CHAPTER 4
A HUNTER AT THE WATER’S EDGE
“Chigusa, keep holding on!!”
Ouka’s cries ring out again and again.
We are in a crystal room in a corner of the labyrinth on the twenty-fifth floor. After the mossy giant unleashed its fierce attack, we retreated to this room to avoid fighting any other monsters. We quickly scarred the walls and stationed a guard at the entrance, and are now trying to heal Chigusa and Luvis.
“Oh sunlight, may you beat back ruin. Soul light.”
Cassandra, our healer, is working her magic on Chigusa and Luvis as they lay on the floor. The staff Chigusa holds beside her is glowing with a warm light that resembles sunlight, wrapping the injured in its embrace. This exceedingly rare form of healing has the power to close any type of bloody wound…but the ivy that is tormenting Chigusa and Luvis does not disappear.
To the contrary, the light of the healing magic seems to spur on its growth, so that it becomes even more vigorous and sprouts lush leaves.
“Ooh, ooooh…!”
“Th-this is no use! I can’t get rid of the ivy…! There’s nothing I can do to fix this!” Cassandra shrieks as she stands over the sweating, groaning Chigusa.
We’ve already tried all the potions and antidotes. All of them were useless. We can’t get rid of the ivy growing from the wounds. When we tried to tear out the vines by force, Chigusa and Luvis shrieked in pain, and when we cut them with our swords, new ones grew to replace them.
Cassandra is at a loss, her voice wavering.
“Most likely, the seeds that entered their bodies have put down roots and are feeding off their strength…So potions and antidotes do the opposite of what we want…”
“Are you saying there’s no chance of recovery?!” Ouka asks, leaning over Chigusa.
“More precisely, I think, the vines will suck the strength from their bodies as they recover…” groans Daphne, who is standing next to Ouka with a gloomy look on her face.
If it was just a question of wounds, they would already be healed. But if they’re being robbed of their vitality second by second, then there is no way they can continue to fight. Not only that—in the worst-case scenario, life itself becomes…
Mikoto has her back turned to the rest of us as she uses Yatano Black Crow to guard the entrance, but she can’t hide her concern. Every few seconds she glances back toward Chigusa.
“This isn’t within the dimension of healing, is it? It’s like the monster is parasitizing them,” Welf says.
“Exactly…a parasitic plant,” Lilly says. Ouka and the others turn pale at their words.
“Chigusa…!” the teary-eyed Haruhime says, gripping the hand of her childhood best friend.
Through all of this, I’ve been listening silently to the conversation. I look at Luvis.
Like Chigusa, his face is wet with sweat. His right arm has been wrapped in cloth to heal it, but it’s hopeless to think he’ll be able to recover the forearm. On top of the fact that the monster crushed it beyond all recognition, it’s already starting to rot. Reconnecting it is simply not an option.
“Oh, ahh…!”
Trapped in a nightmare of pain even as he lays unconscious, Luvis squeezes his tightly shut eyes into a grimace. It’s fair to say that this one-armed man’s career as an adventurer has been cut short. He’ll either have to retire or soldier on with a heavy handicap.
To be honest, I’ve talked with Luvis only a handful of times. I have no idea what kind of person he is or even what his goal is in exploring the Dungeon. Still…it’s more of a shock than I expected to witness someone I know fall into an irrecoverable situation like this.
The reality of the Dungeon and its dark labyrinth is that it yields brilliant success on the one hand and a constant stream of victims on the other.
As this truth confronts me, a shiver passes through my body. If I had encountered a situation like this when I first arrived in Orario, I might well have been reduced to a pale, quaking mess.
But now…
I quietly squeeze my hands into fists as I stand before my one-armed fellow adventurer. I look up. Next to me is Cassandra, her arms limp at her sides, overwhelmed with disappointment.
“I’ve never seen anything like these symptoms…! There’s just nothing I can do…!”
Perhaps because she has lost hope in herself as a healer in the face of these mysterious symptoms, which are due to neither “irregular ailments” nor curses, Cassandra’s calm, drooping eyes pool with tears.
“How can we save Chigusa and Luvis?” I say, forcibly breaking into her daze. My tone is so strong it shatters the fretful atmosphere hovering around the party and surprises even me.
“Huh…?”
“Please give me your opinion as a healer, Miss Cassandra, even if it’s just a hunch.”
She’s kneeling, so I get down at eye level with her and grip her right hand with my left. Squeezing it to give her courage, I speak slowly to the teary healer.
“No one is dead yet.”
“…!”
“Everyone is here. If we think about this together, we can save them.”
The eyes looking into mine widen. I stare resolutely back, and Cassandra’s cheeks suddenly flush. When I release her hand, she looks a little bashful and presses her left hand to her heart as if to hold it in place. I can sense that Lilly wants to say something, but for the time being, she’ll have to wait. Cassandra shifts her gaze back and forth and answers me timidly.
“W-we can either rush them back to the surface and have them seen by a better healer than me…someone like the Dea Saint of Dian Cecht Familia…”
“Yes?”
“Or…if we kill the creature that planted the seeds in them…”
I nod at Cassandra, who, despite her lack of confidence, has shared her own ideas quite clearly. I smile at the same time, to show her my gratitude.
“Does anyone else have an idea? Please speak up if you do.”
“Sir Bell…”
“Bell, you…”
“I’m an idiot who can’t do anything but fight, and right now I’m useless…I need all of you to help me, for the sake of Chigusa and Luvis.”
I look around at the group as I speak. Lilly and Welf seem surprised.
Items and magic have failed to restore the two adventurers. On a Dungeon quest, that’s a death sentence. Every adventurer feels the terror of that in their very bones. Anyone would panic if their only means of recovery failed while they were in the Dungeon.
I’m trying to sweep away that feeling of panic. Even in form only. Even if my confidence is an illusion.
