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"Each of these boulders is huge, so moving them is going to be a pain... Well, I'm not the one doing it myself, so it doesn't really matter to me."
I decided to deal with the rocks first, so I brought out about five large Golems to move them out of the way. The rocks were stacked ten high — each one roughly the size that it took several Golems to lift together — and even the smaller ones likely weighed well over ten tons.
Once all the rocks were cleared away, a vertical shaft was revealed beneath them. I dropped a small stone down to test it, and the sound echoed from far below — it seemed like there was either a wide, open space like a basement, or a long passage stretching out underground.
"Now then, I wonder what's down there."
The shaft was nearly vertical at the start, but after descending three or four meters, it transitioned into a gentle slope.
"I went ahead and descended, but there are signs that some kind of living creature has been through here... Maybe I should head back first..."
Just as I was thinking it might be a good idea to return to the surface and report to Grandpa, Jin, and the others, I heard something approaching from the distance.
Two distinct types of sounds were getting closer — a clattering "clack... clack..." and a squelching "splat... splat..." Both sounded like footsteps, but much slower than a normal person's pace. And along with the footsteps came a stench, so I had a pretty good idea of what was making those sounds.
"Fireball..." Just as I suspected — skeletons and zombies... Zombies? Wait, is that actually a zombie?
One of them was a skeleton, just as I'd expected. But the other looked similar to the zombies I knew, yet was somehow different.
"Appraisal."
It revealed itself in the light of my Fireball, and
—
—
when I Appraised it, the result showed:
Race... Rotting-Flesh Golem
That was the result. It was probably a Golem that had spontaneously formed from rotting flesh. It was the first time I'd seen one of these Monsters, but it wasn't the kind that inspired any desire to examine it more closely.
"I wonder... could this have been what the Hydra was feeding on?"
While mulling that over, I hit the Rotting-Flesh Golem at the front with a Fireball, and it burned up and collapsed easily enough... but the moment it caught fire, a tremendous stench wafted out, so from the second one on, I decided to shred them with Air Cutter. Air Cutter wasn't as effective as Fireball, but aiming for the legs left them unable to walk, and since the flesh was soft, the shots pierced through easily, taking out several at once, so it was quite efficient.
"I don't need any more Golems, but I'd like to get a few Skeletons as samples."
Both the Skeletons and the Golems were just walking straight toward me in a line, so I concentrated my magic on the Golems alone and let the Skeletons approach freely. Then—
"Hup!"
Once the Skeletons got close, I shattered their skulls with Stone Bullet and collected their magic cores from the rubble. Skeletons stop moving as soon as you remove the magic core from their bones, so if you know how to deal with them, they're not that much of a threat. Still, every once in a while a Skeleton is born that's considerably stronger than a typical one, so they're not a Monster you can let your guard down around. In fact, I'd heard stories of new adventurers being wiped out by Skeletons, or barely escaping with their lives, once every few years or so.
"Well, these ones don't seem to be all that strong."
They didn't even have weapons, and they were weak enough Skeletons that I could take them down bare-handed, so from the second one on, I started pulling the magic cores out by hand to keep them in clean condition. It was a risky thing to do, but given the gap in our abilities, it seemed perfectly manageable, and more importantly, I needed the Skeletons as intact as possible for my research.
"I've secured ten of them, so I might as well take out the rest in one go."
Now that I had plenty of samples, I blasted the remaining Golems away with magic along with everything else and headed for the exit.
"Air Ball."
I launched an Air Ball sized just barely to fit the passage, blowing the rest of the Skeletons and Golems all the way to the far end of the corridor. There were quite a lot of them, so it felt wasteful to leave all those magic cores behind, but judging from the ones I'd already collected, they seemed to be low quality, so I decided to abandon them. Well, they'd probably revive on their own, so if I ever really needed more, I could just come back and grab them.
"Might as well collect the Golems' magic cores while I'm at it..."
I didn't want to, but it would be a good idea to bring back a few as samples, so I rummaged through the flesh of the first Golems I'd defeated using a Skeleton bone, found the magic cores, and fished them out using another Skeleton bone like chopsticks. I washed the Golem magic cores with water magic, then wrapped them in a cloth from my bag and stored them separately from the Skeleton cores. The bones I'd used to search for the Golem cores and as makeshift chopsticks were filthy, so I threw them away.
