The Adult-Game Heroine Explores the Dungeon's First Floor

Elena went on ahead.

The upper levels of the dungeon were made up of grayish-white artificial structures.

Stone walls that bore the touch of human hands.

The seams were divided by precise right angles, making it unmistakably a structure designed by someone.

A silent corridor where footsteps echoed. Hans held up a lantern and illuminated the passage.

"There really is nothing here."

Hans muttered, shining the lantern this way and that down the corridor.

The tension left their shoulders, and they slumped.

"I was so scared because it's a dungeon, but I guess that's because everything got wiped out during the Monster Wave."

"Yeah. Elena, you said there aren't supposed to be any monsters until the Red Moon rises, right?"

Just as Uncle had told them in advance.

No new monsters would appear until the Red Moon rose.

"Don't let your guard down yet."

At Mira's question, Elena's eyes narrowed.

"It's not completely free of monsters. And we need to watch out for traps, too. Use this time to memorize as much of the terrain as you can."

Elena's party's mission was to make a circuit of this open area during the lull, documenting ore veins, water sources, and terrain on a map.

Whether they secured them a little earlier than others would determine their advantage in the competition to come.

The party members hurriedly lifted their heads.

Elena stood before a fork.

The map Uncle had given them was engraved in her mind.

The closer they got to the water source, the more palpable the dampness around their throats became.

Mira sketched the outline of the path the party had turned into as she drew the fork on the map.

"Elena, I think there's water somewhere around here."

Mira sniffed and looked ahead.

Before long, the sound of trickling water echoed in the party members' ears.

When they reached the end of the corridor, the space opened up.

From the wall where it met the ceiling, a thin, broad stream flowed like a small waterfall.

It poured into a pool on the floor.

The clear water let the lantern light pass through to the minerals at the bottom of the pool, making them sparkle.

"Water source confirmed."

Mira marked the water source's location in bold on the map.

"Let's take a short break."

They had no way of knowing how much time had passed since entering the dungeon.

Rest when we can.

Elena sat on a rock beside the pool, and the other party members each found a place to sit.

They filled their empty canteens with water.

Mira dipped her nib in fresh ink and reinforced the map she had drawn so far.

The map, which had been sketched with only simple outlines, grew more detailed each time the nib passed over it.

A map was a right.

Terrain registered in the Dungeon Survey Team's name became the team's land, granting them the right to collect the profits generated there.

Even if monsters were difficult to trace to their source, water sources and ore veins had fixed locations, so every time adventurers used or mined them, the team gained the right to collect a portion of the profits.

That had become the top priority of this expedition.

Whenever the Red Moon rose, everything in the dungeon returned to the past, restoring both monsters and resources. Thus, the dungeon was a disaster capable of destroying a domain and a divine gift dreamed of by every domain.

The more the dungeon was officially opened and adventurers entered it to generate profits, the more money would roll in for them as members of the Dungeon Survey Team. It would be a fortune so vast that no one here could hope to touch it even after working their whole life.

"What are you all going to do with the money?"

Elena suddenly asked as she took the canteen from her lips.

"If we get through this safely, we can all become rich. We'll probably be paid an enormous sum. What do you want to do with that money?"

She casually brought up the subject to lift the mood, which had grown tenser as they progressed through the dungeon.

Nothing encouraged adventurers more than talk of money.

"My little sister's medicine and savings."

Elena hugged her knees and smiled faintly.

"Once my little sister is completely cured, I'll buy a house. Then my little sister, Uncle, and I will live together there for the rest of our lives. We'll need a lot of money for that. That's why I'm really looking forward to the future."

At that point, Mira waved her notebook to dry the ink.

"I found out it costs more than a few coins to live with my daughter, too."

"Huh? You have a daughter?"

Elena's eyes widened.

She had never imagined that Mira was married.

Mira might have shown signs of it before, but Elena had never thought she was a mother.

"Yeah. She's the treasure my husband left me. A goat attacked me once, and if my husband hadn't saved me then, I might have been taken away without a chance. He died because of it, though..."

Mira tapped her lower abdomen.

She wore an expression that was both sad and reassured.

"Thanks to the child my husband left me, I didn't end up carrying a goat's brat. If I hadn't had my daughter, I might have holed up in some corner, sobbing like some other girl."

Mira clenched her fist tightly.

"That's why I work my ass off to earn money and raise my daughter so she won't envy anyone. I looked down on adventurers at first because they seemed similar to hunters, but if it weren't for you, Elena, we'd really have been in deep trouble."

