Ch.290Resonance

“Will!”

“Will! Are you okay!?”

“Mina, what about the magical energy readings around us?”

“They’ve stabilized! Hurry and heal him!”

Four women rushed to my side after I was thrown back by the explosion of Wolvesbane.

I had completely lost sensation in my left hand below the wrist, and my face felt so hot that I could barely open my eyes.

“Heal Touch!”

A moment later, a pleasant warmth spread through my left arm, gradually restoring sensation. The pain in my face subsided enough for me to barely open my eyes.

“Ugh… sorry everyone. I failed at the end.”

“I told you it was dangerous! What if you had injured your eyes!?”

“I have nothing to say… What about the Adjuster?”

“Over there.”

While receiving Jessica’s treatment, I looked in the direction Setty was pointing. The Adjuster lay face down on the ground, his body riddled with holes.

His wings were completely shattered with no trace remaining, and all the black beasts had disappeared as well, suggesting he was in no condition to fight.

“That should be enough emergency treatment. Let’s make sure the Adjuster is really finished. We don’t want him escaping like the Gentleman or activating some strange trap.”

“Are you sure you’re okay? How’s the sensation in your left hand?”

“It still tingles, but I can move it. Fanning… would be difficult though.”

Whether it was a burn or flesh that had fallen off and regrown, the skin of my left hand was mottled with light and dark patches.

The fact that I could clench and unclench my fist suggested the injury wasn’t critical.

If that was the case, we could secure the party’s safety now and treat my hand injury after returning to Moon Lake.

“…Give me your revolver and use mine for now. It’s probably too much to repair it right away, but I’ll at least check its condition.”

“Thanks.”

After wiping away the tears welling in Mina’s eyes as she handed me her large-caliber pistol, I got up with Setty’s support and approached the fallen Adjuster.

The masks that had covered his two faces were shattered and scattered.

The bare faces revealed underneath had transformed from bird-like to human. One side was literally like a wooden doll without eyes, nose, or mouth, but the other…

“Wait, isn’t this face…?”

“It’s the Gentleman, isn’t it?”

“It certainly looks just like him. Though he appears somewhat older.”

The right face attached to the Adjuster’s body looked exactly like the Gentleman.

As Phyllis said, he looked older… if the Gentleman was around 20, this one might be about 40?

Still, he looked younger than his voice would suggest.

“Could it be that the Gentleman… Ul=Ga=Han and this man were blood relatives?”

“B-but if that’s the case, then a father to his own son…”

“It’s too early to jump to conclusions. Like in the Disease Demon’s dungeon, it could be an ability that mimics someone else’s appearance.”

“Yeah. Since this person is already dead, it’s impossible to learn the truth.”

Confirming his death, huh.

Well, it’s a natural outcome considering I unleashed a skill that would be lethal even with a revolver, going so far as to detonate Wolvesbane.

If possible, I would have preferred to just strip him of his combat ability and neutralize him so we could learn more about the Third Eye tribe…

*Whoosh…*

“Ah.”

As I was lamenting the bitter end, the Adjuster’s corpse dispersed like black smoke, and a small wooden door appeared on the wall opposite to the one we had entered through.

A passage leading to the room where the dungeon core was kept.

The Gentleman had said that his fellow tribesmen, the Third Eye people, were hiding in there.

“Shall we go?”

“Are you going to demolish the dungeon?”

“I’m not sure yet. But I think we should meet them directly to explain why we came and what our intentions are.”

“Isn’t there a high possibility they’ll attack us to avenge the Adjuster?”

“If that happens, we can just run away. Like we did with the Minotaur.”

It’s true that killing the Adjuster has diminished the possibility of dialogue, but if we miss this opportunity, who knows when we’ll get another chance to contact the Third Eye tribe.

First, we’ll try to talk with the remaining Third Eye people, and if that proves impossible, we’ll retreat while blocking the passage with ice.

Having decided this, we opened the door leading to the core room and entered—

“…There’s no one here?”

“You’re right!”

We arrived in a room where nothing was present except the dungeon core glowing in five colors.

“There’s not even… any sign that people lived here.”

“Setty, what about the smell?”

I thought the cat-folk’s sensitive sense of smell might detect something, but Setty simply shook her head silently in response.

“What’s going on? Did both the Gentleman and the Adjuster lie to us?”

“Maybe there was never anyone in this dungeon besides the Adjuster…”

“But there were definitely human traces in the area with the fields. Are you saying that was all fake?”

