Father did not send his son into the dungeon empty-handed.
When he abruptly grumbled about how weak I was, I wondered what had gotten into him. It turned out he intended to give me a restorative tonic.
“The smell is truly horrendous.”
Lina’s face was completely twisted with disgust as she carried in the bowl.
The murky yellow liquid sent up wisps of steam, making it look as though she were bringing me a bowl of exceptionally fresh piss.
I calmly picked up a spoon and a bottle.
“Young Master, do you truly intend to consume that?”
“Of course. Why would I tell you to boil it if I wasn’t going to eat it? Though I’m not drinking it right now.”
“It was given to you by the head of the family, but this smell is…… My apologies. I shall wait outside, Young Master.”
Covering her nose and mouth with one hand, Lina hurriedly fled the room.
I was the only person left in the dining room.
Everyone else had smelled it and slipped away one by one.
I lifted the bowl and sniffed.
A fishy, grassy stench stabbed deep into my nose.
What Father had given me was the gallbladder of a Demonic Beast known as an Ice Bear.
It belonged to the apex predator of the Forest of Demonic Beasts.
There was a famous belief throughout the Empire.
Even the gallbladders of ordinary bears were commonly consumed as restoratives or to improve virility.
Would the same organ from a Demonic Beast several times stronger not be even more effective?
It was a simple, primitive belief bordering on superstition.
But it could not be dismissed as mere superstition.
There was a reason people of the North possessed such great strength.
Even ordinary residents who had never learned mana were renowned for their physical power.
While people in other regions pointed fingers at us and called us barbarians for believing in folk tales and superstitions,
we consumed Demonic Beasts as food without hesitation.
The gallbladder of an Ice Bear, in particular, contained nutrients so abundant that ordinary plants and animals could not compare.
Even small pieces of it were traded for considerable sums.
Before me was water in which an entire gallbladder had been boiled to extract its essence.
“The privilege of having the Grand Duke of the North as my father.”
I poured the gallbladder extract into the bottle and left.
My preparations were complete.
“Good. Shall I go now?”
“Young Master, please take care of yourself.”
“Right. I’ll be back.”
Lina bowed at the waist and saw me off.
***
I left the castle, passed the cabin where I had once lived, and entered the forest.
It was time to end my six-month wait.
Until now, I had been unable to enter because I lacked the key.
But nothing stood in my way anymore.
Only a fool would waste an opportunity worth its weight in gold.
The deeper I went into the forest, the more clearly I could feel the key hanging from my necklace pulsating.
It even began jerking about, as though eager to reach the place where it was meant to be used.
“You don’t have to rush me. I’m going, bastard.”
I followed the direction indicated by the key.
After walking for half a day, I reached a wide clearing in the middle of the forest.
There were no trees, no grass, and not even a single damn ant.
It had been a long time since I came here.
Whenever I grew tired of hiding in my room, I would secretly slip away and visit this place.
Back then, I had not known it was the dungeon entrance.
Even if I had known, I would not have been able to enter without the key.
“We’re here.”
I knelt and placed my hand against the clearing.
Mana flowed from my fingertips and seeped into the ground.
“Ghk!”
The rate at which it absorbed my mana was alarming.
It drank as greedily as a man who had suffered from thirst for years gulping down cold water.
Something beneath the ground was draining my magical power in great gulps.
“Show yourself already!”
RUMBLE—!
The ground began to shake.
Cracks formed across the surface, and an enormous door emerged.
Faint ancient letters, carved long ago, remained upon the door of pure white stone.
‘Do not open this door.’
It was a warning.
A warning not to enter.
“When someone tells you not to do something, it only makes you want to do it more.”
The key began vibrating madly.
When I released it, it flew like a magnet and slipped into the keyhole.
CLICK.
RUMBLE—!
When I turned the key, the door slid aside with a heavy sound.
Rough, uneven stairs led down into the darkness.
“Then shall we go?”
I took a deep breath, checked the sword in its sheath, and cautiously stepped inside.
Once I was completely through, the dungeon door closed on its own.
“No takebacks once the card has been played, huh?”
Good.
I had no intention of running away anyway.
I slowly descended the stairs.
***
The labyrinth was filled with cold air and a musty smell.
The darkness was so thick that I could not see an inch ahead.
When I raised my torch, patterns carved into the walls emerged faintly.
Each one was a magic circle composed of complicated formulas.
“Are these used for the seal?”
I stepped away from the wall.
It would be troublesome if I touched one and released the seal before obtaining the sword.
I illuminated the floor with the torch.
Unlike the uneven stairs, the corridor was paved with neatly arranged square tiles.
Had I not known it was a dungeon, I might have believed it to be a corridor in some fortress.
So it begins here.
I took an experimental step forward.
CLICK!
A tile beneath my foot suddenly sank.
The ground shook, and a sharp spear erupted from it.
WHISH—!
I threw myself forward and avoided the spear.
CLICK.
I heard another tile sink.
THWIP—!
An arrow shot from the ceiling.
CLANG—! CLANG—!
I swung my sword and knocked it away.
“Hmm. That bastard was right.”
I removed the bottle hanging from my waist.
I drank the gallbladder extract in a single gulp.
It was disgustingly fishy.
The medicinal effects appeared quickly.
Vitality circulated throughout my body.
My exhaustion and fatigue melted away like snow.
But that was not the extract’s only effect.
