"And here... we... go!" a broad smile appeared on Modak's face as the large speaker properly started up. He could practically feel the dungeon air vibrating in response to the spell that was being cast through the special speaker. Making this whole thing was actually surprisingly easy.

  You could make speakers incredibly small now while preserving potency, so the actual speaker was actually quite tiny here. Most of the box was taken up by the mechanism that first inscribed the song onto mana tape and then detached it a moment later, before translating it into a usable auditory spell.

  Even so, though it was surprisingly easy to make this happen after the prototype was done, the speaker still turned out quite bulky and heavy, so it was a pain to haul around. But this wasn't *just* a way for Modak to help out Ryan. Today was supposed to be an important test-run for the future of this speaker.

  "And it just works?" Silvia asked, already noticing that her voice sounded a bit weird. It was a little similar to that effect when you tried to speak right into a fan, "Whoa, that's super weird!"

  "Right?" Modak smiled lightly, looking at the speaker, "But it's working amazingly well, which is great."

  "... You've been working on this all week, right? What's got you so stressed with this?"

  Modak looked over at Silvia, frowning, "What do you mean? Silvia, how could I not be stressed about this? Marge, the co-creator of this technology, was killed by a former friend of mine. I need to make sure that this becomes as revolutionary as I want it to be."

  "O-Oh, I... I didn't mean it that way, I just..."

  "No, don't worry, I know," Modak let out a long sigh, "Sorry, this is just a rough topic. I've actually been working on improving this blueprint since I was in the hospital. Had someone from the magic tower bring me all the materials and tools that I needed to make this girl. I just can't waste any time at all."

  "Is there a reason why you're rushing that much? Can't you take your time? I mean, even if it wasn't for that long, you worked pretty closely with Marge. You know you can take your time to... you know, grieve?" Silvia explained. The orc nodded.

  "I know, I know. It's just... I've been avoiding meeting with her sons after everything. I feel like I owe them an apology, but I don't know what to say. I think I just want to show them what their mom did at work over the past few weeks, and what it could really all mean for the future, you know?"

  Silvia sat down next to Modak and patted his back, "None of this is your fault, okay? The expo was a horrible, horrible day... what happened to Marge isn't your fault. Her sons have to know that, too."

  "I guess. I don't know," Modak looked at the speaker, "I just... every time I think about work, or every time I even listen to music, I have to think about what happened, and I-"

  Interrupted by a thundering crash, Modak flinched. He instinctively held his arm and shoulder over Silvia as the ground shook, holding back as he felt the pain course through his body from moving too fast and too intensely. He was barely able to breathe anymore.

  "Modak, are you okay?!" Silvia looked at her friend, holding him nervously. The orc slowly nodded.

  "I'm... I'm fine... are you?"

  "I'm okay, really. But what just happened? It felt like some kind of earthquake!"

  "No... From what I looked up, dungeons are a separated space, they should not be affected by earthquakes from outside," Modak stood up, carefully approaching one of the barred-up windows. He peeked through of the gaps between the wooden boards, "Something had to have happened in here."

  Smoke was rising from the distance. Double-checking his map, it was clear where this was coming from - one of the nearby instances of the mascot plaza. Smoke was rising up from it.

  "Did they - Holy shit, they blew up the plaza!" Modak yelled out confused, "But why would they..?"

  "Wait, what?" Silvia looked over the orc's shoulder, trying to peek through the gap in the wooden boards, "But why would they do that? Weren't they looking for the core room? Do they think it's in the mascot plaza?"

  Modak pulled back, starting to pace around the room, "No, no, it can't be that, otherwise the Aglecards would have already found it. That office building was most certainly supposed to be a decoy of some sort. Ryan has to be on the right track with it being underground somewhere."

  "Okay, so why are they burning down the mascot plaza? Rather, why are they throwing grenades around the mascot plaza, or whatever that was just now."

  "I don't... I don't know..." Modak whispered, stepping back from the window, "So, either they're letting out their anger for being screwed over, or..."

  "They're trying to clear the plaza? Like, the perfect clear?"

  Modak started chewing his own lip in nervous thought, "But why would they..? Oh, shit, please don't tell me..."

  "Tell you what?"

  "That this place has a conditional boss room."

  "A conditional... What do you mean?" Silvia was confused as Modak started pacing around the room.

