“Ah… you’ve cooome. Hic.”
“Drinking again, first thing in the morning?”
“I believe I already explained that matter to you… Ow. Stop, hihit!”
A butler, reeking of wine and dead drunk in the office.
Wonderful behavior, especially with guests here.
Annoyed, I kicked the couch she was sprawled across, and as she half-rolled off it, she let out an amused hihit of laughter.
Ray, who had witnessed the entire scene from beginning to end, opened her mouth with an expression as cold as ice.
“Is this the person you said would explain the details?”
“Yes, unfortunately.”
She might look like this, but she’d been around long enough that she seemed to know quite a lot. Probably.
As I naturally sat down in the office chair, Valerie, who had been quietly watching me, tilted her head and said,
“Huh? Why are you sitting there…”
She stared at me with eyes full of doubt.
What? Did I do something wrong?
Slightly flustered myself, I let out a low, “Uh,” before adding,
“Well, because it’s my seat…?”
At that, Valerie’s eyes widened.
“Huh? But the nameplate says Head of the House…?”
“That’s right. For now.”
What is with this woman?
Then what had she thought I was until now?
Perhaps that thought was conveyed straight through my eyes, because even though I hadn’t said it out loud, she made an excuse.
“No, it’s just that someone who’s a lord usually doesn’t come out to greet people personally… So, uh. Should I start being more polite from now… on?”
“Uh… There’s really no need for that.”
It wasn’t as if I had become one because I wanted to, and at this point I didn’t particularly feel like being treated as a lord.
When I shook my head, Valerie raised the corners of her mouth in relief… while still wrapping her jacket tightly around herself.
Around then, Ray asked the butler, who was swaying drunkenly,
“You said you were the butler of this mansion. I want to hear about the request.”
At Ray’s earnest question, the butler seemed to sober up a little and unsteadily raised her upper body.
“Ah, the expedition… There’s nothing special to it. If you look only at the conclusion, it ends once you explore the underground labyrinth all the way to the bottom.”
“That doesn’t sound that simple. I heard you have to eliminate a specific entity on each floor—in other words, a target—before you can proceed to the next level.”
“So you even know that much.”
“The Head of the House over there explained it first.”
Ray gestured toward me with her chin.
The butler’s golden eyes turned toward me for a moment, then drifted away indifferently.
Then she let out a breath.
Perhaps because it was heavy with the scent of alcohol, Ray’s eyebrows twitched slightly.
As if she had exhaled all her drunkenness with that breath, the butler murmured in a dry voice, almost to herself.
“For your first expedition, I recommend keeping it light. Even the first level is by no means easy for three people to break through. I’ll prepare the expedition supplies on my end. As for anything else I can explain… there’s nothing, at least not yet. You should hear the rest of the plan from the Head of the House.”
Until just now, she had been so drunk I wondered if she was even in her right mind, but after saying something more plausible than expected, the butler promptly collapsed again as if she had spent all her strength.
I was startled for a moment, but she seemed to have simply lost control of her body because she was drunk.
I mulled over the butler’s words and let out a low hum.
“Three people,” she said. But there were only two mercenaries here.
For a moment I wondered if the butler herself intended to go, but no matter how I looked at it, that didn’t seem to be the nuance. Then the only person here was…
“Uh, wait a second. Three?”
“Yes? Well… of course. I cannot go down there, you see.”
“Huh. Then that third person is…”
“Oh, aha. Naturally, the remaining slot belongs to the Head of the House. Surely you weren’t planning to sit here sucking your fingers? Well, that would be fine with me too… though if possible, I’d prefer you suck something else.”
What.
I have to go too?
As I rolled my eyes around in panic, the butler grinned slyly, apparently finding the sight amusing.
“Even if you dislike it, it cannot be helped. The only one permitted to handle the ‘flame’ is the master of the mansion…”
“You mean the Ember, right?”
Fuck. Then there’s no way out of this.
I barely restrained myself from slapping a hand to my forehead.
When entering the labyrinth, without the “Ember,” not only would it be impossible to secure visibility, but the far worse problem was that you wouldn’t even be able to maintain your sanity.
In the game, that was expressed through increased stress gain, but I had no idea how it would manifest in reality.
