I had only stirred things up a little so I would not have to fight. Still, I had no particular desire to shatter this young man’s illusion.
“My father taught me that.”
“……I see.”
I had sensed it before, but he seemed to hold a strange respect for me. For my part, there was nothing bad about that.
“Then everyone, we are going inside. Move out.”
Cassian composed his expression and set off. I followed them leisurely from the very back.
Skeletons began to reveal themselves one by one. Though they trembled, the Guild Members each raised their weapons.
“I will take the front, so the rest of you provide covering fire!”
“They are coming from the side too!”
The Guild Members shouted as they clashed with them.
Cassian fretted as though he were watching children placed at the water’s edge, but still, we proceeded without anyone suffering any serious injuries.
“They are not as bad as I expected, are they? We just have to recover the corpses properly. Though I still do not see any.”
“According to the records, seventy bodies were never found.”
“This is a Dungeon that has already been conquered countless times. If there were any corpses in plain sight, they would have taken them all.”
Before long, we reached a single passage. There was not a single corpse we were searching for.
If it had been one or two, perhaps. But it was strange that as many as seventy corpses were nowhere to be seen.
Then one possibility was that there was a hidden place somewhere.
I placed my hand on the stone wall blocking my path. When I focused my senses, I felt a faint presence beyond the thick wall.
“Dane Balanus? What are you doing?”
I did not answer Cassian’s question. I needed concentration right now.
I forcibly heated my creaking Mana Circuit. A few drops of Mana gathered at the tip of my blade. Concentrating every nerve, I swung my sword.
―SHICK!
Vertically, on a slant, horizontally, diagonally. My sword drew countless lines.
Blue Mana clung to the Sword Path like an afterimage. It looked as though the stone wall were bleeding blue blood.
Before those blue bloodstains disappeared, I slid my sword back into its sheath.
―RUMBLE……!
At the same time, the stone wall shattered to pieces and collapsed. The Guild Members stared at it in a daze.
The empty space beyond the stone wall was revealed, and the figures packed tightly inside it appeared.
Corpses wearing robes, armor, and the like, rotting away, but with faces still recognizable.
Someone shouted.
“The Fallen!”
With that cry, the corpses abruptly turned their heads. Their empty eyes were filled with a strange Killing Intent. The Fallen began charging forward savagely.
Ordinarily, they would have vanished during the Dungeon’s regeneration process, but perhaps because Lament was under a magic that turned the dead into Undead, they too had been reborn as Magic Beasts.
―GRAAAH!
The corpse that rushed in first with a hideous roar was holding a longsword. The Guild Member who received that sword was sent flying and rolled across the floor.
This corpse’s movements were on an entirely different level from the Magic Beasts we had faced until now. Naturally so. Those who had died here were the ones who had set out to conquer it in the early days.
Even weakened, even rotted away, they had been strong. The Guild Members clashing with the corpses cried out in terror.
“We cannot win! This is impossible……!”
Should I help a little here? At that moment, Cassian charged forward.
“They are not enemies so strong that you cannot defeat them! I will support you, so everyone, fight!”
Just then, as the chaotic melee rang with monstrous cries, one of the Fallen charged toward me. The instant its dull sword flashed, our eyes met.
It was a face I knew. Someone I had occasionally crossed swords with and drunk with in the past.
As though he had recognized me as well, he stopped for a moment. Seizing that opening, I cut off his arm.
―SHICK!
After he fell, another Guild Member finished him off. The Guild Members who had finished the battle spoke among themselves while panting.
“That was a little strange. Just now, one of the corpses seemed to stop when it saw me…….”
“Maybe you knew each other? I heard there are cases where memories from life remain, even after someone becomes Undead.”
That was exactly right. Even as a corpse, even after wandering as a Magic Beast, something remained in a human soul. The stronger the will, the more so.
After the corpses had been recovered, Cassian looked at the Guild Members. Life returned to his eyes.
“We found them after twenty years. Their families will be pleased. And everyone fought well. Not one of you retreated.”
“Vice Guildmaster……!”
“I am proud of you.”
The Guild Members, overcome with emotion, pulled one another into tight embraces. It was a moving scene.
I alone was not a Guild Member, so I merely watched from a distance. It made me miss my Disciples a little.
Sensing my gaze, Cassian cleared his throat and released the Guild Members.
“Then let us return to the gathering place.”
When we returned to the promised place, everyone except us had already arrived. My Disciples came running out to greet me.
“Master. Did everything end well?”
“Yes. We found the bodies of the Fallen as well. Around twenty of them.”
At those words, the others looked at Cassian with surprised eyes.
“You found the corpses, Lord Cassian? Where on earth?”
“We discovered an empty space beyond a stone wall.”
“As expected of Lord Cassian.”
“No. The one who noticed the empty space was the Supporter. The Supporter also destroyed the stone wall.”
Only then did the Guild Members stare in my direction. Their gazes held a strange sense of awe.
Meanwhile, Cesare was shrugging his shoulders and putting on airs. He looked proud.
“With our Master, cutting through a stone wall is only natural. It would be impossible for someone who cannot even keep a promise, though.”
Cassian did not even glance at Cesare. It was clear that he was deliberately ignoring him.
“Now only the Boss remains. Stand in the vanguard, Balanus Domus.”
Entrusting the Boss to us as well. That was a good thing for us.
We opened the firmly closed door. In the darkness, something enormous stood towering.
The Stench of Death and rough breathing wafted out. A dragon whose body had decayed and rotted in places, its bones beginning to show.
It was the Corpse Dragon, the Boss of Lament.
Had it been twenty years since I last faced it?
I could feel the Guild Members faltering before the overflowing stench and pressure. My Disciples, however, were looking at the Corpse Dragon with eyes full of fighting spirit.
