36. Is It Wrong to Try Shoveling in a Dungeon? (8)
36. Is It Wrong to Try Shoveling in a Dungeon? (8)
"I have no idea how many zombies must be piled up on the first floor by now... Even if we purify them, what if the entrance gets so clogged with zombie ash that we can't get out?"
"That sounds frighteningly plausible..."
There was no denying it. The endless procession of zombies climbing toward the first floor made it seem as though the doughnut-shaped corridor would be packed to bursting. We waited until the last of them disappeared beyond the stairs, then began searching for the key, starting near the staircase to the third floor.
"We'll circle clockwise from here and inspect the gravestones. Reni, deal with any zombies or skeletons that approach. Karina, examine the gravestones with me."
"Yes! I'll do my best!"
I liked the determined look in her eyes.
"What about me?"
"Keep breathing."
"What's that supposed to mean? I'm smart too! If a puzzle like this fell into my hands—"
"You don't have hands."
"...That's so mean!"
Millia's expectant face immediately fell.
She couldn't move around by herself anyway. She could roll, but I was not about to let her tumble across a floor covered in dirt.
...More importantly, I might need Millia to help check the inscriptions on the gravestones, so I couldn't leave her behind.
She had explained the shameful head, and if the history behind this dungeon went back centuries, her knowledge might prove useful.
We moved immediately. Time was limited, so we had to finish the search as quickly as possible. Somewhere among at least a hundred gravestones, we needed to find the bodies that would serve as the key.
"The zombies are going to keep chasing us, so don't wander too far."
The two of them nodded solemnly. It was time to begin.
We began circling the graveyard and inspecting the gravestones.
"Lena Sigmund? That's the same surname as the one near the coffin earlier."
That made two.
"Here's one with the surname Karkason, too."
Karkason? I'd heard that surname somewhere before.
"Karkason..."
Millia had been unusually quiet, so I looked at her when she suddenly reacted. She murmured the surname Karkason with a complicated expression, as though a memory were just out of reach. Was something about it bothering her?
"Millia. Do you know anything about the surname Karkason?"
"Uh... it feels familiar. But I don't know..."
It was a strange answer, but it might still provide a clue. I immediately asked her another question.
"Millia. Do you remember your own surname?"
"I don't remember...)@*#(&$#()"
Apparently, Millia had more secrets than I'd thought.
That also made it clear that her secrets were connected to this dungeon. It would have been better if I could determine how, but I'd have to work it out myself. I stroked Millia's head a few times as she looked dejected by the memory she could not reach, then returned my attention to the gravestones. There were still many left to inspect.
My eyes moved busily from stone to stone. Sigmund, Karkason, Fallon, Haze... countless surnames passed through my mind. We had to find a surname shared by five people and retrieve their remains. It was an irritatingly grindy puzzle, but at least it did not require any difficult reasoning.
None of us could exactly be called the brains of the group.
Karina was well educated, but not enough to call her the brains of the group. Reni went without saying, and Millia wasn't much different from her. That meant I'd have had to rack whatever brains I possessed to solve it, and honestly, thinking wasn't exactly my strong suit.
Physical labor like this suited me much better.
"Melina Karkason. That's the third person with this surname."
"Sigmund is next, with two."
Finding three Karkasons after completing roughly a third of the circuit made that surname the most likely candidate. I drove my shovel into the grave before Melina Karkason's gravestone and activated the Skill.
"Craft."
A cross made of earth rose from the ground. It was as tall as a person and easy to see from a distance. Sigmund got a square pillar, while Karkason got a cross. I continued through the gravestones while thinking of structures distinct enough to tell apart. As a bonus, whenever a zombie broke through the soil, I planted my shovel in its head and sent it back underground.
After a while, the graveyard had filled with all kinds of structures: round pillars, square pillars, crosses, shapes resembling chess pieces, and...
"Why did you make a sculpture of me?!"
"Couldn't think of anything else."
"It's annoyingly accurate!"
The brown, earthen Millia my Skill had reproduced with 100% accuracy wore a strangely irritating grin. Had my subconscious image of Millia been reflected in it?
