Chapter 13 - Cornered

Sacred Goddess implies ‘a saintly woman-type, goddess’

The alarm that represented intruders rang out.

This sound that I hadn’t heard for the long while since I changed the conditions for the alarm to people invading the 4th floor, sent my right tension up. When I sat on the chair on my office and looked at the intruders on screen as usual, I found a party of 4 being shown. Two of them were female.

When I checked the intruder party’s status I found a shocking entry.

Name: Arc

Race: Human Race

Sex: Male

Age: 25

Job: Swordsman

Level: 38

Title: Hero of the Holy Sword

Name: Zio

Race: Human Race

Sex: Male

Age: 28

Job: Swordsman

Level: 33

Title: None

Name: Frey

Race: Human Race

Sex: Female

Age: 24

Job: Mage

Level: 33

Title: None

Name: Widdi

Race: Human Race

Sex: Female

Age: 19

Job: Cleric

Level: 31

Title: None

Hero…?

I was shocked at the title held by the ikemen swordsman with the short blonde hair who was walking as the vanguard.

No, I mean, since it’s a fantasy world like this, having a hero might not be all that strange, but now that he’s here in front of my eyes, I can’t help but be shocked, as you’d expect. Moreover, the fact that it’s shown as a title must mean that he’s formally recognised as a hero by “something”. I don’t know if it’s a god, or a country, but even though there’s been close to 100 intruders so far, nobody else has had a title.

But not only the hero who doesn’t fail to live up to his name, the other party members also have levels that are clearly a cut above the rest.

Could this possibly be a desperate pinch that I’m in…?

I’ve already increased the dungeon to 27 floors, but I’m worried about whether that will be enough to stop them in the end. Let’s say that they do manage to reach here, what would I do? What would they do? When I see the sharp looking shining sword that the hero is holding, an unpleasant sweat runs down my back. While praying that he wouldn’t reach me, I continued to monitor their exploration.

『The effect of the barrier is about to run out, so I’ll recast the barrier, okay?』

『Yeah. Counting on you, Widdi.』

Widdi who was dressed in a nun’s outfit gave her proposal, and they all stood still in the large room. After Widdi chanted her spell, for an instant, all of them were wrapped in a white light. The light settled after a moment, but if you looked carefully, you could see that their whole bodies seemed to be faintly shining.

『With this, we’ll be protected from that troublesome miasma for a while longer, hey?』

『Now that we’ve come as far as the 4th floor, it’s gotten very thick after all, so if we didn’t have Widdi’s barrier, our progress would not be very good at all, would it?』

『Huhu, I’m glad to be of use. Because we have the protection of Arc-sama’s Holy Sword, it might have been meaningless though.』

『Nah, it helps. Even if we have the enchantment of my Holy Sword, I don’t think it would feel too good being enveloped in this evil miasma.』

Well, sorry for being evil.

But still, monks had a way to defend against the miasma? This is some important information. The enchantment on Arc’s Holy Sword is on my mind as well.

『But still, this dungeon was only just made, right? Just how many floors down does it go?』

『Usually it would take a number of years to grow, huh?』

It seems that because they stood still to reapply to barrier, they’ve decided to take the chance to rest in that room. While paying attention to the surroundings, they sat down in the room and began chatting.

『Well about that, it seems that when the dungeon master of this dungeon was originally subjugated, this place was only 3 floors deep. The guild believes that the current dungeon master took over that dungeon and used it as the basis for this one.』

『Even so, considering that this floor right now is the 4th one, there’s no mistaking that this place grew in a short time, huh?』

『Yeah, you have a point, Frey.』

『But well, I really doubt that it’s in the double digits after all. I don’t know when this dungeon master took over this dungeon, but even at the earliest estimate, it wouldn’t even be a month after all.』

Well, no, it’s 27 floors.

It’s more convenient for me that they’re optimistic, so I’m not going to tell them though.

『The dungeon master… huh?』

『What’s wrong, Frey?』

『Well, I was just wondering what kind of guy the dungeon master is, you see. The impressions of them is just too randomand… while you’re thinking about how they release this terrible miasma, at the same time all their traps are non-lethal, so…』

Seeing the glamourous mage oneesan fall into thought, Arc asked her the question, and she voiced her doubts. Certainly if you consider it from an outsider’s point of view, perhaps it can’t be helped that they see it as random. It’s not like I’m releasing this miasma because I want to after all, and from my perspective, I did try to make everything consistent, though.