After finishing the magic core collection, I made sure to grab the Skeleton samples as well, then used the Flight spell to return to the upper level.
"Now I just need to seal the lid the same way as before..."
I had the Golems I'd left on standby move the boulder once more to block up the hole, and on top of that, I covered the whole thing with a dome-shaped lid of earth magic along with the rock itself. With that, no matter how hard those Skeletons and Golems struggled, they'd never make it outside.
"Hey, everyone! Time to head back!"
Having moved up one floor from the lowest level, I called out to Slarin and the others, who should have been playing around nearby. While I'd been recovering the Hydra, they'd fled to the upper floors unable to stand the smell. Well, the ones who couldn't handle the stench were Shiromaru and Solomon — Slarin, who couldn't sense smells at all, had nothing to do with it — but if I left those two alone, there was no telling what they might get up to, so I'd asked Slarin to tag along as a supervisor.
When I used Appraisal while calling out Slarin's group, all three were heading toward the warp zone. Slarin was probably directing them that way. At this rate, they'd arrive before me.
"Slarin, there's something I need to tell Grandpa and the others right aw—whoa!"
Sure enough, Slarin's group got there first, so I hurried to catch up and jogged around the corner only to find standing right in front of me a humanoid Monster with the head of a bull—a Minotaur. I quickly backed away, raising my guard to cast a spell, but upon closer look, the Minotaur was dead with blood streaming from its mouth. Behind it were Slarin, swaying his body apologetically, and Shiromaru and Solomon, wearing expressions like they'd just pulled off a prank. Incidentally, unlike Orcs, Minotaurs weren't edible… well, that wasn't entirely true—they had too much sinew, the meat was tough, and the taste wasn't great either, so they weren't suited for consumption. However, the sinew could be used as material for weapons and armor (and if dried, it made animal treats), and their hides, horns, and bones had various uses. Moreover, Minotaurs were among the rarer A-rank Monsters, so their internal organs could sometimes be sold for experimental purposes as well.
"You two have no business fooling around! Shiromaru and Solomon—snack privileges revoked for the foreseeable future!"
After stowing the Minotaur in the Magic Bag and announcing the snack ban, Shiromaru and Solomon immediately panicked, pressing their heads low to the ground like they were bowing, whimpering in pathetic voices.
"Slarin, something unexpected came up, so we're heading back upstairs right away. We'll have to run around looking for Grandpa and the others, so get inside the bag now while we have the chance. Shiromaru and Solomon—if you really don't want your snacks taken away, get in the bag, quick!"
No sooner had I said that than the two scrambled to dive into the bag. And then they got stuck at the entrance.
"Slarin, sorry, but…"
Before I could finish, Slarin scooped up both of them and absorbed them into his own body. Unable to fit inside the bag himself, Slarin ended up being carried in my arms.
"There you are! I knew you'd be here!"
The first place I headed after exiting the dungeon was the Adventurer's Guild—they served alcohol there, you could get information, and there was a high probability Agri, Grandpa's drinking buddy from Seigen, would be around, so I figured I'd start there. Sure enough, Grandpa was there. As a bonus, Jin and the others were drinking there too, saving me the trouble of searching.
"Grandpa, Jin—I've got something I want to ask, so follow me back to the dungeon."
Grandpa and the others looked surprised, but when I urged them on, they followed in silence. Our little group… or rather, seeing Jin and the others, some adventurers who looked amused called out and approached
adventurers
were also around, but I glared at them and they quietly turned back.
"So, Tenma. What's the reason you dragged us all here? You were pretending to be angry, but you weren't really upset, were you?"
Having been quiet until now, Grandpa asked me why we'd come to the lowest floor, stepping in for Jin and the others who were still trying to remember why they'd been brought along.
"Before that, I have a question—is it possible for multiple dungeons to exist?"
"What are you talking about… Don't tell me—this dungeon is one of them?!"
