Point of Contact
Point of Contact
A little over an hour passed before Gaendal returned.
"I don't know whether to call them bold or reckless, but they seem awfully careless... Wait, what's that incredible smell?"
We couldn't laugh at Gaendal for immediately losing focus to the smell of Yekaterina's stew. We'd spent more than 30 minutes drooling over that same aroma while waiting for him to return. To us, he was a savior, not someone to mock.
"L-let's eat first, then get started."
Because this wasn't a long-term request, Engrim had been able to pack ingredients for flavor rather than shelf life. Yekaterina's bold decision to turn them into stew had been exactly right. Even aside from the warmth spreading through my belly, it tasted fantastic.
"How can you make food this good while camping?"
I wasn't just saying it—it was better than the stew sold at most inns. This alone was so good it could even rival the stew of the Madam Alisha I missed so much. As if I wasn't the only one who felt that way, everyone unanimously praised the stew, and Yekaterina laughed heartily and pounded her chest, which was as ample as her muscles.
"Good ingredients help, but I've always been confident in my stew! It uses an ingredient passed down through my family, so it isn't something you'll have tasted just anywhere!"
"Ah! You put in that mystery liquid from back then! That stuff's really versatile, huh."
Rellie, who normally traveled with her, reacted as though she'd already figured out what Yekaterina meant. Mysterious liquid? Did the people of Ravil have some secret family recipe for chicken stock or something?
"Yekaterina. As compensation for what I mentioned earlier, I'd like to hear the specifics about what that ingredient is later."
"It suits your taste, so I'm pleased. Food's meant to be shared—the more you share, the greater the joy! I'll tell you all about it!"
At this point, Yekaterina had thoroughly demolished my first impression of her. What a versatile, cultured warrior.
"Whew. I'm reminded all over again how important meals are. Anyway, there's nothing too dramatic to report, so listen while you eat."
Gaendal, who'd been just as spellbound by the food as the rest of us, filled his belly to a reasonable point and began relaying the results of his reconnaissance.
"Surprisingly normal around here. Decent monsters. Decent adventurers. Maybe because of that, they don't seem to suspect at all that there might be Demonfolk worshippers holed up in the abandoned dungeon."
In fact, the cultists were apparently bold enough to pose openly as people affiliated with the Adventurers' Guild and politely turn away anyone who approached. Gaendal said we were lucky he'd had a chance to observe even that much in such a short time, and everyone nodded in agreement.
"They'll obviously rotate the guards, but I don't know when. One thing's certain: the men I saw weren't taking sentry duty lightly. We should assume they know exactly what they're doing and how dangerous a game they're playing."
"So it's not a total freebie quest after all."
The intel Engrim had passed on said that aside from a pair of archers—one woman, one man—and one mage, the rest were all ordinary warrior-type adventurers. Personally, I figured the bastard mage who'd throw in with something like this despite being a mage was the most dangerous, both ideologically and in terms of motivation, but it seemed the others hadn't joined up with half-assed resolve either. Their ages were said to be late teens to early twenties, so I couldn't rule out the possibility that they were full of zeal but lacking in preparation. Still, those who were once nobles had a different mindset from the start, so it felt like we couldn't let our guard down.
"The most fortunate part is that they're letting people approach freely enough that they won't find it strange no matter how long we rest here. I like it quite a bit—it'll become an advantage when we move in for a full assault too."
"Will we get to see Ega's ambush again, like with those thieves?"
Perhaps because the way I'd handled the thieves had left a strong impression, the party began developing the conversation with the scenario itself in mind—a situation where we could naturally launch a surprise attack from close range. Showing them my skills against those bastards really had been a wise choice after all.
"Ideally, it'd be nice to take out about four of them right at the shift change and then start."
"Huh? Wouldn't taking them out separately be better, though?"
"With them this alert, I've got a feeling they're more likely to relax somewhere they believe they have an overwhelming advantage. If the relief guards think there's nothing unusual going on, they'll probably be eager to finish the handoff and get inside, which should make them less attentive. What do you think, Eldmia?"
It wasn't something I'd thought about at all, so Gaendal's speculation sounded incredibly plausible. I didn't have anything particular in mind, and since it didn't seem very dangerous, it was a pretty appealing plan.
