SSS-Rank Hunter Reborn: Private Tutor to the Count's Bastard Son

It had already been three hours since entering the dungeon.

They hadn't found the exit yet, but surprisingly Irona was well-behaved. She didn't make a fuss about needing to find the exit quickly, nor did she show signs of impatience. She just wore an indifferent expression as if she had transcended everything.

The reason was simple.

She didn't feel any particular sense of crisis.

Clatter, clatter—

Then countless footsteps could be heard from behind. What met their eyes were golden glows. The number reached several hundred pairs.

Three hundred and ninety-two.

The number of undead under Silvan's command. From zombies and skeletons to ghouls, skull wolves, and lower spirits. The variety was diverse too.

It made sense. Since entering the dungeon until now, they had plundered every undead they encountered. He hadn't noticed when stealing them bit by bit, but at some point the numbers had grown rapidly.

The more this happened, the deeper Ferda's worries became.

'...How do we clean this up?'

Taking this many undead outside the dungeon would definitely attract attention. It would be a matter of time before the Holy Kingdom discovered them.

'We need to deal with them all before leaving the dungeon...'

But that would take too much time.

While thinking if there was another way, he suddenly stopped walking.

"What's wrong?"

Irona, who had been following behind, asked with puzzlement.

Soon clattering sounds could be heard. The sound of bones hitting each other. Skeletons. When Silvan perked up his ears and walked out, Ferda naturally stepped aside.

"Geez, just how many more are planning to come out?"

Silvan sighed as if bored.

Now he didn't even look properly and just held out his hand first. Unlike when he first plundered the Skeleton Warriors, his hand movements had become much more concise and the distance issue had been somewhat resolved.

=====

[Notification]

*Silvan Arcdute has plundered 12 Skeletons.

=====

Forty adult paces.

He could now plunder from this distance. The speed had naturally increased too. What used to take about 5 minutes at first now took less than 1 minute.

Ferda smiled with satisfaction at his student's amazing growth speed. Meanwhile, Silvan muttered quietly with a bored face.

"...Maybe I shouldn't have come in."

It would be boring. While it might look difficult to others, Silvan had just been repeating the same task for three hours.

When the twelve new subordinates joined the group, the party resumed walking. Meanwhile, Ferda brought up a skill window. It was the Yggdrasil System's extra skill, [Equivalent Exchange].

Limited to dungeons where interference rate reached 100%, monsters killed by Ferda's hand would transform into items worth the value of their corpses. It was a good skill, but there was one problem.

'How do I explain this?'

Monster corpses sparkle and transform into items. Anyone would widen their eyes and ask what that was.

So he'd been worrying about it since entering the dungeon. But he soon realized it was pointless worry.

Because in the full three hours, not a single battle had occurred.

'I hope only undead come out from now on...'

He hoped there wouldn't be a situation where he'd need to step in. Ferda earnestly hoped.

Stop—

Then the higher wind spirit Sior appeared from thin air. In the form of a hawk, flapping his wings, he soon perched on Irona's shoulder.

[I can feel wind blowing from ahead.]

"Wind?"

Irona tilted her head.

Wind in a dungeon with walls on all sides? As she made a puzzled expression, she muttered with a hopeful face.

"Could it be that an exit has appeared?"

"Exit?!"

Silvan's eyes widened.

Seeing his strangely happy face, he must have been quite bored.

"Let's go quickly!"

At Silvan's urging, the party headed toward where the wind was blowing.

After a while, an unfamiliar scene spread before their eyes.

"This place is..."

A sky filled with ashen smoke. Then withered weeds came into view. Dim fog lay at their feet and broken stone fragments were scattered everywhere.

A scene that exuded a gloomy atmosphere.

Ferda immediately identified what this place was.

'A cemetery.'

What he'd thought were stone fragments were pieces of broken tombstones. He could feel nether mana in the dim fog, and far away among the weeds, bones with rotting flesh could be seen.

Creak creak—!

Just then a strange sound was heard and he turned his gaze. He could see several skeletons rising from the ground. As if just born, they were steadily emitting blue light from their eye sockets.

"I'll handle it."

Silvan quietly reached out his hand.

