Forbidden-Class Dungeon (2)
Something was wrong. Too wrong.
If I had to put it into words… it felt like being dropped for the first time into a world where common sense itself had been twisted. The same alien dissonance I'd felt the moment I first opened my eyes in this unfamiliar world came flooding back.
And yet, at the same time, I finally understood the true nature of that atmosphere I'd been sensing ever since leaving the Forbidden Zone — the feeling of never quite fitting in, of being an outsider who couldn't quite connect.
The martial prowess the countless members of the raid party displayed in their own ways. Swords, spears, daggers, bows, shields — the whole arsenal.
Magic I set aside, since I'd only first encountered it after arriving here… but looking at martial skill alone, their level was abysmally low.
I didn't particularly want to go around judging other people's abilities, but the truth was the truth. It wasn't that I was trying to evaluate them — it simply registered at a glance.
At first, when I'd stepped into the dungeon entrance hidden in that cleft of the cliff, I'd been swelling with a bit of anticipation.
A Forbidden-class dungeon. Even the name resembled the Forbidden Zone, didn't it?
I'd wondered if it might house magical beasts on par with the monsters I'd faced inside the Forbidden Zone — but that had been a complete miscalculation.
The ogres, the spider-like magical beasts, even the raid party fighting them…
Honestly? It looked like children playing house.
It was so much like the humans I remembered from my previous life — from years ago, before I'd opened my eyes in this new world.
And in that moment, something that had been slightly out of alignment clicked back into place. A hazy thought sharpened into sudden, crystalline clarity.
This place… wasn't inhabited solely by those things I'd first encountered upon waking — those creatures so monstrous you could barely call them human.
Living alongside them were ordinary humans, utterly different from those beings.
Well… of course.
The monsters of my homeland could topple mountains and shatter the earth with a single gesture.
If this had been a world crawling with creatures like that, classifications like Calamity-class or Apocalypse-class would have been meaningless from the start. Dungeons or no dungeons — the world would have been destroyed long ago.
The thought brought a simultaneous wave of confusion.
Then what exactly was this place? Or more precisely — that place I'd come to think of as home, the place where I'd first opened my eyes… what had that been?
If this world outside the Forbidden Zone, where ordinary humans lived, was "normal"… then what about those monsters? And what about me?
Could I even call myself an ordinary human?
I was sinking into this untimely crisis of identity when I suddenly realized I'd been standing there, blankly, for a surprisingly long time.
The massive boulder was still resting on my palm.
No one had spoken to me while I'd been frozen like that, so I'd lost track of time entirely, lost in thought.
As I surfaced from my musings, the murmurs around me came into focus.
"…He didn't even use mana, right?"
"Then how? How does that make any sense?"
Every adventurer's gaze was locked on me. Staring as if they were looking at a monster.
Before, I hadn't understood what those looks meant. Now I thought I did.
My head throbbed. I gave it a light shake and opened my mouth. Conveniently, a familiar face was nearby.
"Aren't you going in?"
It was Estelle. She'd been staring at me blankly, and at my words her shoulders jerked as if startled.
"…"
She seemed about to say something, then hesitated, fumbling for words.
Watching her hesitate like someone who had no idea what to do was unexpected. I'd taken her for the type who made clean decisions and pushed them through no matter what.
In the current situation, that hesitation was a little frustrating.
I wanted to get them inside already so I could clear my head alone.
In that moment, the one who stepped forward and settled the atmosphere was the man standing beside Estelle — Rohan.
He carefully gauged my reaction, yet spoke with a firmness that suggested he wasn't about to forget his role.
"We can't forget that our objective… is clearing this dungeon. Let's go in for now. Is that… alright?"
The last part came with a look that was clearly asking me. I gave a short nod. Confirming my answer, Rohan immediately led his party members past me.
Beyond the space where the boulder had been held aloft, a dark passageway stretched ahead.
Once Rohan took the lead, the others began filing past me into the tunnel in a line.
