"Man, the air keeps getting cleaner the deeper we go."
Ten days had passed since Lady Maria returned to the Royal Capital — perhaps aided by the effects of the tea we'd made along the way, we'd been making steady progress through the dungeon and had managed to descend five floors. Jeanne and the others had returned to the Royal Capital about a week in, and apparently the training they'd done using Jeanne and Aura's (and, by extension, Menace's and Lina's) dungeon had yielded satisfying results. Jin and Garat's wallets, having been forced to cover most of the Monsters that showed up, actually ended up bigger than before we'd treated them to dinner — though once they returned a portion of that to us as restitution, things settled at just slightly less than half of what they'd originally spent.
"Indeed — the air here might even be cleaner than in the streets of Seigen."
"There aren't any Monsters that give us trouble either. I'd love to build a house here."
"Go for it."
"No matter how clean the air is, I'm not interested. Though, if I'm ever in the mood, I might come back and check the place out."
"So the Dawn Sword is disbanding, huh... Maybe I could get a job with Primera's group instead."
"That was supposed to be a lighthearted joke! It was just a way of saying the air is really clean!"
Jin's offhand quip had somehow almost turned into a conversation about the Dawn Sword disbanding.
"Setting aside whether Jin wants to spend his remaining years here or not — when it gets this clean, it actually starts to feel kind of eerie."
I spoke, and Jin was muttering something in response, but everyone else besides him seemed to be feeling the same way I was, judging by the murmurs of agreement.
"Even if it is eerie, we still have to press on — and I'd say eerie is better than reeking. Besides, it might just be a feeling, and at least it's not draining our spirits."
Grandpa summed things up, and everyone steeled themselves to move forward — when suddenly,
"Who was that?! Which one of you is hungry?! We were just getting fired up, and you went and killed the mood!"
Someone's stomach had growled.
Jin was the first to react, turning to Garat and Menace with a teasing grin —
"My apologies. That was me."
It was Grandpa's stomach that had made the noise.
"So sorry! I just assumed that when something like that happened, it would be Garat or Menace!"
And so I immediately bowed my head and apologized to Grandpa, but—
"So what you're saying, Jin, is that Lord Merlin—"
"Has—"
"lost—"
"his—"
"mind?"
Lina interjected with a somewhat cold voice and expression.
"I'm getting on in years too, I suppose… Before long I'll probably start saying things like, 'Tenma, is the food ready yet?' won't I…"
When Grandpa teased Jin like that, Jin was bowing all the way to the ground in apology. Grandpa was clearly just having fun about it, but Jin was dead serious, so it took a little while to convince him it was all a joke.
While Grandpa kept Jin occupied, I used Search to survey our surroundings and found that quite some distance ahead, there was a staircase leading further down.
"Grandpa, why don't you quit picking on Jin and we take a break here? The air might get bad again up ahead, or it might feel eerie instead—either way, I think we should eat and rest up at this spot."
Grandpa agreed right away, and finally Jin got to his feet and started helping with preparations for our break.
"That said, the atmosphere really has changed around here, hasn't it?"
"Maybe the end really is closer than we think."
Just as Garat said, compared to the beginning the difference was like night and day—and as Menace suggested, the boss room might indeed be near.
"But what kind of boss would be down here? It's deeper than the Hydra up above—could it be a monster even stronger than that?"
"Well, we haven't run into anything that strong yet… It might actually be weaker than expected, but either way, we ought to be in tip-top shape before we take it on."
He said all this in a leisurely tone as he sipped his tea… but through it all, Jin had been completely quiet.
"Come to think of it, something crossed my mind—there's this enormous, deep, complex cavern system beneath Seigen, yet I've never heard anything about the ground subsiding or anything like that. How come?"
"Don't just blurt out something that scary out of nowhere!"
"Sure, it's scary… but I can't help being curious."
At Lina's sudden remark, Menace let out a sound like he didn't even want to think about it, while Garat seemed to be more curious than afraid. Jin… was just silently staring at us, so it was hard to tell which side he leaned toward.
"Well, the two main explanations that have been put forward for a long time are that a dungeon's formation reinforces the ground's geology, and that, since a dungeon is like a living organism, damaged or weakened areas naturally repair themselves."
As Gramps said, those two had long been the leading theories used to explain dungeons… but…
"About that—I don't think either one accounts for the Warp Zones."
