The Palace of the Underworld Lord
If I had kept going straight, I would have reached the audience chamber where I first met the Underworld Lord. But midway down the hall, Noir turned right.
Oh...
This was a path I had never taken before. This wasn't a torture chamber, was it? The kind of place where they wrenched your joints and branded you with a hot iron.
Huuuurgh! I absolutely cannot stand pain! The second they started torturing me, I would spill every last secret without a single heartbeat of hesitation!!
...No. No, no. Don't go thinking so negatively. Even Noir hadn't seen through my true nature. So just stay calm. I should use this opportunity to map out the layout of the Mausoleum Temple.
I tapped the console attached to my left arm. Alpha's text bloomed across the elongated screen.
Analysis initiated.
Receiving echo waves.
Structural modeling progress: 32%
Good, good. Someday this place would need to be purged, after all. Gathering intel on the enemy was just the basics.
I thought the data collection was going smoothly, too...
Crackle-crackle—
The deeper we walked, the worse the noise on the console monitor grew. Huh? What was going on all of a sudden?
The problem was that my walking legs were going stiff as well. More precisely, the mechanical exoskeleton had stopped obeying me. The reactor at my solar plexus flickered, then shut down entirely.
Vwoooooom—
Cold sweat ran down my spine.
"Hoyoyoyo..."
This was the heart of the Mausoleum Temple. Every last mechanical device that had been protecting me had just stopped working.
I'm fucked...
I'm fucked......
I'm fucked......!!
Shit, what do I do?!
My heart pounded like mad. An overwhelming terror wrapped around my entire body and crushed my lungs. I couldn't even dare to breathe.
That was when Noir stopped walking.
Click.
He slowly turned his head. His monocle caught the glow of a will-o'-the-wisp.
"Dear, dear... Messat..."
He took a leisurely step toward me.
Click, click—
I knew it, you old geezer! He knew what I was up to all along! Eeeek!
A white-gloved hand reached toward me. D-don't come any closer!! No!! I thrashed and flinched, but with the mechanical exoskeleton dead, I couldn't move an inch.
"N-Noir! The truth is! That's...!!"
The moment I frantically tried to spit out an excuse, Noir grabbed the reactor.
Hisssssss—
It corroded and rusted in an instant...
Clatter!
The plating covering my solar plexus was ripped away by his touch.
"I seem to have forgotten to mention. While Her Majesty takes her rest, the Mausoleum Temple becomes saturated with demonic energy. As such, delicate mechanical devices frequently lose their will to function."
He peeled off his blackened glove.
Holy shit... What the hell was that? A horrific hand with the bones showing through!
He slipped a fresh white glove over it.
"I ask that you kindly overlook this inconvenience."
Thanks to Noir, I was free of the mechanical exoskeleton and could walk again. Oh, for fuck's sake... Super-science and the supernatural really were oil and water. No — calling the supernatural science's natural predator wouldn't be an overstatement!
Which meant I desperately needed the help of the SS-Class hero Sinnyeo. I had to win her over, no matter what!
Noir looked at me curiously as I stood there staring blankly.
"Incidentally... what was it you were about to say earlier? 'The truth is'...?"
I'd nearly had a heart attack thinking I'd been found out, but this was a completely different story. Time for a 180-degree hairpin turn!!
"Ooooh! Why hide it!! The truth is, this body — I am in love with Lady Articetia!"
I shook my head violently.
"No!! No, no, no! Love is merely a variable of the domain! This yearning I hold toward her is not something that can be processed by mere neuronal synapses!!"
I threw my head back and spread both arms wide.
"Oooooooh! This unknown energy wave... as expected of Lady Articetia!! To comprehend her existence, my science is pathetically narrow, my computational power woefully insufficient, and my entire thought system hopelessly low-dimensional!!"
I couldn't let them know I was terrified! They'd write me off as a frail little human! So I bent at the waist and wriggled my fingers.
"What a beautiful, high-dimensional interference spectrum this iiiis! This ignorant calculator kneels once more today!! Respect! My love! My life! Goddess Articetia!!"
My voice thundered and echoed down the corridor.
Ugh... I was out of breath. Thanks to all that excitement, though, the terror had mostly blown away.
I slowly lifted my head. Noir pushed up his monocle, blinking his widened eyes.
"Oh... I see. As a servant of Her Majesty, that is a most admirable mindset, however..."
Huh? However...?
Noir took a step to the side.
"I would ask that you refrain from raising your voice in Lady Articetia's presence."
I stood there with my mouth hanging open.
At the end of the corridor, an ornately carved door stood open. A strange woman with pale skin and lovely lips stitched shut. Articetia was gazing steadily at me with those cross-patterned eyes.
"Arti...!!"
I reached out and started to shout, then clamped my mouth shut. He said not to raise my voice, right?
I spun around with my white coat flaring and bowed at the waist like a gentleman.
"This humble devotee offers infinite reverence to Lady Articetia in the name of science. Messat, administrator of the Super-science Dungeon... presents his worship."
But Articetia didn't even acknowledge my greeting. She simply turned and walked into the room.
Huh? What? Did I just get rejected?
Noir chuckled as he polished his monocle with a handkerchief.
"Heh heh heh... It seems your loyalty left quite the impression. Her Majesty appeared to smile, so this old servant could ask for nothing more."
A smile? I didn't see that at all. I thought she was a frozen goddess statue.
