Episode 4 – Dungeon
After that, Nada immediately submitted a notice to the academy and completed the procedures to enter the dungeon. Normally, applying as a new solo adventurer would take about three days, but he used Aghiya’s name to get special treatment. The staff member in charge didn’t seem pleased, but he pushed it through anyway.
And that’s how he ended up standing on the dim, shadowy ground of the dungeon.
The air was humid and clammy, but the temperature remained low enough that even wearing heavy armor didn’t make him feel too hot. An expert once said that if the temperature were even a little higher, the difficulty of conquering Podie’s dungeon would skyrocket. In fact, there were other dungeons where the high temperature alone made them far more difficult.
“Haa… haa…”
Inside that dungeon, with the corpses of numerous wolf-type monsters scattered around him, Nada finally caught his breath.
His body was heavily injured. Dozens of thin claw marks covered him, and the armor still bore clear bite marks. His whole body was soaked in the black blood monsters' release, but thanks to its ancient craftsmanship, the armor itself remained unscathed. It truly lived up to its reputation as ancient technology.
Nada was so exhausted that he didn’t even have the willpower to retrieve his kukri knife or extract the Calvaon from the monsters’ bodies.
He set his polearm on the floor nearby and slowly regulated his breathing.
“This sucks…”
Finding himself surrounded by no one, Nada let a complaint slip out.
When he was part of Aghiya—a party known for having the best grades in the academy—he could consistently reach below the 40th floor.
But now… look at him.
Barely the 10th floor. A level even first-year students with talent could clear. The difficulty wasn’t high.
But for Nada, who’d been forced to adventure alone, that hurdle felt impossibly steep.
A dungeon was never meant to be explored solo. You needed at least three people; more if possible. Individual skill was meaningless against groups of monsters. Only by assembling the right members and dividing roles could humans descend through a dungeon.
Making things worse, Nada was not a talented student.
If anything, he was the sort of person others would call a failure.
His evaluation in the academy was abysmally low, leading to disdain from others. And because he was part of Aghiya, the top party, he also became the target of jealousy.
Then one day, that same party announced he was being kicked out.
Earlier, when he met the short-haired, brown-haired receptionist who handled his solo dungeon application, she quietly muttered:
—“So it’s finally come to this.”
Nada wasn’t shaken by those words.
Being included in Aghiya at all had been nothing but a stroke of luck.
Which is why he fully understood how unfavorable his position was now.
“Calvaon, huh…”
Struggling even on the sixth floor, Nada forced his tired body to move and began dissecting the monster with his kukri, cutting open the flesh to extract the Calvaon inside.
The monster’s fangs, claws, and hide could be used as materials for weapons, but sadly, materials from monsters on the sixth floor weren’t worth much. He could sell them, but hauling them back would be a bigger hassle, so he chose to give them up.
He never expected to struggle at such shallow depths, so with a weary turn on his heel, he began heading back the way he came.
He had already run out of rations for stamina recovery and the bandages and potions needed for treating injuries.
Cursing the painful expense, Nada forced his heavy legs forward, engraving today’s lesson into his mind as he hurried toward the exit.
At that moment, he spotted a monster that had wandered up from a deeper level.
A spider-type monster. Its name: Aranya. It was big—two meters in length—and known for having hard armor compared to other monsters in this area. Other than that, it had no poison and didn’t spit threads. If you aimed for its legs to restrict movement and crushed its head, it was an easy kill.
That is, if he's not alone.
If he had companions, one person could act as bait while another struck. But Nada, operating alone, didn’t have that option.
But still, Nada had been an adventurer for five years since joining the academy. He was basically a veteran. His decisions were quick. He immediately drew his kukri knife and threw it as a feint.
The knife stabbed into Aranya’s skull, but unfortunately, from that distance, the force was weak. It only sank in shallowly before falling out and clattering to the ground.
The Aranya noticed Nada from the attack. But by then, he had already closed the distance.
He raised his polearm high into the air and brought it down in one sweeping motion.
Even though Nada wasn’t particularly skilled in martial techniques, the polearm could produce power just by swinging it downward. Its dozens of kilos of weight and curved blade created a moment of inertia that naturally aligned the edge with Aranya’s leg. A clean cut. Black blood sprayed violently, and one of Aranya’s legs flew off.
But that alone wasn’t enough to kill it.
Aranya’s face, lined with sharp fangs, lunged at Nada, trying to devour him headfirst.
