Footprints in the Forest
The mysteries of the dungeon were unraveling one by one.
Simon had wondered for days how the monsters living here replenished their energy without eating anything. The answer, it turned out, was this: when a monster exhausted its strength, it transformed into the dungeon's natural features—a plant, a rock, a patch of moss. Then, after waiting quietly in that state, an unknown presence would reach out with something like a white nerve, touch the creature, and feed it energy directly.
Simon was convinced that this unknown presence was the Dungeon Lord—the boss monster. Nothing else in this world could orchestrate an entire ecosystem like that.
And there was a way to come into contact with it.
Do what the monsters do.
Sit still in one place, hold your concentration, and don't move. After a while, the being presumed to be the Dungeon Lord would extend a white tentacle shaped like a nerve cell toward you. But the moment it made contact, the Dungeon Lord would realize Simon wasn't a monster and flee—and when it fled, a powerful residual sensation of its escape direction lingered in him.
All he had to do was keep walking that way. A compass, in effect. Whenever he lost the path or grew uncertain, he simply repeated the trick—fooling the Dungeon Lord once more and catching a fresh bearing.
Getting this far had taken plenty of trial and error. His original idea, covering his body in minerals, had turned out to be completely pointless. The real conditions were these: stay motionless for at least an hour, keep breathing in a steady rhythm without breaking it, don't fall asleep, and do it somewhere surrounded by plenty of trees and vegetation.
And so, Day Ten.
"Mm."
Simon, deep in meditation, sensed the Dungeon Lord stirring again and opened his eyes. He really was getting close now—the residual sensation after each contact was growing stronger with every attempt.
Time to eat something, at least.
Hungry from meditating, he filled his stomach with the leftover meat from his last monster hunt. It tasted terrible no matter when he ate it—and now that he knew the monsters here turned into plants, it tasted worse.
……No wonder it chewed like mushrooms instead of meat.
Worse still, within a few hours the monster's flesh would wilt away into something like a withered, soggy plant. Its shelf life was exactly one day—which meant he had to hunt a monster once per day, like clockwork.
"Hup!"
Meal finished, Simon did some light stretching. His direction was set, and it was about time to secure tonight's dinner, too.
Scattered across the forest floor all around him, his eyes caught a chaotic sprawl of tracks.
Let's follow these first—— huh?
Simon's eyes went wide and he crouched down.
The footprints on the ground were crisp. A matched pair of strides, freshly pressed into the damp soil. But what stunned him wasn't that—it was that they weren't the monster tracks he'd seen until his eyes glazed over since arriving here.
These are shoe prints!
Another Kizen student was nearby. Simon immediately broke into a run, following the trail. The ground was damp enough to hold every print clearly, and the impressions grew deeper and deeper as he went—proof that someone had been staying here recently.
Before long, following the footprints out of the dense forest—
Whoooosh—
Wind came rushing at him in a blinding burst of light. And there, hair the color of the sky streaming in the wind, was the back of a girl. With a shwak, she tucked a strand behind her ear, then sensed his presence and turned around.
"……Ah?"
The girl's eyes blew wide. Shock lasted only a moment before an irrepressible joy and relief burst across her face.
"Si——!"
"SIMON!!!"
But someone beat her to it. Toto threw himself flat against Simon and burst into tears of gratitude.
"……To, Toto?"
"Huaaah! Simon! I'm so glad to see you! It was so scary!"
Even as he wailed, Toto stole a sidelong glance at Meilin. Meilin's face went scarlet.
"Hey!! What did I ever do to you!"
"Eep!"
Toto dove behind Simon's back. Simon smiled broadly.
"You two haven't changed a bit."
"……Give me back the touching reunion I was planning. Seriously."
Meilin muttered it with a hand pressed to her forehead, then looked at Simon. Ten days in the dungeon—she'd expected the boys to be scruffy-bearded and hollow-cheeked by now, but Simon looked as crisp as ever. He'd even found time to shave, the picture of composure.
Then again, he'd been the same during the island survival exam. Drop this man anywhere on the continent and he'd find a way to live.
