The Dungeon Beneath the Granary

The battle against the Shakan Bandit Gang — no, it wasn't a battle at all. It was a one-sided slaughter.

"Kehaaack!"

"Gyaaaaah?!"

"S-spare me, urk……."

Black shadows darted across the tall wheat, cutting down the bandits one after another. Resistance was pointless. The weapons they swung never so much as grazed the beastfolk girl, and not a single one of them could lay hands on her as she flickered across the field. If anything, they might have lasted a little longer had they stuck together. But the bandits, blinded by thoughts of plunder, had scattered to work separately — and that was their fatal mistake. Before a beast that had bared its fangs, they were nothing more than a banquet laid out for easy eating. By the time they realized it, terror already ruled their minds.

"Gyaaaaah!!"

"I won't let you get away, I won't!"

In the end, they threw down their weapons and ran. Sarah, her hands slick with blood, hunted down the fleeing men with a chilling smile on her face. Her maddened appearance froze even the mercenaries fighting alongside them, if only for a moment.

"There she goes again, eyes rolling back."

Luden shook his head and scanned the surroundings. The bandits who had come at his group had all been dealt with just now.

No need to go help the others, I'd say.

They were too far away to make out the details, but with no request for support coming in, things couldn't be all that dire over there. Luden gathered his frozen squad members and gave his orders.

"Clear away the bodies here. Once you're done, hold position and maintain vigilance."

"What about you, Captain?"

"I'm going to sweep the area and see if any of them are hiding. Meanwhile, if Phillip or anyone else sends word requesting support, report it to me immediately."

Sarah had already wandered off somewhere out of sight, but he wasn't worried. Leaving the cleanup to his men, Luden began his search of the area.

As expected, nothing here.

His time guarding the farmland was nearly at an end. Once the harvest was finished, he wouldn't have this kind of freedom to search, and the thought made him quietly impatient.

"Well, at least one of them had a sharp eye."

Luden smirked as he looked at the open grain warehouse. The farmland was so vast that warehouses like this one stood scattered all over it.

Footsteps. A stale, fetid smell. Farm tools strewn about in disarray.

"Dieeeeeee…!" A shadow leapt up with a roar and lunged at Luden.

But—

Shlak!

The eyes of the man who cut down the ambushing bandit held no emotion whatsoever. Perhaps the man had done what he did to survive, but there was no room for sympathy here.

"I'll have to tell them to clean this place up too."

Sarah would probably be back by now. Luden turned to leave — and then, suddenly, his gaze fell on something on the floor.

"A cellar?"

It looked as though rough wooden planks had been laid over a hole in the ground, but with a handle fixed to it, there was no mistaking it for anything but a door. Cellars beneath grain warehouses were common enough, so Luden thought nothing of it at first.

But in that ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠instant, a thought flashed through his mind like lightning.

"Wait. A cellar?"

Why hadn't he thought of this before? Luden had been circling the fields all this time, hunting for the dungeon's entrance. But come to think of it, who ever said a dungeon entrance had to be above ground? If anything, the odds were far higher that it would lie somewhere underground, or in some remote spot where people never came.

"Heh. And with that, who's the fool, exactly?"

The reason he'd never considered it until now was simple prejudice. Any dungeon that would produce a Dungeon Break years from now was bound to be enormous — so he'd written off the idea that it could be hiding in something as mundane as a grain warehouse.

"Cellars like this get dug and then barely used anyway. No one would think twice about overlooking them."

It was only conjecture, but it was worth checking. Luden called to mind every grain warehouse on the farmland. Counting the abandoned ones, there were more than twenty. He intended to start tearing through every last one of them beginning tomorrow.

"C-Captain! Captain! You're here, eeeek!!"

Just then Phillip, who had come looking for Luden, caught sight of the corpses inside the warehouse and let out a shrill scream.

"What is it?"

"W-well, you see. The bandits ran off. So I came to tell you it was over, and……"

"Got it. I'll ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠head over now."

It seemed the situation outside had been resolved without incident as well.

"Ah. Before we go, clean this place up."

"Yes, yeeees? W-wait, just a moment!"

And so the warehouse was left with its cold corpses and Phillip, pale as a ghost.

Nothing of note happened after the Shakan Bandit Gang was driven off. The work proceeded smoothly and wrapped up within the planned period. And on the night the harvest festival drew to a close, a rowdy party kicked off across the Balzac Territory. The lord had opened his coffers as tribute to those who had toiled so hard. Not only the tenants who had sweated over the harvest, but even those who had stood guard melted into the festive atmosphere.

And while everyone was enjoying themselves—

"Mmph. Luden. Where ya going? I am."

Sarah, a mouthful of bread stuffed in her cheeks, trailed after him and asked. Unlike the crowds in the thick of the celebration, the place he was headed lay far from the firelight.

"There's something important I need to do."

"Important?"

Luden's steps came to a halt — right in front of a dilapidated warehouse.

Creeeak……

The unlocked door swung open easily. Inside, dust lay thick and junk that looked more like garbage was piled to the rafters, proof of how long the place had been left to rot.

"Let's tidy up first, shall we?"

Rolling up his sleeves, Luden cleared away the clutter. As dust swirled through the cramped warehouse, Sarah, who had been watching blankly, sneezed and fled.

