4. Good News (4)
4. Good News (4)
"Is it over?"
The first battle, which I'd thought would not be easy, ended so quickly it felt almost anticlimactic.
I had lured a group of goblins from outside to make them careless, killed one among them to use as a decoy—controlling it as a corpse rather than a zombie—and extended the dungeon as far and as meticulously as I could to create shadows where my Skeleton could hide.
I had prepared diligently, but even I couldn't guarantee that it would work.
While the various preparations were effective, the battle ended much more easily because my summoned creature, the Skeleton, proved to be far more outstanding than I had expected.
[Just one Skeleton...]
The way my Skeleton had handled Jack was simple.
Undead attacks were generally headlong and reckless.
Based on that common knowledge, Jack had raised his shield to counter the Skeleton's charging sword strike, and my Skeleton— [Huh?] At that exquisite moment, it reached its hand over the shield and pressed down on his joint.
Perhaps because he could never have imagined that a mere undead would use such an unorthodox move, the opening Jack showed was enormous. So much so that even if Kal had run him straight through the abdomen, he wouldn't have been able to react.
So, in the end, it had subdued Jack in just two moves.
It was a move that risked killing him to subdue Jack quickly while dealing with the variable named Lemia.
Though I had told it to avoid killing as much as possible, this was the result of it faithfully carrying out my order that achieving the objective was the top priority.
- Tak.
My soldier clacked at me while aiming Kal at the neck of the woman who had been subdued relatively intact—Lemia.
A sense of report was transmitted from the fellow. If I had to put it into words, it would be something like 'Victory. No abnormalities.'
"Well done."
- Tak!
As I patted its upper arm with a sense of pride, a slightly more cheerful sound was heard. It might not have looked particularly cool since I was much shorter than it, but that didn't matter.
There was no one here who could point that out.
"You've become quite a mess."
The Skeleton, its pure white bones stained red by the blood of the warrior called Jack, was a gruesome sight, and it was hard to bring myself to touch it.
But it had ended up like that to protect me.
Thinking that, I had no hesitation in touching it.
Of course, it would have been impossible for the me from Earth. ...I'd need to take the time to examine its status window in detail.
"Any injuries... none."
Apart from being drenched in blood, its white body was spotless, without a single wound.
It was clearly an abnormal occurrence.
Because if a direct battle broke out between a novice adventurer and a Skeleton, it should normally end in the adventurer's victory.
Although undead varied considerably depending on the occupation they'd had in life, they were still bound by certain limits.
'So I had planned to take down the crossbowman with a surprise attack while drawing their attention. But to think it finished it all by itself.'
In the game, there were plenty of undead that appeared with special titles, but there was virtually no individual that could kill an adventurer one-on-one while merely being a Skeleton, not even through a surprise attack.
Except for that one I had summoned once, the one with the 'Perfect' title attached to it. Though that time it had been a Zombie, not a Skeleton.
Could this one be that kind of individual?
If so, then it was a fortune that couldn't be explained simply by saying I was lucky.
"You really did a great job. You're clever, and you're skilled."
- Dalkak!
Praise flowed naturally from my lips, as if fated, and the Skeleton once again clacked its jawbones together in disciplined acknowledgment.
After the performance I'd just witnessed, the gesture no longer felt eerie at all.
Only a sense of reliability.
The patience to ignore an undead's instincts and, as ordered, subdue the most threatening opponent first—even though the shadow where it hid was on the right and the mage was on the left.
The sharpness of its swordsmanship, which gave no ground to a human warrior and defeated him.
And finally, the fact that it had subdued all of them without killing a single one, following my instruction to keep them alive as much as possible.
After seeing all that, if I didn't feel a sense of reliability, I'd be disqualifying myself as its master.
Though its competence was a bit too good to be true, it would also be strange to doubt a creature that kept sending me feelings akin to familiarity.
'Is it really a 'Perfect' individual? It's inconvenient that I can't view my summoned creature's status window.'
I didn't know whether it hadn't been unlocked yet, or if it had disappeared once things became reality, but there was no way to intuitively check my summon's status.
I did get the sense that 'This one is strong,' but I couldn't use that as a basis for forming a strategy.
Setting aside such regrets, I patted the cold Skeleton's arm once more and turned my body toward today's quarry.
"Hello. To the two of you. Though it's probably not a very good 'hello.'"
One mage who was unconscious, unable to converse.
One warrior whose abdomen had been pierced and was on the verge of death, but not yet dead.
And finally, one who seemed to be a ranger or hunter.
All three were in an excellent state, considering they were the harvest of my first battle.
Since undead moved out of hatred for the living and always focused on tearing enemies apart, I hadn't expected to be able to have this kind of interrogation time.
Swallowing my admiration for my Skeleton once more internally, I spoke again.
"It's regrettable that our first meeting had to be like this."
"Ku... urgh..."
"How is a Skeleton this strong...?"
"I can't answer that. Isn't there something more important than that?"
Looking at Lemia, who was staring at me with dazed eyes, I pointed at the dying warrior.
"First, give him emergency treatment. He'll die if you leave him like that."
"Why...?"
"Is the reason important? If you want to leave your friend to die and just survive on your own, that's fine too."
... Kuk!
My soldier had confiscated all their weapons, and the mage was additionally bound—eyes, ears, mouth, hands, every body part useful for casting spells—completely blocked.
There were no means to resist.
"Jack. Jack? Pull yourself together. Okay?"