Nada wedged his polearm between them, blocking the attack. Aranya’s six round black eyes stared directly into his. The sight of the monster’s mouth—covered in fine hairs and wriggling like crawling maggots—made Nada furrow his brows. For a moment, their strength was evenly matched, but Nada’s situation was slightly worse. Even with one leg gone, Aranya still had seven left, while Nada, a mere human, was holding a heavy polearm.
Feeling his feet beginning to slide backward under Aranya’s pushing force, Nada quickly released the weapon and leapt to the side.
Aranya, driven by its own momentum, plowed headfirst into the ground.
It immediately used its seven remaining legs to spin around, searching for Nada—only to spot him above, holding the kukri knife he had thrown earlier.
Nada raised the kukri high and struck the wound where it had lodged before. Aranya’s skull burst open.
He immediately slit open the body with the knife, extracted the Calvaon, and placed it into the pouch at his waist.
Monsters that would take only a few seconds—or a few dozen seconds at most—to defeat with a party required him to face them alone, battered and exhausted.
On top of that, Nada still wasn’t proficient in using the heavy polearm.
Nada was struggling with solo dungeon exploration.
◆◆◆
As Nada slowly made his way back through the dungeon, he entered an open space.
Dungeon structures always had a certain height interval, but the width varied wildly. Earlier, Nada had deliberately traveled through narrow corridors to avoid being surrounded, but places like this—a large room—also existed.
The ceiling here was unlike anything before. Far above, large flowers bloomed, glowing with an eerie, intensifying presence. The walls were rough, as though they had been forcibly chipped away with a hammer. The floor was uneven, full of ridges and cracks.
Walking through such terrain, Nada eventually reached a spot where rocky floors crossed like a giant X, with darkness spreading below.
He was currently on the seventh floor, so below would be the eighth floor—or deeper, he guessed. Dungeons rarely had actual staircases. Adventurers descended by navigating steep slopes or level drops like this one. Some adventurers even leapt into these holes and used the ridges as footholds to quickly descend, but those people were rare. Most adventurers used already-discovered slopes to move downward. Nada was one of those.
Which is why he always paid close attention to the footing. Falling could drop him straight into a “Monster House,” swarming with monsters—nothing unusual. It happened often. And since he was on his way back, falling now would turn the return trip into a nightmare.
The only bit of luck was that no monsters were around. There were bits of meat and blood, so he could tell a battle had taken place. Corpses in a dungeon mysteriously disappeared. When asked, adventurers who had seen it said:
—“The dungeon ate them.”
If a corpse were left unattended, the dungeon’s floor or walls would open like a giant mouth and devour everything. Nada had never witnessed it himself, but he’d heard many adventurers had seen similar scenes.
With dark matter and bizarre phenomena, the dungeon was truly another world.
People entered such places chasing dreams of riches or heroism, but Nada simply tread carefully, wanting to return alive.
Once past the unstable ground and back onto a wider floor, he let out a small sigh of relief. He began walking forward again—
—and the ground suddenly shook.
He felt as though he were floating.
Nada quickly looked down.
The floor was collapsing.
“Ah—damn it!”
He swung his polearm and stabbed it into the nearby wall.
His body jolted to a stop.
Nada let out a breath of relief. Dungeons regularly changed their internal structure.
—This phenomenon was commonly called an internal shift.
Things rose, collapsed, formed new walls, or opened new paths. This was why adventurers constantly sought updated dungeon information. The path they once used to escape monsters might suddenly no longer exist. Nothing unusual—so Nada didn’t panic.
Holding onto the polearm buried in the wall with his right hand, keeping himself suspended with one arm, he calmly began thinking of how to climb back up. Eventually, he settled on the simple idea of pulling himself up with one arm and grabbing the edge of the floor. Luckily, the place where the polearm was stuck wasn’t far from the collapsed floor. Even Nada could reach it.
Gritting his teeth, he started lifting himself—
But the section of wall where the polearm was lodged began crumbling. The weapon slipped free from the cracking stone, and fragments pummeled Nada as they fell.
In stunned disbelief, Nada fell into the abyss along with the collapsing rocks.
Partway down, his body struck a slope, and his feet found ground. The drop hadn’t been far, so he escaped with only light bruising. But countless rocks were still falling from above. Nada tried to deflect them with his polearm, but there were simply too many.
And so Nada was swallowed by the falling rocks as he tumbled downward.
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