Orc Giph (2)
Dungeons have no fixed shape.
They take on every form imaginable, depending on where they take root and how much mana feeds them. And with that variety of appearance comes an equal variety of ways to clear them. Some dungeons ask nothing more than hunting monsters. Others demand an expedition that stretches across an entire year. The only real way to conquer one is to throw yourself in and learn it with your own body — which is exactly why adventurers have such brutal turnover, and such brutal death rates.
But even lawlessness has its order. The most capricious dungeon can still be sorted into categories, if you look closely enough. There are supposedly more than fifty types, or something like that. It's a specialist's domain, so I don't know much about it — but Giph, a veteran adventurer, would have every last one of them memorized.
Maybe that was why my heart had started racing for the first time in a while. The thrill of a wholesome contest with no lives on the line. It didn't give me quite the same jolt as a real fight, but it wasn't bad.
"We've arrived."
I followed Giph to the dungeon's entrance. It sat near Serda's southern checkpoint: a gaping pit gouged right out of the walkway.
"If I go in, won't I just fall to my death?"
It was so deep I couldn't even see the bottom. Less an entrance than a trap.
"Don't you worry. You think I'd try to kill you?"
Judging by how cold he'd turned, he absolutely would. Everything about the way he carried himself said vengeful wolf, nursing a grudge and waiting for his opening.
"Besides, a fall from this height wouldn't kill you anyway."
"Yeah, but it'd still hurt."
I'd put my body through far too many grueling fights lately. Riella, who'd opened with an indiscriminate bombardment. Liam, the undead steeped in vicious miasma. Eluke, overflowing with Holy Power. Every last one of them had hit me with something agonizing. So this time, I was genuinely hoping for something comfortable.
"Quit the nonsense and get ready to go in."
"You're not going to explain anything?"
"I'll only say this once, so listen well."
Giph slung his axe over his shoulder and went on.
"C-rank dungeon. The moment you step inside, you'll be sent straight to the trial grounds, so watch yourself."
"...That's it?"
I was already at a disadvantage, and now even the briefing was unhelpful. His intentions couldn't have been more obvious.
"Well then. I'll go on ahead."
He dropped without a second's hesitation. The orc's massive frame was swallowed by the dark in an instant.
"Lady Clitia, what on earth did you do to that man while I was asleep?"
"It looks that way to you too?"
"I think it would look that way to anyone."
He was definitely holding something against me. The problem was that I could think of far too many possible reasons to even start counting.
"You should apologize later."
"Yeah. I probably should."
For now, I decided to focus on the contest in front of me. I tossed myself lightly into the hole.
The depth seemed endless. The hang time stretched on and on. Just as I started to wonder whether the fall would ever stop, a floor of grass-covered earth rushed up to meet me.
I landed lightly on both feet and immediately scanned my surroundings.
Trees with sharp-pointed leaves stood everywhere. The air was thick with humidity. A sweltering heat sat on my chest and made it hard to breathe. A dense jungle, ruled absolutely by the heat.
The environment itself was fairly harsh — but it was still only C-rank. Clearing it wouldn't be difficult. Which, for me, was not good news. The easier a dungeon was, the less raw strength mattered. A low-tier dungeon that anyone with a baseline of skill could punch through in no time — another factor stacked in Giph's favor. He'd really put his mind to this. Every last detail had been arranged to his advantage.
"Sun-bask."
"How much support would you like?"
"Maximum."
If that was how he wanted to play, then I was going to use every means I had.
"I should start moving."
"Yes. We need to figure out how this dungeon actually works."
I stirred up a light Aura and started walking between the trees, pouring every ounce of focus into combing the surroundings. I passed countless trunks, pushing steadily forward. I'd walked so far that even the rough bark was starting to feel familiar — and I still hadn't found a single clue. All that grew was a clinging, sticky discomfort. No matter how far I went, the same green scenery repeated itself.
Giph had probably made considerable progress by now. I picked up the pace, and a reasonably appealing idea occurred to me.
"What if I just smash everything?"
"You'd bring Serda's streets down with it."
"I just have to control my strength."
I was teetering on the edge of a sudden destructive impulse when a buzzing of wings drifted through the dense trees. Hostility came with it, closing in from dead ahead.