It took only about 30 seconds for the blue light to turn golden. Having instantly plundered the skeleton group, Silvan looked around.

"Where could the exit be?"

He really seemed to want to get out quickly. Ferda patted the grumbling Silvan's shoulder, then walked further. The cemetery was vast enough to be described as expansive.

While walking like this for a while, a system message suddenly appeared.

=====

[Notification]: Analysis rate has reached a certain level.

*Current Analysis Rate: [35 / 100]

*Analysis Result: [Dungeon Name: Radina's Cemetery]

=====

At least it wasn't a dungeon that had been on Earth.

Soon he looked around again. Then his vision fixed. What appeared in his pupils was a burial mound standing alone about fifty paces away.

Standing alone on the flat land, it was bound to catch the eye. Before long, the mound began shaking violently as if there was an earthquake.

'Another undead?'

Now he naturally stepped aside. Silvan would handle it. As he was thinking this, suddenly four metal spikes burst out.

Along with them, the reddish-brown soil covering the mound scattered in all directions. It flew toward where the party was too, but none of it touched Silvan's body.

Thanks to Ferda and Irona blocking it all in advance.

Crack! Crunch!

With loud noises, the burial mound collapsed completely. Then something with a huge body got up.

First, it was incredibly large. At a glance, it looked like a two-story building moving. Also, its appearance was so hideous that it had six eyeballs on its head and four arms on its bloated torso.

Just then, the monster suddenly made a threatening roar.

"Graaaaaah!"

Would this be the sound if you scraped iron with a knife?

Silvan and Irona covered their ears with grimaced faces. Having finished its roar, the monster soon raised its massive body. Then the identity of the metal spikes it was holding was also revealed.

"...Nets?"

As Irona said, dense nets hung from the metal spikes. If all those spikes were spread out, they'd probably form a giant net.

After a while, the monster began approaching. Seeing this, Irona stepped aside gently like Ferda.

"Silvan, I'll leave it to you then."

Anyway, he'd probably use plunder to steal it this time too. Irona patted Silvan's back encouragingly. Then Silvan looked up at Irona as if asking what she was talking about.

"That's not an undead though?"

"What?"

"Its magic power is all mixed up. I don't think I can steal that one."

Silvan shook his head.

Irona made a blank expression. Then the monster spread its four arms in all directions.

Swoooosh—!

The net spread wide accordingly. When the monster swung its arms, the net flew toward the three as if to engulf them. But it was a miss. Right after the net spread, Ferda grabbed Silvan and evacuated from the spot.

Irona also had enough ability to get herself out.

Bang! Crash!

The net slammed into the ground. Inside the net that swallowed a huge area, there was only an unfortunate group of undead. Some undead tried to escape from the net, but whatever it was made of, the net didn't budge.

Watching this scene, Ferda narrowed his eyes.

'Usually when using nets as weapons...'

The main purpose was to block the opponent's movement. The general combat method was to first catch the opponent with a net, then attack with sword or spear. But the monster was only holding nets. No other weapons were visible.

"What's it planning to do just by catching them?"

Irona seemed to have similar thoughts and posed the question.

Then Silvan and Irona's ears perked up. Without anyone taking the lead, both looked up at the sky. Ferda also stared at the ashen sky. Something could be seen flying from far away.

"That's..."

It wasn't a bird, and definitely not an insect. It was something long and thin. Before long, Ferda could realize what it was.

"...!"

"Salaman! Deploy a fire barrier!"

Irona shouted urgently. Soon crimson flames enveloped the three's heads. Then a fierce downpour began from the sky.

Thunk! Rat-a-tat-tat-tat!

It was a downpour where each drop was an arrow.

The arrow rain poured exactly over the net, and the dozens of undead trapped inside became pincushions without being able to put up proper resistance. It would have been fortunate if they just collapsed from being pierced by arrows. Some zombies were completely torn apart.

Thud— thump!

The undead hit by arrows collapsed like deflated puppets. It was because their bodies were damaged and all the nether mana leaked out. Irona immediately turned her head at the sight of the undead that had become mere corpses.

But because of the floating dust, it was hard to know the enemy's identity or numbers. With a grimaced face, she shouted irritably.

"Sior. Blow all that away!"

[Got it!]

