30. Is It Wrong to Try Shoveling in a Dungeon? (2)
30. Is It Wrong to Try Shoveling in a Dungeon? (2)
"Looking at it like this, I still can't really tell..."
Ten minutes had passed since I'd used the zombies that had been protesting on the other side of the wall as test dummies for the new shovel, caught one, cut off its limbs so it couldn't move, and started observing it.
As expected, I couldn't make heads or tails of it.
If this was a zombie someone had made, I'd expected there'd be a mark or trace of some kind somewhere on its body, but regrettably, no strange mark or anything turned up on the rotting, decaying skin.
Ah, I really did not want to dissect it.
Having to dissect that hideous thing was practically self-torture.
If I cut its belly open, maggots would probably come pouring out. The thought was horrifying. Even if I had survived ten years by eating insects, maggots were another matter entirely. What kind of lunatic would want to eat maggots from a rotting corpse?
...Still, I had to do it.
I wrapped a cloth around my face and used the shovel to cut open the limbless zombie’s belly. Just as I had expected, white maggots wriggled out from among its organs. I had seen sights like this more than once, but that didn't mean I could look at them without flinching.
Digging through it with the shovel felt like a bit much. Was there a decent branch nearby?
Ah, this'll do.
I fetched a fairly long branch from nearby and prodded around inside the zombie’s belly. Every time I poked something, green liquid spurted out, carrying a stench that felt as though it would take hours in the shower to wash away. Was its body full of this stuff? I was no doctor, so I had no idea what the green liquid was. All I could tell was that there was a lot of it.
Since it came out no matter where I poked, I began to suspect it might be blood. Blood was the only thing that normally came out wherever you stabbed a body. Of course, it could also have been some kind of venom...
"...What the hell are you doing?"
There was no way cutting open its belly and pushing its organs around with a branch would actually tell me anything.
You absolute blockhead.
I dug a hole with the shovel and rolled the zombie into it. The zombie, too rotten to even make decent fertilizer, let out a groan as if pleading to be taken out and stared at me, but I answered by shoving dirt into its gaping mouth.
"Should I dissect the other corpses too?"
It felt as though the answer was just out of reach.
An easier way—ah.
I could simply bring Karina over and ask her. She was the Saintess, so if some chuunibyou-style force was acting on the zombie, she'd probably notice immediately. Had I just wasted my time?
No. I had at least finished testing the shovel, so the work had not been completely pointless.
I let out a deep sigh and turned around.
First, I would head home and bring Karina back.
I went straight home, got Karina and Reni, and returned to the spot where I'd dumped the zombies into the pit. Karina peered down into the pit I pointed at, then immediately slapped a hand over her mouth and stumbled backward.
"Urp..."
"Karina? Are you all right?"
As expected, the sight was probably too gruesome for Karina. Showing her a corpse with its entrails torn open, drenched in green liquid that smelled worse than rotting food waste, had not been the best idea. It was no ordinary corpse, either. Seeing the insides of something even more grotesque than a bloated drowning victim would have been viscerally revolting.
"You don't have to look; I just want you to check one thing. Do you sense any strange energy?"
At my words, Karina nodded, her face pale as a ghost.
"...Yes. I-I sense a corrupt energy. The kind you'd only feel from a dark Wizard..."
...Damn. It looked as though there really was something inside the dungeon. The very existence of zombies on an uninhabited island was strange. This world felt far too real to function like a game.
"...I don't like this."
I really didn't like the feeling that the deeper I dug into this dungeon, the more layers of questions seemed to pile up.
What was the true nature of this island? What lay inside the dungeon? And what exactly was the maelstrom surrounding the island?
Would all my questions be resolved if I reached the bottom of the dungeon?
If none of my questions were resolved,
if I couldn't leave this island,
what was I supposed to do then?
With a complicated tangle of feelings, I spoke to the two of them.
"Let's head back for now."
I filled in the pit with the shovel. The zombie, which had been thrashing about with its mouth stuffed with dirt, was swiftly buried and fell silent.
I set off back to the house with the pair, both of whom were staring at me with strange expressions.
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I sorted the provisions into the new pouches by type. One sack of dried fruit. One sack of dried meat. Two sacks of salted Hydra meat that were so salty I could hardly tell whether they were meat or blocks of salt. Even that much should have lasted us about a week.
That assumed we kept to the prescribed portions.
I was taking only this much because we planned to scout the dungeon entrance first.
We needed a rough sense of the entrance before I could work out how many supplies we would need.
While I was at it, I quietly added clearing the area around the dungeon and building a proper camp to the list. We could not keep traveling from the house to the dungeon and back every time.
The rule for any expedition was to establish a nearby camp so travel would be easy. Of course, once night fell, the zombies would probably mistake it for Halloween, charge out without reading the room, and start singing the Halloween classic “Thriller.” All we had to do was call for Karina.
Even if those bastards swarmed us by the hundreds, we had the ultimate weapon, Karina.
The only thing left for us to do was shout, "What can you do?! What can you do besides get yourselves purified while going uuuuaaaagh!"
"Y-Yohan?"
"What is it...? Why are you looking at me like that?"
"Um, you were saying it all out loud..."
