The people of that world would never look at the moon the same again

They will always be crescents - forever losing part of their beauty.

"Huh?”

That was weird.

Elaine could swear that her gold proof coin had at the very least two sides. But when she brought it out for the first time in a while to decide between two similar-looking paths, she discovered that the side that supposedly had Lady Liberty on it had gone. In its place, there was a glowing image of a star surrounded by what looked like small birds.

She suspected that it may have had something to do with keeping the Fairy Heart inside the same locket. However, the locket itself looked unaffected. So either the Fairy Heart had nothing to do with it, or it did but had no visible signs that it had.

… What then? Was it usable? It wouldn’t blow up in her face all of a sudden, right?

“Here you go, you try it out.”

That was the great thing about having a meat shield.

Claire took the probably-a-bomb-but-nobody-is-actually-sure coin into her hand and held it tight. With a command, she tossed it into the air – way too high for comfort. Elaine almost screamed out; she feared that the darkness hid something that would take the coin away. Thankfully nothing did, and it fell back down before she could utter so much as a squeal.

As the coin landed with a bit of force onto Claire’s palm, Elaine sighed in relief.

It was at least safe to toss.

“Alright, we go this way.”

It was a shock that her coin had changed the way it did, but despite the sentimental value it had, Elaine found it curious that she wasn’t affected as much as she thought she would be.

Yeah that was certainly strange. Regardless, was there any point to worrying about it? In the first place, that coin held no intrinsic value there. Secondly, it was kind of a relief that it changed into something that fit that world – after all, she was still trying to hide her origins from everyone, even if it seemed like Ss’zsl already had a bit of an idea.

Another thing that Elaine found weird was that it only affected one side of the coin – the other side was still the Bald Eagle. Why? Who knows? Maybe because the Bald Eagle is the centerpiece for freedom memes?

Since Elaine didn’t want to lose either the coin or the orb, she still kept them both inside her locket.

“Let’s go, Claire.”

Together with her zombie, Elaine continued to push her way into the depths of the dungeon.

After the orb had shown her a way into the wall earlier, it quickly lost its function, and floated gently back to Elaine’s bosom. She remembered that the orb had also stopped guiding her right after she exited the mountain, so it might have been because there were no dangers inside that path. But just to be sure, Claire went ahead as the vanguard and Elaine walked a couple of meters behind.

Thankfully there were almost twice as many glowstones inside that area, which made navigation much easier and comfortable. Almost immediately after though, the corridor widened considerably and the dim light of the glowstones failed to properly light up the middle of the hall.

“It’s almost as wide as a five-lane road, huh Claire?”

“Aaaa…?”

At least she had a conversation partner that could respond… if grunts could be counted. Back then, during her short time alone in the mountains, the air refused to give her such an honor. It also helped that her conversation partner had a human shape, despite becoming a mutilated abomination at times.

As they walked through the dungeon, they passed tens of monster corpses who had died in a similar fashion as the ones outside. And by that point the dungeon had already grown cold enough to freeze their corpses stiff. It was a wonder why Elaine and Claire could still walk in that cold.

The only difference between the monsters there and the ones from where they came from was their apparent strength. Sure the chimera looked much tougher than any of the monsters she saw Blanc faced, but there – dinosaur-like monsters the size of houses, large orcs with glowing armor and weapons, gargantuan insects that were at least fifty or so meters in length and covered with a dense carapace; they were obviously a cut above the rest. They were also all dead.

Of course, Elaine didn’t forget to have Claire eat all the equipment they encountered, together with the corpses that wore them.

Anyway, was that wall a secret passage to an even deeper floor of the dungeon? Teleportation, or a portal-like magic? Probably only that could explain the extreme jump in quality.

At least the chests didn’t die – not like they could anyway. And much to Elaine’s delight, they finally contained worthwhile items, such as shiny new weapons and seemingly enchanted armor.

Well, it should be enchanted, given that they were glowing and such. Anyway, since they were all useless on her, and would just weigh her down even more than the thick layers of clothing she was already wearing, she decided to have Claire devour everything. If she could make use of weapons from inside her body, then surely she could also use armor?

“Claire, give it a try.”

All she got in reply was a grunt. But surely enough, her loyal zombie followed her command and a breastplate sprouted from her… arm.

“That’s not where you wear that, Claire…”

“Aaaa…?”

It looked like she needed to learn about more than just table manners.

.

The dungeon was bleak. There was no end to its corridors and the turns that dotted the structure. It was like someone decided to create a layout out of the scribbling of a young child.

