Within the poorly illuminated dungeon, a large lizard, around 180 centimeters, was walking about.
After ‘He’ had explored the first floor, he thought about looking at the lower floors, so he went to the second floor with the large rat’s body, then ‘He’ came across a large lizard that preys on rats, and got eaten. Because of that he possessed the large lizard, using it’s body to explore the second floor.
[Ah, found some coins. Let’s pick them up.]
On the second floor in the dungeon, the monsters that appear there are giant lizards and demon dogs that have mutated from wild dogs. Unlike the giant rats that don’t form groups, it seems the demon dogs move in groups of three to five. The large lizards don’t have an active personality, so they don’t move around much, making them hard to find.
The demon dog with its high mobility seemed useful for exploring the dungeon, however, maybe because the demon dog’s sensitivity is high, or because they are too afraid of the lizards, whenever he meets a demon dog they run away before he can get close to them, thus he still hasn’t possessed one.
There are traces of human hands that have touched the floor and walls, since unlike the first floor, the second floor doesn’t have any lights. It’s completely dark. On the stairs connecting the first floor and the second floor, there was a dim light at the exit of the first floor to the second floor.
From time to time there are some glowing mushrooms and moss that become faint sources of light, but generally the adventurers that come here have prepared their own light in advance.
[Oh it’s a human….. or at least, half of what’s left; it doesn’t seem like much time has pa.s.sed.]
Occasionally, he would see the figure of victims near the entrance of this floor who underestimated the dangers of the dungeon. As expected, the darkness combined with the packs of demon dogs increase the danger a lot.
The abandoned bodies of adventurers were quickly disposed of by the insects and rats. When someone in your party dies, one can either bring them along as quickly as possible, or stand guard and wait until someone comes to help them.
[There are one, two……. six vials of magic potions left. The staff is broken isn’t it.]
In the situation where you came in alone, or when you came with a group, after a few days the adventurer gets skeletonized and drops his or her equipment.
If that skeletonized corpse stays within the dungeon for some time, it’ll become a skeleton warrior like monster, however, on the lower floors the concentration of magic is thin and a lot of adventurers pa.s.s by, so it’s rare to see one.
There are adventurers that take requests to pick up the corpses of the left behind comrades of others, but if the corpses wore equipment it would usually get stolen, after that they make it as if the body was damaged by monsters. If it becomes like that, retrieval becomes impossible.
[There’s also a monster’s corpse, this is a coin and this……. is a ring?]
‘He’ who was exploring the dungeon without anything to rely on, was wandering around while collecting items from monsters and humans that seemed useful to him.
Compared to the first floor, there were a lot more things inside the corridor, most of them were broken armours, shards of gems, and also coins. The weapons and arrows that weren’t broken yet, were all stored in the other dimension warehouse. These will become important items for the sake of communication.
From time to time he also picks up adornments such as rings and earrings, the adornments often come out of the bellies of other monsters. In order to let the large lizard eat, he stops his control over it and gives it free reign, there was one time it ate a large rat and some dissolved earrings came out of its belly. Just like the lost brooch from last time, monsters seem to like to eat gems that have magic power in them.
‘He’ gave a silent prayer to the magician adventurer that had become a victim, turning around, he saw a lantern swaying in the distance. It might be his first contact with humans in a while. ‘He’ who was thinking that while seeing the light, so began to walk.
Even if he were to be hunted immediately, he couldn’t ignore his feelings of wanting to meet other humans.
In the corner of a room, not far from the entrance to the second underground floor of the dungeon, there was a party that couldn’t move anymore because one of them was injured.
They were a party of five with two instructors and three trainees of the adventurer’s society that were training inside the dungeon and holding a promotion test for the students, but because they got careless, one of the instructors got heavily injured while protecting one of the trainees.
To make things worse, the the one that was injured was the healer of the party, and they were surrounded by a pack of demon dogs, being in a stalemate situation where they couldn’t move around carelessly, and the situation just kept getting more dangerous since the number of demon dogs just kept increasing.
With her strength the other adventurer, a female warrior, could pa.s.s the pack of demon dogs and call for help, however, she couldn’t do that while protecting the injured healer and the three trainees, and she couldn’t leave them on their own.