  "I looked into this so much because of Ryan because I wanted to be informed... you know, be a good 'aide' or whatever. It seems as though some of the more advanced dungeons, like this one certainly is, can place conditions on their boss rooms. Boss rooms being the last layer of protection for the core, of course. Things like... 'bring this item here', or 'kill these monsters'. It's probably why the Aglecards stayed away from what they assumed was the core room, because they didn't want this dungeon to develop a condition like that in case of an emergency."

  "And you think the condition is that they have to get a perfect clear? If so, great, Ryan already has that!"

  "Well, I hope so... worst case, they need *all* perfect clears," Modak sighed, "But for now, we'll just have to wait it out."

  For a few moments, the two of them were silent, trying to push through the anxiety of this situation. But soon enough, Silvia asked a question that made Modak's heart skip a beat out of concern.

  "... How do they know that they need to kill all the mascots for the plaza's perfect clear?"

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  "Oh, calm down already, I didn't say that you're like *that*, just that they're trying to imitate what you are... and clearly it failed, y'know?" Ryan looked at his arm, where Tiar was currently wriggling around upset. They were already on edge the entire time, and then comparing that muddy sludge at the bottom of the vat to a symbiote was just sort of the last push.

  Tiar just kept tightening around Ryan's arm, as if trying to pinch him, whenever he said anything, like they wanted him to just shut up. Though, at this point, Ryan was just blabbering out of nervousness. After all, he had just come to a pretty important realisation.

  This underground facility wasn't just underneath the food courts. No, not at all. It was under the entire park. Ryan had walked way too far to still be in the same area as he was before. If he was right, he should be roughly underneath one of the rollercoasters right now. At the very least, there shouldn't be another food court nearby, not in this direction. Which did, of course, open a very important question:

  Where the hell did the ladder in front of him reach? It couldn't be back up to one of the stalls, unless his sense of direction had been *totally* messed up. No, instead, it should lead to a completely different place.

  So there were other entrances? Not just around the food courts?

  "Or maybe you have to *enter* through the food courts, but can *leave* in other places?" Ryan wondered. There was really just one way to find out. Because if that was the case, this would be great for him later once he managed to destroy the core. "You guys stay down here. There shouldn't be any monsters around, but warn me if you notice anything."

  This ladder was in a separate room, and not in the hallway like the ones under the food courts. They had already killed all the monsters in here and had blocked the door so that they could take a short breather in a safe place. Which was when Ryan noticed the ladder. He practically 'ran' up the ladder, trying to get to the top as fast as he could. Somehow, moving like this was way easier while wearing this outfit. Clearly, he gained some of the spirits' traits when he wore these outfits fully.

  And so, it didn't take long until Ryan reached the top of the ladder. There was a mechanically-locked hatch at the top, but when Ryan pushed against it from below, it opened with a quiet hiss.

  Peeking out through the thin gap, Ryan noticed that he was right; he was right in front of the rollercoasters. Carefully, he pushed the hatch open a bit more. It didn't feel like anyone was around here, so it should be safe.

  By the time he sat at the edge of the hole, looking at the hatch, he realised where he was. This was the middle of the road, the ones in-between each of the dungeon's different areas. And the 'hatch' was a manhole cover.

  "Oh... OH!" Ryan widened his eyes as he realized. There were manhole covers literally all over the place here. Were they all exits for the underground lab?

  Quickly, Ryan headed back down, making sure that the hatch was properly shut again. He updated the spirits and quickly pulled out the map. Gregor held it for him, lighting up the pamphlet. There *were* some markings on the map, along the roads. Just small dots. Ryan hadn't thought much about it until now, especially because most of them were along different road crossings and appeared like something to help people mark a route on the map or something. But now that he double-checked it with the area right above him, and thought about the area around the gift shop where Silvia and Modak were right now, he came to a conclusion. These small dots were marking the manhole covers.

  This was amazing. It meant that Ryan could use the map again, after all . Of course, it wasn't like this space down here correlated to the roads above, but he now knew that there had to be hallways or rooms right below each of these manhole covers. It allowed him to navigate and make routes between these different points a lot more easily, knowing that he was going into the right direction.

  There was, after all, a particular place that was the most likely to house the *real* core room. Or at least, it was the one thing that Ryan had to go off of. This lab was very clearly a vast network of interconnected rooms and hallways. Rather than in a simple maze, he should be able to get through to his destination without too much struggle as long as he went one by one.