I dropped into a low stance, ready for the ambush. A heartbeat later, an unidentified enemy slashed across my waist as it shot past. A cutting stroke drawn in an instant — fast enough that my eyes could barely track it.
"Nothing special."
It didn't hurt, though. It hadn't even managed to cut Sun-bask.
"Agreed. Not a remarkable opponent."
Apart from the speed, it was unremarkable. Fast usually meant strong as well, but anything Sun-bask could stop was meaningless.
"Just beat it down. First-stage Aura should be plenty."
A solution I could get behind. I opened my senses and gathered mana into my hand.
The rainforest went quiet. Then the noisy buzz of wings came rushing in again. I twisted at the waist and casually backhanded the air up and to the left.
A dull, solid impact. An insect the size of my torso went tumbling across the ground.
"That's an enormous mosquito."
"I can see that."
A mosquito with a longsword for a mouth. It was a Heavenbug — a creature whose defining feature was how half-assed it looked. Locusts last time, mosquitoes this time. At least it was less disgusting than corpses.
It was still twitching, so I stepped on its neck and finished it. It crumbled into dust and vanished, leaving only a scrap of blue paper behind. I picked it up. A small ticket. No question it was a tool needed to clear the dungeon.
"Perhaps once you collect a certain number, you get transferred to wherever the boss monster is?"
"That would be a problem."
If that was the case, Giph would have been scooping them up for a while already. I'd started far too late. Picking them off one by one at a leisurely pace was a guaranteed loss. If I wanted to close the gap, I needed a shortcut.
"Let's wipe them all out in one go."
I drew up my Aura and sent it blooming high into the sky, fierce as a wildfire. The response was immediate. A storm of buzzing crashed in from every direction, and a moment later countless slashes began carving at my body.
An offensive so feeble I almost laughed. I kept my head protected and detonated a wide burst of Aura.
"How long will this take?"
"Under three minutes."
"Good."
Pest control time. For a while I became a walking mosquito repellent, swinging Aura and fists alike. Simple methods really did suit me best.
"How many is that?"
"About forty-nine, I think."
I'd collected quite a pile of blue paper scraps. And still, nothing special had happened.
"One more and we might meet the entry condition."
"If it's not fifty, we'll have to go all the way to a hundred, right?"
"Most likely."
I couldn't afford to waste any more time. I hauled my Aura up hard and spread it wide again. The effect was instant. A deafening roar came tearing closer — a wingbeat utterly different from before. Not a swarm. A single creature.
Then a Heavenbug of a completely different scale from its kin appeared and blotted out the sky. A mosquito whose body had to be at least ten times the size of mine, radiating a fairly vicious killing intent.
"It looks strong for a C-rank."
"Looks like Giph lied about the rank."
Had he really gone this far just to humiliate me? I couldn't begin to understand it.
"This is fun."
I was still enjoying myself, of course. Deception was part of strategy. The will to use every card you had in order to win was something that deserved praise, if anything.
"At this rate you might actually lose."
"That's what makes it good."
A colossal blade came crashing down toward my head with the authority of a guillotine. It wasn't enough to split my Aura. I wrapped my whole body in a rounded shell of it, paying particular attention to my legs.
"The bigger they are, the easier they are to hit. That's a plus."
I launched myself hard, smashed the blade apart with my body, and without slowing drove straight through the creature's torso. The giant Heavenbug scattered into dust with almost pathetic ease. A sheet of paper too large to be called a scrap fluttered into being. I snatched it out of the air and landed.
That made fifty. I waited calmly for something to change.
"Look over there!"
The ground shuddered and began to split in two, toppling trees and sucking down heaps of earth. Before long it settled. I peered down through the fissure, and a deeply wrong sight unfolded below.
"What is that?"
"You're supposed to be the one telling me."
A spotless laboratory. The sharp smell of chemicals drifted up and stung my nose. This was supposed to be an ordinary tropical rainforest, untouched by civilization. And now a modern facility had appeared out of nowhere. Dungeons really were impossible to pin down.
Startling as it was, I didn't stand there gawking. I climbed down.
The floor was made of blue mana stones. Now that I was below, I could see lidded coffins arranged throughout the room. A bleak atmosphere at odds with the orderly environment. Magic circles etched into the walls, glowing with a black light, only deepened the gloom. Every last detail of the place was excessively precise — as if a real location had been lifted wholesale and set down here.
"Another uninvited guest."