I’m playing the role of leader. That, I am certain, is my function right now. Like I said to Cassandra, my only way to break through this is to rely on my companions, however irresponsible that may be.
I’ll do what I can, and as for what I can’t, I’ll rely on them without regret. There’s nothing shameful about it. After all, that’s what a party is for.
Maybe because she’s admiring me, or maybe just because she’s happy, Lilly smiles as I admit my own weakness and call on the group for help.
“Leave it to us, Mr. Bell. Whatever Mr. Bell cannot do himself, Lilly and her companions will help him with!” she says.
“Like Bell said—let’s talk constructively about this. If we put our brains together, we can probably find a way out,” Welf says.
“Yeah, time is running short,” Ouka adds. Daphne and the others nod.
“…I’m turning into a mere decoration over here!” Aisha murmurs out of the side of her mouth. She looks like she’s disappointed that her starring role has been stolen. But an instant later, she’s smiling and poking me in the back with her elbow.
“Hey, you managed to speak up! You’re really growing up,” she says. I smile wryly as I stumble forward and turn my attention to my own thoughts.
The deities have told me so many times that I’ve “grown.” I’m certain that the root of this growth is determination. My resolve is becoming stronger. My resolve to be a hypocrite.
Or maybe it’s my acceptance that I might end up losing my arms or legs, like Luvis here right in front of my eyes.
I think I may not have had enough of this “resolve” before. I’m not discounting the promise I made to my grandfather to try to pick up girls in the Dungeon. Still, I was caught up in the first volume of a colorful hero’s tale. I wanted to become a character in one of those flashy stories.
But that’s not what it’s about. Heroes—like everyone else—have moments when they tumble to the depths of darkness. They lose people’s trust, they lose their fame, they lose all hope.
Even at this very moment, I’m sure lots of people are suffering setbacks. Healers like Cassandra, and warriors who protect their companions, and sorcerers who weave songs for others.
Vows are broken again and again. I’m sure there’s not a vow in the world that hasn’t been broken.
But some people are bad at giving up, and those people bring their vows back to life time and again.
These people who resolve to do something, and who move forward even as they wipe their tears—they’re called “adventurers.”
Because a desire, I’m sure, becomes far stronger and far more impudent when it is reborn.
Just like me.
With my resolve etched in my heart, I’m moving forward, even if only a few steps.
I shift my focus back to the external world. Lilly and the others are swiftly reviewing our options.
“I think our only real choices right now are the ones Cassandra mentioned.”
“So, either take the wounded back to the surface or kill the monster.”
“Lilly thinks the first option, to take them back to the surface, is best.”
The brains of our operation is at the center of the conversation.
“Lady Lilly, why do you feel that way?” Mikoto asks, still keeping an eye on her guard duties.
“Ten to one, that monster is an enhanced species. Most likely, it’s consumed a considerable number of magic stones. Judging by its fight with Mr. Bell, it’s definitely at least a Level Four. Not the type of thing you’d expect to encounter on the twenty-fifth floor. We have no idea how many techniques it has on top of those seed bullets…Trying to conquer it is just too dangerous,” Lilly answers without hesitation.
An enhanced species. That’s the name for monsters that kill their own kind and consume the magic stones of their prey in order to boost their own abilities. Roughly speaking, Lido and the other Xenos fall into that category as well. Monsters that have nurtured their potential on the principle that the strong consume the weak are viewed as Irregulars, and when extraordinarily strong individuals appear, the Guild places bounties on them and issues subjugation orders. I’ve heard quite a bit of damage occurs each time those orders are carried out.
“By the way…what type of enhanced species could that plant monster possibly be?” Welf asks. I mentally flip through the pages of the pictorial guide to the Dungeon.
“I think it might be a moss huge. They live in the middle levels, not the lower levels…” I say.
The moss huge is a type of rare monster that appears on the twenty-fourth floor. Their bodies are made of moss, which means they are plants in the shape of humans. Normally they don’t have the wooden armor we saw, and they can’t break Dungeon walls with superhuman force. That’s why I didn’t recognize it at first.
The main distinguishing feature of a moss huge is its ability to produce replicas of itself that lack magic stones when they are cut. Apparently, a lot of adventurers have talked about how they thought they killed one, only to find it was a replica and the real monster had escaped. They’re not so much bellicose monsters as highly intelligent ones that make ample use of mimicry, ambushes, and getaways…Most likely, by repeatedly consuming magic stones, this individual transformed both its physical and mental state.
By doing so, it gained the ability to descend to the lower levels and seek out higher-quality magic stones.
“A low-level monster that enhanced itself by descending to lower floors…So that type of Irregular exists, huh?” Daphne says, drawing her eyebrows together.
It’s the exact opposite of a typical Irregular, which becomes a threat by ascending from a lower floor to a higher one, like the minotaur that attacked me in the upper levels.
“Getting back to the subject at hand, as I said, fighting an enhanced species is risky,” Lilly says. “But our biggest problem is that, since the twenty-fifth floor is so much larger than the floors in the middle levels, there’s no guarantee we’ll find it again. To the contrary, finding it will be a real challenge. And if that’s the case, Lilly would prefer the more certain option.”
Her first priority is the safety of the party, and she is not budging on her position. What she says makes sense. But as I’m listening to her, Luvis—who’s still lying prone on the ground—opens his eyes into thin slits.
“No…that monster will definitely…show itself again,” he says haltingly.
“Mr. Luvis! You’re awake!”
“So it’s the Little Rookie…or is it Rabbit Foot now? I never thought you’d be saving me…!”
He looks up at me, and his sweat-drenched face breaks into a wry smile. Then he glances at his missing arm, and the elf’s refined face is distorted by despair and sadness. He looks in disgust at the vines crawling over his other arm, shoulders, and right leg, before finally returning his gaze to me.
