"Ais, Tiona, you two block the gap on the north side!"
"Ryuu-senpai, keep Haruhime safe."
"Miss Heith, come with me!"
"Lefiya, aim at that bunch on the west side—they're gathering over here!"
Inside an abandoned house.
Isagi and his party were under siege by monsters.
The situation was relatively stable. Though the monsters were many in number, their strength was, on the whole, around Lv.5, and they couldn't cause the group much trouble. But carrying on like this was no solution, because——
"Isagi, it's already been almost half an hour—is this a [Monsterphilia]?"
"I don't know."
The monsters were endless.
From deep within the hazy village, these fish-men came crawling out of the crooked corners hidden by coral and vines and abandoned mud-and-tile buildings.
One after another, in droves, they surged silently toward the group.
They gave off a thick, briny stench unique to seawater, their fish-skin always looking as though smeared with some kind of slime, bumpy and warty like a toad's. Atop each head, the mutated fish-skull was large or small—some even larger on one side than the other—presenting an indescribably deformed appearance.
Only those eyes.
For some reason, they made Isagi and the girls think of "rats."
Or perhaps——
[Humans].
That was even more revolting.
The reeking pus and blood had nearly coated the entire floor, and the monsters' corpses piled up together, crowding the already cramped space of the house.
This was the norm when encountering a [Monsterphilia].
Isagi and the girls had already experienced it once before—in the Dungeon of a thousand years ago.
But the present situation wasn't looking good.
Ais had even suggested simply using magic to blast apart the Magic Stones inside these corpses, making them vanish outright.
But even that posed a problem.
It wasn't that they begrudged all the Magic Stones within the monsters' bodies; rather, the distance was too close, and if it weren't controlled well, it might end up blowing up the house instead, making the scene even more chaotic.
And what left Isagi inexplicably uneasy was that, accompanying the ceaseless outpouring of monsters.
Outside, a rather strange sound was coming through.
Everyone heard it.
"Click——"
Like the light clack of upper and lower jaws knocking together.
"Click-click-click-click——"
The sound was as dense as falling rain.
Only when everyone realized they couldn't go on like this did they begin to break out, leaping forth from above the house.
At this moment.
Isagi and Ais, who could fly, carried their companions on their backs and in their arms as they burst out of the dilapidated house. As they looked down from the air upon this filthy fishing village—like something rotten, congealed into a clump——
that was when they discovered something very important.
It was Tiona who saw it first. The Amazon girl, while clinging tightly to his left arm, raised her head and, swaying in midair, called for everyone to look up.
The black sun was shrouded by hazy clouds, but at this moment, Isagi and the girls finally saw it clearly.
It was not a "sun," but a mouth.
That's right.
A [Mouth].
The pale-white teeth were no different from an ordinary person's, only packed so densely together that it left one at a loss; a forked red tongue stretched out from within, swaying lazily in the air like a streamer tumbling down.
The sound just now had come from that mouth.
[Manager of the Hunting Ground].
"Is it a BOSS?"
Just as everyone was puzzling over it, they discovered that the mist surrounding it was not "mist" either, but...
[Hands].
Countless dim-gray arms, tangled together, all at once thrusting out their fingers from above, downward—like tiny maggots, packed densely, congealed in midair and about to drop.
Isagi noticed that it seemed to be counting.
Along with the sound it made, it seemed that every time he and the girls killed a monster, it would let out a "click" and, at the same time, extend one finger.
This was far too eerie.
So it wasn't a sun and dark clouds after all—well, of course; how could there be a sun and dark clouds inside the Dungeon? He'd indeed been overthinking it.
After all.
This was still underground!
But what was this "counting" for?
Isagi couldn't figure it out. Could it be that they had to kill a certain number of monsters to "clear" it?
Only after flying up into the air did Isagi discover that the fishing village below was vaster than he had imagined.
His view had simply been blocked just now.
And now, he could see it endlessly entwined with all sorts of coral and seaweed, stretching to the very limits of sight, almost as if without end.
The monsters below were the same.
As though without end, they still gathered toward him from all directions.
Something was clearly wrong somewhere.
The Dungeon—even a special Dungeon affected by his own Skill—shouldn't be like this.
Isagi thought it over, trying to recall just where the problem lay.
"Ottar, wait up! You're charging too fast!!"
Amid a sea of flowers, brilliant and resplendent.
The four of Freya Familia were likewise surrounded by monsters. Only, compared to Hedin and Hogni who stayed together in place, Ottar, greatsword in hand, cut his way through all the way, having long since defeated every monster around him.
At the same time.
Allen Fromel, spear in hand, likewise pressed ever forward. The two of them seemed to be competing, and in the blink of an eye they drew farther and farther from the two Elves.
A headache.
Hedin rubbed his temple and, watching the two whose backs were nearly out of sight, could only resort to invoking the goddess herself.
"Lady Freya instructed us—we must look after one another, and then return together!"
"..."
As champions of the [Goddess of Beauty], they would never defy the goddess's will.
Hearing Hedin's call, Ottar and Allen, somewhat reluctantly, charged back from afar, preparing to regroup with the two of them.
This let Hedin breathe a slight sigh of relief.
Though the monsters before them were many, they posed no real threat. At this moment, the thing that left the Elf man somewhat "uncomfortable" was that object up in the sky.
It was a pair of eyes.
Multicolored, glass-like [human] eyes.
Precisely because they were so much like [human] eyes, they instead gave him a nauseating sense of distortion.
