Chapter 47

I was dreaming.

In the boundary between sleep and wakefulness, a mind worn down to its absolute limit fell of its own accord into a world where delusions and dreams entwined.

I was walking through the dungeon. Alone.

There were no monsters. I was simply walking through a dim, oppressive dungeon, on and on.

I felt no fear. I was only tired.

I dragged my feet, forcing them to move, pushing forward purely by force of will.

I wasn’t descending; I was returning. Whenever I found a staircase, I climbed. Yes, I was trying to reach the surface.

And yet, the higher I went, the more the exhaustion intensified. My legs grew heavier. The dungeon became longer and more complex.

It was as if the dungeon itself was asserting that I could never, ever return to the surface.

Terror began to seep in. The closer I got to the top, the more frightened I became. I started to feel the flickering shadows of monsters nearby.

Ah, I couldn’t go back.

Finally, I fell into despair.

I screamed. A cry of pure hopelessness.

“Ngh!”

I bolted upright at the sound of my own shout.

This was bad. I couldn’t believe I let myself doze off in a situation like this.

But something was strange.

In the dream, I was the one screaming, but the cry that had actually jolted me awake… I didn’t think it was mine.

Everyone else had stood up, looking at one another with tense, strained expressions.

“From below?” Jin muttered.

“Hey, Eni’s gone,” Henya said, his eyes scanning the area like a predator’s. He already had his sword halfway out of its sheath.

“Hmph. Did anyone see her?” Watch asked, but no one answered.

“Don’t tell me… Eni was the one?” Shirona frowned, but I shook my head.

“No, that sounded like a man’s scream.”

The fact that my head was still a bit foggy from sleep actually worked in my favor, allowing me to stay objective.

“Everyone, huddle up,” Jin ordered, gathering everyone at the center of the camp. He looked haggard. “Alright, we’ve got two choices.”

He scanned our faces. “We leave Kijiitsu and Eni to their fates, ignore that scream, and focus entirely on getting to the surface. Or, we go find out who screamed. Which is it?”

“Obviously, our first priority should be our own survival,” Henya said, sheathing his sword.

“I agree,” Watch nodded.

“I object,” Shirona interjected.

“Reasoning?” Jin turned to her.

“Simple. There are Poison Lizards on the floors above. My support is indispensable. But as things stand now, I doubt any of you trust me.”

We all exchanged awkward glances at her words.

“Of course, I don’t think you’d refuse an antidote if you were dying, but even a moment’s hesitation can be fatal. In this state, it’s impossible for this party to make it back to the surface without taking a single hit.”

“Ngh…”

Unable to argue the point, Henya grunted. “Damn it. If only we had a Return Stone. We should have repaired that broken one at the entrance before we ever dove into this place.”

“Don’t talk nonsense. Repairing a Holy Relic is impossible,” Watch rebuked him calmly. “With our current level of technology—knowing nothing of the mechanics of ‘Return’—we couldn’t even tell the difference between a broken Return Stone and a shattered crystal ball.”

Watch paused before addressing Shirona. “But Shirona, investigating that scream is dangerous, and there’s no guarantee it will restore any sense of trust.”

Shirona merely nodded in silence. She understood that, yet she believed we had to check anyway.

“Van, what do you think?”

Jin threw the question to me now that my head had finally cleared.

For my part, as my brain began to function, I was finally processing the fact that Eni was missing, and I felt a surge of agitation.

“I… I don’t know.”

I forced my trembling voice into submission. “I think… well…”

But my thoughts wouldn’t settle. Why did Eni disappear? Even if we were all resting, for her to vanish without being noticed meant she wasn’t taken—she must have left on her own. If there had been any kind of struggle, we would have noticed.

All the things I had been thinking about before resting. Which “materials” should I examine? The imagery from my dream. Everything swirled together in a confused mess.

“Ah… uh…”

Without being able to organize my thoughts, I started rambling almost incoherently—voicing my feelings, my questions, and the details of the dream I had just seen.

It was then that I finally realized I was actually quite shocked by Eni’s disappearance. It seemed I was more vulnerable to emotional distress than I had imagined.

The culprit was stifling a laugh.

Just a moment ago, their heart had been frayed by unexpected events, but this amusing spectacle was a healing balm.

Van, the detective—one of the Seven Detectives, no less—was babbling like he was caught in a fever, pouring out a messy mixture of delusions, wishes, and raw emotion.

But it couldn’t be helped, could it? He was a dungeon novice, after all. Even veteran adventurers were having their spirits worn down in this situation; there was no way he could maintain his composure.

Everyone looked exasperated as Van continued his nonsense, and Jin finally started to scold him into silence.

Van eventually stopped, looking exhausted, and Shirona reached out to hand him something. A small white paper packet. Medicine.

A sedative, perhaps? She might have been genuinely worried about him losing his mind.

But Van made a strange face as he opened it. He thanked Shirona with a smile, but he didn’t take the medicine. Instead, the moment she looked away, he rolled it back up and stuffed it into his pocket.

The culprit almost burst out laughing again.

He didn’t trust her at all—not even Shirona. There was no way he would be willing to head to the upper floors where the Poison Lizards waited now.

And everyone besides Shirona saw that sequence of actions. They saw Van’s behavior, which made it glaringly obvious that he did not trust Shirona—that he did not trust his own allies.

Everything was falling into place exactly as the culprit intended.

Even without the culprit doing everything themselves, in a dungeon of this difficulty, an extreme state of mutual distrust would eventually lead to mutual destruction.

That was the culprit’s prediction.

In fact, the cracks had formed, and the party was already disintegrating.

Just a little longer.

