First Dungeon Experience (1)
Every calamity begins with curiosity. Even Pandora's box, which unleashed every disaster upon the world, was opened for no greater reason than that.
Zion was no exception. Fortunately, no great flood had come to sweep humanity from the earth — but something every bit as troublesome had unfolded in its place. She stared blankly at the creature sitting before her.
"Kyuu."
"...Kyuu?"
A baby dragon had appeared before her eyes — about the size of a puppy, its body plump and squishy, its red scales glittering in the light. The little thing swept the surroundings with the sharp crimson eyes unique to dragonkin, then promptly dove straight into Zion's arms.
How on earth had it come to this? To find out, rewind about an hour.
"How long has it been since I last had some peace and quiet?"
Barely an hour earlier, in the pale hours of dawn, Zion had been stretching out a long yawn and savoring a rare stretch of calm.
Thankfully, Elena and Leon had dropped off their gifts and headed straight back. They'd looked like they wanted to stay the night, but apparently a Floor Manager couldn't leave their post for too long. Even Ifrit and Rin had left the Floor of Beginnings together.
"I'll go find a present too. Take care of the Floor of Beginnings until then."
"Don't you dare follow any strangers who offer you candy, all right?"
"What even is it with these presents. But they insisted on bringing me something, so it's not like I could turn them down."
They'd probably been spurred on by Elena and Leon's gifts. Zion hadn't bothered to stop them, though. After all, who in their right mind would refuse a free present? And these two were renowned High Rankers, no less. They would surely come back with something worthy of their names — something like the Dragon Heart sitting right in front of her, in fact.
"But what am I even supposed to do with this?"
Zion gazed at the Dragon Heart resting quietly inside its glass bottle. There was no grand reason for it. The thing had simply caught her eye — and it was both precious and, at the same time, a complete pain to deal with.
She had been lost in thought for a while when the Dragon Heart suddenly pulsed with a heavy thump, and she flinched.
"...Don't tell me this thing is still alive?"
She'd heard that a Dragon Heart was the concentrated essence of a formidable life force, but she hadn't expected it to still be beating. If she had simply marveled at that and moved on, none of this would have happened. But in that very moment, curiosity struck.
What would happen if I used Revival on a Dragon Heart?
Curiosity became action before she could stop herself.
I was going to try it out eventually anyway.
Curiosity was the biggest reason, but she also had a reasonably practical one: she wanted to see Revival's actual performance for herself. Just in case a dragon really did come back to life and start rampaging, Zion relocated to a secluded spot far from anyone.
After walking for about an hour, she set the glass bottle down in a suitable place and reached out with a serious expression.
It was a trash skill in the game. I wonder how it performs here...?
The truth was, Revival wasn't a particularly good skill in Dungeon & Soul. If even one person died, most parties would just retry the run. And even if you didn't retry, Revival's real problem was that you couldn't use it during combat. Meaning you had to stop fighting just to cast it — in which case, simply retrying was far faster.
"Revival."
The primordial law that divides life from death
The world fell silent.
The primordial law that divided life from death — an absolute command that could not be defied — was declared in this place. A sacred spiral of light, cycling as though it might go on forever, coiled tightly around the Dragon Heart that had been pulsing weakly inside the glass bottle.
KABOOM!!
The glass bottle, unable to withstand the overwhelming vitality imbued in that divine power, shattered into pieces. A crimson explosion erupted in the same instant. Then the majesty of a resurrected dragon overwhelmed everything around it.
That was when Zion realized something had gone wrong.
R-Revival isn't supposed to be this kind of skill!
Unlike her other skills, which at least had some practical use, this one had been little more than a decorative piece of trash. She'd used it casually, without any particular expectations — and yet the effect had been far beyond anything she had imagined. With only a slight exaggeration, it felt like she was watching the creation of the world unfold before her eyes.
And what came after that was...
"Kyuu."
"...Kyuu?"
The result, as anyone could see, was a single hatchling wriggling around in Zion's arms, tumbling this way and that as it played.
She had fully expected it to fail. And even if, against all odds, the resurrection had succeeded, she'd figured she could just beat the thing down. She had never imagined she would end up with an extra burden on her hands. Zion let out a sigh as she looked at the hatchling.
"What am I supposed to do with you?"
