Chapter 23
Arien Academy was located in the Albus region, known as the ‘White Lake of the South.’ It was a neutral zone situated neatly between the three powers of the southern continent—the Kingdom of Gallia, the Arcana Republic, and the Holy Theocracy.
Even in this peaceful neutral zone, mana anomalies were springing up everywhere.
They were called ‘dungeons.’
Places that appeared out of nowhere one day.
They were strange dimensional phenomena that appeared alongside countless monsters and mana. These places were full of all kinds of materials and unusual monsters.
Of course, their quality varied.
Some dungeons were barren,
while others were abundant.
Some dungeons were easy,
and others were difficult.
But humans had no way of predicting where or what kind of dungeon would appear. Followers of the One God Faith even said that only the ‘Sun God’ could determine what a dungeon contained.
In a word,
it all came down to luck.
One could enter an already-opened dungeon to measure and assess it, but no one could know what kind of dungeon would appear in the future. That was why any dungeon that formed was considered a great asset, regardless of the country.
Undiscovered dungeons were hard to find on the southern continent, now divided among the three great powers. Places where rare materials could be found were even harder to come by…
Except for the neutral zone
designated by the Sun God.
Among the many undiscovered dungeons, a group was racing through one hidden beneath a boulder in the academy forest.
“Arti! You take the left!”
“Got it!”
Arti and Mave charged through the dense forest like a team of horses pulling together. Each held an ordinary iron sword and shield.
Behind them, Aria was running, while Lydia followed at the rear with Morgan on her back.
Tap, tap—!
-Kikikik!
-Kuwaaah!
“!”
Hearing a creepy voice from somewhere, Mave shouted. Goblins were too stupid to hold back their laughter when they thought someone was about to fall into a trap.
“Goblin ambush ahead—! Arti, I hear a beast-type monster, too! It’s probably hiding in that dead tree up ahead!”
“Let’s break through before they shoot their poison darts!”
“Good! I’ll show you how knights break through!”
Arti and Mave raised their shields to protect their upper bodies.
Then they shouted at the same time.
“Break through!”
“Break through!”
Whoosh!
A blue aura flowed from their bodies like mist.
Like bulls charging at a scarecrow…
They rammed straight into the dead tree.
Kaboom—!
With an explosive crash,
the dead tree shattered.
Countless pieces of wood flew through the air.
Several goblins holding poisoned paralysis darts and stones shot up into the sky as if struck by lightning. A small, wolf-like lesser monster hiding behind the tree burst apart and died instantly.
“Kiaaaak?!”
“Kyaak, cough…!”
The unconscious goblins spun through the air as they fell.
The group ignored them and ran on before they even hit the ground. The more time they saved, the better, since their goal was the dungeon’s final area.
They ‘passed through’ the minor enemies like that.
“All right—!”
Mave shouted triumphantly.
She seemed to love this exhilarating tactic more than anything. In a labyrinth dungeon, you usually had to be careful with every single step.
“That’s refreshing! Keep it up—!”
“Haha, Mave, you’re pretty good!”
“Hmph! Country bumpkin! This is how the knights fight!”
“I like it!”
Aria called out to them.
“Is either of you hurt?”
“No, Saintess! We’re fine! Full of energy!”
“Let’s keep going like this—!”
Arti and Mave continued to charge ahead.
Even as she ran frantically, Lydia glanced at Morgan on her back. Morgan had been moving her lips as if counting something for a while now.
“One, three, four… The symmetry of the inverse transformation is…”
“….”
Riding on Lydia’s back, Morgan was drawing a rough map. She was using advanced surveying magic to calculate the shortest route through the labyrinth dungeon.
Lydia was now feeling firsthand how convenient this ‘utility magic’ was, even though the game had glossed over it with text.
‘Finding your way through a dungeon was easy enough in the game. But now that it’s reality, it’s terrifying to realize that navigating and measuring the dungeon itself can become obstacles. I’m glad I brought Morgan.’
