Chapter 408: The Pitiful Dungeon (Patreon)

When Riveria slowly came to, she found Ais and Tiona beside her.

"Where is this?"

"No idea…"

The Elf shook her head. Everything before her eyes was utterly unfamiliar.

A lush, verdant forest stretched on until it vanished past the edge of sight. A stream rushed along beside them, and a breeze brushed their faces, carrying, for some reason, the faint stench of Beasts. Deeper in the woods, beneath the birdsong, wolves howled.

Riveria knew these sounds well. Elves lived in forests, and wolves, whether Beast or Monster, were never in short supply there.

So what was this place?

The three quickly checked their surroundings. The mountain forest looked vast, but only a single road led forward. Everywhere else, invisible walls blocked their exploration.

Strangely, all three of them felt a certain familiarity.

Not far off stood a small Land Temple. That, too, looked familiar.

They walked up to it, and to their surprise, a "choice" appeared before their eyes.

[Return to Town].

Two simple words, yet neither Riveria nor Ais and the others could make any sense of them.

"Should we try it?"

"Mm…"

The scene was bizarre, but it didn't seem dangerous. In the end the three decided that Ais, the most well-rounded of them, would test it. The result—

The blonde girl vanished without warning, startling Riveria and Tiona. They waited a long time, until they were growing impatient and ready to try it themselves.

Then Ais came back.

She appeared out of nowhere, startling the other two all over again.

"That [Return to Town] takes you back to the city…"

Ais told them what she had just seen.

Strictly speaking, though, it wasn't the city. It was Rivira, the safe floor on the 18th Floor. And in the forest just outside the Adventurers' Town, seven wooden doors stood in a row. Six of them wouldn't open no matter what, and Ais could open only one. When she went through it, she naturally ended up back here.

"Just now, I saw Gareth, too."

Gareth, Allen Fromel of the Freya Familia, and Alfia had been teleported together to another place.

According to the old Dwarf's description, it was an ancient city reeking of death, with no trace of life at all. Corpses wandered everywhere, along with knights that were nothing but empty armor and weapons.

As they listened to Gareth's account, a look of dawning realization crossed Ais's and Riveria's faces.

Because it was familiar. Painfully, unmistakably familiar!!

Especially so.

After the three regrouped, they ignored the Land Temple and followed the only road that continued. Before long they ran into a few "little ones."

Riveria knew what they were: creatures with animal heads and humanoid bodies, wearing strange armor close to the Far East style. They were called "yaoguai."

They babbled in a language no one could understand, squabbling as they closed in.

"Awaken."

Ais didn't hesitate.

The Black Wind surged up violently, and with the longsword in the girl's hand, she swiftly slit the throats of three little wolf yaoguai.

Something felt strange about her Strength. She hadn't grown weaker. It was the little yaoguai that felt strange. The feel of the kill was wrong.

Ais couldn't say exactly what the problem was, but for now they could only keep going.

Riveria took the lead. In theory, all three of them were seeing this place for the first time, yet for some reason the Elf princess kept feeling that the scenery was very familiar, as if she had seen it before.

[Black Wind Mountain: Guanyin Temple].

Right, right!

They wound through the mountain forest, crossed many gravel paths, and finally came to a walled-off valley.

In the distance stood an old-looking wolf-headed yaoguai in a robe embroidered with golden birds, gripping a double-headed blade wreathed in roaring flames. The moment she saw it, the déjà vu that had been welling up inside Riveria finally broke through.

[Blade Wolf Instructor: Guangzhi].

Right, right, right, this was it!

She had seen this very boss in Isagi's dream!!

Back then, whenever Isagi returned from an expedition in the Dungeon and fell asleep, everyone could enter his dream, a place called the Dark Hall.

When you pushed open the gate of that ancient castle and stepped outside, you arrived in a world of starry skies and floating islands. There, the boy could conjure up all kinds of scenes and Monsters.

Riveria could still remember it even now. The first time she met that yaoguai they called "Tiger Vanguard," how shaken she had been, and what a grueling fight it had turned into!

And now, why was all of this appearing inside the Dungeon?

Could it be…

Realization struck. Riveria's lips parted slightly as she recalled the things Isagi had told her, and the journey she had made with the boy back to Alf Royal Forest.

