Chapter 10
Chapter 10
If You Eat Something Rotten, You’ll Get Sick
After hearing the dungeon’s location from the receptionist, we stepped out of the guild.
The moment we did, a lively smacking sound welcomed us.
When I looked over, I saw Mights—the adventurer who had challenged us—getting enthusiastically slapped on the back.
The one hitting him was a woman who looked like a mage.
“Honestly! You idiot! Tonight you’re eating nothing but cicadas!”
“How was I supposed to know that quest would come up?! And cicadas won’t even be out for another two months!”
Even so, he obediently let her keep hitting him.
Looks like he knew he was in the wrong.
“And why are you shouting like you did something right?!”
“Th-that’s enough, Siena. Forgive me already.”
“You’re just as bad!”
The adventurer trying to calm her down got smacked too.
He was the same guy who had wildly overestimated me earlier.
So they were in the same party.
The mage named Siena kept rhythmically smacking her party members until she noticed us.
She smacked Mights on the forehead with her staff one last time, then walked over.
“Ah! Sorry about earlier.”
“No, it’s fine. We were partly at fault too.”
“Haha. Sorry I didn’t stop them. It wasn’t exactly the kind of mood where I could. But they’re not bad people.”
Mights, still standing off to the side, caught my eye and awkwardly bowed his head.
Well… I understood.
Trying to impress a pretty girl and having things escalate.
It happens.
Siena lowered her voice and whispered to me.
“But seriously, don’t challenge Pow Dungeon. It’s genuinely dangerous. Just think of the forty silver as money spent on good food and forget it.”
What kind of food costs forty silver?
For that much, you could probably get a few bites of dragon meat.
Hearing that, Melraim stepped forward.
Then she asked,
“Do you know anything about that dungeon?”
Siena blinked at Melraim’s casual tone, but she didn’t seem offended.
“The boss there is a Death Knight.”
A Death Knight?!
That was insane.
There were limits to how hard a quest could be.
Didn’t they say the reward was only two gold?
That was dirt cheap!
Pushing aside the curious-looking Melraim, I asked Siena,
“Wait, but the reward is only two gold?”
“Mm. That dungeon’s monsters don’t come out. Maybe that’s why?”
“Huh? Why?”
That made no sense.
Normally, monsters naturally spawned inside dungeons over time.
And once the dungeon became full, they would start spilling outside.
At least that’s what I’d heard.
Not that I’d ever seen it myself.
I’d never been inside a dungeon before.
But if monsters weren’t spawning…
Then wasn’t it just a cave?
Or maybe all the monsters that had spawned were crammed inside, unable to leave?
As I imagined a dungeon packed wall-to-wall with monsters, Siena gave me the answer.
“The monsters inside are periodically exterminated.”
“By the Death Knight.”
I blinked.
Wait.
So the dungeon boss hunted the dungeon’s monsters?
“That sounds strange, doesn’t it? But it’s true. The Death Knight sent word that he would regulate the population himself, so no one should interfere.”
“Sent word? Through a monster or something?”
Siena shook her head.
“He delivered that message through the first adventurer party that attempted to clear Pow Dungeon. He also said that anyone entering afterward would be killed.”
“…And people still went in?”
“Not sure. I don’t know that much.”
At that point, Mights walked over and added,
“In the past four years, only two teams have challenged it.”
Funny.
He had pointed a sword at me earlier, and now he was talking casually.
Still, I didn’t hold a grudge.
So I asked him,
“What happened to them?”
“They died, probably. Never came back.”
Ah…
Yeah.
Stupid question.
If they had succeeded, the quest wouldn’t still exist.
I thanked Siena and Mights and left.
…
Count Kite’s territory had all kinds of inns.
Cheap ones like the place I stayed before meeting Yuna.
And luxurious places that looked like they were made for nobles.
Among them, the inn we picked was on the expensive side.
Honestly, it felt more like a place for tourists than adventurers.
In fact, I hadn’t seen a single adventurer staying here.
Yuna was the one who picked it.
And honestly, I thought she had compromised a lot.
She chose the cheapest inn that still had hot water.
Still, renting four single rooms created a horrifying fixed cost of six silver per day.
We considered mixing in double rooms, but…
No matter how I arranged it, the combinations felt impossible.
After a short rest, we all gathered in my room.
Even with four people in a single room, it didn’t feel cramped at all.
What a waste.
I looked at Melraim, who was humming happily.
“You seem happy.”
“A hot shower feels wonderful. Like Yuna, I also enjoy washing with warm water.”
I preferred cold water, personally.
So Yuna wasn’t the strange one after all?
“Really? You had warm water in your cave?”
“I’ve never actually tried it. But I like it.”
…What kind of nonsense is that?
I ignored Melraim and got to the point.
“So, about exploring Pow Dungeon… what should we do? Isn’t a Death Knight too dangerous?”
The first to answer was Yuna.
“I don’t know what kind of monster it is. But I get the general idea.”
