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Chapter 7
From what I had observed, whenever he became flustered or excited, the area around his cheeks and eyes would grow warm and flushed. I could use that to get at least some idea of Ruizel’s mood.
Right now, his mood was rosy.
It seemed like I could get a little more clingy.
“Rui—”
“Time’s up.”
“Gasp!”
I inhaled sharply and turned my attention to the necklace I had been deliberately ignoring.
[Update complete.]
[00:00:00]
Kuuung!
There was no time to be excited.
A thunderous shock shook the ground.
Aside from the fierce sound of water coming from outside, the cave was completely enclosed, and it trembled eerily.
[You have entered the Hidden Dungeon (Mythic Grade).]
[The Hidden Dungeon is verifying the rightful heir and the Last Guardian.]
[This dungeon currently has neither an entrance nor an exit.]
[You will automatically enter Floor 1, ‘The First Hero and the Golden Lake.’]
[Congratulations! You are the first person in this world to enter a Mythic Grade dungeon! This achievement will be recorded by the System!]
[The hidden condition has been fulfilled, greatly lowering the difficulty of the Hidden Dungeon.]
[The System continues to lower the difficulty!]
[The System continues to continue lowering the difficulty!]
[The System continues to continue to continue lowering the difficulty!]
[The System is interfering with the history of Floor 1, ‘The First Hero and the Golden Lake.’]
[You have entered the dungeon for the first time. Please check your User Information (Player Status).]
―――
Name: Harmonia Ju Elorang
Lineage/Class: Chosen One / King (Hidden) (Unique) (Mythic)
Class Skills: [King’s Eye] (Inactive), [King’s Sanctuary] (Inactive), [King’s Knight] (Inactive)
Bound Skill: [Harmonia’s Necklace]
Grade: Mythic Grade
Title: Young King of Elorang
Strength: Normal Grade (1)
Agility: Normal Grade (5)
Vitality: Normal Grade (3/4)
Mana: Legendary Grade (3129/3282)
Karma: 0
Insufficient proficiency! Some portions of your skills are locked/hidden.
―――
When a System user entered a dungeon for the first time, their User Information, commonly called the Status Window, automatically appeared.
In other words, I had entered a dungeon.
I had really entered a dungeon.
I had been dragged inside!
Things kept appearing in front of my eyes, but I was too out of my mind to properly see them.
The only message that remained clear in my mind was the very first one I had seen: that I had entered a Mythic Grade dungeon.
Fear numbed my senses. My skin felt hot, and my head throbbed painfully.
I had thought that a moment like this would come someday.
The path I had chosen was never going to be easy.
But not now.
I wasn’t prepared in the slightest.
Was I going to die again like this…?
“Get a hold of yourself!”
“Ruizel…”
“If you give up here, you’ll only die a meaningless death.”
His cold tone brought me back to my senses.
Did he have some kind of related skill?
Normally, the aura radiating from a Mythic Grade dungeon should have sent someone like me into a panic. Yet although he was sweating coldly, he never lost his composure.
When I met his clear eyes, my focus returned.
“A meaningless death…”
Ah.
I really hated that.
Even if I had to die, I absolutely couldn’t die like this.
“I made a promise to myself. Even if I die right now, I won’t give up. Until the very end, until the very moment I reach death…”
At the instant of my death, I had returned to my childhood.
Back then, at least I hadn’t given up.
And now, I was in a better position than I had been then.
For one thing, I wasn’t alone.
And I had at least grasped a clue regarding my skill.
If this was the Hidden Dungeon related to my skill, there was no way it would simply kill me—the owner of that skill.
“Yeah. There must be a way to survive.”
Ruizel added quietly.
His body trembled slightly from tension, but his eyes remained firm.
His determination reached me.
It was exactly what I needed right now.
What exactly was this kid?
Where had someone like him been all this time, only to appear in front of me now?
The fact that I could even think about something like that in this situation was so absurd that I finally noticed the scenery around me.
The dungeon unfolding before my eyes wasn’t particularly threatening.
“It’s Mythic Grade, but there isn’t even a poison debuff. Don’t higher-risk dungeons usually bombard you with debuff-type magic from the very beginning?”
“It’s strange. It’s so quiet you can hardly breathe.”
The golden lake sparkling at the center, beneath a clear blue sky and surrounded by a lush green forest, was no illusion.
A dungeon with a danger level high enough to be practically hell for humans looked so eerily peaceful that it felt even less real.
“But it wouldn’t be strange if something jumped out at us right now.”
Rustle.
Perhaps Ruizel’s words had been the trigger.
The bushes that had been completely still until then began to tremble.
Ruizel reacted almost at the exact same moment as the sound.