"It's thanks to Uncle."

"If it weren't for you, do you think Mr. Eck would have even given me the time of day?"

In the now cheerful atmosphere, Hans cleared his throat.

"Ahem. I-I was originally an herbalist's son."

But Hans was a woman now.

"My family was a fairly well-off herbalist family, but I figured there'd be nothing for me to inherit, so I suddenly ran away from home and ended up here."

Hans scratched his head.

"I needed money right away, so I registered as an adventurer. I didn't have some grand goal like you guys. I just wanted to succeed somehow."

Hans looked down at her own body.

A body that had become a woman's.

The breasts swollen to their fullest still flushed Hans's cheeks red.

Memories of the help Hans had received flashed through her mind, and she clenched her fist in resolve.

"But now I want to return to how I was. I believe there must be a way somewhere—whether with the nobles, the Mage Tower, or a temple—if I find a cure."

Hans's gaze turned to Duke, who had ended up in the same state.

"What about you, Duke?"

Unlike Hans, whose body had only shrunk a little compared to when she was a man, Duke had gone from a bear-like hulk to someone smaller than Elena.

Even a standard shield covered half her entire body.

"Grandmother."

Duke blurted it out.

"My grandmother used to be a knight. They say our family was originally noble. It's practically extinct now, but my grandmother, who had been our retainer, raised me."

Even though she had become a small girl, Duke's eyes held a resolute spirit.

"I'm going to join a knight order. So my grandmother can be proud of me. That's my dream."

Elena suddenly remembered Barie and the apprentice knights training under her.

"If you want to join a knight order, why did you become an adventurer?"

"The entrance fee. It's really expensive. And I'm not very good."

Unlike when Duke had been a bear-like man, her shoulders were small.

Her technique of protecting the party by raising her shield had become as shabby as her shrunken frame.

As though already familiar with Duke's story, Hans patted Duke's back in consolation and let out an awkward laugh.

"Ah, somehow I'm the only ordinary one here. This is embarrassing."

Mira lifted the corners of her mouth.

"Is running away from home ordinary? Anyone who makes it all the way to another country is one hell of a bastard."

"I am kind of tough."

Elena looked at each party member in turn.

She realized that each of them had their own reason for becoming an adventurer.

"All right, break's over. Let's get moving."

Elena rose from her seat.

As she did, she pretended to casually brace a hand against the wall. She touched a magic lamp she hadn't noticed, twisted it, and shoved against the wall with her weight.

Rumble.

The wall slid inward.

***

As the wall slid inward, a stale smell of mold billowed out.

Elena waved a hand in front of her nose to brush away the smell, and the light from Hans's raised lantern probed the space inside the wall.

In the middle of the empty stone room sat a single wooden chest, old but strangely eye-catching.

It was a treasure chest.

The party members' eyes all widened.

Their breathing grew ragged.

Dungeon treasure. And this was the party that had entered the dungeon before anyone else, making every place they reached a first discovery. Untouched treasure lay inside that chest.

'Careful, that's a mimic.'

Uncle's voice echoed in her ears.

A mimic.

A trap-type monster that disguised itself as a treasure chest and ate adventurers who approached.

A story about an adventurer who, overcome by greed, opened a mimic and ended up filling his stomach with mimic spawn before defecating them suddenly passed through Elena's memory.

'But a mimic is still a treasure chest.'

Defeating a mimic yielded gold and jewels.

However, unless its true body was killed, the mimic's digestive fluids would melt the treasure along with it.

"Wait."

Elena warned the party members approaching the chest.

"It could be a trap."

The party members stopped short and took a step back from the chest.

The chest didn't move an inch.

Just by its appearance, it really looked like an ordinary treasure chest.

"This is a dungeon. Something like that wouldn't be here for no reason. Uncle said that if there was anything valuable inside, nine times out of ten it'd be a mimic."

"Mr. Eck."

"If it's a mimic, I heard it eats people who go after its treasure."

Hans's face went pale.

Mira comforted her.

"Of course, since you're a woman now, it'll only lay eggs and leave you be. It's fine. You won't die."

"That's horrifying in its own way."

Elena raised both hands.

"For the record, I'm not opening it. I don't want to get dirty and disappoint Uncle."

"No one would make you do it even if you didn't say that. You make up ninety-eight percent of our party's strength anyway. So even if you asked us to let you do it, we wouldn't. Now step aside."

