I Became the Second-in-Command in a Romance Fantasy Novel

“If we can’t enter the dungeon because of the mana, then we just have to absorb all that mana.
Of course, that wasn’t as easy as it sounded. Even the Magic Department thought the most certain way was to defeat the dungeon boss inside and destroy the dungeon’s core.
If only we could use the Demon King’s magic sword, then all of this would be solved.

The problem was...
“How long is that thing going to keep growing?”
The true worker of the romance fantasy, the black magician, had done a remarkably good job.

The mana sword was growing vigorously, even bigger than the sword they had seen yesterday in the Individual Tribe’s village.
It was almost like Jack and the Beanstalk.
If you could just climb it, maybe you could reach the clouds — it was growing to that size.

“......”
“......”
“......”
Their gazes, including Uncle Aerin’s and two others’, landed on me.

The expression was basically: What the hell is that?
“......”
I didn’t know either, damn it.

What is that? I’m starting to get scared.
“Um, uh, Adam?”
Apparently, Daisy, the user of the magic sword, thought the same.

She looked at me with wildly shaking eyes, sending a look that said, Please do something about this.
“Hmm.”
Let’s calmly assess the situation.

At first, the plan was to plug the sword into the sealed dungeon entrance to drain its mana.
As the absorbed mana gathered on the sword, it started to retreat backwards, and now...
“......”

Even I, a trained martial artist, couldn’t see the dungeon entrance anymore from this distance.
So, how should we handle this?
According to the method Arang showed, if you clash with compressed aura and consume faster than the mana being drained, it works.

But can I do that now?
“No, I can’t.”
Even if I couldn’t, it was the Swordmaster’s job.
So I was ◈ Nоvеlіgһт ◈ (Continue reading) about to leave to call the Swordmaster—

“D-Don’t abandon it?!”
Daisy misunderstood something and moved her body.
Her slight movement made the sword tremble a bit, but—

“Uh, uh?”
“Careful!”
Like a butterfly effect, though the sword only trembled slightly from her movement, the huge and beautiful mana sword at its tip reacted tremendously.

“You made me do this!”
“No, you’re helping your friends too.”
“I didn’t think it would turn out like this!”

Who knew?
“D-Don’t move! If you don’t take responsibility, I don’t even know what to do!”
I never thought I’d see a saint threatening people, but sadly, the thing in her hand was a real nuclear button.

If that thing exploded by mistake—or even if it didn’t explode but was swung recklessly—the entire dungeon could collapse.
Even Prince Ellen might not survive.
“Calm down.”

So, as Daisy tried to negotiate, I cautiously tried to calm her down.
“Uh, uh?”

Suddenly, Daisy’s body shook again, and I thought the pressure was increasing, but on closer look, the tremor wasn’t from Daisy — it was the dungeon.

“It’s, it’s opening!”
Someone shouted that, and Daisy, flustered, pointed the tip of the sword that was touching the dungeon skyward.
“Wow.”

Everyone was amazed watching it.
Not only the swordsmen, but even the fire magic users had their mouths wide open at that large and majestic sword.
And that was...

“......”
“......”
“......”

Even the romance fantasy male leads who just came out of the dungeon were the same.
No matter how blinded they were by infatuation, seeing something that far beyond with their own eyes, even the greatest romance fantasy leads couldn’t respond normally this time.
“Should we dissolve this with aura?”

Even the great Swordmaster was taken aback by the large and beautiful mana sword that surpassed the blinders of the romance fantasy leads.
“Heh heh. This is... hmm.”
Well, considering it was at least five times bigger than the mana sword seen at the Individual Tribe’s village.

Even making the sword tip face forward was hard.
Should we just plant the hilt into the ground and beat it like a scarecrow?
“Um.”

At that moment, Violet, who had been hiding until now, appeared and cautiously gave an opinion.
“First, why don’t we use whatever we can?”
“Violet, student, what do you mean by that?”

That was MacGregor, the Magic Department’s senior professor, who was also troubled with the Swordmaster about how to deal with this.
“I heard the main culprits of this incident haven’t been caught yet.”
“True.”

“Lias fief is dangerous with many restricted search areas. But that’s the same for black magicians, right? No matter what tricks they used, it had to be harder for them than for people who have lived long in Lias.”
“Of course.”
“But if they still haven’t been found... Unless they teleported out, that’s obvious, isn’t it?”

Daisy’s gaze went to one place.
The dungeon where some academy students, including the romance fantasy male leads, had been trapped.
“Set a trap and wait for the enemy. It’s the most basic strategy.”