『Speaking of which, I’ve heard that there still hasn’t been one fatality in this “Evil Cave of the Robber” yet, hey? Even when you get done in by the monsters and faint, they only take your weapons and items and throw you by the entrance apparently.』

『Ahh, I see. So that’s why it’s “robber” isn’t it.』

『Even so, we can’t let our guards down. The monsters that appear here are all strong foes that will easily wipe us out if we lose focus after all, and even if the traps are non-lethal, they’re dangerous and can throw us into a crisis in an instant. Also, if by some chance I had the Holy Sword stolen, I wouldn’t be able to face our Sacred Goddess Sophia-sama.』

『I don’t think that beings of evil would be able to touch the Holy Sword, but yes, that is true isn’t it.』

Sacred Goddess Sophia, huh? Is that the name of the god worshipped in this world? Speaking of which, the time when I went to the church in Riemel, I get the feeling that there was a statue of a goddess enshrined further inside the church hall. I didn’t have time to pay attention to it at the time so I don’t remember the details though.

In my old world I didn’t believe in god, but as long as that evil god exists, it wouldn’t be strange for god to exist either… or rather, I’d hate it for there only to be that evil god, so I hope they do exist. Well, since the monk really can use their power, I think the power of gods exists at the very least.

Going by Arc’s title and the conversation just now, could it be that he received the Holy Sword from that goddess? From the name ‘Holy Sword’ it probably has holy power, and in a dungeon with lots of undead, you could say that it’s something you could call its natural enemy.

Considering that I was rejected by the church’s barrier, I’ll probably go through a harsh time if I meet with that sword too. Of course, even if it this wasn’t the case, I’d still pass on being cut down though.

『Well, I don’t know what kind of guy they are, but there’s no doubt that their personality is totally messed up, hey?』

『Ahaha, definitely. They seem to be a money-grubber, so they might even be dressed up like an upstart rich guy, you know. I’m sure they definitely look like a fat, ugly lump of meat.』

『Huhu, you’re right.』

Youuu-. I-, I want to hit them…

I’m sure they meant it as some meaningless chatter, but no matter what, isn’t saying those things about a maiden just too cruel? Boiling mad, I sent the monsters current on the 4th floor towards them, and at the same time, I poured in my mana and increased the spawn rate of the monsters on the 5th floor and below.

Without knowing about the angry me on the other side of the screen, the hero party wrapped up their break and began exploring again.

I was wondering how they were avoiding traps without a scout, but apparently the hero senses them all beforehand with nothing but intuition. Or it might be the enchantment on the Holy Sword or something. From what I’ve heard of their conversation, that possibility seems high, but it’s quite an all-purpose sword, huh? Or rather, I get the feeling that it’s already gone beyond the category of “weapons”.

As expected of a high level party, perhaps I should say, even the attacks by the monsters whose numbers I increased were easily driven back. The skeleton lords were cut down by Arc’s Holy Sword, the black steel golems’s metal fists were blocked by Zio’s shield too. The wraiths were blown away by the flames and blizzard that Frey shot out, and even the chaos elementals were purified by the light magic that Widdi fired.

Although the hero party wasn’t completely uninjured, they progressed smoothly through the dungeon without any major injuries, and it took them roughly 2~3 hours to conquer each floor. Right now they’ve reached as far as the 7th floor, but since it’s already basically night time, it seemed that they were tired as you’d expect because I could see that the energy in their movements had dulled. In particular, the female members who were the rear guard with low stamina were tottering enough that it seemed like they would collapse.

No, if you look carefully, only the hero seemed to still be fine. I can’t tell if it’s the enchantment on the Holy Sword, or if it’s just how he is though.

『How ’bout we rest a little, Arc?』

Noticing that the girls were tired, in one of the wider rooms, Zio suggested this to Arc.

『Hmm, yeah. It’s been already been half a day since we entered this dungeon. I had no idea that it’d be this deep, so I didn’t prepare camping gear, but let’s take turns sleeping and guarding.』n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

At Arc’s words, Frey and Widdi sat down, deeply relieved.

『I-, I’m saved.』

『…Hah… Hii…』

When it came to Widdi, it seems that she couldn’t even speak.

Even if they get through a floor every two hours, it means that they’ll take more than two dayss to get to the 27th floor where I am. Without having expected and prepared camping equipment beforehand, conquering this dungeon will probably be tough. Considering that, it doesn’t look like they’ll be conquering the dungeon on this run. I was a little relieved.

Also, this is completely off topic, but I decided to place a toilet in the room of each floor. They were the first people to explore the dungeon for very long, so I hadn’t noticed this problem.

Thanks to that, I caught sight of the horrible scene of the blonde ikemen hero doing his business… I’ll say it just in case, but I didn’t peep through the gaps in my fingers or anything like that.

It was even graver when it came to the women; seeing the bishoujo nun tell the party with a bright red face, close to tears, that she had to use the bathroom really made me sympathise with her, so I made the decision to create the toilets. Their chatter during their break pissed me off, but even so, the feelings of sympathy as another woman won out.

A dungeon this kind doesn’t exist anywhere else, you know?

For now, they probably won’t be moving until morning, so I decided to sleep as well.