I didn’t even know when he had drawn it, but Ruizel was already holding a dagger.
He threw it toward the source of the sound.
Thud!
Even after the impact, the bushes continued to rustle at regular intervals.
It was as if some beast that had cornered its prey was slowly crawling out.
The trembling of the leaves gradually grew more distinct, making my chest tighten until I thought my heart would burst.
Then the thing revealed itself.
“Hm? A child?”
“A person?”
It was common knowledge that dungeons were guarded by monsters.
The higher the grade, the more horrifying and unimaginable the monsters became.
But a person?
Monsters that resembled humans could exist, but this was the first time I had seen an actual human appear as a monster.
I quickly examined the man’s appearance.
His clothes were of a style I had never seen before, but the material looked luxurious. Despite having supposedly come through the forest, they were spotless, without even a speck of dust.
Wondering if he was a ghost-type monster, I stared at his feet.
But there was no transparent or dissolved portion that would indicate he was merely an apparition.
Blink.
The man blinked somewhat blankly, scratched his messy hair, and asked,
“Are you intruders?”
His appearance and behavior were innocent, but the aura he unconsciously emitted was tremendous.
The oppressive force felt as though it were bearing down on me from above, making me hesitate to speak carelessly.
The man, sweating profusely as though he were lost in his own thoughts, took one step toward us.
Ruizel and I both flinched and cautiously watched him.
“Ah, I’m not a bad man.”
He widened his innocent-looking eyes and waved both hands.
His clumsy behavior was so harmless that I almost wondered whether he really was a monster from a Mythic Grade dungeon.
“Who are you?”
I asked cautiously.
“My name is Cadmus. I am the king of Thebes.”
The man seemed to assume that we would naturally know what it meant for him to be the king of Thebes.
So he gave us an awkward smile as though to reassure us that he wasn’t a suspicious person.
When attempting to conquer a dungeon, learning its history was the most basic thing to do.
After thinking for a moment, I asked my second question.
“Why are you here?”
“Lord Ares delivered an oracle and ordered me to deal with the intruders of this land. After all, this is something that I, a mortal, am capable of doing.”
He answered readily again.
He was probably speaking according to the setting the System had given him.
[Cadmus, the hero who founded Thebes, has appeared. Persuade him to pass through the Golden Gate.]
“But something is strange. You’re intruders?”
Just as we had been bewildered by a human appearing in a Mythic Grade dungeon, he seemed equally confused by the appearance of children.
Too many messages were pouring down in front of me, making it difficult to think.
But the very first messages had clearly stated that the dungeon’s difficulty had been greatly lowered.
Could his current attitude be related to the dungeon’s reduced difficulty?
There was also something about the dungeon’s name that kept bothering me.
It was similar to the name of the first Mythic Grade dungeon, The Evil Dragon’s Golden Lake.
In the first place, a dungeon containing the words ‘Golden Lake’ should have existed only once—and this should have been the first and last.
The same went for Ruizel.
There had to be some connection.
If the Evil Dragon had been the boss monster of The Evil Dragon’s Golden Lake, then it was possible to assume that Cadmus was the boss monster of The First Hero and the Golden Lake.
The Evil Dragon and Cadmus.
Had the boss monster of the dungeon changed according to its difficulty?
At least so far, Cadmus had shown no signs of being threatening whatsoever.
If that was simply because we were children, then his characterization was hardly fitting for a dungeon monster.
Well.
It was Mythic Grade, so perhaps it was only natural for some humans to appear.
A Mythic Grade dungeon had never appeared even once during my twenty years of life, so nothing that happened here should be considered strange.
What mattered was that I had to persuade him.
“If your god gave you an oracle ordering you to deal with us, doesn’t that mean Lord Ares was giving you a choice?”
“A choice?”
“He could have said ‘kill them,’ ‘execute them,’ or ‘exterminate them,’ but instead, he specifically told you to deal with us. That leaves room for various interpretations.”
“I see. You’re right. Lord Ares couldn’t possibly have overlooked the fact that his words allowed room for interpretation.”
He nodded quickly, almost as if he had been searching for an excuse to take our side.
Cadmus wasn’t someone who was impossible to reason with.
Moreover, he was weak toward children.
In our world, people tended to be most afraid of children who possessed great power but had immature minds.
“So you’re intruders?”
Cadmus grinned and asked again.
Ruizel and I exchanged glances, then nodded while hiding our nervousness.
“Well then, this is the Golden Gate.”
Despite all the tension, he became a friendly guide.
Thanks to him, we were able to find the Golden Gate quickly.
“But are you really sure you want to do this? We don’t know what kind of monster might be lurking beyond here. I can’t go with you.”
