Episode 11 – Abyss
“Does anyone know this dragon’s full length?”
No one could answer Dan’s question.
All of them had been swallowed and ended up here. The only memories before entering the stomach were the dragon’s jaws, far larger than their bodies; its gleaming eyes; its fangs, each one large enough to be mistaken for a greatsword. There was no way any of them could have seen the full length of a dragon, the strongest class of monster.
“No one, right? I mean, that dragon wasn’t… wandering the dungeon. I don’t know about the rest of you, but in my case, it suddenly came out of the wall and swallowed me and Serena together.”
No one was surprised by Dan’s words.
All of them had gone through something similar.
“It came out of the ceiling for me. The moment it appeared, the shaking and the roar were so intense I thought it was an internal shift. It burst through the ceiling—”
That was Nada speaking.
He had lost consciousness shortly afterward, but the scene was impossible to forget.
“I came from the ceiling as well.”
“Same here—I got eaten from the ceiling, too~.”
Like Nada, Amarelo, and Clarisse had been swallowed by a dragon erupting from above.
“I came from the floor. It was like a trap—the moment I stepped into that spot, the dragon shot out of the ground and swallowed me whole. Honestly… It’s embarrassing, but I never even saw the dragon’s face. All I saw were its fangs and tongue. So at first I thought I’d just been eaten by a giant monster, but after hearing your stories, I realized we’re inside a dragon’s stomach.”
Bramia scratched his cheek, looking a bit embarrassed.
It seemed he hadn’t even been given the time to visually confirm the dragon before being eaten.
“Same for me—like Bramia, the dragon came from the ground. I jumped up to dodge, so I saw its face, but it was unbelievable. Its head alone was the size of a lower-tier dragon species. And something else bothered me—the dragon tracked me as if specifically trying to eat me. Seriously… what reason could it possibly have to target me?”
No one responded to Corvo.
No one knew the answer.
Indeed, the dragon’s behavior was strange. Attacking people was understandable—monsters attacked humans. But this felt different.
“…I remained conscious after being swallowed, and it’s true—the only ones it ate were Dan and me. Our whole group was together, frozen in place, yet it chose us specifically.”
Serena spoke.
She wasn’t the only one who found it strange that the dragon had gathered these particular adventurers, almost as if hand-picked. Except for Nada, everyone else here belonged to a party, but none of their other party members had been eaten.
“Well, personally, I don’t know what criteria the dragon used. But what matters now is getting out of here. Whatever that dragon’s intentions are… I couldn’t care less.”
“That may be so, Dan-dono, but do you have any good method for escaping this place?”
Amarelo’s question caused Dan to fall silent.
Several seconds passed before he finally spoke, smiling lightly, drawing out his words.
“Turns out… nope. Unfortunately, not a single one.”
At that moment, everything outside Serena’s ability barrier had already been washed clean by stomach acid. No insects, no rocks. Just the pink flesh walls like when they first arrived.
Of course, all seven of them noticed this. Within the dark, oppressive air of this inner chamber, Corvo raised his voice clearly.
“Well, even if there’s no escape, I’m not planning to stay here. Same for all of you, right?”
“That’s for sure. Even if it’s impossible, there’s no way I’m dying in a place like this!”
Bramia declared loudly.
The other four seemed to agree, nodding without objection.
“I feel the same. I don’t plan on staying inside this dragon forever. But… you still need to understand that escaping won’t be easy. You have to accept reality first.”
Dan let out a suspicious smile.
“…That might be true. But what we need to do is simple. We focus on one thing—finding an exit.”
With Corvo’s firm declaration, the group’s brief rest came to an end. They had found no clue toward escaping, but at least, as a party, their direction was decided.
Once again, the seven of them stepped out of Escondil Utero and continued wandering through the dragon’s insides. Of course, this wasn’t the kind of exploration where they had any real lead to follow, and going back the way they came would accomplish nothing, so without anyone explicitly deciding, the seven of them began walking in the direction opposite to the path they had taken before.
No insects appeared this time.
No stomach acid either.
There wasn’t even the ominous presence of tumbling boulders.
The seven of them walked through the same unchanging pink maze. Every time they reached one of the many branching paths, Bramia, who took the lead, chose a direction at random. Naturally, each time, he carved a mark into the wall to leave a trail of where they had been—but how useful that would actually be was anyone’s guess.
A dragon is a living creature.
This isn’t a dungeon.
A dungeon will keep any mark carved into it forever. The deeper one goes, the more likely it is to find traces of heroes from long ago. But this place is the inside of a dragon. Of course, a dragon would possess the ability to regenerate wounds—just like many other monsters. Scholars have already proven that certain rogue monsters can even regrow lost limbs, and Nada remembered learning in school about cases of monsters whose right arms had grown back.
So no one could say how long Bramia’s carved marks would remain. How strong was a dragon’s regenerative ability anyway? Nada had asked Dan earlier, but he only replied, “I don’t know.”
“This is creepy. It’s way too quiet.”
It was Nada who said that.
About an hour had likely passed since they left the space Serena had created. They had yet to encounter a single one of Bramia’s markings.
