39. Is It Wrong to Try Shoveling in a Dungeon? (11)
39. Is It Wrong to Try Shoveling in a Dungeon? (11)
"Millia. No, I guess you couldn’t hear me without a head..."
A heavy impact traveled through the shovel handle. The blow wasn't overwhelmingly powerful, but it carried enough weight that I had to retreat several steps before I could absorb it.
"You really do follow every cliché."
Had the creator been inspired by a horror game? Before the headless attacker could swing its axe during its second charge, I kicked it in the stomach. It sprawled across the floor. It was weaker than I had expected—or perhaps I was stronger than I realized. The attacker rose as though the kick had meant nothing and picked up the fallen axe.
Dragging this out wasn't good.
I checked my surroundings. For the moment, I was blocking the exit toward the altar. I couldn't let it get past me. Killing it would have been easier, but the owner of that body was probably...
"Could you at least give me a moment to think?"
I blocked the axe, unable to tell whether it was red from dried blood or had always been that color, like a fire axe. Without a head, the attacker’s emotions were impossible to read, but it was clearly trying to kill me. My arm throbbed. Its strength was as grotesque as its appearance.
I couldn't keep defending forever.
I twisted the shovel handle. The axe sliding toward my head slipped aside, throwing the attacker off balance. I used the opening to kick its ankle and knock it down. My first kick had shown me that its body was surprisingly light compared with its monstrous strength.
The moment it fell, I kicked the axe far out of reach. Then I pulled the zombie powder I'd prepared from a leather pouch, poured it over the attacker’s hands and feet, and activated my Skill.
"Craft."
Fortunately, my Skill worked on the zombie powder without issue. In an instant, the powder hardened into round spheres around the attacker’s hands and feet, pinning them in place. Bound like this, it wouldn’t be able to move.
"Yohan?! Are you all right?!"
"Wh-what? What's going on? Are you okay?"
Familiar voices came from behind me. The crash of the falling axe must have alerted them. I looked toward Karina, who was holding Millia, and spoke.
"Millia. There's something I need you to look at."
"What..."
Karina came to stand beside me with Millia in her arms and looked down at the attacker my body had hidden from view.
"N-no head..."
"Calm down, Karina. I've bound its hands and feet so it can't move. Millia, is this your body?"
"...It's similar, but it's not my body. My body is definitely..."
Millia trailed off with a confused expression. Was the body merely a copy modeled after hers? She'd said herself that it wasn't her body. In any case, what was I supposed to do with this dangerous bitch? As I watched the attacker struggle, I remembered the second room.
It would not be able to escape if I locked it in the cage, unless it could pass through iron bars like a ghost. I hoisted the attacker over my shoulder and carried it to the second room. Fortunately, nothing there had changed. I shoved it into the cage, locked the door with the key, and returned to Karina and Millia.
"That just now..."
"It appeared after I finished searching the rooms. It was probably waiting to ambush me, but..."
"What a relief. If you'd been hurt..."
"It's nothing compared to a Hydra."
At least it wasn't the size of a house, so it had not been especially difficult to handle. I had subdued it easily enough. I picked up the axe from the floor. In the light, blood was clearly visible on the blade. What a vicious-looking weapon.
Still, it looked useful. If necessary, I could give it to Reni and let her put it to work. I slung my shovel across my back and gripped the axe with both hands. Its heavy weight and rough handle settled into my palms.
"I'm going to regroup with Reni, so wait here. If that headless bastard pops out again, run straight to me."
"Yes."
I headed straight for the left corridor. Were there five rooms on this side as well? I didn't know where Reni was. Either sound from the rooms didn't carry into the corridor, or she was being unusually quiet. The lack of an answer made me uneasy.
"Reni! Can you hear me? Answer me if you can!"
Why was she not answering? Had something happened? I strode to the first room and opened the door. The room was familiar, identical in layout to the first room on the right, except gloomier and far more disordered. A broken crate lay in one corner. Had Reni smashed it?
I wanted to search the room, but confirming Reni’s safety had to come first.