“My party has been left behind on this floor…I beg you…save my brethren and destroy that detestable monster.”
As our party digests this surprising entreaty, Aisha raises her eyebrows in astonishment.
“Elf, you’re telling me you left your companions in the lurch and ran away?”
“Don’t be an idiot! Do I look like someone who would abandon my brethren…?! No, I was the decoy…”
Maybe it’s pride in his species that makes Luvis explode with anger even as he is gasping for breath.
“Please don’t strain yourself!” Cassandra says in a tizzy as she tries to calm him. Lilly brings her head down next to Luvis’s.
“What do you mean by ‘decoy’? And a minute ago, when you said it would show itself again…”
Luvis squints at the prum, who is trying to make sense of the situation as quickly as possible. Then, his long golden hair plastered to his neck, he draws a fist-size bag from his pocket with Cassandra’s help.
“That thing is hunting down adventurers…because it wants this.”
Let us call that monster “he.”
When he was spawned, he was weak.
Even if he raged as his monster’s instinct told him to, the humans who barged through the Dungeon trounced him handily. They pierced him with swords, burned his skin with flames, and sent him flying with hammers. It was almost a miracle that he hadn’t died in those early battles.
There was no question about it; he was the one being robbed.
But he did have just the tiniest bit more intelligence than his brethren. Time and again, he would use them as decoys or gather all his abilities to escape the surface dwellers in some other way. His fate was a fiercely burning anger that drove him to continue attacking people without becoming discouraged and, somehow, to survive.
His turning point arrived unexpectedly.
One day, he got into a fight not with a human but with one of his brethren. Somehow—maybe by unintentionally tearing off a piece of his opponent’s body—he invoked its wrath. Death-hating creature that he was, he resisted fiercely, and ended up ripping his opponent’s windpipe to shreds with his jaws. He kept going and bit his opponent’s body all over until it was destroyed.
And then, chest and all, he devoured the core of his brethren’s being.
He shivered when he bit into the purple crystal. A flash of light ran across his field of vision. It was the breaking of a taboo, the ultimate forbidden act.
Power burst from his entire body. Stimulation flooded his every nerve. He felt as if his body had expanded. For the first time, this weak being felt omnipotent. He had attained power.
At first, he was drunk on the sense of omnipotence. He sank deeper and deeper into the pleasant feeling, searching desperately for more of it, devouring it. In other words, he became a murderer of his own kind. He would surprise them from behind, dragging them one after another into tree hollows. He came to understand with great clarity that the more he devoured, the more his body was remade from the inside out.
Eventually, he began to think about the most efficient way to devour his brethren. The Dungeon that had spawned him looked silently on as he built a mountain of ash and crouched beside it, wolfing down countless purple crystals. Greedily, persistently, without thought of anything else.
He realized that now he was the one doing the robbing.
It was a very pleasant feeling to so easily destroy his brethren with the fists he swung with all his might. How could he express the ecstasy of skewering a person with a part of his own body?
Again, he became drunk on violence and destruction.
Nothing could stop the power that grew day by day.
Then that moment arrived.
He had mostly lost interest in people in his mad rush to devour his monster brethren, but they had not forgotten about him. The gangs of people that pursued and attacked him were extremely irritating and even stronger than his brethren. There was no harm in avoiding conflict with them. Normally, he tried to hide from them as much as possible, but the people who came on that day were very persistent. As a result, for the first time in quite a while, he gave himself over to instinct and fought back.
After he had massacred every last one, he realized that some of the lumps of flesh that had been people were carrying those.
In huge quantities, to boot.
Finally—and this was very unfortunate for the humans—he realized they were just like him.
Just like him, they extracted those things from his brethren and collected them.
That was why the humans had so many of them—so many magic stones.
“The monster is after the magic stones that adventurers collect?!” says Lilly, who had turned pale as she listened to Luvis’s explanation. “I’ve never heard of such a thing!”
“But it’s true…When that beast attacked our party, it went straight for the supporters in the rear and snatched their pouches packed with magic stones. It ate them right before our eyes…Even magic didn’t work on it. All we could do was flee…”
That’s when the seed had been implanted in him, Luvis explains. According to him, his party was made up of four members, all Level 3, and all apparently used to exploring the lower levels. That’s how strong the adventurers who got trounced by this monster were.
“The reason we came to the Water Capital in the first place was because we were asked to do a quest…We were supposed to be searching for missing people, or else for their corpses. Aside from us in Modi Familia, that dwarf Dormul’s familia, Magni Familia, received the same request. We were quarreling the whole way…”
“So Dormul is down here, too?”
“Yeah.” Luvis nods. Apparently, they went their separate ways after arriving at the lower levels.
“That thing bore down on us. But almost everyone in the party was covered in wounds, and they had to recover somehow. We didn’t have a choice…”
“So you took the remaining magic stones and acted as a decoy for the sake of your companions?” Aisha snorts.
“Yes, that’s right…” Luvis replies, nodding deeply. Then he readjusts his expression and appeals to us once again.
“That monster is a bad one. It’s discovered efficiency, and that’s probably why it’s so much stronger than any of the enhanced species I’ve met before…even stronger than The Bloodstained Troll.”
Ouka and the others change colors as they listen to Luvis’s urgent appeal, but Cassandra lifts her face.
“The Bloodstained Troll, I’ve heard of that…”
“…Yeah, it’s the enhanced monster that was wreaking total havoc for the past ten years. By the time the Guild confirmed its existence, scads of upper-class adventurers had already been killed. Even the elite group of second-tier and higher adventurers dispatched to conquer it were instead attacked themselves. I heard that more than fifty people died…” Aisha says.
“F-fifty…A-and what happened in the end?”
“The Guild went crying to Freya Familia and they took it down. I heard from them that it was at least the equivalent of a Level Five…”
Haruhime is struck dumb by Aisha’s explanation. It’s not just her, either. Daphne and Ouka are also gasping at the gruesome tale of the enhanced species.
