The duty proceeded for several days without any great problem.
The number of parasites that climbed as far as the fourth basement was small, and from the point two days ago when the five graduates went down, there were none coming up at all.
"Void parasites are a breed that adapts fluidly to its environment."
Late at night.
Imeln and I, on night watch, had disposed of a Void parasite that had come up for the first time in a while, and talked as we looked at its corpse.
"Taking this dungeon as an example?"
"The one right in front of us is the example. As you can see, several demonic beasts are mixed into it, are they not?"
"They are."
"That is because this is a corridor-shaped dungeon, closed in on all sides. A colony formed and their numbers grew, but there is not enough room to fight in, so they instinctively reduced their numbers."
"Only that happened over too short a span, so they ended up in an unstable form like this?"
"Exactly so."
"Hmm…… but they couldn't be unaware of that either."
The more they merge, the weaker they become instead.
Their becoming chimeras doesn't make one plus one equal two.
At best it comes to one-point-one, maybe one-point-two.
Rather than take that option, holding a numerical advantage would be the superior choice.
"I agree. Which is why it is a difficult question. What are they aiming at? That much I cannot know without going down myself."
But on the school's side, and among the students too.
There didn't seem to be much concern over the question.
Whether it was faith in the graduates or faith in the academy's own defenses, I couldn't tell.
"Speaking of having to go in yourself, it reminds me. On the first day those two said you had a real knack for searching. Was that needed for this operation as well?"
Over just a few days, enough of a bond had built up that I could call him "you" plainly, and at my question Imeln shook his head.
"It is a little different. It relates to my trait. I am more sensitive than others when it comes to searching out souls."
Most people can't even feel souls, but he was a Demon Realm native, so I let it pass.
"My ability is well suited to countering the encroachment phenomenon. As you know, in an encroachment the parasites grow by leaps and bounds and the space itself becomes their exclusive possession, does it not? My ability helps relieve the terrain disadvantage to a degree."
Encroachment means a given area being entirely swallowed by the Void.
If enough of the Void's energy had built up for a colony to form, an encroachment was certainly plausible.
Which is why the two of them had argued that Imeln should have gone down as well.
"In this dungeon's case, however, that will be impossible. This dungeon itself is as good as the thirty-second Demon King's body."
So there had never been any reason for him to go along, Imeln concluded, closing the subject.
"In any case, judging by this parasite coming up, it will likely be over within tomorrow. The remnants must have fled this far."
And it was as he turned to report to a faculty member for cleanup.
"Hey, Imeln."
"Hm?"
"You just said encroachment can't happen in this dungeon, right?"
"I did. At least so long as the thirty-second Demon King stands sound."
"Then what…… is that?"
A presence incomparably stronger than anything until now came up from below the staircase.
And it was a magic power I had felt once before.
"W-wait……!"
Just as Imeln belatedly caught that presence and turned his head toward the stairs.
-K-kill……
"That thing" revealed itself from beyond the shadows.
Something filling the whole width of a staircase that three men could walk abreast, straining with everything it had to squeeze through.
Recognizing that the thing was a lump of flesh wasn't difficult.
Among the deformed, blended scraps of meat, only the eyes and mouth barely held their shape.
The arms and legs, already bent at grotesque angles, had come far too far to be called a human form.
-Kill, me……
And yet the parts that still held their original shape were unmistakably.
"Isn't that one of the graduates?"
It wore the shape of one of the graduates who had gone down with Helen to destroy the colony.
***
In truth, something had struck me as odd from the first moment I saw Helen.
Between the present I was standing in and the point in the future when I had been summoned, there was a gap of about a hundred years.
Yet the present Helen looked not one bit different from the Helen I had seen in the future.
As though she alone were untouched by time.
And.
Now that question seemed to be unraveling a little.
"So she was affected by the Void in some form?"
[Sudden Quest: Halt the Void encroachment of the thirty-second dungeon!]
[Time remaining: 17 hours 38 minutes]
[Quest Reward: KP 2,000]
And that moment was apparently now.
"Wh-why is this man in such a state……."
"Hey, Imeln."
"……?"
"Let's judge this coldly. The subjugation failed."
"……!"
One of the five graduates, the very core of this operation, had come back in that wretched condition.
Which meant the graduates everyone had trusted couldn't even stop a comrade in that state from climbing the stairs.
Helen too might have been eroded by the Void, just as I knew her in the future.
Imeln's alarm surely came from thinking the same thing.
"Right now it's time to focus on stopping that."
"……I will cooperate."
"No, I'll handle that one first."
"For what reason……?"
"Take a good look at it."
The lump of flesh had squeezed about halfway out of the stairwell.
Its body was plainly made of human skin, yet it sagged and rippled oddly.
And there was the acrid smell that had been stabbing at my nose.
It came from the sweat running off its body.
"That's acid. By the look of it, it's been merged with a slime."
"Good grief! How could such a……."
"Your defensive ability won't handle it."
"……I am convinced."