“Me neither!” Tanya added.
Neither Yuna nor Tanya seemed to know much about Death Knights.
Well, neither did I.
I’d only heard the name.
I looked at Melraim.
As an active monster and adventurer, what’s your opinion?
“I agree that it is dangerous.”
“Even for you?”
Melraim tilted her head.
“I do not know.”
Makes sense.
Between a Death Knight and a Doppelganger, the more dangerous monster was definitely the Doppelganger.
But that was because of how destructive their transformation abilities could be in human society.
Not necessarily because of direct combat power.
“Just to confirm… your combat strength depends on what you eat, right?”
“More precisely, I inherit the combat abilities of the person I transform into. Their skills and physical abilities as well.”
Then was her current form the strongest person she had ever eaten?
“And your tentacles are added on top of that?”
“Of course. Have you not seen them?”
Carefully, I asked,
“If you ate a Death Knight… could you use its abilities too?”
Would undead work?
Melraim thought for a moment.
“Hmm… probably.”
“Seriously?”
She nodded.
That would be ridiculous.
A Death Knight with tentacles.
But then Melraim shook her head.
“But eating undead would be troublesome.”
“Why?”
Because it was rotten?
Melraim pointed at Tanya.
“Hm? Me?”
Tanya tilted her head, confused.
But Melraim wasn’t actually referring to Tanya herself.
“Do you remember why I did not eat Tanya?”
“Oh… right.”
That’s right.
She said she might inherit Tanya’s murderous impulses.
Undead were known to hold blind hatred toward the living.
Yuna’s Skeletons didn’t seem like that, but generally, that was the rule.
If Melraim inherited that trait…
She might really assassinate a king and plunge the continent into war.
Compared to that, murderous urges would seem harmless.
Come to think of it, Melraim had claimed to like hot showers despite never taking one.
So inherited preferences really were a thing.
…Though calling hatred of the living a “preference” felt questionable.
“Besides, it probably tastes bad.”
At that, Tanya raised her hand.
“Question for Melraim!”
“What is it?”
“You said I looked delicious before. What’s the difference?”
What an absurd question.
But now that she mentioned it, I was curious too.
Maybe living humans were fresher than dead undead.
Melraim grinned.
“Well, beautiful women are preferable. In that sense, both Yuna and Tanya look delicious.”
Yuna thought for a moment, then replied,
“…Thanks?”
Was that really the correct response here?
I had no idea.
Also… what exactly had Melraim eaten in the past?
Some kind of perverted old man?
I steered the conversation back.
“The biggest problem is that we don’t know how strong the Death Knight is. But one thing’s certain—Yuna’s Skeletons won’t be enough.”
“Mmm. My assassination techniques probably won’t work either,” Tanya said. “Undead don’t have vital points.”
“Right. And if Melraim can’t gain the Death Knight’s power, the only reward is five gold.”
Melraim shook her head.
“Luka. What about the treasure sleeping inside the dungeon?”
“That’s true.”
That might be worth even more.
A dungeon untouched for years.
There had to be valuable treasure piled up inside.
Of course, dungeons had limits to treasure generation.
If no one took the treasure, new treasure wouldn’t appear.
But surely it had reached that limit by now.
I looked at everyone.
“So, given all that… what do you think?”
Tanya answered first.
“Well… I’d rather kill living things, but stabbing undead doesn’t bother me. So I’m fine with it.”
“Wait, they’re not just standing there! They’ll fight back. It’s dangerous.”
“I’ve never had a safe mission.”
Fair enough.
Out of everyone here, Tanya probably had the most dangerous life.
Then Melraim spoke.
“Luka. An adventurer does not only fight battles they are certain to win.”
No.
That’s exactly what adventurers are supposed to do.
And how many days had she even been an adventurer?
“Still, fighting without information is reckless.”
“Did not that adventurer you admire—Edwin—survive by overcoming countless dangers?”
I couldn’t answer that.
A Death Knight was definitely a danger we could avoid.
But if Edwin thought there was something to gain…
He wouldn’t avoid it.
Maybe that’s why he became the greatest adventurer in history.
“Well, in any case, if we vote, I am in favor. One vote for yes, one abstention.”
That’s how voting works now?
That left Yuna and me.
Yuna would probably refuse.
Assassins and monsters—Tanya and Melraim—had warped views on death.
But Yuna, for all her strange mind, valued her own life a lot.
Wait.
Does that mean the final decision is mine?
That’s a headache.
As I was thinking that, Yuna gave an answer I didn’t expect.
“Let’s do it. We need money anyway.”
No, we didn’t need money.
You just liked luxury.
And money was your reason?
“Wait. We can earn money little by little with other quests.”
Yuna tapped the floor with her finger, thinking.
Then she said,
“That won’t be enough.”
Well, not for this extravagant lifestyle.
“If we fail, we die.”
Yuna narrowed her eyes and gave a bitter smile.
Then she answered,
“Then we die.”
Ah.
And here I thought she was the least insane one.