The Core
"So the core was here."
"If we smash that thing, we're out of here. What a relief."
Just as the old legends said—that a powerful monster guards a dungeon's [core]—the core had been sitting right beside the Tree of Longing. In fact, it was exactly where the thing had first burst out: the pit in the underground chamber. The whole structure had been rigged so that unless you felled the tree, there was no leaving the dungeon at all.
"It's actually quite pretty... almost a shame to break it."
Still reeling from the aftermath of the mana drain, wobbling on her feet, Lena peered down into the deep pit and let out a small gasp of admiration. And honestly, who could blame her? The core had a certain aesthetic charm to it. Like a gyroscope, multiple rings spun round and round, encasing the smooth sphere at its heart. The whole thing glowed with a soft blue light—an object that seemed designed from the ground up to catch the eye. Not that it mattered; out or not, it had to be destroyed.
"Hold on—let's break it in a little while."
"Why?"
"We have far too much cargo to sort through. Especially all the leftover ingredients... let's eat something before we go."
"Wholeheartedly approved~!"
Lena threw her arms wide in celebration of Noah's proposal. It wasn't a bad idea anyway—she needed to recover her stamina too, and with the dungeon's strongest monster already bagged, there was nothing left to worry about.
"A few hours should be fine."
...
Sizzle, sizzle~
Skewers of meat turned slowly over the campfire Noah had built. Just listening to it made your mouth water, and the rich, savory aroma filled the air all around. It was a luxury we could only afford now that we no longer had to worry about monsters.
"...By the way, we're really allowed to put that honey on the meat?"
"One of the merits of Desert Honey is that its properties survive ordinary cooking heat. Wealthy nobles reportedly use it in their cuisine just like this."
"So it's like a health supplement or something..."
"Delicious and good for you—two birds with one stone, wouldn't you say? Mm... it looks just about done."
Noah lifted the sizzling meat from the fire and served it onto plates for Lena and me. With the honey and a generous handful of spices worked in, it was a genuinely appetizing sight.
"Thanks for the food!"
"Much appreciated."
Chomp.
The moment I bit into the steaming meat, the juices trapped inside burst out like a waterfall. It had been over a week, but since it had been marinating in the seasoning the whole time, the flavor was excellent. And more than anything—
"This is a whole different taste. Sweet, but..."
"A little salty too! It's nothing like plain salt, though?"
The Desert Honey, scored into the surface of the meat and caramelized over the flames, tasted strikingly different from the raw stuff. It was as if part of the sweetness had transmuted into savoriness. Not that I was surprised—sweet and salty was a combination humanity had long since certified as elite. The meat went down easy. And then, once enough of the honey had been absorbed, its real effects kicked in.
"...Hot!"
A warmth starting in my stomach spread through my entire body. At first it was merely cozy, but as we kept eating, the effects stacked and stacked until it felt outright scalding. Like we'd devoured something violently spicy, sweat beaded across our skin from head to toe. Noah nodded with satisfaction.
"That is the process of life force and mana being absorbed into the body. The Tree of Longing, you see, converts the energy it drains into the form of honey."
"Whoa... no kidding."
I closed my eyes and savored the change the honey was working on me. It was faint, but I could feel my mana replenishing. If a raw, unprocessed substance could do this... take it regularly and even an ordinary person could expect a long life, free of every little ailment.
...
"Uuugh... I'm stuffed... my mouth won't stop tasting sweet..."
"Same here..."
Honey barbecue, honey shakes, honey hotcakes, honey candy... We had indulged in an all-out homemade honey feast. Ever since Noah had learned to use simple magic, the range of dishes she could prepare outdoors had expanded dramatically.
"Feeling the effects?"
"Absolutely excellent."
"Great, then~"
I basked in the lively vitality circulating through my body. It was a satisfaction of an entirely different species from mere fullness. Lena, who hadn't been recovering her energy at all until now, seemed to have bounced back to full stamina in one sitting.
