The City That Dreamed of Gold
Rattle— rattle—
Simon had been on an endless carriage ride since arriving in Tarados.
The rumble of the wheels had become a familiar sound. Even the jarring jolts, the way his cup of water swayed precariously back and forth—by the time he'd grown used to it all, it had actually started to feel pleasant. Add a good book to read at his leisure, and the journey was just about perfect.
"Simon. Six o'clock."
"On it."
Of course, the trip wasn't all peace and quiet.
A chimera cobbled together from a grotesque mishmash of animals was trailing the carriage. This land of Tarados was a paradise for abandoned experiments and chimeras alike.
Simon gave the creature a long, unhurried look, then turned his eyes back to his book.
Twang! Thunk! Thunk!
Jet-black arrows rained down on the chimera like a downpour. The beast, already bristling with countless arrow fletchings from earlier volleys, staggered a few more steps before crashing face-first into the sand with a heavy whump.
-Tap-tap!
-Tap-tap-tap!
Up on the carriage roof, the Skeleton Archers cheered.
"Y-you folks really are necromancers!"
The coachman driving the team up front exclaimed in admiration.
"I never dreamed we'd get to cross Tarados this comfortably!"
"Right, so don't worry about the chimeras—just focus on driving."
Skeleton Archers stood ready atop the carriage, while farther back, Pier and Erzsébet followed along, quietly clearing out the chimera horde before it could ever get close.
All in all, it was a fairly pleasant journey. Lisa, the requester's little sister traveling with them, was fast asleep, breathing softly, while Kajan copied the information he'd gathered so far into his notebook.
A brief moment of peace before the great battle.
Leaning back against the cushions inside the carriage, Simon turned to the next page.
'This reads so smoothly. I'm already this far in.'
Whenever he arrived somewhere unfamiliar—whether on a mission or a posting—his father Richard's teaching had always been the same: understand the local culture and history first, and only then will a solution reveal itself.
Somewhere along the road, Simon had asked the coachman to tell him about Tarados, and the man had said that reading this book was the real 'shortcut,' fetching a volume from the luggage compartment for him instead.
It was the memoir of the 'former lord' of Tarados, written during the region's golden age.
The childhood chapters were done; Simon had arrived right at the book's centerpiece.
The chapters about the Gold Mine Dungeon.
'Fascinating.'
According to the memoir, the Gold Mine Dungeon that appeared in Tarados actually dropped gold when its monsters were slain.
This faintly red-tinged gold radiated a brilliance that outshone any gem on the continent, and its luster never faded even when carried beyond the dungeon's walls.
Adventurers sold the gold in the markets, and the ornaments carved from it became wildly popular among the high nobility—ushering Tarados into a great golden age.
"I still remember those days vividly. Rumor spread of a dungeon that dropped gold, and thousands upon thousands of adventurers flooded into Tarados, dreaming of striking it rich overnight."
"A village formed around the dungeon and swarmed with people. I saw my opportunity. I invested money to grow the village and spread word of it. Within a few years, it had become the wealthiest city in the kingdom."
"But back then, I did not yet know. I could not know what despair and suffering that dungeon would one day bring down upon us."
"Hmmmm."
The carriage was cramped, and Lisa, sprawled out beside him, shifted in her sleep. When Simon gently stroked her hair, she soon settled against his thigh and drifted off again, breathing softly.
Simon returned his gaze to the book.
"The monsters of the dungeon are born from its walls, and they possess a bizarre regenerative power. Pierce them with a spear and they recover in moments—but drive out the gold embedded in their chests, and they can be destroyed. Pick up that gold and hand it to the merchants waiting desperately outside the dungeon, and a heavy purse finds its way into your hands."
"Blinded by gold, people came to occupy the dungeon's first floor, where no monsters appeared. Inside that dungeon, human wounds healed as fast as the monsters' did. Hunger rarely came, and drink left no hangover. As if time itself had been frozen in place."
"People ate, slept, and drank on the first floor all day long. With bodies that could never be harmed, even narcotics spread like wildfire. They would do anything for pleasure, and within those walls unfolded a den of lust and gluttony built from the ugliest side of human nature. We came to call those who lived in the dungeon 'Dungeon Addicts.'"
