Grilops, the Memory Eater (1)

“Hah…”

A dying adventurer sprawled on the floor begged for his life. All that escaped my lips was a hollow laugh.

“Why the hell should we save you?”

Yeah. He probably ran just to survive. Our party might’ve simply been unlucky enough to get dragged into this. ‘But… even if he fled out of desperation and held no malice toward others, does that mean he’s innocent just because he didn’t intend for us to die? No. That’s not how it works.’

What if I were just an ordinary adventurer like everyone else? What if my stats were lacking and I didn’t have enough mana to run, so the Earth Golem’s charge caught up and crushed me? Even if he was only trying to save his own skin, the fact remains that his actions nearly got us killed. ‘And now he still wants to live? Shameless bastard.’

Besides, remembering how the Earth Golem had acted earlier, this death was practically self-inflicted. The idiot got blinded by greed and stole something the golem was desperately trying to recover.

‘I’m not kind enough to save every stranger dying in front of me. Especially not when that stranger caused us massive trouble.’

There was no good reason to waste a potion or a heal on scum like him. I almost summoned my sword on impulse, then stopped and turned away. He’d die on his own if we left him. No need to dirty my hands.

“This guy could’ve gotten all of us killed. So we’re just going to ignore him and—”

“—Treasure!!!”

“What?”

I turned at the sudden shout. The man’s eyes were wide, burning with the desperate light of a dying flame.

“I—I know where my party left an unopened treasure chest! Please save me! I swear I won’t betray you!!”

“Why should we believe you?”

“I’m dead either way… *cough*. Why would I lie and kick away the only ladder out of here…? Please believe me. I beg— *hack*— *urgh*.”

He couldn’t finish before coughing up a mouthful of blood. Damn it. I glanced sideways at Yeriel and Lumia.

“Let’s hear him out. If the story doesn’t check out, we can ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠still leave him afterward.”

“Okay! Got it. I’ll start healing right away.”

I nodded. “You can still drink, right? Open wide if you want to live.”

He looked seconds from choking on his own blood, so I quickly pulled out a spare low-grade potion, popped the cap, and pressed the bottle to his lips.

“Be healed by light.”

Flash!

A gentle glow bloomed from Yeriel’s staff, soothing wounds. Directed at the man, it began mending the internal damage from the golem’s fist. A sizzling sound accompanied the potion’s effect taking hold.

Pop.

“Hah, hah… I’m alive.”

The moment treatment finished, he spat out the bottle and gasped for air, wiping his face in disbelief. Might as well check his information while we had the chance.

A textbook rogue. Felt like an upgraded version of the Krib I’d met before.

“You back with us?”

“Y-yes! Thank you for saving me! And, um, I’m sorry for dragging you into this. I was so desperate to survive that I… I have no excuse.”

“Skip the long apologies. Everything you said earlier was true, right?”

“Of course. If I lied, you’d either kill me or abandon me anyway. Then my party’s dead and I’m alone with no way out.”

So the others really were dead, not just separated. “Everyone else died? How’d you end up alone?”

“W-well… we opened two of the four chests and grabbed some items. The golem was just curled up in the corner, completely still.”

He let out a long sigh. “Then one of us touched this weird glowing orb that stood out among the chests. In an instant it lit up blood-red and slaughtered everyone.”

“And you still grabbed the orb and ran?”

“Damn it, normally I would’ve just bolted or died with them right there!” Jacob rubbed his eyes hard, voice shaking. “But even if it was just a temporary party with no real bonds… I couldn’t just watch them all get slaughtered and do nothing.”

His shoulders slumped. “So I figured I’d at least make that bastard pay. I snatched the thing he seemed to treasure most and ran.”

And this was the result. The Great Labyrinth really was unpredictable. If they’d just avoided the orb and taken everything else, they’d be back in town counting their haul by now. What a mess.

“Can you guide us there right now?”

“Y-yes! I marked the path every hour. If we head back the way we came and keep going, we’ll reach it in a day or two.”

Good. First stop: the fork where we’d fled earlier. I gave Jacob time to sort through the mess the golem had spilled from his pack.

“Then please follow me!”

We set off after Jacob, who strode ahead with renewed confidence.

“Here it is!”

“Shh. Quiet.”

“Ah, sorry.”

After a full day of walking with Jacob, we’d finally arrived. The monsters we encountered along the way—two packs of Cave Goblins and one swarm of giant bats—were no longer a threat. We cut them down quickly and kept moving.

