Chapter 31

Chapter 31

Not long afterward, the note crumbled like the old clothing and disappeared into dust.

Yohan repeated the three things written on it in his mind.

“Thirty sixth floor, Ibratis, Arcadia Iron Coffin…”

He had a rough idea about the first two.

Ibratis, the One Who Forgets.

He was the Great Old One controlling the thirty sixth floor.

But what was the Arcadia Iron Coffin?

[That’s surprising. There’s actually something even you don’t know.]

“…I’ve never heard of a Divine Relic with that name.”

Normally, the obvious conclusion would be that the Divine Relic was required to defeat Ibratis.

But Yohan could not believe it was that simple.

Ibratis’s influence on the thirty sixth floor had weakened a long time ago.

His Apostle was also someone raiders were supposed to cooperate with rather than defeat.

Of course, they could not depend on gaining that person’s cooperation every time.

Perhaps the Divine Relic could provide another method of reaching the lower floor.

But I don’t think she waited this long just to tell me something that simple.

If the woman who wanted to deliver the message was truly who Yohan suspected, then he absolutely could not ignore the information.

Elisabeth Sophie.

Among the Seven Players, she possessed the most exceptional ability to foresee the future.

She had even accurately predicted her own death.

Of course, she had not died on the thirty sixth floor.

Ibratis had not been responsible for her death either.

Still, Elise had never given Yohan any warning about this before.

Yet she had gone out of her way to leave a message for Yohan Blake far in the future.

There had to be some meaning beyond his expectations.

It’s difficult to guess right now…

If he had even known the identity of the beloved disciple who had preserved the note inside the Remains, he might have been able to make some deductions.

But the memory had carefully hidden that as well.

They had not fought together in this world for a very long time.

Still, as Players, they had worked together for many years.

They had gone through life and death together inside the Dungeon.

They had talked about many things.

Through those conversations, Yohan believed they had learned a great deal about one another.

Yet he had never heard anything about Elise having a disciple.

He had no memory of it.

He did not know whether he had simply forgotten, or whether he had truly never known.

[…Maybe she hid it from you on purpose.]

Maybe.

The moment his past self learned about this, the future he was living now might have ceased to exist.

Perhaps everything had been arranged for this journey.

The reason she only reached out to him after he had seen everyone die.

The reason he had been forced to take that hand.

Perhaps all of it had been necessary.

In any case, the answer would be on the thirty sixth floor.

First, he needed to reach that place and discover the identity of the Divine Relic.

Now that he had a goal, there was no reason to hesitate.

A faint scorch mark remained where the Remains had once been.

Yohan stared at it briefly and lowered his head.

It was the minimum respect he could offer the man who had endured hundreds of years to deliver this message.

A moment later, Yohan turned away and walked back toward the other two.

“Let’s go. To the seventh floor.”

Neither Isabella nor Aren seemed particularly interested in the Remains.

They did not ask many questions.

“Did you find a clue about the Great Remains?”

“No.”

“…Then what was it in the end? Just ordinary Remains?”

“A memory.”

“…Huh?”

That short conversation with Isabella was the only discussion about what had happened.

While crossing the midnight sea, Yohan briefly remembered those old days.

They had been painful.

Far more painful than happy.

But there had still been happy moments.

Even in the distant past when he had believed this world was only a game, that had been true.

This world had always brought him pain.

Perhaps that was exactly why the occasional happiness had felt far more valuable.

Those were feelings he had forgotten.

Or rather, feelings he had tried to forget.

“……”

Every comrade who had fought beside him while risking their lives was dead.

Generations changed.

Values changed.

The people around him changed.

Only Yohan remained unchanged.

At some point, he had stopped thinking about that unbearable truth.

Because even thinking about it hurt.

Because he could never escape the pain.

Because ignoring it was the only method he possessed.

But Yohan himself understood the truth better than anyone.

No matter how hard he tried to look away, at the final moment, when everything finally ended, he would have no choice but to face the horrible truth he had spent so long avoiding.

Entering the Holy Land.

Entering the Dungeon.

Finding the Remains.

Even this very moment.

Everything was only a sign leading toward that future.

Even so,

no matter how painful it might be,

now that he had chosen to face it, he had no intention of stopping.

Perhaps that was the only will Yohan Blake still possessed.

After that, the three continued without hesitation.

They crossed the sea filled with magic beasts and reached the sea cave that had originally been their destination.

Using the passage inside the lake, they entered the seventh floor.

The environment on the seventh floor was not very different from the sixth.

Fortunately, there were far fewer magic beasts.

The sea cave they needed to reach was also less than an hour away from where they arrived.

There were not even any Remains to find.

“We suffered enough on the sixth floor, so the seventh should let us pass easily. Right?”

“Y, yeah. Right.”

Naturally, the Dungeon had no intention of showing anyone such kindness.

Even so, they managed to clear the seventh floor relatively easily.

And now came the eighth floor.

The three opened their eyes near the edge of an island.

Their gazes moved toward an enormous blue hole visible far away.

“That’s the final obstacle of the Dark Cave… Everyone should be fighting down there.”

“Assuming they’re still alive.”

“…Could you stop killing the mood?”

After only a simple reorganization, the three crossed the empty sea.

They entered the mouth of the blue hole where more than a thousand magic beasts should have been waiting.

But there was no gatekeeper.

No army of beasts.

“What… happened here…?”

“Th, they’re all d, dead? Wh, why?”

“……”

Ruska, the Gatekeeper guarding the eighth floor’s blue hole, was dead.

A large number of magic beasts were dead as well.

That included the strange Harpoon Fish and their leader, the Queen Fish.

