Dungeon Escape (1)
Dungeon Escape (1)
"Whoa!"
My vision brightened again, and the moment a message blocked it, I was falling once more.
The pain from before my death lingered as phantom pain, clouding my mind. The message kept me from checking my surroundings, but I was able to snap out of it immediately.
Whoosh!
My body plummeted.
As I channeled mana into my ears, the water's surface rushed toward me.
First, I took a deep breath.
'What do I need to do next? Ah! Right.'
I remembered struggling in the water because of my sword.
I hurriedly pushed mana toward my arm. Then, just before plunging into the water, I swung my arm with all my might and threw the sword.
Grind.
My joints screamed, but I trusted my young body's excellent recovery rate.
I saw the sword fly above me in the dim light.
Splash!
I plunged straight into the water.
A brief impact rippled through my body, and then I sank beneath the surface.
Just as I'd seen in my previous life, this pool was incredibly deep—about the size of a small reservoir.
But this time, I didn't have to worry about the depth.
The moment I stopped sinking, I immediately swam toward the surface.
"Pwah!"
Perhaps because I was so light, I hadn't sunk very far. I quickly surfaced and looked around.
In the pitch-black underground reservoir, a single light was rising toward the surface.
The light drew closer, and then the Firebird Hunter emerged from the water.
Pwah!
"Alex?"
As soon as she surfaced, she looked for me.
"I'm here."
"Ah, you're safe. Thank goodness."
When she saw that I was safe, relief crossed her face.
I swam toward the spot where I'd thrown my sword, and she followed behind me.
Fortunately, I hadn't thrown the sword in the opposite direction, so I was able to reach dry land quickly.
"By the way, where's your sword? Did you leave it in the water?"
"No. It's over there."
Fortunately, the sword had embedded itself in the ground not far from the water.
I walked over to it.
"Why is the sword over there?" the Firebird Hunter asked as she followed me.
"I threw it in midair before I fell into the water. If I'd fallen in with it, the sword would have made it hard to swim."
She looked at me, dumbfounded.
"My goodness, you thought of that in such a short time?"
Hmm. Honestly, I hadn't thought of all that in the moment, but I kept quiet.
As I retrieved the sword, she looked up.
Thanks to the lantern fastened to her waist, the black hole in the ceiling was clearly visible.
"I'm sorry. I didn't know the altar would collapse. They said a passage leading downward would open..."
In my previous life, I had been the one to speak first, but there was no need to do so now.
She felt incredibly apologetic, too.
"There are holes up there, too, just like the ones here, right?"
As I pointed to the caves riddling the walls of the open space, she nodded.
"You saw those, too? Yes. There were lots of caves hollowed out in the shaft we fell through."
Up to this point, things had progressed much as they had in my previous life. Since my first encounter with the monsters hadn't caused any major problems anyway, I did as I had back then.
After taking off my water-soaked outer coat, I made a request of the Firebird Hunter.
"After you dry your cloak, could you do my clothes, too?"
"Well, it's not difficult. But how did you know I knew that technique?"
"I just had a feeling."
She looked at me with wonder, then took off her cloak and channeled mana into it to dry the fabric.
She dried my outer coat as well. After thanking her, I put my clothes back on.
"Those caves must be connected to the ones in the ceiling shaft. I think we just need to choose one and find a way up."
At her words, I raised my sword.
"Then, if the culprit who made those caves hasn't died, wouldn't they still be down here? The sound of us falling into the water was pretty loud, so if they're alive, they'll come looking for us."
At my words, she hurriedly drew her sword, too.
At the same time, I heard the footsteps I'd heard in my previous life.
Rumble.
The sound of countless legs dragging across the ground.
They belonged to the monsters called Red Mice.
"Are there Red Mice left?"
They were gray monsters that looked like a mixture of rats and insects, completely at odds with their name.
Just as in my previous life, three monsters appeared.
No, were there really three?
In any case, I could see and sense three.
I infused mana throughout my body and pushed the remaining mana into my sword.
Once again, I felt as if the mana were about to burst out of my body and sword.
I wanted to hole up somewhere and keep reflecting on this sensation, but I had no time for that now.
Seeing me draw on my full reserve of mana, the Firebird Hunter spoke.
"As expected, it'd be impossible to shake off the Red Mice down here, right?"
The crest engraved on her blade glowed brightly.
"More than that, considering your age, that mana makes no sense. Could it be that 'Mana Resonance' still remained in the Duke's estate?"
She said exactly the same thing as last time. Then, with an 'oops' expression, she quickly changed the subject.
"Anyway, you're a better companion to fight alongside than I thought."
With that, she dashed forward.
I ran after her.
As we ran, the monsters rushed to meet us.
Perhaps because everything played out exactly as before, only the monster at the very end lunged at me.
I took a shallow breath as I watched the charging monster. I awakened my senses and synchronized my breathing with the beast's.
Since I was repeating the exact same situation, I had no intention of making the same mistake twice.
With all my senses fully awakened, I swung my sword at the approaching monster.
Whoosh.
