Chapter 21
Creak—creak—
Reverio and Zius stood stock-still in front of the old elevator.
"Hey. You said this was a straight corridor with no traps or obstacles ahead. Look at the map you drew. No matter how I look at it, it's wide open, so what the hell is this...?"
Zius showed his displeasure.
For someone who had trusted Reverio completely and followed him here, it was only natural that he’d be irritated.
"There’s no way this should be happening...."
Reverio felt wronged.
That was because he knew for a fact that the detection magic had worked properly, and that nothing had interfered with the process.
Yet the elevator in front of him was blocking the corridor like a wall.
He tried detection magic again, but the result was the same as before.
'What a strange obstacle....'
In detection magic, it clearly looked like empty space, yet to the naked eye it stood there so brazenly. It was enough to make a ghost cry out in shock.
"Dammit, instead of just saying there’s no way, come up with some excuse."
"Ugh, why are you so angry?"
"How am I not supposed to be angry right now? We can’t even go back outside anymore!"
Reverio let out a quiet sigh.
Then he soothed Zius with a good-natured expression.
"Zius, I told you already. This is just a newborn dungeon. Calm down a little. No matter what amazing trick it’s pulling, the dungeon master was only born half a year ago!? Hey! Friend! Calm down! Okay!? We’re going to win anyway. The dungeon master is just a newborn baby if you think of it from our elf—no, human—perspective."
The effect was quite good.
Zius soon clicked his tongue and glared at the elevator.
"So that’s what’s blocking the passage?"
"For now, yes."
He drew the sword at his waist.
Zius possessed physical abilities and combat instincts superior to those of other elves.
He thought he could cut it down easily.
After all, not even a vicious troll could stand against him.
A sword strike that could cleave even rock rained down on the elevator.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
But.
It still didn’t budge.
"It's sturdy, enchant it."
"Okay."
Even with Reverio’s support, it was the same.
He sensed it instinctively.
'…….'
The elevator cannot be destroyed.
At least not within the range of actions we can currently take.
"You said it wasn't a magic trap, right?"
"Yeah. I can't feel any mana at all."
"This is a pain. Haa."
"Compared to when you raped a woman and she turned out to be a noble lady of the South Kingdom?"
"Can you joke around in a situation like this?"
"Sorry, sorry."
The two branded elves crossed their arms.
Reverio stroked his chin and said.
"There was no other way. First of all, this is a straight corridor, so... clearly this side is the passage, right? As a rule, dungeon walls can’t be broken. But I’ve never even heard of, let alone seen recorded in history books, such a fantastical method of using a dungeon wall to block a dungeon passage. If that’s the case, then that device itself must be a trap prepared by the dungeon master."
It was a physically tangible object.
But even Zius’s enchanted sword couldn’t break it.
In the first place, Zius wasn’t that weak a swordsman.
And it surely wasn’t made of starmetal, like the owner of that famous Automaton Dungeon.
While Reverio was worrying about it,
Zius marched straight into the elevator.
"There’s a button here?"
"Don’t just go barging in. We don’t know what might be there."
"I’m fine, since I’m unharmed."
Reverio let out a sigh.
Well, since they’d confirmed there was no problem, they might as well go in....
『The door is closing.』
Bang!
In an instant.
Reverio blinked.
"Hey, Zius! Zius! Are you okay!?"
Bang bang bang bang!!
Reverio pounded on the closed door, but.
There was no reply from Zius.
"Dammit!"
He immediately used detection magic to check whether Zius was dead or alive.
But he couldn’t get any meaningful result.
"You’re saying there’s no mana to feel...?"
There was no way that could be true. He had definitely seen Zius go inside the elevator.
Had a spatial transfer occurred all of a sudden?
"No."
If we assume the transfer wasn’t caused by an escape scroll,
then he should have found Zius’s mana somewhere in the dungeon.
Zius had disappeared.
As if he had become one with that bizarre elevator.
.
.
.
.
.
After a little while.
『The door is opening.』
The elevator door opened.
Reverio ended up collapsing to the ground.
"H, huff..."
Blood flowing out of the elevator swallowed the corridor.
At its center was Zius.
It was as if every fluid in his body had been sucked dry.
He was blackened and shriveled like a mummy.
An incomprehensible grotesque phenomenon had occurred right before his eyes.
Creak, creak.
The old elevator made an unpleasant sound.
***
Reverio gulped down some water.
He was trying to cool his head.
"Dammit, dammit...."
His heart just would not calm down.
If Zius had merely died right before his eyes, that would have been one thing.
But he had been dragged off by that unidentified machine and then died without a trace, only to appear before him as a corpse.
People fear what they cannot understand.
Even Reverio, a branded elf, was no different.
What could possibly explain what had happened right before his eyes?
Even if he amassed more magical knowledge than he had now, he thought it would be impossible.
If it wasn’t magic, then it was impossible.
But his instincts and knowledge on the scene were vehemently insisting that this phenomenon was not magic at all.
The elevator door was open.
The interior was neat, but that was because halfway through, an undying slime had appeared, swallowed Zius and all the blood whole, and sauntered away.
At Reverio’s feet lay a note.
It was a note left by the slime, but he hadn’t checked it yet in case something happened.
After a little while.
Reverio picked up the note with trembling hands and unfolded it.
-lol
Reverio.
He gritted his teeth.
"You dungeon-master bastard!"
He was being completely toyed with by the owner of this dungeon.
As it watched me tremble in fear,
that bastard was definitely laughing.
That scratched at Reverio like a blade.
"You fucking bastard! You fucker! Come out here in front of me right now!"
How dare you humiliate me like this?
It suited the master of this grim place.
It knew all too well how to make people feel filthy.
