No Ants Here
“There won’t be any ants here,” Sion said, stating the obvious. It wasn’t like the ant bastards were dogs. There was no reason for them to enter a place that held nothing but bones.
The crypt’s state of preservation was remarkably good. Almost everything remained exactly where it belonged, and the sarcophagi showed almost no signs of having been touched or damaged.
Not bad. But a few details stood out. Other explorers had clearly been here before us. The first clue was that shattered stele over there. It had been deliberately smashed. A quick assessment suggested they had feared a curse on the coffins themselves, so they only tampered with the steles before leaving. After all, the steles were the most luxurious items.
When I examined the stele, clear marks remained where something had been pried out.
“Aigoo, what a damn shame,” Jangcheok muttered, clearly recognizing the signs.
“Look here. This spot used to hold a gem. The bastards who came first ripped it out. Such a waste.”
Hmm. So they had smashed the stele just to extract the jewel.
Even though I hadn’t ordered them to, Jangcheok and Sion began groping around every corner of the crypt, hunting for anything worth looting.
“U-um…”
Roa, left on her own, fidgeted restlessly before turning to me with a desperate look.
“I’m going to summon a ghost now.”
“Eek!”
Roa staggered backward, nearly losing her balance.
In the cold heart of a dungeon, you could trust no one… While the rest of the party amused themselves, I focused my mind and reached out for a ghost.
A spirit bound to the dungeon. According to the mural I had read earlier, ghosts that could neither live nor die were trapped within this very crypt.
Time to begin.
The voice of the dead echoes…
You have discovered a weeping soul.
For some reason, the soul seems interested in you.
Will you summon the soul?
Of course the answer was YES. Drawing on the knowledge gained from the ancient text, I called forth the ghost.
“Whoa! Uncle Jangcheok! Get over here! Isn’t this gold?”
“What? Gold? Let me see!”
How much time had passed? A chilling aura seeped through the air. It wasn’t ordinary cold—it was the kind that crawled under your skin and made your spine tingle.
Oooooh…
Success. When I opened my eyes, a ghost with a deathly pale face hovered directly above the shattered stele.
“Hey, you ignorant bastard. Where the hell do you see gold? That’s brass.”
“It’s not gold?”
“Gold is way harder than that. Look at it. You think something that bends like taffy is gold?”
The ghost stared vacantly into empty space. Thanks to my Necromancer traits, it showed no immediate hostility toward me. It didn’t look particularly strong, but there was no harm in being cautious.
“…This really is gold, though?”
“What?”
“Uncle Jangcheok! He says it’s real!”
“You’re telling me this is gold?”
“Yes… it’s pure gold…”
“What kind of gold is as soft as clay? It bends so easily!”
“Real gold leaves marks if you bite it with your teeth…”
No. They were too loud. I couldn’t concentrate on the ritual like this.
“What the hell is going on over there? Keep it down!”
They were making a huge fuss just because they found a little gold in a crypt. As if finding a gold nugget was some world-shaking event.
“…”
Wait a second. Gold?
When I turned my head, there were Jangcheok and Sion—and even Roa—crowding around a yellowish fragment and shouting excitedly.
No way. There was no chance a piece of gold would appear this easily…
◈ Price: 9500 ron (market value)
◈ Maker: Free Artisan Association
◈ Classification: Material, Mural Fragment, Artwork, Luxury Good
◈ A fragment that was once part of an artwork. Shattered into pieces, its original shape is nearly impossible to discern. An exceptional artist might be able to restore it.
◈ *This is Gold. It can be used as currency.
◈ *This is an Artwork. Someone may purchase it at a high price.
◈ *This is a Luxury Good. Someone may purchase it at a high price.
It really was gold. Hard to believe, but the crypt actually contained gold. The System didn’t lie, so this was genuine.
It didn’t make sense. Explorers must have looted this place already—how could gold still remain?
“Where did you find this?” I asked.
Jangcheok grinned like a madman and pointed at the rearmost wall of the crypt—the exact opposite wall from the one with the steles.
“I was digging around that wall and this thing suddenly popped out.”
“The wall split open?”
“Yeah. Looks like they plastered over something with lime to hide it.”
“…”
I felt like I was losing my mind.
“Mister Jangcheok.”
“Yeah?”
“What were you thinking, touching random things like that? What if it triggered a trap?”
Jangcheok was the party leader. He carried the exploration log and the official report. If the leader died, we would lose every record of the dungeon. At the very least, the party leader needed to have some basic caution. At the very least, he could have waited until I finished the damn necromancy before calling me over!
Yet Jangcheok showed no sign of remorse. In fact, he looked like he couldn’t understand why I was upset.
“Come on, kid. How many days have you even been exploring? Explorers have to make money! Everything we do is for the money! Look at this! It’s gold! Gold!”
I knew that. I knew there were explorers who had lost their minds to greed. People who thought the only thing that mattered was hauling as much treasure as possible out of the dungeon. But at the very least, you had to get out of the dungeon alive to spend that money. Was he planning to use it as funeral money in the afterlife?
