lead monster’s head and caused it to explode into a gory mess of green goo, killing it instantly and causing insect monsters around it to flinch in fright.

  Taking advantage of that, I lunged on to the next one and struck into its torso with a hearty crunch, my fist easily breaking through its exoskeleton and crushing its magic stone, turning it into ash instantly.

  Repeating the same pattern, I swung my fists and smashed through at least a dozen more of them, with a few of them ignored me and went straight for Tetra; they were quickly dispatched by Tris and her mace, the newbies pitching in whenever they were able to.

  So far so good; looked like we might be able to hold our position until Tetra and that renard finishes her spell—

  “Kree!!”

  “Whoa!”

  After narrowly managing to avoid the mandibles of one of the Killer Ant that got into my blind spot, I smashed its head in before blocking the sharp cws of another, my gauntlet being tough enough to defend against it no problem.

  Using that chance, I grabbed its arm and sent it crashing into a bunch of their comrades and onto the wall, before sharpening my enchantment aura and piercing through them all with a simple stab; the monsters turning to ash seconds ter.

  ““Kree! Kreee!””

  “Hah! Hah! Hah!”

  They immediately swarmed me from behind and attempted to strike me down in a coordinated attack, but I was able to avoid their attack by wall running and jumping over them; I then killed them with systematic strikes to their heads and torso.

  Even so, the Killer Ants attacks on me were starting to get more difficult to dodge, especially when they were attacking from my blind spots; I wasn’t sure how long I could keep this up—

  “Dae, get back!”

  At Tetra’s words, I quickly dashed back toward them just as the amazoness and her fellow spell caster released their spell upon the horde.

  “Ignitis Lumine!”

  “Tennokagami!”

  Arcs of fmes bombarded the horde of Killer Ants without mercy, while a bright light enveloped the stone corridor and burnt away any the insect monsters within it, all while the dying cries of the insect monsters echoed all over.

  When the spells ended, nearly the entire horde was burnt to cinders and ash, with the survivors looking worse from wear; I could easily deal with them in no time at all.

  “W-We might actually survive—”

  ““Don’t finish that sentence!!””

  “Eh?”

  *CRACK**CRACK**CRACK*

  In response to the newbie’s jinxing words, cracks started to appear along the stone walls and moments ter, more Killer Ants crawled out to join their brethren and filled in the ones that had been sin.

  Within moments, the horde was back in full force, and it looked to have increased a bit as well.

  “…Seriously…?”

  “You jinxed us, Kaede.” The renard scolded her companion.

  “H-How was I supposed to know that this would happen!?” The silver haired hume bunny cried out.

  They truly were newbies if they weren’t privy to this; since it was common knowledge that the Dungeon would do all that it could do kill us Adventurers.

  “W-What do we do n-now!?” The pallum cried out.

  “Stay in your positions!” Tris shouted, “We’re not done for yet! Tetra!”

  “O-On it! The bright light that—”

  “Kreek!!”

  “W-What the heck!?”

  The moment Tetra began chanting, all the Killer Ants charged at us with an almost desperate manner; their combined footsteps making the entire corridor tremble as they swarmed us from all sides.

  “They are more ferocious all of a sudden!!” The hume bunny cried out.

  “Shit!” I swung my fist and smashed the head of one of them, “Stay close and don’t step out of formation!!”

  Did they realise Tetra was the lynchpin for our survival!?

  “Hold your ground!!” Tris cried out as she pushed back a Killer Ant with her shield before smashing its head in with her mace, “You two, keep chanting on your spell—”

  “Argh!!”

  “Momiji!!”

  One of the Killer Ants managed to get in close and struck the renard, their cws tearing into her side and putting a stop to her magic; if her hume bunny friend hadn’t killed it via stabbing her katana into its head, it would have been a whole lot worse.

  “T-Thanks for the save, Kaede…”

  “Momiji, hang in there!”

  “A-A potion! She needs potion!”

  “You two, stay in position!”

  This was bad… At this rate, we might get swarmed and killed before Tetra could have a chance to finish her chant.