That’s right.

In the safe zone where crops were being cultivated, there were traces of at least 2-3 people working.

Our visit to this dungeon must have been unexpected for the Third Eye tribe, so it doesn’t make sense that they would have created such a space just to deceive us.

“It’s certain that someone was in this dungeon, but there’s no trace of anyone living in the core room… That means they might be hiding somewhere else.”

“Do we need to search the dungeon from the beginning again…?”

“Let’s rest a bit first. We need to treat Will’s wounds more, and I want to take a closer look at the revolver to see if it can be fixed somehow.”

“Alright.”

Before starting our re-search of the dungeon, we decided to take a rest and brought the Ancestor, whom we had left waiting in the boss room, into the core room.

Even though the mysterious magical energy that had been interfering with spell activation had stabilized, we couldn’t guarantee it would stay that way.

And that decision provided us with a crucial hint that opened up a new possibility.

*Whoosh*

“Huh?”

“What’s that?”

As soon as the Ancestor entered the core room, a soft blue light suddenly spread out, illuminating the area around her.

Was something in the luggage emitting light?

When I turned around, I noticed that the dungeon core was also emitting a blue light separate from its usual five-colored vortex.

“It’s a resonance phenomenon!”

“If it’s something that could resonate with the dungeon core…”

“The Stone House!”

The Stone House was the artifact that formed the core of the dungeon created by the Gentleman.

It wouldn’t be strange if it reacted somehow to this dungeon occupied by the Third Eye tribe.

And if that’s the case, Iris, who’s alone inside the Stone House, could be in danger!

“Take it out quickly! And bring Iris out too!”

“O-okay!… Huh?”

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s not the Stone House? There’s no reaction from inside the bag.”

As Mina said, there was no light leaking from inside the luggage bag, nor was there any problem at all.

That means the object causing the resonance must be outside the bag.

After looking around, Mina lifted the Ancestor’s tail and found the source of the blue light.

“This is it!”

“The Black Label?”

“…More likely something inside it. Mina, try taking it out.”

After confirming once more that no one had entered the boss room, Mina took out the artifact hidden in the Black Label.

The blue light causing the resonance intensified, and I felt a strange sense of familiarity with that blue light.

“This light, I feel like I’ve seen it somewhere before…”

“You’re right. The color and brightness of magical light can change depending on the elements composing the spell, but this light somehow feels familiar to me too.”

“Why is this artifact resonating with the dungeon core in the first place? This has never happened before, has it?”

“Maybe it’s because this is the first time we’ve brought it this close to a core?”

So the original purpose of this artifact was to interact with dungeon cores?

That was certainly a plausible theory, but I couldn’t help being bothered by the identity of this familiar blue light.

It was different from Diamond Dust or Shockwave Splasher, and if I had to describe it, it was like the shimmering purple of a dungeon gate changed to blue… Ah.

“Gate.”

“Gate?”

“It feels just like the gate when we met Anastasia.”

“You mean the transfer door created by the Book of Adventure?”

“Now that you mention it, it does seem like that…”

“Hmm~ I’m not sure I see it.”

Jessica and the other women tilted their heads in doubt, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that the blue light causing the resonance was identical to that blue gate from before.

And the more I focused on that thought, the more I felt like a large puzzle was coming together in my mind.

This dungeon where the Third Eye tribe’s hideout was supposedly hidden.

The blue light that gave the same feeling as the gate opened by the Book of Adventure.

Anastasia’s hideout, which should never have been connected to the outside world.

The second verse of the Book of Adventure that appeared after contacting the Third Eye tribe.

A similar incident that almost occurred when we conquered the Corcas Ravine dungeon.

The term “Armedia’s Taboo” that the Gentleman mentioned at that time.

And where we found this artifact, and what was there.

“…Mina, let me have that artifact.”

“Sure. Here.”

Having organized my thoughts, I took the artifact from Mina and raised it toward the dungeon core while softly reciting:

“Grant mercy, lift the veil, to the coastal city of the forgotten isolated island.”

As I spoke the second verse of the Book of Adventure that Anastasia had told me, masses of blue light condensed from both the artifact and the dungeon core, shooting toward each other.

The moment those two masses of light met in midair, a dazzling light filled the entire room—

“Wow!?”

“…This is…!”

And when the light faded, a rectangular blue gate was shimmering elegantly in its place.