Bzzzt—!
[International Message]
Are you busy? I came to visit Earth. I’m from another world. Could you be my guide? LINE···.
‘···This ad again.’
My phone alarm went off on my way to work. On the screen was one of those spam texts I’d been getting a lot lately.
‘I’ve seen plenty of foreigners, but what’s an alien supposed to be?’
A laugh slipped out at this new type of spam text. For no particular reason, I felt like replying.
After thinking it over, the message I sent was a single word.
[🖕]
When I sent the text and raised my head, what I saw was a truck hurtling over the sidewalk straight toward me.
***
When I opened my eyes, I saw an unfamiliar yellow ceiling.
‘···Where am I?’
My head was hazy, as if I’d been asleep for a very long time.
Faced with the unfamiliar sight, I traced back through my memories.
I was definitely on my way to work, looking at my phone, when a truck came charging onto the sidewalk······.
‘···Then am I in a hospital?’
That thought came naturally, but I soon realized something was strange.
When I looked closely, the ceiling seemed to be covered in dried grass.
There was no way a hospital would be built like this in this day and age.
I raised my upper body and looked around.
The first thing I checked, of course, was the state of my body.
···I was far too fine.
For someone who had been in a traffic accident, I didn’t have a single visible wound.
On top of that, as if a lot of time had passed, my arms and legs looked paler and more gaunt than before.
My clothes had changed too.
I was wearing a shirt that came down to my knees, with shorts underneath. The clothes, made of rough fabric, scraped against my skin every time they touched it.
Who on earth had changed my clothes?
What the hell is going on···
Maybe because I’d just woken up, I felt an indescribable sense of dissonance from my body.
As if it weren’t my body at all.
‘No matter how I look at it, this isn’t a hospital···.’
The interior I glanced around was narrower than the one-room apartment I used to live in.
A simple interior with nothing but a chest of drawers and a desk.
The windowless room had an exposed dirt floor, causing dust to drift through the air.
“Cough— cough—”
In this incomprehensible situation, I looked for my phone.
But all I learned was that the bed I’d been lying on was nothing more than a cloth sack stuffed with grass.
In the end, I gave up on my phone and carefully got out of bed, approaching the desk.
On the desk were several sheets of yellowish paper and a single book.
When I picked up a sheet to check its contents, the stiff texture of the paper felt slightly strange.
「A violet snake emerged from the stream.」
「Dew gathered upon a new vessel.」
「The guard dog by the grave rode upon the waves.」
The paper was filled with incomprehensible sentences that seemed like some kind of code.
The other sheets were all similar.
Unable to get any information from the stack of papers, I examined the lone book.
‘A diary?’
The book contained the story of a man named Riv.
He had lived as an orphan in the back alleys, then happened to awaken to mana and entered the Magic Tower.
The story began happily enough, but the closer it got to the end, the more the pages were filled only with gloomy contents.
Insufficient talent that had left him stagnant for years.
The sneers and contempt of those around him.
A loneliness that grew deeper and deeper.
Every element around him gnawed away at the man’s happiness, but he struggled until the very end not to let go of hope.
Until that day came.
There were no dates written, but it was easy to tell that there had been a long blank period.
And in the writing that resumed after that blank, even the traces of hope that had existed before were gone.
The final sentence in particular stood out.
[I will have my revenge, no matter what.]
‘···.’
After reading the entire thing, only one thought came to mind.
‘It wasn’t a diary. It was a novel.’
Words that sounded like they belonged in fantasy appeared here and there throughout the text.
Magic? No matter how I looked at it, it wasn’t a realistic story.
Feeling empty, I put the book down and opened the drawer beside the desk.
Inside the drawer was a basket containing half a loaf of bread.
Storing food in a drawer? Hygiene-wise, that’s kind of··· But what’s this?
When I lifted the basket, a wooden rod hidden beneath it revealed itself.
The moment I picked it up to examine this object of unknown purpose—
Bzzzt—
!!
Did it just vibrate?
I swung the rod once more, but as expected, there was no response.
···Was it my imagination?
I put the rod back down and searched every corner of the house.
As expected from such a small space, there wasn’t much else.
It was a truly ordinary house, without even the trace of a crime.
The problem was that that made it even stranger.
As I was wondering whether I should go outside, I heard voices conversing from outside.
I hurriedly hid beneath the desk and quietly eavesdropped on the conversation.
“···The response cut off around here.”
“So this is where the hideout the hunter mentioned is located. We’re going in.”
‘Response? Hunter?’
I couldn’t understand what they were talking about··· but I had a bad feeling.
Bang!
A moment later, two people kicked the door open and rushed in, shouting.
“Search every corner!!”
