An Unexpected Identity – 4

Standing before the rune stele, I placed my hand on its surface and concentrated my mind.

Then, a faint green light seeped into me. A strange sensation began to rummage through various parts of my body. It was a sensation I had experienced before, but I hadn’t quite gotten used to it.

With my eyes closed, I focused my consciousness on the back of my left hand. The power that had been wildly rummaging through my body gradually gathered in one place. The back of my left hand twitched repeatedly.

After confirming that my body had returned to its original state, I opened my eyes. I looked down at my left hand. Next to the Vitality Reinforcement Rune that had been initially engraved, a few more strokes of the tattoo had been added.

‘It’s done.’

Since I had acquired the rune, my task here was complete. I removed my hand from the stele’s surface.

The name of the rune I had just acquired was ‘Mana Enhancement’. True to its name, it had the simple effect of increasing maximum mana.

While the increase wasn’t particularly significant, making it not an absolutely essential rune, it was also a rune that wouldn’t hurt to have. After all, even using the special ability of the Wingless Nightmare consumed mana.

The rune stele, having completed its purpose, lost its light, turned into ordinary rubble, and crumbled down. Unlike last time, no new path appeared just because the rune stele had collapsed.

Normally, a passage leading directly to the surface should appear, but for a short dungeon like this, it was quick enough just to retrace the path I had taken.

As I was about to leave the boss room, I paused for a moment, seeing the half-destroyed centipede-no, the centipede-shaped train’s corpse.

‘……Should I take this as proof of subjugation?’

When I dealt with the Rock Centipede, I had gone there specifically to acquire a rune, so I didn’t need to take the corpse. But now, since I came on a request, I might need proof.

In truth, just showing the rune on the back of my hand would be sufficient proof, and if necessary, they could even investigate the rune’s fluctuations. But for visual evidence, nothing beats the head of that monster.

‘I should ask Helga.’

I turned around again and walked back the way I came. Right. There was no need for me to think about it alone. Helga would know more about this than I would.

“Oh.”

A short exclamation flowed from Helga’s lips. It was her first impression upon seeing the Rock Centipede, whose upper body had nearly evaporated by a third. The other Bunny Girls also wore similar expressions.

Nyx, meanwhile, was wandering beside me, not even paying attention to the Rock Centipede’s corpse, letting out a gloomy and strange laugh.

She kept trying to paw at my hand, so I subtly extended my left hand. She promptly snatched it, placed it on top of her head, and shook her head. It felt as if I were looking at a cat.

“So, should we take it as proof?”

In response to my question, Helga pondered for a moment, then shook her head.

“Hmm… it’s too big, so it won’t work. Even if we just cut off its head, we’d need three or four people to carry it. And, if Captain-nim acquired the rune, that would also be the most certain proof.”

“I thought so, too, right?”

“Yes. It is a bit regrettable that there are no other spoils or byproducts, but…”

Helga’s eyes subtly swept around. Cassandra had said they could take everything that came out of this dungeon, so it must be regrettable that there was nothing else to take.

I, for one, already knew that there were no other rewards inside this dungeon, and since my goal from the beginning was the rune, it didn’t matter if there was nothing else to take. But it wouldn’t be the same for them.

“I’ll talk to Cassandra about it. All we got from here was the rune, so she’ll probably give us a separate reward.”

“That’s a good idea, Captain-nim.”

Helga nodded and walked over to my side, then noticed Nyx rubbing her cheek against my left hand as if purring, and her eyes turned cold.

Her gaze immediately shifted elsewhere. It felt less like she was condoning Nyx’s behavior and more like she had simply turned off her attention.

“Everyone, get ready to go back. You’ve rested enough now.”

The Bunny Girls, who had been whispering among themselves while looking at the Rock Centipede, replied with a slightly drawn-out “Yes~.” It was the kind of answer that, if written, would probably have a tilde attached to the end of the word.

Perhaps because they were Helga’s subordinates, it felt like they were gradually becoming more like Helga. They were languid and didn’t care about resting.

We went back up the passage we had come through, in the same formation as when we entered. Before long, a massive cavern appeared. It was the place where I had left Nyx, Helga, and the regular members waiting.

As in the game, a considerable number of centipedes seemed to have appeared, and the rock-formed centipede corpses were strewn all over the place.

Compared to the dozens of centipede corpses, our knights didn’t have a single scratch on their faces, which meant the knights had unilaterally wiped them out.

It wasn’t very surprising.

While they might not stand a chance against bosses due to fundamental spec differences, conversely, if the spec difference wasn’t significant or if the knights actually had the upper hand, they could unleash tremendous power, especially given their nature as field mobs appearing in the final part of the game.

Even in vanilla, the knights of the Golden Twilight Knights could wipe out nearly half of a player’s HP with a single basic attack. How much more so when Dark Lord mode was applied?

There was no need to even mention the knights of the Silver Dawn Knights, who were treated as far more elite mobs than the Golden Twilight Knights.

“By the way, Captain-nim.”

Helga, who should have been at the very rear, stuck close to my side. Wondering what was up, I turned my head.

Helga glanced at Nyx, who was walking a little distance away, her massive fatty mass on her chest jiggling, then whispered into my ear.

