Dark Fantasy’s Extra Chapter 78

Dominic and I returned to base camp and reported what we had seen.

“So that happened… By the way, you really are as capable as they say.”

Oscar said to me.

“You should work on fixing that attitude of yours.”

I lightly struck the back of his neck with my knuckles.

“Ouch?!”

I had let Oscar’s arrogant behavior slide until now because he wasn’t part of the Order.

Though I had been tolerating it somewhat, now that we were truly in the field, proper hierarchy needed to be established.

This wasn’t just about manners – it was directly tied to survival.

“Wh-what are you doing…?”

“Sir Ozwald might not have cared about such things, but I do. From now on, this is truly a life-or-death situation. Show respect to higher-tier fighters. That increases your chances of survival too.”

I deliberately put on a stern expression and spoke threateningly to intimidate Oscar.

“Y-you didn’t have to hit me just for that.”

His attitude seemed to have been cowed somewhat, showing the effect worked.

“Anyway, we’ll need to reorganize our personnel now. Ms. Zepetia and Mr. Oscar will stay here with Mr. Dominic. I will go with Mr. Eugene.”

Sephira took command of the situation.

It was a rational decision to have Dominic, who had decent abilities, stay behind since Zepetia had no real combat capability and Oscar was quite unreliable.

Although there were stories that Beasts didn’t appear here, we couldn’t let our guard down since the village had been completely wiped out.

In reality, Beasts would start appearing here little by little too.

“Wait, I want to go too.”

Oscar said.

“Show more respect to the captain.”

I glared at Oscar.

“Ugh… Fine… I want to go too… please. If I don’t go in after coming all this way, there would have been no point in the old man getting me in here… right?”

At least he started using honorifics with Sephira.

“Hmm… What do you think, Mr. Eugene?”

Sephira asked.

“Taking Oscar along is concerning, of course. But considering Sir Ozwald’s request, perhaps we should bring him? Worst case, I’ll escape with him.”

“Understood. Then the three of us will investigate that door in the basement. Mr. Dominic, please protect Ms. Zepetia here.”

“Yes.”

“Y-yes…”

Dominic and Zepetia nodded.

Then Sephira, Oscar and I went to the basement of the hospital in Drang Basin’s village.

“This is…”

Oscar gulped at the ominous aura of the blood-covered door – the only thing that wasn’t strangely clean in the entire village.

“Oscar.”

“W-what?”

“From here on is the real thing. I’ll protect you as much as I can, but don’t blame me if you die.”

“Stop trying to scare me…”

“I’m not trying to scare you. I’m just stating facts.”

“…”

“Well then, shall we enter?”

Sephira opened the door.

It wasn’t locked and opened right away, and in that moment I felt slightly dizzy.

The sensation cleared quickly when I shook my head lightly.

“That felt really awful…”

“The curse concentration is thick here.”

Being a mage, Oscar seemed to only find it unpleasant thanks to his considerable resistance to magical power and curses.

Sephira of course didn’t seem affected at all.

Rather, I seemed to be the most vulnerable.

The sight revealed when the door opened was far from normal too.

A short corridor stretched ahead, its floor covered in dried blood.

Countless handprints marked the walls, and traces of something being forcibly dragged remained clearly visible in the bloodstains on the floor.

We passed through that corridor and opened another door further inside.

A sickeningly white space spread out before us.

The floor, walls, ceiling – everything was white as if whitewashed.

Round lights were scattered throughout.

“What are those…?”

Oscar wondered curiously at them.

“I don’t sense any magical power… They don’t seem to be torches either, how are they giving off light?”

Of course, those were light bulbs.

This world hadn’t invented light bulbs yet, and most people relied on fire for light.

There were occasionally things similar to light bulbs that used magic, but those were just luxuries and displays of wealth by the rich.

While electricity wasn’t in common use in this world, Vile had discovered its power himself and created light bulbs to use modern lighting like this.

Of course, his excessive genius ended in tragedy.

“Now’s not the time to worry about such things.”

“Focus.”

Sephira and I each said a word to Oscar.

While it was understandable for him as a mage to be amazed and curious about unknown technology, we had no leisure for that right now.

And for me who knew the truth about those light bulbs and this laboratory, everything just felt sickening.

“Welcome, everyone.”

Just then, something rose from under a large table ahead and spoke to us.

“Are you hunters?”

It was clearly not human at first glance.

Its arms, legs and neck were abnormally thin and long, and its face was covered by a smooth white mask without any facial features.

“Who are you?”

Sephira asked.

“I was born to greet visitors who would come here, according to my master’s orders.”

“Master?”

“Yes. That person had a mind so great you could never even imagine. One that lowly beings like us should rightfully look up to.”

“Is this master you speak of Vile?”

“Yes, that’s correct. And now, following my master’s orders, I shall deliver the message he left for you.”

It removed its mask.

“Ugh…!?”

Oscar stumbled backward.

