The Sage of the Boulder
A great commotion swept through Moro Mine. The Spriggans, seeing necromancy for the first time in their lives, were completely stunned. The spirit I had summoned—the soul of the Spriggan Hwanung—bellowed in a thunderous voice.
"The fate of the village hangs by a thread! Yet here you are, bickering over trivial nonsense!"
“E-Elder…”
"Even now, mushroom monsters are multiplying outside! Get a hold of yourselves! What good will come from fighting each other?!"
The elder who had returned from death had spoken. The surroundings fell as silent as if cold water had been poured over them. No one dared talk back.
“Please calm your anger, Elder.”
Chief Yuri was the first to step forward and bow her head. Only then did the spirit body begin to fade little by little.
"Yes… it is you, Yuri. I believe you will protect the village well."
“Leave it to me.”
"Everyone, remember this! The harder the times, the more we must unite our strength!"
I waved my hand and released the summoning. The possessed soul scattered into the air. Only then did the Spriggans quietly begin to coordinate their opinions.
“Humans entering the village… well, the water’s already been spilled. There’s no undoing it now.”
“Let’s focus on finding a way to stop those mushroom monsters.”
The Spriggans’ voices grew louder. The meeting proceeded smoothly. When I sat down, Roa gave me a small thumbs-up. She was scared of ghosts, but apparently this was fine.
“That was impressive. On the surface, you probably would’ve been beaten to death for that.”
“The image of necromancers on the surface is complete garbage, after all.”
Alma stared at me with a strange look. If this had been on the surface, they might have tried to burn me alive, screaming, ‘That necromancer summoned our father’s soul!’ No matter the reason, disturbing the rest of the dead was still a serious offense.
I watched the Spriggans’ meeting in silence.
“These explorers possess remarkable abilities. If we borrow their strength, we should be able to defeat the Walking Fungus.”
Yuri spoke calmly. At that moment, Priest Mano raised his voice. He had been silently glaring at me for a while.
…What the hell did I even do?
“I understand the shaman’s power, but it is merely the art of calling forth souls. While the chief was away on the surface, I found a way to defeat the mushroom monsters.”
“Speak.”
“We must awaken the Sage of the Boulder.”
For a moment, the Spriggans buzzed with murmurs.
“But if we wake the Sage…”
“I’m sure the Sage will understand how dire our situation is. The ritual preparations are already complete. We simply need to go and summon them.”
Yuri glanced at us and said,
“Let us continue this discussion when the outsiders are not present.”
After that, only a few short exchanges followed. Most of them held little substance. From the overall atmosphere, it seemed the Spriggans were leaning toward Priest Mano’s opinion.
When the meeting ended, only Yuri and the white-haired Spriggan remained.
“What exactly is the Sage of the Boulder?”
My roguelike gamer instincts were screaming that it was obviously an extremely dangerous monster. If we messed with it and things went wrong, we’d end up having to beat the crap out of it while suffering again.
Yuri explained calmly.
“They are the guardian deity who has protected our village for a very long time.”
“A guardian deity?”
“There is a shrine dedicated to the Sage in a cave near the village. The Phantasmagoric Heatstone there is the Sage’s home.”
A guardian deity of the village, huh.
“What if they go berserk and attack us…”
Yuri looked at my face and let out a small laugh.
“That won’t happen. The Sage is gentle. They might get irritated, but they would never attack us.”
The white-haired Spriggan added,
“I apologize to the Sage, but if they lend us their power, those mushrooms will be blown away in an instant.”
It was clear the Spriggans held an enormous amount of trust in this ‘Sage.’ Well, that made sense. Even on Earth, people blindly believed in intangible guardian deities. Here, the guardian actually existed, so of course their faith would be absolute.
“By the way, young man. When you summoned Elder Hwanung earlier, I felt some kind of sinister energy…”
The Spriggan stared at me suspiciously.
“You didn’t use any evil sorcery, did you?”
“Of course not.”
I shrugged. Necromancy was classified as ‘evil magic’ in this world, but I had never used it for anything truly wicked.
“Since it looks like we’ll be fighting on the same side, let me introduce myself. I am Seori, captain of the village guard.”
“I’m explorer Hajun.”
After the brief introductions, Yuri and Seori gave us a quick summary of the Spriggan village’s situation.
“The mushroom bastards have taken over our underground orchard. The village entrance has also become their territory.”
“Have you fought them before?”
“Well… we actually organized an interception squad once. But it failed. The toxicity they emit is so severe… we couldn’t even get close.”
Seori spoke with clear frustration.
“Those things are undoubtedly ancient monsters. They must have come from deeper than the underground orchard—from the ruins of the old world.”
I had a pretty good idea what monster Seori was talking about. It had to be the boss of the fungal entities—the Mycelial Queen.
“The mushroom monsters seem to be reproducing by absorbing nutrients from the orchard. To reduce their numbers, we must destroy the orchard.”
Yuri looked at us.
“Explorers. Is there any way you can help?”
I shook my head at her. She was far too naive. If an ordinary explorer had come down here at Yuri’s request, they would have taken one look at the catastrophic state of the village and fled straight back to the surface. Honestly, the situation was bad enough that running away right now wouldn’t even be strange.