“Sorry….. Because I let my guard down.”
“Don’t blame yourself for nothing, it wasn’t your fault.”
The female swordsman had formed a combo with a healer, who has a lot of technical knowledge, whom she was now protecting while he lay against the wall, she was doing that while thinking up a plan. At the moment they were being targeted by a pack of seven demon dogs.
“There’s no other choice than to reduce their number and let the trainees call for help.”
——And, at that time, one of the demon dogs began to growl and faced the corridor to the left as if it noticed something. When it looked a large lizard appeared while crawling over to them and then with a loud ‘Tsu!’ sound it just rammed itself into the pack of demon dogs.
Normally large lizards wouldn’t do something like that, and as if they were saying “What the h.e.l.l!?” The demon dogs that were hit cried ‘~yaw.a.n.gyawan’.
Not missing this chance, the female swordsman killed all of them that were distracted, and gave orders to the trainees.
“Go while you still can! If you request help from the a.s.sociation officials they’ll come to your help quickly.”
“Wha, Yes!”
The three trainees run up the stairs with the aim to go to the first floor. They weren’t that far away from the stairs, so they should be able to get there without any problems.
Even if they’re immature, together they shouldn’t have any problems on the first floor. In front of the entrance of the dungeon is always a rescue party for when someone of the adventurer’s a.s.sociation is in danger, so they should be able to call for help quickly.
After seeing that the trainees had run off, the female swordsman killed another demon dog, that had its back turned to her and was being distracted by the large lizard, but the healer was surrounded by monsters. Two demon dogs were biting on the large lizard, however they were just growling since it seemed that their fangs were stuck on its hard scales. From the remaining three, one was circling behind the large lizard and the other two that were targeting the healer were taken care off by the female swordsman.
The demon dog that was behind the large lizard got hit by its tail and grandly fell down.
[Since there isn’t much to monsters that move in groups, it’d be a problem if you were get stuck on me ——– Hmmm, Oh?]
‘He’ who wanted the mobility of the demon dogs, was planning to posses one of them and had half left the large lizard, then unexpectedly human figures came from within the dungeon. Three human forms that were closing in without light. They were the trainees that had left to call for help.
Since ‘He’ is a spirit, he didn’t have any problems seeing in the dark, the eyes of a normal human could only see as far as the light reached. They stopped at the border of the light the healer had put up, and observed them from the darkness. .
[I wonder what they’re doing?]
Feeling something disturbing from the trainees ‘He’, only got his head out of large lizards body and began to observe them.
The brawl between the demon dogs and the large lizard, the two adventurers, one of them the injured healer, and the other the female swordsman that was protecting him. The three trainees from the adventurer’s school were watching from the wall, clad in the darkness, as the female swordsman was taking care of two demon dogs. One of the trainees began to whisper to the other two.
“Hey, are we really going to do it?”
“Of course, try calling for something like help, we’ll definitely be flunked.”
“We injured an instructor, we’re sure to get a fine, if we do it poorly we could get expelled.”
If they could pa.s.s this time’s exam, they would be able to accept simple requests from the adventurer’s a.s.sociation, but if they were expelled from the adventurer’s school they wouldn’t be able to get support from the a.s.sociation, then the path of being an adventurer would become exceedingly difficult.
An instructor dying in action at an exam wasn’t a rare thing. The terrifying thing about the dungeon is that even experienced adventurers didn’t know what could happen. If they could silence the two adventurers then they could just redo the test on another day, that being the plan, the three trainees aim for an opening from the female swordsman. There is also the large lizard that stormed in, they glared at it thinking it wouldn’t come this way after obtaining the meat of two demon dogs.
“Okay, if that female swordsman starts her battle with the demon dog we’ll attack her.”
“Yeah, even if we don’t do it, we just have to create an opening, then the demon dogs will finish her off.”
“It doesn’t feel right, but it’s for the sake of our future……”
Eventually the female swordsman closed in until a certain distance and swung her sword against the demon dog.
“Now.”
When the three of them ready their own weapons, they simultaneously jumped out in order to a.s.sault the female swordsman from behind. The healer that noticed them from their footsteps, feeling danger from the eyes and atmosphere of the trainees, in order to a.s.sist his partner he fired off a blinding magic with the little magic power he had left. The flash that burst in front of them stealing their vision, stopped the trainees from moving.
