3. Good News (3)
3. Good News (3)
"Jack. Lemia. Wouldn't it be better if we stopped now...?"
"Sonia. Say we pull out of the dungeon and head back right now without having found anything. Do you think the guild's going to be happy if we just go back like that?"
They were three adventurers walking through a cave that was dark, but not so dark that they couldn't make out their surroundings.
At his friend Sonia's words, Jack—the warrior with a shield and hammer—shot her an irritable look as he answered.
Finding a trustworthy companion among adventurers was immensely important, and so, even though she was a childhood friend who'd been with him since they'd left home, Sonia's timid attitude had always annoyed Jack.
If Sonia hadn't been talented in magic, and if there hadn't been another reason, Jack might have suggested to his other companion that they find a different party for just the two of them long ago.
"I told you already! This is a chance. We have to take risks. You agreed to it, didn't you!"
"But still..."
They were novice adventurers, and it wasn't common for the guild to grant them requests beyond mere errands.
Never mind that they hadn't even been given a proper dungeon scouting mission—if they couldn't carry that out, what guild would entrust them with jobs, and how would they ever grow as adventurers?
Even though they had explained everything before entering, she was still talking back, so he couldn't help but be even more annoyed.
Of course, Jack, who was talking like that, wasn't following the basics himself either.
"Quiet, Jack. Like you said, this is a dungeon. And we're on a recon."
"Lemia..."
Sure enough, the remaining member of the trio warned him.
Light armor that covered only her vitals, several daggers hanging at her waist, and a crossbow slung across her back — a hunter.
It was Lemia.
Unlike Jack, Lemia understood the importance of trust among comrades more deeply, so she didn't particularly dislike Sonia, who, though timid, was good at following orders.
Sonia also knew that, which was why she was looking at Lemia with those sparkling eyes.
And to begin with, if it hadn't been for them, Sonia would already be dead. Jack knew that too, which was why he could never leave her behind.
They were not people heartless enough to just let a childhood friend die.
"But that... ugh...!"
"..."
Jack scratched his head in irritation, and Sonia shrank back even more timidly at that. Lemia only watched the man and woman turn their gazes back in all directions before she returned her own eyes to the direction she had been keeping watch on.
Since she, with the widest field of vision, was the core of this scouting mission anyway, it didn't much matter what the two of them did. But having the hearing she needed for vigilance disturbed like that did grate on her nerves.
"Can't hear anything?"
"Yeah. Nothing."
The dungeon was fairly deep, but the only monsters they had met so far were some goblins that had wandered in and were living in the cave.
They definitely belonged to the dungeon, as the contract marks stamped by the dungeon lord had been confirmed.
"It really looks like a dungeon that's just recently formed."
"I-I guess so..."
"But what are you so scared of...!"
"But there might be more... it's dark... and deep..."
"Haah..."
This was a famous survival strategy for dungeons that hadn't been generated very long.
A strategy of attracting wild monsters lingering nearby, stamping them with a contract mark, and using them as guardians before the dungeon core could generate a powerful monster of its own.
Of course, it wasn't very effective.
Wild monsters were, after all, savage things that didn't listen well, and the only orders they could understand were things like "guard" and "attack."
"Maybe we'll even be able to claim the core for ourselves."
"Don't let your guard down. Even in a dungeon like this, the lord definitely exists. The demon tribe is seriously strong."
When the world had been reorganized under a new order beneath the influence of the three great powers and had resolved to develop peacefully through magical and technological competition rather than military conflict, dungeons appeared across all continents—along with the dungeon lords who were the centers of those dungeons and the lords of many monsters. Countless dungeons sprang up like mushrooms after rain.
Most of those dungeons were close to cities and quickly subjugated, but there were also dungeons that grew up in remote regions and turned their surroundings into demonic domains.
The lords of such demonic domains were the most dangerous enemies of the current era, but that didn't mean the lords of small dungeons were weak.
They were, quite literally, battle-creatures born differently.
With even a little experience, they quickly grew into monsters in the figurative sense.
Thus, the policy was to scout dungeons that formed in remote places early, either to annihilate them in their infancy or to "prune" them appropriately and farm them for training.
In the end, this dungeon would also be a non-threatening existence, just like all the countless dungeons discovered early on.
The three of them thought so.
"Kiii...?!"
Around the time the thought, 'We've gone in too deep. Let's start heading back now,' was taking hold in all three of their minds,
a goblin appeared before their eyes.
Like the ones they'd found near the entrance, it was shabbily dressed and weaponless, and looked much more Fate (緣) weak.
"Looks like one was left behind."
"Seems like a coward. Like Sonia."
"Jack...!"
For an instant, all their eyes focused on a single point.
Of course, the idea that this might be wrong never even entered their minds.
When an enemy appears before you, you focus on the enemy without letting your guard down and kill it. That was the limit of what a novice could think.