None of them knew the exact time. After all, none of them was carrying a clock, and in the dragon’s body, where there was no sun, one’s sense of time naturally fell apart.
If this were a dungeon, dawn and dusk would be obvious—the monsters’ eye colors changed with the time of day.
But inside a dragon, would the “insects” have their eye color change too? Nada wondered that briefly, but the thought was meaningless when even the insects refused to show themselves.
“Indeed… earlier it felt like some sort of amusement park with all sorts of things happening, but now it’s nothing but a maze, hm? Nothing but these narrow passages—it’s not very fun anymore.”
The winding path led only to more winding paths.
Even Amarelo seemed tired of it, stroking his chin with narrowed eyes.
“Dan-senpaaai, do you know where we are—?”
“Sadly, I have no idea. There are too many possibilities when it comes to narrow organs inside a body.”
Clarisse asked the nearby Dan, but no clear answer came, as expected.
“It’s about time we ran into another obstacle…”
At Bramia’s remark, everyone felt a bad premonition.
And—It hit right on the mark.
Suddenly, the fleshy floor beneath their feet began to tear apart with a sickening ripping sound, as if sliced open by invisible blades—like strands of flesh being yanked and snapped. Ahead of them, the meat fibers split apart, forming a mesh-like pattern that then widened rapidly as the entire floor collapsed. A pitch-black hole with no visible bottom yawned open.
Of course, all seven tried to retreat immediately, but the collapse spread far faster than they could run, and they were swallowed by the abyss.
A sudden weightlessness washed over the seven of them.
“⋘Escondil Utero⋙!”
Naturally, Serena reacted the quickest to the anomaly and activated her ability.
Her ability created a subspace—unaffected by gravity or blood—generated exactly where she pointed.
She entered it first.
Nada, who had been closest behind her, jumped in next. Serena then stretched her arm out toward Dan, who was within reach.
“Dan!”
“Serena!”
But just as Serena tried to grab Dan’s right hand, their fingers slipped apart, and Dan’s body was pulled into the abyss.
And of course—some of the adventurers had already been swallowed by the void before Serena even triggered her ability.
“…So everyone fell, huh.”
Amarelo, who had kicked off the collapsing air itself to enter the subspace, said that casually.
Other than him, only Nada, who had been farthest from the collapse, and Serena, the one who could create the subspace, had made it inside.
Serena stared into the deep darkness where Dan had disappeared and whispered his name again.
“Dan…”
“So then, what shall we do, Nada-dono?”
While watching Serena’s back, Amarelo sat cross-legged in the suspended subspace and asked Nada.
“What do you mean by ‘what’? For now, we stay put. Or are you telling me we should jump down after them?”
To Nada’s weary response, Serena, eyes already brimming with tears, turned to him and glared fiercely, about to snap back.
“Of course, we’re going to save Dan! He’s an irreplaceable member of my party! Why is it that men like you get to survive, while Dan is the one who has to fall!?”
“…Even if you say that, there’s nothing I can—”
“Hey now, don’t get so worked up.”
Amarelo scratched his cheek, looking awkward, while Nada tried to calm Serena down.
“Especially you. You’re supposed to be Dan’s friend—aren’t you worried about him at all!? Dan’s told me things about you before, but don’t tell me your friendship is the kind where you use someone and toss them aside once they’re no longer useful!”
Serena’s words definitely struck something in Nada.
To Nada, Dan was a precious friend.
He owed Dan many debts he could never repay, and had even sworn that he’d help him whenever he was in danger.
Dan possessed the Gift of the Healing God, so he wasn’t someone who would die easily, but that didn’t change the fact that he was in danger now.
Of course Nada also felt a strong urge to go save him.
“But even if you say that, how exactly are we supposed to help him? You want us to jump down from here or something?”
When Nada thought about Dan, he felt himself gripping the Green Dragon Crescent Blade in his right hand harder.
But it didn’t change the truth that the situation was hopeless.
“I’m going! He once saved my life! For Dan’s sake, I’ll jump into this abyss if I must!”
Serena stepped to the exit of the subspace and was just about to leap into the chasm—when Amarelo noticed something strange.
“Wait. Something’s not right here!”
“Let go of me! Release me at once!”
As Amarelo said, Nada grabbed the struggling Serena from behind and stopped her. All three of them watched as the huge hole suddenly began reversing itself as though time were rewinding.
The torn flesh fibers moved on their own, as if each had a will of its own, twisting together with the surrounding strands in a spiral pattern. The thin, thread-like fibers rapidly thickened like ropes, and soon a floor identical to the previous one was restored.
“What the hell is going on?”
Could the dragon’s regenerative ability really be this fast?
And why had that hole suddenly opened in the first place?
Those questions pounded inside Nada’s head as he stepped out of the subspace and jabbed the floor several times with his crescent blade. The floor still had elasticity, but even with Nada’s weapon, it wasn’t something easily sliced apart.
If that was the case, why had it crumbled like rotten flesh earlier? A different question formed in Nada’s mind.
“Why did you stop me!?”