"The Dungeon Addicts never once tried to leave. They ate and drank the whole day through, and when their money ran out, they descended to the second basement floor, hunted the dungeon monsters, and traded the gold to merchants for coin. With that coin they bought more liquor, more women, more narcotics."
"When a man loses the value of honest work, tragedy is sure to find him."
Kajan remarked suddenly from the seat beside him.
"……Ahaha. How long have you been reading over my shoulder?"
"From the very first page."
Kajan scratched at the old scar on his face.
"Knowing a region's history and culture matters just as much as combat does."
"You sound a lot like my father."
Simon smiled and looked back down at the book.
It began with the words: something was going wrong.
"Something is going wrong. The 'Dungeon Addicts' kept multiplying, while the dungeon's monsters appeared less and less often. The Addicts began turning blades on one another over the gold. Blood splashed, heads split open—and a moment later, everything returned to how it had been. Killing people became little more than a game to pass the time for them."
"With the gold drying up, the merchants turned their backs first. No longer able to earn coin, the Dungeon Addicts could no longer get liquor, women, or drugs. In the end they burst out of the dungeon and robbed the honest citizens of their valuables and food—then took their lives as well. Exactly as they had when killing inside the dungeon was a casual pastime."
"I dispatched guards to bring them under control. But the Addicts who had poured outside would not die, no matter how many times we cut them down. Their wounds regenerated, and they rose again without end. Yes—somewhere along the way, they had become the dungeon's 'monsters' themselves."
Simon sat there dumbfounded.
"……People turning into monsters. Did something like this really happen?"
"Yes, it did."
The coachman glanced back over his shoulder as he answered.
"When I was about five or six, my own father was a 'Dungeon Addict.' Because of him—because he never came home—my mother sighed her lungs out every single day."
"Ah……"
"The real catastrophe should be coming up any page now."
Kajan urged him on as well.
"Turn the page, Simon. Quickly."
"Ah—yep."
"The city burned and was destroyed. The great lords trembled in dread that the immortal Dungeon Addicts might spill into their own territories. The kingdom sent down an edict: resolve this catastrophe by any means necessary, or Tarados would have no choice but to be closed off entirely."
"I hired the most capable adventurers I could find. Five men, the most famous on the continent—said to have never once failed a dungeon conquest. They were the only card I had left to play. They would descend to the very deepest reaches of the Gold Mine Dungeon, slay the Dungeon Lord, and destroy the dungeon utterly."
Simon could feel the lord's mind fraying as the words spilled across the page. Tense, he turned to the next one.
"It is done! The adventurers—no, our heroes—have slain the Dungeon Lord! The dungeon is vanishing, and the Addicts inside it and out have finally come to their senses! Great heroes have delivered Tarados from ruin!"
Raw joy leapt off the lord's pages.
But.
It took the lord only a single page for his heart to turn.
"It is all a nightmare. I have heard the most horrifying news. The 'Dungeon Addicts,' come to their senses at last, raged against the very heroes who had saved them, demanding to know why their paradise had been destroyed. They hacked the wounded heroes to pieces with blades and desecrated their corpses. There are whispers that one of them survived, but I cannot say for certain."
"I have decided to lay down my lordship. I felt a deep despair and cynicism toward the ugliness of mankind. Is this truly what it means to be human? If so, then I can lead them no longer. A new lord will be dispatched from Langestin. May fortune favor him."
And with that, the memoir ended.
"……"
Simon closed the book, eyes shut. Alongside the astonishment that such a history had actually unfolded on this continent, a murky, unsettled feeling welled up inside him.
"Coachman, sir."
"Yes?"
"What happened after all this?"
The coachman smiled bitterly.
"What could a bunch of addicts—who'd known nothing their whole lives but pleasure handed to them for free—possibly do once the dungeon was gone? They starved to death, one by one."
"……"
"The Gold Mine Dungeon had kept Tarados's prices three or four times higher than anywhere else in the region, and when it died, the whole economy collapsed with it. Worst of all, the ore the nobles had used for their luxuries lost its shine the moment the dungeon was destroyed—it all turned into worthless pebbles, and Tarados paid the price in full. Capital and people drained out like the tide going out, and the gangs moved in to strip away anything of value that was left."