"Do you know who I am!? You can’t even say a word in front of me! And yet you’re only barely keeping yourself alive with this filthy, suspicious trap, you bastard!"
Reverio poured out his rage.
Once he had vomited out everything inside him,
the trembling finally stopped.
"I’ll kill you for sure! I’ll definitely kill you with my own hands! I’m taking the mana stone you cherish too!"
Reverio strode toward the elevator.
He was the most gifted mage in the Forest of Life.
Even if he was a criminal now, as Reverio, who would one day become famous as the godfather of the underworld, he couldn’t die in a filthy place like this.
He was determined to kill the dungeon master and seize the mana stone.
He had made that resolve.
『The door is closing.』
Bang!
.
.
.
Reverio thought inside the closed elevator.
The elevator had buttons.
There were open and close buttons, and number buttons from 1 to 10.
"Hoo...."
Zius had died inside this elevator.
"That bastard had no caution, so he probably just started pressing random buttons and died."
When he pressed the open button, it didn’t work.
Closing was meaningless, and the remaining ones were the number buttons.
The elevator display showed the number 1.
Was that saying the current location was 1?
"There doesn’t seem to be any hidden button... If I solve this within the given conditions, then this button seems to be the key to the riddle."
Let’s try pressing them in order first.
There are too few clues right now.
Reverio finished all his preparations so he could use magic at any time,
and, tense, pressed button 2.
Clunk, boom-
The elevator shook for a moment.
Bwoooom-
At that moment, he felt a floating sensation, as if he were rising.
Reverio blinked.
The detection magic showed that this dungeon wasn’t all that tall.
But the elevator was definitely going up.
This was not an illusion.
How on earth was this happening?
『This is the 2nd floor.』
『The door is opening.』
A dark, gloomy corridor came into view before him.
It was like a passage with the lights turned off.
Reverio swallowed hard.
Then he slowly started walking.
Step, step.
Step, step.
『The door is closing.』
Bang!
Reverio, in that instant,
realized he had made a mistake.
"Ah."
What an idiot!
Reverio tore at his own hair in regret.
He had been too tense, preparing for a possible fight.
He hurriedly tried to use detection magic,
Tatatatatatatata─!
At that moment, he heard a sound he couldn’t ignore.
When he shone a light on it, Reverio’s expression hardened,
and a hot liquid flowed down his pants.
What on earth was that?
Reverio felt no regret, no curiosity, not even any fighting spirit.
That was because.
the thing right before his eyes, running toward him on two legs at high speed
was so terrifying that he couldn’t think of anything else.
"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!"
.
.
.
Swoosh.
It approached the elevator, dragging a corpse.
『The door is opening.』
『The door is closing.』
『Going down.』
.
.
.
『This is the 1st floor.』
『The door is opening.』
Inside the elevator,
only a shriveled corpse remained.
***
Orange★ : This newbie dungeon is seriously fucking vicious lol
ㄴMagicHero : I’ve never seen the head mod say something this extreme before...
ㄴDungeonMasterWasDisappointed : Can’t blame him. Everything we’ve built up in swordsmanship or magic until now is fucking useless, lol.
ㄴI’mAClown : A dungeon where elves, goblins, and trolls can all be equal... that’s the real Dreamland, yeah.
KongKong : Why are you suddenly so worked up?
ㄴDIP : You barged in here with your friend on your own and started throwing a fit
ㄴPigHead : Why have you been gone for so long?
ㄴKongKong : I was busy keeping the Blessing Bearer pinned down...
OnlySubordinate : This is why branded elf bastards are no good.
OnlySubordinate : Even the way you talked just now was low-class as hell.
ㄴKingJjangGhost : Nice job, newbie. Yeah, you died well, you trash bastards... khak, ptui!
ㄴ3MHamster : My insides are so damn refreshed!!! That grotesque phenomenon is seriously the real deal, yeah...
ㄴTVHead : That’s just textbook top-tier comeuppance.
AntQueen : (while fucking the newbie) Honestly, those guys should die. If I could get out, I’d have killed those bastards first, yeah...
ㄴWhaleWhaleYeah : Agreed. But what’s up with this bastard’s parentheses?
ㄴGolemKing : It’s a shame they know their place so well that they don’t come into our dungeon.
PsychWardChiefPatient : Actually, that’s not the important part, yeah.
PsychWardChiefPatient : The fact that the newbie dungeon is brutal even against intelligent beings has been proven.
ㄴAnonymousButcher : Honestly, I was a little tense, but now I feel relieved.
.
.
.
【Wave defense successful.】
【Rewards will be tallied according to difficulty.】
-…….
I watched the intruder, now chilled to the bone, through the surveillance camera.
The branded elf that veteran players especially loathe.
The guy who’ll soon be devoured by Malang and disappear.
After getting Malang to get under his skin with cheap provocation,
he lost his reason far too easily.
Well, I wasn’t planning to let him live anyway.
If anything, it would’ve been better if he’d gone a little farther.
The more data, the better.
"A psychopathic elf."
Of course.
It didn’t look like a full-scale invasion.
They only came with two people.
It was probably just curiosity.
Still, I shouldn’t get careless just because they died at the entrance.
SlyLoveDog : Newbie, yummm!
ㄴNewbie : Yeah
ㄴSlyLoveDog : Are you mad or something ㅠㅠ?
ㄴNewbie : Not really mad, though...
ㄴSlyLoveDog : (My own PhD in newbie psychology and newbie ontology)
ㄴNewbie : LOL...
"……."
In any case, if you’re coming in, hurry up and come in.
The real grotesque phenomenon hasn’t even started yet.
notes":"Aligned the title with Chapter 20 as Position Shift (2). Fixed a few draft repetition/echo issues and kept neutral wording where the dungeon master’s gender is unclear, using it/they-style phrasing in those spots."}]}