by Sakon Kaidou
“Well, we’re inside,” said Nemesis. “But we don’t know the structure of this place.”
Since we had to be sneaky while moving through these hallways, Nemesis and I were talking to each other telepathically.
Every now and then, we passed by some bandits running to fight Hugo, but it was clear that they couldn’t see us due to the smoke.
“Master, where do you think we can find the children?” she asked.
Either windowless rooms on the second floor or higher, or somewhere below.
“Why do you think that?”
The chances of them escaping would be higher if they were kept in the first floor, and I saw ivy growing on the walls around the windows of the upper floors. They could use that to go down and get out. By simple process of elimination, it’s safe to guess that they’re either below or above.
“Then they’re probably underground,” she said. “It’s standard for kidnapping scoundrels to keep children locked up in the dungeon.”
I didn’t know if I could be as sure as her. However, the possibility was there, so I had no reason not to test it.
As those thoughts ran through my head, I came across a split in the hallway. There were three ways to go — forward, left, and right. A short distance up the right path, I saw a flight of stairs leading down — basically beckoning us in.
I chose to follow the call and went down underground.
“Ugh!” The moment I put my foot on the first stair, a strange stench came from the bottom and attacked my nose. It was a vile, yet familiar smell that I couldn’t remember — or perhaps didn’t want to. However, I couldn’t back away just because of it, so I gathered my resolve and went further down.
The stairs, floor, walls, and ceiling were all made from stone, exactly as you’d expect. The ceiling was two times higher than my full height, while the distance between the walls was even greater than that.
I won’t have any problems swinging Nemesis in here, I thought.
I also couldn’t help but notice the unique humidity permeating the air and the dark green moss growing on the ceiling and the walls.
“How gloomy,” commented Nemesis.
It’s a dungeon, after all, I told her. Also, this moss and humidity is a clear sign that there’s underground water leaking in from somewhere.
“Well, it’s an abandoned fortress, after all.”
Staying here for prolonged periods of time can’t be good for the children’s health.
“If the scoundrels cared about the little ones’ health, they wouldn’t be kidnapping or killing them.”
...True that.
A single look at the underlings we’d beaten in the back alley or the ones around the carriages was enough to know that they didn’t care for the children’s lives whatsoever. Just remembering their words and behavior made me sick.
“Gh...”
“Do you feel it, Master?” asked Nemesis. She didn’t say what she meant by “it.” However, I knew without her having to put it into words.
“It started when I began going down the stairs,” I said with my mouth. I finally recalled where I last breathed this stench.
There was no need to speak telepathically anymore. Hiding was unnecessary...
...because something at the other end of the hallway had already noticed us.
“There’s something there...” said Nemesis.
“Yeah,” I nodded.
I was being assaulted by multiple smells. The smell of the wafting humidity, the stuffy air, and the moss covering the walls mixed with the stench of blood and rotten meat. I was familiar with this smell because it had been all around me during my night in the Tomb Labyrinth. There was no way I could mistake it.
“Uuuaaaagghhh...” A groan reached my ears. It was followed by the rattling of bones. The sounds completed the imagery and made me all the more certain that the smell was that of the “undead.”
Wounded Zombies were groaning as they closed in on me. Their decaying flesh clung to their bones, vile juices leaking from pustules and boils. The Civilian Skeletons closed the distance between us, their teeth rattling as they shambled ahead.
The sight robbed me of words. That reaction might’ve been unwarranted, given that I had already faced undead monsters in the Tomb Labyrinth, but there was an important difference between the Zombies and Skeletons there and the ones before me.
It wasn’t the number of them. Sure, there were several dozens of them, but the difference I had in mind was far more important.
It wasn’t their physical might, either. A single look was enough to tell that these undead were significantly weaker than the ones in the Tomb Labyrinth.
The great difference I had in mind was that they were all the result of someone’s death.
“...F-Fuck off.”
I didn’t know who I was talking to — probably the vile reality that had allowed the sight to happen — but those words were the first to escape my lips before I began repeating them in my head.
“How horrid...” Nemesis broke in.
I closed my mouth, rage overcoming me in the form of a dull grind of tooth against tooth, while Nemesis — despite having a phobia of the dead — showed far more pity than fear.
The undead horde was composed of very small skeletons. I was about two times taller than any of them.
They were numerous enough to cover the whole hallway.
Nobody had to say it. I knew exactly who they had been before they were... this.
“I’m gonna be sick...”
The tiny undead closed in on us, extending their little arms. Grasping worn-out weapons, they slowly charged at us — the intruders.
I’d seen similar things in the Tomb Labyrinth, but undead that were made from the corpses of people were far too different from those that were created as undead to begin with. Just looking at them was enough to fill me with emotions that I could hardly bear.
“It appears that the bandits have someone who can use necromancy among them,” said Nemesis. “They’ve repurposed the children they killed.”
