Chapter 162
Chapter 162
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 162
Chapter Title: An Unexpected Identity - 4
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Standing before the rune stele, I placed my hand on its surface and focused my mind.
A faint green light seeped into me. Some strange sensation began rummaging through every part of my body. It was a feeling I'd experienced once before, but I still hadn't gotten used to it.
With my eyes closed, I concentrated my awareness on the back of my left hand. The force that had been wildly stirring inside me gradually gathered in one spot. The back of my left hand twitched repeatedly.
Once my body returned to normal, I opened my eyes and looked down at my left hand. Next to the original Vitality Enhancement rune that had been etched there, a few more strokes of a tattoo-like pattern had been added.
‘Got it.’
With the rune acquired, my business here was done. I pulled my hand away from the stele's surface.
The rune I'd just obtained was called ‘Mana Boost’. True to its name, it had a straightforward effect of increasing maximum mana.
The boost wasn't all that impressive, so it wasn't strictly necessary, but it wasn't something to complain about either. After all, using the special ability of the Wingless Nightmare right away would consume mana.
Having fulfilled its purpose, the rune stele lost its glow and crumbled into an ordinary pile of rocks. Unlike last time, no new path appeared when the stele collapsed.
Normally, a passage leading straight back to the surface would open up, but in a short dungeon like this, retracing our steps was quick enough anyway.
As I turned to leave the boss room, I paused at the sight of the half-destroyed centipede—no, the centipede-shaped golem's corpse.
‘……Should I take something as proof of subjugation?’
When I'd faced the rock centipede before, I'd gone there specifically to acquire the rune from the start, so I hadn't needed to take the corpse. But this time, we'd come on a commission, so proof might be required.
Showing the rune on the back of my hand would probably suffice as evidence, and they could even scan its rune signature if needed, but for visual proof, nothing beat the monster's head.
‘I should ask Helga.’
I turned around and headed back the way I'd come. Yeah. No need to overthink it myself. She’d know better than me about this stuff.
“Oh.”
A short exclamation escaped Helga’s lips. It was her first reaction upon seeing the rock centipede, its upper body nearly a third vaporized. The other bunny girls wore similar expressions.
Nix, paying no attention to the corpse, hovered around me, letting out creepy, bizarre chuckles.
She kept poking at my hand, so I casually extended my left one. She snatched it and plopped it on her head, rubbing her head against it like a cat.
“So, should I take it as proof?”
At my question, Helga pondered for a moment before shaking her head.
“Mm…… It’s too big. Even if we just took the head, it’d take two or three people to carry it. Plus, if you acquired the rune, Captain, that’s the surest proof anyway.”
“Thought so?”
“Yeah. It’s a bit of a shame there’s no other loot or byproducts, though…….”
Helga’s eyes flicked around briefly. Cassandra had told us to take everything from the dungeon, so she was probably bummed about the lack of extras.
I’d known from the start there were no other rewards inside, and the rune had been my goal anyway, so I didn’t mind. But they probably did.
“I’ll mention it to Cassandra. She’ll probably give us separate compensation since all we got was the rune.”
“Good thinking, Captain.”
Helga nodded and walked over to my side, then spotted Nix nuzzling my left hand like she was about to purr. Her eyes went cold.
Her gaze quickly shifted elsewhere. It felt less like tolerating Nix’s behavior and more like she’d just tuned it out.
“Everyone, get ready to head back. We’ve rested plenty.”
The bunny girls, who’d been whispering among themselves while eyeing the rock centipede, replied with a drawn-out “Yeees~.” If it were written down, it’d probably have tildes after the words.
Maybe because they were Helga’s subordinates, but they seemed to be taking after her more and more. All wiggly and carefree, rest or no.
We retraced the passage upward in the same formation we’d entered with. Soon, a massive cavern appeared—the spot where I’d left Nix, Helga, and the regular knights waiting.
Just like in the game, a fair number of centipedes must have shown up. Rock centipede corpses littered the area everywhere.
Compared to the dozens of centipede bodies, our knights didn’t have so much as a scratch, meaning they’d thoroughly trounced them.
Not surprising at all.
The bosses might outclass them due to fundamental spec differences, but flip that around—for enemies where the spec gap was small or the knights even held the edge—these late-game field mobs could unleash ridiculous power.
Even in vanilla, a single normal attack from Golden Twilight Knights could shave off nearly half a player’s health. Imagine with the Nexla mod applied.
No need to even mention the Silver Dawn Knights, who were treated as even more elite mobs than the Golden Twilight Knights.
“By the way, Captain.”