"Still, does it not look rather nice? It feels like a sculpture you might see in a plaza, so it's—"
Before Karina could finish, cracks began spreading across the sculpture's face. They widened until the head was on the verge of splitting vertically in two. As everyone watched in speechless silence, a rotten arm thrust out through the sculpture.
Of course, it was a zombie.
It was strong, too.
I kindly split the head of the zombie that had burst out after shattering the sculpture. The sculpture's split face did not return to normal, though.
"My heaaaad!"
I looked away from the head sculpture that had collapsed under its own weight and turned to Karina. Wearing a troubled expression, she looked back and forth between Millia and me.
Why was she looking at me like that? How could I have known a zombie would crawl out at that exact moment? I sighed and put a piece of jerky in Millia's mouth. She immediately quieted down, though the aggroed zombies kept approaching.
Naturally, Reni cut off all their heads and sent them rolling across the ground. When it came to protection, she really was a top-notch Escort Knight.
"Now that we've made a full circuit... the Karkasons must be the family mentioned in the clue."
"Seems so."
Melina, Asmond, Natasha, Pater...
...and Millia.
Five names.
"Millia. Is there really nothing you remember?"
"...I can’t remember... but it feels familiar."
Millia answered in a confused voice and stared blankly at the gravestone. What did it feel like to look at a gravestone bearing your own name? We silently looked down at her.
After a moment, I reluctantly spoke up.
"...Then there is no need to dig up yours separately."
"Underneath, there's !@*&(!$!"
Even though the end of her sentence had been censored, I understood the gist. She meant there was nothing beneath her gravestone. I looked toward the other Karkason graves. Digging up someone else's grave felt wrong, but we had no choice if we wanted to clear the floor.
I picked up my shovel and headed off to retrieve the bodies of the Karkason family.
-----------------
"Kalon, please forgive our trespass..."
I wondered whether I should join her in prayer. I hated praying, but for some reason, it felt appropriate this time.
I sighed as I looked at the four corpses we had dug out of the graves.
"Whoever made this dungeon is one sick bastard..."
I turned toward the voice beside me. Reni was staring down at the four corpses with a sickened expression.
I could not have agreed with her more.
The four corpses had looked perfectly intact until only moments ago, almost as though they were still alive.
They looked as though they might start breathing at any moment. And we were supposed to cut them apart and put the pieces into the coffin? Was this really right?
"This is insane."
We still had to do it. In the end, this was just a trick meant to mess with the heads of anyone exploring the dungeon. I adjusted my grip on the shovel and looked at Millia.
"..."
I couldn't get used to the sight of Millia, normally as excitable as a puppy, quietly staring at the people presumed to be her family.
"...Millia."
"...What?"
"Is it all right if I do this?"
"...It's fine! I don't even remember their faces anyway! They aren't my family! Kill them!"
Intense hatred poured from Millia's final words. Apparently startled by what she'd said, she widened her eyes and looked up at me.
"...Karina, take Millia aside for a bit."
I couldn't make her watch this.
I raised the shovel, took a deep breath, and brought it down, determined to finish quickly.
...It was a job I never wanted to do again.
I was used to cutting through flesh, but chopping up the family of someone I knew was another matter.
I shoved a piece of salted meat into my mouth to distract myself from the unpleasant feeling. The insane saltiness scattered my thoughts. After reburying the corpses, we moved to the coffin. Its lid stood open as though asking why we had taken so long.
"Millia."
"...Hmph, put them in already!"
Once the four limbs were in their proper slots and Millia's head had been placed in the final slot, we heard metal scraping. Naturally, it was the sound of the door opening.
We stared at the staircase beyond the door. Would we have to descend for ages again?
...Did we have to go down immediately?
We looked at one another, then toward the shelter.
"We should pack up all our things before we descend to the third floor."
"Karina, wouldn’t it be better to get some fresh air first? After everything today..."
"...We brought plenty of food. Let’s get some sleep before going down."
Everyone nodded at my words.