Noir clasped his hands behind his back and turned away.
"I shall prepare some refreshments. Lord Messat, please enter the hall first."
Hey, old man. Why are you vanishing into the wall when there's a perfectly good hallway right there. That's terrifying, seriously!!
I grabbed the half-open doorknob and hesitated. Every last piece of my equipment had been stripped away. All I had left to rely on was my tongue! I'd survived this far, hadn't I? You can do this, Lee Dogwang. Let's go!
Creeeeak—
I opened the door and stepped inside.
So this was Articetia's palace... Will-o'-the-wisps drifted lazily through the air. The domed ceiling was sheathed in obsidian, so dark it felt like it would swallow you whole if you stared too long. The bookshelves were packed with ancient tomes. I pulled out one of the clay tablets.
"Hoyoyoyo... this is... Sumerian."
The Epic of Gilgamesh. A work depicting the life of Gilgamesh, king of Uruk around the twenty-eighth century BCE.
But wait a second... this wasn't the original, was it? Why was this here?!
I looked around the room. From assorted treasured swords to bizarre instruments, the place was so packed with ancient artifacts it reminded me of an antique shop. The most striking thing among them was a well filled to the brim with water.
There was an identical well on the ceiling, too... Was this a zero-gravity situation, or what? Far from cascading down like a waterfall, the well on the ceiling sat perfectly still.
"Ahem, ahem... I should like to disassemble this and study it."
What on earth was the principle behind this? I leaned in and peered down into the well. My face was reflected on the surface. How curious. I could clearly feel gravity, and yet...
The moment I blinked, the scenery around me changed.
What?!
It was some dark night. A forest village lined with houses of packed-earth walls. An angry mob was shouting, torches in hand. Where the hell was this...
Then a thickly bearded man approached me with a torch.
Uhhh? Wait, stop! Stooooop!!
It was only after I started struggling that I realized. I... I was tied to a log right now? Why?!
The man set fire to the straw.
Fwoooooosh!
Ow, hot! Wait! Was this a burning at the stake?! Stop! Stooooop!!
But no matter how hard I screamed, no voice came out.
In that instant, my vision went black. A cold sensation covered my eyelids. It felt good, like it was cooling the heat.
"Haa... ha..."
The mysterious hand covering my eyes slowly withdrew. I turned my head and met a pair of blue eyes marked with crosses.
"Arti...cetia..."
The pain of the burns lingered as a faint aftertaste. That hand stroking my cheek cooled the heat. An intoxicating sensation...
Whoa, get a grip. I completely lost it for a second there.
I cleared my throat and jacked my voice up to a high pitch.
"Hiyohohohohot! Lady Articetia!"
I flung my white coat wide and pointed in every direction.
"As a scientist, I simply cannot contain myself in this space! Combustible gas luminescence! The surface tension of a gravity-inverted well!!"
I sucked in a breath and clenched my fists.
"Ooooh!! Logical absurdity, scientific impossibility, the collapse of common sense! This room! This palace! It denies every logic I possess... and yet simultaneously stimulates my instincts as a scientist!!"
I immediately dropped to one knee and clasped Articetia's hands.
"Lady Articetia...! What an alluring chaos this is!"
I slipped off my gas mask and gazed up at her with sparkling eyes.
"I am already captivated by you! Come, come now! Give this faithful slave a command! I shall scientifically prove even the most impossible of things!!"
I poured it all out with passionate intensity, as if to erase the real me who'd lost his composure for a moment. By this point I should have been getting some kind of reaction... Nothing but silence flowed by, and my face was about to turn red.
Articetia gazed down at me, then reached out a pale hand.
Whoa... This was the first time I had ever thought a palm was pretty. A touch as soft and fine as a newborn baby's settled on the crown of my head.
Pat, pat—
She mussed my waxed-back hair and turned away. She sat at the tea table and gave it a gentle tap-tap with her hand. That was telling me to sit, right?
I felt like I was being treated like a child. How do I put this. It was confusing in the opposite direction.
I sat down facing Articetia.
"Hoyoyoyoyo..."
Hey, could you say something? Instead of just sitting there with your hands folded, staring at me...
Only then did Articetia tilt her head and raise her index finger.
So that was why she summoned me. Straight to the point. She was certainly impatient. But I actually liked that. "Time" — scientifically unproven as it was — was the most precious resource of all.
"Kyshishit! Precisely! To analyze the Association's intelligence with precision, external surveillance has its limits!"
I planted my hands on the table and leaned in.
"Information is inversely proportional to the square of the distance! The closer you are, the more accurate it becomes!!"
The hopeful fate of escape hung on my tongue! Butter it up and keep rolling!!
"If we scan the internal structure and secure the key experimental facilities and personnel traffic patterns, we can move on to the next phase!"
"Yes! A Hero Association that has fallen under my control would be a random number table with a shattered algorithm! A complete rabble!! And then the Mausoleum Temple would no longer need to hide in the shadows! Kyshishishishishit!"
Come to think of it, she had liked parfaits last time, hadn't she?
"Someday... on the day we walk proudly beneath that brilliant light... would you share a parfait with me?"
I reached out my hand, as if to tempt her. Come now, take this devil's hand. No — take the hand of model citizen Messat!
Oh! There was a reaction. Expressionless Articetia had just blinked for the first time! But... could I even count that as a reaction?!
Contrary to my expectations, Articetia carved letters into the air.
Eh...?