"Princess!"
Hanging from the rope, I stretched out my hand to Schnellia.
The distance to the Apostle was only a few meters.
Schnellia had drawn out the time to the very last.
Grip. She caught my arm, and.
"Whoa."
My body lurched.
Heavier than I expected.
I had underestimated heavy armor.
"Hup!"
My field of vision flipped.
When I came to my senses I was already up on the sixth floor together with Schnellia.
Had she grabbed the rope in midair and thrown herself up along with me?
I had no idea how she had managed it.
"All personnel have withdrawn successfully."
Charlotte's low report struck my ear.
I gathered myself and looked around.
"Stragglers?"
"None."
"Whew."
I barely caught my breath.
I was helped up and got to my feet.
"Continue transporting the patient. To the encampment, quickly."
The knights moved busily.
The rumbling vibration beneath our feet still continued.
Somehow we had survived.
And so we left the darkness of the abyss behind us for a while.
"A cervical fracture patient."
When we arrived at the main body the medical corps came out to meet us.
The Physicians took her over swiftly and checked the patient.
Grand Physician Archibald clapped my shoulder.
"Thanks to the initial treatment we will be able to save her. Leave the rest to us. Was there anything of note?"
"There was an airway obstruction. I stopped the internal bleeding, but observation of the course is required."
"Mm. I will see to it. Treatment here will be difficult, so it would be better to transport her outside the dungeon."
"Agreed. I will escort her with one squad."
"Marcen, Kult!"
At Archibald's call, two men came running over.
"Transport her outside. She is Her Highness Schnellia's head lady's maid. Restore her without fail."
"Understood. Leave it to us."
Marcen glanced back at me. There was a sense of responsibility in the eyes that bowed to me.
He has become somewhat more like a doctor, at least.
After the patient had been sent off, Schnellia came to find me.
"Is the head lady's maid safe?"
"Judging further participation in the subjugation impossible, I entrusted her to the Physicians and sent her outside."
"A correct judgment. With injuries of that degree, recovery will take months."
Schnellia turned to me and asked quietly.
"......Will Ersin make a full recovery?"
Honestly it would be strange if no lasting damage remained.
But I had seen a knight's recuperative power with my own eyes.
And going by the way she fretted, even using her name, they must have been fairly close.
Here, for the sake of the supreme commander Schnellia's mental state, I decided to answer hopefully.
"Just leave it to me."
"Mm."
Schnellia nodded.
"Let us organize the situation. The vanguard has secured a route as far as the eighth floor."
Switching modes at once.
As expected, the composure and cool-headedness of an undefeated commander.
Was it Hammer who described her as an emotionless murder weapon?
"However, the Apostle Cave Centipede remains on the seventh floor. Estimated Catastrophe-class."
"Catastrophe-class...... not an enemy we can beat without harm. We would have to mobilize every Expert at minimum."
Archibald made an accurate judgment too, thanks perhaps to his extensive battlefield experience.
"I would like to entrust the main body's organization and tactical planning for subjugating the Apostle to you. What do you say, Commander Grimwald?"
The arrow came back around to me.
It could not be said to be exactly the same as the original work, but recalling my clearing experience.
"Currently there are forty-two Experts or above available for operation. Including Your Highness and Sir Charlotte on our side."
"Would you commit them all and fight a pitched battle?"
"In that case, what level of losses are projected?"
"At least five would die. A large number of Erosion infections could occur as well."
Schnellia stated nothing but facts, flatly.
"A loss of strength would prove fatal in the final battle against the Outer God later."
"It would."
"There is another option."
At last I brought out that proposal.
"We do not fight it. We leave it alone."
"What was that?"
Schnellia knit her brow as though she had not anticipated it.
But my answer had grounds.
In the original work, that centipede was not something you defeated by fighting; it was an event in which you fled with everything you had.
"As you will already have confirmed, the whole of the seventh floor is the Apostle's nest. And it relocates its nest on a fixed cycle."
"That is so, but."
"Since the route is already secured, we need only move while it is away from its spot. The main body continues the assault from the eighth floor, and only the supply unit travels back and forth to this fifth floor."
"An efficient proposal."
Archibald nodded first.
"Forces can be conserved, so we can meet the Outer God at fuller strength as well. Your Highness, I judge Commander Grimwald's strategy to be a fine move."
"Will no problems arise on the return, or in an unforeseen situation?"
"Once the Outer God is subjugated, an Apostle that borrows its authority is neutralized regardless."
Schnellia lifted the corner of her mouth as though intrigued.
"Bold. To propose a strategy of this caliber is beyond my expectations."
The ultimate treatment is to not produce casualties in the first place.
Which is to say prevention and immunity matter that much.
"It is adopted. Organize the main body."
"Yes, sir."
And so the strategy meeting ended.
The subjugation force met a rest like sweet rain in the middle of the underground.
***
One week into the eighth-floor assault.
"Be careful. The dungeon grows steadily closer to the outer world."
Schnellia, who had opened the way at the vanguard without tiring, cautioned the knights.
Down to the seventh floor, the dungeon had at least been composed of materials that exist in reality.
But from the point they descended deep into the eighth floor.
—Ssssss......
A bizarre sound echoing from an unidentifiable source.
Walls and structures growing steadily more warped, producing unease.
Tiles that gave the optical illusion that one was exploring inside the entrails of an enormous creature.
"My stomach is turning. I will have to prescribe psychiatric treatment first."
Dunker, tending the wounded with the medical corps, complained.
Schnellia went over to him and asked.
"Is this your first time in the deep levels?"
"At this resolution, yes."
Schnellia said flatly.
"Originally, in the past, dungeons were a natural phenomenon generated in terrain where mana pooled, with a monster or an artifact as the detonator, they say."
