Your Majesty, Dinner Is Ready. Chapter 21 - E-Rank Dungeon – Earth Elf's Tomb (2)

Chapter 21 – E-Rank Dungeon – Earth Elf’s Tomb (2)

 

Marlin was clutching her stiffened tail with one hand.

‘…I want to leave.’

Honestly, she was scared.

At first, what terrified her were the insane cultists that kept crawling out of the darkness on all fours.

Their creepy laughter and bizarre, insect-like movements made her want to run out of the dungeon several times.

Shuffle. Shuffle. Shuffle.

“Ah, another one’s coming.”

But now that she had gradually adapted to the dungeon, what frightened her had changed.

“Senior, I prepared this humble body of mine as a welcoming gift, so please feel free to eat as much as you like.”

“Kyaaaa!”

The deranged elf cultists who had rushed over immediately began biting into Kar’s body.

His shoulders, wrists, and both calves.

They bit four places at once, yet Marlin’s patron merely smiled in satisfaction.

“Is it really that delicious? If you don’t slow down, you might get indigestion.”

The moment he finished speaking, every cultist began twisting violently before collapsing onto the ground.

Twitch. Twitch.

Their bodies writhed on the floor, their eyes rolled back as their limbs flailed wildly.

It was an incredibly grotesque sight.

But Marlin no longer felt anything watching it.

“Perfect timing. Marlin, let’s take two each.”

After uncorking a health potion and gulping it down, Kar calmly stabbed spider-silk needles into the foreheads of the elves.

“…Okay.”

Marlin obediently slit the monsters’ throats with her dagger while cautiously watching her patron.

His slightly sleepy-looking eyes and the faintly twisted smile that always lingered at the corners of his lips hadn’t changed in the slightest.

Looking closer, he even seemed somehow more radiant than usual.

‘How is that possible?’

His entire body was saturated with poison, and he’d willingly allowed himself to be bitten all over by cultists.

‘…Has he finally gone insane?’

Thinking she’d found a plausible explanation, Marlin slowly edged farther away from her patron before vigorously shaking her head.

No.

Kar hadn’t lost his mind.

Granted… He worshipped two Evil Gods.

He constantly played jokes with an utterly expressionless face.

He cheerfully performed human sacrifices.

And he apparently enjoyed unbearable pain… But surely his sanity hadn’t completely collapsed.

Just compare him with the mad cultists roaming this dungeon.

“Kyaaaaah!”

Another deranged cultist came crawling out of the darkness on all fours, drool streaming from its mouth.

Just look at it. Anyone could tell that thing had completely lost its mind.

‘That’s what real insanity looks like!’

Even if it hadn’t appeared as a monster, there was no way anyone could have held a conversation with it.

Kar, on the other hand, could converse perfectly normally.

He could even communicate emotionally.

There was absolutely no reason to fear him.

Crunch. Crunch.

“Haha, Senior. Please bite a little more gently. That’s my precious thigh.”

“…”

After cutting down another elf monster, Marlin wrapped her tail around her own wrist.

Come to think of it… Wouldn’t it actually be stranger if he ‘wasn’t’ insane?

That would mean he was doing all of this while completely sane.

‘…That’s even scarier!’

While she absentmindedly stroked her tail, Kar finished off the remaining monsters and straightened up.

“Let’s go, Marlin.”

“Y-Yes!”

The two resumed walking.

Beyond the small area illuminated by the candle, nothing could be seen.

Yet Kar moved without the slightest hesitation, as though he knew the dungeon’s layout perfectly.

“Marlin.”

After walking silently for some time, Kar suddenly spoke.

“Why are you so quiet? Still scared?”

“I was at first. But now I’m managing.”

“If you think you can’t handle it anymore, tell me. I’ll end the expedition immediately.”

“…Without finding the Hidden Piece?”

“It’d be a shame, but what can we do? If you’re scared, I can’t keep forcing the exploration.”

