The Key to the Random Box Is in the Dungeon...! (1)
The Key to the Random Box Is in the Dungeon...! (1)
Rina Rosewell, one of Fanta X Aca's heroines.
A Spirit Mage who wields the element of flame.
She has a wide range of area-of-effect skills tied to her element, and when the situation demands it, she can deliver explosive single-target strikes.
Danya Catsnesia.
A mage of the grass element.
Her combat style revolves around long-range attacks with a magic bow. She seems to have recently picked up an area-of-effect skill as well. Her beast-kin senses are exceptionally sharp, making her an excellent pathfinder. Given the nature of grass element, she can trigger a variety of interactions, giving her outstanding utility.
These two formed the backline of our current party.
They had solid synergy.
If Danya scattered grass-element attacks everywhere and Rina layered flame attacks on top, it would trigger an interaction called [Ignition].
I was on the frontline.
I'm a mage, but oddly, every time we form a party, I'm the one who ends up tanking. My main skills are [Extraction] and [Transformation], utilizing items and nearby metals. I was starting to worry that I was developing a bit of a taste for pummeling people with my fists.
And our newest recruit, Elena of the Numina Order.
A priest of the Deus Order I'd scouted to handle healing and off-tanking. I had high hopes for her, since she looked like she'd provide surprisingly sturdy tanking. The skill she'd shown in her spar with Danya and back at the club room was solid enough.
Healers and tanks were unpopular roles, so they were naturally rare. Elena's presence was a huge plus in many ways.
I had, however, discovered one worrisome point about her...
"Wh-what if we go into the dungeon wrong and can't get back out?"
As with the club room incident, the girl was on the timid side.
Danya and Rina, naturally, looked perfectly calm.
They'd already been inside Richard's dantian, so a small dungeon was no big deal to them.
'Experience really does matter.'
Elena kept chattering nonstop.
"Brother Ian. I don't think entering the Black Forest when it's getting dark like this is a good idea. If we clear the dungeon and come out at this rate, the problem—"
"Elena."
"Yeees. Brother Ian. Shall I prepare for the return trip right away? I think I could take the lead on the way back."
"They say the ghosts nab the chatty ones first. Quiet down a little and follow me."
"Eeek!"
We were on the outskirts of the academy. A place commonly known as the 'Black Forest'.
Earlier in the semester, Danya and I had come here to take down a giant rabbit. The reason for our return was simple.
The dungeon that rewarded the key to Mysterious Box Number 777 was located right here.
I hushed the jabbering Elena and focused on scanning the area.
It was currently five in the afternoon.
The sun was beginning its descent into dusk.
Beyond the academy, the shadow of the Magic Tower fell.
Aligning that with one of the peaks at the foot of the northern mountain range...
"This way."
As we walked, a clearing appeared unexpectedly in the middle of the forest.
Three fallen trees lay centered around it.
"There's a dungeon here? It just looks like an ordinary forest."
Rina tilted her head.
I pointed at the three fallen trees.
"Those trees are the hint for finding the dungeon entrance. If you walk in the direction they point, you'll find a stone shaped like a rabbit."
"A rabbit?"
Rina tilted her head again.
"Uweh— rabbits again? Still, they were tasty."
Danya made a somewhat unsettling remark.
Come to think of it, we'd been fueling up on protein for a while with jerky from the rabbit Danya and I caught.
"Danya. It's shaped like a rabbit, but it's a rock, so you can't eat it."
"Do I look like an idiot to you, meow!"
I have no idea why offering sincere advice made Danya angry.
"Anyway. You'll know it when you see it. It'll be clearly a marker. You won't need to wander too far. Walk about 300 paces, and if you don't see it, just come back here."
"Wh... what about me?"
Elena timidly raised her hand.
"Elena, you can either hold our position here or follow me. What do you want to do?"
"I'll, I'll follow you."
"Alright. Then let's move."
We scattered and searched like that for a while.
"Over here!"
Danya's voice rang out.
'...How did she get up there?'
Danya was up in a huge tree, pointing at a spot.
"Right here, here!"
Just as Danya said, there was a rock shaped like a rabbit.
I stroked the part that formed its ear, and the ground in front of the rabbit shimmered.
Woom—!
A bizarre crack split open in the air.
"...It really is a dungeon?"
Rina let out a brief, amazed gasp.
"It's a dimensional travel type, too. I've never seen one like this before, meow."
Danya was just as astonished. After poking her finger in and out of it with fascination, she turned to me with a rather serious face.
"But, Ian, I've been wondering something. Can I ask a question, meow?"
"Sure."
"How do you even know this stuff, meow?"
That was a sharp question.
"I saw it in the library."
"No wonder you were always going to the library... So it wasn't to see some female librarian there."
Rina came out with something scandalous.
"Anyway, how do you even know I'm always going to the library?"
"Hehe."
Rina sheepishly tapped the ground with the tip of her shoe.
There were many points I wanted to raise, but entering the dungeon came first.
"Let's head in."
◆
A brief wave of nausea passed.
When I opened my eyes, a green meadow stretched out before us.
"Wow—! The scenery really changed in an instant!"
Elena looked around, thoroughly captivated.
