[/Party Only 12,000 left. Hagen, attach an attacking summon.]

Following Mitchell’s count, Tien shouted,

“8,000 left.”

“Something’s strange.”

It was when Ruela, watching the decreasing number on the health bar, felt that something was off.

Suddenly, Baldur stopped all actions, then, sitting on Kite as if he were a rock, he quietly began receiving attacks.

The previous aggressive attacks that seemed like they would kill Kite in moments felt like a lie.

Sensing an ominous feeling, Ruela pressed the return button as soon as she confirmed a faint light seeping through Baldur’s armor.

“Huh? Ruela, why?”

As everyone moved to the entrance, they all looked at Ruela with puzzled expressions.

“If your HP was around 6,000, a few more attacks would have killed you. But why did you use return?”

Kite asked, not showing anger. Perhaps he thought there must be a reason.
“I don’t know. I just felt like something was wrong, and the thought that I should distance myself from Baldur came to mind.”

Upon Ruela’s words, Raphael nodded.

“Yeah, since it’s not too far away, let’s go back and finish…”

Before he could finish the sentence urging to return and defeat, an enormous roar was heard, and a brilliant pillar of light rose and fell from where Baldur was, flickering.

“What’s happening? What’s going on?”

Surprised, they hurriedly ran towards Baldur.

“He’s burnt completely, hasn’t he?”

Returning to the place where they fought Baldur, there were only ashes left, transformed from his body.

“He exploded. Occasionally, there are such bosses among boss monsters. If you don’t avoid it at the last moment, you get caught in the explosion and get wiped out.”

Seeing light seeping through the armor, I instinctively pressed the return button.

Because I had missed several return timings before and experienced a wipeout, it was an unconscious reaction.

“Ruela, you’re amazing. How did you know not to stay?”

Hayzen praised in admiration, and she could only smile charmingly.

With so much gaming experience, how could she not have the instinct to react first?

“It’s the key.”

Digging through the black ash pile, Mitchell pulled out a navy-blue key, holding it up high.

The key was sparkling, completely free from soot.

“Oh? But all the monsters are gone. Did Baldur’s death cause that?”

“That could be a reason, but it might also be because we leveled up. The Agit defense system has reached level 3.”

“Wait a minute. There are a few left here, right here.”

Hayzen, looking around, shouted.

When they ran over there, Hayzen was killing the monsters clinging to the corpse of the horse that Baldur rode.

“Look at this evolution. The ones that were round without a specific shape suddenly grew arms and legs, and their height doubled.”

“That could happen. Come to think of it, he was eating the corpse of the royal maid. Whether it’s evolution or growth, it’s not good for us, so we need to be careful. And why they didn’t disappear might be because the defense system inside the horse’s corpse didn’t recognize them.”

Now, Ruela could understand why Goldie signaled to take the horses into the mansion. Moreover, she realized that it was not good to give food to low-level monsters.

“It would be better to burn the horse’s corpse than bury it in the ground. Even if we killed all the monsters inside the mansion, you never know what might happen.”

At her words, Kite nodded.

“Let’s go inside and regroup for now. I’ll ask Joseph Derr to handle this.”

Hayzen, about to enter, looked back at Ruela.

“Now, can we take a break? The monsters can’t come in now. We really ran hard today.”

“Yes. You can rest. After eating and taking a good nap, let’s go hunt the next monster.”

“Should we tell the people underground to come up now?”
As Tien opened the front door, she shouted upon noticing a smell.

“Ugh, what is this smell!”

Mitchell, examining the hall, replied.

“It seems like low-level monsters have entered the mansion as well. Hurry, go down to the underground, check if everyone is okay. Others, check inside the mansion to see if there are any remaining ones.”

Ruela went down with Tien to check.

[/Party Joseph, is everything okay inside?] [/Party Yes. Everything is fine.] [/Party The situation upstairs has been resolved, so you can open the door and come out.]

Worried that monsters might have come back and forth to the stairs in the underground, leaving strange marks and smells, they were relieved to find that the inside seemed okay.

As the door opened and they entered, everyone greeted Ruela and Tien with relieved faces.

“Oh, my, Joseph told us about the situation. I don’t know how worried you were.”

In response to Emma’s concern, Tien waved her hand.

“Emma, who do you think we are? It wasn’t a big deal. But we’re hungry. We haven’t eaten anything since lunch earlier.”

“Oh, that’s right. You must be hungry. I’ll prepare quickly, so come to the dining room in 30 minutes.”