If this extreme state continued while they were unable to return to the surface for fear of the poison, something decisive would surely happen. And if it didn’t happen on its own, they would simply lend a hand.

It would only take a nudge. With the bare minimum of interference, the situation would explode. The fuse was already lit, after all. There was no great risk involved.

Yes, it was almost time.

Besides, it wouldn’t particularly matter if one or two people managed to flee back to the surface. The goal wasn’t necessarily the total annihilation of the party.

Indeed, for the culprit, the objective had already been achieved—and was continuing to be achieved even now.

Just once, the culprit allowed a smile to cross their face where no one could see it, and then began refining the next plan.

Well, it seemed the entire party was heading to the location of the scream after all.

The culprit looked forward to seeing their reactions when they laid eyes upon that.

The entire group would search the eighth floor.

That was the conclusion they reached. Since the scream had been audible, it was unlikely the source was far from the camp. Above all, the party no longer had the strength to go deeper into the dungeon. Their mental fortitude, their consumables, and their mutual trust were all spent.

“If we search the eighth floor and find nothing, we’re pulling back to camp immediately. Agreed?” Jin emphasized.

“You’re not suggesting we head further up from the camp, then?” Henya laughed with biting irony. Neither Jin nor anyone else offered a reply.

And so, the group descended together, and—

“Ngh!”

They found it almost immediately.

The sight was so far removed from reality that even Jin, a man who should have been a veteran of a hundred battles, caught his breath.

He was there, right at the bottom of the stairs leading to the eighth floor.

Kijiitsu.

“What the hell is this…?” Henya, standing beside me, muttered in a daze. Everyone surely felt the same.

He was staring into space, eyes wide and still brimming with malice. His mouth was open so wide I could almost still hear the scream.

With a terrifying expression, Kijiitsu had breathed his last while sitting propped up against the wall.

The fact that the infamous Kijiitsu was dead was a shock, but to be honest, I had been braced for it on some level ever since I heard the scream.

However, I had never imagined a death like this.

Kijiitsu was gripping a large knife with both hands. That wasn’t the strange part; there was nothing surprising about him carrying a knife for self-defense.

But he was gripping the blade of the knife. Bleeding from both hands, Kijiitsu was clutching the blade while thrusting the hilt outward.

It made no sense.

And that wasn’t all.

Kijiitsu’s body had been pierced all over by blades, and blood was seeping from the wounds. That was fine; that was likely the cause of death.

The problem was the direction of the countless blades piercing through his body—and the feather ornament he wore.

They didn’t go from the outside in. It was the opposite. From the inside out.

In other words, no matter how you looked at it, it appeared as though numerous blades had erupted from within Kijiitsu’s own body.

And to top it off, something familiar lay rolling on the ground next to Kijiitsu’s corpse.

“Well, that confirms this guy’s death, at least,” Watch whispered. His face was pale, yet he remained characteristically calm.

Lying right next to Kijiitsu’s corpse was Hunt’s severed head.

Though her already white face turned a ghostly pale, it took Shirona about thirty minutes to examine Kijiitsu’s body and Hunt’s head.

“One mystery is solved,” Shirona said, brushing back her hair.

“Solved?” Henya asked suspiciously.

“About the blades protruding from his body.”

“You figured out what that was about?” I asked, leaning in with surprise. Shirona looked at me with cold eyes and looked down, hiding her face inside her hood.

“I’ve never seen anything like this. The blades weren’t the fatal blow. There was a wound on his neck where he was slashed with a sharp blade. The blades sticking out of his body weren’t from an attack—they were a counterattack.”

“A counterattack?” The voices of everyone except Shirona overlapped.

“It’s hard to believe, but Kijiitsu’s entire body had been modified. He had countless concealed weapons inside his frame. Those blades were his own weapons. He likely used them as a countermeasure after being attacked.”

Everyone was left speechless by that surreal explanation.

“Y-you aren’t joking, are you?” Jin asked tentatively.

“I’ve never seen anything like this either. I never imagined someone would actually exist who had weapons and gadgets implanted throughout their entire body. Honestly, I can’t believe it even seeing it with my own eyes.”

“And the knife he was holding by the blade?” Watch asked next.

“Who knows. That might have just been a weapon Kijiitsu normally carried.”

“Why was he holding the blade?” Watch pressed.

“I haven’t a clue… no, wait.”

Shirona suddenly looked up as if something had struck her, meeting everyone’s eyes.

In that moment, a subtle, heavy atmosphere drifted through the party.

I stood there blankly, not understanding the meaning behind that shift in the air. What? What’s happening?

“Calm down. Let’s set that aside for now,” Jin said, trying to regain control. The tension in the air eased slightly.

“And the head?”

“It’s Hunt’s head, just as it looks,” Shirona answered bluntly.

Well, yeah. It certainly looked that way. Even I could tell.

“Hmph. I see.” Jin stared at the ceiling with dry eyes, lost in thought.

“Anyway… shall we head back?”

Following his voice—which sounded utterly exhausted—we began to file back toward the camp.

This might be the end, I thought to myself.

The spirit had gone out of everyone. Not just Shirona with her sickly complexion, but Jin was worn out too. Henya and Watch looked like wraiths, their eyes glittering with a hostility toward each other they no longer bothered to hide.

We might not be able to endure this much longer. An explosion felt imminent—and it felt like something that could no longer be stopped.

The only thing I could do now was simulate how I would handle it when the breaking point finally came.

What was worst of all was that even in this state, we still had to walk while staying alert for an outside enemy, for the Shadow, and for the yet-unseen true culprit.

I felt like I could hear the sound of my own mind being whittled away.

I might just collapse and fall asleep the moment we reach the camp—I continued to walk while worrying about such things.