“Are they… all taken care of now?”
“Looks like it.”
Helios muttered, drenched in sweat, as we looked around.
The swarm of monsters that had been everywhere was now completely gone.
All that remained were grotesque corpses littering the ground.
“Ugh, I thought I was going to die…”
Ingrid plopped down on the ground with a groan, her face crumpling.
Beside her, Charlotte was also gasping for breath.
“We should… probably rest a bit now.”
“The environment’s not exactly ideal for a break, though.”
Senia, who had been keeping watch nearby, chimed in.
Meanwhile, Cain had already stretched out his legs and was lounging on the ground.
“We must’ve racked up a crazy score. Even if we quit now, wouldn’t our team still be in first place?”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Cain Trigger. We took down more than you.”
Helios shot back, irritated.
“Even if you did get more, it was thanks to that overpowered skeleton.”
“Oh, come on, what kind of nonsense is that?”
“Ah, speaking of which…”
Charlotte turned to me.
“Eriol Valencia, what was that skeleton? Since when could you summon something that powerful?”
“Ah, that…”
Should I tell them that I summoned a Dragon Fang Soldier using the Drake’s Fang I picked up during the last dungeon raid competition?
As I hesitated, Ingrid, still catching her breath, spoke up.
“That was a Dragon Fang Soldier, wasn’t it?”
“What?”
“Dragon Fang Soldier?”
Helios and Charlotte’s eyes widened.
“It’s a high-tier undead that can be summoned with Summon Dead. You need a deep understanding of necromancy to call it forth… Eriol, you’re amazing.”
Ingrid sounded genuinely impressed, but Helios narrowed his eyes at me.
“Eriol, when did you start studying necromancy that seriously? A Dragon Fang Soldier needs dragon bones—where’d you get those?”
“Wait… no way.”
Charlotte looked like something had clicked.
She had fought alongside me against the Drake Skeleton, after all—it was no surprise she’d figure it out.
“Um, well…”
I was still trying to figure out how to explain it when—
I felt something strange.
“Guys, hold on a sec.”
“Don’t try to change the subject. You better explain this—”
“Helios, shut up for a moment.”
I looked around.
A wave was emanating from somewhere nearby.
‘This is… a sinister energy!’
A force that allows the undead to defy the laws of life and continue moving.
That ominous wave seemed to be leaking from somewhere.
“Eriol, what is it?”
“Just a moment.”
I followed the source of the wave.
And among the monster corpses… I found a passage leading downward.
“No way…”
Ingrid, who had come up beside me, peeked in.
“This must be the secret chamber the inscriptions on the walls were talking about.”
“Though it’s not exactly hidden, is it?”
“True…”
According to what we heard before, the Academy’s Department of Lore had already thoroughly explored this dungeon.
They had supposedly discovered all hidden chambers.
“Let’s head down.”
“Okay.”
Ingrid and I descended into the narrow passage.
Below was… a stone chamber.
“Wow, it’s really dry in here.”
“Yeah, it is.”
The inside of the stone room was incredibly dry.
Sensing the elemental balance, I could tell there was barely any water element left.
Could this be the core of the dehumidifying system that made the whole dungeon so dry?
“Ingrid, can you tell what this place is?”
“If I’m right… this is probably where the cult stored the remains of their high-ranking members.”
“Their remains?”
“Ah, to be precise, their skulls. They might have keep them here to someday resurrect them as undead.”
But there was nothing around.
Not even a fragment of bone, let alone a skull.
“Looks like the Academy cleared everything out.”
“…”
Still, I could feel that sinister wave pulsing through the room.
Even though there was nothing there.
“Eriol, what is it?”
“Is something hidden here?”
“Doesn’t look like there’s anything useful. Let’s go already.”
“Yeah, the dryness here is seriously unsettling.”
The others who had followed us down seemed eager to get out.
Even if they couldn’t sense the sinister wave directly, it seemed everyone felt the ominous atmosphere.
“Ingrid.”
“Yes?”
“Aren’t there strange symbols on the walls around this chamber?”
“Oh—now that you mention it…”
Ingrid quickly scanned the walls.
“They look geometric at first glance, but… these are ciphers! Definitely from that wicked cult!”
“And they’re different from the ones we saw above, right?”
“Yes, completely! I can’t read them at all… We’ll have to report this to the Transcendental Department!”
“…”
I looked around carefully.
Just as Ingrid said, these were symbols I’d never seen before.
But…
“I think I can decipher them.”
“Huh?”
I focused my mind.
I could feel the power of my spiritual trait—Reading—activating.
By comparing them to the ciphers scattered throughout the dungeon… I could start identifying the pattern behind their construction.
‘Yes, this is…’
This was a cipher no professor from the Transcendental Department could solve.
Without specific prior knowledge, it would be impossible to decode.
But I had that prior knowledge.
‘It’s based on one of the Six Forbidden Tomes—The Necromancer’s Codex!’
A notebook of excerpts I received from Professor Piotr of the Necromancy Department.
I recalled its contents and began constructing a spell.
I artificially assembled the sinister wave… and forged it into a “key” that could unlock the secret door.
“W-what is this?”
“Gasp…!”
KUKUKUNG!
With a tremendous rumble, the floor of the stone chamber opened.
Everyone was stunned as a new secret passage revealed itself.