"Le... mi..."
"Yes. I'm here. I'll treat you. Okay?"
"R... un...!"
"Where would I go, leaving you behind...!"
Lemia took a red glass bottle out of her bag, poured it over Jack's wound, and also let some flow into his mouth.
My restraint came at that moment.
"That's enough."
"The treatment isn't...!"
"He won't die now. Right?"
Slide.
The Skeleton stepped forward as if to affirm my words and pressed its sword against Lemia's chin. At that ferocity, she raised her chin, bit her lip, and slowly retreated.
She knew that the sword could be driven back into Jack's body at any time.
"You're clever, young lady."
Whether due to the lessening pain, Jack eventually passed out. His recovery speed was by no means fast, but his wound was visibly healing nonetheless.
However, it seemed his recovery would only go so far at this rate.
It was exactly the level I wanted, so to speak.
"So this is a human potion?"
"... That's right."
The red medicine Lemia had used must be the kind of potion commonly seen in games.
I'd confirmed that she had several more in her bag, so there would be opportunities to use them later. As they were novice adventurers, the quality probably wasn't very good, but it would be better than nothing.
In the worst case, I might even be able to use them on myself.
"Now, will you answer my questions?"
I approached the hunter, who still had my soldier's sword pressed against her chin, and asked.
She nodded, still biting her lip.
That bothered me somewhat.
"If you keep biting your lip like that, you'll hurt yourself. That's a good girl. Yes."
When I said this while tapping her lips, she gradually released the pressure of her teeth on her lip.
Though she was looking at me with puzzlement, wondering why I was acting like this, it was just something I did on a whim with no particular meaning, so I had nothing to say about it.
I merely posed the next question.
"What's your name?"
"Why do you..."
"Name."
"... Lemia."
Though she was still defiant, simply answering questions meant she was lowering her walls.
The fact that I took the form of a young woman probably played a part in that. Since ancient times, beauty had also been a poison that killed people.
Smiling, I asked, keeping my tone and attitude warm.
"Did you guys try to challenge the dungeon on your own? Or did you come from the guild?"
"... Yeah. Through the guild..."
Slide.
"Y, yes!"
There was a brief disturbance when the Skeleton pressed its sword closer after her informal answer, but in any case, she seemed ready to answer more questions, since she was already spilling information without me having to ask.
"I, it was a general request..."
"General? I'll ask your friends later too. I won't ask as gently then. Don't lie."
"It really was a general request... !"
"... Fine. It seems to be the truth."
At my words, the woman's relief was visible.
It was pitiful to see her terrified that her friends' and her own lives might be in danger, but I had no room for sympathy.
Even in modern times, when necessary, one had to be prepared to bring down competitors.
Some people thought that was sociopathic or something, but in such cases, it was only that the degree of causing the other party's ruin and destruction was too excessive; even among ordinary people, competition was like that.
If I hadn't brought them down, I, who had parted ways with my family and was left alone, might have died.
To die from the stress of having no money on Earth, or to die in a cave where no one I knew was present, having gained nothing here and lost what little I had.
The two were practically no different to me.
Of course, whether it was ruining an opponent or driving them into a corner and interrogating them like this, it was a bad thing to do.
"... I suppose that's all for now."
The information obtained from interrogating the woman was as follows.
'Two hundred years... quite a long time has passed.'
First: The current era was far in the future compared to the background of the 'MLD' I knew.
MLD 1 was set in Imperial Year 5, also known as Year 1 of the Chaos Era, when dungeons first appeared and the world peace agreement was signed. Now, it was said to be Chaos Year 214.
As expected, this place must be the world within the sequel to that game, 'Million Dungeon Lord 2.'
The fact that a powerful individual like my soldier had appeared among the Skeletons might also have been something that happened due to such a difference in eras.
'A general request. This is a term that didn't exist in the game I played.'
Second: There were two types of guild requests.
An official or designated request, specified by the guild and aimed at threatening entities; and a general request, where commonly occurring jobs were posted constantly and adventurers could pick them up on their own.
On top of that, I learned a third fact.
If the guild was treating the creation of a dungeon as a 'common occurrence,' then the situation in this world must be that dungeons were truly springing up like mushrooms after rain.
In the 'MLD 2' that had become reality, the number of 'Dungeon Lords' might literally reach a 'Million.'
If so, that was fortunate.
That meant even if these people failed their request, my existence wouldn't immediately become widely known.
'As if I didn't already have a headache.'
And finally, I learned of another danger I hadn't been aware of.
Something I figured out thanks to realizing the gap between the era I knew and the present, and from hearing about the world's situation from Lemia.
'It seems this world has some troublesome seniors.'
It was about the existence of six established Dungeon Lords called 'Grand Dukes of the Demon Realm.'
The lords of super-massive dungeons who, long after settling on the continent, had cultivated their dungeons into a new form of existence called a 'Demon Realm.'
Among all Dungeon Lords, these were probably the ones truly closest to the title of Demon King Candidate.
- Dalkak.
"You're saying you can do it? Thanks."
The shadow of those beings, so far above that it was hard to even look up at them, pressed down on my shoulders with a weight that was hard to overcome even with the encouragement of one reliable Skeleton.
Because it meant that one of a Dungeon Lord's greatest enemies was the competing Demon King Candidates, and among them, some had already surged far ahead.
It was the appearance of new powerful enemies that hadn't existed in MLD 1.