"Ahem, ahem! There it is, just like I thought."

Before long, once everything had been shoved to one side, the door hidden in the floor came into view. Luden gripped the handle and pulled, but the hinges had rusted through, and it wouldn't budge.

"No help for it."

Crack!

With the sound of splintering wood, a staircase descending into the earth appeared. From the pitch-black cellar below, an inexplicably eerie chill rose to meet them. Luden knew instinctively — whatever lay down there, it was no ordinary basement.

"Looks like I found it."

"Hee. What's down there? What is?"

"Something very dangerous. Sarah, you wait here."

"Eeeh? Sarah wants to go too! I do!"

"No. It won't take long, so keep watch up here for me."

"Aww."

Sarah puffed out her cheeks in an adorable pout.

Taking her along would certainly have helped. Her stats alone were no match for Luden's to overcome, and her keen nose could sniff out dangers that even his skills couldn't detect. But if his hunch was right, this dungeon was a little — no, quite — dangerous for Sarah.

What's waiting down there is probably—

With that thought finished, Luden descended the stairs into the black depths.

When the stairs ended, a passage over five meters tall opened up before Luden's eyes. It was a vast space utterly impossible to believe lay beneath a shabby grain warehouse. Common sense said it couldn't exist — and yet the corners of Luden's mouth curled upward.

"Found it."

At long last, he had discovered the dungeon he'd been searching for so desperately.

In his previous life, the state of the Balzac Territory after the Dungeon Break was too horrific even for the word "devastated." Miasma as good as poison to any living thing blanketed the sky, and unholy beings claimed the land. The kingdom, grasping the gravity of the situation too late, threw its full strength into stemming the disaster and only barely brought the Dungeon Break to an end — at the cost of tremendous losses.

But even then, the Balzac Territory never returned to its former abundance. Even after the dungeon at the root of it all was destroyed, the energy of death that had seeped deep into the earth was beyond their power to dispel. And so the land became a dead place, without a single living thing — that was what the old future had held.

A blue light flashed from the necklace at his throat, and the black energy pressing in on him dissolved away as though melting into it.

"Quite a different atmosphere from the Black Temple."

Luden frowned. The virulent miasma felt as though it would melt the skin right off him at a touch.

"Thank goodness I didn't bring Sarah."

Without the Tears of the Sacred God, he surely couldn't have endured this. In that sense, coming alone had been the right call.

"Who would have guessed? A place this foul, buried under such fertile ground."

Even if a company of high priests came marching in, purifying the miasma here would be no easy task. If even a fraction of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠what filled this place leaked outside, the crops would be finished in short order. Clicking his tongue, Luden walked down the miasma-choked passage.

Kikikikikik……

All at once, a hideous sound rang out ahead of him. Through the vision granted by Owl's Eyes, he could see something approaching. Beings that looked human but were anything but — the unclean dead. Zombies of rotting, putrefied flesh, skeletons stripped to gleaming white bone, and even ghouls wrapped in miasma, their skin ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠deathly pale. A horde of undead, numbering in the dozens, was closing in.

"So you finally show yourselves."

It was a sight that would have sent any ordinary person collapsing in terror, but Luden only let out a dry remark. There was no trace of shock or alarm on his face. And no wonder — he knew that when the Dungeon Break had occurred on this land, the first things to emerge had been thousands upon thousands of undead.

And the being that commanded them, too.

Brilliant blue aura blazed up like a flame. With that, Luden stamped his foot and hurled himself into the oncoming horde of undead.

Crack! Rustle! Slash!

Every time his sword flashed, something was cleaved apart. Dead bodies had no blood left to spill, but rotten flesh and bone-white fragments scattered in every direction. The way he swept through the undead was a storm, plain and simple — and where the storm called Luden passed, only shattered undead remained. Clearing out all thirty-odd of them took less than five minutes.

"Whew. Still, there don't seem to be that many of them yet."

The undead legion of the future had been so terrifying that even the kingdom had needed its full strength to face it. According to a mercenary who had witnessed that army firsthand, it was as if the god of death itself had descended and stretched out its hand. Grandiose as it sounded, it only meant the thing had been every bit as horrifying as those words implied. But the undead that had just appeared weren't at that level yet — probably because the dungeon hadn't yet regained the power it would one day wield.

Kikikikikik.

Just then, that unpleasant sound came again. From beyond the deep darkness, more undead were swarming in — far more than before.

"Maybe I should've stopped by the temple and picked up some holy water after all?"

Wearing an annoyed expression, Luden drew his sword once more.

No one knew how long it had been down here. It had simply existed in this place from the moment it opened its eyes, and before that, there were no memories. No — strictly speaking, there was something it dimly recalled. But it was scant, and even that was incomplete. Like paint spilled across a finished picture, its memories were blotched and riddled with holes.

But none of that mattered much. For it, the important thing was not forgotten memories, but quenching this endless thirst of the soul.

—Not… much longer… soon.

A voice hollow, yet carrying a craving from somewhere deep within. As if in answer, countless dead rose to their feet. It gave the command to its servants.

—It is not far off. Greet the coming rest of death.

In the darkness, crimson eyes blazed to life.