Chapter 31
"Yes! I'm awake! Very clearly awake!"
"Is that so? Then introduce yourself."
"I-I'm Ned, and my explorer rank is Regular... my position is vanguard, my age is..."
"That's enough."
If I left him alone, he'd probably end up giving me his three sizes if I let him continue.
I understand he wanted to live, but if that was the case, he shouldn't have attacked in the first place.
"Among the newbies you've attacked, was there a half-elf?"
"Huh? Uh, no, there wasn't!"
"Really? It won't be fun if you're lying."
"I-It's really true! There wasn't!"
It seems to be true.
Come to think of it, with Leaf's skills, would she be easily caught by guys like these?
And while this newbie-hunting quartet were all Regular rank, the minimum requirement for an instructor was Senior.
They seemed to have noticed Mea was a Devil Sorcerer and thought they could win, but even with a surprise attack, a Senior wouldn't go down easily.
"Alright. I got it. Then..."
"Wait a moment."
At Mea's words, as she approached my side, I momentarily took my mind off the trigger of the magic bullet I was preparing.
Mea crouched down and met the swordsman's eyes.
"I thought it was strange. You guys don't seem like simple newbie hunters."
"Huh...?"
"Your supplies are too good for mere newbie hunters."
Munch, munch.
Mea took a spoonful of the soup I made.
“This quality isn’t something newbie hunters would have. You guys were planning an expedition, weren't you?"
As expected of a veteran.
Ned's eyes shook violently at Mea's questioning.
It was a secret he was trying to keep even in the face of death.
Though they had fallen to the level of hunting newbies, a corner of their hearts still held the mindset of explorers longing for mystery and the unknown.
"Speak."
"...If I do, will you spare me?"
"Who knows."
It seemed Mea had no intention of letting them live.
A life for a life, I guess.
The fate of those who failed to follow the unwritten rules of the Abyss and showed clumsy compassion was mostly not good.
The unwritten rules were rules engraved in blood.
"Instead, I'll release your soul."
"...Huh."
It was a deal condition only possible for a Devil Sorcerer.
In fact, even among Devil Sorcerers, those who could freely handle the souls of others were extremely rare, but what would they know?
Devil Sorcerer was a class with all sorts of rumors attached to it due to their small numbers.
When a Devil Sorcerer who could overwhelm even divine magic said this, even if they thought it wasn’t true in their heads, fear would inevitably take root in their hearts.
The guy was deeply buried in the conflict between accepting the condition and hoping that the uncertain fear would miss the mark.
"If I hear it and find it trustworthy, I won't kill you."
"...Really?"
"I'll hand you over to the Public Security Force. If you're lucky, they might spare your life."
Although it was almost certain to be a death sentence, if they earnestly appealed that it was just an attempt, it might end with them becoming slaves.
Deliberately ignoring Mea's gaze directed at me from the side, I looked down only at Ned.
In this kind of good cop, bad cop strategy, Ned finally chose to listen to the good cop.
"...Recently. By chance, we obtained a piece of information. That there's an unexplored ruin."
Magic scholars speculate that the structure of the Abyss was an inverted cone shape.
In other words, the first layer of the Abyss was the widest, and it narrowed as one went down.
Although more than a hundred years had passed since the Abyss appeared, there were still many unexplored lands in the Abyss.
The same goes for the first floor.
Until now, explorers have been adventuring not just on verified routes but for new discoveries, yet the map of the first layer was still incomplete.
So, the claim that there was an unexplored ruin wasn't without credibility.
Ned spilled out how they obtained this information and where the estimated location was.
However, it wasn't particularly impressive information.
The information full of holes only estimated a general area without specifying an exact location. We couldn't even predict what kind of ruin it was or what monsters might be there.
But its existence seemed certain.
Ned said confidently, "Soon, others will obtain this information too. We can go to the base and tell you where we got the information from."
Separating Ned, I checked the statements with the other three guys, but they all said the same thing.
It doesn't seem to be nonsense that Ned made up in advance...
"What do you want to do?" Mea asked somewhat gruffly.
She probably still didn't like the fact that I stopped her from executing them on the spot.
Her question was missing a few elements of a sentence, but its meaning was sufficiently conveyed.
"Is it okay for me to decide?"
"Usually, the instructor decides, but this case is special."
An unexplored ruin.
A long-cherished project that explorers couldn't give up even if they were about to die.
"I think it's worth checking out."
Mea nodded readily.
Although it was training, it was still the first floor.
With Mea, a Senior-rank explorer, accompanying me, I should be able to overcome most crises.
"But the base comes first. If anything seems even slightly suspicious, we'll forget about it."
"Understood."
My first night in the Abyss was spent with four uninvited guests.
§
Leaving the cleanup after the meal to the (former) newbie hunters, (current) defeated hostages, (future) corpses, or slaves, Mea and I discussed how to spend the night.
In fact, it was closer to a briefing from Mea than a discussion.
"I'll take the night watch. You get some sleep."
"By yourself? No matter what, that's a bit..."
I'm the one who created this situation.
Mea had wanted to dispose of the four and leave immediately.
It was me who insisted on interrogating them and taking them to the base.
So it should be my role to watch them, not Mea's.
"I'll take the night watch, so Mea should sleep."
Honestly, even if all four of them rebelled simultaneously, it would be an easy win for me now.
It was over from the moment Leraje’s mana had infiltrated them.
