They were right nearby.
I was in a spot close enough to hear the intruders' breathing.
"Did you find anything?"
A woman's voice.
She didn't come this way. Of the two remaining men, one was a bald man showing off a muscular build, and the other had short hair with half his face covered by a hood.
The bald man snooped around holding a long staff.
"No, nothing."
"Nothing here either... What's the problem?"
Thankfully, the bastards didn't notice.
If I got caught, I would die.
"Hmm?"
The hooded man spotted me.
I felt his gaze.
"What're you doing?"
The bald man stepped between me and the hooded man. Just for this moment, I felt grateful to that bald man.
"No, did you find something?"
"There aren't any living bastards here."
"Then what is it...?"
[00:04]
Numbers appeared before my eyes.
Four seconds. It wasn't a long time at all, but to me, it was longer than several hours.
The numbers decreased one by one.
"Should we check the Slimes again?"
"No. I definitely destroyed the cores. More importantly, move aside for a second."
"Why?"
The bald man stepped aside. The hooded man glared at me.
[00:01]
The final second.
The hooded man stood in front of me.
[00:00]
THUD— THUD—
"It's open!"
It was the woman's voice.
The bald man turned his head.
"What on earth was that?"
The hooded man silently looked at me. Then he soon turned around.
Step— Step—
The footsteps receded into the distance.
Silence fell.
Peace came to me as well.
'Phew....'
I slowly raised my body. Moving myself with my right arm, I leaned my body against the pillar.
'That's a relief....'
If I had been able to exhale, a sigh of relief would have come out.
I saw my right shin and left arm that had fallen to the floor.
There was only one thought that had crossed my mind before the bastards found me.
'I'd rather just die quickly.'
Even without pain, being beaten to death by someone else's hands wasn't a welcome thing. Rather than serving as a practice partner for the intruders, I had intended to end my own life.
However, since snapping my own neck with my hands was impossible, I had simply collapsed and pulled out my left shoulder bone and right leg bone. There was no pain.
The letters that appeared at that moment.
[Skill <Play Dead> acquired.]
[Skill – Play Dead (Lv1)]
[Active / Sustained]
[Maintains a state of apparent death. Canceled upon detection by an enemy.]
[A head-on clash is not the only answer. Deceive the enemy by playing dead and aim for the next opportunity.]
At the same time, I hadn't budged an inch. Numbers had appeared before my eyes, and I knew they represented time.
I immediately sensed what kind of time it was.
As a result, I preserved my life.
'Will it reattach?'
First, I reattached my shoulder bone. Amazingly, the shoulder bone returned to how it originally was, as if it knew its own place.
I swung my arm around here and there. Thankfully, nothing was wrong.
I fitted my leg bone back in as well. Right down to the toe bones, everything moved smoothly.
'A skill, huh....'
For now, I stood up. Because for all I knew, those intruder bastards might come back.
There was no reason to delay. I immediately pushed open the door the intruders had come through.
CREAK—
It was a very short passage. Short enough that a door was immediately visible.
With all my strength, I opened the door on the opposite side.
The entrance the intruders had come through would be there.
'This is...?'
However, the room visible once I opened the door was very different from what I had thought.
A collapsed statue stood in the center of the small room.
When I approached the statue, I saw a stone tablet.
'I can't read it....'
Had a long time passed?
The letters carved into the stone tablet were damaged and impossible to read.
'And this is....'
In front of the statue and the stone tablet, a strange geometric figure was drawn on the floor.
Candlelight flickered along the figure.
'A magic circle?'
A word surfaced in an instant.
After calmly looking around, I was able to roughly guess the situation.
'There wasn't an entrance in the first place....'
To be precise, it meant there was no physical entrance. This magic circle was definitely what the intruders used when entering this place.
The problem was that this magic circle showed no sign of activating again.
'Maybe only intruders can use it, too....'
Either way, it was useless to me.
