My First Skill (3)
[Gatekeeper Gallery]
Title: So what do you guys think it is?
Author: RockAndRoll
We’ve never even seen a rank like that before.
Anti? Animal?
└BeeK★: Isn’t it obvious? It’s an anomaly. Doesn’t it look like an abnormal phenomenon to anyone with eyes?
└BeeK★: The real question is how we’re supposed to package this thing, isn’t it? The word itself is already too tainted to say plain.
└HotPlace*: Why not just call it an animal, then? The newbie seems to think it’s a rabbit.
└BeeK★: Well, maybe for now that works.
└BeeK★: But are puppets only ever animal puppets? What if they make a human puppet later and an AN-rank shows up again?
“Haa. Fair enough.”
Seoyeon, posting as HotPlace, had no choice but to agree.
Even in that brief moment, some clueless gallery user had already made it painfully obvious. The more and more of those little doubts piled up, the higher the chance someone would start recognizing the perception filter.
And casually telling them the word anomaly was dangerous, too.
└BeeK★: So use that tiny, lowborn brain of yours for once, all of you. Do I really have to come up with every bright idea for you people?
└RockAndRoll*: Damn, this bitch is fucking annoying.
“…Should I just go over there and drag her out.”
For a split second, HotPlace even considered heading to the dungeon where the senior moderator was, burning with irritation.
Of course, that wasn’t actually possible. Visiting another dungeon was not something you could just do because you felt like it.
There was a hefty point cost, and a cooldown on top of that. For the next month, she wouldn’t be able to visit another dungeon.
Besides—
“Forget it. I should earn some points myself first.”
She’d already spent a bit too much buying things for the newbie, and her own points were getting dangerously tight.
Work is beginning!
Intruder detected: multiple sixth-circle mages of the Blue Tower.
Intruder detected: a swarm of B-rank modified artificial lifeforms.
For now, she should make up the shortage first. If she wanted to keep showering the newbie with gifts later, after all.
“…The next job will go smoothly too, right?”
She brooded over it for a moment, then recalled the photos that had been posted in the gallery and shook her head.
It had been a pointless worry.
The pictures the newbie had uploaded—the ones that seemed to be of her dungeon—looked like a place even she, no matter who she was, would never want to set foot in.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
“Fuck. What the hell is this place?”
David nearly dropped his weapon on the spot. What lay before his eyes was not something you could just forget so easily.
It was a forest.
At a glance, it looked like nothing more than a thick stand of trees.
But something about it was fundamentally wrong. And not just the forest itself.
“What kind of space is this that gives off this disgusting fucking feeling—”
So much was wrong.
The grain of the bark seemed to open and close like eyes. Even standing still, it gave the uncanny impression of movement.
What brushed the tip of his nose was not the fresh scent of grass, but the thick stench of iron you’d expect from an old cage.
An offensively yellow light blocked out the view just ahead, the ground was so unnaturally wet it felt like stepping through blood, and the wind was sharp enough to slice his skin open at any second.
“S-sir. Something’s wrong. I-it’s just like when we ran into that ogre last time. My body, my body won’t… move.”
Between them, a single red thread seemed to slip inside and stab into everyone’s bodies. A murderous intent scraped at their nerves, as if demanding a reaction.
It was pushing them from behind. Toward that path—the eerily clean one where the trees seemed to part for them.
Toward the road wrapped in light.
He had enough experience as an adventurer to recognize it. No—he felt as if anyone would recognize it instinctively.
This space itself was something alive.
And.
Something that possessed will.
“S-sir. Wouldn’t it be better to turn back now? T-this is wrong. Instinctively, it feels like we shouldn’t go in—”
“Shut up!!”
David glared as if in fury.
He looked almost as though he were the one who’d been frightened.
In fact, he was. The thick, crawling malice flying in from all directions had every nerve in his body on edge.
Even standing still.
Even moving.
He was already struggling under the tension.
“Have you lost your mind? It’s still just an F-rank dungeon! It’s gotta be an illusion, or some trick! That’s all this is!”
“B-but it’s strange, isn’t it? Even for an F-rank dungeon, this atmosphere—”
“Then you want to run, is that it?”
David snarled.
“My little brother dies, and now the older brother runs away scared from some F-rank dungeon? You want me to sit here and listen to bullshit like that?!”
“T-then what do we do? The others can’t move a single step either.”
“It’s only an illusion! If it’s annoying, just smash it all to pieces!”
David rummaged through a mercenary’s things, then pulled out a flint and struck it over and over again.
Whoosh—!
The spark leapt at once and caught on the trees. There was no crackling of burning wood.
Instead, a revolting stink spread instantly, like beast hide being seared.
And still David forced the corners of his mouth upward and shouted.
“See? It can’t do a damn thing to us! It’s just decoration!”
His subordinates slowly began to move, too. As the flames licked higher and the weirdness seemed to peel away little by little, their bodies finally loosened.
“I-I can breathe again.”
“I can move!”
“Tch. You cowards, getting spooked for nothing…”
David shot a reproachful glare at them. It wasn’t just contempt.
