"Still there?"
Camellya raised her gaze at the sound of Leon's voice calling out, turning to see him sipping a vitality potion. His left arm looked almost the same as it had before the fight, but there were still signs of lingering damage, like the fact that he didn't move it much as he approached her position.
"Yes, it's still there," she replied. "He died right after using the spear, and this place was abandoned immediately afterwards when the spear's power went out of control and froze the entire underground facility.
None of the existences trapped here when they activated the dungeon technology met the conditions to wield the spear, so it's natural that they all died over the years without unearthing it."
Leon stepped closer, looking down at the figure buried beneath the ice, then asked, "The condition was to be native to Citera, right?"
Camellya nodded silently, and Leon continued speaking.
"All those trapped here were mermen, who aren't native to Citera, so they couldn't remove the spear and free themselves. Poor bastards."
Despite the words he spoke, there wasn't a trace of sympathy in his voice.
While Leon and Camellya spoke, Beriel and Elidyr closed the distance, Beriel's eyes widening as he noticed the face-down figure encased in the ice.
"There's someone trapped there?"
"Yeah," Leon replied. "Remember when I said a Hero fell here in battle? That's our Hero over there."
Decades had passed since the Hero's death, and his body was still trapped within this coffin of ice. The state of the war back then had prevented the retrieval of his corpse, and the facility was turned into a dungeon to contain the beings that survived the initial frost wave that froze the place.
Elidyr looked at the spear embedded in the ground and muttered, "That spear, it's what's maintaining the ice."
He glanced around the vault at the several-feet-thick ice layer surrounding it on all sides, then thought back to the ice covering the floors and walls of the Floors above.
All of that ice came from this one spear and had been sustained by it for decades.
"If my estimation is correct, this ice is what remains after the spear gradually lost magic power over decades of sitting here unused, because none of the creatures in this dungeon meets the minimum level required to touch it without becoming ice sculptures."
Leon looked at the snake's body still impaled on the spear and then continued, "I suppose that white snake must have been an exception since it had the ice attribute, allowing it to touch the spear without being frozen instantly. If I tried that, I'd become a statue in seconds."
The moment those words were spoken, Camellya immediately narrowed her eyes at him and warned, "Don't even think about it."
"Come on, Camellya, I'm not suicidal," Leon replied, turning to Beriel and Elidyr before continuing, "This is where I need both of you. Beriel, I want you to cut the ice open and unearth our fallen Hero. Elidyr, I want you to thaw the ice after that."
"You want to retrieve the corpse?" Beriel asked.
"Yeah, what I came here for is on the corpse."
Chuckling, Beriel turned back to the frozen corpse, muttering lightly, "Since when did the young master of the Raviaz family start looting corpses?"
"Since today. Now then, get to wo—"
Leon stopped mid-word, then raised a finger toward Beriel as he asked, "Wait, what Class are you again?"
"Sixth Class," Beriel replied, earning a satisfied nod from Leon.
"Good. That means you can cut the ice with ease. Records put this guy at around Level 400 (Fourth Class) at his death, so there's no way you wouldn't be able to cut through this decades-old ice.
Now get to work."
Leon clapped as he spoke, urging both of them.
Silently, Beriel extended his right hand, his sword appearing in his palm, and he stabbed it into the ice, cutting through the thick layer like a knife through butter. Once the section containing the Hero's corpse was removed, Elidyr used magic to lift it and thaw the ice until it fully melted.
While Elidyr thawed the ice, the hole Beriel created slowly began to refreeze, and the remaining water turned into ice within seconds.
Without turning the corpse over, Leon reached toward the Hero's hands and removed the plain black bracelets with dormant runes inscribed on them that were strapped around each of his wrists.
When he channelled a bit of his slightly recovered magic power into them, the runes lit up with a dim violet glow, and he smiled.
"Combat Class acquired."
Clearly, the combat class Leon had been aiming for was tied to the pair of artifacts he had just taken from the Hero's hands.