The fact that I couldn't go outside gave me a great sense of despair.
Wondering if there might be another device or a hidden door, I searched every inch of the walls, but my expectations only birthed disappointment.
'Hmm...?'
However, I found something else.
Something was carved into one side of the wall. It wasn't easy to see because it was dark, but it looked like letters.
'What is it?'
Any clue at all would be good. I wanted to know where this place was and how I could get out.
I was different from the other Skeleton Soldiers. Big Guy and Beanpole tried to guard this place, but deep inside my heart, I heard a cry telling me to escape from here.
I immediately picked up a candlestick and came back.
By the soft light, I was able to read the carved letters.
[To someone, despair, nightmare, pain.]
[To another, pleasure, hope, challenge.]
It was a short sentence.
'What does that mean?'
It wasn't of much help. Could there perhaps be another sentence like this?
This time, I held the candle and scanned the walls. Unfortunately, however, I couldn't find any other sentences.
'Could they be in other rooms too...?'
Perhaps sentences were carved into every room?
I put the candlestick down and left the room. Since there were torches in the other rooms too, there was no need to bother carrying a candlestick around.
I returned to the room where the Slimes had died. Grabbing a torch, I searched the walls.
It wasn't a very wide room, but because I searched meticulously lest I miss anything, it took some time. However, I found nothing.
'Is it only written where that magic circle is...?'
THUD— THUD—
It just so happened that I needed time to think. The iron bars coming down had to mean the intruders were in the middle of combat.
Considering the situation so far, the iron bars came down whenever the intruders entered a room. And once the intruders' battle ended, the iron bars went up.
If there were living bastards like me, the iron bars didn't go up.
My gaze turned toward the door the intruders had exited through.
'If I want to move safely....'
I had no confidence in facing three intruders alone. If so, wouldn't it be better to follow the path they had already passed through?
'There's still too much I don't know....'
I was curious about how many rooms there were, and whether every room had Skeleton Soldiers like me, Slimes, or other beings entirely.
First, figuring out the place I was in came before anything else.
There was no one to tell me who I was. Nor was there anyone to tell me why I kept rising from the grave here.
However, I could find out for myself where this place was and what was in here.
THUD— THUD—
The iron bars went up.
A signal that the intruders had made another victim.
In other words, it meant they had moved even further away.
Before the iron bars could come down again, I opened the door. Since I was holding a torch, securing visibility wasn't difficult.
'Hmm....'
The room I arrived at next was still the same. Only the overall layout of the room changed; its appearance seemed similar to the other rooms.
'Skeleton Soldiers, huh.'
Skeleton Soldiers like me—the number of scattered skulls was five.
Looking at the scattered bones, I felt no emotion whatsoever.
Wasn't I of the same kind as them? Why didn't I feel sad?
I turned my gaze away.
Was there anything different?
There were three doors in the room. Excluding the passage I had entered through, there were two.
From here on, it was luck. Because there was no way to know where the intruders had gone.
'What should I do....?'
Of course, I could wait here. However, it would be a waste of time.
Because I didn't know when I would return to that grave again. I had to obtain as much information as possible.
My hesitation was brief.
Because there would be danger no matter where I went.
'I'll go this way.'
I pushed the door open. Passing through the short passage, I opened the next door.
'What's this?'
It was different.
It was a very small room, and there was no trace of battle. Neither dead Slimes nor bones were visible.
Instead, what caught my eye was a small chest.
'It's open. Did the intruders pass through here?'
I approached the chest. The inside was completely empty, but I saw a weapon dropped next to it.
With no particular features, it was an axe with a dulled blade.
'The intruders were definitely carrying an axe.'
I recalled the conversation the intruders had shared in front of the Slimes. The bald man had definitely been carrying an axe.
I reached out and grasped the axe handle.
It was heavy.
'He was definitely... a bastard who could swing something like this.'
I recalled the bald man's appearance again. Unlike the other intruders, he was a guy who bared his muscles and showed them off.
