Ch.429Debuting NPC. (4)

Gravity felt from a rapidly descending vehicle is more fascinating than one might think. That was my impression as I rode down to the 25th floor on IT City’s invention called the Dungeon Walk.

“Urgh!!”

“Are you okay? Should we rest a bit?”

“I’m… fine. Others are waiting… Bleurgh!!”

Unlike me, who somewhat enjoyed the mysterious sensation of my body and organs being pushed upward, Salt Non, who clearly hadn’t anticipated this, couldn’t regain his composure after the brief journey on the Dungeon Walk and ended up vomiting in a corner of the dungeon. Ah, when will I have to clean this u—

“You two were recommended by Chairman Torque, correct? Please come quickly. Everyone is waiting.”

“Ah, yes. Just let me—”

“Leave it. It’s not the first time this has happened. First-timers often react that way. The ‘dungeon’ will take care of the rest.”

A short-haired secretary with a sharp impression like Orwell Mk. 2, dressed in a formal suit, expressionlessly urged us forward, so Salt Non and I immediately followed her. The dungeon will take care of it? Does that mean it even cleans up by itself? Come to think of it, I haven’t seen any parties collecting potion bottles or consumable trash here. Perhaps this is another small difference between games and reality. Thinking about this, I followed her until we reached a surprisingly large communal space where other parties were preparing on the 25th floor. Huh, are we the last ones?

“Director, the final party has arrived.”

“Hmm. They’re not late. Since they were ‘outsiders’ recommended by the Chairman, I thought they might deliberately come late.”

Strange. There’s still about 10 minutes left until the appointed time, but aren’t the IT City people being too punctual? I didn’t bother responding to the robust middle-aged man’s apparent misunderstanding and simply stood behind the other parties. Their gazes weren’t exactly friendly.

Feeling their contemptuous stares—like those directed at someone who parachuted into a major corporation without any skills—I ignored them and stood quietly. The man called Director cleared his throat to focus everyone’s attention and began speaking.

“Well. Some of you here may have met me before, while others might be here for the first time. So I’ll briefly explain about ‘dungeon exploration’ before we proceed…”

Dungeon exploration.

The dungeon in the center of this city, IT City, has been cleared up to the 25th floor. This was the same in the game, and the fact that the person who cleared up to the 25th floor is the current Chairman, Torque Bigman, was also the same. Of course, he didn’t clear it all by himself—it was explained as the culmination of this city’s people’s efforts over a long period—but nevertheless, the Chairman had set the high record. And in the approximately eight years since reaching that result, no individual or party had broken that record with further progress. That’s why he made a decision: somehow, while he was in the chairman’s position, he would advance the dungeon exploration further.

The reason was quite simple. As we had heard before coming here, IT City developed using materials from the dungeon. As a result, they distanced themselves from magic and divine power, putting blind faith in their science. The problem was that without discovering additional materials, their pace of development and invention had begun to slow.

For example, the rare monster [Mime Golem], which was Gore’s body in our world, appears as the 20th floor boss in this city, but ridiculously, only the Chairman can defeat it, so materials aren’t being collected.

Anyone can descend to the 25th floor via the Dungeon Walk, but ironically, no one except the Chairman can defeat the 20th floor boss. For this country that distances itself from magic and divine power, it’s an extremely unfavorable matchup.

Up to the 10th floor, magic is useless due to the Mithril Golem, but from the 20th floor onward, magic becomes necessary. For people who have developed this city without magic, that would be proof that their long history was actually “wrong,” so they refused to acknowledge it and aimed for the next floor instead.

Of course, this led to the creation of the magic gun, a ranged weapon that can be fired by anyone with magical power, but I’ve never seen humans other than Ragni use it, even in the game. So despite creating it, they couldn’t practically use it to defeat the Mime Golem. Anyway, for these reasons, apart from the dungeon sports conducted by Ira and Ray’s party above, exploration parties like this one have been formed and are currently active.

After briefly explaining this, the man called Director distributed maps of the 25th floor that they had explored so far to each party and began talking about the mid-boss of this place.

“There’s no separate boss room here. Basically, the boss roams the dungeon, and you encounter it randomly. Moreover, the passages are narrow, so no matter how many people move together, it’s difficult for more than five to fight simultaneously. So if you find the boss and engage it, or if you find the path to the next floor, alert nearby parties using the signal crystal I’m distributing now. That’s all. Are there any parties that didn’t understand something?”

Excluding our party, I believe everyone else has been here before, and I don’t have any particular questions, so I remained silent. He glanced at us nervously before starting to let parties enter in order, beginning with the veterans of the 25th floor.

