This is a game.
A game.
A game.
Not reality.
Why can I not exit the game?
Can I not force quit?
Exit Game.
Log Out.
Back.
Back. Back. Back.
Where did the button go?
Why does the touchscreen not work?
What happened to the screen?
.
.
.
Even if it is only a game, playing all day without a break is exhausting……
I want to rest.
THUD!
I brought the weapon down with all my strength, but just as expected, it did not leave so much as a scratch.
The surface remained spotless, as though even the wind had never touched it, and the sight drained the strength from me.
Still, unless I intended to die, I could not give up.
THUD! THUD! THUD!
I was getting nowhere near the result I wanted, but at least the consequences of my actions appeared faithfully.
[Durability 9/99]
<CAUTION! Item durability has reached its limit.>
[Durability 4/99]
<WARNING! Item durability has reached its limit!>
[Durability 0/99] <Item durability has reached its limit. The item has been destroyed.>
<Item Destruction - Worn Gudo Battle Axe>
<……>
<Item Destruction - Old Chain Battle Axe>
<Item Destruction - Rusted Gurde Longsword>
<Item Destruction - Bent-Hand Spear>
One after another, the countless weapons I pulled out reached the limits of their Durability and vanished without leaving a trace.
My Inventory, which had been so full that I normally had to leave some items behind, gradually emptied.
“Tsk.”
I had not picked up enough items to fill my Inventory just so I could waste them like this.
For some reason, thinking about the old shopkeeper I had not even encountered on this floor made my mood sink even further.
Every single one of these was money.
“Haah.”
I knew this would not solve anything, but there was nothing else I could do right now.
It was not a problem that would be solved merely by sitting still and thinking either.
And even if I saved my items because they were precious, there would have been no point in saving them if I could not leave this room anyway.
……Should I just reset?
“What are you doing?”
Apparently, enough time had passed for the woman to wake up despite all the noise I had been making.
<Fatigue - 67%>
Yet unlike the amount of time that had passed, my actions apparently did not count as physical exertion, because my Fatigue had not increased.
If anything, it had decreased, as though specifically demonstrating that time had passed.
There was not even a clock here.
If the woman had not been present, I might eventually have begun doubting whether I had really spent all that time doing anything at all.
“Something stupid.”
“I know that what you are doing looks stupid.”
Was she picking a fight?
“But what I want to know is why you are doing it.”
“Why do you care?”
“Because you would never do something like that without a reason.”
What kind of faith was that?
All she had ever seen me do was charge forward recklessly and brutally slaughter every monster in my path.
“How do you know whether my actions have reasons or not?”
“Well……. Everything you have done until now has been about thoroughly eliminating potential dangers.”
“Because I do not want to die.”
It was not as though dying was the end of everything for me, but death was troublesome and inconvenient.
Every time I died, I had to start everything over from the beginning.
Of course, if this were reality, death would simply be the end.
But this was not reality.
“…….”
When she did not say anything more, I glanced back and found the woman wearing an unpleasant expression.
What was wrong with her?
Was it not natural for a living person to want to avoid dying?
“And even if you know why, what difference does it make?”
“If it is something I can help with.”
“Ha.”
Help?
“I cannot remember a single time when your help has actually been useful.”
“W-Was I a hindrance?”
Did she really need to ask?
“Figure it out yourself.”
“Um…….”
“And figure out why I am doing this yourself too.”
If someone was trapped inside a Boss Room after killing the boss and was wasting time doing something pointless, there was only one obvious reason.
If she could not even think of something that simple, then I did not need her help, whether it was a cat's paw or even an ant's claw.
“I am going to sleep.”
I was not actually tired, but if she knew I was awake, she would obviously keep talking to me.
So I decided to pretend to sleep.
“Ah. Sleep well.”
There was no progress to be made by endlessly repeating meaningless actions anyway.
I chose the spot farthest from both the woman and the boss's corpse and lay down.
Since she might watch me, I even assumed a proper sleeping posture and closed my eyes.
I had no idea whether I could actually fall asleep.
Perhaps the woman wanted me to sleep soundly.
Or perhaps she simply did not want me to dislike her any more than I already did.
Either way, she did not come near me the entire time I pretended to sleep.
She even seemed to suppress the sound of her breathing.
It remained so quiet that for a moment, I almost wondered whether I had actually fallen asleep.
Even if I had, it would not have been restful sleep.
But if I had somehow managed to sleep without the campfire System……
That did not happen.
Of course it did not.
It was just my imagination.
.
.
.
Obviously.
I almost wished this were a dream.
Then all I would have to do was curse about how absurdly long the dream had been once I woke up.
And then forget about it.
“You're awake?”
“Yes.”
The woman reacted immediately when I pretended to wake up.
“There do not seem to be any hidden places or mechanisms.”
It had been incredibly quiet.
She had searched the room while I was pretending to sleep?
“Did you think about why I was doing that?”
“Yes. It was an obvious question, but…….”
“Ah.”
So she had asked even though she already knew the answer?
“……I wanted to hear it from you directly.”
Why ask if she already knew?
How annoying.
She could have simply acted on her own.
“Why do you need to hear it from me? It only wastes my breath.”
“B-But……. What if I assumed incorrectly…….”
“If you misunderstand something, that does not mean I suddenly become wrong, does it?”