A strike unleashed with precise timing.
But I knew very well that it wouldn't hit.
Sure enough, the moment my sword flew toward it, the monster leaped upward in a movement that seemed to defy inertia.
In an instant, the monster soared several meters into the air.
No wonder I'd lost sight of it last time.
But now, there was no reason to lose track of it.
Besides, with its body airborne, this was my chance.
Using the momentum of my swing, I spun around. Still spinning, I jumped upward!
'Carlos Hero' Swordsmanship Side Story, Chapter 4.
'Soaring Wyvern!'
Damn it, just like last time, it was an embarrassing skill name—enough to make my face turn red.
I absolutely had to stop myself from saying skill names out loud in the future.
Recalling the skill name in my mind, I thrust my sword upward at the falling monster.
Slash.
Thud!
Caught off guard, even the clever monster could do nothing.
It tumbled onto the floor, two of its legs on one side severed.
The severed legs weren't the two forepaws it used like arms, but the legs that supported its body.
Now its outrageous speed was sealed.
After landing smoothly with a spin, I rushed at the monster again.
In my past life, I would have been too dizzy to even land properly. But now, with mana protecting my ears, my sense of balance was better than a figure skater's!
I ran at the monster, which still couldn't raise its body, and kept swinging my sword.
By the time the monster regained its senses, another leg had been sliced off. And when it barely managed to block my sword with its claws, its opposite forepaw had already been severed.
The outcome of the battle was already decided.
Without getting excited, I steadily finished it off.
I sheared off its remaining claws with my sword, severed its forepaws, climbed onto its back, and plunged the blade deep into its spine.
Growl!
Yet the monster thrashed wildly with my sword embedded deep in its back.
"That should have been where the heart is... Is its anatomy different?"
I thought about testing it a little more, but I didn't know what variables might arise, so I pulled out my sword and sliced off the monster's head.
Thud.
It died once its head was severed, just as it had last time.
'Severing its legs seals its high-speed movement, decapitation guarantees death, and there is no heart where I'd expect...'
After confirming that the fallen monster had lost its vitality, I checked on my companion's battle.
She was still fighting two monsters. Last time, when I finished my fight, only one monster had been left.
Had I finished off my monster faster than last time?
Still, there was no need to worry about her this time, either.
One monster had barely any legs left and was covered in wounds, looking as if it could die at any moment.
The other wasn't in great shape, either, while she hadn't sustained a single scratch.
Just as last time, the shimmering energy at the tip of her sword was slicing through the monster.
I turned my attention away from her and began dissecting the fallen monster.
Since it was dead, I could slice through it easily even without coating my sword in mana.
I slit open its belly to inspect the inside, and sliced into the severed legs to examine the muscles.
"Damn it, what's with this anatomy?"
When I looked inside the monster's body, I couldn't help but grimace in disgust.
It seemed she had finished her fight while I was dissecting the monster.
She came over to my side and spoke while looking at the dissected corpse.
"That's why monsters are barely usable as food. Alchemists and blacksmiths can use them as materials in all sorts of ways, but eating them is out of the question."
Undead-type monsters were impossible to eat because of their rotting bodies, but these monsters were definitely alive and well.
Yet their internal structure didn't look like that of a living organism.
I hadn't majored in biology in my previous life, but the creature had only one large stomach as a digestive organ and nothing that looked like a heart.
The only blood vessels were wrapped around the stomach, connecting it to the rest of the body, and the muscles were twisted into a shape I'd never seen before.
It wasn't insectoid, nor did it look like an animal.
Even in this world, living creatures weren't all that different from those in my previous life. But the monster before me had an internal structure straight out of a fantasy movie—or, rather, a horror or sci-fi movie.
"Tsk, they say most monsters crossed over from another world along with the demons. Despite their appearance, were they something like aliens?"
In the end, with my meager knowledge of biology, there was no way I could find a weakness by dissecting the monster.
"More importantly, you really fought well. You'd knock down an average knight in an instant!"
She seemed to think even more highly of me than she had last time.
Probably because I'd defeated mine faster.
I could only do it because I'd experienced it once, but her praise didn't sound bad.
"Then we can move now, right? There might be more of these guys. Let's get out of here quickly."
Perhaps because her opinion of me had improved, she asked what I thought this time, unlike last time.
'Now, what should I do?'
In my previous life, I'd entered a random cave, only to be surrounded from the front and behind and die.
There had been well over ten monsters back then.
That was an absolutely impossible number to defeat all at once in a head-on clash.
I surveyed my surroundings.
We were in a massive underground plaza, its walls riddled with holes.
There was a fairly large reservoir in the center, and the rest was flat ground.
'Would it be better to enter a cave and defeat them one by one, or make a last stand with the water at our backs?'
But the monsters surely knew the cave structure hundreds of times better than we did. There was no way we could defeat them one by one right now.
I looked at the reservoir, then examined the dissected monster once more.
It had no webbed feet, and it didn't seem particularly lightweight, either.
I asked the Firebird Hunter.
"Can this monster swim?"