Extra Chapter. Emptiness (3)

Elizabeth D. Sherden, a girl who reached eight years this year’s fall, was growing fast enough to look almost four or five years older than other children of the same age. She had some maturity, not only in terms of her physicality but also in her intelligence, which was incomparable to her peers. Where her little distortion came from: it was from her love for her older brother Evan.

‘She’s definitely getting bigger quickly to marry her brother!’

It was a completely wrong interpretation, but Evan wasn’t irrelevant. She grew faster than other children because of Evan’s slime training in her newborn days; her basic stats completely deviated from the human species. At the time, Evan thought that it was just ‘good enough that our Liz survived,’ but in fact, it wasn’t something to be taken lightly. It wasn’t possible in this world for a newborn to kill monsters and level up. Why not? There couldn’t be a crazy parent in the world who put a newborn baby in front of a monster since they wouldn’t be able to recognize mana or even hold their fist properly.

However, Elizabeth fell ill with a dungeon disease and succeeded in killing the slimes summoned by Evan. Countless miracles overlap…most of all; it was possible because Evan helped her. Still, as a result, she built achievements she shouldn’t have at a young age and reached a level that adults couldn’t easily reach. And this didn’t stop at only overcoming the dungeon disease, but it completely changed her natural constitution. The possibility of human beings was truly terrifying. When growing up rapidly as a newborn child, her ‘standard of growth’ was adjusted.

As a result, compared to other humans, she began to grow stronger, faster, and firmer. Arguably, her body was already beyond human at this point. It was at this time that her aptitude was fixed as double-blunt Morningstar. Originally, her aptitude was different, but in the process of continuing her growth beyond humanity, her aptitude was changed to something that only high-ranking Demons, who were the highest in both physical and magical powers, could obtain.

‘She thought she would be able to marry her brother once she was all big…’

She followed Evan from her childhood because she instinctively remembered who saved her. She tried to imitate whatever Evan did, and it included not only fitness but also reading, fighting, and of course, catching slimes. After she received aptitude training directly from Evan, her weapon skills were added to it. Perhaps because of that, she continued to break through her limits with her growth. Stimulus was constantly given to her body during the growing season, along with good food and potions from the enormous wealth of the Marquis. All of that accelerated her growth. She seemed to be born to become the strongest. However, despite her growing up so fast, she didn’t keep up with Evan.

‘The reason Evan left me is that I was weak.’

Evan, who left with his party, saying he would kill the Demon King, didn’t return. People said that he couldn’t return because he was doing a mission far away, but Elizabeth wasn’t fooled. They said he was coming back, but she was convinced that he couldn’t come back. Because Belois, Arisha, Serena…all of her rivals in love were looking desolate. They may be able to deceive others, but they couldn’t deceive her.

‘Idiot, stupid, moron! There were so many, and yet none of them could protect Oppa, and then they came back shamelessly!’

Elizabeth was angry. She previously thought that they were just bad women trying to take her brother, but she now thought they were the enemies who killed her dear brother. Yes, they weren’t helpful. If she wanted her brother to come back, they couldn’t do it. She had to do it herself.

‘I’ll get stronger.’

She would become stronger than anyone and bring Evan back. This time she was weak, so she couldn’t follow her brother. If she grew stronger than everyone, then she would be able to follow her brother. She would be able to get him back.

‘Dungeon. The dungeon is the only way.’

Elizabeth’s actions were quick since she decided to be strong. She would have been better if the half-elf and her own friend, Eir, was with her, but Eir had to go to the ancient woods to greet her soon-to-be-born brother.

“Mother, I want to go into the dungeon.”

“What? …Sigh.”

When she first came out of the room after hiding in there to cry, knowing that Evan wasn’t coming back, she said that, so it was natural that her mother, Miriam, passed out.

“No!”

As soon as the fainted Miriam woke up, she exclaimed so. But it wasn’t Elizabeth that greeted her, but the Marquis’s hallway, which was all messed up.

“What is this!?”

“M-ma’am!”

The maid, who was running around the hallway holding onto her skirt, found her and approached her with a pale look and shouted.

“Miss Elizabeth beat all the soldiers blocking her and went into the dungeon…!”

“What!? So, they took her into the dungeon!? Did they let my baby in!?”

“It seems that lady Elizabeth held her Morningstar in both hands and threatened…”

As a bonus, the Morning Star was one of the luxury weapons that Evan enhanced using scales and bones through his exclusive blacksmith Horta. Far from being an ordinary eight-year-old, it was a weight that even mid-sized warriors struggled with. Still, Elizabeth was casually able to hold it in both her hands and swing it.

“That means they just sent an 8-year-old girl into the dungeon!”

“Well, there was a record before when Master Evan entered the dungeon with eight-year-old girls…”

“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”

Miriam passed out again. It was rather fortunate. Even when she woke up, Elizabeth wouldn’t be back, anyway.

* * *

[This is really…]

[The other conquered the dungeon and left, and now, something ridiculous came in…]

A mysterious voice came into Elizabeth’s ear, who entered the Sherden Dungeon. Elizabeth looked around, looking for who called her, but she couldn’t find it, so she finally gave up and started walking.

“If I kill them all, I will be stronger.”

[You’re a kid who says something even more dangerous than the other.]

“Do I have to kill ‘everything’ that keeps getting noisier since before?”

