Chapter 30
Chapter 30
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 30
Chapter Title: Rat in the Wall, Castle of the Mad (2)
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"Ah, that was fun."
Breathing in the crisp dawn air that cleared my head, I gazed at the slowly brightening horizon.
It was already a stunning view, but the magic of sunrise made this old castle even more mystical.
"Really good this time too."
After spending a delightful time at Miss Marie's Hamster Paradise, I wrapped up my journey and headed back to the mansion with her.
If memory served, today was the last day of the explorer exam.
Fey and Regen would be back soon, so it was about time for me to head out too.
'Come to think of it, I don't see Mr. Extraus anywhere...'
Did he leave first?
I'd hoped to keep in touch with him, even if the others didn't care.
"I-I called a carriage for you. It should take you right back to your inn."
Just then, Miss Marie approached from behind and spoke up.
"Thank you so much. I had a blast thanks to you."
"N-No, I should be the one thanking..."
I offered a handshake, but she bowed at the waist and accidentally headbutted my hand.
"Ah."
"E-Eh...?"
In the end, it looked like I was patting the head of the bowing Miss Marie.
"S-Sorry! That was an accident!!"
"No, no, it's nothing."
This woman somehow runs a guild with a personality like that.
I couldn't help but feel a bit sorry for her. Made me want to help out.
"W-Well then! W-Would you ever consider joining Broken Spear Guild...! I-I'll teach you everything!"
As if reading my mind, Miss Marie suddenly lit up and made the offer,
"Nah, that's a bit much."
"Y-Yeah, I figured..."
I shot it down flat.
You can like going to a cat café without wanting to run one yourself.
The other guests, including Extraus, must have turned her down and left ages ago.
-Clop clop, clop clop!
As we exchanged some light chit-chat, a carriage approached from the castle's main gate.
Time to head home.
Like all trips, this moment always brought on a wave of reflections.
"Well, take care. Had a great time today!"
I gave my farewell and moved to board the carriage when—
-Grab.
Miss Marie, red up to her ears, clutched my sleeve.
"U-Um... C-Could you... maybe come back sometime? E-Even just to visit... like a friend's place..."
"Sure? I'd be delighted."
Anytime was welcome for that.
Hell, I'd even pay to go.
Where else do you get healing like this?
"R-Really?! Th-Thank you! Truly!"
Miss Marie's face brightened as she nodded vigorously.
A guild master of a major guild, expressing such gratitude over something so small.
'This game couldn't be a romance sim, could it?'
Does that even make narrative sense?
Anyway, my bizarre adventure with Miss Marie had come to a close.
"Alright, I'm off. Have fun!"
"Y-Yes! When you start your guild, let me know... N-No, I'll check! I'll even chip in a little funding!"
Miss Marie waved until I vanished over the horizon.
'What a nice person.'
No ego, kind, takes good care of you. If only she weren't so timid, she'd be perfect.
All in all, another fantastic trip.
Great connections, fun journey, and a refreshing morning breeze through the window.
As I savored the satisfaction, the fatigue I'd pushed aside without sleep came crashing down.
Soon my eyelids grew heavy, and I drifted off into a deep slumber.
And in the dream I had, I was rolling around on the fluffy fur of a giant hamster.
Must be because I played with the hamsters so much.
"Hehe... Next time... again..."
Right after Will left, the girl wandered the castle corridors, unable to hide her joy.
The silent old castle, devoid of people.
Standing before a wall adorned with a single painting, the girl lightly tapped it.
-Tap tap,
-Scritch scritch.
The sound of a horde of rats scurrying beyond the wall echoed through.
Space warped.
A hole just big enough for one person appeared where the wall had been.
The inner walls, pieced together like sewn corpses, gleamed eerily under pale lanterns.
"Hmm, hum hum~"
The girl slipped through the hole and descended deep underground.
Humming an incongruous hymn.
"St-Still, there's still a chance... We can meet again...!"
The girl's shadow traversed the cavern.
Statues with grotesquely twisted faces. Beyond them loomed an altar that mocked human reason.
A deliberate ugliness that ignored innate human aesthetics.
