As we descended the stairs, a straight corridor revealed itself.
“Sir Crowin, are you feeling alright?”
“No problem. It’s better than being trapped inside a box.”
“If there’s anything you’d like a closer look at, just let me know.”
“I’ll do that.”
As a servant, Rox was quiet and respectful.
He was carefully carrying Crowin’s head with one hand as he walked.
Beside the two of them, I kicked aside a skull that had been lying on the floor.
“So this is why it’s called the City of the Dead.”
Skeletons were scattered everywhere.
Some were stacked in tiers along the walls like in a catacomb, while others lay around haphazardly.
It was the kind of place that might have felt frightening if I had come alone.
“Come to think of it, I never heard how you ended up serving Sir Crowin.”
A Dullahan was a powerful undead and an enemy of humanity.
He had said he didn’t harbor hostility toward humans, but even so, Rox serving Crowin wasn’t something easy to understand.
“My village survived thanks to Sir Crowin.”
That was how Rox began his story.
“He protected your village?”
“Since decades ago, even before I was born.”
His hometown had been a place frequently attacked by monsters.
It was such a small village that adventurers never visited, and even the kingdom refused to send troops.
Every time they sent a request for help, the only response they got was something along the lines of “Handle it yourselves.”
In despair, the villagers built barricades and armed themselves with farming tools, but it hadn’t been enough.
The village had come to the brink of destruction, and the people, having lost all hope, were preparing to leave.
At that moment, a mysterious Dullahan appeared.
“My parents survived thanks to Sir Crowin. I did too.”
He had hoped for coexistence with humans.
He tried to explore that possibility by protecting Rox’s village, but that dream didn’t last long.
“In the end, the village became a ruin. The Elder Lich invaded. He slaughtered people mercilessly and stole Sir Crowin’s body.”
Rox was one of the few survivors.
While tracking the Elder Lich’s whereabouts, he had hunted monsters and built his strength, wielding a weapon that had been a family heirloom of the village.
And after completing all his preparations, he had finally made it to this point.
“So it was revenge you were after.”
Rox nodded solemnly.
I thought it had been a minor reason…
But the story turned out to be much heavier than I expected.
After walking a little farther, we came upon a wide-open space.
The ceiling was high and the area around us was empty.
The walls were rough and uneven, and a thin layer of dust and dirt covered the floor.
“Be careful.”
I stretched out my arm to stop Rox.
“Is there something there?”
“Feels like it.”
After going through so many dungeons, one starts to develop a kind of intuition. Like subtle shifts in the air and changes in temperature.
Hard to explain in words, but I could vaguely sense that there was some sort of trap here.
“Doesn’t seem like arrows will shoot out of the walls… maybe a monster.”
As I stepped a foot forward into the space, the wall made a grinding sound and began to move.
Then, as if it were a living creature, it writhed and started to change shape.
Large boulders began to take on human shapes one by one, and a faint light appeared in the hollowed-out areas where their eyes would be.
Ten golems emerged.
“So they’re not going to let us through easily? Fine, let’s do this!”
Rox set Crowin’s head down and transformed his weapon.
The metal melted with a sticky hiss and gathered at the end.
It compressed into a rectangular shape, the center sunken like an anvil, with flat sides on both ends.
A hammer was formed.
“This is perfect for smashing rocks!”
Rox swung the hammer with all his strength.
Boom!
With a powerful impact, one of the golems crumbled.
The shattered pieces rolled across the floor.
They may pack a punch, but golems were slow.
They weren’t particularly tough opponents, but swinging a heavy hammer over and over would take a toll on stamina.
“Let’s take an easier route.”
I pulled a small bomb from inside my coat.
Dodging the golems’ slow punches, I slipped the bomb into a gap.
“Take cover!”
As I covered my ears, the remaining nine golems exploded one after another.
Once the cloud of dust cleared, only piles of stone were left in the room.
“Do thieves usually carry stuff like that around…?”
“No, I’m probably the only one who favors them.”
Bombs may not look like much, but they’re surprisingly useful.
I could have used the magic sword to deal with them just now, but I decided to save it for the fight against the Elder Lich.
It made more sense to use cheap and efficient bombs instead.
It was a tactic that worked because golems were such sluggish monsters.
“Looks like we’re almost there.”
Crowin looked toward the far end of the room.
There, a stone door the same color as the wall stood in place.
When we walked up to inspect it, we found there was no lock.
“Shall we open it?”
“Wait!”
Just as I reached out to touch the door, Rox quickly stopped me.
“What? There’s no trap.”
“I’ve gotta pee. Let’s take a quick break.”
“Seriously…?”
We couldn’t afford to get held up by something like this right before the final battle.
Since there was no restroom, Rox and I decided to relieve ourselves on the golem corpses.
It didn’t feel like we were deep in enemy territory at all, but that seemed to be his style.