And Luvis says this mossy giant is even more dangerous than The Bloodstained Troll?
…It does seem possible.
Compared to hunting down its own kind in the vast Dungeon, targeting adventurers who have already collected large quantities of magic stones would be far more efficient, with an exponentially larger return. And adventurers who come to the lower levels probably have way more magic stones of way better quality. What’s more, other monsters wouldn’t target an enhanced species unless it picked a fight itself.
The worst part of it all is that this enhanced species is in the process of learning the best tricks for attacking adventurers.
The way it retreated after planting the seeds is proof enough.
An enhanced species that excels at hunting adventurers…There’s no two ways about it. It’s both different and a threat.
“If you do nothing…I think this will turn into an unprecedented catastrophe.”
The room falls silent for a few seconds in response to Luvis’s broken words. Everyone looks tense.
“Shit. I chose a hell of a time to go on an expedition,” Aisha spits out, flicking her long hair violently off her neck. Once all eyes are on her, she continues.
“Putting aside the question of whether it’s us who take it down or a group dispatched by the Guild once they catch wind of this, it definitely can’t be allowed to run loose.”
“That is true, but clearly the more time we give it, the harder it will be to kill. Many adventurers could lose their lives as a result. And most importantly, we cannot abandon Sir Luvis’s companions…” Mikoto says with a tense expression on her face.
Ouka and Welf pile on in support of her argument.
“Plus, it’ll take a day to get back to the surface. There’s no guarantee Chigusa will last that long. Not to mention the fact that we have no idea whether the healers up there will even…be able to get rid of these parasitic plants.”
“And as long as we have tons of magic stones, we can be sure it will approach us, right? It’s obvious which strategy will take less time.”
“But is there any guarantee that we’ll be able to remove the parasites once the monster has been killed?” Lilly asks the two young men.
“I think there’s a good chance we will,” Daphne answers in their place. “If this individual has split off from the moss huge line, then when we kill the main body and destroy all the stones inside, it should turn to ash, right? I think the same thing will happen to these vines.”
Lilly looks into Daphne’s eyes like she wants to say something in response, but Daphne shrugs and says, “I don’t really want to fight it myself. But based on everything I’ve heard…I don’t think it will let us get away.”
I’m pretty sure all us upper-class adventurers have that same premonition. Call it a hunch. The moment we turn our backs on that enhanced species, it will bare its teeth.
“…Lilly has said all she has to say. So…”
She looks at me, and so does Aisha.
“You heard what she said, Bell Cranell. What are you gonna do?”
I reflect on all the opinions that the group has expressed, and I make my decision.
“Let’s hunt down that monster.”
“Yeah!” says Welf, pounding his fist onto the palm of his other hand.
“I’m on it,” Ouka adds enthusiastically, swinging his battle-ax onto his shoulder. Lilly and the supporters nod at one another and start preparing to set off right away.
The aim of our Dungeon expedition has taken an unexpected turn. In the face of an irregular situation that no one predicted, our allied party is setting out to conquer an enhanced species.
The first thing he did after learning that people carried large quantities of magic stones was watch them in order to learn.
Early on, he realized that the ones who went along at the back of the group singing songs were a real pain. Those songs were atrocious things that burned his body and often nearly killed him. Therefore, it was necessary to kill the ones in the back first.
Those at the front of the group were very strong and killed heaps of his brethren as he watched with bated breath. Quite often they were outstanding members of the surface dwellers. Still, if they were alone, he could beat them. Therefore, he focused on ways to reduce the size of the groups or prevent them from forming gangs.
He also learned that the stronger ones protected the ones who carried the magic stones. He devised all sorts of weapons to outwit humans and take their crystals. The seeds were one of those weapons.
He laid the groundwork and waited for just the right moment to attack.
Usually the ones who sang songs were females with long ears. If he beat them to death first, the other people became amusingly upset. In that moment, he would hit them, splitting their heads open and throwing the contents around. Trampling on these beings who had caused him so much suffering filled him with a dark excitement and joy.
The females shrieked and cried a lot. For some reason, when he heard them, he felt better. It was as if those cries fulfilled something within him, and so time and again he grabbed their thin, twiglike hands and feet and swung them around and beat them on the ground. He bit them and hit them many times. “Please!” “Stop!” they would cry. He did not understand their words, but the tone of their singing made him feel good. The flesh of the females whose mouths frothed with blood tasted better to him than the flesh of other people.
Ah, I want to kill.
I want to bite them to death over and over.
Over and over and over.
Even if I fall over the precipice of death and am reborn…
But he had started out weak, and he was careful never to give himself wholly to his instincts. He gave precedence to the intellect that had saved him, and that choice served him well.
He never, ever let humans who tried to escape get away. If they escaped, he was certain they would change, like he had. He knew it intuitively. And he was right. The reason he had descended from his birthplace to the water’s edge was partly to find better magic stones and partly to be sure adventurers did not escape. The thundering of the water drowned out their screams. The water was his ally. He learned to use it. If he threw the bitten corpses into the current, no one would discover what he was doing.
In situations where he determined he could not kill all the humans, he planted seeds in them and retreated. These second selves grew into ivy that weakened his targets and alerted him to their location. It was exceedingly easy to devour the weakened humans. The seeds were his most prized creation.
He still had a lot to learn, so he still felt afraid often. He had felt most frightened of all when he saw the girl with the golden hair and golden eyes and her party. Even though they were far away, they terrified him. They would be impossible to defeat. He knew he must not take them on. Before they could draw near, he ran for his life into the depths of the labyrinth. There were other humans like her, too. Beings he knew he should not under any circumstances engage in battle. At the very least, not yet, not when he was still weaker than them. That was something else he had learned.
