Chapter 62
The Forest of Life had once been the nest of the branded elves, who had once been regarded as the South Kingdom's most vicious pests.
After Julius was killed by a South Kingdom constable, the prevailing theory was that the remaining survivors had scattered to the winds.
Naive people would believe that, praise the constable as a hero, and dismiss the Forest of Life as a worthless place.
But Aboralis, the blessed one walking through the Forest of Life now, thought differently.
'It was definitely said that Yuben died in this forest. And after that, Sinclair's helper Max died too.'
I'd have to examine the causality more closely to know for sure, though.
She was strongly convinced that the reason the branded elves had disappeared was connected to a dungeon called Dreamland.
Julius was a meticulous criminal.
He had a record of clearing a dungeon even though he wasn't a blessed one.
If he were basically the sort of person whose head didn't work,
he never would have been able to command those brutal criminals.
And that man was supposedly killed by a mere constable?
Well, it was true that the constable named Restia had slain a manticore in the Roujinrat Great Mountain Range.
Since then, she had gone on to win many more achievements and had established herself as one of the South Kingdom's leading heroes, trusted by the current king, but there was no way around the feeling that something was unnatural.
For one thing, signs had been detected that a dungeon had appeared in the Forest of Life.
And in that dungeon, a helper and a lord had died.
If they died while raiding the dungeon, wouldn't Julius have as well?
According to the information Sinclair posted on the Blessed Gallery, Dreamland is a newly spawned dungeon.
A newly spawned dungeon.
It was a name I hadn't heard in a very long time.
I thought it had vanished for good and that I'd never see it again.
'It's not even added to the dungeon-clearing quests... Hm. There are a lot of things about it that bother me.'
After the disastrous failure of the Maharaurava raid left his party in ruins, Sinclair had a total mental breakdown.
Normally, he would have investigated diligently and posted the information on the Blessed Gallery.
Blessed ones are basically uncooperative with each other, but Sinclair is a bit different.
Still, rather than pinning her hopes on Sinclair, who had shut himself up in an inn,
she thought it would be better to handle it herself.
Because she could use 'Retrocognition.'
Retrocognition is the ability to read a corpse's memories and obtain information from the past; it isn't magic.
It was a privilege only she could use.
Using that ability, Aboralis had earned quite a bit of fame even beyond dungeon clearing.
For example, if she used it to investigate who was behind an assassin who killed a high-ranking noble, identifying the culprit was very easy.
The corpses she could read with Retrocognition included all animals, including intelligent beings.
She figured it would probably come in handy here too.
Aboralis briskly made her way forward.
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She read the dead deer's memories.
Then she found the entrance to Dreamland as it had existed in the past.
She could see the branded elves who had gone inside it.
-All branded elves, including Tir, are dead.
-Stay alert, everyone.
It was Julius's voice.
"A newly spawned dungeon that can't be cleared even with that many people..."
The branded elves were elite.
And yet, even with Julius, who had successfully cleared dungeons, they still couldn't do it.
"It must not have been born that long ago, and yet it's killing adults like a newborn killing an adult. Hehe, how curious."
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Retrocognition wasn't all-purpose.
From the start, it was a useless ability for dungeon clearing.
And she couldn't read every memory.
She couldn't selectively read only the parts she needed, so it took some time.
There was a cooldown, after all.
So, from the dead deer's memories,
it took about three days before she could read the parts related to Yuben.
-Even so, I'm not a dungeon raider; I was too hasty.
-I'll go back to my territory and plan the personnel distribution again...
Yuben in the memory had fled.
He must have had a rough time in Dreamland.
He was a total mess.
His expression looked bleak.
Even so, the fact that he was burning with fighting spirit meant he was clearly no pushover.
The deer in the memory secretly followed Yuben.
It was probably a particularly curious individual.
"So your fate was doomed to be short-lived too, huh."
Aboralis stroked the dead deer.
-Absolutely.
-I will definitely take that dungeon.
Yuben had steeled himself.
Judging by that vicious expression, he must have wanted the magic stone badly.
That was when it happened.
-
Hide and seek. I can see your hair.
The deer fled as soon as it heard a voice.
That voice was so eerie that even Aboralis, who was only retracing the memory, was chilled to the bone.
She narrowed her brow.
At that point, the deer's final memory recorded Yuben trembling like a child who had lost his parents,
and fleeing into a cave.
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"This is it..."
Aboralis headed toward the cave.
Then a starving bear greeted her.
"Grrr..."
It was a rather rough greeting.
Since she couldn't read the memories of living things, the action to take was simple.
She drew her sword.
She brought it down from above.
The starving bear collapsed, spewing blood.
Inside the now-silent cave, Aboralis read the memories.
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-W-why is the dungeon master here...?
-Didn't they say it couldn't come out of the dungeon!? They definitely said it couldn't come out!
-Calm down, calm down, calm down, I have to stay calm.
-Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!!
-Grrrr...
-Eat your fill.
Aboralis drew in a breath.
What on earth had I just seen?
She touched her own eyes.
Because it was the first time she had doubted her own ability.
Naturally.
Because she had just witnessed something with her own eyes that shattered everything she had known so far.
'A dungeon master... can come outside the dungeon?'
A black-haired man drenched in blood.
He seemed to be human, but looked utterly bizarre.
According to Yuben,
he was Dreamland's dungeon master.
His eyes were cold and chilling.
