Visitors from Another World
Floors 1 through 5 move along even if you don't particularly do anything, and there's no separate main quest either. Looks pretty close to a tutorial.
The Gatekeeper on Floor 5 feels like a tutorial boss whose whole job is to tell you that if you can't handle this, you won't be clearing anything from Floor 6 on.
Why is the place packed with things on the level of the Floor 5 Gatekeeper? You attack, they block. They hit you, and it hurts like absolute hell.
And it isn't even just one of them. I'm telling you, my quick-draw still can't handle a crowd.
The beast-headed man introduced himself as Rufus. Supporting his wounded comrades, he invited us to the temporary camp where his people were staying.
"...Shall I treat your wounds?"
"There is no need. Wounds of this degree are familiar to us. If anything, when the body is whole, one is more likely to lose one's mind and charge in, just as they did a moment ago."
"Is that so..."
Yoon Se-ah had spoken out of worry, watching the other beasts limp along with blood still running; Rufus only shook his head. True to his words, they seemed to have come back to themselves for the moment, jarred into clarity by the fight just past — and yet their hostility toward us had clearly not vanished. It felt less like peace than like they were reading Rufus's mood, and holding themselves back because of it.
"...They are children whose minds are not whole. I would be grateful if you could understand."
"Is there some circumstance behind it?"
"...It is difficult to speak of just yet."
With that, Rufus said nothing more. Yoon Se-ah, who had been carrying the conversation for the rest of us, closed her mouth as well and quietly drifted back to our side.
"Doesn't look like we got anything useful."
"No..."
"They said they'd tell us, and if they're just going to clam up like that, we don't really need to be considerate either, do we!"
"...I wonder if that head would be all soft and fluffy if I touched it."
Faced with Rufus's silence, Seo Arin beamed and said something chilling. Her fingers kept straying to the hilt of her sword; it didn't sound like a joke. Jeong Hayun, meanwhile, was staring at Rufus's head and entertaining an entirely different sort of thought.
"We have arrived."
We must have reached the temporary camp he had spoken of. Rufus came to a halt and turned to look at us, and I glanced around.
"Tents!"
"...They're tents."
"Saw a lot of these camping."
Just as Seo Arin's group said, tents had been pitched.
...The same kind I'd seen plenty of in military training.
The wounded beasts disappeared into their respective tents, and Rufus led us into the largest of them.
"I fear I have nothing to offer you. My apologies."
"It's fine! So, you gonna tell us about yourselves now?"
Once he had confirmed that we were seated in the chairs inside the tent, Rufus nodded at Seo Arin's words and took a seat of his own.
"Of course. If there is something you wish to know, you need only ask."
"Just tell us everything about you guys!"
"...You don't have to say anything that's hard to talk about."
"...Yes. You have my thanks for the consideration."
So saying, Rufus let his gaze drift, looking over each of us in turn. Then, slowly, he opened his mouth.
We are the remnants of a defeated army. Soldiers who lost a war.
The kingdom granted us the power of beasts so that it might have victory, but that power was nothing more than an experiment — an experiment whose only purpose was to produce a single finished specimen.
The kingdom dressed the matter in fine words. No. Perhaps it had never meant to dress it up at all. From the moment we gained a beast's power, most of my comrades began, little by little, to lose their reason.
The longer we fought while bearing that power, the more we cried out with the voices of beasts. For us, already being eaten away by it, war became a kind of play. A play of hunting prey. Our revulsion toward slaughter thinned away, and we tore the soldiers of the enemy kingdom to pieces.
And with the data gathered thus, the kingdom made new beasts. Most of them came out looking as we did, but now and then a specimen superior to the rest was bound to be born — beings who, unlike those of us able only to mimic a beast's kick or the beat of its wings, had drawn truly close to the beast itself. With their appearance, the tide of the war turned our way.
Our master. At the king's command, beasts beyond counting tore into the enemy nation.
But the other side did not simply endure it. Those called knights appeared. Their armor was harder and stronger than our very bodies. One swing of their swords split three beasts in half. One arrow they loosed ran five beasts through.
The king must have seen how the beasts' morale collapsed at the knights' coming. Whether to restore it or for some other cause, he introduced the new weapon of war he intended to create.
A weapon of war he had boasted would become the strongest beast of all. The kingdom fell before it could even show us that weapon.
"...So that's what happened."
"So? How did you end up here?"
"The kingdom gave me an order. My platoon was to be sacrificed so the king could escape. In the midst of that, a voice came to me."
"It asked whether I wanted to live."
"It asked whether I wanted to save my men."
"After the voice had said as much, an unknowable rift opened before my eyes. I leapt through it together with my subordinates."
"And this is where you ended up."
"Yes. Even so, we had no intention of attacking those who originally lived in this place. However... my subordinates, once freed from their master's control..."
Rufus looked out beyond the tent with sorrowful eyes.
So this was what came of slipping free of the king's control.
"Then why are you all right?"
"That, I do not know myself. Whether it is the influence of that voice..."
"Huh."
"So for now, you don't mean to hurt the villagers, right? Okay, got it!"
With that, Seo Arin shot up from her seat.
"We'll go tell them about you!"
"If that is the case, then I should accompany you as well..."
"No, no. If you're gone too, the beasts here are just gonna lose control all over again, aren't they?"
"..."
"Just leave it to us! All right, let's go, guys!"
At Seo Arin's words, Jeong Hayun nodded and rose. I meant to get up and follow, but Seo Arin came over first, caught my wrist, and pulled me to my feet.
I do know how to stand up on my own.
Yoon Se-ah looked from Rufus to Seo Arin with a worried face, then rose as well.
"...You have my thanks. Then, if you would..."
"Yep, yep! We'll be back!"
With those words, Seo Arin stepped out of the tent and started toward the village.
Core Quest (Floors 6–10)
When every related quest is cleared, the path down to Floor 11 will open.
✓ Help the Adventurer's Guild obtain information on the outsiders.(Complete)
☐ Share the information on the outsiders with the Adventurer's Guild.
The quest had advanced in the meantime. As we made our way toward the village, Yoon Se-ah came up beside Seo Arin with a carefully worried look.
"Arin. What if the village starts worrying about how dangerous they are?"
"That's something those beasts have to prove. It isn't something I have to prove, is it?"
"And if they can't prove they aren't dangerous?"
Even with Rufus holding them in check as best he could, there was every chance we would run into beasts that had slipped that control, just as we already had. Proof, in other words, was close to impossible. At my question, Seo Arin whipped her head around and looked up at me. That bright, beaming smile of hers turned my way.