Night Dungeon Exploration (3)
"This is the last one, right?"
"Yes, senior."
By the time we'd harvested the hide and fangs of the final Poison Spike Wolf, the monster material bag was filling up nicely. We hadn't come back into the dungeon with profit in mind, but once everything was collected, the haul turned out to be pretty substantial. For Lim Yujin, who'd been dragged out here on short notice, it would probably count as decent earnings—and for Han Sora, whose finances were perpetually stretched thin, it hardly needed saying.
While gathering the materials, I'd also taken the liberty of collecting what was left of that mage woman's legs and one of the archer's arms.
"...Y-you're planning to carry those out just like that?"
"Nothing to be done. These won't fit in the material pouch."
"Th-then should I carry them? They do look, look pretty heavy, after all..."
"You were horrified just looking at them earlier—there's no need to force yourself now."
"W-well, I am the only Physical Enhancement Type here, after all..."
"It's not even half a person's weight all told, so whatever."
"Half a person's weight?! Uuuugh..."
Han Sora clutched her own shoulders and shuddered, as if this were somehow her problem too. Materials collected, the women's body parts stashed away as a bonus—the basic objective was more or less accomplished.
I'd already sprinkled the holy water we'd brought for preservation, so there was no urgent need to make the delivery right away. Besides, there was still plenty left to do inside the dungeon.
"I'd like to take another look at that strange tree-like monster we took down earlier. Is that all right?"
"I don't mind at all. We've still got plenty of time before curfew anyway."
The Seed of Manaroot, lying somewhere on B3 of the Collapsed Root Cave. The whole reason we'd entered this dungeon in the first place was to secure that one item. Things had gotten a little tangled thanks to Seo Woo-jin, but business was business.
"A strange tree-like monster? You mean the Rotwatcher, the floor-one boss here, Seonho?"
"It looked completely different from that one. A monster I'd never seen before—we were in such a rush earlier that we just killed it, grabbed a few materials, and moved on."
"Oho. Now that is interesting~."
Lim Yujin, befitting her Combat Support position, showed a distinct flicker of curiosity at the prospect of new knowledge she didn't possess. I'd known she'd react exactly this way—I'd brought her along precisely to cash in on that trait.
"You're coming with us too, right, senior?"
"Of course, I'm curious now. Wait, no—were you actually planning to leave your poor delicate senior all alone down here if I said no?!"
"We were going to walk you back to the entrance and then come back in. I do have at least that much common sense, senior."
"Hmm, do you now? Well, forgive me if I'm a little suspicious—I recently found out that a junior I trusted told a shameless lie~."
"Like I keep saying, it wasn't a lie. The kids gave up those points to me in the first place, and handing the top spot to Sora was the most reasonable—"
"That line again? Haah, Seonho, you really are..."
Chatting with the two of them, we moved deeper, toward the chamber where the Corrupted Vine Guardian had fallen.
Seonho turned out to be an even more interesting junior than I'd expected, didn't he?
The fact that a Combat Support student was second in the freshman class had already struck me as fascinating. And apparently he even had a shot at taking first overall.
Jae-wook and Na-yeon, who joined last year, were no fun at all, but Seonho really was something different from them. Even the way he talks is entertaining. Honestly, compared to the kids we already had, he's just so much easier to communicate with.
"Seonho! This is the fake passage made from mirage magic you mentioned, right?"
"Yep, good memory. It's easy to spot once you know what to look for, so keep it in mind for other dungeons too."
"R-right! Oh, and that thing over there, could it be...?"
Even though he's in the Combat Support Department, he seems to have a surprisingly solid base of goodwill with students from the other departments~. Sora's the top-ranked freshman in the whole year, and from what I heard earlier, she's close friends with the top student of the Swordsmanship Department too.
I'm not so antisocial that I can't get along with kids from other departments, but looking at it that way, this junior really does seem a lot like me.
Following behind Seonho and Han Sora—who hovered oddly close at his side—we stepped through and emerged into a fairly spacious chamber. At the sight of something lying crumpled in the center, clearly a monster of some kind, I could tell at once that it wasn't the boss of this dungeon that I knew.
"Here it is, senior."
"Hmm, this is definitely not a boss monster that spawns on these floors. How on earth did you manage to find this place?"
"I compared my surroundings and pushed forward following only the traces that looked like a path. If you just follow the routes everyone else takes, you only ever get the common, boring rewards."
"Ooooh~! Now that is the right attitude, junior! The true romance of dungeons is treasure hunting, after all! I knew you got it!"
He really has the proper mindset buried deep in him—worthy of being my recognized junior.
The romance of dungeons is seeking out paths no one else has walked. Hidden chambers, hidden bosses, treasure chests—that's the flower of dungeon exploration. Looking at it that way, Seonho is easily the best of the kids in our club. Yes, yes.
'His connections seem pretty good too. I should definitely keep exploring with him going forward.'
Something tells me there'd always be interesting things happening if I went along with him. Just... a feeling, I guess.
"Do you recognize what kind of monster it is, senior?"
"Hmm, most likely a Vine Guardian variant. The type where an ancient tree animates itself using a mana core as its power source."
"So it does share some lineage with the Rotwatcher."
"Right. Though the Rotwatcher is a Rock Guardian type."
