episode_0021

We took a long rest.

Until Baygo’s torn wounds healed without a trace, and until vitality returned to our exhausted bodies.

It must have taken about an hour.

“Kishaat….”

Keikel seemed displeased with the makeshift skeleton shield, grumbling and scratching the surface of the shield with his nails throughout the break.

Well, it’s natural for him to be dissatisfied.

Unlike the original shield, which was reinforced with iron fittings around a tough piece of wood covered with leather, the new shield looked so crude that it could even be considered shoddy.

A wooden shield roughly patched together with half-rotten planks.

To be honest, it looked more like carrying around a broken piece of a rural inn’s door rather than a shield.

I spent the time wiping off the blood splattered on my armor and sword from the fierce battle, tearing off a tattered edge of my cloak, while Amy sat beside me, watching.

“The official mage of Matap is recognized as a novice adventurer as soon as they register, right? Due to lack of experience, they are treated as a low-ranking adventurer among novices. Still, if you gather experience with reliable party members….”

She laid out her own unplanned life plan without being asked.

After passing the Matap’s test, she planned to apply for registration at the adventurer guild and climb up to the gold rank with trustworthy party members.

…Is she trying to provoke me?

Listening, it felt like she was eager to include me in the “reliable party members” she mentioned.

It seemed oddly familiar and her storytelling, considering we were both women, felt excessively friendly, almost too familiar.

If this was all to recruit me, then it was a well-crafted story in many ways.

◆◆

After about an hour of rest, we resumed our exploration.

This time, we proceeded much more cautiously than before.

Amy and Bolton, who had not been so reliable when facing the White Set, had now fallen into a semi-useless state.

Amy only had enough magic left for illumination and defense, while Bolton had barely a couple of healing spells and just one blessing remaining.

It meant the party’s firepower had significantly weakened. Unlike warriors who could fight again after regaining their strength, the spellcasting abilities of mages and priests wouldn’t recover until after midnight. It seemed like both of them were effectively out of action until tomorrow morning.

So, what could we do? We had to either retreat to this floor without achieving anything, wasting a day, or move with even greater caution than before, avoiding battles as much as possible.

Our choice was the latter. The situation didn’t feel like it was even close to midday. There was too much time left to wait until midnight.

I wasn’t sure if the enemies were at a level where they would be impossible to defeat without offensive magic or divine miracles, but when we fought, it didn’t seem to be the case. The problem in the recent battle was that three wights were moving around simultaneously. If there had been only one, we could have taken it down without wasting spells.

“Let’s keep going. Let’s check if there are any other monsters around. If it really becomes too much to handle, we can retreat then without it being too late.”

There were no objections.

◆◆

Was resuming exploration the right decision?

Were the wights we encountered near the entrance acting as gatekeepers here, and the ones we met afterward were just lonely outcasts?

Each time we encountered wights, we confirmed there were no other enemies nearby, then rushed in together to unleash unbridled violence upon them.

It was surprisingly easy to gang up on a single wight altogether, to the point of being bewilderingly effortless.

Thanks to the experience of fighting one-on-one, I could predict all of its attacks just by observing its movements, and the other party members, though a beat slower than me, managed to fend off the wight’s fierce assaults quite easily.

Facing three wights at once had given us an edge.

That’s how we spent nearly three hours wandering around.

In the meantime, the White they killed had reached eight in number, and Kikel had sharpened his shield four times.

With a half-rotten wooden shield, he couldn’t withstand even one normal hit from the White.

“When we go back, I’ll get a better shield. I swear!”

Perhaps because of that, his desire for a high-quality shield seemed to have grown larger than before. When we meet again later, will he be carrying something like a steel shield?

Anyway, after thoroughly searching the third floor of the dungeon, we finally managed to discover something.

“This is…”

“A door.”

A rock door leading to the space beyond the wall. Skulls, covered in cobwebs, dangled like decorations on torch holders placed on either side.

The square door panel was full of peculiar reliefs or inscriptions, half of which were weathered and broken, making it impossible to discern their original form.

“A treasure room, perhaps?”

Kikel exclaimed, his eyes sparkling like a cat finding a toy.

“Well… It looks somewhat suspicious to me. It seems perfect for hiding, and it wouldn’t be strange if something jumped out.”

I shook my head.

A skull torch on the relief-engraved door panel. This seemed closer to a boss room rather than a treasure room.

Treasure room and boss room. The words themselves differed by just one letter, but an adventurer’s life depended on that one letter.

If it was the former, it would be enough to search inside like an archaeologist in a game, taking everything valuable. But in the unlikely event of the latter…

One would realize the lesson that there is no free happiness when facing a boss monster, likely paying with one’s life or the lives of party members as tuition fees.

“What do you think, Amy?”

“Whatever it is, the flow of magic is pointing inside, right? It means that what we’re looking for is in there.”

Amy paused for a moment, took a deep breath, and then declared firmly,

“So let’s just go in first. If something we can’t handle jumps out, we can turn around and run away immediately.”

“Alright. Got it. In that case… Kikel? Could you shield me from the front? There’s a possibility of an attack flying out as soon as the door opens.”

It wasn’t an excessive concern, as I had actually witnessed this happen several times.

I’d seen reckless adventurers heedlessly open such doors, only to be hit directly by blade traps, logs, or a barrage of arrows, spilling blood as they fell out in a convulsion. To be honest, it was quite a shocking memory.

A sixteen-year-old kid, who was excitedly enjoying his first dungeon exploration, with a face full of anticipation, eagerly swung open the door to the treasure room…

Crash!

…only to have a log trap explode against his head, causing him to convulse like a struck frog, and involuntarily release bodily fluids.

That really made me jump in surprise.

“Right! The door is dangerous, and even armor hurts!”

Kikel nodded beside me. After glancing briefly at the wooden shield he held, I extended my arms forward and forcefully pushed the stone door.

Creeeak…!

With the sound of grinding rock, the firmly closed door gradually opened, revealing the interior scenery bit by bit. As it was a stone-carved door, I had worried it might be too heavy to open, but surprisingly, it moved easily and thinly, sliding open smoothly.

“Hah!”

Realizing this, I rolled my foot with a light stance and forcefully pushed the door, and as if Kikel had been waiting for this, he lowered the shield in front of me.

I lowered my knees, placing my hands on the hilt of my sword, ready to parry whatever came my way.

And then—

“……”

“……”

Nothing happened.

“……Clack!”

“Cough.”

Kikel lowered the shield with a wry smile, and I, too, straightened my previously bent knee without any reason. Well, there might not be any traps. It’s a good thing. I saved a shield.

“It seems safe, good!”

“Yes, indeed.”

Agreeing with Kikel’s relief that it seemed safe, I turned my gaze beyond the wide-open door, scanning the interior.

“That’s…”

“An altar?”

As Amy, who had approached unnoticed, pointed out, inside the open door was a structure resembling an altar, made of carved rock, sitting there.

On both sides of the low steps were rock-shaped hearths, and in the middle of the platform was a stone table. There was even an eerie statue draped like a screen.

It was unmistakably an altar.

One that would be favored by cultists who prefer human sacrifice.

“An altar… Cultists… Cultists’… Ugh!”

Seemingly arriving at the same conclusion as me, Bolton, eyes flipped with anger, gnashed his teeth and leapt fiercely into the room.

“Elianelleeeee!”

It was almost an uncontrollable fit of impulse.

“Don’t just run off like that…!”

“Men are all the same! It’s a sickness!”

“Wait, wait! Don’t break it yet! There’s something to check!”

We urgently shouted and followed him into the room.