'But why did he throw away his weapon and leave?'
It was a question. Why had he thrown away his weapon and left?
I looked at the axe. Even though the blade was dull, most bastards wouldn't be able to withstand it.
[Dull Two-Handed Axe – Left Hand]
[Slash]
[An axe that has not been properly maintained. Due to its heavy weight, it must be held with both hands to be wielded properly.]
[Equipped with one hand: Accuracy decreased by 80%.]
'Again....'
It was the same as with the torch. Letters had surfaced next to the axe.
Did I have to hold it with both hands to use it properly?
I set the torch down and gripped the axe with both hands.
'It's definitely more comfortable.'
As a test, I swung it to the side. Since it was my first time holding an axe, my form was clumsy even to my own eyes.
'Should I take it with me for now?'
There was no need to bother carrying the torch around. If by any chance I ran into the intruders, wouldn't I at least be able to put up a fight?
I had no other business here. I passed the chest and opened the door.
THUD— THUD—
'Oh no....'
The sound of the iron bars. It seemed the intruders were fighting again.
This time, I was trapped in the passage.
Being in the dim passage, my sense of time grew blurry again.
Not knowing what to do, I sank into thought.
'Why do the intruders come in here?'
That was the first question that came to mind. There was no entrance in the room where the stone statue was.
In other words, didn't that mean the Skeleton Soldiers, Slimes, and such in this place couldn't go out into the intruders' world?
'We shouldn't be a threat to them....'
What was the reason they came here even while risking death? Did it mean there was something here worth risking their lives to obtain?
Big Guy and Beanpole, who lived here, actually knew nothing about this place. To them, it seemed there was only a sense of duty that they had to guard this place.
Instead, the intruders seemed to know this place much better. What I needed to pay attention to wasn't my own kind, but them.
I recalled the intruders' conversation again.
'The number of rooms changes according to the number of intruders... But how do they know that?'
Clack— Clack—
My jaw and teeth clacked together, breaking the silence of the quiet corridor. After pondering for a moment, I reached my own answer.
'It's experience. They know it from experience. In other words, it means this isn't the first time the intruders have come to this place.'
Just as I remembered when rising from the grave again, they also remembered this place somehow.
Perhaps there was an exit that the intruders knew about. They escaped this place at will and came back in again.
'Or else....'
Perhaps they came back to life with their memories just like me.
THUD— THUD—
I ended my thoughts there. Unlike before, the letters saying the intruders had died didn't appear.
It seemed this group of intruders was surprisingly strong.
Gripping the axe tightly, I pushed the door open. As expected, it was a prison.
With this, it became certain.
This place is definitely a prison.
It was a spacious room. It seemed to be the widest among all the rooms I had seen so far.
There were four pillars. Around them, the corpses of Skeleton Soldiers and Slimes lay strewn about.
However, there was something else that captured my gaze even more than that.
'Stairs...?'
It was a spiral staircase visible beyond the corpses. There was no way down, only a way up.
Rattle—
I moved forward, clearing away the bones catching on my feet.
'A magic circle....'
I stopped in my tracks at the familiar candlesticks. Candlesticks stood in the center of the room, and a magic circle was drawn there.
The stairs and the magic circle—what kind of relationship did they have?
I couldn't use the magic circle anyway. Therefore, I headed toward the stairs.
Remembering the information that there wasn't just one magic circle, I tried to climb the stairs.
However, my foot didn't reach the stairs.
'This is....'
It was as if there were an invisible wall. Not only my foot, but my hand and even the axe couldn't pass through the transparent wall.
[Monsters cannot leave their assigned floor.]
Letters surfaced on the transparent wall.
'Assigned...? A floor...?'
Stairs that only went up. Intruders who attacked me. The designation of monster.
It was enough information to know who I was.
I was a monster guarding the first floor, a Level 1 Skeleton Soldier.