“Are you okay, Nemesis?” I asked.
“Ha!” she laughed with no humor in her tone. “My fear is irrelevant right now. How could they do this to children?”
“I feel the same,” I said.
With my eyes fixed on the undead horde, I couldn’t help but wonder whether it was possible to save them. But I already knew the answer to that. The children were lost.
If there was a way to bring people back from the dead, this war-ravaged country would’ve done it ages ago. That meant that it either didn’t exist or it was a method that even the kingdom couldn’t do. As things were, I simply couldn’t save them.
“Tell me, Nemesis,” I spoke up.
“What is it?” she asked.
“What happens to the undead when they die?”
The undead in the Tomb Labyrinth — a created dungeon — weren’t actual corpses, but mere creations. However, though they had the same names as the monsters back there, these Wounded Zombies and Civilian Skeletons before me had once been living beings. That made me wonder about what would become of their souls.
“I do not know,” said Nemesis with a regretful tone. “Some are being used as nothing but empty corpses, while others still have their souls trapped in the bodies. I am not one to know what would happen to them when the vessels are destroyed.”
“I see...”
“However, I believe it’s best to end their painful existence as undead,” she added.
“...Yeah.”
The distance between me and the undead children became a mere five meters.
The dimly-shining lights on the walls lit up the faces of the zombies and made me painfully aware that some of them had traces of facial features from when they had been alive.
I tightly closed my eyes and stayed like that for a few seconds. Then I opened them and directed the back of my left hand at the undead children.
“I’m sorry.”
I made my lef
t Miasmaflame Bracer burn them all with a stream of Purgatorial Flames. Their thin bones, decaying flesh, and what little hair they had left were embraced by the intense blaze and quickly burned away. It only took a moment for them to lose their HP and continue burning as actual corpses, rather than undead monstrosities.
A black smoke shrouded the hallway before beginning to follow the ceiling up the stairs and mix with the white smokescreen.
I ended the flow of fire, making them stop burning, and leave behind nothing but cremated remains.
[Successfully eliminated over 100 monsters that fit the condition “Undead of the appropriate total level”]
[Due to fulfilling the job condition, “Paladin” and the elimination total condition, “Eliminate 100 appropriate monsters,” the skill “Purifying Silverlight” has been acquired]
A message told me that I’d learned a new skill, but I felt no joy from the news. My heart was bogged down.
I stood silently. I slowly put my hands together. Like I would do while standing before a grave, I prayed for their happiness in the next world.
All of a sudden, an airflow created by the heat made a gust of wind pass through this underground hallway.
“T h a n k y o u.”
As the wind blew by, those words entered my ears.
But I was certain it was just wishful thinking on my part. It was an illusion born out of my wish that their souls were saved.
“Master,” Nemesis called out to me.
“Is this it, Nemesis?” I asked while placing my hand on my chest and trying to bear the heaviness of the situation. “Is this... Is this the feeling Hugo was going to mention back then?”
“...Yes,” she said. “If, somewhere deep inside, Maiden’s Masters don’t believe this world to be just a game... If you acknowledge this world’s lives to be just as real as those of your world...”
I was silent.
“...then the weight of the lives you shoulder in Infinite Dendrogram is much too real for you.”
“Too real, huh?” I asked. The harsh reality of the heaviness of life. “You’re probably right...”
This world was so realistic that it was hard to tell it apart from reality. Somewhere deep inside, I even believed that the tians living here actually had minds and souls. Even if my head told me that it was all just a game, I wasn’t able to shake that feeling. That was why seeing tians die to Gardranda had left such a bad taste in my mouth. It was also the reason why I’d gone all out to protect Milianne from such an ending.
This case was no different. Except now, all I had before me were a bunch of people who had reached such sad conclusions.
I didn’t know the courses of their lives. I had no idea how they’d ended up like this. They had been nowhere near me, so there was no way for me to know. However, the way they’d ended was just far too cruel for me to disregard it as your everyday tragedy, and the feelings overwhelming my heart were too powerful to ignore.
An aftertaste so bad that it seemed to burn my throat now permeated my chest, mixing with great amounts of sadness and anger.
“In this world — where lives are lost far more easily than in yours — this disposition you have might bring you great pain,” said Nemesis.
“...That’s true,” I said weakly. I was actually on the verge of crying. It was so bad that a part of me wanted to throw it all away.
I probably wasn’t the first to feel this way. Many of those who shared my nature probably couldn’t stand to experience this overwhelming pain of loss more than once and instead chose to never touch Infinite Dendrogram again. A side of me was actually urging me to do the same.
“However, I... Not yet.” I was still unbroken.
I still had to save the rest of the children. I still had a promise to fulfill.
And most of all, I still had to make sure that the shithead who’d created this sight got what was coming to him. I had to make him pay.
I shifted my gaze to the children — now nothing but dust.