For a moment, Grandpa looked at me with a dumbfounded expression, but he quickly seemed to grasp what I was getting at and grabbed both my shoulders, shaking me vigorously with excitement.
"Easy, Grandpa, calm down! So, can a dungeon form inside another dungeon?"
"At the very least, I've never heard of such a thing. If the conditions are met right next to a dungeon or inside it, it might be possible, but in that case one would likely be absorbed by the other..."
Grandpa mused over this for a moment, and in the end he decided to leave it to the King, saying "Maybe if we have Alex look into it, we could find out something." We also asked Jin and the others, but they said there was no way they'd know something even Grandpa didn't.
After that, we reopened the sealed vertical shaft and ventured further in with Grandpa and the others than we had the first time, but all that came out were Skeletons and Rot Meat Golems—the rest were just ordinary creatures like bugs and mice, not Monsters at all.
"Hmm... It does seem like this is a different dungeon from the one above."
After wandering around for about thirty minutes, we found a hole leading further down. Skeletons and Rot Meat Golems were crawling up from it as well, meaning the floor below was very likely structured the same way. And since we had found the Dungeon Core on the upper floor, Grandpa concluded that this hole led to an entirely different dungeon.
"I'd like to keep exploring as we are, but we should probably call it a day for now. If we're going to do this, we need to be fully prepared, in top condition, and have our resolve set."
We had virtually no information, and this wasn't what we had come here for in the first place, so we decided to verify the downward passage and then pull out for the day.
"When we get back to the Royal Capital, we'll have to report this to the King. Then we'd need to check whether there are any precedents, make all the necessary preparations, and only then descend, right? Jin, I'm planning to reach the lowest floor on my own before investigating, so feel free to go ahead and look into it with the Dawn Sword."
Out of courtesy among adventurers, I intended to resume from the floor where I'd stopped and push on to the bottom, claiming the dungeon once I'd cleared it. But since Jin and the others had already reached the lowest floor on their own, I told them in a "don't hold back on my account" kind of way—
"As much as we'd love to explore it... it would feel wrong to investigate a new dungeon that Tenma found before he does. Besides, we can't even move the rocks we placed for the seal on our own..."
Granted, up to the point we had explored, only relatively weak Skeletons and Rot Meat Golems had appeared compared to the Monsters near the lowest floor. But we couldn't say for certain that nothing else lurked beyond. Given that dungeon Monsters get stronger the deeper you go, it wouldn't be surprising if something stronger than a Hydra showed up.
Considering the possibility of such Monsters, Jin believed it was best to keep the vertical shaft sealed until the next visit. And so a discussion took place on the spot about what to do with this dungeon, resulting in—
"Then let's agree that once Orasion reaches the lowest floor, we'll begin a joint exploration with the Dawn Sword."
That was the decision. Normally, starting from the floor where I'd stopped would have taken years, but since Jin and the others offered to lend me the maps they'd made during their own conquest, it would take no more than a year at most. They said they'd wait until then.
This wasn't them holding back out of politeness toward me. With a conquered dungeon, things were bound to get noisy for a while, and they had originally planned to take an extended leave of rest to recover from years of fatigue. Still, in their shoes I'd prioritize the new dungeon over resting, and I suspected they felt the same way—so they were probably just finding excuses to be considerate.
"I've got my engagement announcement in four months too, so I'd better work hard to reach the lowest floor by then."
"Even with maps and information, normally there's no way you could clear dozens of floors to the lowest floor in just four months... But then again, you're Tenma. And Merlin's with you too."
Apparently, having Grandpa and me together would be enough to make everyone accept it. Jin also joked around, saying "If anyone asks, I'll just tell them he's a freak who made it to the lowest floor with just a little advice."
"Then let's head back to the Royal Capital."
"About that, Tenma... you handle the report to His Majesty. After all, you were the one who discovered the new dungeon, and we're more than satisfied just being included in the first expedition."
Jin said, and Garat and the others nodded in agreement, but—
"So the real reason is that having the King and his court surrounding you twice in such a short span is a bit much to handle?"
When I pointed that out, Jin and the others all nodded in unison.
