“…….”
“I-I'm sorry.”
The woman had woken up.
She had not particularly gotten in my way, but she had not been any help either.
Since she had not actually interfered, there was no reason for me to accept an apology.
And if she was apologizing for stubbornly following me into the Boss Room, the apology was meaningless when she was only going to do it again.
“My brother…….”
“He is dead, I suppose.”
I cut her off bluntly, and the woman immediately fell silent.
Since I had not slept in front of a campfire, the Fatigue displayed in my Status Window had not decreased.
Still, I had recovered somewhat from my mental exhaustion, which meant a considerable amount of time must have passed.
“If this much time has passed, it should have resolved itself by now…….”
This was not an online game in the first place, so perhaps the internet had never been the problem.
“What should have resolved itself?”
A game bug.
“……The doors are not opening.”
“Ah. You're right.”
I had nearly said exactly what I was thinking.
Fortunately, I remembered in time that this woman was an NPC and changed my answer to something she could actually observe.
“Before, they disappeared as soon as they died…….”
The woman's gaze shifted toward the boss's corpse, which was covered in countless small wounds.
To her, it probably did not look like the remains of a monster.
It probably felt as though she were staring at the final moments of her own brother.
“There is nothing pleasant to look at, so stop staring.”
Even after I pointed it out, the woman could not tear her eyes away.
Her lips merely moved silently for a while before she finally managed to continue.
“……And weapons and other items were left behind where the monster disappeared.”
Instead of responding, I looked back at the ruined throne.
Thinking about it again, there had been plenty of strange and suspicious things.
For one, despite calling himself the ‘King's Proxy,’ the boss had sat on the throne as naturally as though it belonged to him…….
‘And he seemed to say quite a few important things.’
Things like the true nature of this dungeon, which for some reason was only being revealed now.
And if, just if…….
“Ah.”
Escaping this dungeon was what mattered right now.
And none of this was helping me escape.
Later.
I would think about it later.
“Up we go.”
I checked both doors—the one we had entered through and the descending door hidden behind the throne.
I pushed them, pulled them, and struck them.
THUD!
“Aah!”
“Hmm.”
BOOM!
“It will not break.”
“W-W-Were you checking that by j-just using an e-ex-explosive……?”
“It was not a bomb.”
I had not thrown it, so technically it was merely an explosive, not a bomb.
“E-Even so, you used something that explodes……!”
“Whew. If I had known even this would not work, I would not have wasted it.”
What a waste of an item.
“Th-That is not the problem! If you detonate something that close to yourself……. No, even aside from that, if you set off an explosive while we are trapped in here……!”
“I will not die.”
“I will!”
“Then die.”
Then I would be alone again.
No one would get in my way, which would make things easier.
The woman stared at me as though she had no idea what to say.
“How can a person…….”
She looked more disappointed than hurt.
Whatever.
“It is not as though dying means I stay dead.”
A bug that prevented me from leaving even after killing the boss.
I had forgotten because the bugs I encountered until now had mostly helped me clear the game, but bugs were usually obstacles that interfered with playing it.
<Health - 100%>
<Mana - 100%>
<Fatigue - 76%>
.
.
.
<Status Effects - None>
According to the Status Window, there was absolutely nothing wrong with me.
My Health and Mana were both full, and although my Fatigue was somewhat high, it was perfectly reasonable considering I had just finished a boss fight.
《[You shall never reach the King.]》
Could it be because he had said I would never reach the ‘King’?
Had the Curse of a boss who was already dead somehow remained?
But my Status Effects were completely clear.
“Dying and reviving would probably remove it…….”
It would be inconvenient to start all the way from floor 1 again, but death was the fastest way I knew to remove a Curse.
“No!”
The woman clung to my arm and shook her head violently.
“Absolutely not!”
“What is absolutely not?”
“You cannot die.”
“I am not going to die.”
I had no intention of immediately solving this by dying.
I did not know whether this was a one-time bug or something that would happen every time I killed the floor 70 boss from now on.
