Is Seeking Encounters in the Dungeon Doomed to Fail? (1)
Six months had passed since the creation of the Magic Corps. What started as a mere prototype had now settled into something real. Everyone except Lord Revenshtil—who had already been at the third circle—had stabilized at the second circle. By any measure, that was a resounding success.
Hmm. At this rate, it wouldn’t be impossible for the entire unit to reach the third circle within another six months. If that happened, the magical corps I’d envisioned would stop being a theory and become cold, hard reality.
Knock knock knock!
“Commander, may I come in?”
“Enter.”
The door swung open and Hans stepped inside. After the training exercise six months ago, I’d placed the current five members under his command as a provisional first squad. His official title was squad leader, but with only six people total in the unit, he was essentially the vice-commander.
Anyway, I already knew why he was here.
Just the usual unit status report, I bet.
That was what I thought, but his answer caught me completely off guard.
“A dungeon has been discovered near the territory.”
“A dungeon?”
Dungeon, huh. That could turn into a real pain in the ass.
“Tell me the details.”
Dungeons. The classic monster spawning grounds or raid targets that pop up everywhere in fantasy stories. This world was no different, but the fact that one had appeared right next to our territory meant nothing but trouble.
There were several reasons dungeons formed in this medieval fantasy world, but they generally fell into three categories.
First, the area was a natural mana hotspot. Some places just accumulated mana more easily than others. If such a spot happened to contain a natural cave? Boom. Instant dungeon.
Second, a large-scale spell or artifact had condensed massive amounts of mana in a short time and corrupted the region. It wasn’t common, but it happened.
According to the stories, there was once a castle that took a powerful, wide-area magical bombardment during a war and was left abandoned for a long time. It eventually turned into a dungeon. Sounded plausible enough to me—probably a true story.
And third—most likely what we were dealing with here—an extremely powerful artifact acting as a core. When an artifact begins leaking mana due to age or deterioration, it can create a dungeon. Similar to the first case, except the cause was an artificial object rather than nature.
“The newly discovered dungeon near our lands appears to have been caused by an artifact,” Hans reported, confirming my suspicion.
“…What a goddamn headache.”
The biggest problem was that it stemmed from a powerful artifact. A regular dungeon would’ve been bad enough, but an artifact on top of it? That meant every kind of greedy bastard in the kingdom would come crawling, bringing endless problems, conflicts, and hidden dangers. We had no choice but to deal with it.
“Hans, did you hear anything from Lord Essenrot about available forces in the territory?”
“Only that it’s just us.”
The timing couldn’t have been worse. The regular monster subjugation campaign was underway, which meant all the scarce knights of Weistenfel were already deployed elsewhere.
…No helping it, then. Sure, our unit members were growing quickly, but they still weren’t fully ready.
In my book, a mage only started pulling their weight at the third circle. And the only one who had already reached that level was Lord Revenshtil.
“Hans, tell the unit to prepare for deployment. We leave for the dungeon in three days.”
“Yes, sir!”
Well, it would work out somehow. Stay positive. At least it would reduce my stress.
Three days later, we arrived in front of the dungeon.
It looked like an ancient ruin that had endured centuries of wind and rain. Thick moss covered the cracked stone decorations, making the original architectural style hard to identify. Still, Lord Revenshtil somehow recognized it and told us it was probably over three hundred years old.
Normally, the proper procedure would be to hire adventurers to scout and identify the dungeon first. But right now, both mercenaries and adventurers were in short supply. As I mentioned before, the regular subjugation season had sucked up every available fighter.
So we tied our horses to trees outside the ruins and began setting up camp. Since we might be here for quite a while, I was carefully examining the surroundings for a good spot when—
“Commander, you need to see this.”
“What is it, Hans?”
“Lord Barenfelt found traces of a campfire over there. The embers still have some warmth. It was put out pretty recently.”
So Bruno was the one who found it. A campfire… My gut was already giving me bad vibes.
“Any chance it was subhuman monsters like goblins or orcs?”
“There are no traces typical of their kind, according to the report. I agree with that assessment.”
