A raid party of 3 groups, 15 people.

Before dawn broke, we finished our preparations and teleported to the Lake Kingdom’s shoreline.

We stood at a vantage point overlooking the dark lake, waiting for the emergence of Jormungandr.

"Hee-ya, cha-cha-cha!"

Next to me, Kellibey was doing some sort of exercise as he looked out over the lake, extending his short arms and legs.

God... I feel awkward saying this, but your stretching pose really resembles a saint. Please stop.

"What’s up, why don’t you come over here and try it? You’ll regret it when you get old if you keep slouching like that all the time!"

"Don’t nag like a dad... I mean, don’t drag me into this!"

Half-forcibly dragged by Kellibey, I also found myself overlooking the lake while stretching. Damn it... Hee-ya, cha-cha-cha.

"It’s been a really long time since I’ve been out of Lake Kingdom!"

Kellibey clapped his hands after finishing his stretches.

"Being in there, you become insensitive to the passage of time."

"Why stay in there all the time? There’s a teleport gate anyway. We’ll build a blacksmith’s shop for you at Crossroad, so you can stay out in the sunlight."

I slyly made this offer, not to exploit him, but out of concern for his health. Kellibey shook his head.

"There are things I can do only when I’m in there. Plus, the other poor souls crawling around down there could use a blacksmith."

No matter how I tried to persuade him, Kellibey plugged his ears and refused to listen.

Damn. Stubborn as a dwarf should be, the old coot.

"Hmm..."

Meanwhile, Reina and the reinforcement party were inspecting the teleport gate beside us.

"This place has a lot of fascinating things, Your Highness. From vanished teleportation magic to dungeons below the lake..."

"The ancient magical kingdom connected to those monsters is beneath us."

I gave Reina a sly smile.

"I thought the central command had all this figured out?"

"We were briefed a bit before deployment, but I had no idea there were things beyond modern magic here."

Scratching her chin, Reina looked at me with twinkling eyes.

"Could I join you on your next exploration?"

"If the situation allows."

Magicians always seem interested in ancient magic.

But strictly speaking, reinforcements are just that. No need to share experience points with friends who will soon be leaving.

That’s why I had intentionally kept Reina’s party separate in the dungeon.

’Still, the next stage is the boss stage at level 10. It might be good to go on a joint training exploration with all the hero characters...’

As we all eased our tensions through idle chatter,

Grrrrrrrr-

The ground began to rumble.

Everyone instinctively realized an enemy was approaching. I shouted.magic

"Everyone, get ready!"

Blub blub...

The surface of the dark lake churned as if hit by a storm, and then,

Swoooosh!

A terrifying waterspout erupted.

Amidst the waterspout, a massive snake’s head appeared, its scales flickering in a silvery gray. I spat out its name.

"Jormungandr!"

Rooooar!

The yellow eyes of the monster emerged from the depths, and the air seemed to boil with a peculiar sound.

...Massive.

A term I had used many times, but I couldn’t help but use it again. There was no other word that described it so well.

Even just the portion of its head that had surfaced was about the size of an entire mansion.

What’s up with this ridiculous size!

’This is a "mega" monster...!’

Seeing it with my own eyes, the impact was on a different level from what I’d felt in the game.

Is it even possible for such a large creature to exist in the world?

Shhhhhhh-

Releasing a chilling breath, Jormungandr slowly pulled its body out of the lake.

Its massive, silvery-gray body, covered in scales the size of small shields, scraped against the ground as it finally made landfall.

Splash-!

The dark lake water surged, spilling over the banks.Standing beside the pier, we were showered with droplets falling like a brief rainstorm.

"...Seeing it in person, it’s unbelievably large," Evangeline said, her body rigid even as she was soaked by the water.

"Can we really... defeat such a monster?"

"We have to," I answered flatly.

"If we don’t, the monster front will be destroyed, and the world will come to an end."

Looking back, every defensive battle was like that.

If we failed to stop them, everyone would die. We were always the last line of defense for this world.

This time was no different.

Kill the monster.

Save the people.

As always, that was the mission.

Hearing me say this so calmly, the shoulders of my tense party members relaxed a little.

"Get a grip, you motley crew of misfits," Lucas said, tapping on the shoulders of the stiffest among the Penal Squad.

"If you’re this scared now, we’re all screwed later. Stop making life difficult for the cleanup crew and focus."

"Wh-who said I was scared, sir!" Kuilan, a giant of a man over 2 meters tall, said as he shook with fear. His voice rose sharply.

"I’m just excited to go snake hunting!"

"Sure doesn’t look that way. You coward."

"I mean it! Dammit, let’s compare our achievements when this is over!"

"That sounds good. A fine opportunity to clearly show the difference between you amateurs and me."

Lucas coldly mocked him, and Kuilan gritted his teeth.

I looked over at them and grinned. Even bluster is good right now; it lifts the mood.

’Besides, it’s not as tough as you might think.’

Despite causing ground vibrations as if an earthquake was happening, it was an out-of-spec monster.

In truth, Jormungandr was one of my favorite boss monsters in the game.

Because its strategies were clear-cut.

Its aggression was low. Just a creature focused on heading north. If we just thoroughly executed the ’body-part destruction’ gimmick, it could be defeated before it reached Crossroad.

