A dungeon entrance is usually a door.
Its appearance differs a bit depending on the dungeon’s concept, but…
For example, if the dungeon’s interior has a forest concept, there are cases where a door is just blatantly stuck into a gigantic tree.
And there are plenty of other variations, too.
Then what, exactly, does the exterior of Abraxas’s Nest look like?
The answer is…!
“Fucking hell. This is goddamn bullshit.”
There’s a cave halfway up a cliff~.
The inside of the cave was filled with things like tree branches,
and only after breaking through all of them and going all the way to the end could you finally find the entrance into Abraxas’s Nest.
No wonder it was hard to discover.
Someone might ask, since you had to climb the cliff to enter this dungeon, “Couldn’t you just dig down from above and make a shortcut leading into the dungeon?”
But unless a dungeon has been closed, the terrain near it cannot be altered by any means whatsoever.
In other words, the only approach was to climb down a rope into the cave, then break through the branches inside.
—Clack. Clack.
I checked once more to make sure the rope was properly secured.
Because if something went wrong when I was climbing back up after finishing my reconnaissance, that would be bad.
Of course, I’d done plenty of climbing while working as a mercenary,
but still, just like the saying that even monkeys fall from trees, I believed that when your life was on the line, it was only right to prepare to the point where it felt a little excessive.
“Whew…”
I was a little nervous.
But I had to overcome it.
It wasn’t something I could avoid anyway.
If you can’t avoid it, die… no.
If you can’t avoid it, enjoy it.
It was one of the maxims mercenaries used all the time.
—Creeeak.
With a trembling heart, I opened the door and entered the dungeon.
***
—Kweeeeeek~~~~.
Another morning has dawned in this damned dungeon!
Right on cue with the morning light, a huge shadow passes over my head!
It seems one of Abraxas’s chicks is practicing its flight!
The sky is so blue, I bet it feels wonderful to fly through it!
I’m so fucking thrilled too!
Shall we all fly through the sky together???
……
As if.
Fuck.
If I wanted to scout without being discovered, I had to make maximum use of the trees and crawl along the ground.
Fly through the sky, my ass.
That was something the Hero’s party had to do.
Because only after killing all those flying bird bastards would the door to the next layer open.
Come to think of it, I hadn’t explained how to get to the next layer.
Well, now you know, so it’s fine.
Anyway, since I’m at it, I’ll explain a little more.
To go to the next layer, you have to use the door leading there, but normally the door is firmly shut and shows no sign of opening.
There is only one way to open it.
Kill every monster on that layer.
You don’t necessarily have to descend after killing them all, but if you want to clear the dungeon, it’s best to go down as quickly as possible.
Otherwise, the dungeon will use demonic energy to generate monsters again.
***
A little while later, I was hiding in the shade of the trees, moving like some kind of assassin.
“Though when it comes to this sort of thing, I’m one hundred percent self-taught and don’t have any professional training.”
Even in the mercenary corps, I had specialized in combat.
Among the advance scouting party, I was more like the rear of the advance group.
When the vanguard opened the way with movements packed with know-how, we just followed along that path.
And if we ran into enemies?
Then it was our turn.
Still, there wasn’t any particular problem with scouting a dungeon alone.
“I’m kind of a talented bastard myself, you know~.”
My proficiency in footwork learned by watching from the sidelines wasn’t half bad.
Actually, I said just now that I was talented, but if you wanted to survive, you had no choice but to move stealthily to some extent.
It would be best to think of it as various factors mixing together to produce movements that weren’t bad.
“But…”
If things kept going like this, it was too easy, wasn’t it?
Originally, in dungeons with flying magical beasts, the ground was usually a wide-open grassland.
Or a single path beside a cliff, perfect for a beast to smack you and send you falling.
There were also cases where monsters were placed on the ground as well, designed to make it hard to break through.
The fact that monsters couldn’t leave the layer they belonged to was so favorable to us that it was called the blessing of Goddess Lunia,
but aside from that, most things were hostile to us.
And a dungeon like that was providing intruders with hiding places like this?
On top of that, there were things on the ground, but they were just ordinary animals like deer?
The more a situation was like this, the more wary you had to be.
That was know-how built from experience.
Mercenary maxim… number 327…
I’m joking.
“If things seem to be going too smoothly without any problems, there’s a one hundred percent chance there’s a problem.”
There’s a saying like that in our line of work.
Wisdom written in the blood of mercenaries.
Most people ignored what mercenaries said, but I actually thought that because those words came from mercenaries who had returned alive from places they were sent to die, they deserved to be trusted even more.
Not long after I thought that—
“Dear fucking goddamn shitty Goddess.”
I quietly praised the Goddess.
Of course. Of fucking course.
