Chapter 48
Chapter 48
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 48
Chapter Title: Doll Dungeon (6)
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With Alain's death, the demonic energy that had blanketed even the second floor cleared away in an instant.
Just like in the beast dungeon, it had been purified.
Next time we challenged it, we could probably start from the third floor.
We should have finished off the boss today as planned, but we'd harvested more than enough already.
No, truthfully, neither of us was in any shape to push further.
'Let's pull back for now.'
Yeah, like just running away would work.
It was with those thoughts that I cracked open the door at the dungeon entrance.
"Welcome back, both of you."
Waiting for us was Lazen, grinning with narrowed eyes, flanked by about ten holy knights standing guard behind him.
He'd said he was absent earlier?
"Thanks to the two of you..."
Screeech!
Before Lazen could finish, I slammed the door shut and headed back inside the dungeon.
"Don't you want to hear what he has to say?"
"Nah."
"Well, it was obvious anyway."
Cecilia seemed to grasp the situation right away and shrugged.
The squinty-eyed guy had rounded up the holy knights he'd claimed were absent and was waiting at the dungeon entrance.
No good could come from talking to them. We'd known from the start they had ulterior motives.
Of course, there was even more solid evidence than that.
Cecilia and I weren't idiots.
Especially me—my senses weren't as sharp as Cecilia's, but maybe from all the times I'd been beaten or killed.
At some point, I'd started feeling killing intent shooting straight at me from close range, like it prickled my skin.
Guys radiating that much hostility—if they didn't have backup, that'd be the weird part.
So I was certain.
Those bastards were waiting to take us out now that we'd cleared the dungeon.
But something felt off.
In the original story's Aren route, it hadn't escalated this far. Their reaction was too extreme.
Was there some reason they had to show their hostility so openly?
'So, what now.'
We'd come back inside, but with Alain dead, the access restrictions were gone.
If they wanted, they could barge in anytime.
We kept our guard up at the entrance.
"...They're not coming."
But after more than ten minutes, there wasn't even a sign of the door opening.
Of course not. They wielded holy power—they had to know the second floor was purified.
'That means there's another reason they can't enter the dungeon.'
Lazen didn't look particularly strong. So the muscle would come from the holy knights.
Was there something they couldn't let the holy knights see?
I glanced up at the ceiling on impulse, and my eyes caught a holy mural that didn't fit the mansion at all.
Come to think of it, this dungeon's base was a temple.
Which meant there was a high chance the key to breaking this mess was hidden inside the temple.
With them camping the entrance like that, nothing short of a game-changer would make a difference.
Finding that clue was our best bet.
'If only someone would come help...'
I fiddled idly with Rene.
Naturally, this place was outside communication range.
Who would've thought not telling anyone we were coming here would snowball like this.
The moment we got out, I'd smash Elier and demand he expand the comms range.
"Cecilia. Did you tell anyone we were heading here?"
"What? You told me not to tell a soul."
Yeah, figured as much.
"But... my sister probably knows something. She was there last time you mentioned the Doll Dungeon. She might not know the date or time, but she'd have guessed you'd come conquer it eventually."
So, hope lies with her, then.
I gave Cecilia a quick rundown of my theory, and we hunkered down on a convenient patch of floor to rest.
Potions and lumens wouldn't refill our depleted mental energy anyway.
We'd fought elite beasts and the mid-boss back-to-back without a break. Even I'd never pushed that hard before.
Cecilia unpacked her bento box, just like always.
Now that I thought about it, we'd missed it last loop thanks to Alain's ambush.
I picked up a piece of the finely chopped meat I'd seen earlier and popped it in my mouth.
"Mm."
It melted in my mouth, smooth and tender.
Damn, this was good.
The sweet-salty flavor coated my tongue, somehow reminiscent of braised short ribs.
But in a medieval Western fantasy world, meat tasting like braised ribs—did that mean the cook was skilled?
"...How is it? To your taste?"
"Delicious. Your family's chefs must be top-notch."
