Anomaly (2)
Countless yellow lights flickered in the darkness.
They had not simply flooded the dungeon corridors out of raw desire. The captain who led them revealed his bulk from within the dark.
The Goblin King.
The chieftain who commanded those small-bodied green runts.
But there was not just one. Two more of those hulking figures emerged from the shadows and began to pace the corridor.
Their ears tapered to sharp points like an elf's, yet the shape of them could never be called beautiful. What they had for noses were less noses than the holes left behind after a human's had been carved away. They drew in the scent that soaked the air, then let it out again.
"Geh... geh... haah..."
Their throats rumbled as they summoned the objective carved into their minds.
Three intruders. All remaining within the dungeon past the allotted time.
ELIMINATE.
"Gahk, ah! Peres — Tur!"
They spat an unknown tongue, issuing orders to the goblin horde at their feet. Stricken with terror and awe, the little creatures hurriedly set their stubby legs in motion.
Rolling their enormous yellow eyes, twitching their ears, they soon realized their scouts were vanishing one by one.
"Teh..."
But they decided, before long, to pay that fact no mind.
A rabbit beastkin and one frail human. Those two were still fresh. The dungeon had not marked them as targets.
The ones who truly counted as intruders were hidden deep somewhere in this place. The scent was strong — overwhelmingly so — and yet, strangely, they could not find them. The fact grated on them, but they had no choice except to keep moving.
The dungeon's commands were absolute. They were bound by a contract that promised them eternity in exchange.
That they could not be explained away by a name like "goblin" was something only they and the warriors of old would remember.
The ancient age of darkness, when they had ruled the world in glorious armor and black steel...
Compared to that, these green monsters who claimed descent from them were paltry and frail beyond measure. Still, for all their inadequacy, the fact that they revered their ancestors and served them loyally was pleasing enough.
And so, even if only for a short while, they kept speaking to the creatures, driving them onward. They had to catch the intruders and kill them before they escaped the layer.
In the span of eternity, the only things that held meaning were the blood of enemies and the spoils of war.
"The Goblin King...!"
She had been examining the weapons of the goblins we'd killed when her eyes suddenly went wide and she muttered something under her breath.
"The Goblin King, Ely?"
"These ones are the Goblin King's subordinates... It looks like the elite monster of the 3rd Layer is the Goblin King."
"How can you tell? And... is that dangerous?"
She studied something for a moment, then pressed a handful of objects into my palm.
"For now... hold on to these. They're quite valuable. This might even count as a stroke of luck in the middle of a disaster."
"Huh?"
Something round and flat, but light, settled into my hand. I tucked the pieces into my clothes, and a moment later she handed me a sword as well.
Something about it felt off. I could tell the blade was a little on the short side, and yet it seemed slightly heavier than the Warpick. Considering how the rusted swords hadn't been that heavy, I had to wonder whether the goblins could even lift this thing.
"It's pretty heavy..."
"Yes. He uses a sword of ancient steel. Quite a rare weapon. These would all fetch a good price, but... I'm worried."
"About what?"
"If we run into him... and given the number of goblins, there won't be just one. This has gotten complicated."
"Did they create the goblins?"
"Not created, exactly. It's more that the dungeon assigns them an escort force. It's a long story. For now we need to somehow... hhah..."
She dropped to her knees with a heavy thud. Her breathing turned ragged, and I could no longer see those red eyes of hers — she must have shut them.
"Hhh, hhh... hhuk, hhaaah..."
The sound of her moaning reached me. Had she been hurt?
"Ely, are you okay?"
"Just a moment... just a moment... not here... it's still not safe... I'm fine..."
I groped through the empty air, following the murmur of her voice, trying to find her. I set the sword carefully on the ground and swept my arm slowly through the dark to check on her.
My hand brushed something soft and furred.
Is this her ear?
"Hey, Ely, you really are okay, right?"
I stroked down the length of her ear, then gently ran my hand over her hair as I knelt carefully in front of her.
That was the moment her red eyes snapped open.
"Ah — Ely, there you — mmph?!"