I opened every door while searching for Reni. All the rooms appeared to share the same layout, though the ruined furniture made their original forms difficult to recognize. The cages had been ripped apart entirely, and the rooms were in a jumbled order that made everything even more confusing.
If the right corridor had presented Millia’s life in chronological order, what did this side represent? Suppressing the question, I reached the final room and found Reni searching inside.
"What, you’re done searching already? And what’s with that axe?"
"No. I came to check this side. I found the axe. Did you discover anything?"
"...Found a few disgusting things."
Reni pulled several grotesque objects from her pocket: a heart, lungs, a liver, and a spleen. Were these the offerings for the altar? This side must have contained puzzles as well, so how had she solved them? When I looked at her questioningly, she scratched her cheek and averted her gaze.
"They kept telling me to find some weird passcode, and it pissed me off, so I smashed everything with brute force. The organs were inside..."
"I guess a weak body would have made you use your head..."
"What?"
"Nothing."
Brute force left no room for clever tricks... After gaining that useless insight, I accepted the pouch of organs. I hadn't expected to obtain the altar offerings in such an absurd fashion, but a win was a win. Since I wanted to reach the end of this unpleasant dungeon as quickly as possible, I could hardly complain.
"Looks like we've gathered all the offerings for the altar."
"Yeah? Then let's get out of here. I want to get out of this creepy-ass place as fast as possible."
"I agree, but something is bothering me. Did you find a notebook?"
"A notebook... you mean this? I couldn't make head or tail of what was written inside."
I took the notebook from Reni and opened it. As I flipped through the pages, red writing near the middle caught my eye. Was this the passage she had not understood?
[Since God placed the universe within a mortal body, offer the microcosm to God. The unbeliever chosen by Him shall be the most pleasing sacrifice.]
...What did that mean?
Was it hard to figure out because I lacked information, or was it just hard to make sense of because it was bullshit?
No, perhaps the mistake was trying to understand cult gibberish in the first place.
Still, I could at least tell that it wanted us to offer the organs.
"Let's get out for now. And the moment we're out, look toward the dead end of the corridor."
"Okay."
We left the room and looked toward the dead end. A headless attacker stood there with an axe in hand. Judging from the men’s clothing, this one was male. I'd mistaken the other one earlier, but now the distinction was clearer.
Was that the fate of those who gained eternal life?
They couldn't die even after being decapitated and continued living as puppets—a miserable fate worse than death. Was the man Millia's older brother, and the woman her older sister? I had no idea how they could still exist when their corpses were here, but looking for common sense in a dungeon like this was pointless.
"Reni, hold him off. I'll place these on the altar."
"Yeah. Make it quick. And lend me the axe."
I handed Reni the heavy felling axe. She took it in a practiced stance, as though she'd used axes often, and swung with all her strength at the headless man charging like a hunting dog. After watching him fly into the wall like a ball, I returned to the altar and looked at Karina.
"Karina, I am going to place the offerings on the altar."
"Sacrifices...?"
Karina tilted her head. Then she saw the internal organs in my hands, recoiled in horror, and stared at me.
"Th-those are..."
"Organs. Probably..."
I noticed Millia watching and let the sentence trail off. I had no intention of telling her exactly what the objects were. The truth would have been too great a shock. I quietly placed the eye, heart, lungs, spleen, and liver on the altar, then stepped back.
...Why wasn't there a reaction?
"Did I get the order wrong?"
Had there been a clue to the correct order that I'd missed?
I stood before the altar and rearranged the offerings at random. After about five minutes of trial and error, the ground began to rumble, apparently because I'd finally placed them in the correct order.
"...Brute-forcing it worked here too."
I was glad that getting it wrong a few times hadn't triggered traps or anything.
I sighed in relief and looked at Karina, who had approached with Millia, and Reni, who had appeared beside us at some point.
"Do you want to go down immediately? Or..."
I flicked my gaze upward to look at the ceiling.
Retreat, or advance.
"Let's just finish this fast."
"Yes. I don't ever want to set foot in a place like this again."
"...Then let's go down."
To the fourth floor.