Forbidden-Class Dungeon (4)
Just because a dungeon was classified as Forbidden-class did not mean it would stay at that level forever.
Estelle knew better than anyone that assuming otherwise was the same as shoving yourself to the brink of death.
Still… I never thought it would be this bad.
She bit her lip and stared past the thick haze of dust choking her vision. Golems were still raining down indiscriminately from the ceiling. The thunderous crashes of those massive forms hitting the ground, the earth shaking as if it might collapse at any moment, the crushing pressure radiating from the throng of magical beasts packed before her eyes, and the alien, dazzling lights that exceeded anything a human gaze could properly take in—Estelle had believed they could clear this place. Now that sight stole the breath from her lungs.
Every dungeon-clearing adventurer heard the same saying sooner or later.
Dungeons are alive.
It was usually just a light warning not to let your guard down. She had never felt the truth of those words so vividly as she did now.
This dungeon was evolving. Even if it had not been born as a Catastrophe- or Apocalypse-class threat, nothing said it could not become one. Perhaps the reason it had approached a Break yet never quite crossed the line was because it had been waiting for this exact moment of evolution.
Estelle herself had never experienced a dungeon evolving. She had only heard of it—and even those stories had been limited to Anomaly- or Threat-class dungeons.
Watching the adventurers who had failed to shift the boulder get thrown back into the fray only hardened her conviction. This dungeon was beyond what their current party could clear.
She made her decision at once. Without hesitation she steadied the front line and met the next wave of golems head-on.
Ten minutes. That was the time they had agreed upon before the ones outside would try lifting the boulder blocking the exit again. Even with her stamina flagging, she could hold that long. The real danger was whether the ceiling would come down first—but if that threat alone could be set aside, she was confident they could weather any number of golems for ten minutes.
She was wrong.
Estelle realized it with brutal speed: worrying about the ceiling collapsing was a luxury she no longer had.
The forms punching through the ceiling were nothing like the gray golems they had faced until now. Their jet-black carapaces twisted the light as if they had been forged from some dark mineral. These were golems she had never seen even on the upper floors, and they looked far stronger than the gray ones.
Don’t tell me… the ceiling of the upper floors has collapsed as well?
The ominous thought that flashed through her mind became reality almost at once. The black golems recovered from the impact of their fall and began advancing on the front line.
A black fist slammed down onto a warrior’s shield. His knees hit the ground instantly.
“Ghk…!”
The weight was on an entirely different level from anything the gray golems had thrown at them. Before the warrior could even raise his shield again, a follow-up kick from the golem sent him flying far across the chamber.
Scenes like that erupted everywhere the moment the black golems appeared.
“Chainver…!!”
Estelle screamed until her throat tore, but her voice was swallowed by the dense ranks of golems and never carried far.
Thud.
Chainver, who had been swinging his sword right beside her, was crushed flat by a golem’s fist. He was not the only one. Her party members who had been standing relatively far forward were being pulverized one after another. Fists smashed them. Kicks launched them through the air until they slammed into walls.
Crunch.
The sound of bones shattering, flesh tearing, screams cut short—party members left so mangled that even their corpses could not be recovered. Dust, blood, the reek of iron, and the foul stench rising from crushed bodies all tangled together and seeped into her lungs like pure agony.
“Hold the line! Just ten minutes, somehow! Don’t charge in blindly—watch their movements, you idiots!”
The party leaders who still had some strength left shouted themselves hoarse trying to rally their people. Even those cries were nowhere near enough to reverse the collapsing front.
The mages in the rear were no safer.
“Please, please…!”
One mage muttered desperately, trembling fingers struggling to complete a spell. Before it could form, a black golem kicked off the ground and leapt. A vast shadow fell across the mage’s head.
“Trisha!!!”
Estelle’s cry echoed, but it was far too late. The golem’s foot stamped down, and Trisha’s body burst against the floor.
Estelle staggered. It was not merely that the strength had left her legs. She felt her heart growing cold. Warriors with shields, swordsmen, mages—party members and party leaders alike no longer mattered. Only humans being slaughtered by golems remained.
“…This is my fault.”