At the same time.
Within those dazzling eyes, a number was floating up.
[658].
Hedin had already confirmed it: each time their side killed a monster, the number would go "+1."
And right now, the number upon it was still rapidly climbing, though he had no idea at all what it actually meant.
The sea of flowers before him was likewise as if without end.
Allen had just used his speed to scout. The young Cat Person had gone very, very far in a flash, and when he came back, he only said that he still hadn't seen any end to it.
What on earth was going on here?
A sea of flowers was just a sea of flowers.
Stretching boundlessly, with nothing else special about it at all. Those monsters, composed as if of plants and vines, drilled up from the ground and ceaselessly launched attacks at the group.
No.
Something was wrong somewhere.
Although it was his first time taking part in Isagi's signature Dungeon, Hedin still keenly noticed that strange "sense of abnormality."
Perhaps the situation before him could be explained as a [Monsterphilia].
But even so, the monsters that appeared were simply too many.
What's more, there was neither an exit nor an entrance here—after they had just walked in, that cavern-like door, composed purely of "water," had already vanished.
This was simply too strange!
Then weren't he and the others now trapped here?
If the monsters truly were endless, forever like this, then there would inevitably come a moment when everyone's stamina ran out.
In other words.
From the moment they stepped in here, was the outcome already fated to be "death"?
[Be careful—that child's Dungeon is practically built to kill adventurers specifically, carrying intense malice and stopping at nothing.]
This was how Gareth had described it to him before they came.
But even so, this was still too outrageous, wasn't it?
It shouldn't be like this.
The Dungeon's power was also limited; she herself was suppressed by the great god Ouranos, so...
As if Hedin had suddenly grasped something, he stopped paying any mind to those eyes in the sky.
He knew where the problem lay, and then he quickly turned to Hogni beside him and said.
"We'll split up now and act separately."
"?"
The dark Elf, somewhat poor at speaking and dealing with others, blinked, seeming not to understand why he had suddenly said such a thing.
But Hedin had no time to explain.
He merely shouted at the same time toward Allen and Ottar in the distance, telling them not to come over, but to keep "breaking out" in different directions, each on their own.
"Do whatever you want—don't worry about us!"
And so.
The four of Freya Familia began to move in different directions.
And it was at the very instant the four split apart.
A peculiar thing happened: the monsters, which had originally been respawning in an unending stream, gradually slowed in the rate at which they appeared——
[Hunting Ground · The Correct Path · Castle].
"Found it!"
Within a castle shrouded in a deep-crimson, eerie glow, Riveria pushed open one of its doors. As she stepped inside, listening to the "map information" that silently surfaced in her mind, she knew that her and Finn's guess had been correct.
By now, she had already "parted" from the other two.
But Her Highness the Elf Princess wasn't anxious in the least, for she had already found the "correct path"—and, she supposed, Finn and Gareth ought to be the same.
At this moment.
In the corners of the castle, suffused with that deep-crimson glow, a great many strands of golden, tangled long hair would always grow.
Like seaweed, snarled together in clumps, utterly unsettling to behold.
Like the others.
When Riveria and her group had entered this castle, they too had come under attack by a great many monsters. But Finn soon realized that the whole problem was because they were on the "wrong path."
And once everyone split up, they could each find their own "correct path," thereby avoiding the monsters' attacks.
Why was it like this?
Finn didn't explain.
But Riveria could roughly guess: it was because, among the group, someone had just entered a door alone.
That's right—it was Alfia.
Perhaps it was because she had been the first to find the "correct path," so the others, too, had to be like her—acting alone—in order to find their own "correct path."
"Every place here is connected."
Not connected in the physical sense.
But in terms of the rules.
Putting it that way might be a bit abstract, but in Riveria's understanding, the "crossroads" just now had nine doors that looked as though they led to different places, yet were in fact the "same."
No matter which door one entered, one had to follow the same rules—this was probably also some sort of compromise the Dungeon had made.
Or perhaps.
Riveria believed the Dungeon simply wanted to split everyone up, the better to pick them off one by one—after all, adventurers together were always harder to deal with than apart.
So.
Now that everyone had split up, surely something was about to come knocking?
Just as Riveria had anticipated.
The Dungeon's aim was to kill adventurers; whether [Finding the Correct Path] or [Hunting the Monster It Names], one would ultimately meet danger.
Inside the deep-crimson castle chamber.
Soon, the golden long hair that had originally balled up in the corner began to grow, gathering together, weaving itself, until at last a humanoid existence appeared.
It rode atop a Unicorn, with flowing long hair and long, pointed ears.
[Nameless Hero · "Captain of the Guard" Anatole].
"?"
An Elf?
Riveria stared in some disbelief at the existence that had appeared before her.
And almost at the very same time, on the other side.
Still within the castle, the Pallum [Braver], spear in hand and clad in golden armor, beheld a humanoid figure likewise woven from golden long hair—a "kinsman" likewise holding a spear and a war banner.
Upon that banner.
The crest of the Fianna Knights fluttered.
[Nameless Hero · "Grand Knight" Dormingo].
"You've got to be kidding?"
The [Braver] felt his thumb throb faintly.
It seemed.
His earlier judgment to seek out the "correct path" had been a mistake.
____
👻🔥Walnut-chan ;)🔥👻
🔥 New history: A Martial Arts Master Will Never Be Humiliated
Help smash these goals:
🎯 100 Powerstones = +1 Bonus Chapter (for everyone)