The Fire Queen

“Are you feeling any better?”

The alchemist Arin quietly opened her eyes. Pitch-black darkness. Only the absolute, inky blackness that hid even an inch in front of her nose greeted her.

“... Am I still alive?”

“Fortunately, yes. I can only call it a miracle.”

The Dungeon Seeker, Doran, lit his Seer Lantern. Only after the bright light filled her vision did her pounding heart begin to settle. Arin slowly looked around.

“Ow.”

“Careful. Your ankle’s swollen.”

Just as the Dungeon Seeker said, Arin’s ankle was badly swollen. She rummaged through her bag for a healing potion, then let out a deep sigh. The bag contained nothing but combat potions.

“What’s going to happen to us now?”

“Well. The most realistic option is to wait for a rescue team. I don’t think the two of us can escape this dungeon on our own. Any reckless movement will only draw the monsters’ attention.”

Doran spoke in a calm, steady voice. Arin lifted her head and looked up at the Dungeon Seeker holding the white lantern. In darkness so complete you couldn’t see an inch ahead, the one who carried the light was the mental anchor for every explorer. Arin’s eyes grew hot with tears.

“I-I’m sorry. This is all because of me…”

The memory was still vivid. Doran had risked his life climbing down a cliff just to save her. No amount of gratitude would ever be enough.

“Hup. Luckily I’m still pretty spry. First, we need to find a place nearby where we can hide.”

Doran grinned and flexed his thick forearm. Though short in stature, his reliability rivaled that of a giant. Arin fought back the tears welling up.

“This might sound arrogant coming from me, but my brother is an excellent Dungeon Seeker. He’ll probably find us in a day or two.”

“I… I hope so.”

Doran skillfully crafted a makeshift hiding spot and tucked Arin inside. The origin of dwarves was unclear, but rumors claimed they were tied to the earth itself. Even now, lost in the pitch-black dungeon, the dwarf refused to lose his positive outlook. In contrast, Arin’s spirit grew more exhausted by the minute. She had never done any rough work in her life, so the dungeon felt even more horrifying.

Reflexively, Arin thought of her older sister.

Maya managed to survive in a dungeon for weeks.

Being an alchemist, Maya had used her material transmutation to somehow stay alive. At the time, her true enemies hadn’t been hunger or cold, but loneliness, despair, and isolation. There had been no guarantee a rescue team would come. All she could do was hold on with pure belief, day after day. In the end, Maya had survived. Explorers had saved her life.

…Would she come to save me?

Arin bit her lower lip. Her own mistakes rose up one after another. Because she hadn’t paid attention, no rescue team had been dispatched. In a way, it was no different from Arin abandoning Maya. A wave of fear crashed over her. If the explorers never came down. If they gave up on the rescue, she would die alone in this dark, cold dungeon.

What the hell have I done…

Arin regretted her past. But regret, no matter how swift, always came too late. She imagined the worst-case scenario. The rescue team might never arrive.

“Lady Arin.”

Doran’s voice cut through the silence.

“Stay exactly where you are. As quietly as possible.”

“…Yes?”

Confused, Arin looked up. The Dungeon Seeker’s lantern was glowing blue—a sign that enemies were nearby.

“Kyaaa!”

“Damn it!”

Below their makeshift shelter, on the sloped path, the head of a massive worm appeared. This was the bottom of the Sokoban dungeon. It was only natural for burrowing monsters to show up. Startled, Arin had screamed. The giant worms turned their heads toward where she sat.

“Get back!”

Doran cracked his whip. Crack! Chunks of the giant worm’s soft flesh flew off with every strike. A terrible stench poured from the wounds. Doran instinctively covered his nose.

“Damn it! It’s poisonous! Hold your breath!”

The giant worms crawled out of the ground and slithered toward Arin. She grabbed a glowing red potion.

“If I set off a potion here…”

“We don’t have any other options!”

Doran fell silent. Neither a Dungeon Seeker nor an Alchemist was a combat-focused class. They were both support-oriented. They lacked the firepower to take down giant worms.

Arin hurled the Wildfire Potion.

Boom! Scorching heat and sparks of flame burst in every direction. The giant worms writhed in the sticky, unquenchable alchemical fire before dying.

Doran spoke grimly.

“We’ll have to move our hiding spot. The explosion will draw more monsters.”

“Haa. No choice, I guess.”