An intentional blasphemy against human history permeated every part of the altar.
"Y-You all think so too, right?"
Perched on the altar steps, the girl suddenly asked the beings below—
And in response,
- ■■■, ■■■■
- ■■, ■■■■, ■■■■!!
Fragments of outer gods resembling rotting rat corpses let out horrific shrieks.
Twisted beings roamed atop a bone pile accumulated for centuries.
In this hellish landscape that tested the limits of imagination, the girl grinned foolishly at finding a 'comrade'.
And then,
"Huff... huff."
Another visitor arrived at that blasphemous place.
"...Huff, huff... Are you... truly the 'castellan'?"
"You're..."
A bloodied blond youth staggered toward the girl, gasping for breath.
His name was Extraus. A heretic inquisitor from a certain church, his name meaning 'savior' in ancient tongue.
"I have come to slay the one who opens the jaws of evil and scatters the Lord's presence."
His left arm and left eye were already gone, his body covered in severe burns.
Bleeding and oozing pus, the youth advanced on the girl.
"To think you'd make it from the 90th floor... all the way here."
The girl looked at the youth.
But the ecstatic gleam in her eyes was gone.
Only the cold curiosity of a predator toward long-surviving prey remained.
The girl pulled a ring from her bosom and slipped it on.
Soon, arrogant scorn spread across her face.
"You still seek god here. A god that won't even grant you a trickle of holy power."
"Once I topple you... the light will return. Light conquers darkness. As history has repeated countless times."
"Heh, did you say the same when you burned villages in the name of hunting heretics? Or when you gouged out a daughter's eyes before her father?"
"To realize truth, individual suffering matters little."
-Cackle cackle cackle.
The girl burst into laughter at the youth's fervent affirmation, twisted with zeal.
"What an idiot. There is no god. What you call god... is just a massive monster that loves spitting phlegm on bugs. No different from the giant rat breathing beneath you, zoologically speaking."
Those were the words her uncle had told her a century ago.
The cold, harsh truth of the world she heard that night in the castle, tied up as a girl cried out to god, after receiving her uncle's letter promising her the castle.
"Do not blaspheme the Lord."
"Then why can't you use holy power here? Why does your almighty god hesitate to set foot in this place?"
"It's your witchcraft..."
"You're overestimating me. I'm just a woman coexisting with the creature that loves eating people most."
The girl had been lucky. Or perhaps too unlucky.
The moment her uncle's blade touched her body, an earthquake shook the land.
Her uncle, panicked, was crushed by a falling pillar and died.
That was the moment the Broken Spear territory vanished, and the dungeon complex 'Nether' was born.
"What I've learned managing this cursed place for a century with my ageless body... is that no matter what you imagine, the hole below crawls with things beyond imagination."
The giant rat her uncle worshipped as a true god had cowered flat in fear the moment Nether opened, a timid creature that never emerged from underground.
Too cowardly to refuse a little girl's plea to share power in exchange for sending irredeemable trash as daily fodder.
"Fanatic, on that point... you're too rigid. Fail."
And so, the fanatic's fate was sealed.
He who had decided countless fates as a heretic inquisitor now had his own fate decided.
However,
"Hah, of course. That is... the essence of faith."
The fanatic answered the madwoman's view without hesitation.
Two different madnesses ran parallel.
No compromise.
-Taat!
The fanatic charged. Outer god fragments swarmed him. Sharp rat maws tore deep gashes across his body.
"Glory to the Lord...!"
He didn't stop. His faith, brimming with madness, morphed into a mace swung down toward the girl's head.
But,
-Crunch!
His motion never completed.
A massive sewer rat's head burst from the bone pile, swallowing the fanatic's upper body in one gulp.
"Still, congrats. In the century since Nether formed, you're the third to break through this labyrinth."
"..."
But there was no one left to answer.
The swarming outer god fragments devoured the fanatic's body greedily.
Not even a single hair would remain. Just like the countless ambitious souls who sought to rule and topple this city.
"Time to go."
Soon, morning broke.
Birds began chirping. The traveler returned home.
The abyssal city, having devoured four more souls overnight, pulsed busily once again.