Chapter 71
The 7th Dreamland raid was quickly organized under Count Wolfhaufen's leadership.
This raid differed from the previous one from the very start, beginning with its personnel.
Instead of an army made up of ordinary soldiers and a handful of mages, they had drafted no fewer than ten members of the Winter Wolf Knight Order, the core fighting force of Count Wolfhaufen's domain.
That number amounted to one-fifth of the Winter Wolf Knight Order,
which meant Count Wolfhaufen considered raiding Dreamland to be extremely worthwhile.
That wasn't all.
There was the famous retainer, the dragon Dragred, along with three mages from the Spatial School.
Even the count himself would be participating in this raid.
He had even distributed such expensive escape scrolls to every participant.
It was a considerable investment.
It was clear that this time, they were determined to achieve significant results.
"Phew……."
Dragred looked over the Dreamland strategy guide inside the carriage.
The strategy guide had been updated with information obtained through the sacrifice of Reilo and the soldiers.
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【Area 2】
1. Area 2 is very similar to the Academy. It is a large building roughly 80 stories tall, consisting mostly of classrooms, and there seems to be a place called the teachers' office. It is a place where checking the time is extremely important. As far as we know, it is divided into class time, break time, lunchtime, and after-school hours. (You can check the time by looking at a clock or listening for music)
2. Until after-school hours begin, you must remain inside a classroom. Otherwise, you will die.
3. When you arrive in Area 2, a faceless girl asks for your belongings. You must refuse or run away. Otherwise, all the belongings you have will be confiscated.
4. During class, a teacher sometimes comes in and conducts incomprehensible lessons before asking questions. If you fail to answer properly, a body part will be broken and you will receive a warning. If the warnings accumulate, you will die.
【Dungeon Master】
1. Far stronger than a soldier, but weaker than a knight. (True)
2. Roams freely throughout the dungeon and kills intruders weaker than itself. (True)
【Elevator】
+ Using the elevator does not transfer everyone to the same area.
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Taking too much interest in something can put you in danger.
It was a famous saying.
Dragred flipped through the strategy guide he had been reading in spare moments since yesterday and let out a small sigh.
People say that
dungeons are unknown treasure vaults where mana stones can be found.
Just look at how Count Wolfhaufen was staking everything on this.
Would he really be acting simply out of a sense of duty to save the North Kingdom?
The value of mana stones.
Even a noble who lived without want was this desperate for them, so that claim had to be the undeniable truth.
But for Dragred, things were a little different.
After all, he had been born in a dungeon.
He ate in the dungeon, slept in the dungeon, and grew up there.
Now that I think about it.
Wasn't the dungeon, to me, a prison rather than a fond home?
He hadn't thought that way from the moment he was born.
There had certainly been a time when simply following the Dungeon Master made him happy.
Kill the intruders who came from outside.
Receive praise from his creator.
When he was a small and weak hatchling, that had been the joy of his life.
He wouldn't deny it.
But people change.
Dragred was no exception.
The reason he changed was simple.
He had grown.
The more time passed and the larger the dungeon became,
the more he too developed something called a goal, just as humans yearned for the unknown and desired mana stones.
The outside world, the intruders' homeland.
A world so vast that it couldn't even be compared to the cramped dungeon.
A place where there was a sky in which he could freely spread his wings.
That place had gradually become his destination.
Yes.
I yearned for freedom.
Someday, I wanted to see the outside world.
It was a dream I had been unable to tell anyone about.
-I come back to life even if I die. But you, your comrades, and the Dungeon Master don't. Even if we may have the advantage right now, isn't this a fight with a predetermined ending?
And his desire to fulfill that dream reached its peak when he encountered a Blessed One for the first time.
One day, a Blessed One invaded the dungeon.
Her name was An.
She was a strong, ruthless, and terrifying woman.
-Won't you join hands with me? I'll give you freedom.
She tried to tempt Dragred.
Naturally, he ignored her at first.
There was no guarantee that she would keep her promise,
and Dragred knew what honor was in the first place.
But.
People always hold themselves most dear.
The more the Blessed One invaded, the worse the situation became.
Minions died, traps were destroyed, and the structures were smashed to pieces as well.
