Plants blooming vibrantly, pretending to be innocent. But beneath that facade...
'Is this the effect of Belsus's curse? Or...'
Perhaps it was an effect of my original class, a Druid, before I possessed this body.
However, a Druid’s skills typically revolved around summoning animals. While there were some variation skills akin to summoning plant familiars, it was hard to believe that plants would mutate this bizarrely, bypassing animals altogether.
If not that, there was one final, highly unwelcome hypothesis.
That they were possessed by a ghost.
'I first encountered that ghost in the theater troupe's warehouse... That damn troupe. Nothing has gone right since I got tangled up with them.'
The thought of it being a ghost made it all the more horrifying. I forced myself to shake the thought away.
'Now that this bizarre power has awakened, there’s no turning back. Even if this drags me deeper into the mire, I have no choice but to follow it and use it to my advantage.'
The crushing sense of futility I felt upon seeing my results after the first dungeon was still fresh in my mind.
It meant that simply growing vegetables and feeding Belsus wouldn't be enough.
To take Belsus into the Tower, I was willing to become an even more anomalous and glitch-like existence.
For whatever reason, after the curse swept through, the farm was no longer the place it used to be.
Archer had disappeared, there was no way to reach Persephone, and Belsus was nowhere to be seen. Ultimately, I decided to settle everything inside the second regular dungeon.
I would capture Belsus and break the curse.
I would finish it right here, where both Bard and Belsus would be gathered.
'This is war.'
---
Late at night, after switching guard duty with a damn senior knight, Calain was preparing to escort Archer when he saw the dungeon notification.
"...The prisoner's transfer will be postponed until tomorrow. Keep a close eye on the prisoner."
"Understood."
Calain slipped away unnoticed, leaving strict orders for the guards to keep Archer under tight surveillance.
Inside the pitch-black mobile prison cell, a faint light suddenly flickered to life. The shift was perceptible even through closed eyelids.
Archer opened his exhausted eyes.
He found himself standing in an unfamiliar corridor. This time, the dungeon was an artificial, indoor environment.
With trembling limbs, Archer pushed himself up.
By a stroke of incredible luck, his restraints had vanished upon entering the second regular dungeon.
The restraints in the prisoner transport carriage had been chained directly to the vehicle itself. Because of this, the system likely registered them as part of the external environment, stripping them away during the transfer.
Normally, it would be impossible for a prisoner to escape like this. When a Hunter is detained, their Hunter's Token is confiscated, barring them from entering dungeons.
However, this specific dungeon proved to be an exception for the Transmigrated.
'It's tough. It's tough, but I have to do this...'
Archer slowly surveyed his surroundings.
It was a long, endless, straight corridor. The ceiling, walls, and floor were all constructed from a solid, metallic-looking material.
Meanwhile, Belsus checked the system notification flashing on his status window.
[A single-path labyrinth composed of one hundred thousand steps.]
[At its end lies that which you desire.]
Lamps lit at precise, even intervals cast a serene, picturesque glow down the endless corridor.
When he had opened his eyes, he was already standing in the middle of this hallway. The entrance he had come through was nowhere to be seen, at least, not to the naked eye.
'In that case, securing an exit comes first.'
Typically, a dungeon collapses once its boss monster is defeated.
If a person failed to escape within the given time limit, they would be trapped and wiped out of existence alongside the dungeon.
Countless civilians and Hunters had vanished this way. Where did they all end up? If not even their corpses could be found, what happened to their souls?
Back when the gods still existed, people believed the divine would take them in. But now, after the Tower had murdered the gods?
It was a chilling thought. Because of this, Hunters prioritized locating an exit above all else, often delaying their assault on the dungeon until an escape route was guaranteed.
'A Labyrinth-type dungeon.'
Artificial environments like this, seemingly designed specifically to trap Hunters, were known as Labyrinth-type dungeons. Naturally, they were far more treacherous than naturally formed ones.
The sudden appearance of these labyrinths was the exact reason why A-Rank and higher dungeons were considered so lethal.
[A single-path labyrinth composed of one hundred thousand steps.]
A maze with only one path. A total length of one hundred thousand steps.
[At its end lies that which you desire.]
A Hunter entering a dungeon desired only two things: the boss monster, and an exit.
It was safe to assume the boss monster was at one end, the center, while the exit lay at the opposite end.
Having easily deduced this much, Belsus was confronted with the same dilemma that every other Hunter in this dungeon would inevitably face.
'In that case... with both directions looking perfectly identical, which way leads to the exit, and which way leads deeper inside?'
Without any clues, it was a pure 50-50 gamble.