"Uh... okay."

Hans and Duke had no disagreement with Mira's assertion.

Mira gathered Hans and Duke and decided who would open the chest.

"I'll do it after all."

"Mira? Why you?"

"I've already been raped by monsters before. I've gotten over it, too. Things like this are hard only the first time. The second time, you take it in stride. Just make a reasonable donation to the clinic so I don't end up giving birth to mimic spawn."

"Who says you can?"

Hans grabbed Mira's shoulder as she turned toward the mimic.

"I'll open it."

"What?"

Hans's eyes held an odd solemnity instead of their usual lightness.

"I'm going back to being a man. If I don't have an experience like this now, when will I ever get one?"

"You crazy bastard."

Mira shrugged.

"I'm not going to stop you. If you're volunteering to be bait, I won't object. Are you really doing it?"

"That's why this is the perfect time to let myself get thoroughly violated. If a father gets raped by a monster, what do you think his daughter would think?"

Hans strode toward the chest.

Gulp.

Hans swallowed dryly and gripped the chest's old latch with both trembling hands.

She carefully lifted the lid upward.

Creeeak.

The moment the hinges cried out, something red and wet shot out from inside the chest.

"Ugh?!"

A tentacle plunged into Hans's mouth in one motion.

Dozens of tentacles clutched Hans's neck and chest, and powerful suction pulled her upper body into the chest.

"Hans!"

Mira was horrified and aimed her bow.

Just as she was about to draw the string, Elena shouted urgently.

"Don't shoot! If you break it by force, Hans will melt along with it!"

"Eeeek?!?!! Ghurrrk!!"

Hans's legs stretched straight out, thrusting her buttocks high.

Odor seeped from her buttocks as they grew damp and wet.

Elena blurted out Uncle's advice.

"Push!"

Mira and Duke immediately latched onto Hans's buttocks and pushed her in.

Glurk! Blergh!

Unable to endure it, the chest gurgled unpleasantly.

The tentacles inside the chest thrashed violently, and eventually it spat Hans out.

Hans rolled across the floor.

The lid flew wide open.

The mimic's disgusting body was temporarily exposed as it gagged.

Tentacles made of dark-red flesh, each covered in mouths, holes, and eyeballs.

Now!

Elena thrust out the sword energy she had prepared, and a tough resistance traveled through the soft flesh.

The slash fell like a guillotine, cleaving the mimic's vital point in half.

Elena returned her sword to its scabbard and looked back at Hans.

Hans braced herself on the floor and vomited the transparent slime the mimic had injected into her.

"That feels disgusting. Urgh."

But gradually, Hans began rubbing her legs together and twisting her body.

Overcome by unbearable heat, she clutched her breasts and crotch over her armor.

"What is this... It's hot... Haa... Nngh... Ah... It's so stuffy... M-Mira? T-Take it off. Quickly! Hnn! Uuuuuugh!"

"I told you this would happen."

Mira removed Hans's equipment one piece at a time.

When the chest armor fell away, the breasts swelling beneath her cloth shirt grew damp with sweat, making her cleavage and the undersides of her breasts blatantly visible.

Hans roughly grabbed her own breasts, pulling her waist back and twitching her buttocks.

"Elena."

"Y-yes?"

"Could you step outside for a bit and keep watch? I think it'd be better if you didn't watch."

"O-okay."

Elena left the secret room and kept watch for monsters.

Hans's breathing from inside the secret room began to grow strangely hoarse.

Her body, slumped on the floor, turned red-hot like a ball of fire. Heat rose from Hans's skin, drenched in the mimic's sticky saliva after it had forcibly swallowed her.

"Duke, help me a little."

"Okay. And?"

"You should learn this, too. A woman's body, you see. If you rub here like this..."

"Hnnngh!"

Hans's moan.

A feminine scream rang out so strikingly that it was hard to believe she had originally been a man.

Perhaps she had been deliberately lowering her voice to sound like a man until now; a high, thin voice spread beautifully.

"Hwaaah!"

Flinch!

Elena's shoulders trembled.

Cold sweat ran down her cheeks.

It sounded painful, yet there was a strange quality to the cry that was somehow different from pain.

How much time had passed?

Along with the sound of water wetting the floor, Hans's ragged breathing gradually subsided.

Just as things were beginning to cool down.

"Here."

Duke emerged from the secret room and handed over the chest recovered from the mimic.

When Elena broke the chest's lock, she found easily tens of thousands of gold coins inside.