Reporting on a new dungeon would mean standing before not just the King, but a multitude of nobles gathered in the royal castle, and I could understand why that would be daunting for Jin and the others who weren't used to dealing with nobility. So Grandpa and I decided to handle the report... Not that I particularly wanted to deal with anything troublesome either, but at least it would be easier knowing we had clear allies like Duke Sanga and Marquis Samons on our side.
"Well, I'll take care of that part, but you're still coming with us to the Royal Capital. They might want to hear from you and the others too, you never know."
"That's... well, I know, but do whatever you can to make sure that doesn't happen."
Jin pressed his hands together in front of his face and pleaded, while Garat and the others each bowed their heads.
"I'll do my best, but the King is the type to act on a whim the moment he gets an idea, so at least be prepared for an unofficial meeting."
Since they were staying at our place, we had no choice but to accept that the King and the others might drop by at any time. When I said as much, Jin and Garat started talking about finding an inn once they reached the Royal Capital, but Lina said, "If you do that, they'll think you moved to an inn because you didn't want to see His Majesty," so they ended up staying with us after all. Well, Lina was right—they were clearly looking for an inn to avoid the royal visit, and while I didn't think the King would get angry over something like that, the other nobles would probably call it disrespectful.
"Setting that aside, Tenma—did you find anything else of interest besides the new dungeon?"
As we moved to the nearest warp zone, Grandpa asked me that. So I told him that we hadn't found anything particularly unusual on the lowest floor, and—
"Hmm... if there were Monsters as powerful as a Hydra there, I'd have expected to find at least some Mithril, but I suppose..."
"It's not exactly a trade-off, but Shiromaru and the others did take down a Minotaur. Having something that huge lurking in a dungeon seems incredibly unnatural, though—I wonder what's going on there."
Grandpa still seemed bothered by the lack of Mithril, but as soon as he heard about the Minotaur, he pushed that to the back of his mind.
"That's a name I haven't heard in a long time. The meat is tough, but the material is quite versatile, and above all, their"
tendon
"has saved my life more than once."
Apparently, back in the day, some adventurers would bring several strips of dried tendon from large Monsters like Minotaurs on their journeys as emergency rations. They didn't taste like much on their own and were nearly impossible to chew, but by gnawing on them repeatedly like gum, they could take the edge off hunger. He also mentioned that you could soften them by simmering for a long time and use them in cooking, but since it took hours of boiling, he wouldn't recommend it while out on an adventure. Incidentally, even when softened the taste was nothing to write home about, so he wouldn't recommend it in normal circumstances either.
"I don't know where they come from, but they're a real pain to deal with inside a dungeon. If one takes up position in a narrow corridor, that massive body of theirs blocks off any chance of retreating."
Against a single Minotaur or even two, Jin's party could handle them without issue, but if one of them blocked off a corridor and forced a head-on fight, the Minotaur's sturdy build and powerful arms would give them serious trouble.
"Either way, it's great that we managed to get our hands on some usable materials, right?"
Jin was right—it was a shame we didn't get any Mithril, but the Minotaur materials were a welcome surprise. This was a feat worthy of forgiving Shiromaru and Solomon's squabbling and then some, enough to let them eat their fill of treats as a reward... though, well, the forgiving and the treats would have to wait until they'd reflected on their behavior a bit more.
"Still, Tenma—when you wanted to show us the new Dungeon, why did you pretend to be angry and drag us out of there?"
Menace brought up how I'd pretended to be angry at the Guild, and asked with a tone that said he couldn't quite make sense of it.
"If I went out of my way to act angry like that, the other adventurers would figure Jin or Garat, or maybe the whole Dawn Sword, had gone and done something foolish, right? And if that's what they assumed, nobody would ever suspect there was another Dungeon beneath the lowest floor."
If I'd blabbed about the new Dungeon right there, it would have turned into a massive commotion over the discovery, and the Guild staff might have insisted on escorting me down to the lowest floor to verify it. Besides that, there were plenty of fools who might get stars in their eyes over an untouched Dungeon and try to force their way to the lowest level.
