Episode 18

A forested region located east of the provincial city of Westen. In those woods far from town, Luke and the others were there.

“Why is the Mage Corps regimental commander here?”

“Because… you heard it. Ugh, I shouldn’t have talked to you…”

Yorn was in plain clothes rather than a Mage Corps uniform. It was probably true he had been home on leave. He only carried his staff, the core tool of a mage.

“A regimental commander can be that half-assed? …Huh? What’s with you two—why’d you go quiet?”

“Skinny, can’t you feel it? This unnatural air…”

Nahal’s face had stiffened. Normally he kept a poker face, but now his expression was twisted. Without realizing it, strength went into the hand gripping his staff.

“Like hell I can’t feel it. Even an idiot can tell.”

Skinny broke into a cold sweat. It sounded like forced banter to distract himself.

“The mana’s thicker than last time…”

Luke stared into the forest with a serious look. The indescribable unease he had felt when they came here the other day was turning into certainty. —If he let his guard down, he would get killed.

“Okay, then here’s a question from me. Dungeons—places adventurers challenge for a shot at striking it rich. So what’s the concrete definition?”

“Hah? What are you suddenly talking about? …It’s like ruins some ancient folks built, right?”

“Hmm, thirty points! As expected, you dummy. You never disappoint.”

“Tch,” Skinny muttered. He’d hated the man for a while, but since the guy was helping them, he couldn’t brush him off outright.

“I understood them as places where old-era civilizations—impossible to reproduce with modern technology—still slept, and where there were weapons, magitech tools, and unknown materials you couldn’t get on the surface…”

“Oh, nice, Luke. Then the ‘ruins’ Skinny mentioned—meaning the dungeon. Do you know how they were made?”

“Only that they were made with old-era technology. There are many mechanisms and magical devices inside dungeons that haven’t been deciphered.”

Nahal answered while making a gesture of pushing up his glasses.

“Right. There’s still a lot we don’t know in detail. But dungeons can broadly be divided into two types. Did you know that?”

In an age long past, people had built dungeons.

They were said to have been made using ancient magic that modern technology could not reproduce.

Each dungeon had its own traits—some had environments completely different from the outside, some were strangely vast, and some had monsters that appeared only in dungeons, among many other variations.

“Two broad types…? Don’t tell me—!”

“Yep. Besides dungeons said to be built by people, there are also dungeons that form naturally.”

Ley lines were the paths through which mana flowed through the land. Those ley lines could be activated by some influence.

From activated ley lines, mana flowed at many times the normal volume and affected the surroundings. The extreme example of that was the birth of a dungeon.

“The Lagias Dungeon discovered a few years ago was concluded to be naturally formed too. …Well, it was so dangerous the investigation got called off.”

“I heard the Sage distinguished himself there. But what did that naturally formed dungeon have to do with this?”

“Let’s back up a bit. We know the monsters inside dungeons can be created by mechanisms, or they can move in from outside and settle. Sometimes they’re born at the same time the dungeon forms, too.”

Yorn tightened his grip on his staff. He wove refined mana and formed a magic circle at his feet.

“You judge the dungeon’s nature by comparing the ecosystem of the dungeon’s monsters to the monsters outside. Naturally formed dungeons have a completely different order of difficulty.”

“Say it so even an idiot can understand… what are you getting at?”

“The current situation closely resembles when a dungeon forms.”

Yorn murmured, “Gravity.” Then something thudded to the ground with a strained sound. An invisible mass was compressed by Yorn’s magic and burst apart.

“Ugh—what the hell is this…!? Something like monster blood just splattered!”

“Impossible… my detection spell should’ve been running…”

“I told you before, detection depends on the caster’s skill. Anyway, this too—and those sahagin you spotted as well. It’s reckless to decide just because there are monsters that shouldn’t live here, but this feeling is definitely a dungeon forming.”

Luke fired arrows of light in all directions. The unseen monster was pierced by Luke’s magic and died.

Yorn clapped as he looked at Luke, impressed.

“So your view is that a dungeon has formed?”

“…Not quite. I think this dungeon was made artificially. Someone is deliberately activating the ley lines.”

The three inhaled sharply at Yorn’s words. Luke’s face hardened, and Nahal and Skinny stared in shock.

“This area originally has low mana because of the ley line structure. And there aren’t many monsters that can use recognition interference at this level. I can feel someone’s will—malice.”

“But, Commander… for a person to intentionally cause a dungeon to form…”

“If people in the past could do it, it shouldn’t be impossible now. Well, interfering with ley lines isn’t just illegal—it’s a serious international crime.”

Mana formed the foundation of the world, and ley lines were its channels. Done wrong, it could break the world’s balance and lead to collapse.

“So, to sum it up… this anomaly was caused by a dungeon forming, and on top of that it’s an artificial dungeon created by someone. Whew, what a mess~”

“Quit with the ‘what a mess~’! Who the hell would pull something like this!?”

“I don’t know. Don’t ask me.”

With a flick of his staff, an invisible monster entered the domain Yorn had deployed and was crushed by gravity. It died, letting out a soundless scream.

“Either way, this is a dungeon that was forcibly created. If we leave it alone, a dungeon runaway—dungeon out—will happen.”

“Damn it! So we’ve got no choice!?”