"You don't have anyone else with you, do you?"
At Meilin's question, Simon shook his head. "No—you three are the first people I've met."
Meilin's eyes gleamed as she thrust out her hand. "Then come with us! Of course, only if you want to……."
Simon took her hand with a smile. A grip neither crushing nor feeble—just right, comfortably firm—closed around her white fingers.
"Of course I do."
A careless smile escaped the corner of Meilin's mouth. Ever since entering the dungeon, everything had felt hopeless and vague, but meeting Simon made her feel this safe. She couldn't overstate it.
Sure, she had Toto too—but rather than being someone she could lean on, he was someone she had to look after.
"A-anyway, I'm the leader! Any objections?"
"Haha! Suit yourself."
The three of them brought each other up to speed and pooled everything they'd learned. All of them, it turned out, had independently figured out how to deal with the mineral monsters and the fact that the monsters transformed into plants. Meilin and Toto hadn't discovered the Dungeon Lord's location, but they'd been moving with a method of their own.
"Look closely, and you'll see it. The tree roots all lean in one consistent direction."
"They do?"
At her words, Simon narrowed his eyes and swept his gaze over the roots of the nearby trees.
"……Hm. I honestly can't tell."
"If you look reeeally carefully, they tilt toward the same side. Just barely."
Simon scratched the side of his head. "If it's that subtle, is it even useful information?"
"Fair point, maybe. But!" Meilin flung her arms wide. "What if every single tree in this forest satisfies that condition?"
Plant roots leaning one way, on its own, meant nothing. But if 299 out of 300 trees in a forest leaned exactly the same way, the story changed. That meant something.
"Honestly, it's not some grand discovery. But it was all we had, so we've just been heading this way the whole time."
Simon nodded. "Good work."
The Dungeon Lord's white tentacles climbed up through the soil to feed nutrients to the plantified monsters. It was entirely possible the roots leaned toward that. Of course, roots could bend to any number of natural factors—slope, wind, light—so it wasn't a hundred percent certain clue. But in the end, they'd committed to a direction and kept moving, and that was exactly how they'd managed to run into Simon.
Then it was Simon's turn to share.
"You can touch the Dungeon Lord?"
Meilin and Toto's eyes went round as saucers.
"Me too! Let me try!"
Meilin promptly knelt, folded her legs beneath her, and shut her eyes. Beside her, curiosity apparently getting the better of him, Toto leaned against a tree and closed his eyes as well.
However—
Squirm! Squirm!
Barely thirty minutes in, Meilin's shoulders were already fidgeting with boredom. Toto, for his part, was fast asleep, drool trickling down his chin.
Simon let out a wry smile. "You both failed."
Knowing the method was one thing; it seemed nearly impossible for anyone with a scattered mind or a heavy sleeping habit.
The two had failed, but Simon made one more contact with the Dungeon Lord anyway, reconfirming his bearing before they set out.
"I'll handle navigation. Let's move."
"Yeah!"
First priority: reach it themselves, prove Simon's hypothesis, and pin down the Dungeon Lord's location for good.
The three of them pressed forward at a brisk pace. The closer they drew to the Dungeon Lord's direction, the larger and more numerous the monsters became—and since the things would hound them relentlessly the moment they were spotted, they had to loop around again and again through the emptiest routes.
"Simon! The trail ahead is crawling with monsters!"
Toto reported back from scouting. Simon nodded. "We need to conserve our mineral weapons. If we climb this hill, I think we can avoid a fight. What do you say?"
He pointed upward. Meilin squinted up at the slope. "……It'll burn through our stamina, but I don't see another way."
"Hold on."
Simon opened his subspace. Six skeletons emerged, split themselves into countless pieces, and clapped solidly onto all three of their bodies.
"There—wear this while you climb. It'll help."
"Full-body Bone Armour?!"
Toto's eyes sparkled with pure admiration as he stared at Simon.
Whoosh, whoosh.