Hidden under their remains was a piece of metal that had something written on it in Infinite Dendrogram’s common language.
It said “Maise’s Utility Child Civilian Skeleton, Specimen No. 87.”
It was a tag. That was all that child had been to the one who’d put it on.
The words and the number on it made me all the more aware that this enemy of mine was beyond redemption. Whether this was a game or not, I simply couldn’t let him be.
“Let’s go, Nemesis,” I said. “We’re bound to find him at the end of this hallway.”
“Understood!”
And so, we began walking forward.
◆◆◆
One of the two leaders of the Gouz-Maise Gang — Lich Maise.
“Hm?” I said. A drop in my Minion Capacity count made me aware that some of the undead under my command had vanished.
To be more specific, the dead units had just been the trash I’d made to kill some time. I’d left those little things in the underground hallway to act as sentries.
They were weak, so their only use had been as alarms. I had gotten worried about nothing. I’d thought I might’ve lost something of actual value.
It did catch me by surprise, however. I’d been aware that some intruder was causing a ruckus on the surface, but I’d had no idea that there was someone underground, as well.
“Gouz.” I used a magic item that kept me in contact with the surface.
“Yeah?” he asked.
“How are things up there?” I asked.
“I give it five or six more minutes,” Gouz answered. “It should all be over by then.”
“In that case, when our underlings are all dead, move in to crush the intruder,” I said. “I’ll take care of the rat here in the dungeon. Once it’s dealt with, we’re moving.”
“Gotcha,” he said. “Oh yeah, it looks like this’ll get me lots of packed lunches, so take some extra inventories for me, will ya?”
“Of course.” I had some empty inventories meant for corpse retrieval somewhere around here. I intended to take everything with me along with the inventory containing my ultimate treasure and ritual.
“Once you’re done with the intruder, wait in front of the gate,” I said.
“Sure,” Gouz said.
I cut the connection.
That’s the surface taken care of, I thought. Though our underlings were all weaklings still sitting on their first low-rank jobs, having faced all of them and surviving was no simple task. It meant that the intruder was quite tough. However, Gouz was on another level.
He’d reached the maximum level, had a high-rank job, and — when it came to the entire gladiator job grouping — he was surely among the top five in this country. If Figaro hadn’t existed, it wouldn’t have been strange for Gouz to have taken the seat of the Over Gladiator.
I, too, was at the maximum level. Not only that, but I was at this country’s pinnacle when it came to necromancy, and had a Superior Job within arms’ reach. I didn’t know how powerful the intruders were, but as long as they weren’t Superiors and didn’t have Superior Jobs, there was nothing for us to fear.
However, something about them was highly curious.
“Just what is their business here?” I muttered. They should’ve been well aware by now that trying to eliminate us was not worth the effort.
Are they interested in our treasure? I thought. Even when the amount I sent to Caldina was considered, the money we had with us was great. If someone wanted to get rich quick, taking it would be a perfectly viable method.
However, if they were actually planning to delve into such daredevilry, it told me everything I needed to know about them.
“Well, now... I believe it is time to prepare a welcome to my inhuman intruder.”
Chapter Four: The Two Leaders
High Pilot Hugo Lesseps.
The clan I was part of was a gathering of players that mostly focused on crafting.
Engineers, Mechanics, Pharmacists, Smiths...
This world had many such jobs that produced all sorts of things, but when the work of tians and players was compared, most of the time, players were the ones that came out on top.
Just like with battle jobs, this was due to the abilities and bonuses to stat growth given to them by their Embryos. The quality of the item and the production success rate were dependent on skill level and DEX — not any real-life ability. Due to that, even a player who was a novice at the craft could produce work showing true mastery.
As my clan leader often said: “Unlike battle — which now involves moving your body — production in this game isn’t too different from how it was when MMORPGs weren’t VR. That’s why even the slowest klutz can do it.”
That wasn’t all, though.
“Mind you, that only applies when they’re making something that has already been made,” he liked to continue. “To create something new, you need the power to imagine it. When making something without the instructions, the necessary materials and inventiveness are on a completely different level.”
Infinite Dendrogram’s crafting came in two types — the production of known items and the creation of new items.
Both methods required the person to have sufficient materials, skills, and stats.
However, while known items could easily be made by following the instructions displayed on Recipes, the creation of new items required the creation of those very instructions.
Naturally, they weren’t easy to make, since they required a deeper understanding of the processes involved, detailed knowledge of this world’s science and magic, and a proper grasp of the necessary materials.
Simply put, creating new items was far too taxing. Thus, even after half a year had passed since the game’s release, Masters had still been making only known or slightly customized items.
That had changed with our clan.
Our clan leader had made a breakthrough in the game’s crafting department. In hindsight, it had been pretty simple, for he’d merely begun gathering people who were skilled and knowledgeable in reality.