33. Is It Wrong to Try Shoveling in a Dungeon? (5)
33. Is It Wrong to Try Shoveling in a Dungeon? (5)
"Ish sho goob... mowr..."
"Talk after you've swallowed what's in your mouth."
I watched Millia devour the salted Hydra meat with tears streaming down her face and could not help feeling sorry for her.
She ate while crying so pitifully that it was difficult not to sympathize.
Maybe I'd toss it a bit more gently next time.
"Hey, Milla?"
"It's Millia!"
"Right, Millia. Something I'm curious about... when you eat, where does it go?"
"Into my body, obviously!"
How did that even work? Did anything she swallowed warp directly into her stomach? As Millia ate ordinary salted meat with the rapture of someone savoring the finest steak, the three of us exchanged looks, all wondering how her head remained connected to the rest of her body.
It felt as though we'd encountered a genuine conundrum—an entirely pointless one.
We finished our painfully salty meal upstairs in the camp and sat in a circle. Naturally, Millia occupied the center. Looking bothered by all three of us staring down at her, she spoke.
"I'm never talking about the dungeon!"
"We gave you food."
"Would you like to be purified?"
"Looks like you want to get embedded in a dungeon wall again."
"...Where should I start?"
Persuaded by our peaceful discussion, Millia wilted like a frightened puppy.
What should I ask first?
"Who is that bastard?"
"Uh... !@*$#!&"
"What?"
"It's !@*(&$(!&(*#!! That bastard! Traitor! Pervert! A guy who can't even open a wine bottle by himself!"
"Did anyone catch that?"
I looked between Karina and Reni, but both shook their heads. Was this some kind of security measure designed to prevent information leaks? If so, bringing Millia here and feeding her had been pointless.
"What's under this dungeon?"
"Underneath there's a (!*@()!#$&(!@$ㅛ(!#!"
"Anyone get that?"
Was everything connected to the dungeon censored? Then what about the corridor...? Right, I had read the answer from her eyes. Perhaps I would have to use her as a portable navigation device. Having an informant who couldn't provide information was deeply frustrating.
Information was the most important resource for survival, yet our source couldn't provide any. It felt as though we'd struck another obstacle. If that was the case...
"Then I suppose we’ll have to feel our way through it ourselves."
"I gave you information, so just one! Just one more!"
"I couldn’t understand a word. Hey, did that bastard do something to you?"
"I don't know! That bastard !@*!#)(!ed, so I got slammed into the wall right away!"
Damn censorship. Whoever he was, he took security seriously. Opponents like that were the most troublesome. It seemed we had no choice but to descend one floor at a time. Before that, I would return home for more supplies.
Since that chatterbox was greedily wolfing down our rations.
"I’m going back for supplies. You two stay here and rest."
"Can you carry it all back by yourself? I can..."
I reached out to stop Reni from rising, then silently pointed at Karina and Millia. Fortunately, she understood that I wanted her to guard them and sat back down. Looking up at me, she said,
"Take care. If anything happens, at least shout."
"Probably won't come to that."
It would have been difficult to encounter danger on an island where we had eliminated every threat—unless I did something stupid like walk into one of my own traps.
"Please come back safely."
"You gotta bring lots of food!"
Did she think I owed her a stockpile of food? I smacked Millia on the head for the brazen demand, then opened the camp door. Until recently the forest had reeked, but now it carried only its own fresh, green scent.
I stuck my head out to check the ground and set my foot on the ladder.
-----------------------
"Today we’ll explore the second floor. Has everyone packed properly?"
"Yes! I've packed everything!"
Karina answered brightly and nodded. She looked cute whenever I saw her. I turned to Reni, who stood with a bag nearly as large as she was and stared at me as though asking when we would leave.
"Wait, you're going like that?"
"Is there a problem?"
"We don’t know what might happen in there. Going in bare-chested seems a little reckless, doesn’t it?"
"Yeah, he's right! Why aren't you wearing a top! There are three women here!"
This had to be the umpteenth time someone had pointed it out. Her concern was reasonable. We didn't know what dangers awaited us, so I should at least wear leather armor that offered some protection.
"Got it."
I took out the leather armor I'd made earlier and put it on. It used hides from the Alpha Bear family, so it should have offered at least some protection. When I looked at Reni again, she was staring at me in surprise.
"You actually put it on?"
"Who do you take me for, a savage?"
"Well... every other time I asked you to put something on, you refused..."
Had she? I did not remember.
It was hardly important. We should simply get moving.
"Anything else to pack? If not, we're heading out."
We left the camp and walked toward the dungeon. The only sounds in the forest were occasional birdsong and brush rustling in the wind. The weather was so pleasant that it almost felt like a picnic.