Not wanting to bring Guild staff to the lowest floor, and not wanting to get adventurers killed for nothing—those were the original reasons Jin and the others had come to me with this request. Thinking about it, the best way to handle a new Dungeon discovery was to report it to the King first and have him come up with some kind of countermeasure. Granted, whether Guild staff got involved was one thing, but adventurers dying was entirely their own problem. Still, if I wanted to cut down on headaches as much as possible, the simplest solution was to give no one the information.
"I guess that's true, but... it still doesn't sit right with me somehow..."
It annoyed him that other adventurers would think getting yelled at by me was just an everyday occurrence for them, but apparently he could see the logic in it and didn't push further. I mean, I hadn't yelled at Menace and Lina all that many times, but Jin and Garat had been made to kneel in seiza, buried up to their necks in the ground—you name it. I'd reprimanded them in ways that drew plenty of attention. So if I stormed off dragging the whole Dawn Sword behind me, any adventurer who witnessed it would absolutely jump to the wrong conclusion.
"If you've got a grudge, take it up with the way Jin and Garat behave on a daily basis. Now then, let's head back to the surface and get ready to leave. I want to depart first thing tomorrow morning, right on schedule."
Part of me thought—if we're in a hurry, why not leave right now? But even if we set out immediately, the sun would set in just a few hours. Getting the new Dungeon information to the King sooner was undoubtedly the better report, but it wasn't exactly urgent, so I'd stick to the plan.
With that explanation, Grandpa and the rest of Jin's party were satisfied, and they started talking about where to
eat
tonight. They probably wouldn't get too hammered, but I figured I'd better say something before the meal got underway.
"Oh right, Tenma—which part of the Hydra are you after?"
Jin suddenly remembered to ask on our way toward the warp zone.
At first, I hadn't expected much from the Hydra's skin, so I'd been leaning toward asking for bones instead. But thanks to the Hydra's regenerative ability, there seemed to be enough to go around even after my share, so I'd considered asking for skin. However, there was something I wanted to try out, so I decided to go with the Hydra's
tendons.
Tendons had fewer uses compared to other materials, and given the sheer size of the Hydra, there was a good chance they'd let me take more than I actually needed.
"Is that really enough? We don't use bows so we don't need them, and His Majesty didn't bring up the tendons either, so if he says he doesn't want them, you're free to take as much as you like."
I was a bit hesitant about taking everything, so I intended to pay at least something, but depending on how the negotiations with the King went, I might be able to get a sufficient amount.
"Tenma... I just want to ask, but you're not planning to eat the Hydra's tendons, are you?"
Grandpa asked me with a worried look on his face. Jin and the others also wore concerned expressions, as if the thought had occurred to them too.
I wasn't sure whether the Hydra's tendons contained poison, but since it was present in nearly its entire body, it was probably best not to eat them. That said, like fugu, there was still a possibility that they were poisonous but delicious if properly prepared... In that case, I'd secretly try it on my own. I had a strong resistance to poison, and this was a biologically valuable experiment! ...and if anyone found out, I'd just explain it then.
"As if I would."
"Tenma... honestly, I can't trust you. Testing something on yourself is one thing, but don't you dare experiment on someone else... on me."
Grandpa saw through my lie right away and laid down conditions regarding experiments. Jin and the others, who had been watching the whole exchange, shuffled behind Grandpa and nodded vigorously over and over.
"I said I wouldn't do anything like that. But beef tendon stew, or soup made with beef tendon stock—those are really good, you know... No, I don't have any ulterior motives or anything."
When they heard those words, Grandpa and the others took a cautious step or two backward. While Jin and the others were still around, I should try making beef tendon stew and soup at least once. They'd definitely give me some interesting reactions.
As I imagined how Jin and the others would react, my face apparently started to break into a grin, and by the time I realized it, Grandpa and Jin's group had moved even further away than before.
"Alright, that's enough fooling around. Let's head back upstairs already. I'm getting hungry too."
As I said that and headed toward the warp zone, Grandpa and the others followed along while keeping a bit of distance from me.
I really was hungry, and talking about tendons had made me crave something like oden, so as I turned around, I silently decided that if the place we were going to eat today had any stewed dishes, I was definitely ordering them.