Dungeon Exploration
The first thing I did the moment I woke up in this body was hunt down a pen and a notebook.
A way back? I hadn't the faintest idea. A way to live well? That, I knew. Which left me exactly one road worth taking.
Strange ceiling or not, surviving comes first.
Fortunately, I still had the walkthrough I'd been reading cover to cover right up until the possession. I wrung my memory dry and filled the notebook page by page, and that was what carried me this far. I knew precisely where every dungeon would surface, which ones were about to soar, and which were a straight drop into ruin.
I poured a fortune into the Treasure Hunter Guild's expeditions on the spot. Everyone around me tried to stop me or laughed in my face, asking if I'd lost my mind. They treated it like a free show, delighted that I'd found such a perfect way to bankrupt myself. Three months later, when I pulled back exactly fifty times the principal, their mouths snapped shut. A few of them sidled over asking for tips, so I pointed them toward a handful of decent dungeons.
Hog the whole table and you'll choke on it. Nothing in this world is more dangerous than a jealous man.
The money I made that way became the foundation of my charity work. It was how I found Arca, and my public reputation piled up along with her. Becoming a steadfast patron of the Treasure Hunter Guild was merely a pleasant extra.
"Good day, Young Master Heizen. I'm a hunter dispatched by the Treasure Hunter Guild."
Which was why the guild had gone to the trouble of finding the exact hunter I'd named and sending him over. I'd half expected them to foist someone else on me, but the investment must have left them properly grateful.
"Good to meet you. Name?"
"Connor, sir."
The man seated across from me wore a loose brown leather coat. An eyepatch covered one eye, and his hands were mapped with scars from traps and tools. He wasn't especially broad, but his gaze was clear, level, and utterly steady.
Word for word the description in the guide.
His skill at reading a dungeon was impressive enough, but what set him apart was his reliability. In an age when you had to watch your own back, he was the sort of man you ranked at the very top. And from here on, secrecy mattered more than anything. The more cards in your hand, the better — and the good ones were meant to stay hidden.
"All right, Connor. What did the guild tell you?"
"That you had discovered a small dungeon, Young Master, and named me to serve as its guide."
"The contract fee?"
"Twenty silver, with any further compensation to be settled separately."
I set a leather pouch down in front of him.
"…"
Connor checked the contents, then looked up at me with a face gone rigid.
"Young Master."
"What."
"The amount appears to be wrong."
"No. I put in exactly what I meant to."
Forty gold coins sat inside that pouch — dozens of times the fee he'd been promised.
"…"
He turned something over for a moment, then spoke.
"There's something you want from me."
"Quick on the uptake."
I beckoned him closer.
"It is a dungeon expedition. But the one we're walking into is a dungeon with a great many secrets."
"How is the party composed?"
"You and me. Just the two of us."
"That could be dangerous."
"They say you're good. Keeping one person alive shouldn't be beyond you."
In truth, the dungeon ahead held nothing dangerous beyond its traps, and traps and mechanisms were precisely where Connor excelled.
"There are treasure hunters more skilled than I am."
"But none of them keep their mouths shut the way you do."
"…So the sum includes payment for an oath of secrecy."
"Why? Not enough? Want me to add more?"
Connor shook his head and said it was more than sufficient. Honestly, he added, it already felt like far too much.
"You and I are going to be walking dungeons together fairly often. Keep your schedule clear."
"Will you always pay like this?"
"I told you to speak up if it isn't enough."
"No, that isn't what I meant. If this is all you ever pay me, I could wait on you for the rest of my life."
I answered his joke with a smile.
"The expedition is tomorrow. I've told the family it's an outing on business, so that's covered. On the surface you'll be coachman, errand boy, and guide. That's the story we'll travel under."
"Is no one else coming besides me?"
"There's one more, so don't waste your worry. Prepare for the dungeon, get some proper rest, and I'll see you tomorrow, Connor."
I drew four gold coins from the pouch and held them out. Ten percent up front, the rest settled after the work.
"What are you doing?"
Connor had taken only two of them.
"It's too large a sum. This is already more than enough to stay in a nearby village for a day. And you aren't just anyone, Young Master Heizen. You're the benevolent son of House Valentite, the one who empties his own purse to help children. I trust you won't cheat me of what's owed."
"Even so, an advance ought to be done properly. I like my accounts exact."
I pressed the coins into his hand whether he wanted them or not and waved him toward the door. Connor studied me a moment longer, said he would see me tomorrow, and left the reception room.
"For a treasure hunter, you chose a remarkably unspoiled man."
Alia, who had been standing quietly all the while, came forward and collected the empty glass.
"Skill can be trained. Disposition can't. When it comes to people, the rarest ones are those who keep their mouths shut and don't break the terms of a contract. Alia."