He also noticed that among his brethren was a certain strange subset. These were heretics who had betrayed him and the other brethren. Many times, a powerful hatred and an anger that seemed to burn his body overtook him, and he nearly gave in to his impulses. But the wisdom that whispered in his ear won out each time. He knew he could not beat them, because they formed gangs. He had to gain the strength to take them down single-handedly. He sought greater power so that he could one day bury his fangs in those heretical brethren—especially that siren who looked so soft. To start with, he would go after the females who lived here.
He had learned to hunt at the proper time.
At some point, he had become proud that he was a hunter.
His mace scraped along the ground as he walked down the crystal path.
Illuminated faintly by the light from the white crystals, he stroked his body with his fat, boneless fingers. The cut inflicted by the blade on his torso was already healed.
He thought back to the hunt that had occurred earlier.
Although the opportunity had presented itself by chance as he was chasing the prey that had run off with the magic stones, he hadn’t been able to finish them.
In particular, there was that white-haired human who had injured him.
He would be a pain to deal with.
The brown female in the rear also concerned him. He shouldn’t underestimate the ones who had withstood the ricocheting seeds, either. He knew full well that a group of talented surface dwellers meant serious trouble.
He decided he would have to trap them.
He stopped and used his mace to demolish the crystal column he had been looking for, then slid into the gap he had created. Beyond it was a small cave.
Several pieces of leftover food that he had caught and hidden in the cave were rolling around at his feet. He’d use those.
“A-ahhh…!”
“Stop…!”
The long-eared people were shivering. Tears pooled in their eyes.
He knew that many humans were unable to abandon their brethren. No matter how severely injured a person was, if he scratched one of their brethren a bit and made it cry, the other human would fly into a rage and bravely face him down. But in the end, that human would itself be attacked.
Perhaps he should torture the females to death. The idea occurred to him, but he decided against it. He had learned that it was folly to lick his chops while the prey was still there. He must not let down his guard until the last human had stopped breathing.
Slowly, he raised the mace that he held in his right hand.
“Stopppppp…”
“Please, don’t…”
He was unmoved by the pleas, the meanings of which he did not understand. Without pausing, he brought down his arm.
“Aaaaaaaahhhh!”
The next instant, unbearably ugly screams rent the air.
We set off, heading first for the area where Luvis separated from his party.
Leaning on Daphne’s shoulder for support, the one-armed elven archer looks down through blurred eyes at the map Lilly has unfurled. Struggling through his exhaustion, he points out the direction we should go. Cassandra carries Chigusa on her back.
“I’m…sorry…” Chigusa whispers faintly.
“N-no, it’s fine. I may be a healer, but I’m Level Two. I don’t care a bit…!” Cassandra says, shaking her head resolutely.
We’ve decided to avoid evacuating the injured from this floor and dividing our forces. Splitting up in the lower levels would be extremely poor strategy. Instead, we’re aiming to kill the enhanced species swiftly, with as much force as we can muster. That’s what we decided after listening to the advice from Lilly, Daphne, and Aisha.
“It does worry me that no sightings of the moss huge have been reported yet,” Aisha says.
“Most likely it avoids being seen…If it decides it can’t kill with certainty, it hides. It’s capable of something like that. The thing is cunning,” Luvis answers with ragged breath.
“Be on your guard…That monster is different,” he warns again. Just then—
“…! What’s this…?”
I’m leading the party, and I’ve spotted something in the intersection we’ve just reached.
A fat red line crosses the floor from the passage on the right-hand side…It looks like it was made by dragging something heavy.
“This red pattern can’t be…”
“…Blood?”
Ouka says what Mikoto is unable to.
We hurry on, our mouths clamped shut. We follow the red line as if it is guiding us forward. Our progress is impeded slightly by the occasional monster fight.
Finally, we arrive at the entrance to a “room.”
Inside, the stream splits and loops back onto itself like a spider’s web tangling with the shore. Clusters of white crystal stud the ground like huge chunks of ice. Perhaps because we’re near the Great Falls, the sound of pounding water echoes through the labyrinth even more loudly than before.
Our eyes are drawn to the central part of the room.
“That’s…!”
We’re looking at the base of one particularly large crystal enshrined in the center of the room. Two elven adventurers are sprawled faceup on the ground. One is male and the other is female. Parasitic vines are growing from their bodies, and their feet are pulverized as if a blunt weapon has smashed them.
“Oh no…!” Haruhime says, pressing her hand to her mouth. Her reaction is only natural; the sight of those gore-red limbs that bear no resemblance to their original form is truly terrible. I’m sure they can’t walk or move in that state.
And there, next to them, on a crystal pedestal…
“…”
“The enhanced species…!”
Just like Welf says, the moss huge is sitting right there, silently, with its chin tucked in. It’s paying no attention whatsoever to the people sprawled before it. It seems to simply be waiting for something.
“Shario, Lana…!”
“…So those are your companions?” Aisha asks.
“Yes. But one is missing…! Alec…!” Luvis answers. His face had turned white from weakness, but now it flushes red with anger, and his eyebrows draw together in distress. His eyes grow misty.
At his words, my own heart sends up a painful cry. Just like with Wiene, we weren’t able to save them…Maybe it’s arrogant to have such a thought. But I can’t stop this inexplicable emotion raging in my soul.
I squeeze my hands into fists. As I do, monsters begin to appear from multiple places in the intricate tangle of streams inside the room, exactly as if the smell of blood on the ground has drawn them here.
Blue crabs and other monsters begin moving toward the central strip of shore where the enhanced species and the elves are.
“Ahhhh…!”
The female elf, who is already on the verge of death, lets out a hoarse scream. With tears in her eyes, she wriggles helplessly on the ground.
“Oh man…Don’t tell me they’re bait!”
“You’re saying he used helpless adventurers as a decoy to draw us in here?!”