"The Outer Gods' dungeons are different."
"Yes. Look at this unpleasant structure. Lose focus for a moment and you cannot tell which is wall and which is floor."
Schnellia kicked a bizarre stone humming on the ground and said.
"It is not of this world. It is presumed to be a passage by which the outer world erodes the continent."
"Perhaps it is eroding the world itself."
"Erosion of the world. An apt way to put it."
Schnellia scoffed.
Her neatly arranged bangs stirred slightly.
"Has Your Highness not subjugated a great many Outer Gods?"
"Seven dungeons subjugated. Of those, two had Projections. Five had only Apostles."
"That is a tremendous achievement, is it not? There are several nations reduced to ruin by a single Apostle."
"A delayed defeat is not a victory."
Schnellia's expression was serious.
There was not the slightest trace of being drunk on her own accomplishments.
"We do not even know how many Outer Gods remain to invade by way of Projections. And beyond the western mountain range, the Kingdom territory has already been completely occupied by the Outer Gods."
Pure white aura flashed in her eyes.
"Until every aberration is driven from this land, the war does not end."
Strength entered Schnellia's hand where it gripped the sword.
That thing manages not to break, impressively.
She must use a good sword.
Dunker thought it and said.
"For the Empire's sake?"
"For my own."
Schnellia said it flatly.
"Because if no land remains to rule, an Emperor is no different from a clown with a heavy lump of gold on his head."
"That is grand of you."
"So I have expectations of you."
Schnellia glanced back at Dunker.
"If you work the miracle of curing Erosion, you might even stop the Outer Gods' invasion itself. As you put it."
I never had a goal that grand.
"I only treat the patient in front of me."
Schnellia was satisfied with Dunker's answer.
'A wise man.'
Needless hope is nothing but a curtain that prevents you from seeing the present objectively.
Schnellia liked that he said only what he could do was possible and did not inflate it.
'His command ability is considerable as well.'
That they had cleared to the eighth floor without major casualties owed much to his judgment.
Leaving an Apostle alone when there was no need to fight it. To Schnellia, who had continued her subjugations by frontal breakthrough until now, it was a fresh and bold strategy.
'If Dunker Grimwald formally enters the Medical Institute.'
It was plain to see that he would make a name for himself in no time and receive offers from every direction.
It was fortunate she had made a secret contract with him.
"Is there something on my face?"
"No."
At Dunker's question, Schnellia turned away, her hair sweeping around.
***
"Mind the flanks! Mutants, five of them!"
"Iron wall aura! Barrier!"
The eighth-floor assault proceeded smoothly without major variables.
The main body, organized as eighty Lionheart and forty Grimwald, won through even a large engagement in which numerous monsters attacked.
Exchanging personnel with the standby group at the temporary encampment, they pushed through the unknown abyss.
And on the tenth day of the eighth-floor assault.
"A staircase."
Schnellia discovered the path leading to the ninth floor.
Dunker asked.
"Do we withdraw?"
"I will explore only the opening section."
Aura of light descended the stairs without hesitation.
The vanguard, relying on the glimmer, kept watch on their surroundings with utmost tension.
The exploration continued for an hour.
"......Strange."
Schnellia knit her brow instinctively.
"Something feels off. Is this one alone in feeling it?"
The knights detected the strange atmosphere too.
"There are no monsters at all."
"Judging by the structures the depth level seems to have risen, but."
"Why are there no monsters?"
It was enough to raise doubts.
A dungeon may be regarded as a different dimension on every floor.
Having descended to a new floor, it was normal for it to be correspondingly full of monsters.
"Is there a possibility of hallucination, Grimwald?"
"The wall patterns are making me motion sick, at least."
Dunker cast Diagnose on the knights.
[Samul / Male / Age 27]
[Stress gastritis]
[Blanca / Female / Age 24]
[Sprain]
......
Beyond minor injuries, no symptoms such as mental Erosion were visible.
"There is nothing of note."
"Mm."
Just as everyone was advancing a careful step at a time, unable to shake their unease.
—Splash.
An unpleasant sound came from underfoot.
Schnellia lowered her gaze and confirmed it.
"......A puddle?"
She shone light on it.
"This is......"
A black, viscous fluid had encroached over the passage and the walls.
Bulge.
It squirmed like a living cell.
"Curse residue? All hands, halt. Absolutely do not make contact with bare skin."
Schnellia's judgment was correct.
The black liquid was a high-concentration curse of Seeds clotted and melted together.
Touch it wrongly and you would be eroded instantly.
"Grimwald, be careful!"
Abruptly Dunker bent at the waist and examined it closely.
Without even aura, if he were eroded he would turn monster in a single stroke. Schnellia warned him urgently.
Dunker nodded calmly and then said.
"Princess."
"What is it."
"Why would something like this be here?"
He posed the more important question.
"Why the curse would be here......?"
Schnellia's expression turned grave.
That curse spilled out in a fight with minions or an Apostle was an everyday occurrence.
But for a high-concentration curse of this magnitude to be spread here, where there was not a single monster, meant.
"Surely not."
"Yes. It seems the Outer God crawled up from below and went upward."
"It absorbed every monster in the deep levels!"
Schnellia broke out in a cold sweat.
There is only one case in which an Outer God heads for the surface from a dungeon.
It means it has stored up sufficient power and has set out on a full-scale invasion.
"Did we pass each other? Or was there another staircase?"
"There was no trace on the staircase we descended, so it must have headed in another direction."
"If it reaches the surface."
"Yes. The county will be finished."
Schnellia turned her body and shouted.
"All forces, return to the eighth floor. The Outer God's Projection has commenced activity. We pursue it!