The Corpse Dragon also twisted its body and gazed at the intruders. Its eye sockets were completely hollow, yet for some reason, I felt as though it were looking at me.
The Corpse Dragon’s mouth opened, and a phlegm-rattling voice came out.
“[Dane Balanus, First Slaughterer. I have been waiting for you for a long time.]”
First Slaughterer?
When I glanced at the expressions of those around me, it seemed that they could not hear the voice. The Corpse Dragon spoke in a voice that sounded like a curse.
“[Lament. This place will be your grave.]”
And at the same time as those words, black light surged up from beneath my feet.
In an instant, I began to be sucked downward. I saw Cesare and Xenia’s startled faces.
“Master!”
Before I even had time to tell my Disciples that I was fine, my body was pulled underground. It was darkness.
***
He was falling. In the darkness, wind surged up from below. Dane’s pale blond hair whipped wildly, and it was not easy to open his eyes in the fierce gale.
As he fell endlessly, Dane was assessing the situation.
‘The First Slaughterer, is it? Was the magic set to activate if the one who first killed the Corpse Dragon came here once more?’
A tiny light began to appear far below. At this rate, he would die from the fall. Dane adjusted his grip on the sword in his hand.
―BOOM!
Just before he crashed down, Dane infused Mana into his sword and swung it toward the floor. A powerful Sword Wind surged upward, and Dane’s body stopped in midair.
He landed lightly on the floor. He had braced himself to fall among Magic Beasts, but unexpectedly, the interior was quiet.
It was an interior like a Monastery, similar to the second underground floor. However, it gave off an even denser, damper smell than the second underground floor.
‘Was this actually a third-floor Dungeon?’
An unpleasant pressure overflowed from beyond the tightly closed door. Dane opened it.
―CREEAAAK…….
The rusted hinges opened with a sound like something being strangled. As the double doors opened, the inside became clearly visible.
It was a wide space like the place where the Corpse Dragon had been. However, what stood there was not a dead dragon.
There were perhaps fifty of them. Corpses clad in luxurious armor. The armor that must once have shone white had lost its light. Just like the light in their eyes.
A crest was engraved on the armor they wore. The mark of the Royal Knight Order that had been the first to enter Lament.
―BANG!
The door behind him closed on its own. At the same time, the knights raised their swords. A charge rushed in from every direction.
―CLANG, CLANG!
Each time he received the knights’ swords, his arms rang with numbness. Though they had lost their reason, their sword strikes were sharp and savage.
‘They are knights indeed.’
Rotten though they were, they were still knights. Meanwhile, the enemy was not limited to the Knight Order alone.
Dozens of Skeletons also pressed in on Dane. To neutralize them, he cut off their arms and legs.
―GRRKK……!
Meanwhile, the severed limbs of the Magic Beasts began to reattach. A powerful restoration magic. If it could regenerate this many at once, not just one or two…….
Dane quickly scanned his surroundings. Then, far away, he saw someone standing on the second-floor railing. A corpse wearing a robe and holding a long staff.
One who had chosen to become an immortal Undead. A being that could freely command corpses. A Lich.
The moment Dane saw it, he realized.
There were two Bosses in Lament.
‘Was that why Lament stopped weakening at some point?’
The Lich had to be brought down for all of this to end, but because of the corpses filling every direction, he could not advance at all.
Dane blocked the corpses surging toward him and stepped back. A knight’s greatsword came flying.
Dane stared at the sword flying toward his head. No, at the knight swinging that sword.
He was crying.
After deflecting the sword, Dane looked around. Every knight was shedding silent tears.
These were men who had protected the kingdom. Men who had sworn knightly oaths with strong convictions.
They would not have wanted to wander for decades as the Lich’s subordinates instead of meeting an honorable death.
Even so, they could not stop. Among the corpses swinging their weapons without rest even as they wept, the only knight wearing a red mantle charged at Dane.
The kingdom’s crest was engraved on the red mantle. The mark of the Knight Commander.
―CLANG!
Dane received the sword and tried to cut off the Commander’s arm in the same motion. However, at that instant, another knight stepped between them.
‘Is he trying to protect the Commander?’
It seemed their loyalty to the Commander still remained in them as well. Seeing that, Dane thought of one possibility.
―SHICK!
Dane’s sword began to ravage his enemies with even greater sharpness and ferocity. He cut the legs of those trying to protect the Commander, forcibly stopping them.
The Commander roared and swung his sword. Even after becoming a corpse, the sword he wielded was truly threatening.
The sword he swung was unusually heavy. It was not merely the weight of the sword itself. There were responsibility, oaths, and vows behind it.
―CRUNCH!
Immediately after knocking aside the Commander’s sword, Dane thrust his sword into the man’s chest. The solid breastplate warped and was pierced straight through.
At the same time as the Core was destroyed, Dane felt a sensation as though a flame had lit in his mind.
Every time he killed something, it felt as though fire were being kindled in an extinguished bonfire. Dane reflected on that sensation as he wrapped the Commander’s mantle around himself.
At that moment, the knights stopped. They were Undead. They had loyalty, but not intelligence and selfhood on the level of humans.
It seemed they had recognized Dane, who possessed the Commander’s mantle, as an ally. Their attacks stopped for an instant, but he could not relax.
―CREEEAK……!
Even though Dane wore the mantle, the Skeletons did not stop. The path toward the Lich remained completely blocked.
However, the situation had changed from before.
―CLAAANG!
One of the knights blocked Dane’s path. It had taken the Skeleton’s attack upon itself.
The old, decaying red mantle swayed quietly. Dane aimed his sword at the Lich standing above and said to the Knight Order,
“The Commander orders you. Open the path ahead of me.”