Something Really Is Off

[You are currently on Basement Floor 2.]

Capturing the guard captain and using his key, we had descended to the second basement floor. Unlike the corridor-shaped first floor, this level was considerably more spacious. Both the width and breadth had grown far larger, and the ceiling seemed to have risen by a good two meters or more. The scorpions stationed here were sparse, but judging by their size, their total numbers were probably far greater than before.

Ting~

An octagonal coin rolled across my fingers, leapt into the air, and promptly fell back into my palm. Etched into the golden coin's face was a scorpion emblem.

"They hand out tokens right away. I suppose abandoning mid-run must be an option, then?"

By default, a dungeon only tallies up your rewards once every scenario and event has concluded and you've reached the ending. The Crab Dungeon we'd visited before only settled our points at the very end, yet here we were, given tokens for clearing a single floor.

"Of course not. I'm planning to go all the way to the end."

It was my first hidden dungeon in a while, so there was no question of stopping early. The murals painted across the ruins had piqued my interest too, and above all, this place was Pharaoh's domain now. I ought to at least know what lay beneath my own land.

Kragak! Kragak!

Unlike the first basement floor, the condition here wasn't hunting — it was destroying statues hidden somewhere in the ruins. Breaking the statues was all it took to go deeper, so there was no real need to kill every scorpion wandering about, yet Pharaoh crushed each and every one that came into view. These guards were five to ten levels higher than the ones we'd seen earlier, but whether they were level 5 or level 50 meant nothing to him.

Dalkak.

My footstep sank slightly into the floor. As the sound of a mechanism engaging clicked somewhere, I tilted my head, and a razor-sharp arrow whizzed past right beside me. A trap — the kind you'd find in any ruins. But in a dungeon of this level, the arrows were no joke; an ordinary ranker caught by one would have taken serious damage.

"Pharaoh?"

Pharaoh, who'd been marching ahead smashing scorpions, glanced back at me. I pointed at the arrow buried viciously deep in the wall.

"Would have ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠been nice if you'd warned me beforehand."

"Was a warning necessary?"

Traps were no trouble at all, not for me. In the past I'd passed through ancient ruins where monsters slumbered more times than I could count, and each time I'd seen traps of outlandish ingenuity. Even if one actually hit me, I seriously doubted it could leave so much as a scratch.

Still, since he was the one blazing the trail ahead, wouldn't it have been courteous to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠clear them out first? At my words, Pharaoh curtly turned his head away.

"...From now on, I will deal with them."

"By the way, we've been circling around for a while now. Is there a statue nearby?"

"No."

"Then why are we looping around?"

"I am eliminating all of them."

"Sorry, what?"

What on earth was he talking about? I'd entrusted the navigation to an expert who supposedly knew this place inside and out, and the expert himself was headed in a completely bizarre direction. While I stood there questioning him, three more scorpions turned to sand.

Even accounting for how arrogant he was, this reaction was hypersensitive. I could count on one hand the times he'd been this touchy, even back in the day.

"Is it really necessary to kill them all?"

"If a worthless vermin cannot even distinguish its place, does it deserve to live? Better that it becomes part of the desert."

Having said his piece, Pharaoh quickened his pace. Was he genuinely upset, then? But I knew Pharaoh. When his feelings were hurt, he didn't shirk his duties or refuse to work. He remembered the day, long ago, when he tried to turn an entire continent into desert and was stopped by me — the day his soul was sealed. A sealing he could never escape, never resist. And no matter how considerate I was toward the sealed monsters in general, I didn't extend that courtesy to beasts who threw their weight around uninvited.

And Pharaoh knew that fact very, very well.

I debated what to do, then simply looked down at the floor. The traps — the ones I hadn't bothered to notice at all, because I'd assumed Pharaoh would handle them.

Dalkak. Dalkak.

"...?"

Kugugung...!

The wall bearing a mural of a scorpion with both pincers raised high split open, and a sandstone golem came thundering out with heavy, pounding strides. A yellowish golem, guardian of the ruins. Before the creature could even finish clenching its fist... it collapsed into sand and scattered across the ground. At the same moment, a ceiling panel studded with hundreds of cold iron spikes descended — and it, too, was crushed to sand at a single gesture from Pharaoh. All of it happened in the blink of an eye.

"...What are you doing?"

"I stepped on a trap by accident. Oh, right — it would have been nice if someone had warned me."

"......"

Pharaoh turned his head away. I followed behind him and triggered five more traps.

Pressure-plate traps, the most basic kind, and wall switches that sprang mechanisms when pressed. Every time I set one off, Pharaoh's expression hardened a little more, and finally I even opened a treasure chest that was — to anyone with eyes — practically screaming I am a trap. A mimic popped out, but before I could so much as lift a hand, Pharaoh had already dealt with it. Even behind that golden mask, I could somehow tell exactly what his face was doing.

"Oops. My bad."

Pharaoh, standing tall and rigid, glared at me. Even miniaturized, he was far taller than I was — but I wasn't about to back down. If I had fussed over and coddled every petty issue like this, I never could have kept all those countless monsters ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠in line. In the end, it was he who yielded.

"...Fine. Let's go."

"Good decision."

The behavior just now wasn't like Pharaoh at all. Thousands of years sealed inside the Void Space, presumably — the shock of returning to the desert must have thrown him into confusion. Above all, the fact that his dominion no longer held sway here must have hit him hard. It would be like a low-tier vampire refusing to obey the Progenitor's commands, if you compared him to Rasty. Rasty would have handled it a little differently, but either way, I'd have tried to reassert control somehow too.

I gazed at the mural. A scorpion wearing a golden crown swallowed something whole and was moving off somewhere, and behind it, countless scorpions marched endlessly onward.

"We're here."

We had reached the statue. It was a scorpion, as expected, carved from gray stone — bigger than the regular guards but smaller than the guard captain. It looked much like the other scorpions, save for a band of gold engraved around its neck.

"I'll break the statue. Standing around doing nothing was starting to itch."

"Do as you like."

I drew out the White Savior and shifted it into its hammer form. Gripping the hammer in a reverse hold, I brought it straight down onto the statue.

"?"

Messages crowded my vision. It seemed Pharaoh had killed only a tiny fraction of them — beyond the corridor, I could sense the presence of hundreds of scorpions. Pharaoh cracked his knuckles as if to say this suited him fine, but I raised a light hand to stop him.

"Stay back."

"The vermin dare to—"

"They're coming for me."

Kagagak! Kagagak!

"You don't steal another's prey."

Hundreds of lights flickered beyond the corridor. At the same instant, light flickered in my hand as well — the White Savior, brimming with pristine holy divinity. The hammer swung in a wide arc and swept through the horde of scorpions. Hundreds of them burst apart, and the maze-like corridors blew wide open. A colossal explosion shook the entire floor.

The Scorpio statue has been destroyed!

The Scorpio statue has been destroyed!

All statues have been destroyed.

The quest was cleared.

With a pleasant chime, the key to the third floor dropped, along with another token. Catching them both, I stared out at the utterly hollowed second basement floor. The walls, the scorpions — everything had been annihilated, and even the torches mounted on the walls had vanished, leaving the space in pitch-black darkness. I clenched and unclenched my fist around the hammer's haft, looked up at the ceiling, and then lowered the hammer at last.

"Something really is off."

"No, not me. This place."

Here. This dungeon.

"Doesn't it seem... suspiciously sturdy to you?"