"Honestly, it wasn't something I'd considered, so I've got no alternative opinion. But I do think Gaendal's speculation is extremely plausible. It'd be worth a try."
"Wouldn't it be dangerous?"
"If Engrim's intel is accurate, they wouldn't assign their only mage or their only two archers to sentry duty anyway. If we're just talking about close-quarters combat, there's no problem."
This was a world where ability mattered above all else. No matter what disaster had befallen their houses, anyone truly talented could've found another path without ever needing to side with the Demonfolk. People with that level of ability would've seen associating with Demonfolk as an absurd risk in a kingdom so fiercely hostile to them and kept their distance.
"These are bastards who had no path left except the extreme choice of siding with Demonfolk. Their skills are all about the same, so there's nothing dangerous about them."
Naturally, the bigger threat was the ones scattered inside the dungeon rather than the guards. Just as the discussion about the outside personnel wrapped up, Gin, who had finished his meal right on cue, unfolded the internal map he'd gotten from the guild and pulled a monocle from his breast pocket, donning it.
"Let's see... I'd heard goblins used to gather here, but it's more like a temple. Some ancient religions that worshipped gods associated with the earth built their temples by digging down underground like this."
True to form for a dwarf, Gin muttered technical observations under his breath while studying the map point by point. Before long, he laid the map—now covered in X marks—across the broad face of his axe for us to see.
"It's a temple to the God of the Clinging Swamp. I investigated another one that surfaced in a different region about 20 years ago. Every place I've marked here will have collapsed. The design deliberately incorporates structural weaknesses, and the sort of ground they chose for these temples makes those weaknesses worse. Once maintenance stops, the place starts falling apart very quickly."
"Huh, that's pretty fascinating. An ancient god they had to serve even while deliberately building such flawed architecture."
As Gaendal said, it was a building that wasn't easy to understand. Wasn't this closer to a secret base than a temple?
While I was feeling that puzzlement, Gin scratched his head with the back of his charcoal-holding hand and answered.
"Apparently it was considered a kind of Evil God. Being a persecuted religion, they were thorough about secrecy and security. Our conclusion was that it was a security device designed to smash the place if believers' footsteps were unintentionally cut off, or if information had to be deliberately destroyed."
"Huh? But it held up just fine even after it turned into a dungeon and revealed itself, so that's how the guild was able to leave a map, right?"
"Look at the map. It was designated abandoned three years ago, right? Leave it unmaintained for even a month and irreversible cracks start forming. Those sections definitely collapsed."
I had no idea how someone like Gin was still only Blue-rank, or how Engrim had known to seek him out, but every new thing Gin explained made a request that already hadn't seemed especially difficult feel easier still.
"That's really fascinating. Still, when the dungeon first revealed itself, they wouldn't have known this kind of maintenance was necessary, so how on earth did it stay intact?"
Rellie, who'd been marveling nonstop, tilted her head and posed the question—something we could all relate to. And as if he'd been waiting for exactly that question, Gin grinned and tapped the map as he answered.
"That's the really interesting part. The structure maintains itself simply through people stepping on certain high-traffic sections of floor—places you'd inevitably walk across unless you deliberately avoided them. Leave the temple abandoned long enough and those floor sections break apart and spring upward, triggering the collapse."
"Good heavens... the temple itself is one giant mechanical device."
"Exactly that. Well, thanks to that, our job's gotten considerably easier, so isn't that fortunate?"
The X marks Gin had drawn alone numbered over a dozen, so it really had gotten easier. After that, we speculated about sleeping quarters and storage rooms, adding a few more marks and organizing the plan, and before we knew it the sun was already high in the sky.
I wanted to head out on reconnaissance right away to check the shift change personnel, but we couldn't ignore the fatigue from four hours of forced march, so we decided to rest first.
"Reconnaissance later—Gaendal and I will handle it."
"Oh, did you learn those skills too?"
"We lived together for a long time. I won't slow you down."
I'd learned tracking and scouting directly from an elf who treated the forest like her own home—and she'd even praised my ability. There was no way I'd embarrass myself here.
Unfortunately, the others had no connection to such things, so the two of us were the first to go to sleep.