Infinite Competitive Dungeon Society
chapter-222

After taking care of the first wave of monsters gathered at the coast, only the dense forest stretching out to the horizon filled our eyes. The greenery truly extended to every corner of our eyes. No one would be surprised if a dinosaur’s head suddenly popped up.

We had nowhere near enough time to thoroughly search every corner of Philippines for monsters. We couldn’t waste time. Of course, we had come with a solution prepared.

“So I just sing songs that attract?”

“Yep. Just focus on singing. I’ll take care of the rest.”

“Un!”

The solution was none other than Plene. To kill monsters with my Evil Eyes, I needed them to be within my sight. Although it would be nice if I could draw them towards me with Provoke, Provoke’s range wasn’t that big.

However, unlike my shouting, Plene’s singing traveled far and wide like the sweet scent of flowers attracting honeybees. Plene had never accompanied me to Event Dungeons or Dimensional Mercenary missions, but now was her time to shine. Ah, come to think of it, she did shine before when Event Dungeons appeared on Earth.

“Lala~ Lalala~”

“What a beautiful voice.”

“Don’t get infatuated, Father. Snap out of it.”

Father looked like he was ready to crack open a beer bottle. I restrained father and strongly circulated Peruta Circuit. I could feel countless number of monsters coming over, attracted by Plene’s singing.

“Battle units, you guys can rest. You must be tired. If you want, you get even go back to Resting Place of the Angels.”

“Thank you for your consideration, Dear Husband, but we can regain our strength through battle!”

“Alright, then be on standby. You guys can help take care of the monsters unaffected by Evil Eyes.”

“Yes!”

To be honest, the succubi’s mind sharing ability was rather convenient. I could just grab one randomly and the rest would understand what I told her. That said, I wanted to decline their favorable impression of me from going up at the same time!

Everyone prepared their bodies and minds against the strong enemies we would face. As I circulated Peruta Circuit and waited for the monsters in the distance to arrive, I thought about ways to effectively release my charm.

The strength, dexterity, and constitution stats directly affected my body, the magic stat was my mana itself. Although I wasn’t sure what the luck stat did exactly, I could more or less control the other stats. I could display as much strength as I wanted and display as much speed as I wanted. If that wasn’t possible, it would be impossible for explorers to live their everyday lives.

At first, I thought the charm stat was like the luck stat, something outside of my control. However, after experiencing many things, I came to realize that it was controllable. Then, it must be possible to control how much of it I used just like other stats.

Furthermore, if I could focus it to strengthen one part of my body, like the eyes for example, and stop releasing my charm through my whole body, I could get Hwaya and Ludia to stop looking at me with judgmental eyes. As such, learning to control my charm was one of my top priorities. After all, charm was a monster-like ability that could even demolish an ability user’s self-control!

“Lala, lalala~! Laaa~!”

“They’re coming. I can feel it!”

“Would it be about 0.1% of the Philippines’ monsters?”

“I don’t know, but there sure are a lot!”

0.1%… So we only had to do this 999 more times? Although I tried to trick myself into thinking positively, I couldn’t help but sigh. Dealing with monsters on a scale of a country was no joke.

“Don’t sigh too much, Shin… I’m happy, it’s been a while since I did something with you since I can’t be with you in the dungeon.”

“I get it, so go away, Ludia. Your eyes are really dangerous right now.”

“Dear Husband is so strange. It is only natural for a man and a woman to embrace each other, why does he refuse it so adamantly?”

“For the first time, I agree with you, Licorice. Why don’t we exchange some ideas?”

“Sure, let’s cooperate, witch.”

I swear I’ll learn to focus my charm to only my eyes! If this continues, I’ll be conquered before I can conquer the Philippines!

In just four days, we managed to completely wipe out monsters from 40% of the Philippines. Although there were monsters powerful enough to resist Plene’s singing, they couldn’t hide their presence from us. We just had to find them and kill them. These monsters could also resist my petrification. When I asked Daisy and Yua if they were interested, they shook their heads.

“Not this one either?”

“Not cute.”

“It’s not cute.”

“Is there some standard I don’t know about? Is it really because they’re not cute?”

We only had five hours to rest per day. I was the only one who thought it was too long. At first, everyone rolled their eyes and called me a tyrant.

“I know we’re on standby most of the time, but Shin, you’re always using your power. Are you okay?”

“Eh? You were worrying about me?”

As I planned on taking two hours out of that five hours to hunt Floor Masters, I couldn’t help but be flustered by Ye-Eun’s question. Were these people still doubting the power of explorers’ stats? I received the answer to my doubts the next morning.

“Strange. Why am I not tired?”

“Hmm, even after I became an ability user, I still felt sleepy from time to time… but now I’m not sleepy at all.”

“So this is the power of stats…!”

Wait, these people, were they in the dungeon for only eight hours a day like some office work? When I asked them, the others gave me stares that said, ‘What’s this monster?’ It seemed I was the weird one. Hwaya advised me seriously.