This wasn’t a world where you could buy resurrection with money. This wasn’t a world with a twenty-four-hour respawn penalty. This was permadeath. Once you died, that was it.
When my expression hardened, Sion slyly jumped in.
“Hey, why the long face? Relax. Uncle Jangcheok didn’t do anything wrong. He just peeled back a bit of the wall. Look, something that size should be worth about eight thousand ron. Split four ways that’s two thousand each! You know how many drinks that buys?”
“Shut the hell up.”
“Dude.”
“I’m the guide here. You want me to just stand by while you do whatever you want? Do you even know what a ruin is? Have you ever seen a corpse that died to a trap?”
That was when Roa approached. She removed her hood and stared straight at Sion.
“Please apologize to the Necromancer.”
She immediately turned on Jangcheok as well.
“Have you forgotten why we entered this dungeon? We came to complete our mission, not to hunt for gold.”
Sion retreated with an awkward expression while Jangcheok folded his arms.
“Well, I did tear at the wall, but…”
He grumbled under his breath.
“Geez. I find money and get cursed out for it.”
He didn’t say it to my face, but his pride was clearly hurt. He probably never expected to be scolded after finding real gold.
Still, I had no intention of soothing his feelings. I hated reckless, selfish behavior.
The reason I despised it so much was simple. Back when I had just started working as an explorer, I had done those same stupid things and learned exactly how they ended. If you ignored the guide in a dungeon, you had no idea what kind of nightmare would follow. The moment someone thought they knew enough to act alone, the entire party could be wiped out in seconds.
Jangcheok and Sion moved away from me with sullen expressions. I returned to the stele where the ghost still floated and let out a sigh. I hadn’t wanted to lecture them, but as the guide I had no choice. Someone had to stay alert.
Still, if I tried to think positively, Jangcheok had just earned us two thousand ron. Two thousand ron was nothing to sneeze at. The original price of my new saw blade had been sixteen hundred ron, so two thousand would be enough to buy a decent chain vest and new greaves. Or I could use it to learn new magic at the Necromancer Guild.
With those idle thoughts running through my mind, I called the ghost once more. Using my necromantic knowledge, I slowly drew its attention.
The first question was simple.
Are you one of the living? Or one of the dead?
The ghost slowly raised a finger. Its thumb pointed downward.
Below.
That meant it was dead. The reason I asked such an obvious question was because occasionally a completely insane ghost would be summoned—one that couldn’t even tell whether it was alive or dead and would attack the summoner. I had been lucky this time. Just the fact that I hadn’t drawn a maddened spirit was something to be grateful for.
The start was good.
Next question.
Are you from this place, or from outside?
The ghost’s finger moved again. The thumb pointed down.
Below.
If it was a person from beneath the dungeon, that meant it was a citizen of the old kingdom. Now I had something worth asking.
Have the ants moved a carriage recently? If so, which direction?
I unfolded the map I had prepared in advance. It was a map of the old kingdom. A ghost should be able to read it.
The ghost pointed to a corner of the map. Coincidentally, the location of the cargo carriage was at the deepest bottom of the dungeon.
If I thought of the dungeon as an inverted tower (it wasn’t exactly tower-shaped, but close enough), we were currently around the second underground floor. From the dungeon entrance, our destination was the tenth underground floor—the deepest point.
Now that I thought about it, the final floor of the Ant Cave was where the dungeon’s rewards gathered. It was called the Ant Cave’s warehouse—the place where the ants tossed everything they classified as “trash” while roaming the dungeon. Our target, the jewel pouch, was there.
The good news was that a massive staircase ran through the entire dungeon. Once we left the crypt, we would find a spiral staircase leading downward.
While I was at it, I also asked how many staircases led down. The ghost kindly showed me several detour routes that avoided the ants. A local guide was truly the best kind.
Whew. The Necromancer’s summoning event was complete.
You have corrected the map based on the soul’s voice.
The map’s accuracy has increased!
Perfect. Thanks to this sudden event, we had gained a huge advantage. No one had died or been injured yet, and we had gathered valuable information. All that remained was to descend carefully.
That was when it happened.
Clunk.
From somewhere far away came the sound of something creaking. It sounded like a mechanical device activating.
At the same time, Roa’s shrill voice rang out.
“Necromancer!”
What now? Something had gone wrong.
I slowly opened my eyes, which I had closed in concentration. In my hand was the updated map. Roa, her hood removed, stared at me with worried eyes.
“The leader—!”
Jangcheok?
I doubted my own eyes. When I turned my head, I saw him. Or rather, only the lower half of him.
“What the hell!”
I sprinted toward him without thinking. Sion was desperately clutching Jangcheok’s left leg. Upon closer inspection, Jangcheok’s upper body had been sucked into the mural on the wall. Even now, he was slowly disappearing into it.
Rumble…
The mechanical sound grew louder in the distance. At the same time the floor heaved and shook, throwing off everyone’s balance.
“Mister Jangcheok!”
“Uwaaaaaah! Pull me out!”
What the hell was going on?!