Rotten Dreams: What is Death?
Truth be told, the question of what death is felt pretty meaningless to me, someone who'd become a skeleton long ago.
I'd never feared death.
With a body that was already dead.
Death was some distant yet close unknown to me.
But to all the living, the concept carried a complex weight.
Frightening. Terrifying.
Anyone who's experienced loss has probably cursed death at least once.
But for a rare few, it meant something different.
An escape.
Or the eternal rest they'd longed for.
Yeah, just like the person right in front of me now.
"Please... kill us all."
Who in their right mind dreams of death?
Hell, even I was desperate to cling to life.
The desire to live is the most primal instinct.
You eat to sate your hunger.
You sleep to rest.
At the root of every desire lies that fundamental drive to survive.
So this woman was defying her very instincts.
Honestly, I couldn't wrap my head around it.
Why did everyone keep begging me to kill them?
The woman in the goblin nest.
Torumo here now.
Why were they all so desperate to die?
Here I was, busting my ass just to live even a single second as a human.
"Rejected!"
Clack!
Of course my response was a flat no.
Life's precious—get that through your skull!
What you treat so lightly could be someone else's lifelong dream!
It was like watching a rich fool whine about poverty with a treasure chest right under their nose.
If you don't want it, hand it over to me.
Then I wouldn't have had to agonize over it at all.
"Please, I beg you! If this goes on, all that's left for us is ruin!"
I was resolute against Torumo's desperate plea.
I wasn't running a charity.
Far from a saint, either.
A life-devouring monster.
An undead who hated the living.
That wicked role suited me far better.
So naturally, I felt no misplaced pity.
It wouldn't be skeleton-like at all!
"Please... just grant my request this once..."
"......"
Torumo's pleading voice nearly shook me for a moment, but I held firm.
After all the wanderers I'd beheaded, was I really going to cave to some woman's tears?
I wasn't that soft a skeleton!
"If you grant my request, I'll tell you the location of a warehouse filled with the kingdom's treasures!"
But her next words flipped my attitude in an instant.
Rattle!
I rushed to her, shoving my abyss-filled eye sockets right in her face.
Damn, why didn't you lead with that?
No need to waste those precious tears, lady.
"......?"
Torumo looked baffled by my sudden shift.
Cash upfront? Now we're talking customer service.
Requests? Happy to oblige.
For the right price!
"Y-You'll... grant my request?"
"Of course!"
Clack!
I enthusiastically clacked my jaw.
A thrill surged through me for the first time in ages.
Time to rev the engine.
My body itched to slaughter everyone in this dungeon right now.
But how do you kill immortals?
The question popped up suddenly.
Come to think of it, that skeleton knight had the immortal curse too, yet I'd killed him without a second thought.
Shouldn't an immortal survive even a severed head?
Why'd he die?
I had no clue how to off these undying bastards.
"You're chasing a Star, aren't you? That means you can kill us."
Torumo pierced right through my dilemma.
Star chaser.
Why did everyone call me that?
From Gular's explanation, any monster blessed by the Nameless Tree got dubbed that.
Honestly, I still didn't fully get it.
"A Star is like a vessel, in a way."
The most basic vessel for becoming a transcendent being.
They call it a Star.
Did that mean anyone could hold one?
"Sadly, no."
Torumo shot that down quick.
"You need a destiny worthy of it. People call it a god's blessing."
Got it.
So only those blessed by the three trees could bear a Star.
For Nameless Tree folk like me, it tied to evolution and inheritance.
For humans blessed by the Platinum Tree, wanderers became Star chasers.
"In the lab one floor below, we hid a potion to stop King Grayus's regeneration. Use it to kill the king. Then the people whose souls are linked to him will find peace."
A secret weapon to collapse his infinite regenerating flesh.
Kill the king, and everyone soul-bound to him drops too.
No need to hunt them down one by one!
When I asked why they'd made such a thing, Torumo just smiled oddly and stayed silent.
Too lazy to press, I left the room.
Stepping into the hall, I spotted countless shadow wraiths drifting through the first floor.
So each of those has a person trapped inside, huh.
Locked in slime, half-unconscious, in a space where time crawls.
A prison within a prison!
Feeling an eerie vibe, I headed deeper.
Rattle!
No threats in sight, I strolled leisurely through the Forgotten Shadow Underground.
Hardly felt like a dungeon.
It wasn't built for that purpose anyway.
A safe haven to wait out centuries until they found a way to lift the curse.
Traps or monsters here? Not weird at all.
No resistance, smooth sailing to basement level 2.
The vibe on 2 was different.
Unlike floor 1, a sinister gloom hung heavy.
Looking closer, shapeless things writhed across the floor.
Human flesh chunks.
Once whole human bodies, now shattered fragments crawling aimlessly.
The immortal curse was no joke.
Still alive like that.
Amazed again by the ancient dragon's power, I pressed on.
Layout same as floor 1.
Difference? Hieroglyphs above the long hall's doors.
Spotting the one Torumo mentioned, I paused.
'Laboratory'
The anti-regen potion's inside?
I flung the door open, gripping my sword for surprises.
"......"
Good—silent inside.
Double-checked safety, then entered.
Ancient build, so nothing fancy despite the lab label.
Just unlabelled potion vials of unknown age.
And parchment scribbled with hieroglyphs I couldn't read.
This is real skin?
Touching it, I flinched.
Not paper.
Rough animal hide texture.
Pre-paper civilization, huh.
Hit home how long they'd suffered.
Better not piss off that ancient dragon.
Firm resolve set, I scoured the lab.
Then, deepest corner.
Found it!
"Clack!"
I rushed over.
Unlike the ceramic vials, this one had a smooth, translucent glass-like sheen.
Instinct screamed: this neutralizes the king.
Rattle.
Tucked it safely in my leather pouch, then bailed.
Through the chilling floor 2 air.
Finally, basement level 3.
Grayus's pad, right?
Yeah, ominous aura from the entrance.
Unlike other floors, just a vast open space.
One massive door.
Obvious.
Boss of this dungeon—and root of it all—sleeps inside.
Loosened stiff joints with arm circles, then stood before it.
Door covered in hieroglyphs.
Still couldn't read a damn one.
Rumble...
Pushed hard; ancient groan as it creaked open.
And then, a message I'd never seen popped up.
The room's walls and floor caked in rotten blood and flesh.
"GRRAAAAAHHH!!"
At the center, a greedy mass of meat howled at me.