"...I made this."
My head tilted involuntarily.
Hadn't she said in the first loop it was the chefs?
Answer quick. Which Cecilia was lying—the first-loop one or this one?
...Whatever. Tasty is tasty.
After eating, we started rummaging through the second floor.
We stayed cautious just in case, but as expected, with Alain dead, all the monsters on the second floor had been wiped clean.
No need to smash innocent wax dolls, so that was a relief.
Just like in the original.
But no matter how we searched the second floor, no real clues turned up.
In the end, we reached the boss room where we'd been supposed to fight Alain.
In the middle of the empty space stood a lone bookshelf.
Five books lined its shelves, all worn from heavy use.
I remembered that bookshelf from the original—it was just a destructible object.
Smash it or ignore it, no big deal. No special function, so multi-run players often skipped it.
But this was reality. In reality, you could read books, right?
I approached the bookshelf and pulled out the first book.
The cover bore the title "Temple of Repose Management Log" alongside the name Alain.
"Alain's log, huh."
"Who's Alain?"
Right, Cecilia wouldn't know.
Without answering, I flipped open the first page.
[First Log]
Glory to the Prime God. Today, I was finally assigned as a guardian holy knight to the Temple of Repose. My greatest joy is working alongside my childhood friends.
The wax dolls they craft look so lifelike. How do they capture the fallen heroes from the war against the Evil God so vividly?
They pray daily to comfort the heroes' souls as they carve the dolls. Their pure hearts move me. I swear to the Prime God to protect this sacred place, my dear friends, and all I hold dear with everything I have.
"This is... a holy knight's prayer."
The log's start was ordinary.
Records of a holy knight named Alain's activities after being posted to the temple.
But something struck me as odd.
The childhood friends mentioned were probably the twin sisters, Rose and Lilian.
'Had Alain been set up as their childhood friend?'
I hadn't memorized every detail, but "childhood friends" was too key a phrase to overlook.
No way I'd missed it.
No matter how I racked my brain, I couldn't recall it. Just like Senia's name, there was no mention of them being childhood friends in the backstory.
The next three logs were relatively mundane too.
Not entirely—they revealed Alain harbored feelings for both Rose and Lilian.
What, a holy knight two-timing?
He wrote it like a sweet youthful romance, but liking both twins? Hard to swallow.
I would never two-time. Twins? Insane. No one does that.
For some reason, Cecilia was giving me a weird look, but it had to be my imagination.
And the final fifth book.
Far more tattered than the last, its pages stained with brownish blotches.
Blood, probably.
[Fifth Log - First Half]
It's all lies. Everything was a lie. This Church of the Prime God, you hypocrites! Heroes? The war against the Evil God? All red lies! Those slumbering in the Temple of Repose weren't heroes. They were sacrifices for connecting to the Prime God! The Church has been offering up countless believers alive all along!
Rose and Lilian learned the truth. Their pure prayers, their kind hearts, drew the souls of the dead into the wax dolls. The dolls whispered to them every night of their wrongful deaths, the Church's ugly secrets.
We have to escape. But every time we try to leave the temple, dozens of gazes pierce us from the forest. Rose and Lilian waste away, tormented by nightmares daily. I have to protect them, but...
[Fifth Log - Final Page]
They've found us. They're coming. Rose... Lilian... My precious friends. Forgive me, this powerless knight...
This was the dungeon's truth.
And the reason those hypocrites outside couldn't enter.
They couldn't set foot in the sanctuary they'd defiled themselves. La...
The moment I closed the book, confusion hit me.
'...No way this is real.'
I knew the Church of the Prime God was trash.
But that didn't mean the Prime God was.
In the original game, the Prime God was benevolent, a good god purging the world's evil.
The Terminus Academy endings always ended with defeating the Evil God, and the Prime God lent Aren strength along the way.
Human sacrifice to connect to the Prime God?
Why? On what basis?
"DChurch corruption" was too light for "human sacrifice."
