Chapter 297 – Working in the dungeon.

“They really went in there…”

“That they did…”

“We do have to go in there to assemble the door…”

“That we do…”

“Great…”

Bernir and Roland were standing in an empty mining area. The bubbling sounds from the middle lava pool filled the area while the two remained silent. There was a small problem with this situation, the adventurers were supposed to stay with them. It was possible for some unknown tier 3 monster to appear out of the blue. Roland who was actually at a higher level than these monsters still wouldn’t be able to outright contend with them in a one-on-one battle.

‘Maybe if I could develop that runic emulator it would be possible.’

Due to playing a lot of emulated games in his youth he kind of went with that naming scheme. Emulation in a gaming sense was imitating a console’s hardware and software to allow a person to play games on a computer. In his case, he wanted to imitate divine spells with his runes to help him kill undead creatures. Even at tier 2 level, he would be able to kill a tier 3 Skeleton Champion with relative ease.

“The monsters can’t cross to this side and the passage is wide enough for us to remain in it for now, but someone will have to go check if everyone is in order on the other side…”

He gave out a sigh as he knew that Bernir was unfit to get into the tier 3 dungeon. If a tier 3 monster appeared Roland was the only one with the reflexes to flee in time. While he wasn’t that bothered by the slow warrior types of skeletons there were some that he was wary of. There was a possibility of an assassin type to appear and those could hide their presence even from his magical devices. It would be possible for such a monster to sneak up on him, it could even be on the ceiling now.

“Don’t worry, I’ll do it… those adventurers might get back by then so we shouldn’t panic, let’s just start and see.”

“Aye, Boss but first… what are we going to do about that?”

Bernir whipped the sweat from his brow while pointing at the bubbling lava pool. There from within a lone tier 2 salamander emerged. It was not something that could threaten Roland’s life but on the other hand, his assistant was different. Even though his level was around a hundred he did not have a battle class. What came with this was a lack in certain stats and no combat skills. One bite from this monster would probably be enough to kill him, that is if it could get closer.

“We? Is that thing on your side just for show?”

Roland answered while looking at the runic gun that he had made for Bernir. This model didn’t come with a cable like the last large weapon his assistant used to combat the swarm of skeletons. Instead in the middle, there was a replaceable magazine part. It didn’t have any bullets inside of it, just a rechargeable runic battery instead.

The design in itself looked like a sawed-off shotgun that was quite angular. There was no need for a long barrel as there weren’t any bullets traveling through it. Instead, it looked like a pipe with a runic structure at the end. The mana bolt would come out at the end while being powered by the battery within it.

Thanks to this design this weapon would last a lot longer than the traditional magical products with set charges. Bernir wouldn’t need Roland to constantly recharge his weapon as he could just replace the battery on the fly. It added a lot of weight to the device and would be unfit for any kind of bladed or conventional weapon, but for a magical staff that needed to shoot out spells, it was enough. The added weight didn’t mean much to a blacksmith that had a lot of strength either, which made it the perfect tool for protection.

“Fine, I’ll do it!”

Bernir took out the weapon and after turning a dial at the side that acted like a gun’s safety, it was ready to go. The monster wasn’t that close to the two which gave him ample time to aim his weapon. The trigger on this weapon on the outside was a copy of the designs he saw in his old world. The simplicity of it all was enough to keep it even though it just shifted some metal around to generate a small pulse of mana instead of setting off a bullet’s casing.

It completed the runic structure for a moment and activated the armament that produced a charged mana bolt. This lump of blue light flew toward the monster that was just now noticing the humans near a wall. On shot, one kill, the blue mana connected with the low-level fifty monster and took it out within an instant.

“Haha, got it! Did you see that!”

“Yeah, nice shot, how is the laser sight?”

“It’s great!”

Bernir held up his weapon while cheering. The magical weapon he was using also came equipped with a laser sight replica that would point out the target with precision. This was somewhat of a game changer for people that lacked battle classes but it had its limitations. For instance, magical shields could be able to counter the gun’s output. Then there were monsters that were quick on their toes and also humans with superhuman abilities.

Nevertheless, it gave people with no battle experience something that could kill tier 2 monsters which couldn’t be ignored. Perhaps with high enough numbers of these runic guns, they could be used in larger-scale warfare. But perhaps it would be better to just create a golem capable of defending itself against such weaponry while also having an arsenal of its own.

‘Quantity or quality…, it’s easier to make one runic gun than one spider golem. Training people with common classes with them would also increase the potential of this weapon… but with those monsters existing in this world, this might not even matter.’

Roland went towards the spatial bag and started removing the parts for the door while thinking about this world’s wars. More than likely a battalion with runic guns of this type would probably be eradicated by one tier 3 person. A simple tier 3 warrior would decimate it after getting in range. They could defend against most of the hits with a good enough magical shield or perhaps even dodge them with their heightened reflexes.

‘But what if I could put tier 3 runes on it? Could I even make a small gun like that? and the mana cost would be astronomical…’

The current models needed to be equipped with large batteries to work. It was the design’s weakest point and required a lot of resources. The weapons also tended to overheat if used for too long just like the turrets. As it stood now, they were probably at most effective against mindless monsters but would lose their effectiveness against people that had some strategic thinking.

“Maybe I should become an adventurer, with one of these even the monsters on this level stand no chance.”

“Hah, stop smiling and help me, go measure the wall and see if we have to adjust it.”

“Ups, coming boss.”

Finally, the two craftsmen got to work. After taking out the base of the door they started comparing it to the hole they dug out. As Roland expected it was still too small to fit the metal foundation. The height would be at three meters with the width at two meters, then they also needed to account for the thickness of the walls that were slightly above a meter. After all of it was in place, he hoped that it wouldn’t break on itself after the Dungeon tried to repair itself.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Luckily for them, this wasn’t such a difficult task. It only consisted of placing the outer parts on the dug-up sections and seeing if they fit. They could even drill outside of the limits as the walls would push back into them with time. It was actually faster to do it this way and a lot easier to fit all the parts in when there was more wiggle room.

First came the bottom part to which the two side walls were connected and magically welded to. The welding job was similar to the modern counterpart but instead of using a welder, Roland used his own finger to focus the magical heat. Most of it was done on the outer edges as the door was measured from the inside part and if the dwarves saw the welds performed by him, it could rouse their suspicion.