“…….. Tch, you guys!”
Noticing them and the flash behind her, the female swordsman’s face became stiff. However right now she was busy with the two demon dogs so she couldn’t engage them at the moment. Seeing that, two of them move towards the female swordsman with their weapons in hand, while one of them moved in order to give the finishing blow to the healer.
“You! Surviving b.a.s.t.a.r.d!”
TLnote: Surviving in the sense that death has been avoided, it’s used as an insult in the form of: ‘b.a.s.t.a.r.d who has escaped death.’ -Tensaiz
The moment the sword was raised up facing the healer, the large lizard gave a roar and while still being bitten by the demon dogs, it began to crawl away with unimaginable speed, when the trainee was thinking about that unexpected action, he was actually bit. The trainee lost his footing and rolled over. Immediately near the two remaining trainees, with a growl the demon dogs attacked them, since the two demon dogs got tired of trying to bite through the large lizard’s scales, they began to attack the trainees instead. The trainee that got bit in the body and fell down, was being targeted by the third demon dog that was biting the large lizard’s tail, in a hurry he stood back up with his sword facing the demon dog. Whether it was by coincidence or because it was necessary, the three trainees that tried to silence the adventurers, were now fighting the three remaining demon dogs while the female swordsman took care of the other two, making it seem as if they were backing her up.
A united front where four humans fight against five monsters was born even though they were in a complicated situation. Meanwhile, the large lizard that seemed eccentric from the moment it appeared was crawling toward the healer that lay against the wall. The female swordsman was worried about the healer, however she couldn’t get distracted while facing two demon dogs. Large lizards usually don’t attack humans, however, it doesn’t change the fact that it’s a monster.
[For you.]
The large lizard that came so close as if it was hugging him opened its mouth and a vial fell out of it. The healer picked it up while looking at it suspiciously. Inside the vial was some high quality magic water that was still in an unused state. As its name states, water that has been imbued with magic power, it can become an ingredient for various magical drugs. If it were to be drunk directly, it could help one recover his magic power, it’s useful water.
“This is, for me….?”
The large lizard shook its body as if it was answering the question. The number of vials that rolled out were three in total. With this much, it’d be enough to recover the healer’s magic power twice over. Thanks to the magic water, the healer was able to heal his wounds and joined the fight against the demon dogs, the fight ended momentarily after that.
Adventurers that specialize in healing are first rate even among adventurers, they couldn’t possibly be compared to the likes of a trainee. After the battle with the demon dogs, the three trainees were overwhelmed and suppressed. They were to be brought back disarmed and restrained because of their a.s.sault. At first, the female swordsman wanted them to be executed on the spot, but the healer soothed her over and made her agree to let them be judged when they got back.
“I don’t think they have the right to complain even if they were to be executed on the spot, right.”
“If those with weak minds stay too long in the dungeon, they’ll start to get out of control, it’s something that happens a lot.”
The three slumping trainees were sinners for trying to kill their examiners.
When they were leaving this place, the healer, looking at the large lizard that was raising a demon dogs corpse with its nose, felt puzzled about it. The female swordsman also thought it was a weird thing when she heard that the giant lizard saved her, having seen its actions they couldn’t just laugh it off.
“That giant lizard, just what was it…..?”
“Let’s see….. He was someone’s pet once, is what I can’t help but think.”
Looking back for the last time, the healer saw that the large lizard was facing his way and was wagging its tail.
[So, the demon dogs got exterminated I guess~……Then I’ll have to move with large lizard-kun for now.]
After seeing off the party of the two adventurers and the three sinner trainees, ‘He’ put the magic ingrained items in the other dimension, then he gave the control back to the giant lizard that had worked hard today. This time ‘He’ noticed that after he saved those two adventurers, that he had an awareness of his values of good and evil. His stored memories and a vague self-awareness are still the same as always, but he has been gaining new memories and knowledge every day.
[I hope I can get out to see the outside world one day.]
While thinking about something like that, today ‘He’ continued to wander around the dungeon.
——–In the dungeon near the town of Bara.s.s, from time to time monsters that save adventurers appear. This was being whispered among the adventurers a little while after that.