Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?, Vol. 9
Page 20
A body of cool, clear blue water awaited them at the bottom of the hill.
The bottom of the wide pool appeared to be five meders deep. It could have easily passed for a small pond.
The little light the quartz crystals provided glinted off the water. Bell used the lamp to scan the room, sweeping the beam from one end to the other.
“Looks like the path ends here…”
“That can’t be…The song came from here, did it not?”
Haruhime didn’t want to believe what Bell just said.
Casting light on the ceiling and the walls revealed only solid bark. There were no openings that could possibly lead to another path.
Lilly and Welf tilted their heads, examining the room in an effort to puzzle out what had happened to the mysterious singer.
“…?”
That was when Mikoto discovered something on the water’s surface.
A single floating golden feather.
The idea came to her as she stood transfixed by the feather’s speckled, golden sparkle.
“Sir Bell, the light.”
Mikoto approached the shore with purpose in her stride.
The light from Bell’s lamp passed through the clear water, reaching the bottom with ease.
As every detail came to light, Mikoto caught a glimpse of an opening in the submerged wall leading away from this apparent dead end.
“I have a theory…”
Mikoto spoke as she removed her katana, armor, and the rest of her equipment from her body.
Down to a single layer of battle cloth, she dove into the water. Trained in the unforgiving rivers of the Far East, she used her ninja-like coordination to glide through the water toward the opening like a fish.
Wiene, Bell, and the others watched with bated breath…Bubbles rose before Mikoto’s head breached the surface a few seconds later.
She pushed the wet hair plastered to her face out of her eyes before giving a firm nod to her allies above.
They all exchanged glances and began to disrobe.
Mikoto briefly emerged to collect her katana and knives. They followed her example, leaving everything but the essentials behind before entering the water. Lilly and Haruhime removed their Goliath Robes and backpacks, filling small pouches with as many items as they could fit.
Joining Mikoto and Ouka on trips to nearby rivers in her youth had served Haruhime well. She swam with relative ease while Welf walked along the bottom, weighted down by the massive sword he refused to leave behind. Lilly held her dagger-length magic blade tight against her body as she zipped through the water like a minnow. Wiene, who had been reluctant, held on to Bell’s arm as he helped her in.
The water blurred their vision and chilled their skin as they filed into the hole.
It opened into a long submerged passageway that was illuminated by quartz crystals poking out of the bottom as if to guide the way.
Their Statuses allowed them to hold their breath much longer than the average person could. Mikoto led them to a fork in the underwater path. Once there, the group noticed light filtering down from above and changed course.
Kicking their legs as fast as they could, the party made a break for the surface.
“—Pwah!”
Their heads popped out of the water one by one only to find what resembled a limestone grotto instead of the wooden alcove from whence they came. With black stone walls extending in every direction, only the dim quartz light remained consistent. The party climbed out of the water, Wiene and Haruhime shaking their bodies to dry off.
Bell was quick to find a new path in the blackness—one leading even deeper into the rocky labyrinth.
“So this is…” said Lilly, appalled, as she peered into the dark, unexplored corner of the Dungeon.
“…‘Frontier.’”
The Guild possessed a great deal of Dungeon map data.
While it was being used to assist modern-day adventurers, it was the adventurers who came before them as well as the brave explorers from the Ancient Times who had originally gathered it. These people had blazed the trail with no knowledge, putting their lives on the line to discover new routes and make maps of every floor. These were grand achievements.
However, there were still areas yet to be explored.
The Dungeon was far too immense to ever be completely mapped.
People sometimes overlooked branching passageways in the never-ending journey deep into the Dungeon.
There were also special cases like this one, where pristine terrain had yet to be touched by explorers.
“Frontier.”
Just as the name suggested, no one had ever been here before.
It wasn’t recorded on any map—not even top-class adventurers knew this area existed. Lilly, Bell, and the rest of the party gaped at the thought.
“……”
A large opening connected to what seemed like a dark abyss.
Bell’s party quietly took their first steps.
They fell into formation around Wiene. Bell held the magic-stone lamp high as everyone followed his path.
Quartz crystals provided nothing more than a slight glimmer. The lamp’s beam was all they had to cleave through the darkness. They were so on edge, a few confused their own heartbeats for far-off footsteps and the rock crunching beneath their feet as a sign of danger. The passage was quiet, but the party heard every little sound. Without the occasional familiar monster cry in the background, the silence was deafening.
There was no way to know what creatures they would encounter.
Should an as-of-yet-undocumented Dungeon gimmick or an Irregular occur, death was a very real possibility.
This was pure, unbridled “unknown.”
Their throats were dry, but their skin was slick with perspiration. Their five senses were focused beyond their intended limits. Their minds had never endured such stress, and yet, at the same time, they also felt sharper than ever before. Nothing was more reassuring than a familiar hilt in their grasp. The “unknown” revealed more of itself with each step, just like it had for their forebears.
