Volume One – The Stone
Episode Zero – Prologue
In the Paraizo Kingdom, there was a well-known city—Inferno.
Inferno flourished thanks to its dungeons, just like the capital Purgatorio and the southern city Seu. From the bodies of the monsters dwelling within those dungeons, a substance known as Calvaon was harvested. Calvaon was one of the kingdom’s most important resources. It came in many colors—red, black, and more—and in various sizes, differing greatly depending on the monster. Yet there was one thing they all had in common.
Calvaon—served as fuel.
And not something trivial like firewood. It lasted far longer and produced far greater heat.
Thus, the cities grew alongside their dungeons, advancing while paying a heavy price.
Among them, Inferno housed three dungeons:
Tohe.
Toro.
And—Podie.
Podie was, like the others, a massive dungeon. Its usefulness was no less than that of any other.
However, Podie had one trait that set it apart—something abnormal.
There was a school standing right beside it.
Its official name was the Larva Adventurer Training Academy. The academy specialized in combat training, imparting knowledge to adventurers, and supporting them—an institution run by the nation to cultivate those who would someday make their mark.
Because of this, Podie was also known as the Academy Dungeon, and ordinary adventurers never entered it.
Therefore, the man currently exploring Podie was likely an adventurer affiliated with Larva Academy—and also a student.
He was indeed a man.
And he was large.
His height approached one meter ninety, a giant of a man whose neck was thick like a great tree trunk, and whose arms resembled a thousand-year-old wood. Naturally, the legs supporting him were massive as well. His back was no less powerful, and his whole frame was angular like carved stone. When one looked at his face, sharp double-eyelids glared into a distant void. Unfortunately, his looks could not be called handsome. His dust-covered nose was low, and his dry, cracked lips were thin. His jaw was as heavily developed as his neck, giving him a somewhat beastlike appearance.
Following the example of countless adventurers who had died before him, he ensured every buckle of his armor was tightly secured. His chest was protected by a breastplate resembling a bent sheet of thin iron. His gauntlets, made of the same kind of material, covered him from elbow to wrist. On his feet, he wore black boots, crafted from yet another type of leather.
Over his armor, he wore a surcoat, made from the tough hide of some beast. A surcoat was a loose garment with no sleeves, wide open sides, and a hem that reached down to the shins. Wearing it over armor made temperature control easier and more comfortable. The surface of his surcoat was covered in red-black scales belonging to no creature found on the surface world—likely tanned hide stripped from a monster within the dungeon.
The rest of his equipment was fastened at his waist: a canteen, preserved rations, and—perhaps a multitool or maybe a backup weapon—a kukri knife, a blade with an inward curve and a sharpened inner edge, secured at his back.
And above all, attention was drawn to the weapon in his hand.
It was closer to a piece of heavy weaponry than a mere weapon.
Its length was two meters.
Its shaft was thick and seemingly without any intent to be lightweight, made entirely of dull, metallic material. The spearhead carried a broad, curved blade with a wood-grain pattern. It was large and wide, far thicker than that of a normal spear. On the opposite side of the blade, traces remained where decorative cloth had once been attached; scraps of fabric still clung to it.
The weapon alone likely exceeded ten kilograms.
Yet the man carried it with ease, holding it in one hand while resting it on his shoulder as he continued deeper into the dungeon.
Only someone blessed with such tremendous brute strength could manage it.
The name of that weapon was Qinglong Yanyue Dao, the Green Dragon Crescent Blade.
Originally, it was a massive weapon meant to be used on horseback.
By now, it was ridiculously oversized and unwieldy; no one would ever use such a thing inside a dungeon. It was a relic of the past.
Yet the man wielded that antique.
"Tch…"
As the man walked onward, he suddenly stopped.
He narrowed his eyes, irritated that he could not see ahead, and clicked his tongue.
But he could hear footsteps.
There were so many of them.
Cold sweat gathered on his brow, as if in alarm.
This corridor was wide—three meters across, with a ceiling stretching more than ten meters high. Letting his guard down meant being surrounded, so the man gripped his weapon with both hands, focusing all his awareness forward.