Before he could clip them on, Elidyr immediately spoke, "Young master, hold on."
He took the artifacts from Leon and quickly scanned them with magic to make sure there was nothing suspicious about them, then passed them to Beriel so he could use a purification spell on them, and after confirming there was nothing wrong, he finally handed them back to Leon.
Leon didn't mind their actions, understanding they were simply doing their jobs, and then he clipped on the bracelets, the two locking around his wrists and glowing as they absorbed almost all of the little magic power he had just recovered.
He pulled up his status, glancing at the Class Tab and seeing that the words Seismic Striker now occupied the space where Brawler had once been.
As a small test, he turned toward an empty direction and thrust his fist forward, and a shockwave burst from his fist, travelling several meters before hitting the wall.
Seeing this, he nodded in satisfaction. "Seismic Striker, an impact-based combat class that has the passive of sending out destructive shockwaves with each punch."
"Do you think you can turn off the passive?" Camellya asked, and at this, Leon thrust his fist forward again.
Another shockwave shot out, and he shook his head.
"Even if I could, I don't think I can right now, because if I throw out one more punch, I would use up the last of the magic power in my heart, and that's not good."
"I think you should stop right now and let the magic potion do its work and recover your magic power," Beriel said, taking Leon's still outstretched fist and lowering it.
Leon chuckled lightly at his actions, sliding his hand into his pocket as he said, "Yeah, yeah. But anyway," he looked at the spear still stabbed in the ground and added, "That one also has its attached class, but you said you already got something better for Cameron, right?"
He glanced at Camellya as he said the last part, and she nodded without a word.
Leon then looked at the corpse of the Hero on the floor and spoke to Elidyr, "Take the corpse with you. We'll give him his long-awaited burial when we get back."
Turning to Beriel, he continued, "I want you to unearth that spear and hand it to me as fast as you can so I can toss it right into my inventory."
"Inventory?" Beriel asked, his eyes darting to Leon's wristwatch, and Leon quickly responded, "Yes. Thanks to our dead snake friend over here, I'm Level 99 now, but that's still too low for me to grab that spear without freezing.
However, I should be able to make contact for a second, long enough to send it into my inventory."
The moment he said that, Camellya immediately frowned. "If you take out the spear, all of the ice is going to collapse in less than a minute."
She then glanced at Elidyr and asked, "Is his teleportation fast enough to get us out of here?"
Elidyr didn't respond to the question, silently grabbing the corpse and sending it into his subspace.
"Yeah, Elidyr's teleportation is fast enough to get us off the lower floors before the ice thaws completely," Leon answered calmly, his eyes locked on the spear.
"I see," Camellya said, lowering her head lightly as she untied her loosely tied hair and properly tied it back.
In that moment, when her gaze faced the ground, Leon silently turned to Beriel, shook his head, and mouthed the words "Water Slide".
At this, Beriel gave him an expression that asked, "Really?" and Leon nodded with a bright smile on his face.
This interaction didn't escape Elidyr's eyes, but before the mage could say anything about it, Beriel immediately dashed over to the spear, pulled it out of the ice, and threw it straight toward Leon.
Leon reached out, his left hand tapping the spear and meeting the conditions for him to send it straight into his inventory. Even that momentary contact with the spear caused ice to cover his fingers completely, so if he had tried to pull the spear out, his entire arm would have frozen in seconds.
The moment his watch glowed and the spear vanished into his inventory, the constant magic power flow maintaining the integrity of the ice covering the entire floor ceased, and almost instantly, cracks began to spread across the ice.
"See you guys at the top," Leon said, saluting Beriel and Elidyr, as he immediately jumped toward Camellya and threw his arms around her, locking her in a tight hug that prevented her from moving any of her own arms.
Naturally, she was stunned by his sudden action and demanded an explanation, "What the hell are you doing?!"
Leon, his lips curling into a wide grin, responded, "Hey, Camellya, how about we take the second exit back up?"