A sudden, crushing presence. I turned my head. A masked woman was sitting on top of a coffin, looking my way. When had she appeared? I hadn't noticed her at all.
"Be careful. She carries a ferocious miasma."
A dangerous villain, and a powerful one. A boss-class monster in human shape, most likely. Not a common case, but not an impossible one either.
"What business brings you here?"
"Isn't there an ugly orc who got here first?"
"Ah. He's right here."
An unpleasant gaze slid over me from behind the mask.
"Behind you."
An axe grazed my neck. Pain, and a cold that came right on its heels. The wound froze over. I threw myself back and spun around — and there was Giph, standing stock-still, his eyes vacant, as if something had hollowed him out.
"Your movements are better than that orc's."
"What did you do to him?"
"I just gave his head a light squeeze."
Mind control? He'd prepared so meticulously to beat me, and now he'd ended up like this.
"Giph. This is going to hurt. Bear with it."
I rolled my shoulder, getting ready to treat him. The best way to break brainwashing was a fist. Knock someone around just enough and their mind tends to rattle loose.
"Wait. Something's wrong."
Gloria stopped me, her voice uneasy.
"Wrong how?"
"Doesn't he look like the Archmage who was being controlled by the mutant Corpse Locusts?"
That couldn't be. I denied it — and then I looked closer. Unfocused eyes. Movement that sat wrong in his body. Shoulders hanging slack.
"...You're right."
It wasn't my imagination. It was the same movement I'd seen more times than I ever wanted to in the west. Was Liam here? How had he slipped into a dungeon that had opened on an interior road in Serda without anyone noticing?
Serda's citizens were in danger. However many powerhouses the city had, if that thing started running wild the damage would be enormous. I didn't have time to dawdle. I needed to subdue Giph first, then deal with the masked woman.
"Go kill your friend."
Giph responded to that eerie voice and charged, swinging an axe laden with killing frost.
"I'll snap you out of it."
I ducked under the swing and drove a fist packed with Aura into his broad jaw. That huge head snapped sideways. Giph went down in the same momentum he'd come in with, crashing face-first to the floor.
"Now it's your turn."
"......"
I unleashed my Aura like a gale. The masked woman didn't even turn her face. She took the violent force across her entire body.
"Kh-heh..."
A breath broke out of her. Faint, but she was clearly holding back a laugh.
"What an intriguing amusement."
The composure of someone who didn't even consider me a rival. It had been a long time since anyone had treated me like that.
"This is getting interesting."
"Let's see if you still find it fun after I beat you down."
Time was short. I'd end this in one blow. I drew my Aura up to the third stage.
"My, my. You still haven't figured it out?"
"...Huh?"
A familiar energy washed over me.
"You still don't recognize me?"
Right after the excommunication. In the days when everyone had turned their back on me. It was a sensation I'd felt often, back when I was with the one person who had taken me in.
"You've grown quite dull."
The mask came off, and the ears that had looked human stretched long. A face I remembered exactly. An elf whose appearance hadn't changed in the slightest was smiling at me.
"It's good to see you."
Confusion hit so hard my thoughts stalled for a second.
"Are you all right?"
"...What on earth is going on?"
"That orc told me something amusing."
Green eyes flicked toward the unconscious Giph.
"I heard you once pretended to be a boss monster because you wanted to lose. I thought I'd try copying you. How was it?"
"......"
I'd brought this on myself. No other thought would come.
"That's really going too far, Master."
"Is it?"
Master let her Aura roll off her and beckoned me forward.
"I intend to do far worse from here on, so prepare yourself."
"Pardon?"
"I mean to see how much my disciple has improved."
"...Understood."
Comfort was off the table. I rapidly drew in the surrounding mana, bracing for a violent fight. I had a lot of questions, but they could wait. She was not someone I could afford to fight with my mind elsewhere.
"The monsters in this dungeon have a name rather similar to the nickname you gave me before you left the mountain."
"Were you pleased with it? You were so lukewarm I thought you didn't like it."
"You were the one who named me. How could I not?"
I eased the tension with conversation while raising my Aura as thick as I could, wrapping it around my body like armor.
"May I attack first?"
"You may. This Heavenly Demon shall graciously yield the first strike."
The Heavenly Demon, Euris Flintwood. A sparring match with my master — one I had never seen coming — had begun.