Maybe it would be better to say they looked restrained.
If fear were given form, it would surely feel like that.
-This makes things a little awkward. I was planning to ask him something.
Was this really possible?
Could Yuben have been so terrified that he mistook what he saw?
Dungeon masters couldn't come outside, but in exchange.
they had exercised absolute authority inside dungeons until now.
They shaped hell itself, stirring up infernal flames.
Sometimes they brainwashed people and turned them into their servants.
Sometimes they created plagues and used them to eliminate intruders.
They create life, and they create nature.
They looked like the creator depicted in myth.
If they could come outside the dungeon, this world would surely have become hell.
Dungeon masters cannot come outside the dungeon.
That was common sense, an immutable law that should never be broken.
'Did Yuben let that bear eat him down to the bones?'
I'd like to check that in detail,
but Aboralis couldn't get any more information in the Forest of Life.
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"Hm..."
Aboralis pondered.
Should she just ignore it and go on her way?
She had mountains of things to do.
Did she really need to set her sights on this newly spawned dungeon?
【Complete dungeon-clearing quests and earn achievement points to prepare for 'Ascension'!】
【Current achievement points: 30/100】
The life of a blessed one is busy.
The ultimate goal is, of course, dungeon clearing.
To clear them, she had to start by training helpers.
There were so many things to do—prepare supplies, gather experience and points, and so on.
【Maharaurava】
【Achievement points obtained on clear: 100】
【Wallachia】
【Achievement points obtained on clear: 80】
【Ant Nest】
【Achievement points obtained on clear: 70】
【Grave of Swords】
【Achievement points obtained on clear: 60】
【Replicant Automata】
【…….】
【Annihilation Winter】
【…….】
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【Dino World】
【Achievement points obtained on clear: 1】
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A dungeon called Dreamland.
It wasn't on the raid quest list.
Sinclair said it might be a hidden quest, but, well.
Oblivion, that is, the system, is quite straightforward.
In all the time she'd lived as a blessed one, she'd never once heard of a hidden quest.
The reason Dreamland didn't appear on the raid quest list was
simply that the newly spawned dungeon was too weak to earn achievement points.
And.
There was only one person who could clear a dungeon.
This meant that other blessed ones were both helpers and rivals to one another.
In a situation where she had to clear the dungeon before another blessed one did,
did she really need to set her sights on this newly spawned dungeon?
"It's tempting, though..."
"Blessed One! Blessed One Aboralis! What part are you troubled by!? Are you perhaps worried about tonight's dinner menu?"
Aboralis blinked and came back to her senses.
She was currently sipping alone at a quiet tavern somewhere in the South Kingdom when the two approached her and greeted her warmly.
The two were Aboralis's party members—in other words, her helpers.
"Lily, Tors, you're already back from Fire Forge?"
"Hehe, we got back faster than you expected, didn't we?"
"I thought you'd only be back in about half a month... You weren't rude there, were you, Lily?"
"Just what do you take me for, Blessed One? Hmph. I wasn't actually offended, though. Honestly, I was expecting Chase's funeral to be more modest, so I was surprised it was so small!"
"Hehe, did you give them a proper send-off?"
Beside the noisy Lily, Tors nodded.
Before Tors became Aboralis's helper,
he had been a dwarf from Fire Forge with ties to Chase, the mayor's aide.
About two months ago.
A letter came to Tors.
The sender was Gronak.
To summarize, the contents were as follows.
The mayor's aide Chase had died.
He would be grateful if Tors attended the funeral.
Tors had been quite close with Chase.
Up until he set out on the journey with Aboralis.
The three of them—he, Gronak, and Chase—had maintained a tight friendship.
"Um, Blessed One."
"Yes...?"
"I have something to tell you."
Tors sat down, saying he had something serious to discuss.
To borrow Blessed Gallery jargon, he was normally the serious, no-nonsense type.
But today his mood looked especially grave.
She nodded.
And ordered the beer he liked.
"Take your time and tell me."
"Well... I heard that the reason my friend died this time was because of a dungeon. And that bothered me a little, no, a lot."
Because of a dungeon.
Could Dino World, the dungeon the World Tree Forest had been eyeing, have been transferred to Fire Forge?
With weak Fire Forge's current strength, there shouldn't be any dungeon they could clear.
No, surely not.
"Dreamland?"
"Uh, how did you know?"
"For now, keep talking."
No way, it was right after all.
Could there really be such a coincidence?
Tors told her everything he had heard from Gronak.
All the details of the dwarves' Dreamland raids, which had progressed all the way to the seventh attempt.
The more she listened,
the stiffer Aboralis's expression became.
"Does this even make sense...?"
"Honestly, I can't believe it either. But... that's what I heard."
As a blessed one who knew dungeons better than anyone else in this world, she thought,
Memory erasure.
Information manipulation.
Instant-kill traps…….
There was no way a dungeon could be full of such monstrous concepts.
She hadn't thought it was an ordinary newly spawned dungeon, but this was beyond imagination.
"Um, Aboralis."
"Yes."
"I want to avenge my friend. If you're okay with it, Aboralis, then right now, to Dreamland..."
Aboralis remained silent as she thought it over.
And then she made her decision.
"You two. Sorry, but could you take a little vacation here?"
"Huh...?"
"It's bothering me a little, so I'm going to Fire Forge alone for a bit."
As expected, this was not something to take lightly.
I have to see it with my own eyes.