Chapter 23
Newbie : I'm debating whether to use Malangie to clear the corpses... Hm...
ㄴNoSubordinates : Why?
ㄴNewbie : Because it's gross...
ㄴNewbie : I'm eating jerky while watching this, and it kind of makes me not want to eat anymore, yeah.
ㄴBadassLoveDog : Newbie-yaa!
ㄴBadassLoveDog : Just leave it. If it grosses you out that much, imagine how it is for them?
ㄴBadassLoveDog : Fear and terror are the strongest debuffs in a dungeon, after all.
ㄴAnt Queen : (Helping Newbie work through the jerky they were having trouble with)
ㄴAnt Queen : But the more I look at Dreamland, the harsher the gatekeeping at the entrance gets.
ㄴPsych Ward Top Patient : Hahahahahahaha, would you believe that this elevator is only the entrance?
ㄴTheWorldIsCold : What a broken anomaly... But please keep that broken power and crush all the elves, okay?
ㄴBadassLoveDog : But where did you drop this time?? Finally free from the elves?
ㄴTheWorldIsCold : Near the World Tree, damn...
ㄴBadassLoveDog : Ah.
***
1. Only board the suspicious machine alone.
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Capacity exceeded.
After that message, noisy sounds came from the elevator.
Before long, the group of twelve had been reduced to nine.
Even the branded elves had trouble keeping the mood good in this situation.
After all, not even a trace of mana—or anything else—could be felt from that elevator.
Silence held.
In that silence, Tir was the first to speak.
"Let's continue the exploration."
"And you still have the nerve to say that after seeing this!? Shit, the moment the door closed, they turned into that state without a sound!!"
"R-right. Three people died in an instant! We don't even know the cause! I-I don't care how dead I get, I am not going into that place. No, I absolutely can't!"
The cruelty they usually showed was gone.
They were trembling like frightened sheep.
Tir let out a small sigh.
Truth was, she was scared too.
But.
"If we just stand here, we'll die the same way."
"……."
"Water and food are limited. We don't even have any escape scrolls. You all came here chasing a fortune, didn't you? Weren't you prepared to die? This was a chance to change your life—did you think you could get mana stones that easily without any sacrifice?"
It was, quite literally, a no-win situation.
Of course, she was the exception, since she had an escape scroll.
Tir acted as if she were in the exact same boat as them.
If she wanted to get mana stones, she had to get these cowards moving somehow.
"That's the way the world works. Everything comes with risk. We, who make a living through crime, know that better than anyone, don't we?"
Tir argued that if they were going to die anyway,
dying while moving forward was far better.
"Everyone's afraid. I am too. And this isn't a situation where we can force sacrifice on anyone. So let's do this."
Branded elves don't know the meaning of cooperation or camaraderie.
They're the sort of bastards who value their own lives above all else.
Which is why they were expelled from their own faction and brought to the Forest of Life.
Based on long experience, teamwork in a situation like this falls apart in an instant.
If things go wrong, the mood can turn ugly.
So she had to seize control somehow right now.
Tir laid out the plan for the party.
"We're standing in a straight corridor right now. According to dungeon experts, every path in a dungeon has to connect, and passage is said to never be blocked. So figuring out that suspicious machine is what we need to do. Excluding me, let's fairly draw lots among the nine of us and pick one scout. Think of it as getting a report on the inside via communication magic. What do you say?"
Tir's suggestion was reasonable.
The odds were 1 in 9, about 11%.
Someone would get picked.
But the lower the odds, the less people think it'll be them.
Tir thought this was the best option.
Everyone accepted it and nodded.
The sacrifice was decided by lot.
It was Ray, the youngest of the branded elf expedition and the leader of Squad 4.
Ray almost wanted to run.
But there was nowhere to run to.
She had to press on, even if only by force.
『The door is closing.』
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"Can you hear me."
-I can hear you.
"How is it now."
-It reeks of blood, the buttons are caked with dried blood, and on the floor there's a corpse, ugh...
"Not the scenery—what's the situation."
-Other than not being able to open the door, there's nothing special.
"...If you're alone, are you okay?"
Tir rubbed her chin.
Of course she was trapped inside, but at least she hadn't been killed the moment the door closed.
She wrote down the information she'd uncovered in her notebook.
It was regrettable that she was the one with the most magical knowledge in the party.
With the half-learned, half-abandoned magic she had, there were limits either way.
It would've been nice if they could at least share what they saw.
"You said there are number buttons, right."
-Yes.
"From one to ten?"
-Yes, but I'm so scared—can't you open the door from outside?
"Unfortunately, at the moment there isn't any way to open it at all."
That wasn't a lie; it was the truth.