Even in the middle of the confusion Imeln accepted my judgment, and I let out a light sigh.
"Damn it. I thought an academy healing story was waiting for me, and it turns out to be a gore story."
The genre had shifted far too abruptly, but I raised magic power all the same.
Because it was nothing new for me.
"That's my lot in life, I suppose."
-Kill…… me…… please!
The monster, now fully out of the stairwell, let out a shriek like a ghost's wail.
"Well, that saves me the trouble of going to wake the others."
At the same time the sodden mass of flesh moved.
The skin held its shape, but the arm, soft and squelching like a slime's, stretched out and slammed down where I had been standing.
SSSSSSS—!
People tend to think of slimes as low-level monsters from an RPG.
In reality they are monsters whose entire bodies are lumps of acid.
And unless you destroy the core hidden inside that squelching fluid, they regenerate without end.
A slime is exactly the sort of demonic beast an ordinary soldier wouldn't dare face.
"However……."
There are plenty of ways to handle them.
By whatever means, destroy the core and it's done.
-K-kill me!!
I dodged the attacks that came one after another and drove inside.
The acid running off it like sweat protected its whole body, but I paid it no mind, thrust out my fist, and raised magic power.
THUMP—
The fist, carrying a rotation, touched its damp skin.
Not merely the motion; the magic power racing through my whole body shielded my skin from the acid and drove on into its body.
"That is……!"
Imeln's startled voice came from behind me.
Naturally.
It would be a very familiar technique to his eyes.
[Magic Arts (Grade D)]
Because it was a copy of Helen the Nether Wolf's colorless wave.
I couldn't use it as naturally as she breathed, but…….
-K-kill…… meee!
I could copy enough of it to kill the monster in front of me.
-Uuuaaagh……!
Its body shuddered along with the wave.
The wave churning through its insides had destroyed the core hidden beneath its skin.
Then the body that had been holding its elasticity melted fast and dropped to the floor with a wet slap.
-Gaaahhh……
The monster's last, dying sob.
And at that my head, of its own accord, dredged up a memory like a passing lantern.
-Please…… end it now.
"……Tch, it makes me remember some X-ing awful things."
I was pressing the memory down again when.
"Yujin, just now, that monster……."
"What, did it feel like it was saying thank you?"
"……It did."
"Don't go trying to give that meaning."
The face of the man who, only days ago, had stood on the platform looking over the graduating students with a confident expression was still vivid.
A young man with his future ahead of him, screaming to be killed.
And yet the way he'd burst with hostility toward us was unmistakably the shape of a monster whose soul had been annihilated.
So Imeln's reaction was natural enough.
"Then you think it was mere coincidence?"
"No."
I could feel pity for that graduate's death, and sympathy, but I wouldn't let myself sink into it.
Because in the moments when I, carrying responsibility on my shoulders, had let myself drown in sentiment, another disaster had always followed.
"Call it learning. These monsters had their fusions forced on them all at once, remember?"
"……They did."
"So maybe the last memory before death was left behind in them like a habit. That's my guess for now."
"You cannot mean……!"
"Yeah. This graduate was taken down by the parasites for some reason, and while he was being fused alive, someone ended it for him."
The dying cry that had sounded like a thank you probably came from that.
The situation would have been very close to the one just now.
"It's a shame for the dead man, but turned around, it also means there's still hope. It means someone had enough room left to give a dying comrade a clean end. That's grounds not to conclude they've been wiped out yet."
"……So that is how you see it."
"Did that sound too cold?"
"No…… I do not think so. As you say, the senior's death is painful, but it has become hope for those who remain."
Hope that his sister might still be alive.
That was what raised Imeln back up.
"I'm going down from here. What'll you do?"
At my question, Imeln tore a page from an old notebook in his coat and began carving letters into it.
"Fortunately, after that fight the students on the fourth floor will all be awake."
"They will."
"Leading everyone down is the poorer plan. We do not know what situation waits below, and we would only increase the casualties, perhaps causing the very disaster we just saw, of people fused with beasts. So it is right to go down with minimal numbers."
"Rather than reporting upstairs?"
At that Imeln gave a weak smile.
"My sister is down there. I am a person too, and I cannot help the urgency in my heart."
"You two are close."
"You did not look inclined to wait either."
"Right. Your judgment is correct, actually. A fusion on that scale isn't possible unless an encroachment has occurred. Which means something has gone wrong with the dungeon's master, one way or another."
"……!"
The situation had come on so suddenly that his thoughts hadn't reached that far.
"And if an encroachment really has happened, the damage will grow exponentially. The best option is to stop them before they reach the surface."
"May I come with you?"
"I'd be grateful if you would."
He'd said he was skilled at finding routes, so he'd be a help there.
Unfortunately, there wasn't room to bring Henry and Grendel along.
Protecting Imeln, who had to serve as the guide, was already a bit much for the current me.
They would be more useful joining another team and stopping the monsters climbing the other staircases.
"I have left a note. Both of them are clever; they will conduct themselves well."