While Lydia was thinking that,
Morgan put away her map, wrapped her arms around Lydia’s neck, and barely managed to regain her balance as Lydia ran. Then she whispered,
“…We should take the fork to the right now. Once we get past this, we’ll be in the final area. The mana concentration is increasing noticeably. Maybe, just like you said, the dungeon master is in the process of forming.”
“!”
Unbelievable.
She was this cute and adorable…
and yet she was a high-performance navigation system that could think for itself.
Lydia was satisfied.
“Thanks. Your wisdom really does shine wherever you are.”
“Hmph, naturally.”
“I hope today’s materials will be useful to you. The Magic Department’s Alchemy final is coming up soon, isn’t it? You’re the star of the day. Take as much as you want.”
“….”
Morgan couldn’t answer and lowered her head.
“…Lydia.”
“Hm?”
“Th-thank…”
“…?”
She tried to say it, but the words got stuck,
and her face turned bright red.
Morgan hurriedly said,
“…The raw extract from a Forest Slime isn’t as valuable as the saliva of an advanced monster like a Gomaion, but it’s not bad. We’ll get better results than with trash.”
“Heh, is that so?”
Lydia looked ahead and shouted,
“We’re taking the right fork now! The boss will appear soon!”
As they’d agreed beforehand, Arti, Mave, and Aria called out,
“Right!”
“Right!”
“Right!”
At their shouts,
the group made it through the fork with magical precision, without a single misstep. They didn’t fall behind even as the passage wriggled and shifted.
Arti swallowed. He could feel just how helpful this ‘simple repetition’ was.
“….”
‘When Lydia first said it, I didn’t think it was a big deal. But when you’re distracted in a dungeon, there’s no easier way to stay focused on the objective. Even if you don’t hear it sometimes, the others pass it along, so it’s convenient.’
As he was thinking that,
Mave shouted urgently beside him.
“There! An intermediate monster, a Forest Slime, is forming!”
“!”
Sure enough.
Something was writhing in the middle of the forest.
Far off, beyond Arti’s line of sight,
green slime was plastered over an orb the size of a human torso. It looked like moss-covered starch, but was an acidic liquid capable of melting even a sturdy knight.
“A Forest Slime…!”
Slimes were powerful monsters, no matter their type.
Even the weakest, the ‘Forest Slime,’ which did nothing but melt its enemies and had no elemental attacks, was classified as an intermediate monster on par with a ‘War Wolf’ or a ‘Troll.’ Swords and ordinary magic couldn’t harm it.
‘If an intermediate monster like this appeared in a village, the lord would send troops… Can we really handle it on our own?’
But
Arti quickly made up his mind.
‘I can do it…!’
That thing had only just been born.
It was full of openings.
The Forest Slime’s weakness, its orb, was clearly exposed.
“….”
Just as Lydia had told him.
-I heard that a Forest Slime appears as the dungeon master in this dungeon.
-A-a slime?! Aren’t they incredibly powerful monsters?
-No. You can do it. If we reach the dungeon master before it finishes forming, we can exploit its openings easily. We’ll probably have to run for two straight hours, though.
-But labyrinth dungeons usually take three days to clear, don’t they?
-We can do it. I have a genius mage friend.
‘Lydia never says anything without reason. For now, I’ll just trust her.’
Even as he trusted her,
he kept making his own judgments, too.
Arti shouted to Mave,
“I’ll take the left again!”
“Got it.”
This time, the two of them gripped their swords.
They drew blue auras from their bodies and charged, pushing off from the ground. In an instant, they leaped several meters forward.
Taah—!
The two of them closed in on the slime like arrows.
“Hah!”
“Cha!”
The Forest Slime’s core—the moss-covered orb—quivered before it had even formed a body. It tried to move to spit acid at them, but still couldn’t control itself. It only wobbled in place.
“…!”
With only the faintest awareness,
it could do nothing but voice its question as the dungeon master.
