Chapter 46
I have uncovered Dreamland's secret.
Chase prided himself on living a satisfying life as Fire Forge's mayor's aide.
Winning the favor of the city's ruler was by no means easy.
Only after pleasing the mayor in ability, character, and even temperament could that be earned.
"Memory loss is just buildup. Dreamland was manipulating the information."
Chase was in the mayor's office.
He was telling the mayor his deduction.
"Please take a look at these pages. If the information brought back by the raiding party is true, then this is a contradiction. There's no way someone who already knows the answer would solve the problem again, is there? And most importantly, these parts with the dungeon information... the handwriting is different. That's decisive evidence."
Chase was certain.
His confidence, the kind that could only come from believing it was 100 percent true, lent his claim persuasiveness.
"Manipulation... huh?"
Goldhand's eyebrows twitched.
Chase's reasoning wasn't strange.
In fact, if he was right, it made sense that the raiding party had failed to crack the device called the elevator until now.
But.
Information tampering and memory suppression?
At this rate, dungeon raiding wouldn't even be possible.
Dreamland was a mystery.
To solve a mystery, you had to gather information.
And the dungeon itself could tamper with the information the raiding party collected?
Information they'd risked their lives to gather, at that?
"If, as you say, all the differently written parts were tampered with, then core information related to the dungeon raid—things like 'You have to use the elevator,' 'The elevator is for multiple people,' 'Never go out into the corridor without lights,' and 'You have to fight the bug-man'—would be completely useless..."
If all the differently written parts were tampered with,
it would be no different from saying that all information related to the dungeon was fake.
For that matter, all the information about the elevator had been written in different handwriting.
Should they stop the raid right now?
Goldhand agonized over the matter right there and then.
However.
Chase was different.
He must have been opposed to it at first.
Chase instead persuaded Goldhand that there had to be a way to crack it.
"I think the amount of information Dreamland can tamper with is limited. It has to be. If I were the dungeon master, I'd have erased every part of the log, tampered or not."
There were two major possibilities Chase could infer at the moment.
One was the theory that all the information written in the journal was fake.
And the other was that some of it was 'true' and some of it was 'fake.'
In the former case, there was no answer.
Dreamland's raid basically forced repeated runs.
If the structure made it impossible to gather information, then the right thing to do would be to back out cleanly right now.
However, if it was the latter case?
Then, though difficult, there might still be a way to crack it.
Chase thought Dreamland was closer to the latter.
The fact that Dreamland was a newly established dungeon was his basis for that judgment.
It was far more advantageous for defense to have no information at all than fake information that let you roughly grasp the situation.
No matter how much power it had to erase memories.
Eventually, the fact that the information had been tampered with would be exposed once intruders pushed far enough in.
Would a newly established dungeon master really leave words like elevator or a lightless corridor lying around as keywords?
If it could erase all the information, it would surely have done so.
That was the more rational judgment for a newly established dungeon master.
And then.
The common points in the journals brought back by the explorers so far.
That was giving Chase a strange certainty.
1. The machine's name is the elevator. You have to use it to go to the next area.
2. The elevator is for multiple passengers, so to ensure smooth exploration, as many people as possible should ride it.
3. You must never go out into the corridor without lights.
4. Sometimes a bug-man boards it, and you have to fight and beat it.
As explained earlier, there was also a possibility that all of this was fake.
Well, the dungeon also grows stronger by feeding on intruders.
It might have been a means of luring intruders in, but still.
It was definitely worth checking.
"I'm going to explore Dreamland together with the raiding party from now on."
"You, Chase, volunteering yourself?"
Goldhand's eyebrows twitched.
"You have more important work than the raid. You're assisting me and putting your efforts into making Fire Forge an even greater city."
"I know. Because it's a position above my station, I recognize all the more that I have to be responsible for the work assigned to me."
However.
That was why Chase insisted that he should devote his efforts to raiding Dreamland.