The movements of the Abraxas chicks visible through the leaves had changed.
Until just a moment ago, they had been flying through the sky without any particular pattern,
but suddenly, a few individuals were circling around a specific place.
And Abraxases were large birds.
Combining all the evidence, there was only one meaning behind that behavior.
“It’s mealtime, huh?”
That pattern was the one large birds showed when they rode updrafts while searching for prey.
“Fuckfuckfuckfuck.”
I hurriedly looked around, searching for a place to hide.
From now on, those bastards would start searching the ground more carefully for food.
Some of them might suddenly go into a steep dive, too.
To survive in a situation like this, I had to hide somewhere until their mealtime ended.
“Fuckfuckgoddamnfuck.”
This shitty dungeon.
No matter how much I looked around, there was nowhere suitable to hide near me.
To make matters worse, only about eighty meters in front of me, a deer was running around like a mad thing for absolutely no reason.
I felt like I’d once seen a paper saying that animals also chose to take their own lives,
“But why does it have to be right in front of me? I don’t want to verify the contents of some damn paper.”
My heart grew even more frantic.
It was only a matter of time before that deer bastard was caught.
“If I don’t hide now, I’ll get caught too.”
My prediction, damn it, was far too accurate.
One of them spotted the deer running around like a complete maniac,
“Kweeeeeeeek!!!!!!!”
and, spreading its cry, executed a pinpoint dive toward the deer.
“Run.”
I had no choice but to make a decision.
In urgent situations like this, a single judgment always determined whether you lived or died.
If it was the right judgment, things would work out nicely.
“If it’s the wrong judgment, I’ll have to fight those shitty birds.”
If that happened, despite not being the Hero, I’d end up in the unfortunate situation of having to clear the first layer before I could afford to leave the dungeon.
—Tat-tat-tat-tat-tat!!!
“Where… where is it…”
The trees around me moved past quickly.
Of course, running was such a large movement that another one of those bastards could notice me.
But whether I got caught by that bastard or another bastard, I judged that the result would be the same anyway.
While the deer was drawing aggro, I focused on finding a hiding place,
—Slip.
and fortunately found a crevice between rocks that could serve as cover, wedging myself inside.
“Whew… thank goodness. There’s just enough space under this rock for one person to fit.”
The existence of a crevice like this might feel rather contrived.
“No, if dungeons are hostile to intruders, why would it create an environment with a gap like this? If the dungeon wanted to, it could get rid of a crevice like this too.”
Yes, that’s a perfectly reasonable question.
But I don’t know either, fuck.
Maybe the dungeon had shown a tiny shred of mercy.
Maybe it was a choice made for balance.
Or perhaps the Goddess had put in one last bit of effort.
Whatever the case, the conclusion was this.
I was lucky,
and I had enough judgment to seize that luck.
What if I had noticed the deer going berserk too late?
What if I hadn’t taken the gamble of running then to find a hiding place?
“I probably would’ve fought until nightfall covered in bird shit.”
I let out a sigh of relief and waited with bated breath.
—Kweek! Kieeek!
One by one, the animals were dragged off by the Abraxas chicks.
And a little while later,
—Fshooooong. Thud!!!!!!!!
The animals that had been caught in their talons and carried into the sky descended back to the ground, their original domain.
Then they hit the ground and burst apart.
The chicks came down from the sky and ate the exploded carcasses.
I took out my pen and jotted it down briefly enough that I wouldn’t be discovered.
Because recording and reporting the habits of the monsters inside the dungeon was also part of reconnaissance and exploration.
Every single piece of information like this would surely be a great help to the Hero’s party.
“I’ll do all the suffering, so you guys just enjoy the sweet stuff.”
I’d never hear it directly, but they’d be grateful to me, right?
If they had a conscience, they would be.
***
The chicks repeated the act of dropping their prey several more times like that.
Was it after about five times?
The firework-like sounds echoing from the ground stopped.
—Srrk.
I carefully poked my head out just a little from the crevice and surveyed my surroundings.
Fortunately, the chicks seemed to have definitely left.
I came fully out of the crevice and hurried on my way again.
This time, I was able to explore the dungeon far faster than before.
Because those bastards had vanished from the sky.
That meant they had definitely landed somewhere and were resting,
and if birds that large had come down and were resting, they would surely be visible even from far away, so I judged that it would be fine to move quickly until they entered my field of vision.
A little while later,
I realized my thinking had been correct.
As I kept pushing through the forest, the end of the woods came into sight before I knew it.
From that point on, I had no choice but to move cautiously again.
“Fuck…”
At the end of the forest was a wide-open plain,
and the chicks had gathered there, enjoying a late afternoon nap.
Right beside the door leading to the next layer, of all places.