The speed of restoration couldn't keep up with the speed of destruction.
Maybe he would be the next one to die.
That was what An, the Blessed One, was like.
For the first time, Dragred felt fear.
Perhaps because she had noticed what he was feeling,
-They're probably reaching their limit by now. You're doing very well. As expected, you're the only one I need.
the Red Dragon King spoke of hope beside him.
With the same smile as always.
The Red Dragon King said they should somehow hold out, promising to keep trying.
But Dragred thought differently.
He couldn't erase the thought of defeat from his mind.
He didn't want to die.
Perhaps it was because he had a dream.
Even if he had to die,
he had come to want to see the outside world at least once before he died.
At some point, that thought began to grow stronger.
His actions became more passive as time passed,
and he couldn't concentrate on the fight because he was busy protecting his own life.
As if she had read Dragred's true feelings then,
An made him another offer.
Rather than dying while fighting us like this, join hands with us.
Wouldn't it be more rational to kill the Red Dragon King?
I'll share the mana stones with you as a reward.
I'll give you a new home.
Are you going to keep living in the dungeon like a slave?
If you join hands with us, everything will be easy.
Dragred found himself at a crossroads.
It was the voice of a sweet-talking devil.
Would he fight and die for the dungeon?
Or betray his creator for his own safety and dream?
In the end, Dragred chose the latter.
"……."
Dragred clutched his pendant.
The minion Dragred had disappeared from the world.
The life he had obtained in exchange was utterly pitiful.
The Blessed One kept her promise.
But it was different from what he had expected.
Instead of a collar, she fastened a pendant around Dragred's neck that could explode at any time,
and sold him to the previous Count Wolfhaufen.
It was no different from the dungeon.
More people looked up to him than before,
and his fame had grown as well,
but he was still bound as the count's fucking dog.
Everything had been an illusion.
At least in the outside world he had gained by betraying the Red Dragon King and joining hands with the Blessed One, there was no freedom.
At last, he had come to a place where he could fly to his heart's content,
but his wings were tied with rope.
Dragred thought.
The count wanted mana stones anyway.
And he would surely order Dragred to bring him mana stones.
He couldn't refuse.
But he could refuse at the cost of his life.
And that death could be excused on the condition that he obtained Dreamland's mana stones.
It would be unfortunate if he died during the exploration,
but if he somehow managed to reach the core room alive,
and if he could keep the count from discovering his true intentions,
wouldn't he be able to obtain true freedom?
In any case, they also had escape scrolls,
and there was certainly a chance of surviving with an elite force beside him.
Dragred had gained a new goal.
This was a somewhat different matter,
but he also wanted to witness with his own eyes the end of this incomprehensible, unknown space, this bizarre place where the Dungeon Master could emerge from the dungeon.
He wanted to know why the Dungeon Master could be free, unlike him and the Red Dragon King.
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A certain snowy mountain in Fire Forge.
The 7th Dreamland expedition arrived at the dungeon entrance.
There were fifteen people in total, with eleven explorers including Dragred.
The rest were mages who would maintain communications and record information from the safe zone alongside the lord.
Every one of them was an elite.
They were Wolfhaufen's powerful warriors, whom the Dungeon Master couldn't approach without caution.
With this lineup, the exploration should proceed smoothly.
They exhaled white breaths and each shared their thoughts.
"A dungeon makes me nervous."
"I feel the same. I never thought I'd be raiding a dungeon at my age."
"Haha, I feel the same way."
If their sole objective had been mana stones,
they would never have answered the lord's summons.
A newborn dungeon with some unknown entity sleeping inside.
Raiding this place was something that required them to risk their lives.
But.
This was both an undertaking to obtain mana stones and an effort to save the North Kingdom.
"The entities in the dungeon can emerge from the dungeon itself. This is bound to become a major threat, isn't it?"
"If the entities in this dungeon manage to escape outside, it will be a disaster greater than the mana storm. It may be that this dungeon was the cause of the mana storm in the first place."
It wasn't only the North Kingdom.
If this dungeon grew like other dungeons, it would bring about horrifying consequences for the entire world.
Aboralis had mentioned it before.