Back then… back then…

So that's how it is?

The Elf princess had clearly understood something. She pressed her lips together. She even knew now why Isagi wasn't with them.

The boy had probably gone somewhere else alone, and that place was most likely the so-called "pitch-black, fathomless end" where the Dungeon itself lay…

…

In theory, the Blade Wolf Instructor should have been only a mini-boss, but its difficulty was enough to make anyone break into a cold sweat.

For the first time, Ais felt the strain. Her wind, which had always been able to suppress her opponents, no longer seemed to work.

The wolf swung its fire blade like a spinning wheel, slashing back and forth at blistering speed without a single pause.

Luckily, Ais was smart. She used her wind to sweep Riveria into the air, helping her move and dodge so the wolf couldn't land a hit.

The battle dragged on for quite a while. In the end, it fell to Tiona's berserk assault, which nearly turned the whole little valley into a pool of blood, and Riveria's indiscriminate magic bombardment, to bring the wolf down.

"He's definitely much tougher than the ones we met before."

Riveria thought back. The yaoguai she had faced in Isagi's dream had been about equal to herself at the time, when she was only Lv.6.

And now? These things were probably Lv.8 or higher?

She had a nagging feeling that things would only get worse from here…

They explored the mountain forest a while longer and found another Land Temple. Ahead of it stood an old, atmospheric temple. This was probably the [Guanyin Chan Temple] mentioned on the map.

Up the stone steps, wolf howls could still be heard in the distance. There was probably a very powerful boss in there.

But the three didn't go on. In front of the Land Temple, they all chose "Return to Town."

The reason was simple. Something was off, and they didn't have their supplies on them. If Ais was right that returning to town took them straight to Rivira on the 18th Floor, then they should go back first and regroup with the others.

As it turned out, the others had been thinking much the same as Riveria.

Before long, their vision went black. When it returned, dazzling crystal light was pouring down.

Riveria, Ais and Tiona confirmed that they were back on the 18th Floor of the Dungeon, the Under Resort, where the Adventurers' Town stood.

But it wasn't the "special" form it had taken when Isagi was around. This was just the ordinary Rivira that Riveria and the girls remembered.

Among the rolling mountain forest, seven doors that looked no different from one another stood behind them, and not far off was the hillside where the Adventurers' Town sat.

It was as if this spot had been chosen on purpose.

Riveria went to the Adventurers' Town with Ais and Tiona, and sure enough, they found the others in the tavern. Not everyone was there, though.

Hogni and Hedin of the Freya Familia were missing, and so was Finn of the Loki Familia. Haruhime, Ryuu and Heith were also absent.

Not long after Riveria sat down in the tavern with the others, Ryuu walked in with Heith and Haruhime.

After a while longer came Hogni and Hedin, along with an injured Finn. It seemed they had run into some trouble on their side.

They quickly traded information, and it turned out that, apart from Isagi, everyone had been sucked into one of the seven doors, either in pairs or in groups of three.

Inside the doors lay a "world" none of them knew. All sorts of strange Monsters and bosses lived there. The ordinary Monsters were fine. The bosses were the real trouble, absurd to the extreme.

Take Finn's injury. Not long after he, Hedin and Hogni entered their door, they ran into a Tree Sentinel in full golden armor, carrying a great halberd and a great shield.

Damn.

That thing was seriously strong. Its great shield could even reflect and amplify magic.

Finn had been hurt when he was caught by Hedin's lightning ball.

As Riveria listened to everyone's accounts, she grew even more certain that every one of their experiences was tied to Isagi, or rather, to the places Isagi had once simulated in his dreams.

Those were… the boy's memories.

"So where is Isagi now?!"

No one knew.

Riveria could only guess that the Dungeon had most likely taken the boy away. At this moment, he was probably with the Dungeon.

And that was exactly why the Dungeon could use the boy's memories so directly and so clearly to build its deep labyrinth.

It was as if—

Riveria had clearly thought of something, and she realized what kind of being the Dungeon really was.

How pitiful…

Having confirmed what was in her mind, the woman couldn't hold back a sigh.

Dungeon… you really are a pitiful thing…