“Shin, I know you feel pressed for time, but there’s a certain level of stress you get just from battling. Without you even realizing, your mind is being hurt. You’re already getting stronger quickly, so don’t push yourself too much. Many of us here feel pain seeing you hurt.”

“Y-Yeah…”

Since she was genuinely worrying about, I couldn’t refute her even though I really didn’t feel anything. Feeling awkward from Hwaya’s stare, I nodded. In the end, I didn’t tell anyone I spent two hours hunting Floor Masters. Though, I suspected that a few of them already knew about it.

It was on the fourth day that something unexpected happened. During these four days, we went around the Philippines using Plene’s singing and my Evil Eyes to wipe out monsters. Before we noticed, the number of monsters swarming us decreased. It wasn’t that there were more monsters that could resist Plene’s singing.

“There should be more monsters the closer inland we get. How strange.”

“Dear Husband, I’ll get the kids to survey the area”

“Might die, dangerous. Undead, safe.”

Daisy stopped Licorice and took out a skeleton of a hawk from her inventory. Then, she put a small crystal ball in its eye socket.

“Scout.”

[Kiaaa!]

The hawk cried and soared into the air. Its speed was incredibly fast. At the same time, Daisy took out another crystal ball that seemed like an enlarged version of the one she took out before.

“We can, see with this.”

“Wow, so we can use this to see what the hawk is seeing?”

“Floor Shop 770,000 gold. Revival privilege, 70,000 gold discount.”

Without me realizing, my name was being used here and there. I told myself to apologize to Loretta next time I saw her, as I looked into the crystal ball. The hawk’s incredible fast made it hard to see the surrounding scenery, but once I got used it, I could see the dense forested area around us.

For about five minutes, nothing was out of the ordinary. As we already cleaned up this area, there weren’t any monsters that came into view. Although it would have been nice if that continued, Hwaya soon shouted.

“Wait, what’s that?”

“Monster migration.”

Daisy answered with a shocked expression. She was right. A group, no a herd of monsters had finally entered the hawk’s view. Strangely, they were all moving towards one direction. Land monsters were plowing through the forest, while flying monsters flapped their wings and cut through the sky. It was almost as if they were racing towards the same finish line.

“This is…”

“There really is a commander…”

Hwaya gulped. I could feel her voice trembling slightly. I understood why as one of the monsters running in the crystal ball was…

“Isn’t this the same type of monster as the one Yua hated?”

“Yeah, it’s the same monster as the one that didn’t get petrified. From how much mana it had…”

Sumire continued Hwaya’s murmuring.

“It was an SSS rank.”

“Ho.”

It was clear what that meant. There was no way an SSS rank monster would run like a dog playing catch for a monster weaker than itself. It meant that there was a monster that was overwhelmingly stronger than an SSS rank monster.

“A map, anyone?”

“Here you go, Hwaya-nim.”

One of the succubus handed Hwaya a 3D hologram map of the Philippines. Comparing the map with the scenery in the crystal ball, Hwaya estimated where the monsters were heading to.

“Luzon Island… southernmost area.”

Hwaya voice fell. Soon, she came up with an answer.

“Bulusan Volcano… They’re going to a volcano!?”

My instincts told me a monster my Evil Eyes couldn’t do anything against was there.

“It’s fine. I don’t know if there’s enough space there for all these monsters to gather, but this is more convenient for us. Let’s head over there while we take care of the slow ones.”

“No, we don’t know what will be there, Shin. Let’s split up our forces. I don’t know what the monsters are up to, but they’re certainly not trying to help you kill them all at once.”

That was true.

“Then let’s kill them before any more of them reaches the volcano.”

“We have six succubi battle units. We’ll split up and go with them. Shin, you go with Plene and kill as many of them as you can.”

“Got it.”

“Succubi, line up!”

The battle units immediately began to line up. The other members of Revival also stood nervously at Hwaya’s frosty vigor.

“There might be a monster stronger than any monster we’ve faced so far. You can’t just rely on Shin to take care of everything. Make sure you’re resolved!”

“Oh, my daughter candidate sure is feisty.”

“Father, you just scared other daughter candidates with that.”

“Guys, is the Philippines the only country with a monster like this?”

“Probably not…”

I couldn’t help but recall the Demon Army Commander I met in the Luka continent. A monster far surpassing him was likely waiting for us. A monster that could control SSS rank monsters… how many monsters like this existed on Earth?

“So the real war is beginning… I’m shaking a bit.”

“Hmph, we just have to kill them. What, you’re scared?”

At Michel’s muttering, Walker snorted and replied. Michel grinned and retorted.

“Of course not. But since you’re so full of spirit, I’ll be expecting a lot from you.”

“Trying to act cool, old man?”

After splitting up into a total of seven teams, we set off. Our final destination was Luzon Island’s southernmost area, Bulusan Volcano. The battle was not far off.