Instead of drawing the scythe slung across his back, Belsus struck the stone wall with his steel-knuckled fist. Baaang, ! A massive impact shook the air, akin to a charging water buffalo ramming its head.
The wall didn't sustain a single scratch. And to make matters worse...
'The space is shrinking.'
Ruuuumble—. The walls let out a faint vibration. Suddenly, a section of the wall, roughly five meters wide, protruded inward, slightly narrowing the corridor. Belsus’s expression hardened.
Fortunately, the passage was still wide enough to walk through without much issue.
'I need to be careful not to strike the walls while fighting monsters.'
Since this was a straight, one-way path, if even a single section of the corridor was blocked off, there would be no turning back.
Counting each step in his head, Belsus picked a random direction and began to march forward.
Within a labyrinth governed by such simple rules, he, and almost every other Hunter trapped inside, had very few options.
---
List of Participants in the 'Second Regular Dungeon'
[Fighter]
[Thief]
[Bard]
[Archer] / [Royal Knight 'Calain']
[Puppeteer]
[Paladin]
[Doctor 'Hester']
[Mercenary 'Belsus']
(Participation Restricted) Wizard / Magic Tower Master 'Eden'
---
'These are all familiar faces.'
The Thief and the Puppeteer had run into each other by pure coincidence.
"Puppeteer!"
"Thief."
Unable to interact outside of dungeons, the two were always thrilled to see each other. Grinning wide enough to reveal a snaggletooth, the Thief grabbed the Puppeteer's hands and shook them enthusiastically.
Skipping the small talk, they immediately began analyzing the labyrinth.
"The labyrinth is a hundred thousand steps long. Deducing from the text below it, the boss monster should be at the core, while the path leading outward is the exit."
The other Hunters had likely been scattered as well, dropped into random sections of the maze.
Assuming everyone was faced with the same two-way path, choosing the correct direction was purely a matter of luck.
"...Ordinary Hunters might have to gamble, but I don't."
The unique ability the Puppeteer had inherited from Princess 'Cherina' was Clairvoyance.
It allowed the user to see incredibly distant objects in vivid detail. However, Cherina’s ability came with a catch: it only worked if there were no physical obstacles obstructing the line of sight.
Originally, it was only useful for the Princess, who possessed the Archer class, to snipe enemies from afar. But in the hands of the Puppeteer, Clairvoyance took on a new form.
The Puppeteer drew out their weapon. It was a cross-shaped wooden control bar, a marionette cross, used to manipulate dolls with strings.
The control bar twitched, radiating a dense aura. At the Puppeteer’s command, two inorganic dolls forged of wood and iron materialized.
The Puppeteer commanded the two dolls to walk steadily in opposite directions. Then, they transferred the Clairvoyance ability onto the puppets.
If they were lucky, their current location might already be close to either the exit or the core. If so, they would be able to spot it through the Puppeteers' eyes faster than anyone else.
"I'm putting all my faith in you. Mind if I tag along?"
"Well, since we've already run into each other, I suppose I have no choice."
Though the words sounded somewhat cold, the gaze the Puppeteer directed at the Thief was surprisingly gentle.
Just then.
"Oho! Hello there. It's been a while."
A heavily muscled man came swaggering toward them. It was the Fighter.
The moment he appeared, the Thief clicked his tongue in annoyance, while the Puppeteer let out a heavy sigh.
"We sure run into each other a lot, don't we? Must be fate!"
The Fighter looked absolutely thrilled by the encounter. Clearly thinking, 'These guys will figure something out,' he was the most carefree person in the entire labyrinth.
The Puppeteer sighed again, but there was nothing to be done. They had neither the ability nor a valid excuse to shake the Fighter off.
---
'Four hundred seventy-two, four hundred seventy-three, four hundred seventy-four...'
As Belsus walked, counting his steps, he noticed an odd mark on the corridor floor.
'Did someone leave a mark here?'
It was a black circle drawn in graphite.
Someone had started their journey from this exact spot.
The fact that he hadn't run into them yet meant they were heading in the same direction. Just to be safe, Belsus activated his Reading skill.
{...}
The Reading ability allowed him to sense anyone within a radius of a hundred steps, but right now, he couldn't hear a thing. There wasn't a single soul within a hundred-step range.
Perhaps it would be wiser to save his Reading skill for when he actually encountered someone, to glean whether they had gathered any useful information.
Just then, Belsus's eyes caught sight of something.
A sharp glint suddenly flared in his deep-set eyes, sparking as if a rough blade had scraped against flint. For the first time, his steady footsteps halted.
Utterly out of place... perfectly ripe vegetables were strewn across the floor, dropped one by one like breadcrumbs.
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