The remaining beasts were either eating the corpses of their own kind or wandering around the hole in confusion.

“…Did the expedition do this?”

“Who knows…”

Yohan approached the huge pit at the bottom of the blue hole.

Ruska’s corpse was floating upward from below.

Yohan grabbed one of its tentacles.

More than half of its eight tentacles had been torn apart and mangled into pulp.

The shark shaped body was covered in brutal handprints and fist marks.

Blood still poured from its gills.

Half torn organs hung loosely from several places along its upper body.

Looking at those battle marks, Yohan became certain who had done it.

But he did not say the name aloud.

There was no reason to.

He would naturally meet the culprit soon.

“…Let’s go down first. Everyone else should already be on the ninth floor.”

“……”

“Y, yeah!”

After a much longer darkness than before, the scenery they saw was shocking.

Thousands of Spiked Swamp Crocodiles surrounded a narrow piece of dry land.

Ten Deep Ones stood with them.

Together, they blocked the path of the raiders from the Four Great Factions.

The three faction expeditions and the dwarf soldiers had reached the ninth floor earlier.

They had already experienced the same shock.

Less than fifteen minutes after their confrontation with the enemy began, the three people who had been separated from the main groups finally arrived.

Normally, everyone might have welcomed them with bright expressions.

But they could not.

The enemies blocking their path were simply too powerful.

Danforth kept his head facing forward.

Only his eyes turned toward Yohan as he complained.

“Aren’t you too fast? You even stopped to search for Remains.”

“This already took a long time.”

“…I’m glad we left first. You brought those two pieces of baggage and cleared three floors at this speed with only three people… That’s ridiculous.”

The Spiked Swamp Crocodiles opened their mouths wide, increasing their murderous intent.

Watching the creatures staring at the raiders with contempt from the middle of the swamp, Yohan muttered,

“So those things were responsible for the eighth floor.”

“Probably. We haven’t been here long enough to be certain, but… there aren’t many things capable of reducing Ruska to that state.”

The Deep Ones blinked their huge eyes.

They muttered something in a language only they understood before suddenly screaming loudly.

“Ia!”

“Ia! Ikaa haa bho ii! Dagon Cthulhu fhtagn! Ei! Ei! Ei! Ei!”

Red light appeared in the Deep Ones’ muddy eyes.

At the same time, the Spiked Swamp Crocodiles charged toward the raiders.

“Everyone, defensive formation! Prepare ranged interception!”

“Focus on tearing apart anything that breaks through, soldiers.”

“They may burrow beneath the ground! Do not forget this is a swamp!”

Following the commanders’ instructions, everyone quickly entered combat positions.

They had fought together dozens of times in the Holy Land and Dungeon.

Their coordination now rivaled that of elite military units.

A thick barrier spread across the area.

Hundreds of Spiked Swamp Crocodiles rushed toward the wall.

Huge spikes erupted from the ground and pierced crocodiles.

A barrage of Magic Missiles from above slowed their advance.

Long range attacks were also launched toward the Deep Ones themselves.

However, the Deep Ones were not easy opponents.

They deflected Magic Missiles fired from the side using only their hands.

Five Deep Ones began chanting spells.

Something started bubbling throughout the surrounding swamp.

Thick, dirty mud poured over the barrier.

SPLAAASH!

SSSSS…

“Corrosive Mud! Use Formation D!”

“Yes!”

Powerful magical wind blew away most of the mud.

Then mana was poured into the cracked parts of the barrier to repair them.

Nuadillen continued bombarding the Deep Ones from long range so they could not cast another spell.

Meanwhile, the Were faction killed the crocodiles that managed to break through the wall one by one.

The Dwarves and Sapiens filled the gaps between them and prevented losses in their battle line.

Yohan also used Blood Magic to tear apart Spiked Swamp Crocodiles.

At the same time, he looked at the Deep Ones with annoyance.

He had always shared a long and unpleasant history with Dagon and those connected to him.

But even considering that, recent events were becoming exhausting.

Perhaps this was another form of fate.

Maybe even their interference was part of someone’s larger plan.

He could not know.

However, Yohan had already made his decision.

Now that he had resolved to pass the tenth floor and enter the world below, he had no intention of negotiating with anyone who blocked his path.

Watching the Deep Ones control the Spiked Swamp Crocodiles with strange cries and movements, Yohan quickly changed his strategy.

In the Dark Cave, where the destination was always a sea or lake, moving was not especially difficult once the direction was known.

One only needed to swim well.

But this place, the Dark Swamp, was different.

Except for a few pieces of dry land, everything was swamp.

Before entering the swamp itself, there was no way to know its internal structure.

Mud made the terrain dense.

Simple swimming was difficult in many areas.

Vision was almost completely blocked.

Finding the destination would be difficult.

Spiked Swamp Crocodiles possessed extremely sensitive hearing and touch.

The loss of vision barely affected them.

The Deep Ones controlling them had especially strong senses of smell.

Escaping them would be almost impossible.

Killing every enemy was also unrealistic.

There were simply too many.

And they were too strong.

Unlike Harpoon Fish, Spiked Swamp Crocodiles were upper middle rank magic beasts.

With more than a thousand of them present, there was no way such a large group could enter the next floor without casualties.

Yohan alone might manage.

But the rest could not.

Then there was only one method left.

Yohan’s eyes met Danforth’s as the commander hurriedly continued giving orders.

Yohan called out briefly.

“I’ll go ahead, Commander.”

“…What?”

A faint smile appeared on Yohan’s lips, completely different from Danforth’s confused expression.

“Try your best to survive.”