Luke’s squad’s dungeon assault began.

Luke and the others advanced through a forest saturated with heavy mana. They pressed into the aberrant dungeon that had swallowed the forest itself as it formed.

“Luke! Which way next!?”

“One ahead! I’ll guide you!”

Following the trail of light Luke drew, Skinny charged in at full speed. Without flinching at an unseen enemy, he swung his sword and split the monster apart.

“Nahal, front—ten o’clock!”

“Got it—Felzen Hammer!”

With a hammer formed from rock, he smashed the point Luke indicated. With a thunderous roar, monster blood scattered.

Luke played the melody like a conductor, while Skinny and Nahal performed their roles as players.

A coordination that existed only because they trusted each other. The bond of three who had crossed countless death lines together was strong.

“Luke! Save your strength!”

“Yeah. We’ll shave off the small fry.”

Skinny and Nahal processed the monsters—sometimes alone, sometimes in tandem. When they first enlisted they hadn’t stood out, but as they carried out missions with Luke, they had built real skill.

“I’m surprised. Maybe this was actually the right personnel layout? Oops…”

Yorn backstepped to evade a monster’s attack, then fired a repulsion-laden sphere that blasted the monster deep into the forest.

“Squad leader, I’d like orders too, you know…”

“I can’t possibly do something that presumptuous.”

Luke denied Yorn’s request with a smile. He still seemed to have room for jokes.

“We’ve killed a lot—does it keep going?”

“Just killing them won’t do. We have to crush the dungeon core.”

What Nahal called the dungeon core varied by dungeon. If it meant reaching the deepest point, it could also mean killing a specific monster—a boss monster.

“If this dungeon was artificially made, then we have to stop whoever’s behind it…”

“That’s right. It probably won’t end just by killing the boss monster.”

They advanced toward the center of the dungeon, where mana was densest. They hunted monsters they couldn’t see, relying on detection and instinct. They hadn’t suffered major injuries yet, but fighting unseen enemies was extremely stressful. It was a dungeon that would be hard for a half-baked adventurer party to clear.

“Is not being able to see them some kind of rule of this dungeon?”

“In a sense, yes, but… at the very least, normal monsters don’t have power like this.”

Monsters that couldn’t be caught by detection. Their shape overlapped with the existence that had used high-level recognition interference to move in the shadows of the royal capital.

“Someone’s probably tampering with the monsters that appear.”

“What a nuisance. What’s the goal…?”

“That would be, of course…”

He muttered like talking to himself.

The one Yorn looked toward was a young knight who constantly maintained detection while weaving magic and commanding the whole unit. Luke—the youngest to become a knight, and promoted to squad leader in only two years. Some looked at him with admiration, while higher-ups found him irritating.

“To rigid old bigshots, after Lagias, he probably felt like another annoyance.”

To divert blame for the nation’s failures, and to counter Lagias’s achievements across the land, they had built up a young hero named Luke. For the national military, it had been a fine result—but now Luke had gained influence beyond that.

“Will he keep dancing like a puppet, or become the real thing? In his case, which will it be…?”

Brink and Strohk moved down a main avenue crowded with people. Walking in plain clothes instead of armor or knight uniforms was rare for them. As if going on a trip, they carried large bags in their hands.

“Everyone looked shocked. They probably never expected two regimental commanders to take leave at the same time.”

“…And your weird smile was part of the reason.”

Brink looked oddly cheerful, while Strohk kept his usual thin expression. The knight order knew the two had entered together and were close in both public and private.

“How many years has it been since a long leave? It’s not strange to smile, is it? Now then, from here…”

They continued talking while keeping awareness of their surroundings. For now they didn’t feel a tail or watchful eyes, but they couldn’t let their guard down. In this vast royal capital, they never knew where spies might be hiding.

“We can’t use the knight order’s carriage or supplies for personal business. First we leave the royal capital, then we secure horses.”

Everything they carried was personal property, and the supplies had been bought with their own money. With limited time, it was the bare minimum preparation.

“It’s a waste of time, but it can’t be helped. Strohk… you don’t have to come along.”

Brink asked Strohk with a grave expression.

They were leaving under the guise of a vacation, but in truth it was close to a dereliction of duty driven by personal feelings. If the truth came out, punishment was more than possible.

“A regimental commander going to save his son for personal reasons. If things go wrong, you could be fired. You should have a family too.”

Because he had a family as well, Brink’s true wish was not to drag him in.

“If the provincial city falls, the country and the royal capital will be harmed. In the end, we’ll have to move anyway.”

Strohk stated it evenly. His emotions were hard to read—always had been. Having trained as knights together for many years, Brink knew Strohk’s personality and ability inside and out.

“You’re as awkward as ever. —Thank you.”

“…Same to you.”

They murmured their next steps in low voices and arrived at the royal capital’s gate. From here, they would travel on foot to a nearby town. The long-distance run reminded them of training in their younger days.

“Hey. What are two men on the verge of old age doing together? Creepy.”

An insolent voice came from a carriage parked near the gate—one bearing no family crest. The windows were closed, and they couldn’t see inside.

“!? Why are you…?”

“Whatever. I have business in a certain provincial city. If you pay extra, I wouldn’t mind giving you a ride.”

“…Looks like there were other awkward ones too.”