  And so, he did. Ryan went to the next manhole cover, and then the next afterward. Though, the monsters became stronger. That was a pattern in many dungeons. The closer one got to the core room, the more likely it was to encounter powerful monsters. Their levels would increase and so did their varieties.

  There were more and more mutated skeletons. Some with two heads, or multiple arms, or oversized bones. Things that went beyond the general distortions to their bodies by this dungeons. All of this was just supporting the idea that he was getting closer to the core room when going this way. That part of it was good, of course. However, as Ryan turned around the corner, he saw something else hidden between the monsters.

  It was a large, dog-sized, half-rotten rat. Almost half a dozen eyes were bulging out of its head and it was walking with a limp. It looked like most of its flesh had molten off it and was now stuck in its right hind leg. And even it had those fake symbiote, briar-like patterns on its exposed bones.

  Ryan's entire focus was on the rat somehow. He could tell that it was the most dangerous monster in here right now.

  "Okay, shit," Ryan let out a long sigh, "Jester, can you do something to distract the rat for now? Until we take care of the rest."

  The harlequin quickly saluted for a brief moment, jumping off Gaia's hunchback. He immediately ran toward the rat, waving his arms around as he jumped past its face. The rat quickly reacted and tried to run after him, while Maximus, Ryan, and Gregor started taking care of the other undead. They had already been fighting these guys for a while, so they knew the best ways to take them down, and what it took to actually kill them. The only thing that would lead to death with these guys was by crushing the shrunken, spongy 'brain' left behind in their skulls. Even crushing their spine wouldn't count as killing them until the brain was destroyed. Worst of all, their bodies continued moving. Even when their arms were torn off, they would move independently. It was insanely creepy.

  Ryan groaned slightly as he crushed one of the skeletons' skulls under his icy boot. Surprisingly, there were a *lot* of ways that you could employ the horn. Even things like 'armour' could be constructed with it, which was proven by Tiar. And so, just making a sturdier, heavier boot for himself was a pretty effective way to destroy the skulls once they've been popped off their bodies.

  Once the other undead were all killed, even without the assistance of Jester's spell, it was time to focus on that massive rat. Actually, Maximus took the time to use one of his less-used skills.

  The 'Knight's Nemesis' skill. It took a moment to basically declare an enemy as one's nemesis, so it was hard to use in a fight against a crowd. Maximus would generally use it for the hardest of the bunch of the last of a crowd to finish the fight quickly.

  Maximus pointed Cailleach at the rat.

  [Maximus has declared -Mutated Lab Rat- as his Nemesis]

  Immediately, he started running at it while Jester jumped into Ryan. He stretched out his arm and allowed the spirit to get back to safe spot on top of Gaia, before he quickly ran over to help out Maximus.

  The knight was already wailing away at the lab rat, and Ryan also quickly followed behind, having turned the horn into a large pickaxe that he swung at the rat's body. And though he managed to pierce through the mummified flesh, it really felt like he was hitting a boulder. This was by far the strongest dungeon monster they've faced so far.

  "Come on!" Ryan tried to pull out the pickaxe, but it got stuck in a thin layer of bone. He made the pickaxe liquify to pull it back out, and then quickly turned it back. But this time, it was a pickaxe where the other side was flat, like that of a large hammer.

  Maximus came and slammed the flat side with a powerful attack. Since this impact came from Maximus, it seemed to be boosted by the nemesis skill. The pickaxe penetrated deep into the monster's body, at which point Ryan once again melted the weapon and made the water flow deeper inside, until he solidified it again so that it would get properly stuck between the bones and flesh.

  And of course, this wasn't easy by any means, but at this point Ryan was at least strong enough to lift the mutated rat over his head and slam it down onto the ground. Its spine was cracked immediately, and its lower body separated from its upper body, just as it stopped moving.

  Ryan took a deep breath, glancing to the side for just a moment as he waited for the notification. But instead, he just felt a deep, stinging pain his leg, as the rat tried to bite him. Luckily, these pants were made of a cut-resistant material, which helped protect against this kind of bite as well. And before he could even react, Maximus smashed Cailleach into its already-cracked head, and finally killed it, this time, with a notification.

  [You have killed a level 23 -Mutated Lab Rat-]

  [Maximus has levelled up!]

  [The -Knight's Nemesis- Skill has levelled up!]

  "What the hell? Level 23?" Ryan stared at the message, baffled, "Fuck... if a rat is this strong, I don't want to know what it is that I heard bark earlier."

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