Welf’s and Ouka’s guesses must be right. There’s no other explanation.
That enhanced species intends to hold the adventurers hostage in order to draw us into this room.
I can’t believe it. To think that a monster would set a trap like this.
That monster is different.
Luvis’s words flicker in my mind.
I’m hiding in the shadow of a crystal column at the entrance to the room as I peer inside. Like Welf and the others, my face betrays a horrified expression.
“…Hey, shrimp, are you sure the punch line’s not gonna be that the enhanced species is actually a Xenos? I’ve never heard of a monster this sly,” Aisha whispers.
“I-I don’t know! The Xenos never mentioned anything like this, let alone Fels…!” Lilly says, clearly upset. The Amazon shrew scrunches her face into an almost saucy frown.
“And after he reels us in, is he intending to shoot us with those seeds or something while we’re fighting the other monsters…? Eternal ? Shadow, can you give us an estimate of how many there are?”
“No, it’s impossible. There are too many to count in this room…! And a lot are still hiding underwater…!”
Mikoto scowls in frustration as she scans the terrain with Yatano Black Crow.
That enhanced species probably chose this location for its trap knowing full well the advantages…
It still hasn’t made a move, maybe because it hasn’t noticed us yet.
“Miss Aisha…!”
I lean into the room, unable to hold myself back as the monsters draw nearer to the fallen adventurers second by second. Aisha nods in disgust, maybe because she can’t stand the fact that things are proceeding exactly as the monster has planned.
“I know. The simplest approach would really be to use magic from our position over here, but those elves would get caught up in it, too.”
Leaving Luvis’s companions to die is not an option. Not even if that means playing into the monster’s trap.
“Bell and I will take on the enhanced species. Eternal ? Shadow, you, Ouka, and Welf handle the other monsters. Once we get that huge thing away from the elves, carry them out of here.”
“Got it.” Mikoto nods.
“Haruhime, you guys move to an open area away from walls. Not here by the entrance. If monsters are spawned all of a sudden, things will get ugly fast.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Haruhime answers.
Aisha, Mikoto, Ouka, Welf, and I will rescue the elves. Lilly, Haruhime, Cassandra, and the injured Chigusa and Luvis will stay on the sidelines, with Daphne to guard them.
“—Let’s go!”
We have no time to spare. To save our elven comrades, we leap into the room all at once with lightning speed, heading from the entrance on the southeast side of the room toward the central area. Lilly and the others who cannot fight go to the room’s southernmost edge, which Mikoto has determined is safest. The monsters are gathering around the enhanced species. There is no sign of an opponent on the southern banks.
Aisha leads us as we leap across the streams, speeding up as we go. The monsters notice us and try to attack, but we either pull away or throw them off, refusing to fight. We are rapidly approaching the center.
But…why is the moss huge still not moving?
I furrow my brows. The other monsters have noticed our rapid advance, so there’s no way the enhanced species hasn’t noticed, too. Nevertheless, it sits on the pedestal not moving a finger.
What’s going on? Is it preparing an attack? Or does it have some other aim?
Once Mikoto has encountered a particular monster, it can never escape from the sphere of her perception. So unless she says otherwise, that has to be the monster we fought a little while ago. I glance at her. She’s staring intently at the stock-still enhanced species as if it’s some kind of puzzle. Welf, Ouka, and Aisha can’t hide their bewildered expressions, either.
We all sense something ominous, but our only choice is to keep approaching.
“…No, n…”
The fragment of a word reaches us from the male elf lying on the ground, but his voice is nearly drowned out by the sound of the flowing water. His lips move in spasms as he desperately tries to tell us something.
“…It’s not the monster…Don’t come over here…!”
The moment I make out what he is saying, I hear the soft sound of something falling.
A piece of moss has peeled away from the monster’s eye and fallen to the ground.
“…”
From beneath the fallen moss, human skin appears.
Then a human eye, so exhausted it is unable to focus.
It’s another elf, like the ones on the floor.
Luvis’s third companion.
Icy fingers grip my heart. I hear Mikoto’s breath stop short.
—I’ve heard about this.
While Mikoto’s Yatano Black Crow allows her to identify enemies, she cannot distinguish between individuals. It’s as if a piece of black paper unfurls in her mind and red dots appear on it, but those points representing monsters don’t vary in size or color.
Her skill did function properly. But it reacted to an outer shell.
The monster has covered an adventurer in masses of moss taken from its own body. We’ve been tricked by a simulation.
I’ve never heard of a moss huge using moss in this way.
“…?!”
A second later, Mikoto whips her face toward the south as if she’s been punched.
She’s noticed something—an enemy approaching Lilly and the other supporters with an intense energy, way beyond that of the monsters gathered in the center of the room. Her face goes white.
“Please run, Lady Lilly!!”
As I follow her gaze, I see it, too. A green form slowly emerging from the stream behind the spot where Lilly and the others stand looking surprised by Mikoto’s sudden scream.
The monster’s dripping-wet right arm grips a crystal mace as it stares at their backs with a blank expression.
“—!!”
And then.
Before I can even take in the scene before my eyes or hear Mikoto’s cry split the air, I freeze and stop running forward. I spin around, my feet scraping over the crystal floor as I am overcome by a horrid sense of inertia, and I peel away from the astonished Aisha, Ouka, and Welf.
I accelerate with all my might as I run toward the south side of the room.
“!!”
The monster raises its mace.
My left foot leaps across the stream to the next strip of land.
Finally, Daphne notices the form that has crept up on them without the slightest sound.
I kick off with my right foot, shattering the cluster of crystals I was just standing on.
I’m moving too slowly. I won’t make it in time. That’s what Daphne thinks, and her face freezes.
I breathe in, my lips trembling.
Lilly and the others freeze, too, as they glance back and see the monster about to inflict its deadly punishment.
I raise my left foot to take another step.
Ring, ring.