Arin and Doran began moving to find a new hiding place. That was when it happened.

Screeech!

A sharp cry echoed through the darkness. Arin and Doran instinctively stopped and prepared for battle.

“This is…”

“A Blood Giant tribe. Looks like they’ve spotted us.”

Doran’s voice was heavy. There was no way a party of only two could stand against Blood Giant warriors. The moment they were discovered, a gruesome fate awaited them.

“Then what do we do?”

“…We try talking first. If they still want to kill us… then there’s nothing we can do.”

A short while later, a group of armed Blood Giants appeared. The one who seemed to be their leader was much larger than the others and wore a terrifying battle mask. The Blood Giant leader drew a crude black stone blade and threatened them. The Dungeon Seeker stepped forward.

“We are lost survivors! We are not your enemies!”

The Blood Giant leader spoke in a primitive tongue. It was a language Arin couldn’t understand. But Doran understood every word.

“What is he…”

“What did he say?”

“This warrior says he saw the ‘Incarnation of the Sun’ here. He’s asking if we know anything about it.”

“The Incarnation of the Sun?”

“It’s from their mythology. It says the incarnation of the sun god Kwas descends to the earth along a path of fire.”

Strangely enough, the Blood Giants were searching for the Incarnation of the Sun. Arin blinked.

“Then they’ll need fire, right?”

“Uh… I’m not sure. I understand the path of fire part, but I don’t know if they actually need fire…”

Arin searched her bag. What she pulled out was none other than a Wildfire Potion.

“This. With this, we can create a path of fire. Don’t you think it would help ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠them find their incarnation?”

With a puzzled expression, Doran translated Arin’s words. The Blood Giant leader showed interest.

“He’s asking what it is.”

“Tell him it’s something like this.”

Arin infused the Wildfire Potion with mana. The potion began to boil violently from the magical reaction. She threw it on the ground.

Boom!

A blazing wall of fire surged upward. Standing with the flames at her back, Arin smiled brightly at the Blood Giants.

“How about it? I have several more bottles of this potion. If I give them to you, will you show us the way out of the dungeon?”

The Blood Giant leader stared at Arin as if enchanted. Then suddenly, he dropped to one knee.

“Uh…”

Doran scratched his forehead awkwardly. The rest of the Blood Giants knelt in unison. The Blood Giant leader murmured.

“Queen of Fire…”

Doran translated the words. Arin asked in confusion.

“Queen of Fire? What does that mean?”

Doran had no idea either.

“Ugh…”

Haneul let out a groan like she was dying. After advancing about two hundred meters, they found a corpse. It was a human body with one leg completely severed. Or rather, calling it dead might not be accurate. It was a worker’s body that had been turned to stone. The face was twisted in agony, the severed leg lying nearby. It was obvious what had happened.

As a perfect teaching aid had appeared, I decided to give the party members a lesson.

“Look. What do you think got it?”

Roa, with her sharp eyes, immediately read the situation.

“It was attacked by a Cockatrice. Looking at the wound, it wasn’t the beak. It looks like it was stepped on.”

“Correct. More precisely, it wasn’t even attacked—it just got hit by a charging Cockatrice.”

I explained.

“Touching a Cockatrice turns you to stone instantly. That’s the Curse of Petrification.”

The victim hadn’t been hit by its breath. It had simply ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠been struck by a running Cockatrice and stepped on by a foot covered in sharp claws. Yet the leg had been severed and the body turned to stone. That was because the Curse of Petrification flowed through the Cockatrice’s entire body.

“Better to turn to stone than die, right?”

Turning to stone was better than being killed by such a monster. If you were hit by its petrifying breath, at least your life was spared.

“If you think you’re going to die, turning to stone is one way out.”

We continued forward, leaving the petrified corpses behind. Dwarf statues were scattered everywhere. They must have been placed by the Dungeon Seekers.

“Oppa.”

Roa whispered so only I could hear, careful not to let the others notice.

“The Cockatrice is coming down.”

It had finished patrolling the upper floor and was heading back down, destroying everything in its path. Just imagining it was fucking horrible.

“Should we stop and look for a place to hide?”

Hiding was a very effective way to survive in a dungeon. There was no need to insist on fighting. There were plenty of ways to win without fighting at all. During the Ant Cave dungeon, we had cleared it using stealth tactics. The strategy had been efficient. Roa was also a Guardian specialized in infiltration.

