The game 'Dimension Contender' is rated as quite trite where the story is concerned.
Its lore for characters and NPCs is correspondingly crude.
But if you asked whether there was no lore at all, that isn't the case either.
Hidden Easter eggs existed in the game, and digging them up yielded bits of lore about certain figures or about the world.
"Zigwell was one of those too."
Perhaps because of the unusual detail that he kept his reason even after being eroded by the Void.
In the game, defeating him within a certain time limit let you obtain an item called 'Zigwell's Diary.'
But for all the trouble it took, the contents were nothing special.
"A tragic character betrayed by his lord for being too capable, of all things."
Fitting for a trite game, his character story was quite obvious, so at the time I just shrugged and moved on.
'Back then I thought he'd have nothing at all to do with me…….'
Now the story was different.
Because the Zigwell written of in that diary was living here and now.
Just as the diary said he went into seclusion after being betrayed, Zigwell had left his homeland and was staying in Enoch's dungeon as a vagrant.
Which is why I'd been more than a little surprised the first time I saw him…….
'Who cares. He's a man destined to be a corps commander of the Demon Realm Army, no less.'
Having held a key post in another dungeon, he was also the only man who could fill in the Demon Realm common sense I lacked.
So I'd better move quickly.
***
"……Cough!"
Inside the fortress, in the basement of some old house.
A man hung in chains against a cold, moss-caked wall, blood streaming down him.
Around that man, five others looked down at him with cold eyes.
The leader standing at their center, Zigwell, dropped to one knee and seized the chained man's head.
"Lately I find myself thinking that life in this world is awfully dry. Do you know why I feel that way?"
"……."
"It is because people cannot trust people. There is always one of your sort somewhere, the kind who tells lies the way other men eat their meals. Unfortunately for you, that thing called a 'lie' does not work on me."
"Guh."
"The same goes for the 'lies' you tell. A real shame. Had you lived without knowing, you would not have ended up like this. Since you could not, I dragged you all the way here."
"B-Boss……."
"Oh. You still call me Boss."
"S-Spare me……."
"Let me apologize in advance. I cannot lie. So I cannot put you at ease either. You die here today. Not by my hand, but by theirs."
Just as Zigwell said, not a shred of tolerance could be felt from the men surrounding him.
Naturally so.
Because that man was a traitor.
"Kidnapping fellow vagrants and selling them off to another faction…… that is a matter that cannot possibly be allowed."
"P-Please!"
"Tell me. Why did you do it? Why kidnap fellow vagrants and sell them?"
"They took my f-family……."
The claim that his family had been taken hostage.
If it were true, the traitor's actions would be understandable.
Understanding was one thing, of course; allowing it was another.
But Zigwell could tell.
That even those words were a lie.
"Good grief. Did you think mixing truth into a lie would work?"
His unique trait, 'Insight,' was the ability to pierce through to the truth in another's words, actions, and bearing.
His family was kidnapped?
Not a false statement.
His family really was being held by the kidnappers.
But they had not been taken from the beginning.
"You reached out your hand first. You caught unaffiliated vagrants and sold them, and later, when they began eyeing our faction as well, you grew frightened and said you would stop, did you not? And in the end your family was taken."
"A-Ah……."
At that, the man's face darkened visibly.
Because there wasn't a single error in those words.
Only then did he realize there was no hole left through which to survive.
Having seen that much, Zigwell smiled.
"The life you have left. You may as well go feeling less pain. Spill everything you know. Then even these men, who once thought of you as family, will grant you mercy. Won't you?"
At Zigwell's question, his subordinates nodded.
"Fortunately, that is not a lie. I guarantee it. Be at ease."
Of course, it did not mean they would let him live.
"Take him away."
A final notice handed down like a word from a reaper.
The man's sobbing grew fainter and fainter.
"Hah. How did I ever end up as their boss?"
Watching his subordinates disappear into the basement, he let out a deep sigh.
"It seems I have stayed here too long."
That wasn't empty talk.
Perhaps because he'd stayed here too long, problems were cropping up one after another.
At first there had been few vagrants besides himself, but at some point the numbers grew, and in the end a whole faction had formed.
'I only wanted to spend a quiet retirement.'
This is exactly why problems come along once people start gathering.
Realizing that fact anew, Zigwell let it out like a complaint.
"I hear there are many eccentrics who go into the mountains to live alone. Should I look into that myself?"
"It isn't quite that simple. Mountains have owners of their own. The wild has its own laws."
"Even so, it would surely be better than here……."
Answering someone's reply, Zigwell's eyes went wide.
"Ah……."
"First time seeing you like this, isn't it? Good to meet you."
Fine clothing you couldn't find among vagrants if you washed out your eyes and searched.
A boy whose hair, though tied up, still hung down long and loose, with striking pale violet eyes showing through it, was looking at him with a grin.
The boy, plainly out of place here by anyone's reckoning, stood boldly all the same and opened his mouth.
"I'd been thinking I ought to drop by sometime. I didn't expect the timing to line up like this."
Words that felt like a light pleasantry.
But Zigwell's trait, 'Insight,' was telling him that everything the boy said at this moment was true.
"You knew of me?"
"Yeah. For quite a while now."
"……."
This too was truth.
And just then, someone came up from the basement.
"Boss. The work downstairs is finished……."
The subordinate who had come up to report caught sight of the boy and froze like ice.
"Hm. So this is what it looks like when illegal immigrants get caught by the police?"
The boy bloomed a mischievous smile.
***
Illegal immigrants.
There's probably no better comparison for vagrants who sneak in and live without asking the dungeon master's permission.