He spread his stance wide, lowered his hips slightly, and pulled his right foot back. His left hand gripped the shaft near the spearhead, while his right hand held the opposite end.
His movements were practiced; this was not something learned overnight.
Then, enemies, creatures, monsters lunged at him.
Wolves. Monsters shaped like wolves, roughly sixty centimeters in body length. The man, clearly experienced in combat, calmly stepped back to evade the leaping attack.
Then, letting the shaft slide within his left hand, he drove the tip straight down into the monster’s skull.
The blade pierced through its head, killing it instantly.
But it wasn’t alone. From diagonally ahead to the right, another monster sprang at him. The man swung the butt end—called the ishizuki, the side opposite the blade—sweeping with one hand. But the Green Dragon Crescent Blade, weighing well over several dozen kilograms, moved sluggishly.
Because of that, the monster’s fangs sank into the man’s right shoulder.
Fortunately, it bit into the armor, so he avoided a serious wound; however, he could no longer move his right arm as he wished. The momentum of the blade died. He tried desperately to shake the monster off by swinging his right arm, but its bite strength was tremendous. Seizing that opening, a third monster leaped at him from the left.
The man forced his uncooperative body to move and kicked the third monster’s head sideways with his left foot. The airborne creature, unable to maneuver, slammed into a nearby wall.
To avoid being attacked by the next monster, he swiftly reached behind his waist with his left hand and drew the kukri knife in a reverse grip. He toyed with it briefly in his hand, flipping it from reverse grip to normal, and smashed it down into the skull of the wolf on his right shoulder. It's brain burst, splattering blood across his face. But he did not flinch; he immediately tore the corpse off his arm.
—However, the monsters’ assault did not end there.
Ahead of him, deeper in the corridor, dozens more wolf-shaped monsters were waiting.
"Multiplying like maggots crawling out of a corpse, aren’t you—"
A curse escaped the man’s lips.
A dungeon was a dreamlike place, harboring an almost infinite supply of Calvaon—an essential resource for human life. But the reality was its complete opposite.
Yellow flowers blossoming on the ceiling illuminated the interior, and being surrounded on all sides by earthen walls made the place no different from hell.
Monsters showed no mercy toward adventurers. Not a single one would overlook them. They bared their fangs not to feed—but to kill.
There was no such thing as reason within them. They moved for one purpose alone: to eliminate adventurers.
Thus, injuries were unavoidable. Adventurers were torn apart by fangs and claws. Not only students of the Larva Academy, many adventurers had been killed. Many had lost limbs and been forced into retirement.
Which is why the academy never encouraged adventurers to enter dungeons alone; instead, they recommended forming parties with a certain minimum number of people.
By gathering together and helping one another, people reduce danger and can survive even in dungeons that brush close to death.
“Haa—!”
The man focused his energy into the dantian located a few inches below his navel, then hurled the kukri knife in his left hand at the nearest monster. The blade struck perfectly into its head, and the monster died instantly. Thanks to the one fallen body, the advancing horde paused for a split second.
Seizing that moment, the man closed the distance toward the mass of monsters and, emptying his mind, swung the Green Dragon Crescent Blade in every direction.
Even when his abdomen was bitten, even when his thigh was slashed open, the man continued to swing the blade like a madman—because he had to live, and because he had to push forward in the dungeon.
Something close to a scream kept pouring from his mouth. Perhaps, without that, he wouldn’t have been able to fight at all.
(Why… is this happening… to me…?)
As he cleaved through monsters with his weapon, the man’s thoughts drifted to what had happened just yesterday.
Until then, he had never done anything as reckless as diving into a dungeon alone. He had always been part of a party, descending alongside his comrades.
Originally, today as well, he was supposed to come to the dungeon with that same party.
But everything was overturned by a single sentence from the party leader:
—You’re not needed in this party.
It had been spoken with the same expression as always.
“Damn it—!”
As if to blot out that memory, as if to sever any lingering attachment to the party he once belonged to, and as if to avoid being killed by the monsters, the man fought as he sank his consciousness into darkness.
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