Bell led the party farther and farther into the Frontier. Just as everyone’s anxiety hit its peak, the rocky tunnel’s end came into view.
“It’s dark…”
And it opened up.
Bell and Welf were suddenly freed from the claustrophobia that plagued them in the tunnel. This new space was extremely wide, overwhelmingly so. The words that fell from Welf’s lips resounded off into the darkness.
This was probably a large room. However, it was pitch black.
The lamp’s illumination couldn’t penetrate far enough into the darkness to find the opposite wall.
“……Um, Mikoto.”
“Sir Bell?”
“Are there any…monsters in here?”
“N-no, not as far as I can tell…”
Bell struggled to control his trembling voice as he asked.
Something was there.
There was definitely something in here.
More somethings than he could count were watching them.
They hid in the darkness, masking their presence while observing the adventurers’ every move.
Terror crept into Bell’s veins as he realized how very many eyes were looking at him.
Mikoto’s Skill couldn’t detect them. That left only three possibilities: these were people, they were monsters they hadn’t encountered before, or they were simply lurking just outside Yatano Black Crow’s range.
A fresh wave of cold sweat ran down Bell’s neck as his mind raced. He had to issue orders, get Haruhime to recast her Level Boost, make sure Wiene was protected, and so on.
However, there wasn’t time.
An incredible killing intent swelled within the darkness.
““““““!!””””””
It swept over Bell, Lilly, Welf, Mikoto, Haruhime, and Wiene like a jolt of electricity.
The animosity was intense enough to halt these upper-class adve
nturers in their tracks.
Suddenly, thud thud thud THUD THUD THUD!! The unmistakable sound of feet charging directly at them reached their ears.
At the same time, whoosh! Several feathered wings took flight.
“!!”
Bell’s left hand guided the lamplight toward the closest oncoming sound.
The beam cut through the darkness, but Bell could make out only one thing—scarlet scales.
“—RUOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH!!”
Bell’s eyes flew open as he recognized the reptilian-warrior howl.
—A lizardman?!
A lizardman with bloodshot eyes didn’t give Bell a chance to attack as it stepped deep inside his space.
The lizardman wielded a long curved blade in its left hand—a scimitar. A flash of silver scythed down with blinding speed.
“”
The invisible swordsmanship stole Bell’s breath away.
The Hestia Knife in the boy’s right hand had moved to the right place out of sheer luck.
The two blades collided directly in front of his chest.
Immediately after, he felt the impact with his entire body, making his vision swim before hurling him to the side.
“Bell!”
The boy slammed into the ground, rolling away from the party as Welf’s yell reverberated through the room.
The lamp fell from Bell’s grasp, and a reptilian foot crushed it beneath its talons.
With the light source gone, the area was plunged back into darkness.
“What the hell is going on—?!”
“HYAA!!”
“—?!”
Welf’s heart was racing in his darkened surroundings when a small shadow zipped toward him.
He promptly raised his greatsword overhead, where it crashed into something with a high-pitched metallic ring. The impact was strong enough to drive him to his knees.
Sparks scattering from the collision briefly revealed the attacker: a diminutive monster wearing a red hat.
“A goblin?!”
The plump bottom-rung monster disappeared into the veil of darkness. Welf watched with stunned eyes, unable to believe its strength.
“!”
“!!”
Even farther back in the rear guard, Mikoto recognized the sound of projectile weapons whistling through the air. Jumping over to land by Wiene, she deflected the shots with a sweep of her katana.
“—Feathers?!”
In the instant it took her precise blade to repel the projectiles, she realized what they were as they fluttered before her eyes.
Still recovering from the shock, she realized another volley of feathers was heading right at her from the same direction.
“Everyone! Wiene!”
“GAAAAAH!!”
“!”
Bell had gotten back on his feet while yelling in his party’s direction, but then another flash of silver descended upon him.
He dodged the lizardman’s blade by the slimmest of margins, and the monster howled as it pressed the attack.
Bell moved to engage an opponent he could barely see.
“Wh-what in the world is…?!”
A metallic ring echoed in the chamber; a burst of sparks scattered through the air. The bestial howls combined with the adventurers’ panicked gasps in the chaos.
Bell’s party was forced into a desperate last stand, relying only on sound. The battle left Haruhime powerless to do anything. In the obfuscating dark, the pandemonium reached a fever pitch.
“!”
At that moment…
Lilly’s hand, which had plunged into her spare pouch the moment combat began, brushed against what it was so desperately searching for. While fighting against fear and panic, the devoted supporter of the party made a quick decision and grabbed what she needed to overcome their trial.
She pulled a small bag out of her pouch, opened it, and flung it forward with all her might.
“Lamp Moss!”
“!”
“?!”
The bioluminescent substance spilled out, spreading across the ground.
It was the Lamp Moss Lilly had harvested on the nineteenth floor.
Pieces of the Colossal Tree Labyrinth’s primary light source lifted the shroud of darkness surrounding them.