With an expression of genuine interest, Lim Yujin circled the fallen Vine Guardian's corpse, examining it from every angle. Despite the fact that this had to be an unfamiliar monster for her to look at, she picked up her carving knife with perfect composure and began dismantling the creature with practiced ease.
-Crack. Crunch.
'Well, she is the top-ranked third-year in the Combat Support Department. The experience shows.'
She knew exactly where to cut and how to break down a monster she was seeing for the very first time. I quietly observed her from behind while keeping an eye out for the right moment to activate the B3 teleportation stone I'd obtained earlier.
"...Huh? What's this?"
...That is, until Lim Yujin let slip those words, her voice carrying the note of someone who'd just discovered something.
"What is it, senior?"
"Look at this. It's embedded inside the Vine Guardian's body."
"......Huh?"
A resplendent emerald gem, sunk deep into the very center of the Corrupted Vine Guardian's corpse. It didn't take long to work out exactly what the thing Lim Yujin had pulled free actually was.
"The Seed of Manaroot..."
"Hm? You know what this is, junior?"
"The Mana-root... what?"
...Ah, damn it.
The whole point of thinking only to myself was rendered absurd, and the words slipped right out of my mouth. Of course they did—when the very item I was supposed to descend to B3 and retrieve sat glaring at me, embedded in the corpse of the monster we'd just killed.
'...I have no idea what's going on here.'
In the original story, it was clearly obtained by defeating the Corrupted Vine Guardian and then finding the Seed down on B3. Could it be that the seed had always been embedded in this thing's body, and it just happened to be transferred down to the third basement floor along with it, where it was discovered by chance?
Just as a tangle of complicated thoughts was churning through my head, Lim Yujin's voice reached my ears again.
"I said, do you know what this is, junior? What's the Seed of Manaroot?"
"......"
...It seemed I couldn't just play dumb and let it slide.
Brushing it off with some half-baked lie would have been difficult anyway—the mood had already turned strange—and more than anything, knowing Lim Yujin's personality, the fallout when she found out later would be a nightmare to manage.
There was nothing for it but to come clean and explain. It wasn't the kind of information I could keep buried forever even if I tried.
"It's called the Seed of Manaroot. I'd only ever heard the name—I've never seen one in person before."
"Hmm, really? What's it used for?"
"...It's an item that raises your base stamina and strength. Combat Support types like me naturally have lower stamina and strength than the Physical Enhancement Types, so I'd been keeping it in memory in case I ever came across one—not that I wanted to forget it if the chance came up."
"Ooooh, is that so~."
"......"
Having heard my explanation, Lim Yujin gazed at the Seed of Manaroot in her hand with an odd look in her eyes. And Han Sora too was directing her gaze toward me, as though she had something to say.
'I need to secure this somehow.'
Honestly, even if I'd shamelessly declared I was keeping it right then and there, no one would have objected. Lim Yujin had only done the dismantling, so she had no claim on the materials—and Han Sora, who'd worried about my stamina and strength all this time, would actually want me to use it.
The problem was that if I'd been the one to say it first, it would have damaged the character I'd been carefully maintaining in front of these two all along.
'I've done nothing but show myself as considerate and yielding this whole time. If I suddenly announced I was monopolizing the material right here, the whole picture would fall apart.'
Weighing it carefully in my head: the conquest of Han Sora and Lim Yujin versus a permanent boost to my physical stats. Long-term, the stamina and strength gains would obviously help more—but was it really worth creating awkwardness with Han Sora, whose conquest was nearly complete, or Lim Yujin, whose had barely begun?
Besides, anyone could look up the Seed of Manaroot's market value with a quick internet search once we got out. Claiming it all for myself out of pure greed—without even consulting Do Yoonchae, who'd fought in the subjugation alongside us—would have utterly wrecked the image I'd spent so long building.
So I carefully set the mood, engineering a situation where the two of them would hand the material over to me of their own accord.
"...Let's take it out first and ask Yoon-sung. He fought that monster too, so he has a stake in it. It'd probably fetch a decent price if we sold it."
"Hm? Sell it? Can't you just use it, Seonho?"
"How could I keep it all for myself when we earned it together? And either way, senior, you're the one who found it—so I'll set aside ten percent for you."
"Ooooh, junior, you really are too soft. Here, take it."
Without a trace of regret on her face, Lim Yujin held the Seed of Manaroot out to me.
"I don't need a share, so you kids discuss among yourselves what to do with it. And it looks like Sora here has something she wants to say to you anyway."
And with a reaction I'd more or less predicted, she coolly gave up any claim of her own.
"I-I also think it's better if you use it, Seonho. Honestly, I still get terrified every single time you go into combat."
"...It's not that I have zero desire to use it, but I should still hear Yoon-sung out."
"Y-Yoon-sung will probably say it's fine...? O-or, or I'll just keep it a secret for you! I-it's not like Yoon-sung would even know a Seed of Manaroot or whatever showed up anyway!"
"No, still..."
"Ehehe~. As far as I'm concerned, I heard nothing~."
Han Sora, willing to lie through her teeth just to raise my strength, and Lim Yujin, reading the room just enough to nudge me toward the choice I wanted. At both of their predictably perfect reactions, I smiled to myself and closed my hand tight around the Seed of Manaroot.