Even if our destination was a dungeon.
The dungeon entrance remained closed, exactly as it had been the previous day. The door had apparently survived the night intact. After all its usual noise, the dungeon’s silence felt unsettling.
Did clearing the first room stop the zombies from respawning?
Just in case there was any danger, I didn't open the door right away. Instead, I knocked on it with the back of my hand.
Knock, knock, knock.
"It's quiet."
The zombies had apparently not respawned. That raised another question: how were they created in the first place? I lifted Millia, who was chewing jerky, and met her eyes.
"Millia. How do zombies come into being?"
"I don't know either!"
...You really were no help at all.
I hung Millia from my waist again and opened the door. The hinges scraped, revealing the same dark passage as the day before. With my shovel ready, I leaned into the darkness and checked the surroundings. Nothing moved. I turned and signaled that it was safe.
Then three lamps lit the dungeon.
"First, we'll make a round of the first floor, then go down to the second."
The cave was exactly as it had been right after I destroyed the lights yesterday. That was only natural since just one day had passed, but this wasn't a place where common sense applied. Just recently, this very spot had been a trap that made you wander lost via bizarre illusions. After completing a boring circuit, we went down the stairs to the second floor.
The descending staircase was long. After walking through the darkness for some time, the light from our lamps finally struck a wall.
No, this was a door.
I grabbed the doorknob that reflected the lamplight and turned it.
And we reflexively shielded our eyes.
"It's so bright..."
"This place..."
A light embedded in the ceiling blazed brightly, far more powerful than those in the first-floor corridor.
And then...
"It's swarming with undead."
"What in the..."
Undead here, undead there. Zombies, skeletons, and ghostlike creatures wandered through a field of tombstones. This seemed to be where the zombies and skeletons were created. Fortunately, we'd emerged on a hill some distance from the graveyard. When I stepped through and looked back, the door appeared to be floating in midair.
I felt as though I had seen something like this in an old cartoon.
"This place looks bigger than the island itself. Whoa, how the hell does a space like this even exist..."
"I've heard that dungeons are spaces completely separate from the world we live in. They also said that's why their size and shape are unrealistic."
We had a Status Window and Skills, so it wouldn't have been strange for the dungeon to function like an instanced dungeon from an RPG. If so, Karina’s explanation that its interior existed separately from the outside world also made sense.
"Millia. Recite everything you know about this second floor."
"!*@&*!(#$"
"Just keep your mouth shut."
As expected, I couldn't understand a thing. I brought her along thinking she'd be useful, but at this rate, I might have to seriously consider dumping her somewhere. Or purifying her, like Karina suggested.
"Why?"
"Do you not know how your voice sounds to others?"
"What do you mean? There you go spouting weird stuff again. Anyway, I said what I said, so give me food!"
Millia truly seemed unaware of how she sounded. That meant obtaining information verbally would be difficult. I ignored her demand, crouched on the hill, and surveyed the second floor again.
Whatever had happened here, rows of tombstones covered the ground. Hands thrust out of the soil like a scene from a movie, followed by zombies dragging themselves free. It was a floor packed with the most stereotypical kind of undead. Even a rough count suggested that the zombies wandering through the graveyard easily exceeded a hundred.
Hmm.
Where was the way down to the third floor?
I looked around, but nothing resembling a door was in sight.
The door would probably appear only after we solved some kind of gimmick.
I lifted Millia's head and met her eyes. Millia looked at me as if asking "What?" and opened her mouth.
"Why? Gonna give me food?"
"Where is the door to the third floor?"
"Mmm~!*@&*#$(!$!"
Exactly as expected. Millia was predictable too. I didn't miss the instant her eyes moved to the right—the direction she had indicated.
I looked to the right. The same tombstone-covered ground stretched out as it did ahead of us, with nothing visibly different. But since Millia had glanced that way, the door was probably there.
It was possible she was attempting some elaborate psychological trick, but that suspicion melted away when I saw her drooling and staring at me as though demanding food.
There were better things to be suspicious of.
No matter how I looked at her, she had the intelligence of a neighborhood mutt. Psychological warfare, my ass.
"Wh-what? Why are you looking at me like that?"
"...Nothing."
I shoved the jerky into Millia's mouth.
"What do you plan to do now?"
"Sweeping all of them away doesn't exactly seem like a good approach."
"First, we should find the way down. Before that, we’d better hide."
Was there another passage for zombies to come up to the surface besides this one?
That'd have been fortunate, but unfortunately, it didn't seem to be the case.
I pointed at the zombies and skeletons that had suddenly begun walking toward us.
"They're coming."