The sixteenth floor of the Earthen Dungeon was a subterranean ruined city.
From gates and walls to residences, the entire streetscape was built of magnificent stonework, and deeper in, a castle boasting an imposing spire came into view.
"A city like this once existed on the surface...?"
"Yeah. I don't know where exactly, but it must have been something."
Everything recreated inside a dungeon was from the past.
Which meant this city had long since lost its glory and fallen into ruin.
I found myself wondering.
Someday, would Hydrangea itself be recreated in a dungeon too?
"Are there mineral lizards in this ruined city?"
"Mhm, there are especially lots of them. And other monsters have moved in as well."
We walked through the city. Along the way, we spotted a few delvers, but none of them seemed to be mining.
"Those ones are treasure hunting."
"There's treasure here?"
"Apparently the original version of this ruined city had treasure legends. A dungeon recreates everything, so naturally it's there too — if the legends are true, that is."
"I see..."
"Actually, a few treasures have been found. That's why people still come here to search."
Turning the corner of what looked like a dining hall, there was a monster. A lizardman!?
No, wait — the coloring was... different.
"That's a rock lizardman."
"Oh, so that's what they are. They're different from mineral lizards?"
"Those ones are actually real lizards."
There were four Rock Lizardmen in total. Once they noticed us, they readied their weapons.
"These guys are the main monsters in this city."
Mineha charged in, calling out "Spiral Hit!" as she kicked around two of them.
Honestly, I couldn't tell the difference between that and "Raden Strike."
"So there are Kings and such in the castle?"
I caught the Rock Lizardman's downward-thrusting spear with my Banish Chakram.
Naturally, the spearhead vanished, and I cut down the bewildered Rock Lizardman as-is.
"There probably are. I've never been since I'm not interested, though."
Mineha finished off the fourth one.
The tuned-up "Spiral Dune" seemed to be in good form.
But wouldn't it be hard to use in a tight space?
"You've never been to the castle?"
"There are tons of these things around. Unless you're after treasure, it's just tiring."
"Do Rock Lizardmen not have much value?"
"Nope."
Mineha said flatly.
"There are Knights, Lords, Princes, Princesses, Queens, and Kings, but I've never heard that any of them are worth much."
"Is that so..."
I once wiped out a lizardman nest.
The most valuable find from that was a ring. It later turned out to be the ring of the Tassan family.
"There it is, there it is! Wof, there it is! That's the mineral lizard!"
When I looked where Mineha was pointing, there was a four-story building diagonally to our left front.
A huge lizard was plastered flat against its stone wall.
Its back was glinting blue. Looking closer, it was made of ore.
"That one?"
"And it's blue!"
"But it's far away."
Three buildings' worth of distance. Plus it was stuck to a wall we had to crane our necks up at, which made things tricky.
"...At that distance, maybe... but the power..."
"We should be able to get up to the roof from that building."
I pointed at the two-story building in front of us. It looked like we could get to the roof easily enough.
A lot of the buildings in this city are packed close together.
So it seemed like we could reach the wall with the mineral lizard by going across the rooftops.
We entered the two-story building, climbed to the roof, and crossed over to the next building via the rooftops.
From there, we managed to get close to the wall where the mineral lizard was stuck.
The mineral lizard was plastered flat against the wall, completely motionless.
"We got closer, but it's still far."
We were standing on the roof of a two-story building. The lizard was two stories above us.
"If it's about this far..."
I pulled Ballistic 6 from my knife belt.
Also, the daggers weren't on my knife belt.
I'd been leaving them in my room lately.
"What's that?"
Mineha said, sounding suspicious.
It was a knife, but it absolutely didn't look like one.
It was formed as a single pure-white piece, and the tip wasn't pointed. It was concave in a half-moon shape.
Could you even call it the blade part? Six pale blue spheres were embedded in the center.
"Well, just watch."
I pointed Ballistic 6 at the mineral lizard.
I wanted to keep its condition as good as possible. The back wouldn't do. If I was going to aim... the head.
When I pressed the small switch on the grip, a pale blue blade shot out from the concave section.
"Bu-gyaaa!"
The mineral lizard let out a goofy cry and fell from the wall.
"What was that?"
Mineha asked again.