Simon nodded slowly.
If Tarados's entire infrastructure had been built on dungeon revenue, there would have been no way to overhaul the system overnight—or to help its people adapt to the change.
And so the territory sank into the poverty it knew today, and the new lord sent by royal decree must have oppressed and exploited its residents to survive.
Then 'The Society'—the group performing human experiments—had arrived, and the Ganes Guild, bankrolled by their funding, had put down roots in Tarados, and everything had spiraled beyond anyone's control.
"More than forty years have passed now, and I'll admit I hold a little resentment toward the older generation."
The coachman said.
"Right when we were coming of age, all of this collapsed—and our generation has had to pay for every mistake the adults and the Dungeon Addicts ever made. In the end, once my mother passed, I fled to Ebrun to find work."
"……I see."
Kajan suddenly whipped his head around.
"Hate to interrupt the story, but we're here."
Beyond the wilderness where failed chimera experiments roamed, Simon's party finally arrived at a ruined city.
Nothing remained but house foundations; the surroundings were desolate and empty.
"Don't tell me—"
"Yes. This is the very place from the story."
The coachman's voice turned grave.
"The city that once held the Gold Mine Dungeon and enjoyed the greatest golden age in Tarados's history—the city of pleasure, Sogo."
Nothing at all was left of Sogo.
A place where no human being could live. A ruin in the truest sense of the word—here and there, only the foundations of houses and the odd standing pillar broke the emptiness.
"According to the intel, the Ganes Guild and the lord's soldiers are moving all their captured residents into this ruin."
Kajan said.
"Could The Society's base of operations really be around here? Why would they pick somewhere so unsettling…"
"Because it's a place the people of Tarados avoid. As good a spot as any for conducting illegal human experiments in secret. And if not that—"
Kajan's eyes sharpened.
"Then there's some entirely new reason why this place, of all places, had to be their choice."
So the conversation flowed on as the carriage rolled through the ruined city.
'……'
From behind a pillar, a pair of bulging white eyes was staring at them.
"Let's get off, Lisa."
"Okay!"
They had finally reached their destination. The spot where they dismounted, deep within Sogo, was the very place where the Gold Mine Dungeon had once stood.
"I never dreamed I'd set foot here again."
The coachman was looking around with eyes clouded by old regret.
Simon spoke up.
"Did you ever get to go inside the dungeon as a kid, sir?"
"……No. The adults kept children away from the dungeon entirely. It was lawless enough as it was, and blades came out over gold all the time. My only memory of the place is sneaking in to look for my father—the Addict—and getting caught and thrown out."
Simon knelt on one knee, pressed his palm flat against the sand to take its feel, and swept his gaze over the scattered stones and shattered pillar stubs around them.
Kajan had his nose to the ground, sniffing.
"Faint, but there's a lingering trace of human traffic here. Not all that old, either."
"There are sand-scuff marks on the pillars. Someone's been passing through and brushing against them."
As he said it, Simon's gaze turned razor-sharp.
"Just like the intel said—the Ganes Guild and the lord's soldiers really are bringing people here."
Then, all at once, Kajan's expression—still busy sorting through the scents around them—turned grim.
"Simon."
"Yes, Kajan."
"Watch out."
Shaaaaaa—
Shaaaa—
Sand was erupting upward around the ruins, spike after spike. Simon instantly raised his Jet-Black and shouted.
"Sir! Lisa! Get inside the carriage!"
"R-right!"
The coachman hurried Lisa back to the wagon, and Simon took up a position shielding the carriage.
Shaaaaaaaa—
At last the sand finished rising, and undead soldiers—every inch of their bodies shrunken and desiccated like dried fish—began advancing with sword and shield in hand.
"Kajan!"
"Got it."
The two of them launched forward at the same instant. Simon charged in and, before anything else, drove a kick into the head of the nearest soldier.
Crack!
The soldier's skull scattered apart like it weighed nothing. But—
Squelch—squelch—
Flesh welled up over the ruined spot like mud, and the face was already rebuilding itself.
It made no difference how many times they broke it.
'Of all things.'
Simon's expression darkened.
'Undying soldiers that regenerate—here, of all places.'