After all,
obtaining mana stones was what would make Fire Forge richer and greater.
"......"
Goldhand thought it over.
He looked displeased, but in the end he sided with Chase.
His boldness was precisely
the trait Goldhand liked most about him.
"Succeed."
"Yes. Thank you. If I die, it'd be better for you to give up on raiding Dreamland."
"Don't die."
"I'll do my best."
The mayor's permission had been granted.
From this point on, the Dreamland raid was Chase's responsibility.
'The scope of information tampering is definitely limited. They can't change everything. At least not the essence itself.'
Chase's eyes were filled with curiosity.
The dungeon called Dreamland was a completely different case from every dungeon that had appeared until now.
Chase wanted to see how it would end at least once.
The motive was impulsive, but the justification was perfectly valid.
Whatever the reason, as long as he brought back mana stones, that was all that mattered.
'Could I identify ciphers too? If handwriting can be tampered with, what about drawings? If ink won't work, what about graphite? Blood? It might be worth trying to etch information into the body as well.'
And so Chase proactively began recruiting the 4th raiding party.
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【4th Raid Results】
【Writer: Chase】
Entry count: 12
Exploration result: 11 dead, Chase survived, 1 escape scroll consumed.
▼ I
My condition was no different from the other escapees.
Really.
I don't remember anything that happened inside the dungeon.
It was a strange feeling.
Before entering the dungeon, I prepared a number of things.
Everything that could be used to write or draw.
And I studied the ciphers used by Fire Forge's intelligence division.
However.
Unfortunately, it yielded nothing.
The mundane parts remained the same.
I ate. I drank water. I talked with my companions.
These unimportant details were intact, but...
Judging by the handwriting, all the important information seems to have been tampered with.
The entries written in the journal, too.
The passages written in cipher, too.
Even the body presumed to belong to a raider...
could it even interfere with the scar carved into a withered arm?
The image was twisted into a grotesque shape.
In the end, after going around in circles...
1. The machine's name is the elevator. You have to use it to go to the next area.
2. The elevator is for multiple passengers, so to ensure smooth exploration, as many people as possible should ride it.
3. You must never go out into the corridor without lights.
4. Sometimes a bug-man boards it, and you have to fight and beat it.
That was all the information they had brought back.
To speak a little more specifically about the dungeon,
it felt like all information related to minions or traps was being censored?
He looked like he'd need to change the direction of his search.
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Chase looked at the mirror.
A large, straight scar ran across his forehead.
What on earth had happened in there?
"At the very least, it's certain that the machine called an elevator really exists."
Before entering the dungeon, Chase had made himself one promise.
If.
If all the information the commanders had risked their lives to bring back was fake,
he'd throw away the journals and everything else and just use an escape scroll.
If not, if his guess was right and the real and fake were mixed together,
then he'd continue the exploration and come back.
The scars carved into his body, the food and water consumed.
The many journals filling about half the exploration backpack.
These were clear proof that Chase's guess was right.
The dungeon was speaking of truth and falsehood.
That much was undeniable.
Also, from the time outside, the amount of time Chase had stayed in the dungeon...
seemed to be about a week.
"Then how should I bring the information out?"
Writing and drawings are ultimately meaningless.
The same goes for text written in cipher.
No matter how much he wrote in the journal or how many drawings he made, 'information related to the dungeon' would be censored.
In the end, the only meaningful information was the four elevator features that the other commanders and Chase had investigated...
"Which information is real and which is fake."
Even if he found out on the next expedition, it would be pointless, since the information would be tampered with when he escaped anyway.
At first, he had simply thought it might be doable, that there might be a way to crack it.
Had he taken this newborn dungeon too lightly?
With every method he'd thought of blocked, he felt utterly helpless.
He stroked the scar on his forehead.
He wasn't a blessed one.
He only had one life, so honestly, giving up would be the better option.
But.
He still wanted to see the end of it.