There'd been plenty of deviations from the original so far.
Cases like Senia that weren't in the original at all.
But twisting a core setting that underpinned the game? This was a first.
Unless the log was fake, or...
Just then, Cecilia, scanning around, ran her hand over a dent in one wall.
It matched the size of the hammer the Alain we'd defeated had wielded.
"That knight monster we took down earlier... that was Alain."
Her eyes clouded with anger and sorrow.
"If souls dwelled in the dolls... then the wax dolls we destroyed might have..."
At that moment, as if confirming we'd read all the books, a blocked door in one corner of the second floor slid open.
The staircase to the third floor, which in the original only opened after defeating Alain.
We stuffed all five books into our bags and stepped into the passage without hesitation.
Alright. Let's say for now this explains why the guys outside can't come in.
Our situation hadn't changed, though.
The moment we walked out with this log, they'd kill us to destroy the evidence—we knew that.
More than that, they could easily dismiss it as delusions from a holy knight named Alain.
So this wasn't enough.
No decisive blow to turn the tables right now.
And if one existed, it had to be.
Higher up, without a doubt.
'The third floor had... the choir, right.'
The instant we passed through and reached the third floor, Cecilia let out a sigh.
"Ah...!"
Before us stretched a grand hall, topped by a small choir platform.
Surrounding it stood countless dolls, mouths agape as if mid-song.
Dressed in choir robes, each was shaped like a boy or girl of varying ages.
Alain's log flashed through my mind.
Meaning they were all sacrifices to the Prime God. Children who'd been offered up.
A red carpet crossed the choir's center. At its far end lay the passage to the rooftop.
If it was like the original, some would be monsters that'd attack on sight, indiscriminately.
Some attacked from range via sonic waves disguised as hymns.
I'd remembered the choir.
But not that its monsters took the forms of children like this.
"What do we do..."
Cecilia murmured in dismay.
What do we do? Same as the first floor—sweep the dolls.
The third floor lacked elite monsters, so it'd be easier.
But that's not what she meant.
Now that we knew the truth, she couldn't bring herself to. Especially not dolls resembling sacrificed kids.
And honestly, I felt the same.
No way my heart was light.
But someone had to do it.
And if it had to be done, it fell to me.
'Whew.'
I let out an internal sigh and held out my hand to Cecilia.
"Hand over Black Cloud and White Paper."
"Huh...? Oh, got it."
She fumbled them over in confusion.
I slotted them in along with Flying Edge from Alain—five special shards total.
[Abilities unlocked from equipping special shards.]
[Special Shard: Flying Edge]
[Special Ability: Dance of the Edge]
The new ability unlocked, but it could wait.
No time for that now—we'd check after breaking through the third floor.
Feeling the shards' power course through me, I stepped onto the carpet.
Cecilia freaked.
"Wait! What are you doing?!"
'What else? What I'm best at.'
The moment my foot hit the carpet, a sonic blast erupted from a girl doll smiling brightly on the right.
'There you are.'
I twisted aside effortlessly, closed in, and thrust my sword into her heart.
The girl doll crumpled limply on the spot.
Like falling into deep sleep, just as she must have looked in life.
No decapitation or smashing like on the first floor.
Instant Kill had triggered.
On the first floor, I'd sealed Black Cloud to debuff for the elite fight, but here? No such restraint.
No elites here—I could Instant Kill freely.
I pressed on along the carpet.
Ears tuned to each voice from both sides, granting them all repose.
The only way to put them down gently, without damaging the children's souls.
The attacks intensified.
Dozens of voices unleashed sonic waves that oddly sounded like song.
I walked steadily through that poignant chorus.
With each step, the song faded—one voice, then another.
How long had it been?
The clamor finally died down, and I stood before the rooftop passage.
Looking back, the hall remained filled with the children's forms.
Intact, slumbering peacefully.
Glancing up at the ceiling, I heard what shouldn't have been there— the sorrowful voices of two women echoing.
Rose and Lilian.
They were calling to us.