But I wasn’t going to back down. I had money invested in this.
Is this what they call being hooked?
“The mushroom poison… well. We’ll just have to tank it. I brought plenty of antidote potions, so we can drink them while pushing forward.”
“…That sounds insane.”
Alma frowned after hearing my plan. Was constantly drinking antidote potions every time you got poisoned really a sane way of thinking? To the people here, apparently not. There was nothing good about abusing potions.
But I decided to keep it simple. So what if I got poisoned a bit? As long as I didn’t die, it was fine.
“There’s no other choice. Those fungal bastards don’t leave any other options.”
If we were high-level, maybe some clever countermeasure would appear, but for low-levels like us, we just had to brute-force it with our bodies.
“Let’s just burn them all with Wildfire Potions.”
Potions were always the answer. If you had plenty of resources, wasting some was acceptable.
As we were deep in planning, someone spoke to us.
“Priest Mano has begun the ritual.”
Yuri gestured with her eyes. We gathered our weapons and headed outside.
#
For the ritual, Spriggan warriors took up arms. The Spriggans armed with long spears bounced lightly in place, warming up their bodies. Spriggans were incredibly tall. Yuri, who was female, was about the same height as me, and Guard Captain Seori looked like he was easily over two meters. Thanks to that, Roa standing among the Spriggans looked like a child. The only consolation was that she was adorably tiny.
“Move out!”
A cart carrying the ritual vessels, Priest Mano, and the Spriggans who would assist him joined us.
“There are a lot of people.”
“Well, it’s dangerous outside. We can’t send the priest alone.”
The explorers naturally joined the escort as well. The place where the ritual would be held was a cave not far from the village. The Phantasmagoric Heatstone where the ‘Sage of the Boulder’ slept was our destination.
Before we set off, Mano approached me and said,
“I don’t know what kind of sorcery you learned, but you’d best be careful. The Sage sees through all suspicious tricks.”
He seemed worried that an outsider skilled in sorcery(?) might interfere with the ritual. Of course, I had no reason to cause trouble. I’d have to be crazy to mess with Mano.
“You worry too much.”
We followed the path toward the cave. Then, just as we neared our destination—
“Aaaaaaaaagh!”
A blood-curdling scream tore through the front line. We reflexively drew our weapons.
“Enemies! It’s an ambush!”
The startled warriors grabbed their spears and rushed toward the fight. I looked at my party members. It seemed Roa’s future sight hadn’t triggered this time. Since it was a probability-based skill, that was possible. But the fact that Noman hadn’t noticed the attack…
“Noman! Where’s your lantern?!”
“Huh? The lantern?”
At my pointed question, Noman frantically rummaged through his bag.
…His bag?
“Here it is.”
The Seer Lantern burned with a vivid blue flame. Seeing it made me want to lose my mind.
Shibal, seriously?!
“Noman. Are you insane?”
“W-what…”
“What kind of Dungeon Seeker shoves their lantern into a bag while inside a dungeon?!”
Noman was so flustered he couldn’t even make an excuse. He just stood there blankly like a mute who’d swallowed honey. Alma and Roa ignored him, grabbed their weapons, and charged forward. I didn’t have time to dawdle either. I drew my sawtooth blade and started running.
“We’ll talk later.”
The stench of battle wafted from ahead. It was a fishy smell, like tearing into raw mushrooms. Yellow mushroom spores floated through the air. When we arrived, dozens of tentacled mushrooms were writhing and squirming, having burst through the walls. Just looking at them made me want to vomit.
“Everyone be careful! Don’t get too close—keep your distance! Watch out for the spores!”
Spriggan Seori shouted loudly as he commanded the warriors. The Spriggans moved in perfect coordination, forming a wall of spears. The mushroom bastards released clouds of spores when they died, but attacking them from a distance with spears like this minimized the damage.
“Stab!”
The Spriggans thrust their spears in unison. Mushroom monsters were torn and sliced apart by the sharp spearheads and collapsed. Then, a massive arm suddenly burst out from between the tentacles.
“Gwaaaaaah!”
“Damn it, scatter!”
One Spriggan was struck by the mushroom fist and sent flying like a spinning top. The Spriggan rolled across the ground with every bone in his body shattered. Seori belatedly ordered the Spriggans to retreat.
Crack. Craaaack…
A horrifying sound of rocks splitting echoed from the wall. Pushing aside the tentacled mushrooms, a giant mushroom titan revealed itself.
“Holy shit.”
If my memory was correct, that thing was a [Giant Walking Fungus], a monstrous entity. It was an enlarged version of a Walking Fungus—twice as big in both size and sheer ugliness.
Right at that moment—
“Get out of the way, you’re in my path!”
A sharp cry came from behind me. The Slayer, gripping her greatsword, glared at the Giant Walking Fungus with burning eyes.
“That one’s mine!”
BIG GAME HUNTER!
Damage and accuracy against <Large> enemies are increased.
The Slayer burns with fighting spirit!
Slayer Alma charged toward the massive monster, greatsword in hand.