Free Web NovelChapter 38: The Protagonist’s Curse
Cedric stepped up to the massive, iron-reinforced oak doors. He grabbed the rusted, ancient chains wrapped around the handles and gave them a violent tug.
They didn’t budge. The iron was thick, infused with an incredibly dense, dark magical ward that repelled his raw physical strength.
"Sealing chains," Alicia noted, walking up beside him. Her green eyes narrowed as she inspected the intricate, glowing runes etched into the rusted iron. "This isn’t a standard boss room lock. This is a containment ward. Whatever is behind this door wasn’t meant to be fought; it was meant to be buried."
"Buried?" Leon echoed, stepping forward. He rested his hand on the hilt of his holy broadsword. "If an F-rank dungeon has a containment ward, it usually means the core of the corruption is trapped inside. If we cleanse it, the entire crypt will be purified."
Elara let out a delicate, highly skeptical sigh. "Or, we simply map the perimeter, take our passing grade, and leave the cursed, ancient door exactly as we found it." freēwēbnovel.com
"The academy sent us here to clear the dungeon," Leon argued, his blue eyes burning with an unshakable, righteous conviction. "If there’s a dark artifact or a trapped soul in there causing this corruption, it’s our duty as hunters to deal with it."
He didn’t wait for Elara’s counter-argument or Alicia’s tactical assessment. The protagonist instincts were completely overriding common sense.
Leon drew his broadsword. The holy mana flared brilliantly, illuminating the dark corridor. He stepped up to the doors, raised the blade high, and brought it down directly onto the center of the rusted chains.
CLANG-SHATTER!
The holy energy violently clashed with the dark ward. The rusted chains cracked, splintered, and completely exploded outward. The heavy oak doors, no longer bound by the ancient magic, slowly creaked open, groaning on rusted hinges.
The four elite students stepped into the darkness.
It wasn’t a standard boss room. It was a massive, circular mausoleum. The temperature inside was instantly freezing. There were no torches. The only light came from a colossal, pitch-black stone sarcophagus sitting in the exact center of the room.
The sarcophagus was completely wrapped in thick, pulsing chains of pure, liquid shadow.
"Leon... that ambient mana," Alicia warned, her knightly instincts suddenly screaming at her. She gripped her sword tightly, her knuckles turning white. "Step back. I have a bead feeling about this."
Leon didn’t listen. He saw the dark, corrupted chains, and his holy affinity practically dragged him forward. He walked right up to the massive stone coffin, raised his glowing sword, and brought it down on the shadowy bindings.
"Cleanse!" Leon shouted.
The holy blade sliced through the shadow chains.
For two agonizing seconds, nothing happened.
Then, the entire crypt violently convulsed.
A massive, deafening earthquake ripped through the subterranean dungeon. The stone floor beneath their boots buckled and cracked. Dust and debris rained down from the vaulted ceiling.
A wave of utterly suffocating, pitch-black mana exploded outward from the sarcophagus, blasting Leon directly in the chest and throwing him twenty feet backward into Cedric’s massive shield.
The heavy stone lid of the sarcophagus violently exploded upward, shattering into a thousand pieces.
A massive, translucent red system window abruptly forcefully overtook the vision of every single student inside the crypt.
[Dungeon Override Triggered.]
[Sealing Ward Broken. The Death Knight has awakened.]
[Difficulty Adjusted: F-Rank ➔ B-Rank.]
Leon coughed, pushing himself off the stone floor, his blue eyes wide with sudden horror as a massive, armored figure slowly rose from the shattered coffin.
"Oh," Leon breathed, his confident smile entirely gone. "I messed up."
Three sectors away, Arthur had just put an arrow perfectly through the skull of a charging ghoul.
The moment the beast hit the floor, the massive earthquake hit.
The narrow stone corridor violently shook. Arthur dropped into a low crouch, instantly grabbing the wall for balance. Emily stumbled, cursing loudly as she caught herself on Felix’s massive iron shield.
"What the hell was that?!" Emily yelled over the grinding of stone. "Dungeons don’t have earthquakes!"
"Hold your ground!" Felix barked, bracing his shield against the trembling floor.
The shaking stopped after ten seconds, but the atmosphere of the crypt had completely, fundamentally changed.
The air was no longer just cold; it was freezing, biting straight through Arthur’s high-tier leather armor. The ambient mana in the air grew so thick and toxic it tasted like burnt copper and sulfur.
Arthur looked down the dark corridor.
The remaining four Skeleton Warriors, who had been slowly shambling toward Felix’s shield just seconds ago, suddenly stopped moving.
Their rusted armor began to exude a thick, black smoke. The empty eye sockets of their skulls, previously glowing with a faint, dull blue light, suddenly flared into a violently bright, blood-red hue.
They didn’t shamble anymore. They lunged.