Karina looked away with a strained smile. The moment I heard what she said, I averted my gaze with an equally awkward expression. Reni’s stare burned into me.
Ah, I could hardly breathe.
The suffocating awkwardness seemed to dance around us, demanding that someone say something. It was painful. But why was I acting awkward too? It wasn't as though I'd insulted anyone.
Composed once more, I nonchalantly gathered the provision pouches and shoved them into the Hydra-leather backpack I'd painstakingly made.
The backpack was made from material so extravagant that anyone seeing it for sale would have wondered what an absurd waste of money it was. It greedily swallowed the food pouches and then the waterskins.
This one's Reni's.
"Reni, carry this bag."
"You?"
"This is my bag."
I jabbed my thumb toward a bag rivaling the size of the military gear I'd had to lug on every forced march during my Republic of Korea Army days. Inside were the household odds and ends to set up at the camp, a newly made sledgehammer, and meticulously sealed containers of poison dust. All of it was harvested from mushrooms. Poison might not work on zombies and skeletons, but since there was a possibility other monsters existed, there was no harm in bringing it along.
"Yohan, isn’t my bag a little too small?"
Karina pointed to a bag barely twice the size of a handbag. A trace of guilt and unease showed on her face.
She didn't need to look so apologetic.
Her role inside the dungeon would require her to cast magic repeatedly, so it was better to keep her load light. Considering that role, she could have gone empty-handed. I'd packed a token amount of baggage only because I thought she might feel guilty otherwise, which made her apologetic expression even less necessary.
"It's fine."
"But..."
"You have an important role. Just focus on doing that well."
"Yes... I'll do my best!"
The sight of her clenching both fists and steeling herself was adorable. A beautiful woman really did look cute no matter what she did. I was glad Karina had been the one shipwrecked on this island. If it had been some hulking man, I'd probably have buried him by now.
Of course, even if that had really happened, I'd probably have kept him alive somehow and used him for labor or something.
"Yohan? Um..."
Ah.
"...Let's depart immediately."
I slung on my bag in a flash and stepped out the door.
I could hear Karina and Reni's voices calling for me to wait as they scrambled to follow from behind, but I coolly pretended not to hear them and kept walking forward.
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There were a damn lot of them.
I blew off the fifty-ninth zombie's head with the shovel and wiped the sweat beading on my forehead.
The animal friends who would've handled the zombies in our stead had vanished, so I felt as if the genre had suddenly shifted from Animal Kingdom to some cheap horror survival indie game.
Thinking about it, the comparison really was fairly accurate.
Crafting, building structures, killing zombies, even something resembling a mine. At this rate, suicide units might start appearing next.
"Yohan! I think we've cleared out the whole area by now!"
"Got it! Keep watch around the perimeter! I'm going to make camp!"
All right. Time to work out the dimensions.
I'd use the clearing near the dungeon and build a camp the zombies couldn't enter. If the only way up was by ladder, it would also be easy to defend in an emergency. I'd set up pillars, build the camp on top of them, and...
"A bit too noisy for sleeping."
This was why houses belonged away from busy transit hubs, not in prime station-adjacent neighborhoods.
The rich didn't gather in quiet, out-of-the-way neighborhoods for nothing.
"Maybe it'd be better to just seal off the dungeon entrance completely."
If the noise was going to keep me from sleeping, the most logical solution was to eliminate the source of the noise. I called Karina and had her use holy magic, the natural enemy of all undead, then stacked materials near the pool in front of the dungeon entrance and waited.
"O Kalon..."
The effect was incredible.
The moment Karina began reciting a prayer so soothing that merely hearing it made me drowsy, the zombies reacted. They all burst into pure white flames, crumbled into handfuls of ash, and scattered on the wind. If it was that easy, had there been any need for me to run around so frantically? I should have listened to Karina and wiped them out with holy magic from the start.
Had I been too protective of such a valuable asset?
Whatever. I would get started, finish quickly, and take a proper rest.
"Craft."
I built a bridge over the pool Karina had cleansed of poison and zombies. The wood and earth I'd piled nearby writhed and began taking shape, gradually forming a bridge.
I knew nothing about architectural techniques such as arch construction, so it was simply a stone bridge built for strength.
It did not need to last for centuries. It only had to remain intact until we finished exploring the dungeon, so there was no reason to fuss over construction methods.
"Craft."
I sealed the entrance completely shut with a wall made of dirt and stone, leaving no exit... then I made a door of an appropriate size and fitted it into a space I'd left empty beforehand in the wall.
That would keep monsters from charging out of the dungeon and make the place quiet, at least for now.
As a test, I pressed my ear to the door and listened for sounds from beyond it. From the other side of the door, only the faintest wailing could be heard.
Mm. Good.
Now it was time to build the camp.
I returned to the clearing, placed the materials as I'd estimated, and activated the Skill.
"Craft."
The greatness of Skills.
A two-story wooden building appeared in the middle of the clearing, something that might have taken an ordinary person days to construct. Karina and Reni stared up at it, repeatedly exclaiming in amazement at my building skills.
Karina was the first of the two to stop marveling and speak to me.
Surely it would be a compliment...
"Yohan, how are we supposed to get up there?"
Ah.
I forgot the ladder.