"Kyuu?"
"...You are pretty cute, though."
Watching the hatchling tilt its head while paddling its front paws, begging to be held by its mother, Zion let out a small laugh. Well, strictly speaking, she wasn't entirely blameless — she had treated a life far too lightly in trying to resurrect it.
And so the dragon became part of Zion's family.
Too late.
Fooled by that adorable exterior, Zion returned to the chapel only to come face-to-face with a brutal truth. Namely: dragons eat. A lot. And even a newborn hatchling was no exception.
"That's two weeks of my food. Gone in one sitting...!!!"
"Kyuu! Kyu-kyu-kyu!"
"And you're asking for more?!"
Stopping by the village on the way back to buy groceries had been the perfect plan. The problem came immediately after. The hatchling had demolished every last bit of food she'd purchased in a single meal — and even that didn't seem to be enough.
Stunned by an appetite that defied all imagination, Zion convened an emergency strategy meeting. The sole attendee, of course, was herself.
If this keeps up, I'm definitely going broke. I need a plan...!!
The offerings she received from spamming Heal wouldn't even come close. But it wasn't as though she could start charging people at this point, either. Zion let out a deep sigh. When it came to solutions, the answer was already decided. She had to enter a dungeon — kill monsters, make money, or hunt down something the little one could actually eat.
"And here I thought I was finally going to get some rest. I suppose I have no choice but to work again."
As Zion sat there sighing, the hatchling — its belly round and full — leaped from the table onto her lap.
Tap. Roll, roll.
She caught it just before it could tumble off like a ball, and the hatchling began rubbing its soft cheek against her thigh.
"Kyuu... purr."
"Yeah, yeah. It's not like any of this is your fault."
Zion chuckled and gently scratched under its chin. The hatchling rumbled contentedly, its eyes sliding shut.
Come to think of it, she had forgotten to give it a name. She was just wondering what to call it when—
BANG!!
The door burst open with such force it nearly came off its hinges, startling the hatchling awake.
"Zion! I'm back!!"
"Sis Zion!! I'm back too!!"
"...You two came back sooner than I expected."
Ifrit and Rin, who had left the night before, had returned. She hadn't thought they'd be back this quickly.
They froze. The two of them, who had come striding in with gifts in their arms, went completely still at the sight before them — because there, perched adorably atop Zion's pale thigh where it peeked through a gap in her pitch-black habit, was a tiny creature letting out a cute little roar.
"Hey, Zion. Is that...?"
"A-a dragon?! Sis Zion! Where did you get that?!"
A dragon. One of the most powerful monsters in the Tower. So intoxicating was their strength that there were even religions that worshipped dragons as gods. But they were as arrogant and violent as they were powerful, and to this day, not a single person had ever succeeded in taming one.
And yet, right now — at the end of the Tower's long history — someone had finally tamed a member of the supreme dragonkin for the very first time.
A hatchling, appearing out of nowhere for Sis Zion... don't tell me...
...Did that beast give her a Dragon Heart, fulfilling the first condition?
The Tower was vast, and its people many. Hidden among them were a rare few quests with truly extraordinary backstories. Those were Hidden Quests. Anyone who could clear one would receive enormous rewards. The problem was that, unlike ordinary quests, even accepting a Hidden Quest — let alone clearing it — was like plucking stars from the sky.
Even Zion couldn't resurrect a dragon that's already dead. Which means...
She must have fulfilled the conditions. We were with her yesterday, so we should qualify too.
Of course, there was a legend — not quite a legend — that a Dragon Heart's life force was so potent it would keep pulsing for decades at minimum. But bringing a long-dead dragon back to life with nothing but a single Dragon Heart was, for all practical purposes, the domain of gods.
Just what kind of Hidden Quest was this, that it had allowed her to tame that arrogant dragon? The misunderstanding began to snowball.
"Welcome back. Actually, I had a favor to ask of you both."
"What kind of favor?"
"If it's a request from you, sis, I'll do anything!"
"I'm trying to find food for this little one. Would you two mind coming to a dungeon with me?"
There was not a single person present who could refuse that request.
Translator’s Note:
'El Roscadi' and 'El' refer to the exact same character. The shortened name is used interchangeably here because that is how the original Korean raws frequently style it.