Anyone whose eyes so much as met mine hurriedly looked away as they went inside.
Somehow, Estelle and her party — who had originally been at the very front — ended up going in last.
"Could we talk later? …Please?"
Whether from sheer fluster or something else, every trace of the seasoned adventurer had vanished from Estelle's face, leaving only wide, earnest eyes.
"…Sure."
I ushered her inside with her newly awkward demeanor and set the boulder down.
Thud.
The only people left here now were the fifty hired solely to lift this rock.
I looked down at the communication device resting on my palm — the one Metten had handed me before we entered the passage.
It was a crystal-orb-like sphere studded with several unfamiliar ores.
Metten had asked me to check the device after setting the boulder down. If communication still worked even after the rock sealed the entrance, he would contact me through it when it was time to come back out.
But when I checked right away, no signal came through the device at all.
No signal meant magical communication was impossible with even a single boulder between us — that something about the dungeon was deliberately blocking it.
That meant falling back on the alternate plan. After a set interval, I would periodically lift the boulder. An adventurer waiting on the other side would then report the situation inside.
That was the entirety of the plan I'd been told.
With my task finished, I sank back into thought.
The first thing that crossed my mind was the Forbidden Zone, blanketed by the Red Barrier.
A sudden idea.
Could that place have been a dungeon too? In terms of difficulty… Apocalypse-class?
And that overwhelming presence that had spoken to me without ever showing itself. Looking back now, it wouldn't have been strange to call it a boss-tier magical beast.
Then what did that make me, living inside that place?
Was I… a magical beast?
Born with monstrous power from the start, displaying a gulf of strength that no mere effort or training could explain.
Human only in outward appearance — wouldn't it make far more sense to consider me an entirely different species?
Come to think of it, Arnen lived nearby…
Someone who had lived so close to the Red Barrier might know something. Until now I hadn't found a reason to ask, but once I got back, I decided I would definitely bring this up.
Next to surface was the king who had ruled the kingdom that existed, brazenly, inside the Forbidden Zone.
The one who had claimed his kin lived outside the Forbidden Zone. The one who had looked unusually frail.
Had he been an ordinary human?
Then why had he been mixed in among those monsters? And as a king reigning over them, no less?
Come to think of it, Arnen had mentioned that an emperor existed in this world as well. He might know something.
I should meet him.
While I was thinking that, a sudden, powerful presence flared nearby.
I turned my head on reflex and saw a stone-skinned ogre — no idea where it had been hiding. It had spotted us from a distance and was charging in a frenzy.
"An uncleared magical beast!"
Anxious eyes all around swung toward me in unison. It was only natural — these people hadn't been hired for combat. I understood why they were looking only at me.
The adventurers had stationed them in the rear and made a firm promise: they would never be exposed to danger.
Combat was solely the adventurers' responsibility. So I, too, had been forced to simply watch from behind as the adventurers fought the ogres fiercely.
From the conversations they exchanged mid-battle, I'd gathered that the creature's hide was extremely hard — ordinary weapons couldn't wound it. You had to coat your weapon in mana and carefully work the weak points one by one.
Even to my eyes, this magical beast was on a different tier from the animals Arnen used to hunt. It was three times my size to begin with.
Certainly stronger than an ordinary beast.
I took a single step forward. The tip of my foot pushed off the ground, and my field of vision shot upward in an instant.
Leaping into the air, I reached the charging ogre in the blink of an eye.
In that brief moment, our eyes met. I had already drawn my fist back. As the ogre instinctively swung its massive palm, I drove my fist straight forward.
Strong-Middle-Weak.
An extremely simple martial technique I'd learned as a child in the training caves for becoming a warrior.
It had long since been absorbed into my own personal system, but I decided to use the technique properly for the first time in a while.
First: Weak.
The fist cutting through empty air met the ogre's brown hide. I drove it in like a single piercing point against the palm the creature had swung roughly, as if swatting a bug.
Pop.