If it was the former, dying might solve it.
If it was the latter, I needed to find another reliable method besides death.
“You may not have chosen to be killed before, but throwing away your own life willingly is…….”
“Ah, get off me.”
“Only if you promise you will not throw your life away!”
What the hell was wrong with this woman?
We had first met inside this dungeon, and once we escaped, we would probably never see each other again.
“Fine, so get off me. You're suffocating me.”
“You mean it? You promise you will absolutely never throw your life away?”
“When have I ever rushed off trying to kill myself?”
“Y-You have not, but…….”
“Haah…….”
She was still hiding things from me.
So why did the very possibility of me dying bother her this much?
Ah.
Maybe she was afraid she would lose the person protecting her.
‘Does she think of me as some kind of shield?’
Well, that was understandable.
Everyone valued their own life above all else, and if they lacked the ability to survive alone, they would use someone beside them if that was what it took.
I had simply been unlucky enough to get caught by this woman.
“I promised, so keep your end of it and get off me.”
“What?”
“I cannot check anything with you hanging on me like this. You are not planning to stay trapped here forever, are you?”
“Ah!”
Her face turned bright red, and she hurriedly backed away.
The instant she let go, I dusted off the spot where she had been clinging to me and began going back over everything the boss had said.
《[The King shall never forgive you…….]》
Did ‘you’ include ‘me,’ or had he only meant the ‘traitors’?
And if it included me, what difference did that make?
‘Whether that woman was here or not, I would have had to kill the boss and pass through anyway, so maybe it does not matter.’
《[Why are you in this place?]
[You should be a being who cannot exist in this place.]
[No. I mean that you should be incapable of coming to this place. Why are you here?]
[How in the world are you here?]
[A being permitted to exist, yet one who does not belong to this place.]》
“…….”
First he had said I could not exist here, then he said I had been permitted to exist.
Whichever one was true, he had clearly recognized that I came from another world.
‘Is that even possible?’
《[Did you believe some hidden treasure awaited you? Or did you come to make some wish too difficult to achieve on your own?]》
Apparently, the people who had sought this place in the past had come either in search of hidden treasure or to make wishes they could not fulfill themselves…….
《[If it is none of those things, then why did you set foot in this place?]
[Unless you came here seeking the Will, there should be nothing a living being could possibly need in this place.]》
Was the existence of treasure and something capable of granting wishes not enough to say there were things here that living people might want?
Why had he been so certain there was nothing a living being could need?
《[Were you not the ones who made a wish to the Will that had slumbered for ages?]
[You were also the ones who deceived the long-slumbering Will and made it accomplish what was nearly impossible.]》
Had granting a nearly impossible wish caused the Will to lose its power?
《[And you were the ones who betrayed the Will that granted such a wish.]》
Or had they done something that prevented the ‘Will’ from ever granting another wish?
《[This place is the King's tomb.]》
If this place truly was the King's tomb, just as the boss had said, then why had this ‘Will’ been inside the tomb?
《[My power originates from the King…….]
[And the power stolen away by you people also originated from the King.]》
The power they had stolen was probably ‘Magic.’
《[Even the power you wield now is a favor granted by the Will…….]》
And since he had said that power was obtained through the ‘Will's’ favor, the wish and whatever had been stolen from the King were probably separate matters.
‘Then were the ‘traitors’ and the ‘Will’ accomplices in stealing the King's power?’
To put it all together…….
People from outside the dungeon entered it and made a wish to the ‘Will.’
Through the ‘Will's’ favor, the people who made that wish were able to steal something from the King.
And despite the enormous favor the ‘Will’ had shown them, those people betrayed it.
“What kind of complete disaster is this?”
I did not know what they had wished for, but if the boss described it as nearly impossible, then having that wish granted alone must have been extraordinary.
Why had the people of this world failed to be satisfied after receiving something so incredible and gone on to covet something that clearly belonged to someone else?