“There is nothing more to see here. However, considering your effort in coming all this way, I’ve left a small gift.”

It put its mask back on.

“A gift?”

“Yes. Even I don’t know exactly what it is. Ah, nor do I want to know.”

Suddenly its voice began trembling.

“I-I’ve been w-w-waiting for you all for s-so long… Th-th-thank… thank you… now…”

Sephira drew her sword at the ominous atmosphere.

“N-n-now… I can finally die…”

With those final words, it exploded.

Blood and internal organs scattered everywhere, painting the white space red.

And the head that had shot up with the explosion fell before us.

“This place is… hell… run away…”

With those words, silence fell over the place again.

Since it was eerily identical to the cutscene that played when entering this place in Blue Paper Moon, I wasn’t as shocked.

Looking at Sephira, she didn’t seem particularly bothered either, just reaffirming that this was a dangerous place.

But Oscar…

“…”

He was completely stunned.

I grabbed his shoulders and shook him.

“Huh, what?”

“Get it together. We’ve only just entered.”

“Ah…”

Maybe the shock was too much.

Vile had researched moonstone and bloodstone here, discovering methods to enhance weapons.

But that was just a byproduct of his research – Vile’s interest lay elsewhere.

Vile researched methods to artificially turn humans into Beasts.

And after achieving great success in that research, he abandoned this place without regret.

The reason he didn’t destroy this place was to show off those achievements.

Since ordinary people wouldn’t understand inventions at his level, he left various byproducts of that research to demonstrate it in an easily understandable way.

Of course, even a genius like Oscar wouldn’t understand as long as they were thinking like a normal person.

“Let’s continue.”

At Sephira’s words, I grabbed Oscar and followed.

Vile’s old laboratory reminded me of a large hospital from my past life.

The white tiles everywhere, the subtle medicinal smell lingering in the nose, the modern light bulbs – it was all similar.

And the complex paths were the same too.

“A fork in the road. But what do these mean?”

The first split appeared before us.

Each direction had a small sign, but the writing was unrecognizable.

“L-left says moon, right says blood.”

Oscar said.

“I saw it in one of the old man’s books before.”

In Blue Paper Moon’s minimap too, the left was labeled moonstone research lab and the right was bloodstone research lab.

The moonstone lab was where truly common sense-defying bizarre things appeared, while the bloodstone lab had Beasts more similar to what we knew.

A hidden passage leading to where the boss was would only appear after going all the way through both and coming back.

“…Which way should we go?”

Sephira asked me.

“If this is Vile’s hidden laboratory, either direction would be dangerous. Though I’m not sure exactly what moon and blood signify, since such a dangerous person, no, Beast made them, perhaps the side marked blood might actually be less dangerous.”

I made up an excuse to recommend going right.

Going right would at least let Oscar get more accustomed to this place.

I had thought we could curb his arrogance a bit, but his spirit was completely crushed just from entering, so there was no need to push him further.

“Then we’ll go right.”

We headed toward the bloodstone research lab.

After turning several corners and going deeper underground, a wide corridor appeared.

Iron doors with small bars lined both sides of the corridor, and a damp smell of blood and medicine wafted from them.

The moment we arrived, the bars right next to us opened.

From the dark room that was barely visible, a large bony hand shot out.

“Hah… hah…”

The being that emerged by planting that hand on the ground and pulling itself out looked desperately at us while breathing roughly.

“…Give me… please…”

Black fur covered patches of its body that was thin to an unnatural degree.

Its face was somewhat human-like but strangely elongated and gaunt, with a faint red glow in its eye sockets.

“So… thirsty…”

It rose slowly while trembling.

“Blood… give me blood!!”

Then it threw its whole body at us with a sound like a creature imitating a human.

When Sephira lightly swung her sword, it was split diagonally from shoulder to opposite flank and collapsed face-down.

“The cutting resistance felt below mid-tier.”

Sephira flicked her sword lightly and blood droplets scattered on the floor.

“And the blood is sticky. It might be poisonous.”

“J-just now… it spoke…?”

Oscar said.

“Then I’ll tell you one last thing too.”

I took out my rifle from my back and loaded a silver bullet.

“Get your act together. If you don’t want to die.”

One by one, in order, the iron doors on both sides of the massive corridor began to open.

“Urrrgh…”

“Huff, huff…”

“Thirsty…”

“Huaaah…”

Beings similar to the one Sephira just killed emerged from the darkness one or two at a time.

I took out the white phosphorus round I had used to kill the Deep Sea Folk mage in Cranion and threw it.

The white phosphorus round exploded, showering silver residue over the ‘failed experiments’.

“Uuurgh…?!”

“Grrrrk…”

“Ah, ah, it huuuurts!!”

The failed experiments that were doused in silver residue screamed and thrashed before collapsing with bloody foam at their mouths as if they had inhaled poison gas.

Taking that as a signal, the remaining failed experiments sprang up and began charging at us.