But it wasn’t a good strategy for our current party of four.

“No. Let’s keep moving for now.”

It would be difficult for four people to hide perfectly. This was an abandoned dwarf mine. There might be hiding spots in each tunnel, but good hiding places were usually already claimed by something else. Places good for us to hide were also good for monsters. If we ran into one and had to fight, we’d be the ones at a disadvantage.

After descending quite a distance, we discovered a pile of ore. Maya, true to her Alchemist nature, immediately identified it.

“It’s cinnabar.”

She poked the slightly reddish ore with her finger.

“It’s used as a dye, but… alchemists extract mercury from it.”

Mercury, huh.

“Maya.”

“Yes?”

“The dwarves won’t get mad if we borrow some ore, right?”

Of course they would. I knew that, but taking their ore without permission was basically theft.

“What do you need the ore for?”

Maya asked with an innocent face.

“To slow down the Cockatrice.”

“With this?”

Maya lifted a chunk of cinnabar and asked again. There was plenty of ore. Using a little wouldn’t hurt.

“Maya, can you use a transmutation circle?”

I wasn’t talking about extracting pigment. What I needed was mercury.

“Let’s get some mercury.”

“…Does the Cockatrice hate mercury?”

Maya tilted her head, not understanding. While she was still wondering, Roa busily gathered chunks of ore as if the matter would be solved the moment Maya drew the circle.

“Let’s try it.”

“But I still don’t understand…”

Maya seemed to think it was a waste of time. Roa spoke with absolute confidence.

“Just trust Hajun oppa.”

Roa looked at me with eyes that said, You have a plan, right? As expected, having raided dungeons together created that kind of understanding. Though reluctant, Maya drew the transmutation circle because of the party’s mood. She drew geometric shapes on the floor with white chalk and chanted a spell. Alchemists could separate materials this way.

The magic circle emitted a pale blue flame and completed the material separation. While filling a bottle with mercury, Maya asked.

“Now what?”

It was time to make a simple trap.

“We’ll need shape alteration…”

Maya openly disliked it.

“What are you trying to do this time?”

I pointed at a dwarf statue.

“I’m going to make a mirror.”

“…A mirror?”

Special terrain. Special objects that interact with the map. This was another essential fun element in roguelike games. You create new items using ores and objects that drop in the dungeon. The idea hadn’t come from my own head—I had gotten it from an old post by a veteran Dungeon Overseer player.

“This statue is made of bronze.”

First, I had to use alchemy to turn the statue into a flat disc.

“I hope this isn’t a waste of mana.”

Maya drew the transmutation circle with some skepticism. An alchemist’s transmutation could create all sorts of interesting situations, which made the class incredibly valuable. It held the power to flip the situation at critical moments. Using alchemy required caution, but now was the time to invest boldly.

After turning the bronze into a disc, I coated it with mercury. The dwarf statue transformed into a massive mirror.

Finally, I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠hung a dwarf lantern on the completed mirror. A plausible Cockatrice-only trap was finished.

“Wow. It’s really clean.”

“It looks even bigger than the real thing. Must be because it’s tilted.”

“Can something like this really slow down a Cockatrice?”

Without anyone taking the lead, the three women gathered in front of the mirror. Maya, Roa, and Haneul were completely absorbed in checking their clothes and appearance. I hadn’t made it to catch women.

“Do you all have a disease that’ll kill you if you don’t look at a mirror? We need to move.”

The mirror was well over two meters tall. Standing in front of it made you look taller and slimmer than in reality, like the mirrors in clothing stores. That was because the mirror was tilted. Everyone was completely captivated by the full-length mirror’s charm.

“Maya.”

“Yes?”

“Do you think the Cockatrice will just pass by when it sees this? Or will it be unable to pass?”

“…”

Maya blushed silently. She had been the first to stand in front of the mirror and was still there. The Cockatrice would definitely become confused upon seeing its own reflection.

“Sister, sister.”

Haneul trotted over and clung to Maya from behind.

“Can’t you make one for me later?”

She must have been thinking the same thing. Maya nodded vigorously.

“I’ll make you one even better than this.”

…Honestly, I didn’t understand. Why couldn’t women just walk past a mirror?

“Let’s get going already.”

Our party finally tore ourselves away from the mirror and headed deeper into the dungeon.