"It feels like passing through a portal customs station."
"...It reminds me of going inside Richard's dantian, meow. It's nicer than back then, though, since it's warmer."
In contrast, Rina and Danya, having experienced portals and dimensional rifts before, calmly surveyed their surroundings.
In the distance, piles of building rubble were visible.
This dungeon's name was 「Ruined Temple」.
It was a dungeon only accessible through the [Ruined Traces] exploration quest series, which triggers randomly while poking around the academy.
I was able to find it by retracing that experience.
"There's no need for anyone to be too tense. This isn't the kind of dungeon with a ridiculously messed-up difficulty curve. We only need to go as far as we can reach."
Unlike a closed-type dungeon where the exit seals shut the moment you enter, this was an open-type dungeon where the exit remained open continuously. That meant we could turn back if we decided it was too much for us midway.
"...I've heard it said that dungeons are a blessing bestowed by the goddess. I might actually believe that's true. Gaining experience like this... it really feels like we can grow fast."
Elena clasped her hands together and murmured.
For once, she was absolutely right.
Open-type dungeons were nothing less than treasure troves of experience and loot.
"But what are these snowflake-like things? They're so pretty. Whoa. It's like snow is falling on the meadow!"
"I have a feeling they're bad for you, meow..."
Rina and Danya, perfectly demonstrating the difference between an intuitive type and a thinking type. That superb empathy was likely what made Rina the academy's number one social butterfly, but...
"Alright, everyone put these on."
In this case, Danya was right.
I distributed the masks I'd prepared to the party members.
"...Masks?"
"That snow-like stuff is pollen from a 'Ruined Flower', which only blooms in these ruins. If you keep breathing it in, it'll directly affect your stamina and mana."
Everyone took a mask without complaint.
"See, I can't do anything without you, Ian."
Rina subtly pulled her mask down and gave a bright grin.
◆
— Pshuuuuung!
The trash mobs in the 「Ruined Temple」 consisted mainly of empowered wild animals.
Most of them were gray wolves called Ashen Wolves.
"Wretched wolves! Die, all of you!"
And this was where Danya's prowess truly shone.
Despite the wolves being remarkably fleet-footed, Danya took them down with one shot, one kill. Watching her, I couldn't help but admire her predictive shots.
"The wolf beast-kin are the ones my Catsnesia clan doesn't get along with!"
There was indeed some emotional entanglement there.
The wolf beast-kin of the great forest... They had to be the Lupus clan, infamous for their brutality.
The closer we got to the ruins, the more Danya's bow spat fire.
To the point that Elena and I, stationed in the frontline, had absolutely nothing to do.
We were leisurely walking and chatting as Danya's arrows flew past us.
"It feels a bit wrong to say this, but... this seems too easy, Brother Ian."
"Who was the one trembling about how scared she was?"
"Th-that was! Because this is my first time in a dungeon like this!"
"Still, don't let your guard down."
"Wh... why? Do high-risk species appear here? D-don't tell me... the dungeon master I've only heard stories about too?!"
The dungeon master. Put simply, the boss.
"Of course there is one."
"Eep!"
"I'm starting to have my doubts about whether I can really entrust the frontline to you, Elena."
"Dungeon masters are those who've made contracts with demons! They're monsters with hundreds of faces and thousands of eyes!"
"...Which ultra-high-difficulty dungeon's boss is that from? A normal dungeon doesn't have anything like that. It'll be tough, sure. But."
"But?"
"I have no intention of trying to beat the boss here today. We'll just grab what we need and pull out."
With our current fighting strength, taking on this dungeon's boss was impossible from the start.
"W-well, that's a relief."
Elena swept a hand down her chest.
We walked like that for a while.
We entered the ruined city.
The main stage was the Ruined Temple at the city's center.
But I had no plans to go that far.
Our target, the 'Key to the Mysterious Box', was in the huge plaza at the city's entrance.
We could retrieve it from the broken fountain at its center.
"Right here."
The fountain, where water still collected, was full of coins sunken at the bottom, as if many people had once made wishes. Seeing how the city had fallen into ruin, their wishes must have gone unanswered.
— Splash
The water inside the fountain was fairly deep.
Alright. Now I just had to find the key among all these coins.
While Danya kept watch, Elena, who had stepped into the fountain beside me, murmured.
"...Huh? Isn't this a coin?"
"It is. I heard they're pretty much worthless."
I'd tried picking them up and selling them a few times in the game but realized they held no value and stopped paying attention to them.
"But these are completely ancient, antique coins, you know?"
"What?"
Was there some hidden easter egg like that? This was news to me.
"Let me just take one with me and verify if that's accurate first."
While Elena was inspecting the coin,
I retrieved the key that had been stuck in a gap in the drainage grate.
With this, the goal of coming to this dungeon was complete.
"Good work, everyone. Now let's head back while looting the wolves we killed on the way in. Danya should get the lion's share of the spoils for this one."
Just as I opened my mouth to speak.
"Ian! Something's coming from over there!"
— Grrrrrr!
At the tip of Danya's pointing finger,
I could see a wolf the size of a house charging toward us.
A jewel embedded in its tail glowed with an ominous purple light.
"Ah. Why is that thing here?"