The stuff really was potent.
"And even all that only used up half a bead's worth of honey."
"...Let's set aside about a quarter of the harvest. Eating a little at a time while we're out in the field should do wonders for recovery. Even just spreading it on bread would be delicious..."
"Hehe... that would drive our Engel coefficient up rather high, wouldn't it? The honey we just ate would run five gold coins at market, after all."
"That's ridiculously expensive..."
By my rough reckoning a single gold coin was worth about a million won—which meant we'd just torched five million won on one meal.
How positively bourgeois of us!
"Money's just something you go earn more of. Oh, come to think of it—what should we do about this magic stone?"
I fished the large, deep-indigo magic stone out of the pack beside me. It was the one we'd taken from the Tree of Longing. Judging by its color, the thing had been Grade 6 after all.
"First Grade 6 stone I've ever gotten. What would this go for if we sold it?"
"By my knowledge, somewhere around forty-five gold coins."
"Whoa... that's... decent money, huh? Well, it was a monster that dangerous."
From Grade 6 upward, monsters were creatures you'd only glimpse now and then by venturing outside the safe zones entirely and roaming the Unexplored Lands. Considering that rarity and strength combined... I honestly couldn't say whether forty-five gold was fair compensation. Easy money for some, surely not for others. Wasn't that just the way of the world?
"We've earned money just fine, so I'm planning to [Absorb] this stone myself... Lena, your share can be—"
"Ah, forget it. I've got some pride too, you know. Don't even worry about my cut. I mean, look at how much you already dropped on my gear?"
"Fair point."
I'd meant to keep the money matters cleanly sorted at first, but after gleefully outfitting Lena head to toe, the accounting had gotten decidedly murky. Lena waved her hands dismissively.
"Besides, I already know Noah unni's secret now... I'm just going to cling to this party no matter what, so let's not complicate things with math. I can just take an allowance now and then. Call it... a family-type party, maybe?"
"Oh."
To think the girl who'd once been obsessed with money had turned out like this. Sure, she'd gotten the equipment for free—but a person's thinking could bend as far as their perspective allowed.
"You precious little thing!"
"Hehe."
I seized her soft cheeks in both hands and kneaded them to my heart's content. Unlike the old days, Lena held still, quietly seeming to enjoy it. After giving the precocious girl a good long scruffle, I took the magic stone back into my hand.
"All right. Then I'll absorb the stone."
"So you get stronger right away?"
"No. Hmm... how do I put this. Once I absorb a few more stones like this one, I'll gain a new ability. Still need more before then."
"Ah, I see."
Swooosh...
I absorbed the indigo magic stone all the same.
Points gained: 50.
Considering a Rank 7 stone yielded a mere 10 points, that wasn't a particularly impressive haul.
'Honestly, it might be more efficient to hunt five Rank 7 monsters instead...'
But a Grade 6 monster's stone came with a different advantage. The same Pull I'd once sensed from the crimson stone taken off that cult [Priest] so long ago had begun to resonate once again! Apparently, from Grade 6 upward, magic stones granted this kind of Pull.
'Going by the priest's example... it should let me choose a talent resembling the original monster's traits.'
Would something like Mana Absorption show up? Surely it wouldn't spit out some talent for growing tentacles, right? As before, the Pull pointed toward several different talents at once, so there was no telling what I'd get. Not that it mattered... I didn't have the points anyway.
'All told, 150 points.'
Everything I'd saved up, including the Grade 6 stone, came to a grand total of about 150. The chimera we'd fought last time were synthetic monsters, so they hadn't dropped proper Rank 7 stones—which was why my savings had stalled out. Even so, I'd scraped this much together by steady accumulation.
'Hm? Now that I think about it—what happens if I absorb another Grade 6-or-above stone while the Pull is still lingering?'
Would the two blend together and get muddled? No—honestly, I wasn't even sure the Pull would persist over time. It was an extraordinarily delicate sense... my gut said that after a day or two it would dissolve back into the energy of my points and vanish.