  “…Dae, should we—”

  “Out of the question!”

  It was clear what Tris was going suggest; abandon the newbies and make a break for it.

  Logically speaking, it was the only possible way for us to escape this predicament alive; and we were under no obligation to help these newbie Adventurers either.

  But I would never consider that option!

  That was not something a hero would do!

  “Hmph!”

  “K-Kree!?!?”

  Grabbing one of the Killer Ants by its throat(?), I tore its head free of its torso before throwing the body at the horde as hard as I could.

  My improvised projectile smashed through the monsters and cleared up a small path into the centre of the horde, exactly where I need to be right now.

  “Dae, what are you…!?”

  “I’ll buy you all some time! Strike, and break through; Electro!!”

  With a Killer Ant’s severed head in my hand, I activated my enchantment magic with every Mind I could currently muster and dashed through the path I’d created; once I got to the middle of the horde, they quickly closed up behind me and the insect monsters surrounded me on all sides.

  Exactly as pnned; Killer Ants released a pheromone when attacked that attracts more of their kind to them, and they always head for the source of the pheromone, no matter what.

  And with how it looked like I managed to at least draw the attention of most of the horde with that severed torso, it worked as I had intended; this should weaken their onsught on Tris and the newbies.

  “Hoo…”

  Focusing the enchantment spell into my hand, I sharpened and lengthened its aura to way beyond my fingers, till it was the length of a short sword.

  “Kree!!”

  “Haahh!!”

  As they pounced on me, I swung my hand at the horde of monsters around me, and the sword of concentrated lightning sshed through the first wave of the Killer Ants like a hot knife through butter in a single strike.

  “Kree, kree!!”

  Completely unfazed by dead brethren, they carried on their onsught and charged at me from all sides, and I kept on swinging into them and killing as many of them as they kept sending at me.

  A few had managed to get close enough to graze my face and sides with their cws and mandibles, but I managed to take them out before they could do more; though it was getting more frequent the longer the assault went on.

  Even so, I kept on attacking; my arms kept swinging and letting my lightning bde cut them down one after another.

  If I stopped for even a second, the horde would come down on me hard and I would be dead for sure; my every movement must be precise and accurate, and each strike of mine must be a killing strike, or they would take advantage of my misstep.

  Those were the thoughts that flowed through my mind as I focused purely evaded and killed the insect monsters one after another.

  I did not know how long I had been killing Killer Ants for; seconds were beginning to feel like hours when each passed me by, and I could feel my Mind was beginning to run out soon.

  But I must hold on; I must buy them more time, and I must at least survive through—

  “Dae! Tetra’s almost finished—!!”

  Tris’s cries snapped me out of my trance, which unfortunately gave one of the Killer Ants an opening for them to stab its cws into me.

  “DAE!”

  “Grgk!!”

  Thankfully, I was barely able to react to it in time and managed to avoid getting a fatal injury; instead of stabbing into me, its sharp appendages only managed to ssh out a bit of my side.

  “Damn you little…!”

  I immediately retaliated by smashing my fist into that monster’s head, before grabbing its corpse and using it to bludgeon another of its brethren like a club.

  But the damage was already done.

  The wound was fortunately wasn’t deep enough to be fatal, but its location was going to interfere with my movements; I wouldn’t be able evade their attacks.

  “Kree, kree, kree!!”

  A few Killer Ants lunged at me with vigor, no doubt attempting to take advantage of my moment of weakness to end me.

  “HHRRRAAAHH!!”

  Tris suddenly came charging in, tackling the insect monsters away with her shield before bashing into them with her mace, turning their heads and torsos into grotesque explosion green goop with each swing.

  “T-Tris!?”

  After doing so, she threw a severed torso of a Killer Ant over our heads and far from us, prompting most of the insect monsters to unconditionally follow it.

  “Come on!” She turned to me handed me a healing potion, “Tetra’s almost done with her spell!”

  “R-Right!!”

  After drinking that potion and getting my wounds healed up, Tris and I dashed through the remaining horde as fast as we were able, killing every Killer Ant in our way.