"...Um, it's technically a knife... I guess?"
"A knife? Well, whatever."
Mineha approached the mineral lizard to check whether it was still alive.
"It's dead. Good condition too."
She slipped it straight into her pouch.
"Great. Now I can show it with the Relic."
I immediately searched using the Relic, the Ring of Fortune, targeting the blue mineral lizard.
Whoa… a wash of green light flooded my vision all at once.
Come to think of it, green was the rarity color, huh. Oh, but there were a few yellow dots scattered in there.
"So how is it?"
"The rarity itself isn't that high, but there are a few with higher rarity in there."
"Then you should prioritize hunting those."
"Yeah."
First up… there was a yellow reading nearby.
That one was inside a building. We headed there and started hunting mineral lizards.
We hunted mineral lizards while loosely sightseeing around the city.
"Three left. That really is amazing, Wof. Your Relic."
"Even I have to admit it's a bit too broken."
"Broken?"
"It's too convenient."
"Hmm. Oh, right. I'll take you somewhere interesting."
"Somewhere interesting?"
"Mm-hmm. A surprising spot in this city."
And so Mineha-san brought me to the city's central district.
The shopping street tucked into one corner there was... bustling, of all things.
"W-well, this is..."
"Surprised? It's a Safe Zone."
"Wait, the whole thing here is a Safe Zone...?"
"That's why there are quite a few shops open."
Mineha strode into the shopping street with a spring in her step, and I followed along, looking thoroughly out of place.
A glance around showed weapon shops, armor shops, supply stores, and the like, all open for business as if nothing were wrong.
"Here we are."
She stopped in front of a tavern.
Inside, delvers were scattered about, sitting and eating food and drinking alcohol.
Normal. Completely normal — inside a ruined city, and a tavern was just... running, with people eating and drinking like it was any other day.
"Yo. Mineha. Still as awesome as ever, huh."
"What's so awesome about that?"
The one who called out to her was a dwarf. In other words, a man.
He looked at me.
"Huh. Rare sight. You brought a guy, huh."
"Yes. This is Wof."
"Nice to meet you."
"Name's Ghiims. Pleasure."
We were shown to a table.
We ordered a few dishes and drinks.
"Mole Rice. The usual mine-style serving, please."
"Coming right up."
"Mole Rice?"
"Want the same, Wof? It's their specialty."
"I'm not hungry yet, so I'll just have a drink."
"Got it."
What eventually arrived was... so this was Mole Rice.
A mountain of brown rice piled onto a large plate. I realized right away — it was fried rice.
Fried rice wasn't unusual, but this was far too brown to be just soy sauce.
It looked like everything had been tossed and stir-fried in some kind of sauce, but I couldn't tell what kind.
And scattered throughout were little meatballs.
"Still, even so..."
Mine-style serving. Huge. I already knew it would be big, but this was *huge*.
It towered sky-high. A few of the other diners nearby were staring at it in astonishment.
It had to be at least ten servings.
There was no way I could eat that much.
But Mineha started chowing down on it with a beaming grin. Well, for her it'd be a piece of cake.
While Mineha ate, I chatted with Ghiims.
That's when I heard something surprising.
Ghiims, the owner of this bar — the Mole Lodge — actually lived here.
Not just him. Apparently every merchant who ran a shop in the shopping district did the same.
Beyond them, there were plenty of other people who simply lived and got by in this city as a matter of course.
Most of them were delvers.
"This city's got a few big safe zones. The only monsters that show up are Rock Lizardmen, mineral lizards, and Rock Alligators, so they're not that tough — not much of a threat. The castle and such are a different story, of course. For food, you can get by using floors fifteen and seventeen. Sometimes we stock up from the surface too, but it's not that much of a hassle."
"Is this sort of thing not unusual?"
"Nope. There are a few more cities on the lower floors below this one, and people trade and live there just the same."
"...That's amazing."
I said, genuinely impressed.
"They say any place can feel like home once you settle in."
That was Ghiims, laughing as he said it.
I was shaken. The shock hit me harder than I'd expected.
It had never once crossed my mind. Not even a fragment of the idea.
So this existed too. This was possible too.
That was exactly why my interest started to grow.
Living inside a dungeon.
I turned that option over in my mind, savoring it deeply.