My thinking was a little different.
"Hmm… then what does Tenma think it is?"
"I don't have conclusive proof or anything, but a dungeon… well, I can't say for all of them, but at least in Seigen's case—what if it's a dungeon that was created inside a Dimension Bag?"
When I said that, Gramps and the others all made faces that pretty much said, "What on earth is this guy talking about?"
"Basically, what I'm saying is that this dungeon we're in—whether it arose naturally, I'm not sure—but I think it might be a dungeon that exists inside spatial magic."
"Even assuming the dungeon we're currently in exists within spatial magic, how does that connect to the Warp Zones?"
"Well, I'm not sure if they're actually related, but since the Dimension Bag and Warp Zones are so similar, if this dungeon were a super-huge Dimension Bag, it wouldn't be strange for Warp Zones using similar magic to appear inside it…"
It was a theory I'd come up with on instinct, so I wasn't very confident, but at least I'd said what I was thinking. However…
"They're opposite types of magic, so I wouldn't say they're similar… no, actually, perhaps they are similar after all. It might not be wrong to call them the same magic entirely."
Jin and the others seemed not to understand what I was saying, but Gramps appeared to grasp my point.
"A Dimension Bag is magic that expands the space inside, right? In contrast, a Warp Zone compresses the space inside."
"Mm, I hadn't even realized it until you said so, but perhaps Tenma's theory is the closest to the truth."
I'd meant to be explaining this to Jin and the others, but before they could react, Gramps had already convinced himself on his own.
"Um… I don't understand any of this at all…"
Even Lina, who had the most magical knowledge of anyone in the Dawn Sword, was completely lost—as for Jin and the others, they were looking at us as though Gramps and I were speaking some foreign language.
"Um… so in the case of a Dimension Bag, if the outside of the bag is '1' and the inside of the bag is '2', then the space inside is '3', right? Think of a Dimension Bag as having used a special kind of magic on '1' and '2' to expand '3'. Does that make sense so far?"
"Y-yeah, more or less…"
I'd tried to explain it in a way that made sense to me, but the only one who understood that explanation—at least partially—was Lina. Jin and the rest still didn't seem to get it.
"With a warp zone, on the other hand, the entrance is '1' and the exit—well, the destination—is '2'. Then you think of the distance between the two as '3', and the warp zone is basically magic that shrinks that '3'. At least, that's how I think of it."
When I finished explaining, Lina said "I see…" and began murmuring to herself, deep in thought. However—
"Tenma… sorry, but I still don't understand what you're saying."
"Me neither."
"Same here…"
It seemed my explanation hadn't gotten through to Menace and the others. And just when Jin had finally spoken up—only three words, and then silence again. Honestly, it threw me off whenever Jin got this quiet.
Setting Jin aside for the moment, I was trying to figure out how to explain this more clearly when—
"So basically," Lina began, "you enter through the door of the carriage Tenma is holding, and exit through the farthest window. The number of steps required would be several times more than what you'd expect based on the carriage's exterior, right? That's the principle behind magic that expands space—in other words, the Dimension Bag. Conversely, on a carriage enchanted with space-shrinking magic, if you enter through the door and try to exit through the farthest window, you'd get out in fewer steps than you expected. That's the principle behind a warp zone."
"I see—so it's just a difference between expanding or shrinking the same space."
"If you're just looking from the outside, you can't tell whether it's expanded or shrunk!"
"Put that way, yeah, they really are similar!"
Lina's explanation seemed to help Menace finally understand, but Garat and Jin still looked a little unsure. Well, at least more than half of them now got what I was trying to say… though at the same time, it kind of proved that I was bad at teaching.
"Aimi really was amazing, wasn't she…"
"Don't worry about it, Tenma. Even with that explanation of yours, I understood perfectly well."
Grandpa tried to comfort me with that, though I couldn't help feeling like "with that explanation of yours" had an unspoken "bad" tucked right in the middle.
"Setting aside whether Tenma is a good teacher or not… what you're trying to say, Tenma, is that Seigen's dungeon is like a Dimension Bag—the inside is spacious compared to how big it looks from outside, which is why the city won't sink. Is that right?"
"More or less. On top of that, as the earlier theory suggested, there's also the possibility that the geology has been reinforced or repaired along the way."