The battlefield where a magician shows their true worth is the one they prepare in advance within their domain.
Unlike swordsmen, whose fights mostly depend on pure skill, well-prepared magicians sometimes defeat those two ranks above.
If these were black magicians, not ordinary magicians, and if they were the ones who created traps using the dungeon core, then imagining what’s inside the dungeon was difficult.

So...
“Should we just destroy it?”
“...?”

At Violet’s words, MacGregor tilted his head.
Wondering what she meant, he also looked at the Swordmaster.
“Destroy the dungeon?”

“We already drained all the dungeon core’s mana, so even if it’s a dungeon, it’s basically an ordinary cave now.”
“That’s right.”
“And since it’s related to black magicians, recycling it would be difficult anyway.”

“That’s true.”
“And we have an excellent demolition tool, don’t we?”
At first, no one understood, but after a moment, everyone looked at Daisy.

More precisely, the giant magic sword she held.
It was so big and majestic that from close up it was hard to tell if it was a sword or a club...
“Let’s just smash it down?”

Violet said, like swatting a fly or hitting a cockroach.

She meant to beat the black magicians.
The black magicians of Lias, just as Violet predicted, were hiding in the dungeon.

The documents supposedly from the demon worshippers who had taught them were suspicious even to black magicians.
But they tried anyway, and everything succeeded, so they couldn’t not believe it.
Because those religious fanatics had sworn on their gods.

“A magic circle that can even control the dungeon boss. With this, Lias will be in our hands!”
“Woooh!”
So, at the leader’s words, the black magicians cheered.

Lias fief, often seen as a strange place to live by normal people, was the best place for black magicians.
Because it was basically dangerous, few people wandered there.
So black magicians rarely met their most dangerous natural enemy: humans.

Not only that, periodic mists filled with magic would flow from somewhere, making it hard for ordinary people to use mana.
Sometimes the internal mana would clash, causing internal injuries — a dangerous aura.
But for black magicians, just accepting that aura was like a spiritual elixir that raised their level naturally.

The only problem was wild animals and monsters.
Since newly spawned dungeons didn’t treat black magicians kindly, bad luck could mean death.
Still, if they had the magic circle that controlled monsters, given by fanatics, they could gain an infinite army.

An army of monsters so powerful it could be called a demon realm, incomparable to normal regions!
Thud! Thud! Thud!
So even when the dungeon roared, they were laughing.

They thought the academy rookies were moving to defeat the dungeon boss.
The countless traps and magic circles they had prepared, along with monsters enraged by berserk magic, would stand in their way.
Even if they overcame countless trials, waiting for them was the enhanced dungeon core and the reinforced dungeon boss.

An enhanced stone golem existed.
“The stone golem was already tough, but with layers of reinforcement, unless it’s aura, even a mediocre sword stroke couldn’t scratch it.
And even the magic that could effectively hit the stone golem was coated with magic defense and engraved with magic circles!”

Unless the Swordmaster or the former Magic Tower Lord came along, the academy first-years couldn’t defeat the enhanced stone golem.
They were sure of that.
They had worked hard.

They proved their strength by surviving even in Lias fief, called cursed land, where no one could live.
Their strength got noticed by the demon worshippers and they received many secret techniques.
They used those perfectly, put their targets fully under control.

Yet they didn’t let their guard down, anticipating the worst-case scenario to maximize the chance of victory.
So what they lacked was...
“But it’s still shaking?”

“...Did we make the traps too excessive?”
“Are we sure we haven’t reached the dungeon’s center yet? Aside from the stone golem, is there another monster that can cause this impact?”
“At this point, isn’t this just an earthquake?”

Beyond normal people’s common sense, even black magicians, or rather, fanatics worshipping demons, hadn’t thought about these possibilities.
That a saint would pull out one of the demon weapons sealed by the goddess in ancient times.
Or that she would do something crazy like sucking up all the dungeon core’s mana with it.

Or use that absorbed mana to smash the dungeon itself.
That was just talk.
“This is weird.”

“The earthquake seems to be getting stronger!”
“Dirt keeps falling, is it safe to stay like this?”
“Not yet! We have prepared so much here! We’re not alone — there are academy students here too. Find those panicking and take them hostage!”

The black magicians coldly analyzed the situation and quickly gave orders, though panicked.
“Captain! The door is open! All academy students have escaped!”
“What?!”

Sadly, in front of the romance fantasy heroine’s natural disaster, they could do nothing.
“Ahhh!”
“The dungeon’s collapsing!”

“Run!”
They were just ordinary people.