Simon, fully clad in Bone Armour, swung his arms a few times to test them, then demonstrated first. He reached out with both hands, seized a jutting outcrop, planted his right foot on a solid foothold, and climbed in smooth, steady pulls.
"Follow me, Meilin!"
"Ah—right!"
Meilin tested the exoskeleton's reinforcing effect right away, gripping a protruding piece of the steep slope and hauling herself up.
"This is great! I can climb straight up without even trying!"
She adapted in no time. With her somewhat below-average athletic instincts, it might have been a struggle—but Simon was actively supporting her climbs with his Bone Armour, so it was no problem at all.
"Hey! Loner!"
Elated, she looked back over her shoulder. "What's taking you so long? Hurry up!"
But the moment Toto, climbing behind her, met her eyes, he flushed crimson and hastily looked away.
"Why is he……"
A beat late, Meilin's face registered sudden comprehension.
THWACK!
Her back kick sent Toto skidding down the cliff face. He then had to scale the wall all over again—faster than Meilin this time, to reclaim his dignity.
"……Simon, that really hurt."
Toto, a shoe print stamped across his face, wore an expression on the verge of tears. "……Haha."
Timid to his core, Toto must have had a very hard time handling Meilin's personality.
"D-do you think Meilin actually hates me?"
His confidence in tatters, Toto asked with a crumpled face. Simon shook his head.
Whatever else you say about her.
Meilin was a strict results-above-all pragmatist, grades before everything. And yet this girl, seriously gunning for first place in the promotion exam, had kept Toto at her side the entire time, protecting him despite the burden he might be. That fact alone told the whole story.
"Meilin's just not honest with herself. Every now and then she says and does things she doesn't mean."
Simon continued, "If you'd just relax around her a little, you'd understand that she——"
"Th-that's the impossible part!"
At Toto's whine, Simon laughed out loud.
And so, riding the power of the Bone Armour, the three of them crested the top of the cliff.
"Wow—we really have come to the kind of place a boss would live!"
Meilin bounced on her toes, joy spilling out of her. From here they could take in at a glance a sweeping view of a jet-black mountain range none of them had seen anywhere else in this dungeon.
"Right, let's head down. Careful, now."
Simon was moving to lead the descent when Toto pointed at the sky. "G-guys? Something's coming over there?"
"Hm?"
Simon looked up. He'd assumed it was a bird.
It was not a bird.
"……!"
A black dragon.
Flap!
A massive dragon descended, tattered wings riddled with holes beating the air, each wingbeat kicking up a ferocious gale.
"Kyaaaah!"
"Get down!"
Simon, jet-black flaring around him, braced Meilin and Toto where they'd dropped flat. The black dragon planted its claws on the dizzying clifftop where the three stood, then folded its wings.
Of all places——!
Simon bit his lip. The black dragon's body began to shrink, and the scales that had been embedded seamlessly in its hide popped free, dangling loose from its frame. The reptilian snout drew inward, reshaping into a straight-featured human face, the sharp fangs aligning neatly into ordinary teeth.
"Simon Polentia."
A moment later, it was the familiar face of Hector.
"……Hector!"
Meilin sprang to her feet, magic circles flaring to life in both palms. "You know dueling between students inside the dungeon is forbidden, right?"
"Duels are forbidden, sure. But taking a bit of a painful tumble down this hill? I'd hardly call that a duel."
"You—!"
Simon raised an arm to hold back Meilin as she lunged. "What do you want?"
Excessively competitive, and liable to burn bridges the moment he was angered—but in Simon's eyes, Hector was no fool.
Hector looked at Simon in turn. "A man like you would have found the boss's location by now."
"……."
"Guide me."
Was he offering to cooperate in clearing the dungeon? Simon felt a flicker of relief—until Meilin crossed her arms with a sharp hmph.
"And what makes you so pretty that we'd owe you that?"
Hector raised the corner of his mouth in silence. He would surely trail them to the very end whether they guided him or not. Simon looked at him and said:
"We need every bit of fighting strength we can get. Let's cooperate for this boss fight, Hector."