The 17th floor was unlike any other before it.
A vast, open plain stretched so far that there was almost nothing to use as cover—an arena that felt purpose-built to scale up a battle, or a space large enough to house a creature worthy of the title "floor boss."
Even the walls of this floor were unusual. They weren't ordinary rock but a highly reflective crystal. Beautiful to look at, yes—but steeped in danger.
Floor boss.
Among the gathered adventurers, Sawada Tsunayoshi faltered for just a beat when he glimpsed a colossal silhouette flash behind the crystal. The sense of threat prickled across his skin—an oppressive pressure like a mountain settling onto his shoulders.
"Ah!!!"
A bestial roar exploded from the crystal's far side. The shock of the sound sent tremors through the entire 17th floor like a localized earthquake. A crack split the crystal wall, and a towering figure—tens of meters high—pushed through.
Not an ordinary Goliath.
Tsunayoshi noticed immediately that the skin color was wrong. A normal Goliath's skin should be a bronzed hue; this one was jet-black.
Is this the same mutated Goliath the original protagonist encountered?
Tsunayoshi grasped the source at once. No god had appeared this time, and yet a mutated floor boss had. Was it because of the Dungeon's "abnormality"?
The giant's massive body squeezed free of the crystal wall by degrees. Red light burned in its eye sockets as it locked onto the Loki Familia. It loosed another furious bellow:
"AAAAAAAH!"
Finn's gaze fixed on the Goliath. A stabbing ache throbbed in his left thumb—an omen as sharp as a needle. The bad feeling rose, perhaps because of the creature's altered appearance. Finn couldn't shake the sense that this "abnormality" was itself a manifestation of the Dungeon's ongoing "abnormal incident."
A hand settled on his shoulder. Before Finn could turn, a voice said:
"It's an abnormal incident."
Oddly, that calmed him. His intuition hadn't dulled.
"That floor boss is clearly one face of the Dungeon's change. Ordinarily, the Dungeon is unchanging—like the gods. But once it seeks change, it tends to make a spectacle of it, just like the gods do."
"The Goliath's skin tone has changed, and it feels more feral—more dangerous," the voice continued. "We should learn a little about this new strain first. Rushing in could cause needless trouble."
Reckless moves would indeed cause trouble. Finn's wariness deepened. He lifted his spear. Testing a floor boss was not work he would hand to someone else—he would do it himself.
"Then I'll probe it."
Finn shot forward like an arrow, too fast for the eye to catch.
The Goliath sensed him at once. It raised both hands high and slammed them down.
"Boom!"
Power rippled out from the impact like a spiderweb, and the entire floor shook violently.
Dust swallowed the world. A heartbeat later, a small silhouette cut through the haze, drawing an arc through the air before landing sure-footed on the Goliath's forearm.
"Shhk!"
Finn's spear flashed, carving a line of blood across the monster's arm—yet his expression only grew graver.
Hard.
Even striking clean, Finn felt how unnaturally tough that hide was. His first-tier weapon could wound it, but not easily. That layer of black skin was more defensive than a normal Goliath's.
"AAAAAAAH!"
The Goliath's jaws yawned wide, locking onto Finn standing on its arm. A magic circle flared almost instantly, and with the monster's roar—
—its own forearm detonated.
A gaping hole blew through the limb, rendering the arm effectively useless. But a second later, a red sheen of magic flooded the wound, and the vast cavity knitted shut in mere seconds—good as new.
The Goliath roared again, sweeping sonic magic across the dust-clouded plain, hammering the ground with wave after wave to scour its surroundings.
Sonic attacks. Rapid regeneration.
Just as he thought—this was the "mutated Goliath" from the story. Tsunayoshi hadn't expected to meet it here.
He moved closer to Riveria and Gareth.
"Riveria, Gareth—do ordinary Goliaths have ranged options?"
"…Naturally not," Riveria answered after a moment, finally dragging her eyes from the bombardment to the boss itself. "A normal Goliath doesn't use magic at range. Nor does it rapidly regenerate injuries like that. If floor bosses were this strong by default, then no matter how many low-level adventurers gathered, without a single large-scale, high-destructive spell to end it in one stroke, they couldn't bring it down."
"A massive body plus a decent ranged spell is already enough to crush a typical party," she added. "Add in accelerated regeneration, and—if this were the standard—Orario would have far fewer adventurers."
Gareth grunted his agreement. "A Goliath with ranged attacks is far too dangerous. And that regeneration—if you can't overwhelm it, ordinary wounds just come back. Without devastating magic or overwhelming skills, killing it gets… difficult."
The key was that you couldn't stack incremental damage.
Gareth knew better than anyone: low-level adventurers lacked overwhelming destructive power. If they couldn't suppress the Goliath's regeneration outright, the boss would drag the fight on and on—until the party's strength failed and resistance crumbled.
There was no doubt—this was an abnormal incident.
(End of Chapter)
[Check Out My P@treon For +20 Extra Chapters On All My Fanfics!!][[email protected]/euridome]
[Thank You For Your Support!]