“The atmosphere here is killer.”
“It’s kind of creepy.”
Just as Cain and Senia said, the catacombs had a rather eerie vibe.
Walking through the dark tunnels felt like stepping into a grave.
“I heard this used to be an underground tomb built by some ancient evil religion.”
“An underground tomb? That’s news to me.”
“They built a tomb on an uninhabited island like this?”
When I shared what I’d heard from Ingrid, Cain and Senia looked surprised.
“Don’t tell me we’re gonna run into undead.”
“Didn’t the academy already clear all that out?”
“According to the briefing, there won’t be any undead. What’s here is…”
Squelch.
Suddenly, a chill ran down the side of my head.
“Slime!”
…!
I moved instinctively.
If I had been just a moment slower, the slime falling from the ceiling would’ve latched onto me.
“Burn it!”
“Already on it!”
I shot a short burst of fire magic to burn the slime.
As expected, it had no resistance to fire.
“That scared the hell out of me.”
I let out a sigh of relief.
This place was clearly not somewhere you could afford to drop your guard.
“Even though slimes won’t kill you, I heard they leave horrible wounds on your skin, right?”
“Yeah, they’ll leave you all torn up like a zombie.”
“Getting hit in the face would be a disaster. Sure, we have healing magic, but still…”
As we chatted, we kept moving deeper.
After carefully watching all directions, we entered a relatively spacious area.
“There’s a bunch of cabinet-looking things here.”
“What do you think they were used for?”
“Since this used to be a tomb, maybe they stored skulls in them?”
The moment I casually said that, Cain and Senia swallowed nervously.
“H-Hey, come on, they wouldn’t store skulls in a place like this…”
“Maybe in deeper parts, but we’ve barely entered the place…”
“I remember seeing it in a book once. A drawing of skulls all lined up neatly in cabinets like these.”
“…”
The two fell silent.
Seeing that, I couldn’t help but feel dumbfounded.
“You guys are fine with fighting undead, so why are you scared by this?”
“Undead are just something you beat up. But this…”
“It feels like something unknown… If a ghost popped out or something, that’d be terrifying.”
I could kind of understand.
“Anyway, if there was anything like that, the academy would’ve dealt with it already. Necromancy has spells to detect and control spirits, remember?”
“Hmm, I guess that’s true.”
“No need to stress about it. What we do need to worry about is…”
I adjusted my bracelet and summoned my Protective Gloves.
“The monsters deployed in here.”
“…!”
Slink…
A giant leech emerged from between the cabinets.
It was clearly a Great Leech, a leech-type monster that dwelled in caves.
“Damn, bugs like this are hard to sense!”
“A Great Leech already?!”
Great Leeches were among the more dangerous monsters in this dungeon.
They had sharp enough teeth to pierce even the academy’s protective uniforms, and if you were bitten properly, you’d lose so much blood that it could force you out of the survival test.
“Be careful! That thing is seriously dangerous!”
“Just one bite, and you’re done!”
“Cain, Senia. Fall back.”
Though they were clearly on edge, I spoke calmly.
“I’ll handle this.”
“…!”
Thud.
I pulled a drake fang from my pouch and dropped it on the ground. Immediately, theDragon Bone Soldier Deathvice appeared.
As soon as I sent Deathvice forward, the Great Leech lunged straight at it.
But…
“Ah…!”
Senia gasped.
The Great Leech sank its huge fangs into Deathvice, but there was no blood to suck.
Only the scraping sound of teeth on bone echoed through the space.
“Ha. Stupid thing.”
Just as Cain scoffed—
Deathvice grabbed the leech’s torso with its massive arm and crushed it with brute force.
“Good job.”
I composed a spell and recalled Deathvice.
The creature vanished immediately, leaving only the drake fang behind on the ground.
“It’s hard to maintain for long, right?”
“I can manage two to three hours a day. But I might need it again, so I’m better off recalling it for now.”
Saying that, I turned to inspect the Great Leech’s corpse.
“So, what should we do with this?”
“What do you mean?”
“Didn’t we learn this in class?”
I pointed at the spare canteen strapped to my waist.
“If we can’t find any water, we’re supposed to purify the bodily fluids of monsters like this to drink.”
“…!”
Cain and Senia’s eyes widened.
“W-Wait. You’re saying we’re supposed to drink leech blood?”
“E-Eriol, that’s a bit much…!”
“It might sound gross, but it’s not necessarily that bad. In some regions, people actually eat Great Leeches.”
I remembered reading about it in a book and finding it oddly interesting.
Of course, I had no desire to eat this thing’s meat, but if it was just extracting moisture, maybe it wasn’t so bad.
“It’s not toxic or anything. If we use elemental magic to extract the fluids and apply a few purification spells, it should be safe to drink.”
“N-No, Eriol… let’s rethink this.”
Cain grabbed my arm and pleaded.
“It’s not like we’re desperate for water yet. We’ll definitely find some eventually. Let’s save that idea for if we run out.”
“Hmm… I guess you’re right.”
“Yeah, let’s do that! Decision made! Let’s just dump the leech corpse and move on!”
“Alright.”
When I nodded, Senia let out a relieved sigh beside me.