Helga, who should’ve been at the rear, sidled right up to me. Wondering what was up, I turned to her.
She glanced at Nix, who was walking a bit away, her massive chest flopping with each step, then whispered in my ear.
“By any chance, does smashing corpses hold some special ritual meaning for witches?”
“Ritual meaning? What’re you talking about?”
No exaggeration—it was the first I’d heard of it. I’d never seen a document about black magic enemies ripping up bodies to find meaning in them. Never overheard such a conversation either.
“No, that witch did it. See that gravel pile to your right? That used to be a centipede. She turned it into that.”
Helga’s finger pointed to a scattered heap of gravel on my right. Impossible to imagine it had once been a monster. Just a roadside pile of rocks.
“……That was originally a monster?”
“Yeah. She smashed it up alone after the fight.”
“Hmm…….”
I racked my brain, but nothing came up.
I had read about some black mages enjoying vivisections, but even they did it for experimental purposes, not pointless smashing.
“Oh, and when I asked why, she gave a weird answer.”
“Weird how? What’d she say?”
“When I asked what meaning that action had, she said ‘here,’ it has none. Could’ve just been her saying it to sound cool, but who knows.”
‘Here,’ it has no meaning.
A totally baffling statement. Emphasizing ‘here’ implied it did have meaning elsewhere.
Nix’s personality was hard for even me to pin down, so the true intent behind her words was a mystery.
“Dunno. I’ll ask her once we’re out. She might give a straight answer if it’s me.”
“Ah, right. She might if it’s you asking, Captain.”
Recalling how suspiciously well Nix obeyed me, Helga nodded in understanding and stepped back.
Honestly, I was a little curious too. What did she mean by ‘no meaning here,’ and why say it?
Maybe she’d just made it up to sound edgy, but it was worth asking.
Whether Nix had overheard our conversation or not, she trailed right behind me with that same creepy smile.
In turn, the distance between her and the surrounding knights had widened a bit compared to the way in. Her corpse-messing antics had probably played a part.
“ Ah……! You’re finally out!”
As we grabbed our stacked armor and exited the dungeon, Cassandra appeared right beside us, accompanied by a knight.
Her anxious face lit up the moment she saw me. The female knight behind her noticeably brightened too upon spotting us.
Her eyes, filled with relief, fixed on us.
The knights behind me looked shocked that the lord herself had come all this way, but I wasn’t surprised at all—I’d seen it plenty in the game.
‘Though a lot’s different.’
In the game, it was just the lord, her most trusted direct knight, and the player—giving a real sense of secrecy.
But not now. With Helga and even her regular subordinates having gone in and out of the dungeon, things were anything but secretive.
With an outsider like Nix along too, there was zero sense of confidentiality.
‘Well, they’re not the type to blab first.’
Unless Kaikilia personally grilled them on what happened, they wouldn’t go around announcing we’d cleared a rune dungeon.
If their lips were that loose, they wouldn’t have been assigned to the imperial palace in the first place. All we could do was hope Kaikilia didn’t chew them out.
“How’d it go?”
“You can relax now. It’s handled.”
“……Thank goodness.”
Her tension released, Cassandra swayed unsteadily. The female knight behind her quickly steadied her shoulder. Cassandra wiped the beads of sweat from her forehead with a handkerchief and spoke.
“Was the mental strain that bad? You don’t look well.”
Cassandra shook her head slightly.
“Not for that reason. Until just now, an inexplicable dread had me shaking all over, barely able to stand. Strangely, the moment I laid eyes on you knights, it all faded. My poor complexion is probably from that.”
‘Oh? Come to think of it…….’
With Nix nearby, Cassandra should’ve been gripped by fear, unlike the knight behind her. I scanned the surroundings with that in mind.
The witch with her purple-and-green hair, short and squat, was nowhere to be seen.
Seeing me look around, the knight right behind crossed her index fingers into an X. I got the message and nodded inwardly.
She’d probably teleported away the instant she saw Cassandra, figuring conversation wouldn’t work with her there. Surprisingly considerate, I thought.
Though the timing was a tad off, leading Cassandra to misinterpret it as calming down upon seeing me.
‘Alright, what happens next?’
I calmly waited for Cassandra’s next words. What she said here would determine how the main story unfolded from mid-game onward.
Precisely, it depended on the player’s actions from the start up to now, with Cassandra just delivering the info. But we’d skipped straight to the middle.
The story from here hinged entirely on her.
Trying to chase the story at this point was kinda funny, but preparing wouldn’t hurt.
“Um…….”
Cassandra’s lips parted.