“By any chance, does the act of finely pulverizing corpses have any special magical significance for witches?”

“Magical significance? What are you talking about?”

Without exaggeration, it was truly something I had never heard before. I had never seen any documents mentioning enemies using black magic to tear apart corpses and find meaning in it. Nor had I ever heard such a conversation.

“No, that witch did it. You see that pile of gravel on the right? That was originally a centipede. That witch did that to it.”

Helga’s finger pointed to the scattered pile of gravel on my right. Its appearance was such that one couldn’t even dare to imagine it was originally a centipede. It was just like any pile of stones on the roadside.

“……That was originally a monster?”

“Yes. After the battle, she just kept smashing it up by herself.”

“Hmm…”

I tried to recall my memories, but nothing specific came to mind.

I had seen documents mentioning that some black magicians enjoyed conducting biological experiments, but their purpose was always experimentation; they didn’t senselessly destroy corpses.

“Ah, and when I asked her why, she gave a strange answer.”

“Strange answer? What did she say?”

“When I asked her what the meaning of such an action was, she said it had ‘no meaning here’. It might just be something she said to sound profound without any real meaning, but you never know, do you?”

No meaning here, huh.

It was a statement whose reason I simply couldn’t fathom. The emphasis on the word ‘here’ implied that the action had meaning elsewhere.

Nyx’s personality was difficult for me to grasp, so the true meaning of her words remained a mystery.

“Well, I don’t know either. I’ll ask her once we’re outside. She might give a proper answer if I’m the one asking.”

“Ah, indeed. If Captain-nim asks, she might give a proper answer.”

Remembering that Nyx followed me to a suspicious degree, Helga nodded in understanding and stepped back.

To be honest, I was a bit curious about that myself. What exactly did ‘no meaning here’ mean, and why did she say that?

Perhaps it was truly just a roundabout way of trying to sound profound, but it seemed worth asking the question.

Nyx, whether she heard the conversation between Helga and me or not, was still following closely behind me with a gloomy smile.

In contrast, her distance from the surrounding knights was a bit wider than when we entered. It seemed her act of rummaging through the corpses had quite an impact.

“Ah…! You’ve finally come out!”

As soon as I gathered the armor that had been piled in one spot and exited the dungeon, I saw Cassandra standing right beside me, accompanied by a knight.

Cassandra, who had been looking restless, immediately brightened up the moment she saw me. The female knight standing behind her also showed a noticeably brighter expression as soon as she confirmed our presence.

Eyes filled with relief turned towards our direction.

The knights behind me looked surprised that the Lord had come all the way here in person, but I wasn’t surprised at all, as it was something I had experienced countless times in the game.

‘A lot of things are different, though.’

In the game, the only people present at this spot were the Lord herself, the knight she trusted most directly, and the player, just the three of them, which truly gave the feeling of keeping a secret.

But it wasn’t like that now. Not only Helga but also the regular members under her command had entered and exited the dungeon together, so the surroundings were bustling.

Even Nyx, who was practically an outsider, was with us, so there was no feeling of needing to keep a secret at all.

‘Well, it’s not like they’d go blabbing about it first, though.’

Unless Kaikilia herself were to directly interrogate us about what happened, we wouldn’t be the ones to go around boasting that we had visited the rune dungeon.

If their mouths were that loose, they wouldn’t be able to work in the Imperial Palace in the first place. All I could do was pray not to get caught by Kaikilia.

“How did it go?”

“You can rest assured now. The matter has been handled.”

“……That’s a relief.”

As if her tension had released, Cassandra’s body swayed. The female knight standing behind her quickly supported her shoulder. Cassandra wiped the beads of sweat from her forehead with a handkerchief and spoke.

“Were you under such severe emotional distress? Your complexion doesn’t look good.”

Cassandra shook her head slightly.

“It’s not for that reason. Just a moment ago, an unknown sense of dread overwhelmed me, making my entire body tremble and making it difficult to even stand properly. But strangely, the moment I laid eyes on you, Sir Knight, my heart calmed down. My poor complexion is probably also a result of that.”

‘Huh? Now that I think about it…’

Since Nyx was nearby, Cassandra should definitely be terrified, even if the female knight behind her wasn’t. With that thought, I looked around.

The squat witch with hair half purple and half green was nowhere to be seen.

Seeing me looking around, the knight directly behind me crossed her index fingers into an X. I understood the meaning and inwardly assented.

It seemed she had teleported somewhere the moment she saw Cassandra, realizing that the conversation wouldn’t proceed properly if she remained. It made me wonder if she was unexpectedly considerate.

Although the timing was subtly off, it seemed Cassandra had made a strange misunderstanding, thinking her heart calmed down because she saw me.

‘Now, what’s going to happen?’

I calmly waited for Cassandra’s next words. Depending on what Cassandra said here, the flow of the main story from the middle part onwards would be determined.

To be precise, it was determined by the player’s actions from the beginning until now, and Cassandra merely played the role of informing them. But now, I had skipped all the intermediate parts.

The subsequent story was entirely up to Cassandra.

Honestly, trying to find the story now was a bit laughable, but there was no harm in being prepared.

“Um…”

Cassandra’s lips parted.