Goblins lived in large groups, so they’d leave plenty of evidence. Orcs would’ve left behind their signature stench. If it wasn’t subhumans… then the most likely culprit was humans. People like us.
“Looks like we’ve got company.”
“What are your orders?”
My head was starting to throb. We had no idea if the people who entered first were friendly or hostile. And even if they were hostile, I wasn’t sure our unit could handle them.
“…We’re going in.”
I had no clue what variables waited inside the dungeon. But figuring that out was part of our job. That didn’t mean we were charging in blind, though.
“Hans, you and Lord Revenshtil stay behind and prepare that. We might need it.”
“…Are you serious?”
Hey now, Hans. Don’t you start too. Did you catch Bruno’s rebellious streak? Is that contagious?
“It’s for emergencies. Just prepare it and wait.”
“Understood. We’ll get it ready. What will the signal be?”
“Hmm… Let’s go with ‘Hospital’ for now.”
“Hos…pital? What does that mean?”
“It exists. That kind of thing.”
Something that blows up real damn well, in fact.
We entered the dungeon. The team consisted of four: me, Bruno, Elena, and Helmut. Helmut took point, Bruno covered the left flank, Elena the right, and I brought up the rear.
After all, I was the only real mage in the group, so there weren’t many options. And no, it’s not because I didn’t want to be exposed to danger first. If I went down, everyone else would follow. There genuinely wasn’t any other choice.
“Bruno. Eyes front.”
“…Yes.”
If you’re jealous, go hit the fourth circle yourself. The guy’s nothing but complaints.
We advanced in formation for about thirty minutes before we found traces of battle.
“Halt.”
Since we didn’t know what was ahead, I stopped the unit and had them scan the area. I did the same, and several things immediately stood out.
Burn marks scorched the walls in various places, along with deep gouges from blades. And then—
“Is that… a golem?”
“Looks like it. Probably one infused with a fire spirit. That would explain the soot on the walls.”
I answered Elena’s question.
A golem, huh… Seeing something like this meant we weren’t dealing with an easy dungeon. This was going to be pretty rough.
“Do golems normally appear in dungeons? I thought they were only used by the Magic Tower.”
That was Bruno’s question. Most nobles in the Luxid Kingdom probably thought the same, so I decided to explain.
“Golems appear in nature too. If anything, the ones mages use were modeled after the natural ones.”
The biggest difference was that natural golems housed elementals, while the artificial ones used man-made artificial spirits. There was no need to go into that level of detail, so I kept it to myself.
Upon closer inspection, the golem’s core had been cleanly split open. The body around the core also showed sharp cut marks. This was…
“To take down a golem like this… It looks like the work of a knight.”
“A knight?”
“Yeah. And not just any knight. This was probably done by someone who specializes in aura. At least upper-level Sword Expert, capable of using blade aura.”
Quite a high-ranking knight, most likely. I ruled out the possibility of a mercenary. Someone with that level of skill would’ve already been granted a title and land by the kingdom. I knew that from personal experience—my own family was exactly that kind of case.
“But wasn’t the regular subjugation campaign underway? Even Weistenfel barely had any knights left, which is why we came alone.”
“Exactly. It’s strange. This is the exact time when there shouldn’t be any knights here, yet we have clear traces of one.”
“…Shouldn’t we return and report this to His Highness the Third Prince?”
At Bruno’s suggestion, I simply shook my head. Yes, the situation was clearly abnormal. Contacting the Third Prince for backup would be the safest move.
But something told me that would be too late. I didn’t know what we’d be late for, or who was behind this. Still, my instincts were screaming that we had to push forward right now.
At the same time, my sense of danger was skyrocketing. Whatever was waiting ahead definitely wasn’t an ally. And looking at the enemy’s apparent specs, our current numbers weren’t exactly reassuring either.
Even so—
“We advance.”
I chose to press on. Sense of danger? To hell with it. If I were the type to shrink back from something like this, I never would’ve sworn myself to the Third Prince in the first place.
If I die, I just die again. Whatever. But I won’t go down easily. Come at me if you dare. If you kill me, I’ll take your head as a souvenir.