‘So this is the place?’

The passage ended in a dead-end wall. The golem had been curled motionless in the corner. Two chests already open, two still closed. They’d said they opened two before touching the orb.

‘Well, two is better than nothing.’

The chests weren’t locked. Click.

Inside were two potions of different colors and a pair of gauntlets. One was a mid-grade potion. The other… Earth’s Firmness?

Coming here had been worth it. The potion was usable, and the gauntlets could be sold later even if fist-fighting wasn’t my style. That random status ailment penalty was nasty anyway.

“How’s it look? Anything good?” Yeriel asked with a smile.

“Yeah. Makes the trip worthwhile. If the first two chests gave this much, the last one’s got me curious.”

As I approached the final chest, a message appeared.

A single black point glowed on the wall near the chest. Should I touch it? I folded my arms, then called the others over.

“My trait says there’s a hidden space behind this wall. It’s telling me to press this spot.”

I looked at them. “We don’t know what’s inside. Should we just leave it and be satisfied with what we have?”

“Hmm… I think we’ve come this far, so one more step wouldn’t hurt.”

“Really?”

“Once we leave here we’ll use the portal in the village to return to the city. Who knows how many times we’d have to dive back in to find another chance like this?”

She had a point. Lumia spoke up too.

“I agree. It’d be a waste to throw away this opportunity just because of the risk.”

…Yeah. I’d been weighing the party’s safety, but the decision was made. Win or lose, we were going in.

I pressed the black spot on the wall. It sank inward with almost no resistance, followed by the sound of mechanisms shifting. Click. Rumble—

“W-what did you just touch? A hidden space in a place like this?” Jacob’s startled voice went ignored as I watched the wall slowly open.

Thud.

The hidden chamber beyond was pitch black. I extended a torch inside.

‘Bigger than I thought.’

It was at least as large as the dead-end room we’d come from, maybe larger. I took a breath and stepped in. The space looked like some kind of insect nesting ground. Cocoons? After the giant centipede and bats, were we dealing with spiders now?

That wasn’t all. The cocoons were abnormally large. Were they feeding on the same monsters? Or…

Adult-sized cocoons were scattered throughout the room. I couldn’t tell what was inside, but a chill ran down my spine. I shook it off and swung my sword at the nearest one.

Slice.

“Ugh.”

“Urgh… *retch*—”

“This is… horrible.”

“It looks like they moved already-dead bodies here and wrapped them in cocoons,” Lumia analyzed calmly.

I frowned and examined the naked corpse. Brown curly hair. An adventurer whose face was frozen in utter despair and terror even in death. Below the neck, the skin had melted away in grotesque patches, as if burned by acid or poison.

‘What kind of monster does something this disgusting?’

“How could anything be this cruel…! Did the monster make cocoons to use adventurers as food?”

“No, that’s not it. It doesn’t look like food storage. More like they’re being kept for some other purpose. Look here.”

Lumia pointed at the corpse’s neck, right where it met the skull. A hole the size of my palm had been drilled through it.

‘A hole. Did something bite or inject through there?’

Had they injected some kind of liquefying venom? Or were they extracting something from inside the body?

“Looking closer… this body is— M-Mendel. He was the archer in the party I was with!” Jacob cried out in horror, covering his mouth.

A bad feeling ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠crept over me. We needed to grab whatever we could and get out fast. Just as I was about to order everyone to search while staying close—

“Kekeke. Little rats snuck in. How’d you get here?”

“…!”

A goblin that could speak? No—definitely not an ordinary goblin. Crack. Pop. Squelch—

As the figure emerged from the deep darkness, Chaos reacted.

A mutant born with intelligence far beyond any normal goblin. Shunned by his tribe for the eerie cunning that came with it, he was eventually exiled. Sensing he wouldn’t last long wandering alone, he hid in a nearby cave. One day, drawn by a powerful pull, he discovered a hidden chamber containing an ancient parchment that devoured knowledge and experience from corpses. The forbidden knowledge within granted him power no one could stop. He now walks the path of a cruel sorcerer of taboo.

What the hell. A budget Ephusio?

“Stupid adventurer brats. Prey walking right into my jaws. The heavens are helping me!”

Crack. Pop. Squelch—

Along with Grilops’ vile laughter came the sickening sound of his body twisting and transforming.