The theurge was a bit tricky, but I could use Blink if needed.
"...No, you sleep."
"I'm really fine. I can't let you take the night watch too."
"I don't sleep originally. So don't worry and just sleep. When you first come to the Abyss, many people have trouble managing fatigue due to the different air from the outside."
"I'm quite robust physically."
At this rate, we'd keep playing tug of war with, "You sleep," and then, "No, you sleep."
"How about we each take half?"
"Alright. But I'll take the first watch."
"As you wish."
Mea set the night watch time and personally casted an alarm magic.
It was Warning Sound, one of the five basic magics.
Its structure allowed it to make a loud noise when certain conditions were met.
Mea seemed satisfied only after setting alarms on the cage the four hostages had made for themselves, then returned to her spot with a "Hmm" sound.
Then she created light with Light Emission magic in the temporary shelter, took out a notebook, and started writing something diligently.
"Are you writing an exploration record?"
"...Something like that."
"Can I take a look?"
"It won't be interesting."
"It's all learning, isn't it?"
I looked over Mea's shoulder at the notebook she was writing in.
Because Mea was so small, I didn't even need to crane my neck; just sitting behind her was enough to see the notebook clearly.
The contents of the notebook were simple, as Mea had said.
When, where, who, what, how, and why she did things.
The record, extracted only the five Ws and one H, started from the moment she met me today.
"It's very thorough. Do all exploration records usually write like this?"
"At the training center..."
"When we learned there, it wasn't to this extent. I'm asking because theory and practice are often different."
"...I don't know either. I don't remember seeing anyone else's."
Mea wrote with neat handwriting that somehow felt like a formal script.
After finishing all the records, Mea closed the notebook with a thud and slightly raised her head to look up at me.
"I'm done. Go to sleep now."
"Please wake me up on time."
Well, I've prepared my own alarm magic, so I'll wake up on my own anyway.
§
"...You didn't wake me up."
"I did. Once."
"You even removed the alarm magic."
"...I don't know anything about that."
I wasn’t sure if I should call this stubbornness or a strong sense of duty.
In the end, Mea took the night watch alone.
She even dismantled the alarm magic I had set up to prevent me from waking up.
"I appreciate it. But please don't do this next time. Do you know how surprised I was when I woke up and saw the alarm magic had been dismantled?"
"...I told you, I don't know anything about it."
"Anyway, next time, I'll take the first night watch."
Mea didn't answer and just quickened her pace.
Tete-tete-tete
It was as if she were running away.
How long have we walked for?
We had set out in the morning, and it was now sometime between lunch and dinner.
We faced a village.
The center of exploration for the first floor of the Abyss.
The only base camp directly managed by Res Limen.
The Main Base.
It was truly another city in itself.
A size that might be half of Res Limen.
However, even if it was only half the size of the massive city that was Res Limen, it was by no means small.
Facing the Main Base with proper city walls built, Mea spoke to the newbie-hunting quartet tied up like dried fish, "When we enter the base, we'll go straight to the Public Security Force. Before that, the source of the information."
"...There's an information broker called Valen. He's known as the Hand Shadow."
"Valen the Hand Shadow. I'll remember that."
Or you'll die.
If you're already dead, I'll take your soul, and if you've become a slave, I'll take your life.
I wasn't the only one who heard Mea's words that way.
We entered the Main Base as we were and headed straight for the Public Security Force.
§
Main Base.
Public Security Force.
There was a particularly noisy place there.
"No! That's what I'm saying! We were ambushed, okay? Captain, you know me, right? It's Ned, Ned. Huh? When have we ever committed a crime, even if we've caught newbie brats and turned them in? You know we've never even skimped on taxes from selling magic stones, right?"
"That's right! We were attacked while sleeping, I tell you! And then to be falsely accused of being newbie hunters..."
"Look here, look at this! This is from the poison of an evil Devil."
"They're the kind of guys who would sell their souls to Devils. How could you believe such people?"
The sound was coming from right in front of us.
The four newbie hunters were pouring out their grievances to a captain they seemed to know.
Haa, these bastards seem to have forgotten my temper.
Is this how you repay the grace of sparing your lives?
[This is truly unforgivable, no matter how much I try to overlook it.]
[Kill them.]
Yes, yes, my Devilish Ladies.
I'm not the kind of pact-bearer who would try to stop you when you say, "Should I kill them?"
I need to pay them back properly.
So, how should I crush these guys?
Should I effortlessly refute their claims with logic and add the crime of deception?
2 vs 4.
The group of 4 included a theurge, who had an advantage against Devil Sorcerers.
Moreover, I was a temporary explorer who couldn't even be called an apprentice.
Of course, it was more reasonable that these guys were trying to hunt newbies and got caught instead.
The problem is that these guys seem to be somewhat familiar with the Public Security Force captain.
Should I pretend to let them go here and then kidnap them separately to teach them a lesson?
I could pretend to reach an agreement and then catch and punish them later.
How could they possibly stop me if I use Blink?
In my head, a hundred and eight ways to crush these guys were being reviewed under the Devils' consultation, forming into a single plan.
However, that plan never got to be used.
Because an even faster and more certain method walked in on its own two feet.
"Roman? What brings you here?"
A fresh voice filled with unmistakable joy that anyone could recognize.
If there was someone among the people who would be this glad to see me that I might meet at the Public Security Force, there was only one person.
"Ah, Teacher Fiona."
Welcome the Grand Duchess.