"True enough. You've dropped that much money into his hands, so if only for the sake of the next deal, he'll guard the secret no matter what."
I gave a light shrug and was just reaching for the pouch on the table when she went on, setting the glass on her tray in that same indifferent voice.
"Speaking of which, Young Master Heizen. Preparations for the expedition matter, of course, but some rather noisy news has come in."
"They say Lady Hecate had a serious quarrel with the knights of the Castiel Ducal House."
"My sister? Out of nowhere?"
"The full circumstances haven't reached us, but I imagine the ducal knights grew jealous of Lady Hecate's martial skill and picked a fight."
"Fair. Her ability really is something else."
Whenever I passed Hecate in the corridors, I made a point of greeting her properly. She never answered. She would simply knock my shoulder as she went by, treating her younger brother with all the warmth of a stone in the road. Cold as she was, her skill as a knight stood at the very peak of the empire.
The Castiel second son's black magic already blew the mood to pieces, and those inferiority-soaked idiots kept needling her until she snapped. That tracks.
Her temper was probably the finest in the empire as well, which meant she was the last person alive to swallow a provocation and let it go.
"So. Was she hurt?"
"The young lady hasn't a scratch on her. The knight who started it had his jaw shattered completely and was carried off."
"I worried over nothing."
I offered a brief, silent condolence to whichever poor fool had lost his jaw.
Father knows her temperament. He'll clean it up himself.
I had no spare attention for the brawls of a woman who treated her younger brother like livestock. Securing my own lifeline was several times more urgent.
"Alia."
"Yes, Young Master."
"Check tomorrow's carriage and the luggage one more time."
"I already went over them three times earlier."
"You really are good at your work. Makes me want to hand out a performance bonus."
I rose with a satisfied smile.
"Come to think of it, Alia. How's the orphanage?"
Some time had passed since I'd handed part of the Valentite Orphanage over to Arca, and I'd sent Alia to look in on her in case she was floundering.
"She was doing very well. The children in particular seemed deeply affected by the fact that she is one of the people you helped. A big-sister presence, you might say."
"Oh?"
"When Miss Arca sets a rule, the children follow it. The orphanage staff said their work has grown considerably easier because of it."
"Good. Very good."
No getting greedy. Enjoy only what was mine to enjoy, and protect only what had to be protected. This comfortable noble life needed to last.
"…That is the face you make when you're scheming something strange again."
"I wish I were actually that impressive a man, Alia."
Once the expedition was done, I ought to stop by the orphanage.
The next day.
"You look like a man with too many worries."
I glanced at Connor, seated inside the carriage, and prodded him lightly.
"What. Something wrong?"
"Well. I had assumed at least one knight would be accompanying us."
The carriage held Connor and me. Up on the driver's bench sat Alia, already earmarked for that performance bonus.
"Worried because she's a maid?"
"…A little."
"Don't be. There won't be any real trouble. And even if there is, there won't be."
"Is the maid on the driver's bench perhaps your secret knight-guard?"
"She's a maid."
Connor closed his mouth, as if he had given up on the conversation entirely. We rolled on for a long while before the carriage suddenly began to jolt and rattle. We had left the highway and turned toward the secret dungeon.
"Connor. Why the eyepatch? Hurt your eye?"
"This? No. I wear it for the look. Does it seem odd?"
"It does look good on you."
We kept up that pointless talk for about an hour.
"Young Master. I believe we've reached the location you indicated."
The door opened. Alia, map in hand, gestured us out. What met my eyes was nothing but ruins — an utterly ordinary place, with no hint that anything of value might be hiding there.
"Is there truly a secret dungeon here?"
"What, do I look like I'm joking?"
"It isn't that. The guild has surveyed this site several times."
"Then they didn't survey it properly."
Let's see. There was supposed to be a puzzle here that opened a hidden entrance.
Found it.
A stone slab was covered in hieroglyphs whose meaning no one here could possibly guess. The treasure hunters had almost certainly assumed the answer lay in combining the symbols correctly. People of this world could die and be reborn and still never solve it, because the arrangement was lifted straight from a computer keyboard.
The answer from the guide. If I map it onto the keyboard layout exactly…
A deep rumble shook the ground.
"Ghk—?!"
With the vibration, a cunningly concealed dungeon entrance revealed itself.
"Y-Young Master? How did you—?!"
"We're going in. Connor. Look after the carriage, Alia."
"Have a pleasant outing, Young Master."
I started down the stairs, and Connor caught my shoulder from behind.
"From here, I'll take the lead."
"Go ahead. You're the expert."
"Excuse me."
Walls, steps, every surface — he missed nothing. It was exactly the touch you would expect from a treasure hunter.
No traps at the entrance. Let him work. He has to earn his pay.
I watched him feel his way over every inch of stone and drew a slow breath. This was the scent of a hidden piece.