There simply wasn't a single button on the outside.
"Could you try pressing one of the number buttons?"
-Give me a moment to mentally prepare. Hoo, okay, which number should I press?
"It says 1 right now. Is it the same inside?"
-Yes.
"Press 2."
There was a digital display inside the elevator too.
Since it displayed the same numbers as the outside display, it was probably the same thing.
-I feel weightless. My body is going up. Ah, ah, ah!? It suddenly said, "Second floor!" and the door opened!
"The second floor, and the door opened...?"
After investigating with detection magic,
the dungeon's interior wasn't that tall.
There shouldn't even be a place you could call the second floor.
Tir used magic once more.
Then, just like before, Ray's mana still couldn't be felt anywhere in the dungeon.
"What do you see."
-I can see a pitch-black hallway. There's no lighting at all, so with this machine's light I can barely make out the surroundings. Uh, I'll go out first!!
"Wait...."
A closed, sealed-off space.
As soon as the door opened, Ray must have felt a sense of liberation.
She must have gone out of the elevator before anyone had time to stop her.
"Haa."
Even after seeing that mess, she was still this careless.
Tir was frustrated, but kept talking.
"Ray, how's the situation?"
Silence.
Had something unexpected happened?
"Ray, Ray?"
She called her name urgently, but.
There was no answer.
A moment later.
-Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!!
-Don't come!! Don't come!! Do───
With that scream, the communication cut off.
『The door opens.』
What Tir and the others saw was.
Ray's withered corpse, on top of chunks of flesh.
***
Dungeon Exploration, Day 2
"……."
Before long, the nine were down to eight.
The mood was miserably bleak.
Nobody could swallow their food.
The branded elves were all watching each other warily.
Four people were dead already.
And it had happened in just a single day.
A third of the expedition team had disappeared.
Morale had literally hit rock bottom.
It wasn't even this bad when we got crushed by the East Kingdom Knights.
Tir scratched at her forearm hard enough to leave a scar.
Even so.
In this situation, saying we should keep exploring was no different from telling us to die.
I heard that northern continental barbarians rape men.
"Huh?"
"They have a custom where if you get a woman pregnant, you have to take responsibility, so when they win a war they screw men instead of women."
"Crazy."
Maybe we should rest today.
Everyone needs some time to recover, after all.
"Mr. Stings, if you were a barbarian, you'd have lots of wives."
"The women I fucked, aside from one, were all sickly, stinking gutter sluts, so I don't know."
"Were sickly beauties your type?"
"I don't know about beauties, but I'll take responsibility, so want me to fuck you?"
"Sorry, but men living at the bottom of the barrel aren't my type."
Tir, by tossing out useless chatter,
kept the atmosphere in check.
***
2. Avoid corridors without lighting.
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Dungeon Exploration, Day 3
We can't keep standing still forever.
It wasn't just Tir.
The other branded elves felt the same way.
"Should we draw lots now?"
This time, it wasn't Tir.
Stings raised his hand and said that.
Everyone nodded.
"If you get picked, you get picked."
"We've all been prepared to die ever since we were branded. What's with the shaking now."
Thankfully, nobody spoiled the mood.
They drew lots again.
The odds were 1 in 8, about 12%.
"Ah…."
Tir was the one who got picked.
Damn it.
There's an old saying that the one who volunteers gets picked.
Looks like it was true.
She looked around, stealing glances at everyone.
It was too late to take it back now.
Then, just then.
Stings snatched the slip of paper Tir was holding.
"If I make it back alive, let's do it once here."
"What exactly?"
"Obviously, a quickie."
Tir blinked.
"I'm not a sickly beauty, you know."
"You're a beauty."
"Are you sure you won't regret it?"
"Men live by quickies and die by quickies."
Stings laughed heartily.
Tir scratched her cheek.
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"Can you see it?"
-I can see a pitch-black hallway, hmm.
"Ray said she could just see a corridor, but there might be something there. Go ahead and step out."
-Okay. If there's anything weird, I'll tell you right away.
Ray was weak.
She was probably the weakest of the branded elves here.
On the other hand, Stings was strong.
He was clumsy and naive, but his build was solid.
So Tir decided to test it.
Could Stings beat whatever was in that pitch-black hallway?
Of course, there was a high chance Stings would die.
But the fact that it connected to another space clearly made it worth trying.
Only Tir knew how Ray had died.
And she was the only one who could use magic.
So there was no need to worry about drawing suspicion with this move.
-Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh───!
'I'll put the unlit corridor on the back burner and check the other floors.'
Tir wrote the newly discovered fact in her notebook.
***
"Hmph."
Look at that branded elf bitch's nasty attitude.