“Alright, now let’s really go!”
When we pushed open the stone door, a vast space unfolded before us.
“So this is why they call it the City of the Dead…”
I stood there, speechless, staring at the scene before us.
Beyond the door was a natural cave stretching in a straight line for about a kilometer.
It was an absurdly large hollow.
Lining the area below were buildings, both large and small.
It wasn’t enough to be called a city, but it could pass as a small village.
“People wouldn’t be living here… right?”
We descended the stairs.
If death had a smell, would it be something like this?
A musty stench was mixed into the air.
“There are zombies.”
Rox pointed downward with his finger.
Just as he said, zombies began to appear from the buildings and split into two groups, forming ranks in front of the stairs.
So that was the smell.
The stench of rotting flesh filled the air.
These things were the source of the smell.
“Didn’t expect monsters to treat us this way.”
The zombies didn’t charge at us.
They stood motionless in formation as if inviting us to pass through.
They must have been under the Elder Lich’s command.
It seemed he wanted to welcome us personally now that we had passed the traps.
“My body is over there.”
Crowin gazed past the line of zombies.
He’d said that the closer he got, the more clearly he could sense the direction of his body.
We had definitely come to the right place.
“To think you’ve been staying in a place like this… must be nice.”
Rox looked up at the large gate in disbelief.
A building that didn’t suit a small village at all.
As if to assert this really was the City of the Dead, a single fortress stood tall.
Creeeaak.
The rusted iron gate opened on its own.
They weren’t bothering with any more tests.
Perhaps it was time to let the protagonist take the first step.
I glanced over, and Rox boldly walked into the fortress.
“Let’s do this.”
The revenge tale had begun.
***
The forest was quiet.
From time to time, birds chirped, but aside from that, there was no particular sound to be heard.
It seemed that no wild animals or monsters lived in the area.
With not even a breeze blowing, the silence felt even deeper.
“Shouldn’t I have gone with them after all? Liches are weak to holy magic.”
Rosaria grumbled as she idly worked on her embroidery.
The two who had entered the dungeon had tried to stop her, but from a compatibility standpoint, she believed no one was more of a natural enemy to a lich than herself.
“There’s no reason to take such a risk.”
Canon responded calmly, brushing off the complaint.
Whenever Rosaria tried to force her way, Canon would firmly block her path.
She had made sure Rosaria didn’t get off the carriage, insisting she must not go under any circumstances.
“What if Sir Theo ends up dying?”
“If that is his fate, then there’s nothing we can do.”
“I’ll be responsible too, for leaving him like that!”
“No, you won’t. He simply chose the path he wanted to take. All we can do is pray for his soul.”
“Don’t talk like he’s already dead!”
Rosaria tapped Canon in frustration.
She was the maid who cared for her more than anyone else, but at moments like this, her cold demeanor made her seem almost heartless.
“Sir Theo will definitely come back alive.”
“If you truly believe that, then there’s no need for you to follow him, Rosaria.”
“That’s not the point…! I’m saying things would go more smoothly if I were there!”
Canon let out a sigh.
“Even if you went, you’d only be a burden. If even a single skeleton popped out, you wouldn’t be able to fight properly. It’s hard to consider you a real asset.”
She delivered a brutal dose of harsh truth.
Rosaria was a mage specialized in holy magic.
She had learned offensive magic as well, but it wasn’t at a level worth showing off anywhere.
Just as Canon had said, she was more of a hindrance.
“That may be true, but couldn’t you have phrased it a little more nicely?”
“I was simply offering a realistic assessment. Even if you were to support from the rear with firepower, it wouldn’t make much of a difference. Your physical coordination is so poor that without a guard, you’re weak enough to be taken down by a slime.”
“Okay, okay, I get it… just stop already…”
There was no way to argue against Canon’s point.
Still, the heart of a young girl yearning to go where the person she loved was couldn’t be so easily denied.
If logic failed her, then there was only one thing left.
“Even so, I’m going to help Sir Theo! I’m sure I’ll be useful somehow!”
She threw aside her embroidery and started throwing a fit.
Not even half a day had passed, and already she was like this.
It was almost a miracle she had held herself together at the dungeon entrance.
“Do you really want to go that badly?”
“Yes!”
She answered without a hint of hesitation.
At this rate, she would probably try to sneak off the carriage in the middle of the night.
Canon wasn’t someone who would be easily fooled, but if something unexpected happened, it could be disastrous.
“Then let’s go.”
“…Really?”
Rosaria tilted her head at the overly easy permission.
“In return, you must follow only my instructions inside the dungeon.”
“Okay!”
“If you break that promise, the adventure ends. I’ll take you straight back to the mansion.”
“Eek…! I-I’ll keep it, so please don’t do that!”
As long as she followed the path the two had taken, there would be no encounters with monsters.
In the end, she had once again failed to break Rosaria’s stubbornness.
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