The mana depleted when I opened the dungeon was gradually being restored.
According to Vlad, there were three reasons this dungeon was dangerous.
The first was that opening the door absorbed all the challenger’s mana.
The second was the multitude of traps laid throughout the corridor.
In my previous life, Vlad had overcome this obstacle by bringing one hundred soldiers with him.
Each time a trap was activated, he used the soldiers as human shields and continued to the end of the dungeon.
In the end, Vlad was the only one who returned.
Despite that, he was praised as a hero.
No wonder he turned out wrong.
That was why I brought the Ice Bear gallbladder extract.
Not only would it be difficult for me to mobilize one hundred soldiers, I did not want to do so.
My mana was full.
Mana Field deployed.
A membrane of mana spread widely.
The traps hidden beneath every tile were revealed one after another within my mind.
“Let’s go!”
I began running lightly.
There were no more clicking sounds.
***
The end of the corridor.
A dead end greeted me.
I placed a finger against the wall and slowly moved it.
Twenty blocks down from the top.
Five blocks to the right from the left wall.
There was a single brick that sat slightly deeper than the others.
“Hoo.”
I blew against it.
The thick layer of dust scattered, revealing the engraved pattern beneath.
The image of a coiled dragon.
It was exactly as Vlad had boasted.
In my previous life, listening to that bastard brag had been unbearable.
This is why people should live virtuously.
I endured listening to something unpleasant, and now a day like this had come.
Let us not say anything cruel about how I only listened because I lacked the strength to resist.
I pressed the brick bearing the dragon pattern.
A wall emerged behind me and blocked the corridor.
The sealed space slowly began descending.
DING-DONG.
After descending for a long while, the wall opened with the sound of a bell from an unknown source.
All I could see was dense darkness.
I raised my torch.
A cavern so vast that it was difficult to believe it lay underground.
WHOOSH.
A flame pierced the low-hanging darkness and emitted black light.
“Black flame.”
There was no mistaking it.
It was the Demonic Sword.
Like a moth flying toward a flame, I walked toward the black fire.
The closer I drew, the clearer its enormous size became.
It was a sword whose length easily surpassed the height of an adult man.
Black flames billowed from its blade.
[Come closer.]
The voice echoing inside my head belonged to a proud and dignified woman.
She tried to draw me in with a sweet whisper.
I stepped toward the sword.
Like a moth that had discovered a flame, I reached toward the black fire.
[AHAHAHAHA!]
The woman’s chilling laughter filled my mind.
[You fell for it!]
The black flames surged and wrapped around my entire body.
“Graaagh!”
Burning agony engulfed me.
No.
It did not merely engulf my body.
The pain of those damned black flames was trying to burn even my soul.
[If you wish to withstand my blessing, you must endure at least this much.]
A woman with flowing violet hair appeared within the flames.
[Endure it, child. Then kneel.]
Her pupils were stained with an unfathomably deep darkness.
[Offer your soul to me.]
“……You sure do prattle on.”
It was all I could barely force out, but it was enough to make her eyes widen.
[Child. Can you hear my voice?!]
“Yeah, so be quiet.”
I clenched my molars.
I must have split my lip from the force because I tasted blood on the tip of my tongue.
[How intriguing. A child capable of hearing my voice.]
She smiled, revealing her fangs.
She lifted my chin with her index finger.
[If you can hear my voice, this will proceed more quickly. I have been searching for one such as you. Child, kneel before me.]
“What happens if I kneel?”
[I shall grant you the power to rule the entire world. The power of the Demonic Dragon Fafnir!]
The third danger of the dungeon.
The entity sealed within this place.
The Reverse Scale of Demonic Dragon Fafnir.
“I refuse.”
I clung to my fading consciousness and spoke quietly.
[Why, child? Do you not desire power?]
Of course I did.
Obtaining it was the entire reason I was suffering through this.
But still.
“No warrior kneels to a sword.”
I slowly stepped forward.
I reached toward the handle that had been burned pitch-black.
“Nothing can be accomplished after surrendering your soul.”
Kneeling would make things easier for now.
After all, I would gain the power of the being who had ruled the world a thousand years ago.
But whether it was a Demonic Dragon or the Demon King, everyone whose soul was taken by a demon met the same end.
Vlad had ultimately lost his sanity and degenerated into a rampaging Demonic Beast.
“Besides, you lost to Hero Siegfried Sigurd in the end, didn’t you?”
[You insolent wretch!]
The cavern shook as though struck by an earthquake beneath her furious voice.
The black flames burned even more violently and grew hotter.
Even the floor of the cavern marked with the sealing array began to melt.
But I could not retreat now.
“Behave and become mine, Demonic Dragon Fafnir.”
When I gripped the handle, the raging flames vanished, and the enormous sword gradually shrank.
My body, which had been burned black like charcoal, returned to its original state.
[HAHAHAHAHA!]
Fafnir burst into laughter as though she had witnessed something entertaining.
She whispered into my ear.
[How laughable. I shall watch until the very end and see whether you truly possess the qualifications to become my master.]
“What if I don’t satisfy you?”
[Your body will become mine.]
This was a kind of contract.
A taut tug-of-war between her and me.
If I let my guard down for even a moment, my soul would be dragged into the Demonic Dragon’s jaws.
“Don’t worry.”
I raised the sword.
It fit my hand perfectly, as though it had always belonged to me.
“You won’t be bored.”