“…”

Marlin fiddled with the hat Kar had bought for her before entering the dungeon, before answering energetically,

“I’m not scared anymore, so we can keep going!”

Whether he was insane or not didn’t matter.

Kar genuinely cared about her and Abel.

He looked after them sincerely.

Unlike every other adult they’d ever met.

For now… That alone was enough.

 

***

 

The expedition proceeded smoothly.

“Kyaaaaa!”

Upon descending from the first underground floor to the second, the senior cultists’ welcoming ceremony for their junior became even more enthusiastic.

Crunch. Crunch.

Getting bitten all over… Watching the overexcited seniors collapse from poisoning… Then finishing them off… It was a hunting method perfected after countless trials and errors.

Nothing unexpected occurred.

‘It should be about time.’

Levels could be increased through repeated combat, repetitive work, or rituals.

I had already performed three human sacrifices.

Marlin had accumulated plenty of combat experience fighting alone in the Fire Mist Ant Nest.

Both of us should level up very soon.

“I’m finally starting to relax. I was caught off guard at first.”

Marlin, whose face had remained stiff the entire time, now casually wiped blood from her dagger.

“I’m glad. I was worried because you were trembling with fear earlier.”

“When was I ever trembling?!”

She lightly punched my side with her tiny fist before suddenly perking up her ears and lowering her stance.

“Kyaaaaah!”

“Hehehehe!”

Two Earth Elf cultists suddenly emerged from the darkness.

“Ugh, these things are getting old!”

Following our usual routine, I poisoned them, assigned one to Marlin, and personally finished off the other two.

‘There it is.’

The moment I drove my spider-silk needle into one preserved senior’s forehead… An overwhelming sense of exhilaration washed over my entire body.

It felt as though my body and soul were being heated from within.

[Congratulations! Your soul has ascended to the next level!]

I leveled up.

“Kar! I think I leveled up!”

“So did I.”

When I held out my palm, Marlin giggled and slapped it with hers.

“Wait… When you level up… Your stats increase depending on what kind of experiences you’ve had, right?”

“Correct. Looks like all that studying paid off.”

“Hehe!”

The total number of stat points gained upon leveling up was always three.

Their distribution happened automatically, depending on how experience had been accumulated.

I touched my right eye and whispered,

“Show me which stats increased. Mine, and Marlin’s.”

[Eyes That Perceive the Truth ] immediately displayed text before me.

 

[By offering sacrifices to two Evil Gods, displaying bold behavior, and fighting while throwing your entire body into battle, your Faith, Charm, and Vitality have each increased by 1.]

[Through repeated combat utilizing daggers and throwing techniques, Marlin’s Strength has increased by 1 and Agility by 2.]

 

Thanks to carefully guiding our growth until now, both of us have achieved ideal stat increases.

Marlin had gained an unnecessary point in Strength…

But she’d been destined to become a jack-of-all-trades anyway.

More importantly, Agility, her most vital stat, had increased.

Overall, it was an excellent result.

“And whenever your soul’s rank rises, your Mysteries also become slightly stronger. Their tier doesn’t change. But the exact same Mystery becomes much more effective and powerful when cast by someone of a higher level.”

“I see…”

Once someone reached around Level 8 or higher, even the notoriously weak First-Tier fire Mystery [Fireball] could unleash flames comparable to hellfire.

“So… Could we beat that Lurker Ghoul now?”

“No. You still can’t. Keep training.”

“Couldn’t you at least say something encouraging in moments like this?”

“Of course you could! You’d tear those ghouls apart with one hand tied behind your back!”

“Now that’s ‘too’ encouraging.”

“You’re awfully hard to please.”

Grumbling alongside my assistant, I descended another staircase.

“We’re entering the third underground floor. Unlike before, Level 2 monsters appear here.”

“Don’t let your guard down.”

“But Kar… Shouldn’t we rest soon?”