Sior inflated his body. His wings quickly became huge. After a moment, when he began flapping, fierce wind swirled.

Whoooooosh—!

The target was the direction the arrows came from. When the dust was cleanly blown away, the enemy's identity came into view. It was about a hundred Skeleton Archers.

"At least this time they're undead, so that's good."

Irona sighed with relief. With Silvan there, undead were no longer scary. But there was a problem.

"What do we do? It seems hard to plunder from this distance..."

Silvan said with a troubled face.

The minimum effective range needed for plunder was forty paces. But the distance to the Skeleton Archers looked to be well over a hundred paces.

To make matters worse, perhaps realizing their position had been discovered, the Skeleton Archers even increased their distance.

'It's not completely impossible.'

Ferda's eyes lit up.

If he carried Silvan and quickly approached, they could plunder all the enemies. Undead below World-grade couldn't make the first attack on Silvan. But he had a better idea.

"It's okay."

Ferda patted Silvan's shoulder reassuringly.

Then he pointed to the numerous undead hordes and continued.

"Just tell those guys to destroy them."

Anyway, they had to deal with them all before leaving the dungeon. Then it would be more beneficial to use them like this. Silvan also seemed to understand Ferda's intention and nodded readily.

[Irona! More arrows coming!]

Sior's warning came from above. In the distance, the Skeleton Archers could be seen nocking arrows to their bowstrings. At the same time, Silvan commanded the hundreds of undead.

"Attack!"

A short, simple command.

Golden glows flashed and gleamed. As soon as the master's command fell, the undead army all kicked off the ground in unison.

Thud thud thud thud thud thud—!

Rough vibrations striking the cemetery. The monster holding the net roared. It spread its four arms in all directions again. It must have intended to spread its net again. But the monster couldn't achieve its purpose.

Because zombies and ghouls clung to the monster like a swarm of ants. They began greedily devouring the monster like starving demons.

Crack! Crunch! Chomp chomp!

It took only 1 minute for the massive monster to collapse.

Leaving behind over thousands of pieces of flesh, the march began again.

Rat-a-tat-tat-tat-

Around that time, another rain of arrows poured down. Lower undead became arrow targets and fell, but higher-grade undead deflected arrows or blocked them with shields while advancing.

Silvan's army finally approached within reach of the enemy. The Skeleton Warriors who arrived first blocked the escape routes. Then three or four Skeleton Warriors attached to each archer and swung their axes.

Thunk! Thunk thunk thunk!

Merciless attacks continued. Only after grinding each piece of the archer's bones to powder did they turn their bodies to find the next prey.

At a glance it looked like chaos, but in reality Silvan's army had the advantage. It had to be so. Even just in numbers, there was more than a threefold difference. Watching the scene that dominated the battlefield, the spirits burst into admiration.

[It doesn't look like there's a chance for us to step in.]

[Right. Wow, that's really incredible.]

Irona also nodded in agreement.

With hundreds in number, the spectacle was truly magnificent. But the surprising events weren't over yet.

Suddenly Silvan reached out his hand. His hand pointed toward the undead that had become combat-incapable. Soon nether mana flowing from him settled into their bodies.

"You guys get up and fight again too."

With a quiet word, the undead began writhing. After a moment, they slowly got up. Except for a few whose bodies had turned completely to powder, most undead began moving again.

[Th-this is absolutely ridiculous...]

[Am I seeing this right? He's reviving those?]

The spirits let out cries close to shock. Irona was the same. She'd thought there would be no more surprises. She looked back and forth between Silvan and the undead with blank eyes.

The main power source for undead was nether mana.

When the body was destroyed, nether mana would rapidly dissipate. And when all the mana dwelling in the body disappeared, the undead became combat-incapable.

In this case, it was impossible to raise the fallen undead again. Even if you put nether mana into an already broken body, it would just leak out again. It could be seen as like pouring water into a bottomless pot.

So other necromancers would gather combat-incapable undead together to make ragged golems, or use them as materials to make other undead.

But Silvan was different. He had filled the bottomless pot with water. And very quickly and simply at that. Since they couldn't even guess what he'd done or how, naturally they could only be shocked.

Did he see Irona's gaze?

Silvan tilted his head and asked back.