Was that not why monsters had been sent after them, ultimately driving them out of the place where they had lived?
“This is why people should not be excessively greedy.”
If you tried to swallow more than you could digest, you ended up losing even what you already had.
“Is it wrong for people to be greedy?”
“Who said they cannot be greedy?”
People could be greedy.
Greed and desire were forces that drove people forward and gave them the means to pursue better lives.
The problem was excessive greed.
“I said you should not be excessively greedy.”
“What is the difference?”
“What do you mean, what is the difference? The difference is the ‘excessive’ part.”
The problem was that people could rarely tell for themselves whether their greed had become excessive.
The people of the past had probably believed they could handle what they were trying to swallow.
But there was something I needed to confirm first.
“Hey.”
“Yes.”
《[For a lifetime—or through one's descendants, for generation upon generation.]
[I am different from those who receive a grace they could never repay even throughout eternity, yet forget it before a single generation has passed.]》
He had clearly said that not even one generation had passed.
But I did not know whether he meant one generation by the standards of those who had received the favor or by the standards of the one who bestowed it.
“That book about the dungeon you mentioned before.”
The moment I brought it up, the woman's expression darkened.
“I wish I could show it to you, but…….”
“No, that is not what I mean.”
Even if it were possible, I had no particular desire to read it myself.
Perhaps her gloomy expression had merely been an act because she did not want to show it to me, because relief and puzzlement flickered across her face.
“Are those records extremely old?”
“…….”
The woman looked up at me, her eyes wavering.
Apparently, the records were not that old.
“They are fairly recent, aren't they?”
“……Yes.”
“How recent?”
“…….”
“Do not tell me they are recent enough that you actually know the person who wrote them.”
The woman's wavering eyes fixed on me.
Then, as though belatedly realizing she had already given herself away, she quickly turned her head.
“Answer me.”
“…….”
“Why can you not answer? Do not tell me I was actually right?”
I had said it almost as a joke.
Seriously?
My face hardened.
“…….”
“Right.”
Not even a single human generation had passed.
Anyone could see they had tried to swallow far more than they could handle.
“They really did choose every stupid decision available to them.”
No wonder they had fallen.
They deserved to fall.
“Ah.”
But that did not give them the right to drag other people into the consequences.
“Fuck.”
This is a game.
A game.
A game.
Not reality.
Not real.
Fake.
Otherwise…….
There is no way a person could die and come back to life.
It must be a dream.
Just a dream that has gone on a little too long.
While she remained awake, the woman kept watching me nervously before eventually curling up in a corner and falling asleep.
For once, the fact that I could not fall asleep unless I was near a campfire truly infuriated me.
I was not physically tired, but if I could at least sleep, I might feel a little better.
“…….”
<Health - 100%>
<Mana - 100%>
<Fatigue - 68%>
.
.
.
<Status Effects - None>
No matter how many times I examined the Status Window, there was nothing wrong.
Of course there was not.
I had already spent all this excess time removing anything that could possibly have been a problem with potions and items.
“Ah. Seriously.”
There was no reason for me to have a headache, yet my head felt as though it hurt.
I missed TyXenol.
I even missed the sensation of a tablet getting caught in my throat when I swallowed it wrong.
“I hate taking medicine.”
And yet I had reached the point where I actually missed it.
Time was passing far too slowly.
Far too much of it was passing.
“Why will it not open?”
I needed to get back quickly.
As though it wanted to destroy even the hope that I might someday return home, now the path itself had been completely blocked.
“Is this place seriously trying to become my grave?”
The words slipped out while I was dazed, and I reflexively closed my mouth.
“…….”
I could not let that happen.
Leaving the woman, who had not stirred at my muttering, I stood up again.
“If it will not break, I will keep hitting it until it does.”
That was what I had done until now.
And it was what I would have to keep doing.
Either I died, or whatever stood against me did.
But I did not stay dead.
So in the end, only the other side could.
“Inventory.”
I drew another weapon.