"I see... If what Tenma says is true, then it explains why Seigen's city doesn't sink."
The three of us—Grandpa, Lina, and I—were getting quite caught up in the discussion like this, when—
"Hey, Lina. Tenma. Shouldn't we get moving soon?"
Garat spoke up somewhat hesitantly. The fact that he didn't mention Grandpa's name suggested that, as expected, proposing something to the Sage was still a hurdle.
"Now that you mention it, we've long past our break time. I apologize for that."
When Grandpa apologized, not just Garat but also Menace and Jin looked flustered, but since it was really our fault to begin with, I told them not to worry about it before clearing away the table and such.
"Hm? Don't you smell something sweet?"
Just after we started moving ahead, when we were about to reach the staircase leading down below, Garat suddenly made that remark.
"I don't smell anything."
"Me neither."
"I don't either. Isn't it just your imagination, Garat?"
"I don't smell it either... What about you, Tenma?"
"Wait a second... It's faint, but there is a sweet smell, just like Garat said."
"If both Garat, who's a beastkin, and Tenma, who has sharp senses, say so, then it must be true."
The sweet smell seemed to be coming from the staircase ahead, and as we approached right in front of it, we could detect it more clearly. Well, for Grandpa and the others, though, it was still at the level of "I think I might smell something faintly sweet."
"It's coming from over there."
"Even so, the Monsters have stopped showing up."
After descending to the lower level, we decided to first track down the source of the smell, with Garat leading the way. But as we proceeded, just as Jin had said, we couldn't sense any presence of Monsters at all, practically speaking. I probed the surroundings with Search and Appraisal, but it seemed this level itself didn't have many Monsters—hardly any Monster responses appeared within the range my Search covered.
(And the fact that the source of the smell is coming from an even lower level... I've got a bad feeling about this.)
In the direction Garat was heading, there was a staircase leading further down, and he was following the shortest possible route to reach it. By this point, even Grandpa and the others could clearly smell the sweet scent, but on the flip side, it was so strong for Garat and me that we were starting to feel a bit nauseous. Pressing on despite that, the smell was pouring out from the staircase leading to the lower level, just as I'd expected.
When we descended to the lower level, the smell grew even stronger, reaching an intensity where even Grandpa and the others could clearly sense it. And strangely enough, as the smell became more potent, the number of Monsters decreased. It was as if the smell itself was driving them away.
"Sorry, can I take a breather..."
Garat, who had been leading the way this whole time, finally couldn't endure the smell any longer and asked for a rest.
"Is the smell really that bad? It is getting stronger with that sweet scent, but I wouldn't think it's all that unbearable for me. Well, maybe the smell is wearing you down more than usual since you're having to deal with it constantly."
Jin seemed to think Garat was burning through more energy than normal because of the smell, and while he wore a puzzled expression, he started looking around for a place where they could rest.
"Everyone! There's a dead end over here where we can rest, so come on over."
The moment rest was decided, I used Search to look for a suitable spot nearby, then called everyone over while pretending to scout the surrounding area.
"Honestly, I was finding that smell pretty tough too."
"I knew it! You were acting all confused about it, but for those of us who are sensitive to smells, that was practically torture!"
After dealing with the insects as usual, I used magic to push out the sweet scent that had been lingering inside, bringing it to a nearly odorless state. When I said this, Garat agreed wholeheartedly, as if to say "Now you're talking!"
"Just being sweet alone, I've experienced something like that with candy-making, but that smell felt different from any of those. If we're going to keep pushing forward from here, I think we should take some precautions since we don't know the cause of the smell."
Saying that, I pulled out several small scraps of cloth along with a few large pieces.
"It won't be a perfect countermeasure, but I think you should stuff these small pieces of cloth in your nostrils and layer these larger pieces over your face as a mask. Also, from here on out, either Grandpa or I will take the lead and use wind magic to disperse the smell as we advance. I want all of you to move together in a tight group behind us. And if any of you notice even a slight change in how you're feeling, report it immediately. From now on, we'll keep the option of retreating on the table."
"Got it!"
"Very well."
Garat and Jin, who had finally recovered his composure, along with Grandpa, each took the small pieces of cloth I handed them and, without hesitation, rolled them up and stuffed them in their noses. They each made comments like "This should make things much easier!" or "It's harder to breathe, but I'll probably get used to it" or "Reminds me of when we went to clear out a goblin nest back in the day, we did the same thing."