Something warm and plush — her lips... the same ones that had touched the back of my hand before...
"Mmph...?"
Something hot and yielding pressed against my teeth. Hot saliva mixed and poured in for a long while, and only after I tapped her arm again and again, reaching my limit, could I finally drag fresh air into my mouth.
"Khhaak, hhh, hhh, hhh —"
Swallowing someone else's saliva was a stranger feeling than I'd expected. Something lukewarm slid down my throat and seemed to settle gently in my stomach. For a fleeting instant I thought I caught that sweet scent that sometimes clung to her.
Of course, that impression lasted only a moment. I had to meet her glowing eyes once more.
"Haaah, haaah, haaah..."
White breath caught the light of her gaze and streamed from her mouth tinted red. The crimson vapor rising slowly but surely before me seemed to embody the dense desire coiled inside her. In other words, she looked ready to pounce on me at any second.
If I so much as twitched a finger, I felt like my clothes would be torn off and I'd be left in tatters. Her eyes were brighter, more intense than I had ever seen them, boring straight through me.
"...Promise me one thing."
She held both of my arms and whispered it low.
"What... promise?"
A third party overhearing this would surely have stared in shock, or maybe in contempt. I managed to keep my composure.
"...I'm not exactly surprised."
Everything she had done up to this point had been... well. That sort of thing.
"I mean it."
"That... wording, though..."
"I mean it for real. Even if you scream and tell me to stop, I won't. Even if you push me away, I'll drag you right back in. That's how badly I want you."
A gulp sounded as saliva went down a throat. It was too loud to have come from me alone — she must have swallowed too.
"...That's a little too blunt."
"So promise me. That it's all right if I violate you."
"..."
What am I supposed to do?
Is this really happening?
If I say yes, how am I supposed to deal with the aftermath?
But looking at her eyes... she was so desperately earnest.
"And if I said no...?"
"..."
For an instant, her ragged breathing stopped.
"...No, you said?"
"That's right."
"..."
The sound of her breath thinned away.
"Th-then... I suppose there's nothing I can do."
"Is that really true?"
"...If it's your order, at least, I can't refuse it. That's the contract."
"I see —"
"But."
"...But?"
"I don't think I can guarantee what might happen."
The red light went out, then came back on. Her gaze had calmed a little — and yet, somehow, it had grown far more ominous. The round red circles had split in half. She was unmistakably staring me down.
I started to genuinely wonder whether she was a rabbit at all, or a wolf wearing a rabbit's skin.
"...I'll promise."
"You will... wait, what?"
"You can do what you said, Ely. But!"
"Y-yes?"
"How about we make the condition that we both get out of here safely together?"
I'd have to be an idiot not to understand how she felt. Pretending otherwise would blow up in my face sooner or later. If I could blunt her rampage even a little this way... that seemed like the better path.
I could barely make out her outline in front of me, but from the constant sound of something cutting the air, her ears were definitely fluttering.
"Ah, aah... aah... how can you be so..."
She pulled me into her arms and squeezed.
"I love you. I love you. I love you so much I can't stand it...!"
"W-we haven't even escaped yet, you know...! And — mmph?!"
Once again those brutally strong arms caught me, and my mouth was forced wet. The irony, of course, was that the arms holding me were covered in the softest down.
Meanwhile, the Goblin Kings had gathered in one place, scratching their heads.
The scent had clearly pointed to this cavern. And yet their target was nowhere to be seen.
"Gehak?! Grrr..."
Had they been deceived? Was the dungeon toying with them?
That flicker of doubt lasted only a moment.
"Krrrr... kraaah!"
In the end, the warrior among the three who could no longer contain his rage slammed a fist into the wall.
A crack split through the stone with a sharp report. They could not hide their astonishment.
This place was supposed to be an indestructible structure. And yet the wall had just cracked.
The one who had struck it stared back and forth between his club and the wall, equally stunned — then flared his nostrils, and at last understood.
The prey they had been hunting had raised a false wall.
...Not long after, those countless goblins vanished along with a dark light.
It was the very moment a man and a rabbit beastkin made their promise, not far from the exit.