“A-Amazing, Eriol!”
Ingrid clung to my arm, bouncing excitedly.
“How did you do that? Did you decipher the code? And that strange wave just now—it felt ominous. Why did you do it like that…?!”
“I-Ingrid! Step back a little!”
“Y-Yeah. This isn’t the time for that!”
Thankfully, Charlotte and Senia pulled Ingrid away from me.
“Hey, Eriol. What the hell did you do?”
Helios frowned deeply.
“Anyone can see it. This is a place we shouldn’t be entering.”
“Yeah, I agree with Helios,”
Cain said, scratching his head with a nod.
“Discovering a secret passage even the Transcendental department didn’t know about is impressive, but this place reeks of danger. I don’t think this is somewhere people like us should be going.”
If both Helios and Cain—who have sharp instincts—say that, then they’re probably right.
But…
“No, we can’t back off.”
“What?”
“Eriol, you…”
I stared at the stairs leading down.
From there, a wave of sinister energy was emanating—far stronger than anything we’d felt before.
“Something really bad is happening down there.”
We had to act now.
If we ran away, something irreversible would happen.
That’s the feeling I got.
“Tch, fine. Guess we’ve got no choice.”
Cain scratched his head and said,
“If you’re that insistent, I’ll go along with you.”
“Thanks, Cain.”
“But we’re not going in blindly. Hey, Charlotte.”
Charlotte’s eyes widened when she was pointed out.
“Me?”
“Yeah. You go back up and call the instructors. Looks like we can’t send a signal from here.”
“Why me…?”
“This place is insanely dry. Your specialty—ice magic—gets restricted here.”
“…!”
Charlotte bit her lip.
She had realized she was currently the least useful one here.
“Fine. I get it.”
“Thanks, Charlotte.”
When I bowed slightly in thanks, Charlotte looked at me with a pout.
“Don’t do anything reckless.”
“I won’t.”
“Hmph…”
In the end, Charlotte headed back up on her own.
And then Cain, Cenia, Helios, Ingrid, and I descended the stairs.
“Th-This is kind of exciting!”
“Ingrid, this isn’t the time for that! Damn it, why am I even doing this…?”
The farther we went down, the stronger the ominous wave became.
And not just that…
“It’s much drier than before. It feels like even my skin is cracking.”
Hearing Cenia say that triggered a thought in my mind.
“Ingrid.”
“Yes?”
“As an undead, what’s a zombie’s biggest weakness?”
“Ah… Compared to skeletons? Zombies can only move in a simple, sluggish way. Plus, unlike skeletons that just need bones, zombies need corpses with flesh…”
“Not that.”
“Huh? But that’s what the lectures emphasized…”
“In my opinion, a zombie’s biggest weakness is that it keeps rotting.”
I didn’t mean just being gross.
Rotting flesh means weakened muscle strength. And with mass decreasing, their effectiveness in close combat—their specialty—goes down.
“Basically, the longer a zombie exists, the weaker it becomes.”
“Oh, that’s true. That’s actually one reason skeletons are superior.”
Cenia nodded in agreement.
“In past wars where necromancers used undead, they mostly deployed skeleton-based forces. Zombies were only summoned as needed.”
“But what if… what if there were zombies that didn’t rot?”
“Eh?”
I remembered a particularly striking section from the Necromancer’s Codex.
Zombies have the drawback of bodily decay during long-term use… but there is a way to solve that.
“What if they were artificially preserved to prevent decay?”
“W-Wait a minute. Don’t tell me…”
“I read it in a book once. If you maintain an extremely dry environment, corpses won’t rot and can be preserved for a very long time.”
That’s why this dungeon had such an intense dehumidification system.
Even though the rest of the dungeon had deteriorated over the years and was leaking water, the deepest level remained completely dry, without a trace of moisture.
That’s the answer.
“This is the undead-worshipping cult’s… mummy soldier storage.”
The sight before us:
Countless mummies enshrined in the walls, filling the chamber.
Their perfectly preserved, completely dried corpses stared at us in silence.
“M-Mummies? Like the ones you see in ancient ruins?”
“They were storing them here?”
“I-I get it now! The skeleton storage above was a decoy! It was meant to make intruders think, ‘This is all there is,’ and turn back…!”
Ingrid marveled as she looked around.
“These mummies—every one of them—is probably a magically enhanced soldier! They were stored here for the future! In such a dry environment, mummies could be preserved for thousands of years!”
“Right. They stockpiled an undead army here in preparation for a future war.”
Now I was sure of it.
This underground graveyard—Catacomb—was a stronghold created by the cult behind the Necromancer’s Codex.
A base prepared for the day they’d wage war again.
And then…
“……”
I walked through the mummies.
At the very deepest point stood an altar.
Seeing what was atop it, Helios cursed under his breath.
“Damn it, we’re too late!”
Piled on the altar were corpses.
Not mummies, but freshly dead humans—sailors from the ship we had arrived on.
Their spilled blood stained the altar, forming a magic circle.
“Everyone, fire your spells! We need to destroy that magic circle!”
“No… it’s too late.”
I said in a cold voice.
“The system’s already been activated.”
“……!”
Uuuuuuuunnngggg…
A deafening sound echoed through the entire space.
And the corpses—undead soldiers that had slept for thousands of years—began to open their eyes.
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