“We should.”

Thanks to [Veil That Defers Wounds] working overtime, the headache I’d been enduring had progressed beyond simple throbbing.

It now felt as though spikes were repeatedly stabbing into my skull.

Still… If I hadn’t possessed a method of recovering my mental strength, I would’ve never planned this hunting strategy in the first place.

“See that corridor near the bottom of the stairs?”

“Yeah.”

“It looks like the entrance to a room without a door… It’s a rest area. Let’s take a short break there.”

Being inside a dungeon, it wasn’t completely safe.

But it was at least somewhere one could rest relatively comfortably.

“We can also activate the Hidden Piece there. This time, though, we won’t be the first to discover it.”

“Huh? I thought your Evil God told you information no one else knew.”

“Usually. But this is an extremely popular dungeon. The Harmony Church has already analyzed it hundreds of times. They’ve uncovered every secret.”

In other words… There were no longer any Hidden Pieces here in the true sense.

“So we can’t sell information this time?”

“Marlin. If you become obsessed with money at such a young age, you’ll grow into a miser everyone points fingers at.”

“…”

While calming the ferocious girl trying to scratch me with her fingernails, I led her into the dark, doorless chamber.

“But this isn’t the kind of dungeon where a Hidden Piece loses its value just because everyone knows about it.”

Lighting a torch beside the entrance with one of the matches from our candle set drove away the darkness, revealing the room.

It was a vast chamber whose golden walls were covered in elaborate geometric patterns.

In the center stood towering piles of gemstones and gold coins.

“Whoa!”

Marlin, the money-crazed teenager, immediately tried to run toward them with sparkling eyes.

I quickly grabbed her arm.

“Wait. Don’t approach carelessly.”

The third fundamental rule every explorer had to learn:

Nothing placed inside a dungeon exists without a reason.

“What happens if you do?”

“See for yourself.”

I pulled out a spider-silk needle and casually tossed it onto the floor.

Clunk!

The ground suddenly split open.

A deep pit appeared between the entrance and the treasure pile.

“Like that.”

“…”

Marlin leaned over to peer into the hole before frowning.

“I thought you said there weren’t any complicated traps.”

“It activates when you approach. Isn’t that wonderfully straightforward?”

“…Fair point.”

“Wait. The real thing is over there.”

Leading my visibly disappointed assistant, I approached a wall covered in intricate patterns.

“Find the circle containing numbers.”

“Let’s see…”

Thanks to her sharp Perception stat, Marlin quickly pointed to a symbol at her eye level.

It was a circle with the numbers 0 through 9 arranged around its circumference.

“Found it. Is this the one?”

“Correct. Well done.”

Patting her shoulder, I immediately reached out.

2 – 8 – 0 – 3 – 8 – 2.

Touching the numbers in exactly that order unlocked the hidden mechanism.

Ordinarily, players had to search throughout the entire third floor to discover the password piece by piece.

But veteran players who had poured absurd amounts of time into the game enjoyed the privilege of skipping such tedious steps.

Click.

The center of the golden wall swung open, revealing a hidden chamber.

On the left lay numerous stone tablets engraved with different images.

On the right stood a weary-looking elf.

The elf, who had been reading a parchment spread across a desk, turned toward us.

“Another visitor…?”

 

[Dungeon Wraith Ermentaz (Earth Elf, 235 years old). A remnant of the past trapped within the dungeon. He appears to have some connection to these ruins, though, because he is not truly alive; the exact details cannot be determined.]

 

A Dungeon Wraith.

Unlike the Earth Elf cultists who had degenerated into monsters, beings like him were treated as people.

Essentially, they functioned as NPCs.

If you offend this elf, the hidden feature could no longer be used.

“What business brings you to this ruined temple of the Earth?”

Grasping Marlin by the head, I bowed politely together with her.

“Greetings. We would like to loot every valuable item in this temple. Would you be willing to cooperate?”