“Eriol, you’re sometimes absurdly bold, you know. No matter how thirsty I get, I could never quench my thirst with the bodily fluids of some creepy bug monster.”
“No, I mean, it’s not like you’re drinking the fluids directly—I’d separate the moisture using elemental magic and then—”
“Stop! That topic is off-limits!”
Raising his voice, Cain cast a fire spell on the Great Leech’s corpse.
As the giant leech burst into flames, Cain looked satisfied.
“Good. From now on, the moment we kill a monster, we burn it before Eriol starts spouting nonsense.”
“…”
Was I really saying such outrageous things?
Some of the survival techniques I read in books were far more disgusting than this…
“Alright. Then let’s start by finding water. We’ll need a place to rest, too.”
“Agreed!”
“Let’s move quickly.”
With both of them now motivated, we delved deeper into the dungeon.
“Sir Monarch! Water!”
“Looks pretty clean, doesn’t it? Seems we won’t have to worry about drinking water.”
“Yeah, we got lucky.”
Monarch Orson smiled as he discovered water flowing deep within the dungeon.
“It should be enough for the three of us. Really, no need to worry about water anymore.”
In truth, Monarch had been most concerned about finding drinkable water.
Outdoors, it would’ve been possible to draw water from elemental magic. But the dungeon’s interior was so dry that gathering water was nearly impossible.
He had even considered extracting fluids from monster corpses—but luck was on their side, and they found an underground stream.
“Then, Monarch, how about we use this place as our base?”
“The ground’s flat enough. We could lay out our sleeping bags and get some rest here.”
“Hmm… not a bad idea.”
Since they would be staying inside the dungeon for three days and two nights, they needed a base for rest and sleep.
“But monsters might come here to drink water. We need to keep that in mind.”
“Ah, right! I didn’t think of that!”
“That’s Monarch for you…!”
Monarch scanned the area.
Judging from the terrain, he could predict where monsters might show up.
“Then let’s fortify this place. Make sure we can fend off any monster attacks.”
“That’s a great idea!”
Defeating monsters yields higher scores.
They could rack up points by defeating monsters that show up to drink water.
“It’d be a problem if monsters attacked while we’re asleep… but we can take shifts for watch duty.”
“Understood! I’ll start by using earth-elemental magic to build the fortifications!”
“Good. Get to it.”
Watching his teammates spring into action, Monarch wondered what the other teams were up to.
Most of all, he was keeping a close eye on the team composed of Eriol, Cain, and Senia.
‘This time, I can’t lose to that guy, Eriol.’
Currently, Monarch was ranked 5th overall.
A fairly high rank—but not high enough for his taste.
‘I was second in the midterms… but I didn’t score well in the practical’s.’
That’s why he had to take first place in this dungeon survival challenge.
Only then could he catch up to Eriol.
‘Just a country noble propped up by Professor Kaisel’s favouritism. He’s not going to block my path.’
And now, they had secured clean drinking water.
Using this place as a base, they’d accumulate a high score… and this time, Monarch was going to defeat Eriol Valencia for good.
“Look at this! There’s a stream running through here!”
“Looks like clean water. Still, better purify it with magic just to be safe.”
Cain and Senia smiled as they discovered the flowing water deeper inside the dungeon.
“That was lucky. What a relief.”
In fact, they had found it while tracing water-elemental energy.
The catacombs were unnaturally dry, but by following the faint traces of water element, they were able to locate an underground stream.
‘But why is this dungeon so dry? Did the academy design it to prevent us from creating drinking water using elemental magic?’
In this kind of extreme dryness, even using freezing spells would be difficult—there’s simply not enough water-element to create ice.
Charlotte, whose specialty was ice magic, must be having a hard time right now.
“Ahh, that’s refreshing. The water tastes fine, too.”
“Should we make this our base?”
“Yeah, not a bad idea.”
Cain and Senia turned to look at me as they quenched their thirst with the underground water.
“What do you think, Eriol? Should we set up camp here?”
“The terrain makes it easy to notice approaching monsters. I think it’s a good spot.”
“No, we can’t.”
But I shook my head immediately.
“A short rest here is fine, but it’s not suitable for sleeping overnight.”
“What? What are you talking about?”
“I read it in a book.”
I raised my head.
Then, while staring at the dungeon’s ceiling, I muttered,
“On a normal day, it might be fine… but tonight, we must not sleep anywhere near here.”
A tent set up outside the dungeon.
There, professors were monitoring the students statuses via transmitted dungeon data.
“Looks like three teams have set up camp near the water.”
As Klein marked them on the dungeon map, Professor Murselt, watching from the side, let out a sigh.
“Jeez, those idiots. Or should I say, those blissfully naive fools?”
“Typical of noble kids who’ve only ever studied. They’ve got no adaptability.”
Even Sylvia, who usually butted heads with Murselt, agreed for once.
“They probably think they’re lucky to have found drinking water and now have the upper hand.”
“But when has anything ever gone that smoothly? We told them this was a survival exercise under harsh conditions.”
“…”
As he listened to the biological professors speak so coldly, Klein turned his gaze outside the tent.
Over the uninhabited island… dark storm clouds were rolling in.
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