  Tris even alternated between bashing them with her shield and mace, and with great ferocity too; it was quite an interesting sight to behold, to be honest.

  Maybe that’s why she had picked a square shield.

  Once we managed to get back to the party, I turned to the amazoness, “Tetra, fire your spell!”

  “I-Ignitis Lumine!!”

  Arcs of fire, way bigger than her st one, flew overhead and began bombarding the horde of monsters, burning every Killer Ant in sight to cinders within moments; the intensity of it was so great that it felt like the corridor had become an oven for a moment.

  Once the spell ended, all that was left around us were ash and smoke, and with no Killer Ant left in its wake, alive or dead.

  “Hah…hah…”

  After that spell, Tetra was left slumping against the wall, it being the only thing stopping her from colpsing to the ground face first.

  “Tetra! Here, drink up!”

  I quickly handed her a magic potion from my pouch, her shaking hands barely managed to get the bottle to her lips; she must have dumped every Mind she had left into that spell.

  “This was really a close one.” Tris stated with a tired sigh, “Tetra really saved us.”

  “Yeah.” I nodded in agreement; if we didn’t have her magic, we wouldn’t be able to get out of this alive, “Too bad she also torched all the magic stones.”

  “Yeah, it is a shame; we could have gotten quite a decent number of magic stones from them.”

  “…thanks, Tris. You really saved me back there.”

  “I’ve told you, didn’t I? Next time, it would be me saving you.”

  I let out a small chuckle at that; she did say that, didn’t she?

  “We’re really sorry for all the trouble!” The hume bunny apologised, “We didn’t mean to get you all involved in our mess!”

  “You better be!” Tetra shouted at them, “We would have died!!”

  “Calm down, Tetra.” I assured the amazoness before turning to them, “I know you didn’t mean to, but be careful next time; the Dungeon isn’t exactly the friendliest to us Adventurers.”

  “We’re now painfully aware…” The renard sighed, “I’m Shinonome Momiji; the hume bunny is Tsukinokami Kaede, and the pallum is Coco Collins.”

  Judging by their names and attire, the renard and hume bunny were from the Far East like Jirou and Kyumaru; they were even wearing a simir styled robes as them, with the hume bunny’s yukata opened to show her bandaged chest.

  The pallum, on the other hand, was definitely from Orario; though it was strange how she was carrying that giant stuffed animal on her back.

  “Nice to meet you.” I greeted back, “I’m Dae; these two are Tris and Tetra.”

  “Dae…? Oh! You’re the new record holder!” The renard, Momiji noted in surprise, “You’re Biriken!”

  “Guh!!”

  “Oh, so you’re Biriken.” The hume bunny, Kaede noted in surprise, “I remember seeing your name on the notice board; though that quite the silly alias you got there.”

  “Grk!!”

  “D-Dae!!”

  I could only endure getting called that alias so many times before it became too much for my mental state before I fell to my knees from the agony of it.

  “U-Um…” The pallum, Coco walked up to me, “T-Thank you for saving us! If you haven’t did what you did, we would have died!”

  Hearing that, it made all that agony fade away, made me realised how much I had achieved.

  Saving people from a great peril; with that act, I must have taken a step forward to becoming a hero.

  I was a step closer of realising that dream–

  “Thank you very much, Biriken!!”

  “Bweh!!”

  “DAE!!”

  And hearing that alias getting thanked so earnestly was too much for me and I colpsed onto the ground in sheer agony.

  “The path of a Hero… it truly is a long and arduous one…”

  I hoped there was a way to get one’s alias changed…

  …To be continued…

  A new season comes with a new update!

  With the new season now airing, I decided to take this chance to update this fic more often, at least in the duration of the season.

  So, yeah; Dae’s alias is Biriken. No need for me to expin how that came to be, right?

  I originally wanted her to have a cooler sounding name, but then I remember how petty the gods of Danmachi are, so there is no chance they will not take the opportunity to give a stupid sounding name.

  So, we ended up with Biriken.

  With that, I thank you all for reading this!