Episode 47 – The Dungeon
“—Wake up.”
Nada awoke to a voice he knew well.
He slowly opened his eyes. The face before him was one he recognized.
It was Iris. She was straddling him, gripping his collar, gazing down at him with a devilish smile.
Nada twisted his face in irritation.
“…What do you want?”
He didn’t really understand the situation.
His memory was hazy to begin with.
He couldn’t clearly recall when he had lost consciousness, nor could he explain why Iris was sitting on top of him. His head wasn’t working well, and he tried to sit up on reflex.
That was when he realized he had been asleep.
“You’re awake? Is your head working properly? If you’re not sure, you should take a look around.”
Iris, her body stained red with blood, slipped off him as he rose.
Nada pushed himself up on the hard floor, opening and closing his right hand—making a fist and then spreading his fingers—to check if his body was moving properly. Then he looked around.
There were six adventurers present.
Iris, who had been on top of him moments ago, was of course there.
And also:
Reaon.
Ameisha.
Corvo.
Ouro.
Koroa.
Six adventurers in total.
The moment he saw their familiar faces, the memories returned to him.
They had entered the dungeon.
And they had defeated monsters.
It was the same as always—but even so, everyone’s clothing was in tatters, and Nada couldn’t help but laugh as he said:
“You all look awfully rough, don’t you—”
“I don’t want to hear that from you. An adventurer roaming a dungeon without a single weapon—honestly, what kind of sense does that make?”
Iris shot back immediately, smiling.
Nada didn’t take offense at the banter—if anything, the familiar exchange with Iris helped his usual mood return. Standing up fully, he looked around at them and said:
“So, are we all heading back now?”
“Before that… Nada, there’s something I want to tell you—”
Corvo spoke formally.
Like Iris, he too was soaked with red blood.
“…What is it?”
“This whole expedition ended up ruined thanks to you, you know?”
“Never intended to protect your plan from the start.”
“Thanks to you, all my strategies fell apart.”
Shaking his head in exasperation, Corvo spoke with a sigh.
“That’s good to hear. Corvo’s schemes usually turn out to be nothing but trouble anyway—”
“That so? Well, putting that aside… Nada, this is the unanimous decision of everyone here. Sorry for ignoring your opinion, but since you were unconscious, we’re chalking that up as your fault. So listen carefully—”
“…Yeah, go ahead.”
“Regarding what happened this time—the winner is… you, Nada.”
Nada’s breath caught at Corvo’s words.
He hadn’t expected to hear that.
True, he remembered the very last moment before he lost consciousness.
He was the one who beheaded the Hundred-Armed Knight—that much he clearly remembered, and the sensation of the kukri cutting through still lingered in his hand.
“But that wasn’t my strength alone—”
Nada spat out the words.
He truly believed it.
There was no way he could have beaten that knight by himself.
All he did was deliver the final blow. Anyone missing from the group, and they never would have won.
“…Yeah. I figured you’d say that. That’s why this Calvaon is going to be split evenly among us. Sound good?”
What Corvo held was an especially large chunk.
Silver-white.
A color that called to mind the armor worn by the Hundred-Armed Knight—deep, rich, and shining brilliantly.
It was so large that both of Corvo’s hands could barely hold it, and the purity of the Calvaon was undeniably high.
It would sell for a hefty price.
How much, he couldn’t say, but it was clearly valuable enough to be rare even in the dungeon city Inferno.
“Did Iris and the others do something too?”
For the first time, Nada showed a genuinely surprised look.
In his memory, he didn’t recall Iris, Corvo, or even Koroa fighting. It should’ve been just the four of them.
The one who answered was Reaon. His appearance was wretched—his once-handsome face had a bent nose, and his cheeks were swollen bright red. His armor hid most of it, but he was probably injured all over.
Nada didn’t react; he was used to seeing Reaon in that state.
“…Iris and the others were fighting too.”
“They were?”
“Yeah. They kept the monsters from flooding into this room off us. I’ll vouch for that. If not for Iris and the others, the monsters would’ve interrupted us, and we wouldn’t have been able to win against that one.”
“I see—”
Nada nodded, satisfied.
“And so, Sir Nada,” Ouro said, “this too was everyone’s unanimous decision—the prize goes to you.”
Ouro’s armor, which had been practically a work of art before entering the dungeon, was now beaten beyond recognition—horns snapped, plates warped, dented, and gouged. Even so, it had protected Ouro’s life, proof of its quality.
“Prize?”
“You know it already, don’t you? It’s the right to make a ‘request’ of everyone here. True, we all took down that monster together. But the one who delivered the finishing blow was you. So the only one who should have the right to make that request is you. No one objected.”
“…You sure?”
Nada glanced around, then fixed his gaze on Koroa.
In Nada’s memory, the person most attached to this expedition was Koroa.
He had thrown himself wholeheartedly into the adventure for the sake of winning Iris.
Would someone like him really hand over that right so easily?
Nada expected he’d insist on voiding the whole expedition and proposing it all again from scratch.
But it seemed Nada’s assumptions were wrong.
Koroa slowly shook his head and said:
“No objections, I trust. Nada, this adventure has changed my outlook a little. However… if you plan on making a ‘request’ of me, think carefully before you do. Opportunities to make a request of me don’t come often, after all—”
Koroa’s expression loosened slightly.
His gaze was fixed on Nada. And from time to time, it also drifted toward Reaon.
“I see. Then I’ll think it through properly before I say anything—”
“Oh, right. That’s not the only thing we’re giving you. Look over there.”
Ameisha—her clothes in disarray—pointed toward a direction.
There, a door had appeared—one that hadn’t been there earlier.
It stood at the farthest point from the entrance Nada originally came through, a door he had never seen before.
“You sure about this?”
“Yes.”
“I can give it up if you want?”
“No thanks. I have no idea what kind of traps might be waiting beyond that, and as the winner’s privilege, I sincerely hope you trigger every single one. I’m done with solo adventuring for a while.”
Ameisha spoke with an exhausted look.
Nada thought that, perhaps, among the seven of them, Ameisha might have suffered the most.
After all, she was poor with weapons, specialized in support and Gifts, and of everyone here, she was the adventurer least suited for exploring a dungeon alone.
“I get it. Fine—”
Nada walked toward the door and noticed an unpleasant emblem at his feet.
―A dragon’s footprint.
A three-clawed dragon’s track.
There had only ever been one adventurer, past or present, who used this emblem.
The greatest adventurer of them all, whose accomplishments shone brighter than any other—the emblem of Adamas.
However, Nada had no fond memories attached to this symbol.
With a sigh, he placed one hand on the double doors and pushed only one side open. At that instant, a white light burst from within the room, swallowing his massive frame.
Darkness.
His vision vanished.
His senses faded.
But four new images carved themselves into Nada’s mind.
—A vast lake. At its center, a small rocky entrance rises upward from below. A new dungeon entrance.
—A volcano. An active one—lava bubbling at its crater. At the base of this scorching mountain, a newly opened entrance was swallowed in deep darkness, the interior impossible to see.
—A desert. In the midst of endless dunes and raging sandstorms, a colossal sand castle appeared. It did not crumble, though the storm hid most of it from view. But there was unmistakably an entrance.
—A cavern. Inside it, crystals shaped like squares and hexagons filled the space, each one grown to a size larger than a person. Among them, a new path had formed—its walls shimmering with crystal reflections, glowing in seven colors.
On this day, four dungeons breathed new life.
They were the remnants of dreams left behind by heroes of old.
And a new era of adventure was about to begin.
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