Friend and foe alike were caught by surprise as the battlefield came into view.
“…!”
That’s when Bell’s party definitively learned the true identity of their attackers.
“Huuooo!”
“OooOOooOO…!”
A lizardman, a goblin, and a harpy flapping its wings in midair appeared.
The species of monsters might have been different, but they each had one thing in common: all of them had equipment, whether scimitar or hand ax, shield or armor.
“Monsters…!
“…With weapons…!”
Bell and Welf could hardly believe their eyes.
Both clearly remembered the posting on the Guild’s bulletin board:
A report stating that monsters had been seen stealing equipment from adventurers or looting it from dead bodies in the Dungeon. It had even displayed a sketch of them with the gear. Both young men felt as though that drawing had come to life.
“H-how many of them are there…?!”
At the same time, Lilly was more distracted by the other monsters farther back.
In addition to the harpy, a gargoyle and a griffin circled the space above their heads. Meanwhile, on the ground were…lamias, al-miraj, formoires, war shadows, the humanoid spider called arachne, unicorns…The horde was composed of myriad monsters hailing from the upper, middle, lower, and even deep levels of the Dungeon. The space almost seemed big enough to fit the surface’s Coliseum, and the number of eyes watching them in the room made Mikoto and Haruhime turn pale.
Wiene fearfully looked around at the numerous monsters that had many of the same features she did.
“OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!”
The lizardman facing Bell let out a ferocious roar, and the other monsters started to move all at once.
The blue-green light emerging from the ground illuminated claws and fangs as well as the raised swords and axes.
“All these guys…!!”
“They’re after Lady Wiene?!”
The attacking monsters’ weapons were all aiming for the vouivre girl at the center of their party.
Breathing ragged and eyes filled with bloodlust, they headed for Wiene with drool spilling from their mouths. Welf and Mikoto desperately tried to hold back the onslaught threatening to overwhelm them.
“The magic sword isn’t an option like this…!”
The battle had transformed completely into a wild melee in the darkness. Engaging the monsters in hand-to-hand combat, Welf and Mikoto could potentially get caught up in the blast.
The chamber’s entrance, their only escape route, had been blocked off at some point during the fight. Lilly yelled in frustration, frowning as she loosed a barrage of arrows into the air only to have the harpies overhead launch a volley of feathers in her direction.
“Lilly! Haruhime!”
“Lady Wiene!”
As the attack neared the supporters, Wiene shielded them with her one wing.
Haruhime and Lilly embraced the girl as her peculiar appendage spread open. The pain and shock from the attack drew a groan from her.
“I-it hurts…”
Another round of feather missiles descended on the girl—but then Bell turned toward them from his distant location.
“—FIREBOLT!!”
A roar.
Swift-Strike Magic streaked across the chamber to protect Wiene and the girls.
Several thunderous bursts of flame cut through the darkness and collided with the harpy and the griffin in midair. S
hrieking in pain, the monsters fell to the ground in a trail of smoke. The gargoyle, along with the other airborne fiends, used their wings to shield themselves from the magical attack like Wiene had done earlier.
“SHAAAAA!!”
“!”
The snarling lizardman charged forward and slashed at Bell as if to remind him who his opponent actually was.
Bell had been interrupted in the middle of launching more ranged attacks and only barely managed to dodge.
The lizardman carried two weapons: a longsword in its right hand, a scimitar in its left. A breastplate was firmly strapped to its chest over its scarlet scales. Metal plates covered its forearms, waist, shoulders, and knees, protecting the vital areas. The equipment might not have been the highest quality, but the lizardman could be described as fully armed and armored, standing a head and shoulders taller than Bell.
Bell grimaced as he drew Ushiwakamaru-Nishiki and faced his opponent with double knives.
This lizardman…It’s strong!
Not only was its first strike fast enough to create afterimages, it was smart enough to exploit the darkness for offense and defense.
Being on the receiving end of the monster’s onslaught, Bell was well aware of the creature’s potential. There was no comparison between this lizardman and the one he fought earlier on the twentieth floor. Its strength, speed, and skill with the sword were in a different league. Welf might have been joking around about one of them honing its technique, but this monster fit that description. The possibility that this could be some subspecies of lizardman popped into the back of his head.
In terms of Level, the monstrous warrior could be beyond him—while only a guess, Bell couldn’t shake the thought.
Bell’s rubellite locked onto his foe. It glared back at him, running its tongue eagerly back and forth behind its sharp fangs.
He would never reach Wiene and the girls without winning this fight.
Silencing every doubt, the boy held nothing back as he charged forward to defeat the lizardman.
“Hya!”
“GRWAAA!!”
The Hestia Knife slashed forward, leaving an arc of violet light in its path while the monster’s longsword came down with its full strength behind it.
The two closed upon each other and collided.
““!””
The blow confirmed Bell’s suspicions. The lizardman was incredibly powerful.