The soft sound of a bell comes from it, and it glows with white light.
I’ve charged for two seconds.
The ground explodes under my lowered foot. I have become a missile.
Whoosh!!
The force of my kick against the ground becomes a propellant sending me toward the ceiling. In an instant, this insane speed I’ve dared to unleash closes the gap between the threatened group and me. I draw the Divine Knife.
“Aaaaaaaargh!!”
I bellow out a war cry from the pit of my stomach and slash at the monster with a lightning-swift movement.
The flash of the black blade cuts through the blunt crystal weapon as it swings down toward Lilly and the others.
He stared in disbelief.
The trap composed of the bait and the replica of himself seemed to have worked.
He seemed to have snuck up successfully behind the female humans.
But then the boy with the white hair had rushed over with ridiculous speed and gotten in his way.
His favorite crystal weapon had been broken in half and sent flying toward the ceiling.
He was irritated. His carefully laid hunting plan had been destroyed, and his chance to eat magic stones had been stolen from him.
He listened to his anger and decided his first move would be to kill the boy who was skidding onto the ground.
“…”
But then the boy looked up, and he saw his eyes, and his instinct told him something.
This human is dangerous.
The glinting rubellite gaze that shot through him was unflappable, cold, and infused with a single-minded will to fight.
It had been a long time since he looked into a pair of eyes and shivered with that sensation akin to terror.
The light glowing in those red eyes was the flame of outrage. The human was incensed that his fellow humans had been injured and placed in danger.
“—Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!”
The boy charged forward gripping two knives.
Fast. Fast. Fast.
One after the next, the black and white blades flew at him, trying to gouge into his body.
But—he was still just the slightest bit stronger than the human.
“?!”
He ignored the blades digging into him and swung his fist down.
Instantly the boy dodged, tumbling onto the floor. The gouge where the moss had flown off his body quickly filled back in.
His body was convenient. It regenerated itself. The more magic stones he devoured, the more his cells multiplied.
When the human stood up, he had an astonished expression on his face. Right away the boy charged again with a speed and force that was less like a rabbit than a wild horse. At least, that was how it looked to him, and he had hunted countless humans.
This opponent was not hurried, just fast. But that did not undermine his composure. He could handle an endless number of those sharp, insignificant cuts.
“Mr. Bell?!”
The small female looked at the boy’s distorted face and screamed. The scent of magic stones was coming from her. After he crushed the boy, he would destroy that female next.
“Yaah!”
The boy, who had been forced to step back before the swinging arms, thrust out his left hand.
He knew all about that trick the humans used. It was called “magic.”
He couldn’t even count the number of times he and his brethren had nearly been obliterated by it back when he was still weak. It was the human weapon he had to be most wary of. But he also knew that in order to use the magic, they had to sing. They needed time. And no matter how short the song was, his attack would be faster.
Idiot. He sneered.
But at the very moment when he planned to leap toward the boy and crush him—something unexpected happened.
“Firebolt!”
It took only an instant.
An instant for the flaming light to be released.
Frozen in the face of this magic he’d never before experienced, he took a direct hit.
A scream burst from his throat.
“EEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA?!”
The monster’s scream rips through the air.
After my Swift-Strike Magic beats out the mossy giant’s approach and hits the center of its body, it swings both arms around wildly in pain.
It was trying to crush me before I had the chance to say a chant…!
I can tell as much from its behavior. That’s the scary reality. A monster that’s not a Xenos has figured out the structure the magic adventurers use and is attempting to counteract it.
This is indeed an Irregular born of the Dungeon, and an extremely unusual and dangerous one at that.
We absolutely have to kill it here and now.
As I make up my mind, I fly toward it.
“Yaah!”
“OOO…?!”
I use the black knife in my right hand to shave off a piece of my enemy’s shoulder, and then with the glittering white blade in my left hand I slice into its torso. The moss huge writhes its blazing body in anguish, trying to escape the violent storm of flames and cutting blades that descend one after another.
Just beyond the spot where it stands recklessly throwing its body in every direction is a strong, fast-flowing current.
—Oh no you don’t!
I raise my eyebrows and stamp on the ground as the monster attempts to dive into the stream and retreat once again. Lurching forward, I try to inflict a fatal blow.
“—”
That’s when it happens.
The monster, who up till this point has simply been running this way and that in a tormented attempt to escape, gets a murderous gleam in its yellow eyes that makes me suspicious. Suddenly those eyes look as sharp as a hawk’s.
Even in the throes of a difficult situation, my enemy has recognized the impatience in its opponent’s heart.
As my body flows forward, wooden whips shoot up around my feet.
“Huh?!”
Tree roots are winding around my boots and tightening around my knees. The roots grow from the moss huge’s calves—which are in my blind spot—and into the ground. They’re an indirect weapon generated by the expanding and contracting wooden frame covering the monster’s entire body.
I’ve been taken in—no, I’ve been outwitted.
This intelligent enhanced species has played its hidden card, and I have to admit it’s beaten me in this round of bets.
“OOOOOOO!”
It lets out a howl filled with pain and anger, and then throws itself backward, dragging me toward the water along with it.
“Mr. Bell?!”
As Lilly’s scream echoes through the room, the tree roots break through the crystal ground and become visible.
I’m hanging in the air with my feet bound and no way to resist. The roots pull taut and drag me closer and closer to the water until I hit the gurgling stream.
“Glug—?!”
I’m overwhelmed by shock and flying droplets, and then the sensation of being swallowed up entirely by the water.
The world turns blue. Sounds become distant, as if a membrane has been stretched over my ears. I am immersed in this cold watery world that cuts off all communication with the land. The sensation of floating lasts only a few seconds, and then my body is swept along at least five meders below the water’s surface.
It got me. That single phrase blinks across my drowning brain.
An instant later, the horrifying figure linked to me by threads of wood rushes at me with fists raised.
“GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!”
Its howl sends hundreds of bubbles floating toward me along with the vibrations from the sound. The moss huge’s enormous fist slams into my windpipe.
“Oof!”
The air in my lungs rushes out in a huge bubble. My body shoots across the streambed like an arrow, totally ignoring any such thing as water pressure. The enhanced species follows on my heels with equal speed.
As my back slams into an underwater crystal wall, the monster punches my cheekbone.
“—?!”
The current carries me along in the direction I went flying. But my enemy is not about to let me go. The roots tying our feet together have become shackles shaving away at my life. The monster rushes toward me with eyes bulging, like some wrathful wave.
I force myself to recover from the last attack and finally think to use the knives still held in both hands to defend myself. But even though I try to time the movement of the Divine Knife with my enemy’s approach, I’m too late. I’m moving too slowly. As the knife swims in front of me horizontally, the monster’s fist buries itself deep in my stomach. Once again bubbles spew from my mouth.
My sense of movement and timing on land is way off down here.
With my hands and feet bound by the water, I’m now in a defensive position with the monster on offense. Although the blue clothes I have on throw off a faint light, my body doesn’t move how I want it to. So this is how things are, even with the benefit of the Undine cloth. From the monster’s perspective, I must be little different from a drowning child. This environment requires completely different movements from land, but I can’t adapt. I’m just tossing about uselessly. The shape of the stream around me has changed, and I sense that I’ve been swept out of the room into the main current.
This blue flowing world is both beautiful and cruel.
There’s the terror of not being able to breathe and the certainty that the moment I lose my composure, I’ll be pulled closer to death. As I’m thrown forward by the monster’s blow, I look down at the streambed and see the corpse of an adventurer. His arms seem to be beckoning me to join him.
My body flips over, my feet and head switching places again and again. My equilibrium is gone. Already I have no idea which way is the streambed and which is the surface. So this is how unstable a human becomes when his feet can no longer touch the ground. This is all it takes to throw us off balance.
Confronted with an overwhelming disadvantage in terrain, my supposed Level-4 status is completely useless.
The full terror of this waterside Dungeon, and the essence of what the Water Capital really is, finally dawns on me.
This is—an underwater battle!!
“OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!”
“Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh?!”
Even though the moss huge isn’t a water-dwelling monster, it moves quite a bit better down here than I do. It uses its wooden frame to send out feelers. The shape seems to be designed to reduce the resistance of the water, and sometimes it pushes the frame against the wall or wraps it around a crystal to gain speed or change direction. My opponent has been in the Water Capital longer than I have, and therefore it knows how to handle the terrain better.
All my counterattacks meet empty space. Still, I’m somehow able to fend off the attacks that come from 360 degrees by using my gauntlets and armor. If it weren’t for the Undine cloth, I’d probably be dead by now. Thanks to leveling up, my lung capacity is greater than that of ordinary people and I still have some leeway, but I’m not sure how long I can last. I try again and again to reach the shore, but the cords binding my feet won’t let me get there.
Blood is seeping from where my mouth was punched and where the sharp roots poked in between the gaps in my armor. As the blood drifts away, it clouds the clear blue water and turns it a dingy red. As if drawn by this stream of blood, a large form twists into sight in the distance.
It’s an—aqua serpent?!
The large-category monster has entered this stream from a tributary. The harsh underwater glitter of its eyes is both magnificent and terrifying.
“JAAAAAAAAAA!”
This one is a genuine water-dwelling monster, and it swims toward me even faster than the moss huge. I have no time to defend myself as its fangs sink into my shoulder.
“Ah!!”
I feel a burning pain as yet more blood swirls into the water. I’m starting to think my life is at risk as the jaws seek my bones—when the punishing roots wrapped around my feet suddenly disappear.
Huh?
The moss huge has removed the roots from its body. It stares at me for a moment, then puts out its wooden feelers, turns against the current, and disappears into another tributary.
It released my restraints? Just when it had the perfect opportunity to kill its prey?
Was it afraid of the aqua serpent? That answer makes me suspicious, but I have no time to think. I plunge the knife in my right hand into the monster that’s locked onto my shoulder.
“—!!”
As the huge form writhes in pain, shaking me around as it does, I try to pull its fangs from my flesh.
Just then, I become belatedly aware of a powerful roar vibrating through the water.
—
I look over my shoulder toward the source of the vibrations.
In the distance, I can see a break in the water.
The break seems to be where the stream reaches its end point and falls downward—.
—No…way.
All the streams on this floor lead to the Great Falls—.
Eina taught me that. I said those very words myself not long ago.
Swept along by the current, my body is heading toward the center of the twenty-fifth floor, straight for the enormous waterfall.
Oh crap!!
As it approaches the falls, the stream becomes a veritable torrent. The water is moving too fast. It just keeps accelerating. The mouth of the waterfall is sucking in everything around it and smashing everything to smithereens at its base.
The blood drains from my face as I concentrate all my strength on getting this aqua serpent off me. I recklessly plunge the black knife into its neck, its face, its eyeballs. The monster spews blood and shrieks as it furiously thrashes its long body around. Suddenly I’m thrust above the water’s surface.
“Peh!!”
I stick my face out of the water. But the air I had been longing for so desperately is tasteless. Burning with impatience, I beat Hakugen against the serpent’s cranium. Finally, the strength drains from its jaw and it releases me.
It’s too late.
I’m already at the end point. The waterfall is sucking me unhesitatingly toward the precipice.
I reach out my hand but find nothing but air. The next instant, a terrifying floating sensation overwhelms my body.
One more second and I’ll be dragged over the edge along with the wat—
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!
An explosion of water is pouring down. Huge drops beat onto my skin. My screams lost in the roar of the falling water, I am swept downward in the biggest waterfall in the Dungeon, the Great Falls.
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