“Yes, sir!”
Because the space was so cramped, I was discovered in an instant, and without being able to put up any real resistance, I was quickly subdued.
“Urgh, who—”
I belatedly struggled and lifted my head, and my eyes fell on the cold, blue-gleaming sword at the waist of the man twisting my arm.
I shut my mouth too late and tried to behave, but it was already too late. With a dull thud, my consciousness faded.
***
When I came to again, I was sprawled in a damp, dark place.
“Ugh···”
I must have been moved very roughly, because every part of my body ached.
Struggling through the pain, I assessed the situation.
Chain cuffs around my wrists and iron bars in front of me.
···This place looked like a prison.
The prison seemed to have been carved directly out of rough rock.
Moisture seeped through the gaps in the stone walls, gathering coldly.
As the dampness soaked into my thin clothes, my body shivered.
‘First a thatched house, and now a stone prison···.’
The anachronistic buildings, the incomprehensible contents of the book, the way people were dressed.
All the information was coming together and pointing to a single conclusion, but—
‘No way. Surely not.’
It was hard to accept right away.
Because one extraordinary situation after another kept happening, I strangely didn’t feel afraid. It felt like a dream.
But the bruises I’d gotten while being moved made my mind painfully clear, too much so to dismiss this as a dream.
How much time had passed in the darkness, with me losing all sense of time?
Step— step—
The sound of someone approaching the prison brought me to my senses.
A moment later.
Clink··· clatter··· click—
With a small noise, the prison door opened, and a soldier with a stiff expression entered.
I had many things I wanted to ask, but he didn’t look like he was willing to take part in any questions and answers.
Without a word, the soldier grabbed the chain and led the way as if telling me to follow.
After we passed through a corridor where faint torches had been installed at regular intervals, stairs appeared.
Since the prison had been built underground, I had to drag my numb legs up the stairs.
A square of light appeared before my eyes, as if I had finally reached the surface.
I shielded my eyes for a moment from the bright light I hadn’t seen in ages and passed through the door.
When I opened my eyes again, what I saw were majestic stone buildings and tall castle walls, like a scene from a movie.
The buildings exuded such a solemn atmosphere that I almost felt like I had come to a tourist destination overseas.
‘An actual castle?’
I stood dazed by the scenery for only a moment. Then I was forcibly loaded into a carriage headed for an unknown destination.
The carriage I rode for the first time was extremely cramped, and the scent of grass rose from the dry hay piled in the corner.
As I stood inside the narrow carriage and looked around, a soldier sitting inside barked at me.
“Hey! We’re leaving, so sit down already!”
Startled by the shout, I hurriedly planted my butt on the floor.
No one in the carriage opened their mouths, which gave me plenty of time to look around.
In the carriage were three men wearing cuffs like me, and one soldier.
To start with, all three were far from ordinary in appearance.
One was a large, muscular man covered in scars, as if he had roamed battlefields.
I couldn’t tell exactly because of his clothes, but judging by the long scars, his torso was probably the same.
Another had a scrawny build and narrow eyes, giving him an extremely mean-looking impression.
He had probably been caught for a crime like pickpocketing or fraud.
The last one was short, with a face covered in thick hair.
Since he was sitting, I couldn’t gauge his exact height, but he looked to be around 140 centimeters tall.
Add to that his shaggy beard, and he looked just like a dwarf from a game.
To sum it up, all three had faces that wouldn’t look out of place on wanted posters.
As I checked their appearances, I realized something anew.
Every person I had seen here was a foreigner.
The soldiers who captured me, the guard I saw in the prison, and even the prisoners locked up here.
Every last one of them was a foreigner.
And there was one more strange thing.
I could naturally understand what they were saying.
For someone like me, who had never even taken the TOEIC, understanding a foreign language was practically impossible.
Could it be···.
By this point, I had a rough idea of what was happening, but I decided not to draw a conclusion just yet.
Putting aside the reality I couldn’t accept, I decided to sort out the problems immediately in front of me.
‘They all look like prisoners, so why was I captured?’
The only crimes I’d committed in my life were a few ding-dong ditches at neighbors’ houses when I was young. I could only feel wronged.
I wanted to ask the soldier sitting beside me right away, but··· the atmosphere wasn’t one where I could easily speak up.
If I really was a prisoner, wouldn’t I receive some kind of punishment?
···What if the punishment was execution?
The solution that came to mind from the fear of death was, of course, escape.
But the soldier sitting beside me was a problem, and I’d also need the courage to jump out of a moving carriage······.
Since I wasn’t that brave, I cleanly gave up.
While my escape plan collapsed, the carriage slowed, and I felt that we were arriving at our destination.