…Something’s off.
There were still plenty of things bothering him.
That bastard Frank saw this and still didn’t run? The guy who was all bluster but scared shitless?
There was no reason for his brother to die. The feeling had been horrible, sure, but someone like Frank should have been able to tough it out and run.
Fuck. Did the demon bastard kill him because he fainted from the shock or something? That’s the only possibility.
But his brother had vanished.
And then—
Why the hell is that path still fine?
Even though much of the forest was now caught in flames, that single path from before remained untouched.
As though it was still telling them there would be no problem if they went that way.
…Fuck it. It’s still just an F-rank.
“Move! We’re taking that path!”
Even if the whole thing felt wrong, there was no retreating now. David’s judgment stayed the same.
The fire had definitely worked. Whatever this forest was, it was making a sound like a beast screaming, or like thick pus bubbling up and boiling.
David’s mercenary band rode that momentum and entered the road.
Convinced they’d made the right call.
.
.
.
“S-sir. I think w-we need to turn back.”
They’d been walking for quite a while now.
Still no road in sight. The front, already obscured by the yellow glare stabbing at their eyes, was now hidden by a foul smoke.
It felt like they’d lost their sense of direction entirely. Even though they were clearly walking straight ahead along the path, the only thought in their heads was that they were somehow still circling around the same place.
“I c-can’t breathe—cough! Cough!”
Fuck, this doesn’t make any sense.
Suspicion seized David. Nothing about any of this fit common sense.
For an F-rank dungeon, it was absurdly large. They’d already been walking for what felt like hours, and still no boss room was in sight.
And this smoke? What the hell was this smoke? At this point the entire forest should have been burned to the ground, so why in the world did it keep seeping toward them?
“Hup—!”
He poured mana into his axe and swung it. The smoke should at least scatter a little, but it didn’t budge. Then this had to be an illusion.
“I-it’s already too late. We should go back now, just to save our—”
But it was hard to breathe. The stench of rot and scorched flesh vibrated in his nose and mouth like it was real.
“Shut up! Shut the hell up! This bastard’s been at it since before—if you’re going to keep spouting that crap—!”
David spun around. He meant to silence the one who’d been whining nonstop.
But.
“…What the hell. You. Where’d the bastard behind me go?”
“Cough. What? What are you talking about, sir?”
“Don’t play dumb. That bastard’s been whining behind me this whole time!”
“W-we’ve been quiet, sir. What are you talking about—oh. S-sir! Behind you, behind you!”
“Behind me? What’s behind me?”
David whipped around quickly. But nothing was there.
“What are you saying? Why the hell are you all—”
“H-hhhaaaah! W-why is there an ogre here?!”
One of the subordinates who had been answering him strangely all this time suddenly broke into a panicked run. Yet even when every sense was sharpened to the limit, there was still nothing there.
And still the man ran. As if he had truly seen something, he charged ahead without caring about the road—then—
“What the fuck are you even—”
Thud—
He stepped off the path.
“Wai—”
Crunch! Splurt! Crack-crack-crack—!!
“A-AAAAAAH!!! AAAAHHHHH!!!!!”
“…Huh?”
David reached out helplessly. The other mercenaries rushed over, trying to grab him and pull him back.
But before they could—
His whole body came apart. His eyes, his arms, his bones scattered everywhere.
“W-what the fuck is—”
“Y-you bastard! AAAAAAH—!!!”
Another man reached out to save him. But he met the exact same end.
The moment they left the path, blood sprayed everywhere. They thrashed so violently that it splattered across David’s face as well.
“...W-what. What the hell is this—”
And yet he could not move. Even with two of his subordinates being shredded in an instant, he couldn’t even swing his axe.
“A-ah! I’m sorry, Father. P-please, don’t hit me anymore—”
“W-why the hell are you here!!! I-I killed you! I buried you in the ground with my own hands—”
What lay before him was that kind of sight.
All the adventurers were trembling like leaves, eyes wide with terror. They backed away as though they were staring at the one thing they feared most, something that had no business being here.
“Are you insane? Why is everyone—”
“D-don’t come closer! If you come any closer, I-I’m your parent too, so—AAAAAAH—!!!”
“F-fuck, die! Just stay dead! I already apologized, so what did I even do wrong, you—KAAAHHHH!!!!”
And then, every single one of them met the same end.
They recoiled in fear. They stepped off the dirt path and into the grass.
And were torn apart. Every last organ scattered across the ground and the forest, never once remaining connected.
...I-it’s an illusion. It has to be an illusion too. It has to be, it has to—
“B-r-o-t-h-e-r?”
Ah.
A chill ran down David’s spine. The voice from before. But it hadn’t belonged to any of his subordinates.
And yet it was familiar.
So.
This was—
“P-p-please, go b-b-back a-at l-l-east no—”
Frank’s voice.
David swung his axe. He took a rough breath and hacked at the empty air over and over again.
There was nothing there. It was an illusion. Frank had died here.
Then why was this so vivid?
David clutched his head. The stink of rotting corpses, the smell of burning hides, the reek of blood—all of it was thick in the air.