Before he could think further, Serena pressed the tip of her slender sword against his throat.
“What, are you some kind of suicide enthusiast?”
Even though the blade grazed his skin and drew a thin red line, Nada’s expression didn’t change.
He remained eerily calm.
“No! I’m not heartless like you—I have to save Dan! But with the floor sealing itself like this, what am I supposed to do!?”
Tears welled up in Serena’s eyes as she cried out desperately.
Of course, Nada didn’t lack sympathy. But he simply couldn’t see leaping into the abyss as a smart move.
“Nada-dono, what shall we do now?”
Amarelo asked with a troubled look, watching Serena—who, having lost interest in slicing Nada’s throat, was now desperately trying to carve open the floor to make a hole again.
“Even if you ask me ‘what now’…”
Nada looked at Serena the same way Amarelo did.
When she realized she couldn’t pry the floor open by force, Serena staggered away like a sleepwalker, starting to wander ahead. Losing Dan seemed to have hit her deeply. On top of that, they’d been staring at these pink walls for hours.
A normal person would’ve gone mad from the scenery by now.
Yet Nada’s mind was strangely calm.
For some reason, he felt like he could think clearly about their situation.
Why was that? Even if he pondered it, no answer came. Was the danger making him calm?
Was the threat of death itself what grounded him?
No answer surfaced.
And then Nada reached another thought: even though he worried for Dan, wasn’t their own situation also dangerously precarious?
Before saving Dan, he suddenly found himself thinking they might very well die themselves.
With no exit and nothing but enemies inside this dragon’s body, Nada clutched the left side of his chest—where his heart lay—with one hand. It felt like his heartbeat was growing louder.
He had to save Dan, yet he couldn’t focus on that. Instead, he kept drifting toward protecting himself, and that fact irritated him more than anything.
Is he really someone who can only think about himself? The moment that thought crossed his mind, Nada felt anger well up toward himself. Part of him even wondered if Serena’s attitude was how he was supposed to be.
Serena had just said earlier that Dan had saved her life. That was why she said she would absolutely save him.
Nada had also been saved by Dan many times. Indirectly, even during the gargoyle fight last time—without Dan, he would’ve likely died in that dungeon.
And yet, no matter what, he couldn’t become like Serena.
His heart stirred uneasily.
The fact that he was thinking of himself above everything else filled Nada with deep rage.
He truly did want to save Dan. But how was he supposed to do it? No answer came.
Wouldn’t he just die before he could even try?
Was there even a way to save both himself and Dan, then escape from here…?
Nada forced his mind—never particularly sharp—to think.
Ah…
What am I supposed to do?
There’s no answer.
No… the answer was there.
Nada was furious at himself for realizing the answer, for reaching a solution that granted all his desires, yet pretending not to know it.
In the end, there was only one thing he could do.
“I’ve decided. Oi, Amarelo, Serena—… I’m going to kill the dragon.”
Nada said this firmly.
Amarelo, right beside him, jumped in surprise, and even Serena—who had already put some distance between them—reacted in shock.
Yeah.
That’s how it is.
In the end, Nada strongly believed: he was an adventurer.
He wasn’t someone who could save others or rush in to rescue them.
His kind could only prove their existence through killing monsters.
That was why Nada vowed to act simply.
“You’re… seriously going to kill it?”
Amarelo’s face tightened, but Nada’s expression held nothing except a dark, murderous intent toward the dragon—because all of this was the dragon’s fault.
“Yeah. I remembered something—about the strength of dragon scales and the toughness of their flesh. When they’re alive, even adventurers have a hard time cutting through them. But once they’re dead, the toughness drops.”
“Is that truly so?”
“It is. Otherwise, how would blacksmiths use dragon materials to make weapons? You really think every blacksmith has some ability to slice dragons apart?”
Nada spat the words out.
His old weapon, the Land Black Dragon’s Fang, had also been processed by craftsmen. Sure, bringing the materials out of the dungeon had been harder than dealing with normal monsters, but nowhere near as miserable as fighting Exlidhao Ragario. Even so, dragon scales and fangs—even after their strength dropped upon death—still worked perfectly well as adventurer gear, because craftsmen applied special treatments to them.
“Well, that may be true, but…”
“If we kill the dragon, we can cut open some part of its belly and escape. The flesh will be soft enough for that. And when that happens, I’m sure Dan will manage to get himself out, too. What will you do, Amarelo, Serena? I’m going—”
Without waiting for their reply, Nada started retracing the path they had taken. His destination was clear.
—the heart.
The Calvao.
Every living thing has a core. Monsters too. For them, the Calvao serves as their heart.
Using the steady, low vibrations pulsing upward from the floor as a guide, Nada had already found a clue to its location.
Serena, still shaken from her earlier panic, was stunned by the idea Nada proposed—something she hadn’t even considered. And Amarelo, struck speechless by Nada’s sudden transformation into something like a ferocious beast, came to a halt as well.
It wasn’t long after that before both of them ran after Nada.
Previous Chapter - TOC - Next Chapter
Comments
Post a Comment