Everything that existed in this grotesque dungeon.
He wanted to etch it directly into his own eyes.
Chase thought.
Wasn't there a good way?
"Ah! Maybe if it's this..."
He suddenly looked at his backpack.
It was the backpack used in this raid.
Inside, it was packed full of useful dungeon items like rotten apples, daggers, beard-trimming scissors, rope, and more.
He wasn't sure he could make it all the way to the end, but...
at least, in this very moment, he could see the possibility of advancing toward the elevator.
He had witnessed that realm of possibility.
Chase took six dwarf prisoners who could move immediately,
and entered Dreamland for an expedition. Very hastily.
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【5th Raid Results】
【Writer: Chase】
Entry count: 7
Exploration result: 6 dead, Chase survived, 1 escape scroll consumed.
▼ Truth/Falsehood
1. The machine's name is the elevator. You have to use it to go to the next area. (True)
2. The elevator is for multiple passengers, so to ensure smooth exploration, as many people as possible should ride it. (False)
3. You must never go out into the corridor without lights. (True)
4. Sometimes a bug-man boards it, and you have to fight and beat it. (False)
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After the exploration, Chase rummaged through the backpack.
The rotten apple and the beard-trimming scissors were gone.
"Writing and drawing can somehow be managed, but... I guess this method can't be stopped either."
This time, too, Chase had made a promise to himself before entering the dungeon.
The promised contents were as follows.
There were the four pieces of elevator information he had investigated so far.
For each piece of information, he would choose one symbolic item and pack it into his bag.
For example, the rotten apple would represent 'Never go out into the corridor without lights.'
And the beard-trimming scissors would represent something like 'The machine is called an elevator.'
If the information was true, he'd throw away the corresponding item.
If it was false, he'd bring back the corresponding item.
The rotten apple and the beard-trimming scissors were gone.
That meant the information about the machine's name and the corridor without lights was true.
Since he had decided to throw away all his baggage and use an escape scroll if anything went wrong...
there was no need to worry that this information was false.
"Well then..."
What should he do from here?
Chase fell back into thought once more.
***
Ant Queen: Newbie, just how many people have you killed now???
ㄴNewbie: It's 44 now...
ㄴAnt Queen: This is seriously ridiculous, lol, fuck.
ㄴAnt Queen: Don't tell me you're still stuck at the elevator???
ㄴNewbie: ㄴㄴㄴㄴ Nope, not that.
ㄴNewbie: Before moving to the next area, the people who looked like commanders used escape scrolls and bolted, yeah.
ㄴNewbie: So I'm just throwing the remaining intruders into Area 1 to feed Miro and Malangi
It was murder for the dwarves.
12 died in the first wave.
4 died in the second wave.
11 died in the third wave.
11 died in the fourth wave.
6 died in the fifth wave.
He had never faced so many intruders in such a short time before.
Since becoming the dungeon master, this was the first time, so he felt a little uneasy.
PlatoonHead: Fuck, I came in to watch the live run and everyone keeps dying at the elevator...
ㄴNewbie: That's good for me...
ㄴPlatoonHead: Fair enough...
ㄴNewbie: But I think I kind of noticed that the information was being tampered with, yeah.
ㄴPlatoonHead: Oh... so something big is finally coming??
ㄴAnt Queen: But after dying that much in the dungeon, would there even be anyone who wants to come? ㅋㅎ
ㄴAnt Queen: Even for a dwarf mayor, it'll probably be hard to gather people now, yeah.
A total of 44 dwarves had died.
As Ant Queen said, I wondered if there'd even be anyone who wanted to come, but...
The look in the eyes of the dwarf who had just fled using an escape scroll, somehow, was eerily similar to the look in that lord's eyes I met back then, so, tch, it was a little scary.
One person fixating on me is already more than enough.
One person obsessing over me is already enough.
If you come in next time, you'll be going straight to Goblin Cave.