"Hey, Tenma... do we really need to do this right now?"
"I'd rather not do it during the break, if I'm being honest..."
"I don't think you need to. I've already swapped out the air in this space with magic and then completely sealed it off from the outside, so there's almost no sweet smell anymore."
"Oh..."
It was in that manner that Menace and Lina, who weren't enthusiastic about the nose plugs at all, caused the three of them to realize they had rushed in too far.
"Well then, let's restart the assault."
After resting for about an hour, we equipped our nose plugs and masks before heading outside, where the sweet smell filled the air. Thanks to the nose plugs and wind magic, the sweet smell wasn't bothersome, but since it could still enter through our mouths and potentially harm our bodies, we needed to coordinate more closely than ever. Incidentally, Grandpa and the others' nose plugs were reused after being washed with water following their accidental insertion.
Once we resumed, we immediately descended to the lower floor and walked for about an hour before reaching the next floor at what could be called the fastest pace we'd managed so far. However,
"I can't find a warp zone..."
"I was keeping watch on our surroundings too, but I couldn't spot anything resembling one."
The warp zone — something you could call the lifeline of dungeon exploration — was nowhere to be found. I thought maybe I had simply overlooked it, but Garat, who had picked up on my muttering, also said he couldn't find one.
"We'd have to backtrack quite a bit, but should we turn back here?"
"It's only been a little over an hour since we resumed, though... Why not push a bit further ahead, and if we can't find anywhere to seal off the air like before, then we turn back?"
Since Jin and I disagreed, we took a vote. It ended up split evenly — me, Grandpa, and Lina on one side, and Jin, Garat, and Menace on the other. So we tossed three coins on the ground and decided based on which side had more heads or tails. The result was,
"Grandpa, there's a path leading down over there."
We decided to press forward. We managed to reach the next floor about an hour after the coin toss, but during that time, we still couldn't find a warp zone.
"We've been descending at quite the rapid pace... Perhaps the final floor may be close at hand."
They had also advanced at a relatively fast pace near the lowest floor where the Hydra had been, so Grandpa thought this dungeon might be the same. And Grandpa's intuition might not have been wrong. Because,
"Tenma, be careful... It's starting to feel the same as when we faced the Hydra."
I couldn't say exactly what it was, but as we progressed, an eerie atmosphere began to linger around us. In response to that eerie atmosphere, Jin and the others — who had already cleared Seigen's dungeon — said it "felt the same as before we discovered the Hydra" and heightened their guard. On top of that, occasionally, in the air,
a mist
would drift about. It might have been coincidental, but I felt like the accuracy of our magic had started to drop a little from around the point where the mist began to appear.
As for the mist, it might simply be caused by changes in air pressure, but somehow I also felt like that sweet smell was growing thicker as it drifted through the air, which only seemed to amplify the eeriness.
"Hey, there's a slope over there!"
Just as I was about to suggest turning back once more, Garat spotted a path continuing downward. As we descended the slope,
"This doesn't look like it, does it..."
"This probably isn't the end of the dungeon — looks like we just took a wrong turn."
It was a dead end.
"There's a really bad feeling, like stale air has been collecting here. Let's head back up."
"Yeah. Ever since Lina said that, my eyes have been itching, and my throat's been getting scratchy too..."
As the group chattered among themselves about heading back up,
"This wall looks like it collapsed or something."
"Mm. Seems like air is leaking through from somewhere."
Air leaking through meant there was open space on the other side.
"Alright, let's take a closer look!"
With that, Jin started tapping against the wall. Following his lead, Garat and Menace began examining it as well. Grandpa and Lina used wind magic to block out the sweet smell while keeping watch on our surroundings, and I made sure the ceiling and walls didn't collapse on us.
"This part looks weak over here."
"Then we'll focus our path right there."
Before long, Jin found a weakened section of the wall, and I was tasked with widening the hole using earth magic. But the instant I broke through the wall, something completely unexpected happened. It was the kind of thing you'd realize if you thought about it for a moment, but we'd all been so focused on the space beyond the wall that our imaginations had fallen short.
"Take cover — everyone, run!"
The moment the hole was opened in the wall, the mist came pouring through with tremendous force.