A moment later, the carriage came to a complete stop.
The soldier with us threw open the canvas at the back of the carriage and got out first.
Just as I was wondering whether I should get down too—
“Get off.”
At the timely command to disembark, everyone carefully rose.
The place we got down was a clearing in the forest where bushes grew sparsely.
Judging by the castle walls visible in the distance, it seemed to be near the village.
Soldiers were waiting in the clearing.
“You lot wait here. You’re not thinking of trying to run, are you?”
Among them, the soldier wearing the best-looking equipment glanced behind us as he spoke.
Apparently not expecting an answer, he soon turned around and disappeared with the carriage.
And so, three prisoners, two soldiers, and I were left behind.
The awkward air from the cramped carriage filled even the wide clearing.
While we played a silent game of reading each other’s eyes with no end in sight, the two soldiers took off their helmets and sat their asses down on a nearby tree stump.
Were they confident we wouldn’t run away?
Or perhaps they had some other measure I didn’t know about.
Left standing awkwardly in the clearing, the four of us kept glancing at one another.
The only thing the four of us had in common was the cuffs on our wrists. There didn’t seem to be any shared ground for conversation.
Their brutal faces also contributed to the prolonged silence.
Scarface, Bandit, Dwarf.
Just as I was assigning them titles in my mind during the long silence—
“Hmm··· This is the worst.”
“Hm?”
A heavy, low voice came from beside me.
When I turned my head to check, the one who had broken the silence was, unexpectedly, Scarface.
Dwarf reacted to his mutter.
“Hey, big human. What do you mean by that?”
“Are you referring to me?”
“Yeah. Who else here is a human that big besides you?”
Dwarf spoke while looking over me and Bandit.
“I mean exactly what I said··· This is the worst possible situation.”
“I’m asking what you saw that makes it the worst.”
Instead of answering, he looked at the village visible far in the distance.
“Do you know the name of that village?”
“The village name? How would I know something like that?”
“···Karhal. That is the name of that village.”
At his words, everyone wore puzzled expressions.
At least, it wasn’t a village name I’d ever heard before.
“Karhal··· I feel like I’ve heard it somewhere··· Ah, Karhal!”
Bandit, who had been thinking alone, finally remembered and shouted in surprise.
“That’s right. Karhal. If you’ve heard of it recently, then you should know, shouldn’t you?”
“If it’s Karhal, then that’s where a dungeon was formed···”
···A dungeon?
While I was startled, Dwarf raised a question at Bandit’s words.
“What’s the problem with a dungeon appearing recently?”
“That tells me enough. What kind of work did you do?”
“······.”
“If you don’t want to say, fine. In any case, I was a mercenary.”
Perhaps because of his appearance, everyone seemed to accept that immediately.
“When you work as a mercenary, you naturally hear a lot of information.”
“Enough. Why don’t you get to the point?”
“···.”
At Dwarf’s counterattack, the mercenary stared at him for a moment before continuing.
“How much do you know about dungeons?”
“When a dungeon appears, the lord forms and dispatches an investigation team. About that much?”
“You know the basics. Then have you heard the term ‘dungeon dogs’?”
“Dungeon dogs?”
Dwarf looked puzzled, as if he was hearing it for the first time.
Naturally, I knew nothing, so I kept my mouth shut, and Bandit didn’t seem to know either.
“Hmm. When a dungeon appears, lords usually put effort into an investigation team in order to obtain relics.”
As if it were only natural that we didn’t know, he nodded and continued explaining.
“But if they use their own soldiers for the investigation team, the territory is put at risk. If they use mercenaries, it’s expensive and they can’t be trusted.”
“···Didn’t you say you were a mercenary too?”
“Yes, I was a mercenary too······.”
As if overcome by regret, his expression stiffened for a moment, but he soon continued.
“In any case. Soldiers won’t do, and mercenaries won’t do. Then what possible alternative remains?”
“···Hire verified mercenaries?”
At Bandit’s timid answer, he gave a wry laugh and said,
“Lords never try to take losses. In a way, they can be worse than merchants. Therefore, there’s only one choice.”
The mercenary looked at the three of us for a moment before speaking.
“They shove in people who can be killed without causing problems.”
At his words, everyone finally seemed to grasp the situation and drew in a breath.
“That’s what we call ‘dungeon dogs.’”
Even the mercenary giving the explanation didn’t have a very good expression.
“No way···!”
“As I said, a dungeon appeared in Karhal recently. And we prisoners have been brought here··· You should have your answer.”
“Damn it! They’re trying to use us as sacrifices!”
As I listened to the despairing conversation, I was finally able to accept reality.
It seemed I had fallen into a fantasy world.