So it was only natural that they couldn't detect the blade slipping in behind them.
Peok — !
"Khk...!"
"What?!"
"Sonia?!"
Just as Jack was about to charge at the goblin, Sonia collapsed under a sudden impact.
And a figure revealed itself from within his shadow.
"A skeleton...?"
A pure-white skeletal soldier gripping a bastard sword, the pommel of which was stained with Sonia's blood. A skeleton—one of the most basic monsters among the undead, the cursed remnants of life.
However, the two adventurers who were still standing felt an abnormally strong pressure.
Inside the cave, which had gone completely dark before they knew it, that spotless white—so unnaturally clean it stood out alone in the pitch-black space—was deeply chilling.
"It's a monster generated by the dungeon. It'll be different from the wild monsters outside. But where did it come from...?!"
Lemia had voiced her question at the stealthy appearance that made its origin impossible to guess, but she soon realized the answer.
The secret lay in the long, winding curves of the dungeon walls.
The dungeon, which had initially been bright from torches hung on the walls, grew gradually darker as the torches became farther apart, and as it darkened, the curves of the walls had been designed to become increasingly deeper.
A shadow created by the interplay of the occasional torch and those deepened curves was where the skeleton had been hiding.
For a moment, she wondered if they had fallen into a trap set by the dungeon lord, but Lemia soon erased that thought.
'That coward is for real.'
Because the goblin still hadn't attacked.
Even a goblin, the weakest and most cunning of the greenskins, was monster enough not to hesitate to charge madly when an enemy exposed a weakness.
But the fact that this goblin still wasn't attacking them was proof that, at the very least, this attack hadn't been planned for the goblin.
It was also proof that the goblin, sensitive to the strength of friend and foe, still judged Lemia's side to be stronger.
"I'll eliminate the variable. Hold that thing off."
"Ah, the goblin. Got it. One skeleton's no problem."
And above all, a skeleton was, at most, one of the most basic monsters. If an ambush was going to happen, the dungeon lord should have shown up instead.
Because these monsters, whose physical specs were different, could become sufficiently troublesome enemies after learning just one magic or swordsmanship technique.
It was a novice's error in judgment, not knowing that the dungeon lord was truly a newborn who had just appeared, but it wasn't an entirely wrong thought.
Actually, the dungeon lord Rita's body, even in its current state, had specs that could handle about two novice adventurers if she just picked up a weapon.
The real problem was that Rita still wasn't "prepared to end a person's life," but there was no way the two of them could have known that.
And the reason the skeleton had deliberately not killed Sonia but knocked her out with the pommel was precisely that.
Twung!
At Lemia's request, Jack stepped forward, and Lemia raised her pre-loaded crossbow and shot the goblin.
Her plan was to kill the goblin quickly, then immediately turn around and support Jack. A skeleton wasn't an overly strong type, but it was a monster with considerable variation depending on the individual and its equipment.
Since it was a mindless thing, it wouldn't try anything like taking Sonia hostage, but if some other variable caused Jack to get hurt, their hopes would be slim.
But.
"Kik...!!"
"It dodged...?!"
The goblin, which she had thought was frozen in place and absolutely couldn't dodge, dodged the arrow.
Though it was nothing more than collapsing on the spot, a dodge was still a dodge. As long as it wasn't completely killed, there was a possibility it might attack Sonia.
She couldn't lose a dear friend to a mere goblin.
"Annoying...!"
A crossbow is easy to shoot if loaded in advance, but it takes a long time to reload. Doing that would take way too long.
In the end, she drew a dagger and ran towards the goblin.
Peo-eok!!
The goblin was still collapsed on the ground.
Lemia, striking down on the goblin's head, soon noticed something strange.
She might have often used weapons focused on long-range support, but it wasn't as if she'd never directly killed a monster before.
But the feel of striking the goblin's head was strange.
As if stabbing something rotten, so easily...
'...Was this thing always such a mess?'
She'd already known the goblin's body was exceptionally gaunt, but looking at it up close, it was beyond that.
She hadn't noticed quickly because the goblin had been standing perfectly within a shadow that the torches they'd brought couldn't illuminate.
Its limbs were so emaciated they seemed about to break, and parts of the skin on its head had peeled off, exposing the white skull. As if it weren't alive, but had been a zombie from the start...
'A zombie? Alone... no?!'
Lemia whipped her head around toward Jack.
"Khk!"
But. The situation was already over.
"Ta, damn..."
"Jack...?!"
The exceptionally white skeleton, now fully revealed under the torchlight, was painted red with someone's blood.
And beneath it, her precious comrade and friend lay collapsed, bleeding.
- Dalkak.
The skeleton's emotionless rattle reached Lemia's ears. A moment later.
"Finished?"
A voice echoed through the cave—clearly feminine, slightly husky, low, and indifferent.