I roughly sorted through my thoughts and stood up.
"Okay! Food's settled, so let's ease our way out of this dungeon."
"You mean break the core?"
"That's right. An artifact should come out of it too. Doesn't have to be a combat-type—just something useful would be nice..."
"Ugh, now you're just being greedy."
"It's called hoping."
The digestion of an Awakened was truly formidable—our stuffed stomachs had already settled to a comfortable level. No reason to kill any more time here. We readied ourselves for a swift exit.
Whoosh, whoosh!
While packing up, we simply chucked the leftover food and trash onto the ground. The moment we cleared the dungeon and returned to the real world, everything outside the small space around us would vanish anyway, so there was no reason for scruples. We discarded what needed discarding and loaded everything else onto the wooden cart, parking it flush against the party. Set up like that, the cart would come out with us when we returned to reality.
"I'll grab the core."
Once I confirmed that Lena had finished her preparations by re-donning her shield and armor, I climbed down into the pit and retrieved the core that hovered in midair.
"How does it feel?"
"Touch it yourself."
"...I don't feel anything?"
"Yeah, that's about right."
As if it existed halfway between matter and non-matter, the core had an uncanny, almost unsettling lack of presence. By its looks alone it seemed like it should be heavy... but the weight that reached your hands was about that of a balloon.
"So how do we break it?"
"Just smash it. It's not particularly durable. All right—really doing it now? Everyone hang on tight."
Shk!
I tossed the core into the air and swung my blade, wreathed in aura. The core split cleanly in two without the slightest resistance. It held its shape for a moment... then poured light out from within!
...
The core merely glowed; it hadn't broken yet. The dungeon, however, was another matter.
Ku-gu-gu-gung!
A tremendous roar split the air as the earth shook. With the core damaged, the dungeon had unmistakably begun to collapse. The proof was plain to see: the colossal trees in the far distance toppled over one by one, vanishing as they fell.
"Is this... really okay?"
"It is fine. I read about this in a book."
While Noah soothed the panicked Lena, the wave of dissolution spreading inward from the edges reached the open clearing before we knew it. The speed was frankly astonishing. Only then could we see what was devouring the dungeon.
Shuaaaa...
A thick, pitch-black liquid, dark enough to permit not a single ray of light, surged in like a tidal wave, erasing everything into nothingness. Wherever the liquid passed, nothing remained but space as utterly black as the liquid itself. The unidentified substance surged at us from every direction, hemming us in as though this spot were the last thing left to consume—a tsunami of void.
SHUAAAAAAA!!!!
"Hnngh!"
The liquid crashed over us at a speed impossible to dodge. Strangely, there was no impact whatsoever—but whether it was the overwhelming visual and auditory spectacle, I found myself holding my breath without meaning to. Lena was no different; I heard her sharp, strangled gasp beside me.
...
"It is finished."
"...Phew."
At Noah's placid announcement, Lena and I opened our eyes and let out the breaths we'd been pointlessly holding. What greeted us was the core still floating in midair... and a pitch-black expanse of space, like the void itself. Every direction had been painted black, leaving no sense of depth at all.
"Feels like we're floating in the air."
"What am I standing on right now? The ground's all gone."
I turned my head this way and that. It was dark, but thanks to the light shed by the core we could still make out each other's faces. The cart parked snugly beside us was in perfect condition too. Noah was inspecting the cargo for anything ruined in the chaos when she glanced back and spoke up.
"Ah, that must be the exit."
At her words I turned around—and sure enough, there it was: a hole glowing white, as if insisting on its own identity as the way out. Slip through there and we'd be back in the outside world, no doubt about it.
But we still had one thing left to do.
A kind of bonus.
Vvvvmmm!
As if answering my wait, the core began to hum and shudder, transmuting wholly into pure light and shifting its form this way and that.
Without question, an artifact was being born.