-How could they get here so quickly…?
“Die—!”
The two swords didn’t stop. Mave swung with a supple twist of her waist, while Arti’s strike drew on the strength of his solid core.
The two swords carried different momentum,
as they swung toward the forming Forest Slime’s orb.
Slice!
The orb’s outer surface was cut away like watermelon rind.
And in the middle of the hard outer shell,
a center that gleamed like white jade was revealed.
Arti and Mave saw it and cheered.
“We did it!”
“Now we just need to set that on fire…!”
Facing them,
a chilly voice ordered,
“Move aside, nobodies.”
“!”
“!”
The petite red-haired girl who’d climbed down from Lydia’s back took a black stone from her clothes. She squeezed it in her hand and spoke.
[Quivering energy, red vibrations—ignite!]
Ominous flames surged up around the Forest Slime’s jade-white core. Their heat was threatening enough to make Arti and Mave step back.
Whoosh—!
The flames grew and blazed ever more fiercely. They spiraled with enough force to easily burn a person alive, completely melting the slime’s core.
Fwoosh—!
The troublesome intermediate monster died at the very moment it was born.
The dungeon and the environment protecting it had been conquered through wisdom.
It was a method of clearing the dungeon that came close to a great feat.
“….”
“….”
Arti and Mave were impressed.
“Amazing…”
“We cleared it really fast.”
Lydia watched the flames leap up with a pleased expression.
Aria…
could only smile bitterly.
‘…I couldn’t help at all again.’
*
The group bottled the liquid that had flowed from the Forest Slime’s core.
It was the essence, the raw extract consumed along with the slime’s life (?). Naturally, the body of a creature that had died right after being born yielded an enormous amount of raw extract.
Arti held a bottle with trembling hands.
“S-so one bottle of this is worth two months’ pay? I could eat the Kingdom’s special steak at every meal for a whole week?”
“….”
“And we got s-six bottles of it?”
“….”
Morgan glanced at him and ignored him.
‘What a stupid man.’
Arti kept making a fuss despite her reaction. He turned to Mave, who was casually scooping up the raw extract with a bottle, and hurriedly said,
“H-hey?! Be careful! If you handle it like that, it’ll be a waste—?!”
“Kyaaah?!”
Mave finally dropped the bottle from her slippery hand. Its contents tipped over and spilled onto her body. The sticky liquid splashed across her clothes.
“!”
The instant Lydia saw it, she covered Arti’s eyes.
‘Damn it…! A cliché adult-game scenario….’
“Close your eyes, Arti.”
“Y-yes…? What do you mean?”
“Respect Mave’s dignity.”
“?”
And when Lydia turned her head, what she saw was…
Mave’s clothes slowly melting away. The sticky slime extract greedily absorbed her garments and evaporated. Her fair skin was gradually exposed.
“Kyaaaah?! Why are only my clothes melting?!”
“W-what…?!”
Arti instinctively tried to open his eyes, but sensed Aria nearby and turned his head away. Aria gave him an awkward smile as she watched him.
“….”
*
Fortunately, Lydia had brought a change of clothes, so Mave was able to maintain her dignity. But the loss of one precious bottle of slime extract cast a somewhat gloomy mood over the group.
“….”
“….”
“….”
Lydia looked at them and thought it over.
‘Five bottles left. I’ll give one to Morgan for her exam materials, then we can each get one bottle’s worth. That’s good pay for just a few hours’ work. I can understand why people here treat dungeon diving like a somewhat dangerous part-time job.’
The group walked quietly through the shopping district. They were heading to the academy’s Alchemy Guild.
Someone came up to them.
It was a first-year student from the Department of Divinity. She hurried over to Aria and said,
“Saintess! There you are!”
“Yes?”
“Cardinal Albert is asking you to come right away…”
“What do you mean…?”
“The people who’ll oversee the Hero’s examination will arrive in a few hours, so he ordered all the students in the Department of Divinity to assemble.”
“!”