Kujonin

Masmascarl are omnivorous, but they don’t seem to eat anything other than fruit and monster meat, so there was little damage to the trees of the jungle.
It’s just that the trees that were eaten at were eaten thoroughly, cruelly inflicting scars and holes in the bark.
I activate Search Skill to its fullest, being wary of monsters.
If the gigantic monsters decided to attack me together, I’d be done for.
For today, I don’t have any desire to defeat monsters any more.
Soon after entering the jungle, I found a mushroom that’s an ingredient in paralysis medicine, flowers that are ingredients in sleep medicine, and the like.
Since they grow in cl.u.s.ters, collecting them together is easy once you spot one.
I was engrossed in shoving things into the Item Bag, so I went all the way into the depths of the jungle.
.The moon has already risen quite high.

“I wouldn’t have come here if it weren’t for the Search Skill”
I muttered.

There is also a monster that came close to me from somewhere to see what was going on.
It’s not really a problem since it didn’t attack, but I don’t know whether it’s because its fur is black or if it’s a monster that resides in the shadows in the first place, but I wasn’t able to confirm it by sight.

And, I was here

before I knew it.
There aren’t any masmascarl corpses or gigantic monster corpses.
I have already gone past the range where we eradicated the masmascarl and gigantic monsters.
There are no signs of masmaskarl flesh or blood, and of course no gigantic monster corpses either.
There’s absolutely no signs of bones, even.
I wonder if it’s because I just can’t see them since it’s dark.

I remember that only the bones were left when the masmaskarl at the haze turtle.
But even then the bones were left behind.

“Is there a monster here that eats bones?”

While I was mulling that over, Search Skill picked up a large swarm of small monsters pa.s.sing about 30 meters in front of me.
Erasing my presence, I circle around to the back.
When I had gotten close enough to see, I could determine that a large field boar corpse was being carried.
It was too big so I can’t tell what is carrying it right away, but I can see some white monster squirming.
The light from the moon illuminated the swarm of masmascarl frantically carrying gigantic monsters.
The field boar corpse has a wound from large claws, so I think it was an instance of gigantic monsters fighting with each other.
By the way, the stomach of the corpse was hollowed out, so I felt like I could see the end of the

the defeated.
Is the masmascarl swarm in charge of disposal?  If so, then exactly what was with them going crazy and flooding towards the ocean?
They’re the gigantic monsters’ feed, and also take care of disposal.
They don’t act individually, but in a swarm.
I’m startled that they have completely different behaviors from the masmascarl I see in the cities.

That they’re carrying the bodies probably means that they have a nest.
As I followed them, all of a sudden the field boar corpse sunk into the ground like it was swallowed up by a bog.
It was hidden by the dried leaves and branches on the ground, but there’s a large cave entrance there.
As expected, it would be stupid if I followed them all the way into the cave like this and died, so I returned to the ship.

“As strange as I think it may be, that might just be a dungeon.”
Velsa said when I had returned and told my story.
Ayl had used the ship’s mast and made a hammock; her sleep-breathing can be heard.

“A Dungeon? What’s the difference between that and caves?”
“There are theories that old caves can become dungeons, and theories that after a surpa.s.sing a number of years, ancient ruins can become dungeons, or that dungeons are giant traps by monsters, and all sorts of different theories, but at any rate, the

rate, the thing that dungeons have that caves don’t is the presence of a dungeon core.”
“Dungeon core…?”
“So far, within this world, there have only been 3 dungeon cores found.”
“What difference does it make if that’s present?”
“Monsters are automatically produced.”
“Automatically-!”
“Of course they’re produced from the cave without molding proteins or fats or bones, so there’s no substance. When they’re defeated they disappear into smoke. But you do get experience points, and the magic stone and subjugation proof is left behind. How did you think the Guild determined subjugation proof parts in the first place?”
“Could it be that it’s whatever monsters defeated in dungeons drop?”
“Exactly so.”
“Even so!”
The masmaskarl I saw today had substance.
“The monsters produced in a dungeon can’t go outside of it. The masmaskarl we saw today definitely had substance, so they definitely weren’t produced by the dungeon… is what I would normally think, but you know, about my teacher Lisa, the monster researcher, advocated a theory that if a dungeon absorbs monsters and humans from the outside, in otherwords the things necessary for life like proteins and bones and the like, then the dungeon can produce monsters with substance.”
“If the monsters without substance born in a dungeon ingest things with substance, then they will take on that substance?”
“That’s right. It’s said that the blueprint is already a.s.sembledis already a.s.sembled within, so the when the components of a body are thrown in, the blueprint is applied and it undergoes substance-ification.”
“And so, why is Velsa so adamant it’s a dungeon?”
Velsa gave a nod and turned to me.
“Dungeon monsters move in groups.”
“N?”
Nono, don’t monsters flock together?
In the towns, it should be that the masmascarl, vespahornets, and bagroaches I exterminated made nests and flocked together, but …
“Monsters originally move according to the individual. They move on the individual’s will. It’s just that certain ones, like weak monsters, will hunt together, or have social tendencies.”
Like the vespahornets having a queen bee, I guess.
“Even so, if their comrades are done in, normally monsters flee. They scatter. Because the individuals have their own will, after all. But the masmascarl swarm we saw today didn’t flee and moved as if the whole swarm had a single will.”
“Is that strange?”
“Yes. If it’s monsters originated from a dungeon, it might be that there’s something like the dungeon’s will in existence.”
Velsa smiled with a smirk,  saying, “We can’t leave this island anyway,” covered herself with a blanket, and with a “Let’s get up early tomorrow,” she went to sleep.

“Dungeon’s will… what’s with that?”
My mutter was erased by the rustling of the trees in the wind that came from the dark jungle.