That Dreamland's Dungeon Master was the seed of a Demon King.
A Demon King—that being didn't exist in reality,
but ironically, many people knew of it.
It was a symbol of chaos that appeared only in fiction.
It often appeared in bards' songs and writers' stories as an ultimate evil that had to be defeated.
It wasn't a childish comparison.
It was only a possibility, but Dreamland could certainly become that.
Why would Dreamland become a disaster?
It isn't simply because the Dungeon Master can emerge from the dungeon.
That isn't the only reason.
Dungeon Masters can communicate with one another.
This was a fact widely known even to ordinary people.
Until now, every faction, including the Four Kingdoms, had attempted to conquer dungeons countless times.
To obtain mana stones, to accumulate wealth, to gain power, and to save the sick.
There were countless dungeons in the world.
And most dungeons had fallen victim to raids and vanished into history.
There was no way Dreamland's Dungeon Master didn't know this.
Living creatures instinctively loathed killing members of their own community.
Some called that vengeance.
Most were designed that way.
Because it was advantageous for survival.
Dungeon Masters were no different.
They could use the Creator's authority,
but the ones recorded in history had resembled us.
"One thing we can be certain of is that he must be accumulating power."
Even if that weren't the case,
as long as Dreamland's Dungeon Master was a thinking being,
the fact that he would become a danger wouldn't change.
Being like us meant he possessed a fundamental desire to rise.
Would someone who could manipulate the world under the pretext of chaos not use that power, as a matter of common sense?
The strong rise to the top.
Countries with great power possess abundant wealth and territory.
That is by no means a coincidence.
The moment he accumulated power and revealed his ambitions,
the world would become truly imperiled.
"Now is the perfect opportunity."
Dreamland would become a disaster for us someday.
The bud of that disaster must be cut off. That was what everyone thought.
Therefore.
At least in this moment, they considered themselves heroes from a fairy tale.
To others, it might look like nothing more than a dungeon raid.
But perhaps this was a journey to save the world.
"Let's go."
Count Wolfhaufen's order was given.
The determined expedition team entered the dungeon with energetic strides.
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The 7th Raid.
Day 1 of the dungeon raid.
In front of the entrance elevator.
Count Wolfhaufen first used communication magic to connect the exploration team and the recording team.
Communication magic was a two-way connection, and a caster could normally connect to only one other person,
but multiple connections were possible by having another magic user connect to someone who was already using communication magic.
Of course, this didn't allow three people to carry on a conversation together,
but it worked like the time Dragred exchanged communications with the soldier and Reilo.
Detection magic and communication magic were comparatively easy to learn.
Most of the knights could use them, so every single one connected to the recording team.
"The communication is connected. Do you all remember what we discussed before going in?"
"Yes. We remember."
"Those with poor memory should check the strategy guide regularly. And you must describe everything you encounter and experience in as much detail as possible."
Count Wolfhaufen explained the points the exploration team needed to be wary of immediately.
「Using the elevator does not transfer everyone to the same area.」
「Area 2, Area 3, and Area 4 are highly likely to be environments where escape scrolls cannot be used.」
That was according to what Dragred had discovered.
Of course, the information had been falsified, since the handwriting was different.
As you could see, Area 2 also had a gimmick related to confiscating belongings,
so there was no harm in being cautious.
Besides, there was a 50% chance it was correct.
"I have the spare escape scrolls with me. So just focus on not dying."
The exploration team nodded.
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-We have arrived at the Academy.
The first person was transferred to Area 2.
"The password is 932."
"Understood."
They entered the elevator one by one.
After four people had entered, it was Dragred's turn.
"……."
I'm nervous.
Everyone was probably thinking the same thing.
He knew the precedent set by the intruders.
Every intruder who set foot in this place had a high chance of dying.
"Phew……."
Even so, Dragred moved forward.
Because the unknown was waiting for him.
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Dreamland Area 3.
Ghost Mansion.
Dragred blinked.
A wind blew.
"This is……."
Sunlight streamed through the clouds.
The mansion before his eyes looked larger than any mansion that existed in this world.
Creak- creak-
The old iron gate welcomed Dragred.
It began to open slowly, making a strange sound.