Something burst from the inside out — a surging, rupturing sensation.
From the ogre's palm through its wrist, forearm, and shoulder, everything twisted in an instant, then exploded outward as if that still wasn't enough. Unrecognizable chunks of flesh and blood scattered through the air.
Its hide was hard, that much seemed true — but there wasn't much difference from the times I'd punched beasts until they burst. The only difference was that back then I'd been swinging my fists casually, and this time it was a technique that could actually be called martial arts.
Having lost one arm, the ogre lost its balance, staggered and spun several times, then slammed into one of the walls.
Boom.
A heavy impact, and rock fragments rained down. The ogre's massive silhouette slid limply to the ground beneath them.
Blood continued to pour from the cross-section of its missing shoulder, but it was still breathing.
I walked up to the ogre slumped against the wall and drove my hand into its chest. The sensation of piercing skin as easily as cutting tofu, then crushing bone and skewering organs, registered clearly in my palm.
When I pulled my hand free, blood dripped from it in thick drops, staining me up to the wrist.
Blood gushed from the hole in its chest in great surges, then gradually weakened. Before long, the ogre's breathing stopped.
I turned and walked back to where I'd been. With every step, a hush seemed to settle over the air behind me.
The people standing along the path automatically made way, matching my movement.
I passed between them without a word and sat down in the middle of the empty space.
The others on the way back cleared a path in silence. They'd already been keeping their distance, but now that distance seemed to have grown even greater.
Then, breaking that atmosphere, a single person approached.
He stood in front of where I sat and spoke.
"Thank you. I, uh, felt like I should say something."
"It's fine."
I nodded, assuming it was just a courtesy — but he hesitated, then carefully sat down beside me.
"Would it… be alright if I asked how you built up those shoulder muscles? Ah — if you'd rather not deal with me, I'll clear out immediately."
Only then did I take a proper look at the man's face. Brown hair jutted out like a lion's mane. He had a young face, but his body was solidly built — wherever he'd trained it.
"It's fine. As for the muscles… I'm not really sure myself. I never set out to build them deliberately."
"Natural talent, then. I'm envious…"
"You're interested in building your body?"
What would you even use a deliberately bulked-up body for…
When I asked, puzzled, he waved his hands and laughed. Whether he was naturally friendly or just bold, I couldn't tell. I'd assumed no one would approach me easily after what they'd just seen — but he seemed surprisingly at ease.
"No, no. I just got lucky. When I was young, an old man in my village taught me a mana refinement method."
"A mana refinement method…?"
"Yes. He only taught me that one thing and left, so I never learned any martial arts — my fighting skills are terrible, honestly…"
He scratched his head with an awkward smile, then continued.
"But as I kept training the mana refinement method, my body just grew on its own."
The man, who introduced himself as Levin, launched into an explanation of the mana refinement method without my even asking.
"The old man from the village said the method I learned was called the Azure Flow Style. You accumulate mana inside your body as if letting clear water flow through you, refining it so the current never breaks. Every time I stored mana, I really did feel my body getting lighter."
He said that by stacking mana inside yourself and making it your own — and by freely controlling that mana — you could become strong.
"Of course, a mana refinement method alone isn't enough. To use mana freely, you absolutely need systematic martial arts to go with it. That's why I was so shocked by you…"
"Hold on a second."
I raised a hand to stop him. It wasn't that I disliked his story. Something I needed to do had just come to mind.
I'd agreed with Metten to lift the boulder at regular intervals and receive reports on the situation inside. That time had arrived while I was talking with this man.
I walked up to the boulder, then changed my mind before lifting it.
Did I really need to go through the hassle of lifting it every single time? Smashing it outright seemed better.
Of course, I'd already been told that neither magic nor blades could affect this rock — but I didn't think my attack would fail.
The moment I made up my mind, my instincts stayed quiet. No major threat, then.
I briefly gauged the presence beyond. Confirming that everything was still on the far side of the solidly sealed rock, I drove my fist forward.