Since the 25th floor doesn’t have multiple entrances like where Ira started, parties simply entered at 10-minute intervals to avoid crowding. Ah, in the game, you just clicked and entered. We ended up waiting blankly for almost an hour.

“Next, Jack and Salt Non’s party. It’s your turn.”

Only after all the parties ahead of us had entered the dungeon were we called to move. He showed us a route on the distributed map to avoid overlapping with other parties. I nodded appropriately and entered the dungeon with Salt Non.

“…Jack, were you listening to his explanation just now?”

“Hmm? No. I didn’t listen because I have no reason to do what they tell me.”

When Salt Non noticed that I had been completely lost in thought, I answered honestly, and he twitched his ears slightly before speaking anxiously.

“Jack. I hope I’m just being nosy, but as I recall, you bet 100,000 can up there. On our clearing of the 30th floor. Yet you’re moving without even listening to the explanation?”

Ah, he was bewildered that I wasn’t listening to others’ explanations despite betting money on this venture. I understood his amazement. Certainly, to someone who doesn’t know anything, it looks like I’m throwing money down the drain. After all, I bet not just on reaching but on “clearing” the 30th floor today, when the 25th floor hasn’t been cleared in eight years. But I still don’t intend to tell Salt Non about my past life. I want to wait until he can protect himself better and we build a deeper trust. So…

“Yeah, it’s fine. I secretly learned the strategy beforehand.”

I just smile to ease his anxiety a bit. I feel sorry, but I can’t readily reveal my secret that even our friends only learned over about five years, right? Anyway, I started moving forward on my own path, not the one the Director showed us, and Salt Non followed behind me anxiously but without saying anything more. And then…

[Armored Cow: Level 426]

“Jack, there’s a monster.”

“Yeah.”

As Gore found and identified the monster, Salt Non also noticed its approach with his elven keen hearing. Indeed, befitting an elf who guarded the gate, he has considerable scouting skills. I told him to step back and positioned myself in the dungeon passage. A spotted monster resembling a cow appeared before me.

Of course, it wasn’t the size of a normal cow—it was about 1.5 times larger than an adult cow and wore a horn helmet covered in spikes on its head. No one would mistake it for an ordinary cow.

“I’ll play with you for five minutes. Come at me.”

As I provoked it by wiggling my fingers, the creature—whether it understood me or not—became angry and charged at me with its horned helmet aimed forward. And I…

-CRASH!!

“Now, let’s start a five-minute test of strength.”

I stood still, grabbed the horns of the helmet with my bare hands, and started to hold my ground.

*

“Damn. If they’re outsiders brought by the Chairman, does that mean they’re with those women who caused a commotion up there earlier?”

“Tsk, thinking about it makes me jealous. There was definitely an elven man with them too, and it makes sense if a beastkin and an elf came together from Siltra.”

“Ah, those girls from earlier today? They were seriously beautiful. I wonder if there’s any way to date even one of them~?”

“I liked that red-haired magic girl. She was cute. I wanted to take her home and feed her snacks!”

The party that departed third from the dungeon exploration team was progressing smoothly. Consisting of two men in thick heavy armor handling the party’s tanking, one attacker swordsman using a magic-imbued sword, and one ranged attacker using similarly enchanted bow and arrows, they were veterans participating in dungeon exploration for the third time. As such, they were confidently progressing through the 25th floor, with two people blocking the [Armored Cow] monsters without much trouble.

As they advanced forward without any issues even when encountering regular monsters…

-THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP!!

“…Shit, are we the lucky ones?”

“Hey, quickly use the contact crystal. We can hold out for 10 minutes at most.”

They swallowed hard and prepared to encounter the boss as massive footsteps began to echo at an intersection where the dungeon path split left and right.

They had been in the dungeon for only 30 minutes. Though they hadn’t expected to encounter it first, as veterans, they had experience facing the mid-boss here and knew how to hold out. So, as they waited for the boss to appear at the intersection…

“It’s com—!”

-THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP!!

“—ing?”

They found themselves blankly watching the mid-boss of this dungeon, carrying a huge axe on its shoulder, quickly passing through the intersection. However, rather than panicking further, they prioritized communication.

[This is Party 2!! The mid-boss Minotaur appeared but is rapidly moving somewhere!!]

[This is Party 5!! We encountered it too, but it just pushed our tank aside with its body and ran past!!]

They heard that other parties were experiencing the same situation. Having entered twice before but never seeing this behavior, they quickly assessed the situation.

“This is abnormal. We don’t know where it’s running to, but other parties could be in danger. And if we follow it, we might be lucky enough to join a coordinated attack.”

With that judgment, they began chasing after the massive 3-meter-tall bull-headed monster, the Minotaur, toward an unknown destination.

Little did they know that a former mountain keeper was waiting for that monster at the end of the path.