“…….”
It was not as though her interference had ever caused a truly serious problem.
And if there had actually been some possibility that her intervention would put me in danger, I would have warned her beforehand.
I was only leaving her alone because I was certain she could not affect anything here.
More than anything else, though, I felt disgusted with myself.
‘I did not even think to search the room.’
I had thought I was dismissing everything the boss said as nonsense.
Yet I had forgotten something as basic as checking the room and wasted items on pointless destruction instead.
“Haah.”
At least I had realized now that I had lost my composure.
Otherwise, I would have kept wasting weapons on the same pointless act.
I decided to organize my thoughts before moving again.
Since I could not sleep, perhaps I should meditate instead.
“The monster that looked like my brother…… is still there too.”
“Persistent bastard.”
Forget the rewards.
That thing should have disappeared long ago.
“Um…….”
“Maybe it is not actually dead.”
“What?”
The words slipped out, and I immediately startled myself and looked around.
It really would be a problem if it was still alive.
Considering how little it had actually been capable of despite all its boasting about the King's Fragment or whatever, it would not be strange if it had some hidden ability.
“I do not think that is the case.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“If it were truly alive, it would have attacked while we were sleeping.”
“Who knows.”
Maybe it intended to starve us to death.
The System meant I did not need to eat or sleep, but there was no reason for the boss to know that.
Even if it did, perhaps it was at least waiting to kill the woman.
“Considering how intensely it hated us, I do not think it would leave us alone for this long.”
She had a point.
“Or maybe it is just extraordinarily patient.”
“Hmm…….”
The woman nodded, though her face clearly showed that she did not agree.
Given the situation, my theory probably did not sound very convincing.
There was nowhere obvious for the boss to hide.
And besides the woman's presence, I could not sense the presence of any other living creature.
Instinct was not always reliable, but after fighting constantly for this long, there was no way I would fail to notice whether an enemy was nearby.
“There is one thing that seems a little strange, though…….”
The woman trailed off and kept glancing sideways.
For someone who claimed to believe he was dead, she was far too conscious of the corpse that had been sliced in half.
“What is strange?”
“The place where the monster that looked like my brother…… was sitting…….”
“Haah.”
Why did she keep trailing off?
If she had something she could not say, she could simply keep her mouth shut.
I already knew she would never say what she actually needed to say and would only say what she wanted.
“If you have something to say, say it properly. Stop trailing off.”
“That throne…….”
“What about it?”
For something inside a dungeon, it was remarkably ornate and clearly looked man-made.
It stood in stark contrast to the crude structures on the upper floors that had looked little better than chopped tree stumps.
“It looks exactly like the throne of our kingdom.”
“What?”
It had raged about the people of this world being traitors, yet the seat it chose for itself was identical to theirs?
Why?
What had been the intention behind that?
“Was it meant as an insult?”
“Ah…….”
Looking at it this way, the entire floor had been specialized in psychological attacks.
If I had been born and raised in this world, it would have been strange not to break down after being subjected to such thorough malice.
“Because it looked like my brother, I only thought it meant all the heirs to the throne had died…….”
That interpretation made sense too.
If a monster that copied human appearances took the form of the person standing at the very top, no one who knew them could possibly remain unaffected.
One way or another.
But had that really been the only intention?
“Is that why it asked us?”
“Asked us what?”
《[Are you those who would challenge the throne?]
[Or are you intruders who have disturbed my slumber?]》
Had it been waiting for challengers?
If that creature had truly been waiting for someone to challenge it, then that meant there was a legitimate way to enter this dungeon and challenge it.
“What a shame.”
The best way to know for certain would have been to ask it directly.
If that thing was truly dead, then like the other bosses, it would almost certainly remain silent the next time I met it.
But that did not mean I wanted the corpse to get back up.
Nor did I want to start from the beginning again.
‘It is pointless to speculate about that when I am already inside.’
Still, when we first entered, it had definitely said ‘my slumber.’
《[You who dared awaken the King from his slumber.]》
Why had it later changed the wording to ‘the King's slumber’?
Almost as though it had originally thought of itself as the King, only to come to its senses afterward.
Was there something it needed to correct even when no one was watching?
No.
Was someone actually watching?
But I had not sensed anyone else's gaze.
“What kind of being is this ‘King’?”
He kept being mentioned so often that it felt as though he might appear as the Final Boss on floor 100.
“I do not know……. There was nothing about him in the records either…….”
If she was going to answer a question I had not even asked her directly, the least she could do was provide something useful.
I gave her an irritated look and returned to my thoughts.
When I first entered the Boss Room, the creature had looked every bit like a ‘King.’
The arrogant posture.
The condescending way it spoke.
The relaxed, unhurried demeanor.
It had probably been imitating whatever image of a ‘King’ it knew.
Later, of course, all of that vanished and it did little more than scream and flail around.
‘Of course a Doppelgänger would be good at imitation.’
But the fact that it eventually changed its words and behavior implied that even if the ‘King’ was not watching in real time, there was still some way for the King to learn what it had done.
‘Then how?’
《[The wise King foresaw even this…….]
[The wise King foresaw this situation and bestowed upon me a true fragment.]》
Could the ‘King’ have the ability to see the future?
If the real ‘King’ could see the future……
‘Can I even beat him?’