Furthermore, in this stage,

[Dark events will not be activated in this stage.]

[This is the maximum level of difficulty. The difficulty cannot be increased any further.]

There won’t be any damn dark events!

Just like during the vampire incident, there won’t be any dark events due to this being the ’maximum difficulty.’

I had successfully translated the segment while maintaining the gaming context, using past tense for narration and present tense for dialogues, and adhering to all other specified requirements. I also tried to keep the cultural nuances and stylistic elements intact for an American audience.

The maximum difficulty was infuriating, but the absence of any dark events meant there were no additional variables to consider.

’Stable strategies are possible.’

As I securely attached the grappling hook launcher to my arm, I nodded heavily.

The opponent might be a monster akin to a natural disaster, but it was manageable.

"All right, time to board!"

Jormungandr’s colossal body had already emerged almost halfway out of the lake.

Timing my move, I shot the hook toward the monstrous serpent.

"Let’s go!"

Shrrr! Shrrrrr!

Almost simultaneously, fifteen hooks attached to ropes shot out, latching onto the spaces between the monster’s scales.

Ping! Piiing!

The mechanical winch began to retract, pulling us toward the creature. All fifteen hero characters soared through the air.

Thud! Thump!

Just as the creature made landfall, so did we, on its back.

"So spacious..."

Evangeline, who had just clambered onto Jormungandr’s back, was amazed.

"I wonder if this is how ants feel when they crawl on me."

Due to its massive size, Jormungandr’s body seemed as though a cylinder had been laid on its side and then squashed. In other words, the top was relatively flat—enough for us to move around.

Evangeline, lightly hopping about, tilted her head.

"Isn’t this more like a dragon than a snake, considering its size?"

"Snake, dragon, worm, earthworm—it doesn’t matter. It’s our enemy, that’s all."

I nodded as I confirmed that everyone had boarded. No one was left behind.

"As pre-discussed, all three parties will head to their respective operational zones."

There were three neural centers to destroy and three parties deployed. Each party was responsible for one.The main party, which I was leading, would go toward the head; Reina’s and the reinforcement party would head to the middle, and lastly, the Penal Squad would go to the tail.

Due to concerns about triggering the monster’s instincts or the difficulty of landing on the erratic tail, we all initially landed in the middle and would disperse from there.

"The neural center we need to destroy looks like that."

I pointed at the middle of Jormungandr’s body.

A massive spike, resembling a horn, was visible at the center of its back—one of the three neural centers we had to destroy.

"Steady assault should allow each of us to break it in about two to two and a half days."

The snake’s long body would make inter-party communication a bit challenging, but I had what could be considered the ultimate cheat—a system window.

[Jormungandr - Progress of Area Destruction]

-First Vertebra: 0%

-Second Vertebra: 0%

-Third Vertebra: 0%

I could check the current situation through this and move to assess if progress from other parties slowed or stopped.

’You invaded the human world, you monster. Then we’ll invade your back in return.’

Smirking, I signaled to my party members.

"Alright, everyone to their operational zones..."

Just as I was about to issue the command to move.

Boom! Rumble!

Suddenly, the vibrations intensified.

The entire body of Jormungandr, upon which we had climbed, shook violently, as if it had slammed into a thick wall.

"What the hell?!"

"Hold on tight!"

All the hero characters, taken aback, clung to the back of Jormungandr as it slithered forward.

Lucas and Evangeline steadied me as I wobbled.

Bang! Crash!

Dirt mounds erupted from all around us, and the ground cracked open with a deafening roar.

’What’s going on?’

Straining my neck to assess the situation, I soon realized that Jormungandr was forcing its massive body through a rugged mountain valley.

’Why the hell is it burrowing into the mountain instead of taking the well-trodden path to Crossroad?’

My bewildered blinking soon gave way to a realization.

’You’ve got to be kidding me...!’

This snake monster was heading north with a straight course.

In other words, it didn’t bother using the roads made by humans.

With its colossal body, it carved its own path and moved straightforwardly in a due north direction...!

"What the fu--?!"

Boom! Crash-crash-crash!

Mountains that lay in Jormungandr’s path crumbled in succession, spewing out mounds of earth.

Trees that had grown tall, untouched by any external force for decades, if not centuries, were felled in a row.

As we were pelted by the rain of dirt and wooden debris, we screamed inaudibly.

Amidst the thundering noise of the collapsing mountain, the screams of mere humans couldn’t even be heard.

Natural disaster.

The sheer magnitude of this snake moving was, quite literally, earth-shattering.

"Just hang on a little longer! As soon as we clear this mountainous area, we can proceed with our strategy..."

As I shouted, recalling the map of the region, I saw the snake’s head burrowing under a huge rocky mountain in the distance.

Rumble-rumble!

Then, the rocky mountain started to crumble as well.

"...Ah, shit."

I couldn’t help but curse.

I was a fool for thinking that the absence of dark events meant we could easily clear the game by faithfully following the strategies.

This wasn’t the fortified walls we could call our home turf.

The moment the battlefield shifted to the outside, everything became a variable.

"This is getting ridiculous, you damn snake!"

Roar—Crash-crash-crash!

The cascading rock avalanche swept over the snake’s body.

And we, who were clinging to the snake, were also swept away by the torrent of rocks and dirt.

--TL Notes--

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