To begin with, in this game, a “no-Ember run” was treated as the highest-difficulty kind of challenge run, the sort of self-torture only ancient fossils among the hardcore veterans would even attempt.
In that case, if I was the only one who could handle the Ember, then it was already a foregone conclusion that I had to enter the labyrinth.
The butler, looking pleased as she gazed at my face packed full of worries, added an explanation.
“Still… hic, do not worry too much. The wicked things of the labyrinth do not attack the Emberkeeper beyond the veil first. Until all the mercenaries die, the Head of the House will be safe.”
Hey. Hey. Don’t say that where they can hear you… I didn’t even have time to lament before Ray’s inorganic gaze stabbed into me.
“Hmm.”
Then she suddenly made that nasal sound.
What was that supposed to mean?
Valerie, who had been listening quietly beside us, said with a smirk,
“Looks like you’ll be coming with us, Lord Head of the House?”
“Yes, well… I suppose that’s how it turned out.”
For some reason, something seemed to gleam in her smiling eyes, so I deliberately ignored Valerie’s gaze and asked Ray,
“I’m asking again, but how’s your condition?”
“No problem. We can leave right away.”
Something a bit strange had happened in the morning, but Ray didn’t seem to consider it a problem.
The real horror was that I couldn’t tell whether it was because of this corrupted land or because of the adult-game mod I’d installed.
If it was really because of that… No, let’s not think about that right now.
“Then shall we start clearing it today? There won’t be any new personnel joining until next week anyway, so waiting a day or two won’t change the situation.”
Forcing myself to stay calm, I summed things up like that.
Ray gave a small nod and lightly rubbed the scabbard at her waist.
“Let’s do that. We’ll return to the barracks and prepare immediately. Have that butler prepare the supplies as she said.”
“See you in a bit.”
With that, the two of them decided to return to the barracks for now.
The only ones left in the office were me and the butler, and in the end, unable to hold back, I spoke first.
“So, what did that mean?”
“What do you mean?”
The butler tilted her head, pretending not to know, and I chose my words a bit more specifically.
“That thing about them not attacking me first. No, before that, what exactly is an Emberkeeper?”
In the game I had played, I had never heard the term “Emberkeeper.”
To begin with, I knew that Ember was something you took along as expedition supplies and burned as needed to maintain light, and that it also had the role of blocking the labyrinth’s madness to some extent, but…
That seemed a bit different from what the butler had just told me.
“It is exactly as I said. When entering the labyrinth, light is absolutely necessary… and the role of protecting that light can only be performed by the Head of the House, who is permitted to handle the Ember. Hic. In other words, the Head of the House must go with them.”
“That much… I understand.”
It was a setting that didn’t exist in the original game, Tombstone, and there was no way such a serious setting would be included in the Sexton mod.
Still, for now, I more or less understood.
In any case, it meant I had to go down there.
The mystery of how I was supposed to command the mercenaries had finally been solved.
It wasn’t the method I’d hoped for.
I had secretly thought the best-case scenario would be if I could just sit in the mansion office and click away at some kind of screen.
“Yes, it is related to that as well… Because of that light, the wicked things of the labyrinth will have difficulty noticing the Head of the House’s presence. The Ember is the only light left in the domain, and with eyes that have fully adapted to darkness, those creatures will not even be able to look properly in your direction.”
“But once all the mercenaries are dead and I’m alone in the labyrinth, that won’t last forever, right?”
“Huhu, hic. Precisely.”
The butler laughed happily, but for me, it was a story that only made me sigh.
No, should I be happy that at least one layer of breakwater had been added?
For now, it was certain that I had avoided the worst, so that was a relief.
As I kept sighing, the butler wriggled closer as if trying to subtly comfort me.
“It will be all right. The lords thus far have lasted about ten weeks on average. Hic. As long as there is no unfortunate accident, you should still be fine.”
“That’s very comforting. Also, don’t subtly rub your breasts against me.”
Do not put my patience to the test.
If you keep doing this, I won’t be able to hold ba— Ah, just now, something bumpy touched me, ehiieeit.
*
“…Are you really sure you can go dressed like that?”
In front of the entrance leading to the dungeon, unable to hold back the question, I stopped Ray.
“Yes. I told you, it’s fine.”
She answered with an indifferent expression, but no matter how I looked at it… this didn’t seem fine.