Is everything an illusion? Where does it start? From the moment I entered the dungeon? Or from when my men started dying?
And then.
Between the especially untouched thickets, something sharp—terribly sharp—flashed.
The thing that had just shredded his subordinates—
“Aaaaaah!”
David ran hard along the dirt path, trying to shake off his fear. It was his only way out.
But it felt like everything kept following him. The smell of blood. The disgusting stink. The deaths of his subordinates.
He kept running.
For a long, long time, until he could run no farther.
.
.
.
“Haaah, haaah.”
It had to be a dream. Only a dream could make any of this make sense.
“Fuck. Fffuck. Fuck. Fucking hell!!! Why, why is this happening to me!!”
Gurgle—
But his body’s own instincts denied it. He was hungry. It felt like he’d been running for hours, maybe days—he had no idea how much time had passed.
He had to survive.
“B-r-o-t-h-e-r?”
He had to escape this absurd hallucination. This damned dungeon. Somehow.
Even while he ran, that voice kept following him. So it had to be an illusion. His brother couldn’t possibly run that fast.
“If I ignore it, it’ll go away. If I ignore it, it’ll go away, if I just—”
He muttered the words to himself and bit down on his lip. It had already split and bled several times, but he had to endure.
It had to be hallucination, after all. He needed to wake up from the pain. If he wanted to survive, he had to do whatever it took.
If I just go back the way I came, I’ll find the exit. I just need to make it out alive somehow. Then, then—
David’s brain raced at top speed. Fame and pride and all that had long since been forgotten. The only thing that mattered now was getting out alive.
If I ignore the voices, that’s enough. I can just cover my ears and run—
Rustle—
But then.
Something touched him.
“…Huh.”
It wasn’t an illusion. When he absentmindedly lifted his arm, the thing against his body moved with it.
David slowly turned his head. At some point, a long, vine-like thing had attached itself to his body.
But it wasn’t a vine. It was redder, and at the end of it was something round...
“Ah.”
“B-r-o-t-h-e-r?”
A mouth.
It was a mouth.
Something with only nerves and a mouth wriggled there. The nerves, blackened in places as though scorched by fire, ran all the way into the tree.
There, too, hung something round, something smaller. It blinked and blinked and blinked—
“…Fran, k?”
His brother’s eyes.
...No.
That wasn’t Frank.
Frank was dead.
There was no way he could be alive in that shape.
“W-why d-didn’t y-you come b-back—”
But he couldn’t deny it.
Those were his brother’s eyes, all right.
It wasn’t an illusion either. The nerves were writhing and coiling around David’s body. The sensation was revoltingly vivid.
It was his brother. It wasn’t his brother. It was his brother. It wasn’t his brother. It was his brother. It was his brother. That was my brother Frank, all right.
“A-aah...”
He was alive. His brother was alive.
Alive in the most horrifying way imaginable.
Torn apart and disassembled and ripped to pieces, his brother was glaring at him with both eyes and begging him to live at least long enough for that—
“B-brother, at l-least you m-must s-survive—”
“Aaaaah—!!!”
Ah.
Was that all?
Rustle—
“S-s-sir...”
David’s gaze lifted. Red vines, tangled together with nerves, hung from the trees.
His heart, his kidneys, his liver, his lungs, his spleen—each shredded into pieces and strung up between the trees. Mouths that were left with nothing but lips opened and closed, saying something to him.
“D-David, s-sir, p-please, p-please save me—”
“P-please kill me. P-please, j-just kill—”
All the subordinates he had come in with.
What had once been his subordinates.
“Aaaahhhhh—!!!!!!”
Alive and hanging from the trees, unable to die, unable to live, every part of them torn apart, begging him to kill them, their bodies writhing in agony between the trees as they wailed—
Crack—
David took a step back before he knew it.
His foot barely remained on the path.
But the hand that lost its balance reached out and touched a blade of grass at the edge of the road.
“—Ah.”
The last thing he saw was
the inside of a giant mouth with a horrifying spinning saw blade turning inside it.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
“Hmm...”
I realized something pretty surprising.
I was watching the intruders right now. At first I was a little scared because they had barged in out of nowhere and even set the forest on fire, but...
“Why are they acting like that?”
After that, they turned out to be really not that big a deal.
I mean, even I, who’d been so scared I kept peeking through my hands with my eyes half covered, had figured out the rabbit’s attack pattern, hadn’t I?
They could have just kept following the dirt path straight to where I was. Those guys only used body slams on people who stepped on the grass.
“They just had to follow the road. Why did they suddenly start marching in place? And why the heck were they turning around?”
Still, the intruders’ condition was just weird. Why did the last guy back away when he saw the fruit? And why was he screaming like that?
“Mmm...”
Maybe this world—
Success! Intruders neutralized!
Difficulty relative to rank: impossible.
300 points have been awarded!
The enemy was defeated without any damage!
300 additional points have been awarded!
All intruders have been successfully neutralized!
A bonus item reward has been granted!
The dungeon can now be promoted!