In fact, Zigwell's subordinates froze like ice the moment they saw me.
Zigwell, on the other hand, recovered a little faster.
"Ah, it seems we are hosting an honored guest in a shabby place."
"Who cares. Walls and a roof are enough."
In fact, before the regression I'd often eaten and slept in ruined houses like this during the war.
At that, Zigwell wore a subtle expression and tilted his head.
The kind of face that said, 'A noble like you understands a place like this? And why is that actually true?'
"Don't worry too much. I didn't come all the way here to drive you out."
"That is…… not a lie."
"Right. I came to recruit you."
"……."
Zigwell's expression darkened somewhat.
Just as the diary I'd read in the past had said, the current him wanted no entanglement with the world.
And he didn't hide it.
"I came here with retirement in mind…… and I intended to leave this dungeon soon."
"Still, you're not leaving immediately. Right?"
"Yes, that is so."
"Then in the time you have left, may I try to persuade you?"
"Why should you not? You are the dungeon's young master, after all."
Not that it would work on him.
His face carried that curious sort of confidence.
But that didn't last long either.
He seemed to conclude that once he left, the vagrants who remained would obviously suffer for it, as an outlet for the resentment.
This too matched what I'd read in the diary.
He worried about his own people right up until the moment he left this place.
So I spoke as though scratching the itch for him.
"I have no intention of taking it out on the ones here just because you leave."
"……!"
"Of course, that's assuming you leave at all. Which won't happen."
"That is fine confidence to see."
"I'd say so."
It was a bit underhanded of me, but I knew what he would go through in the future.
Only, 'that matter' wasn't something I could solve by moving first.
It could only be handled once Zigwell moved and I learned where the incident took place.
So I said only that much and left.
All that remained was to wait for Zigwell to move.
[Sudden Quest: Rescue the kidnapped vagrants!]
[Rescued: 0/27]
[Time remaining: 31 hours 21 minutes]
***
After the brief meeting with the dungeon's young master ended.
Zigwell, who had taken a shallow sleep before acting, set off in the late predawn hours.
"Are you truly certain we need not go with you?"
"You would only be a hindrance. You cannot handle a single Void parasite properly, so what help do you imagine you would be?"
"……My apologies."
He finished the short exchange with his subordinates and headed for the mount he had prepared.
He climbed onto the back of 'Chiurita,' an aged, retired riding-type demonic beast.
"Hah. You and I both. I do not know what hardship this is, after retirement."
The destination was a cave not far from here.
Around it he could see guards nodding off where they stood.
This was the base of the 'Warmark Family,' which had been kidnapping vagrants of late.
The group was made up entirely of criminals, all of them able to put up at least minimal resistance to Void parasites.
Which was surely why they had made their home in a place like this.
Fitting for bastards who live by committing crimes, they hid away like cockroaches.
Zigwell activated an artifact from inside his coat.
Shhhhh…….
It was a concealment-type artifact that had helped him greatly in his life as a vagrant.
'Then let us go.'
SHUNK—
Killing his presence, he quietly finished off the dozing guards with a dagger.
Though his own physical ability was among the poorest, he had already grasped the guards' traits.
He entered the cave without difficulty.
Avoiding the presences he sensed here and there, he finally reached the far end of the cave.
There, a pitch-black portal floated in midair.
'They are out of their minds. Making the Void their home.'
It was what they call an 'Outer-Dimensional Passage.'
A passage one has to go through partway when traveling to another dungeon.
Naturally, it is far from safe.
Because the dimension that forms this passage is a fragment of what is commonly called a 'ruined dungeon.'
A space of terror where no one knows what monsters might be swarming.
So even vagrants used it only as a last resort.
'Warmark. It seems this bastard is receiving support from somewhere else.'
Bastards who struggle with a single Void parasite would never have volunteered to build a faction here.
They had certainly received support of some kind.
'Then again, that much is none of my concern.'
He needed only to quietly dispose of Warmark and leave.
He intended to bring down this Outer-Dimensional Passage along with it.
Just then, a commotion came from behind.
They must have found the fallen guards.
'This is trouble.'
Before any further nuisance could arise, Zigwell leapt into the portal.
And the dimension of the Void unfolded.
"Hm……."
The word Void tends to bring a black cosmos to mind, but the scene Zigwell saw beyond the portal was nothing but an ordinary underground passage.
So Zigwell walked forward without hesitation.
The map he had obtained by interrogating the traitor was already drawn in his head.
'Pull out only those to be pulled out, then bring the passage down.'
He already had a method in mind.
That was why he had deliberately left every subordinate behind and moved alone.
Once it was all finished, he intended to depart at his leisure.
"Hm……."
Then, all at once, the face of the boy who had come by during the day rose in his mind.
He had never divulged anything about himself to anyone.
Yet the boy had known him by some means and come looking for him.
That alone was unsettling, and the attitude the boy showed was extraordinary as well.
Vagrants are looked upon kindly nowhere in the Demon Realm.
Yet not the slightest trace of such an attitude could be found in that boy.
Only a confident smile.
Somehow that smile had looked a little precarious, but that too hardly mattered.
'Persuade me, was it. It seems there will not be time for that either.'
Zigwell knew.
That this world does not look kindly upon truth.
And so his own 'Insight' was as good as poison.
Because everyone wants to turn their head away from the truth to some degree.
"Let us finish quickly and be gone."
So there would be no one who needed him.
He might be useful for a short while, but given enough time, that boy too would want to turn his head from the truth.
And then he would simply be betrayed again.
Zigwell stopped his thoughts there, and just as he was about to move on.
"Wow. So this is the Outer-Dimensional Passage?"