She did have a bare minimum of armor on her shoulders, and proper gauntlets equipped on her arms, but the rest of her outfit, even if described generously, was everyday clothing—more bluntly, it looked closer to underwear than anything else.
In short, it was exactly the kind of outfit that would appear in the Sexton mod.
Trying not to look directly at her clearly exposed skin, I pressed her,
“No, I mean. What about your helmet? Your armor? You were wearing it properly when you arrived.”
“I told you. For some reason, I feel like I shouldn’t wear it. You said that was also the influence of the labyrinth below, right? In this state, even if I put it on, it feels like it would have the opposite effect.”
Even though it was obviously dangerous, Ray’s attitude was that it didn’t matter.
If I lumped all of this together as the mod’s influence, then there really wasn’t much more I could say.
Still, it was true that it looked far too dangerous on the surface, so I had tried to force the issue a little and get her to put on armor, but with her being that stubborn, there was no way.
In the end, I gave up persuading her and discreetly turned my gaze away.
At least Valerie had a jacket on, so she was showing less skin… at least at a glance.
When we first met, she had casually taken off even that jacket and walked around in a bra top, but seeing that she was still dressed like this, it seemed she still couldn’t wear underwear.
“We received all the supplies too, so I think we’re ready.”
Just as Valerie said, the butler had just handed over all the supplies and then left behind a bit of encouragement that wasn’t encouragement at all, something like, “Just don’t die and come back,” before returning.
Which meant that now, the only thing left was to truly enter the labyrinth.
I checked the oil and sacks packed full in my backpack one last time.
For now, since I was both the lord and the money man, the distribution of supplies was also my responsibility, though they would be divided appropriately among the mercenaries to carry.
Because of that, my most important duty was as the “Emberkeeper.”
In other words, to defend the light so that the mercenaries would not be eroded by madness.
In game-system terms, it was the management of “stress.”
“Then, shall we depart?”
Saying that, I took a deep breath and stepped onto the magic circle.
The entrance to the labyrinth did not exist in a physical form.
Then what method was used to enter the labyrinth? Surprisingly, the answer was “teleportation.”
Tombstone was, for all its faults, a game with a fantasy setting.
Even if there were something like a teleportation magic circle, it wasn’t on a level that made it impossible to accept.
So, by injecting fuel into this magic circle, the transfer formula would activate—or so it seemed.
I neither knew the details nor was particularly curious.
What mattered more than that crap was where we would be transferred.
“I’ll keep reminding you, but the moment we enter, until I light the Ember, you must maintain maximum alertness.”
“Got it, got it.”
Valerie waved her hand lazily as if it were annoying, but I still couldn’t feel at ease.
It might sound arrogant to say this, but for rotten veterans who had seen the ending multiple times, expedition failure wasn’t easy.
They knew almost every variable inside and out, and they were people capable of preparing two or three layers of countermeasures, or, failing that, somehow making do through improvisation.
But precisely because of that, Tombstone players named the start of an expedition as the most dangerous moment.
Because Tombstone was, by all accounts, a fucking game, and the location where you spawned in the labyrinth was random.
The one and only bullshit system where you could not control the variables at all.
If you were unlucky, you could be thrown into combat the moment you transferred, unable to form ranks properly, and forced to fight without lighting the Ember.
It was entirely possible for the worst battle you could experience in Tombstone to unfold: “no-Ember (darkness)/ambushed/consecutive battles”—commonly known as “Doom-Ambush-Chain.”
Thanks to that, most people played with a mod that prevented spawn kills, but the problem was that if you played with mods installed, achievements were locked and couldn’t be completed at all.
And need I even say it? Since I was the type of person who started by assuming all achievements had to be cleared, naturally, I had long since adapted to and accepted that unreasonable system.
“…Then let’s go.”
Adjusting my grip on the torch bundle, and after one final deep breath, I slowly sprinkled the liquid in the bottle over the magic circle just as the butler had instructed.
Liquefied energy, specifically Mana.
According to the explanation, this would serve as the power source for the formula.
It was my first time actually doing it, of course.
The magic circle beneath my feet gradually began to emit a faint glow, and, tense to the limit, I lightly tossed away the bottle in my hand.
Keep your head straight.
From here on out, it was the real thing.