The lead skeleton practically blurred forward, swinging its rusted broadsword with terrifying, renewed physical strength. It smashed the blade against Felix’s iron shield.
CLANG!
The sheer force of the blow actually pushed the immovable shielder back a full foot, his boots sliding against the wet stone. Felix grunted in pain, his left arm violently jarring from the impact.
"What’s going on?! They just got stronger!" Felix warned, gritting his teeth behind the iron. "A lot stronger!"
Emily didn’t hesitate. She vaulted the shield, her fist glowing with concentrated martial aura, and punched the red-eyed skeleton directly in the chest. Instead of shattering like glass, the skeleton’s ribcage actually held together, cracking but not breaking, and the monster slashed its sword back at her.
Emily barely leaned backward in time, the rusted tip slicing a thin line across her white tank top.
Arthur’s eyes narrowed. He rapidly knocked three arrows in succession, pulling the string back and rapid-firing over Felix’s shoulder.
Thwip.
Thwip.
Thwip.
All three arrows hit their marks perfectly. Two pierced the skulls of the skeletons, dropping them instantly. The third hit a ghoul charging from the flank, pinning its neck to the stone wall.
"Arthur," Chloe squeaked from the backline. Her voice was trembling so badly she could barely form the words. "A-Arthur, my bracelet."
Arthur turned his head, his high perception locking onto her wrist.
The glowing, intricate silver runes on the heavy Recall Bracelet were violently sparking. A second later, the blue light completely fizzled out, turning the magical metal into a dull, dead ring of cold iron.
Arthur checked his own right wrist. Dead.
He didn’t panic. His expression just hardened into a cold, completely cynical glare.
"Spatial lock," Arthur stated, his voice devoid of any emotion. "The emergency teleports are jammed. If you take a fatal hit now, the barrier won’t trigger. You will just die."
Chloe let out a terrified whimper, covering her mouth with her hands. Emily kicked the final skeleton into pieces and jumped back behind Felix’s shield, her chest heaving.
"Spatial lock?" Emily demanded, her brown eyes wide. "This is an F-rank training ruin! How is there a spatial lock?!"
Arthur looked up at the crumbling stone ceiling, rubbing the bridge of his nose.
He didn’t need a red system window to tell him what happened. He knew exactly how the lore of this world worked.
Rule number three of fantasy novels, Arthur complained internally, letting out a long, heavy sigh. If the golden-boy protagonist is in the same F-rank dungeon as you, it will never, ever stay an F-rank dungeon.
Leon Braveheart had obviously touched something he shouldn’t have. He had triggered a hidden mechanism, broken a seal, or opened a cursed chest, and now the entire beginner dungeon had mutated into a death trap. freeweɓnovel.cøm
From deep within the crypt, a massive, deafening howl echoed through the stone corridors. It wasn’t the guttural hiss of a ghoul. It was the terrifying, overlapping roar of a massive pack of hunting beasts.
"Ghoul-Hounds," Arthur recognized instantly, his sharp ears twitching. "Mutated undead wolves. They hunt by scent, and they move fast. Dozens of them."
He looked at his squad. The "lazy student" act was over. If he stayed in the back and let them figure it out, they were all going to be ripped to shreds in the next five minutes, and he would be stuck fighting a horde solo.
Arthur stepped entirely out of the shadows. His presence completely changed. The casual, bored archer vanished, replaced by an absolute, freezing authority.
"Alright, listen to me very carefully," Arthur ordered, his voice cutting through the rising panic like a knife. "The safety net is gone. We are playing for keeps. Felix, do not hold a static line anymore! We are moving! You guard the rear!"
Felix blinked, completely taken aback by Arthur’s sudden shift in command, but he nodded firmly, lifting his heavy iron shield.
"Emily, you take the frontline!" Arthur barked, pulling three arrows from his quiver simultaneously. "Punch a hole straight through anything in our path! Do not stop to finish them off; just break their legs and keep moving!"
"Got it!" Emily cracked her knuckles, her fear instantly converting into adrenaline.
"Chloe!" Arthur snapped.
The healer flinched, looking at him with wide, terrified eyes behind her thick glasses.
"Do not cast a single buff!" Arthur commanded. "Conserve every drop of your mana! You only cast heals if someone is actively bleeding out! Understood?!"
"Y-Yes!" Chloe squeaked, clutching her mahogany staff.
The deafening roar of the Ghoul-Hounds echoed closer, their heavy paws thundering against the stone floor just a few corridors away.
Arthur knocked an arrow and drew the Whisperwind Longbow, his eyes completely cold. He knew how spatial locks worked. You couldn’t run to the exit; the entrance portal would be magically sealed. The only way to break the interference was to find the source of this anomaly and kill it.
"We’re heading toward the center of the crypt," Arthur declared, taking point right behind Emily. "Let’s go find the idiot who touched the shiny box."