God shut his mouth. If she was the younger sister of the other, she might really rush to kill even him. Satisfied when there were no more loud noises, she hung the Morning Star in both her hands between her fingers and swung it around her, moving forward bravely through the dark dungeon.

―Whooosh…

“Found you!”

The first battle took place three minutes later. Elizabeth caught the dungeon spider creeping on the ceiling.

With overwhelming growth in all of her physical abilities, she, of course, possessed an excellent skill in finding sneaky enemies through her five senses.

“Heyaa!”

Elizabeth immediately swung the Morning Star. The weapon had only two simple options, which were enormous strength and that it could change its shape. It was hard and never broke, and it stretched and shrunk according to the owner’s will. Evan, who was worried about his younger sister, who didn’t have the means of long-range attack, added the feature that could be used as long as mana allowed for it.

―Peak!

The Morning Star, which quickly stretched to the right length, broke through space and hit the spider directly. A level 1 spider couldn’t avoid the Morning Star, which flew in with a blink of an eye. The spider died without leaving a trace and disappeared.

“Hmm…”

Elizabeth, who succeeded in killing the spider, stood there for a while and pondered. Maybe what she just killed wasn’t a monster but a structure in the dungeon or an ordinary bug. Wasn’t that the only way it could have disappeared without giving her the taste of the kill?

“I thought it would be at the level of slimes that Evan Oppa summons…”

Elizabeth wondered for a moment, but she decided to think positively that a monster worth dealing with would appear as she kept walking. She didn’t know the way well, but once she broke everything in front of her, wouldn’t something worthwhile come out? She heard that there is also a trap, but wouldn’t it be solved by breaking everything, after all?

“Okay, let’s go.”

That’s how Elizabeth’s legend began. Although the speed was slow compared to Evan, who learned all the information of the dungeon and pierced the floors with the shortest route, the way she cleared the first floor at high speed, striking out with her weapons and moving in a straight line, was overwhelming compared to other explorers. The second, third, and fourth floors, too. In order to clear the 5th floor, she had to give up an offering to open the door of the floor master battle room, but she broke the door, as well. She didn’t know how to open it otherwise, so she had hit it until it opened.

―Baaaaaaannnngg!

“It opened!”

It was the first time in dungeon history that the floor master battle room was forcibly opened. No, exactly before that, Evan cleared the Merdin dungeon in one second and crushed the entire contents of the boss room, but that and destroying the entrance to the battle room was quite different. The dungeon, which accepted it as a fatal error, created an irregular boss monster that couldn’t appear on the 5th floor to fix the error.

―Crrrrrrr…

Surprisingly, it was a more powerful monster than the hidden boss that could only be met by solving the hidden secrets on the 5th floor. This monster clearly transcended the rules. Maybe there was an additional reflection of the Demons’ hatred for Evan’s flesh and blood. That could have happened because it was reality, not the game. It was when his younger sister first unearthed a kind of hidden piece that even Evan didn’t know about.

“Heeyaa!”

―Kyaa!

But that variant’s monster power was also fair game in front of Elizabeth. Just like the other mobs on the first floor, his head collapsed in with one blow! Elizabeth made her first appearance in the world, and in a second, she looked down at the remnants of the boss monster that had disappeared from the world, and she thought.

‘That almost gave me the taste of the kill, but…should I think this as a monster?’

[…]

[… ]

God, who watched her performance, was silent. Everyone was in silence, but the moment she checked the treasure chest and reached the stairs leading down to the sixth floor, God’s voice emerged.

[Your level has grown to 6. Um…it was a great performance.]

“Ah, it’s the level-up voice. Huh? It’s white everywhere.”

Elizabeth was calling God’s voices, that she heard every time she went down a floor, the ‘level-up voice’. This time it was even more special. As Evan did in the past, Elizabeth was also called into the presence of God.

[Your performance was more unique than anyone else.]

[You broke everything.]

[There’s nothing left.]

Once the achievements were settled, God immediately intervened there. In fact, he had been very bored since the Louise Party and the Junior Group conquered the dungeon after Evan.

[You broke things that shouldn’t be broken. We don’t know why that is.]

[Actually, isn’t she like the other, too?]

[It’s different. Because she only destroys everything that lies in her path, not going on a path that doesn’t exist.]

[Maybe it’s because she’s human and has grown beyond human limits. Her existence itself is destroying the order of this world.]

[Then, isn’t she like the other?]

Elizabeth quietly lifted her Morningstar as she watched the white masses of light flying loudly before her. God quickly went silent.

[It’s decided. I already feel reluctant to give this powerful title to you, but…still, no job suits you more than this, so I can’t help it.]

[You will be the Destroyer. You will be the one who destroys all the physical or magical things in the world, the real and the virtual, the laws and principles of all things, blessings and curses, and even life and death.]

A very mysterious sensation possessed Elizabeth. The sensation that every cell that composed her body was turning into something new—the feeling of being reborn as a completely different being while being the same as before.

“Wow…”

She became stronger. She could feel that she was twice or more able than before. Her compatibility with the job was so great that it was impossible to recieve more.

[You did it.]

[You really gave it to her.]

[It’s over now. No one will be able to keep the balance of the world…]

Amid the despair from God and his voices, Elizabeth went down to the sixth floor, humming. She didn’t know how to get out of the dungeon. She just thought that if she went all the way down, she could get out.

And that really happened.