Her lips trembled. The decision that had led to this outcome had been hers. She could have ordered a retreat. She could have pulled them out the moment she saw the corridor packed with golems. Instead she had refused to abandon the goal of clearing the dungeon.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Even so the golems kept advancing. Their heavy footsteps crushed the earth, time itself, and Estelle’s will beneath them.
When half the adventurers had been butchered, those who had fallen into despair scrambled blindly toward the boulder blocking the exit and clawed at it. They hacked with swords, pounded with bare fists, scraped at the rock with both hands—yet the boulder did not budge. Nails tore free; blood-smeared hands left only red streaks each time they raked the stone.
Estelle’s vision blurred.
“…It’s over.”
The moment she murmured the words in hollow defeat—
Crack.
The boulder the fleeing adventurers had been clinging to shattered into pieces under some tremendous force. Fragments sprayed across them.
And beyond that broken barrier, a passage opened.
A man stood there. He looked as though he had not expected the scene inside at all, glancing around with a momentarily startled expression.
Estelle’s hazy vision cleared. She blinked once, unable to believe that the hellish boulder had truly been destroyed—and in that single blink the man was already gone from the entrance.
He now stood before a black golem that had been about to smash its fist down on a rear-line mage. His hand was raised, stopping the golem’s punch.
She must have been seeing things.
That enormous black fist had been halted by a single human palm—as lightly as if it weighed nothing. The man then closed that same hand around the golem’s fist. Given the size difference, “gripping” it seemed an odd description, yet somehow the golem could not pull free.
Even stranger: while still held like that, both of the golem’s legs lifted off the ground. Its entire body rose into the air until it dangled from the man’s hand like a doll.
“…Pretty heavy.”
The man muttered the words with a faintly bored air and set the golem back down. In the next instant he shot upward and drove his fist straight into the center of its torso.
Boom.
The golem’s body exploded into fragments that scattered like ash. What followed was simply that scene repeated. Every time the man vanished from one spot, a golem somewhere else shattered. Gray or black, those massive, ponderous bodies crumbled to powder under a single blow. The golems that had packed the corridor so tightly it was hard to breathe were steadily dwindling.
The sight was… something words could not properly capture. Overwhelming strength, pure and simple. Power that had left the realm of humanity behind and compelled awe toward something other.
He was not even using mana. No magic, no weapon—only bare fists.
Estelle and every adventurer around her could only stare, dumbstruck. Watching the golems that had so mercilessly trampled them shatter into mere rubble with a single strike sent shock and a thrill racing through them all.
In the blink of an eye the man finished clearing the corridor and appeared at Estelle’s side.
“These count as magical beasts too?”
He held a chunk of golem debris and asked the question with a completely unconcerned face.
“….”
Estelle could only gape at him, unable to answer. She knew she should speak, yet no voice came out.
“I’m the same kind of human as you… so stop staring and just answer.”
The almost joking remark finally snapped her back to herself.
“Ah—yes… that’s right. They’re commonly called golems…”
The man—Bell—nodded, then asked again.
“Where’s the boss?”
Since he had already stepped in, he figured he might as well take on the boss-class magical beast as well. These people looked as though they had lost all will to fight, and he had already accepted that he was a little different from them. He planned to take exactly one guide to the boss’s location—no more, no less. Ideally someone who knew a great deal about the dungeon.
It was not Estelle who answered. The reply came from Rohan, leader of another party.
“If it’s the boss’s location you need, I can guide you.”
“Uh… sure.”
Bell glanced at him and shrugged. He had no idea why the man had suddenly cut in, but the guide did not have to be Estelle. She still looked as though she was struggling just to collect herself.
Before Rohan could say anything further, however, the others hurriedly crowded around Bell.
“If it wouldn’t be an imposition, might I explain instead? I am Garpel, leader of the Crimson Fang party.”
“Greetings. I am…”
One after another, people introducing themselves as party leaders gathered around him.
Until that moment Estelle had been standing blankly; now her mind snapped fully awake.
She understood why they were doing this.
They had realized it at once: Bell was the treasure key who would clear the entire dungeon—boss included—in a single sweep.