Rogue monsters lay dead among the debris of the ruin-like theme of the labyrinth. They had all frozen solid, even those that were resistant, even immune to the cold.

As far as Ss’zsl knew, there was no dungeon in existence that experienced that kind of calamity. Dungeons had an isolated ecosystem, and regardless of the conditions on the surface, the dungeon would always keep to its own. He had known volcanic dungeons situated on plains plagued with everlasting blizzards, and dungeons of perpetual snow in the middle of a desert. There was even a dungeon that was submerged underwater, yet seemed like it had its own sun inside.

Thus, the cold only meant one thing—

“Captain, what are you doing?”

He continued running at the fastest pace he could maintain. Using magic, he insulated his body from the cold using clay he formed around his body. Strangely enough, despite his race being extremely weak to the cold, his movements remained true and he could barely feel the frigidness of the area besides the occasional shiver, even though monsters around him had dropped dead from it.

“I hope Miss Elaine is also fine.”

Though she lacked common sense, she was quite flexible and practical. If faced with a situation like that, she would surely be able to think of something, right?

He then remembered the time he caught Elaine swimming in a predator-infested lake, naked as the day she was born.

“… Believe, fool.”

Though he was much, much slower than the captain, he was able to approach the surface much quicker than the time he and the latter were trying to go deeper. It was like the dungeon was formed in such a way that going deeper was much more troublesome. Stairs went both ways, sure, but there were too many dead end chambers as one went down.

Sure enough, he could see that he was getting ever so close to the surface. The strength of the monsters dead around him were much less than the ones they encountered even when they had entered from the mountain caverns, and they even became smaller as well.

How was it that he hasn’t encountered a single one of his fellow soldiers yet, though? He hadn’t picked up a trace of their scent either. It was like they had completely disappeared upon being dragged into the dungeon. After all this time, everybody should have started for the surface as well, leaving their scent behind.

Regardless, that did not change his role. He had his orders.

Eventually, he passed through a set of large stone doors engraved with the image of fairies. The scent of the forest at night and the damp soil assaulted his tongue. As he thought, there were no sentries present on the entrance, which was buried halfway at the foot of the cliff facing the lake. Finally, he was out and under the night sky.

It only took him five hours of running.

He had not the time to indulge in the feeling. Immediately, he released the soil that bound his body in order to run faster and set off towards the city.

The fact that the dungeon’s entrance had been right under his nose bothered him greatly. How did he not notice it when he roamed that area the most? Whatever the answer was, it meant that the dungeon was at least large enough to require at least two entrances. It wouldn’t surprise him if there were three or even more, given the peculiarities of that dungeon.

Regardless he had no time to ponder the possibilities.

On the surface, he was noticeably slower despite having lost the insulating shell of soil around his body. As a dungeon monster that fed on the lair’s dense miasma, it was normal. However that was the reason for all the training he’s done aboveground. Any normal dungeon monster would be weakened considerably being outside of their natural habitats. That was why the corps sent to investigate the dragon and the suspected dungeon were all dungeon monsters, the only exception of which was the arachne captain. It was because dungeon monsters could fight at their peak forms within those walls.

He leapt from branch to branch to avoid the eyes of the large nocturnal beasts that roamed the ground, as well as the undesirables. Zombies that were born from the upheaval massacre of a few nights ago had arisen, and had waged a small war of their own against the living locals. In any other day he would have taken up arms and fought together with the fauna, but, once again, he had not the time to do so.

The trees were usually safe. Not many could threaten him at such a height except certain beasts and monsters, and even the ones that could, would have difficulty noticing him given his main body’s size and his silent movements.

But suddenly, his senses screamed danger. He forcefully redirected his momentum sideways and abruptly swung away from where he thought the danger lay.

There was nothing.

He tilted his head. The feeling of dread disappeared as soon as he got away. “What was that?” he wondered.

The sound of leaves rustling and liquid rolling caught his attention. There was also the sound of the soil being gouged out. Was there a giant monster who escaped from the dungeon?

A slime jumped out from a bush. It was the most basic of monsters, something that wouldn’t pose a threat to him regardless of how unprepared he was. But then another one popped out; an acid slime. They were more troublesome, but were still manageable.

Did his senses react to a bunch of slimes? Really?

Another one popped out, and another, and another. Tens of them, and they were varied in color and hue. Ss’zsl felt sweat form at the tip of his tongue. There were more than just low-level slimes in the mix; cave slimes and lake slimes, swamp slimes and iron slimes – as they came out of the woodworks, he realized that he was seeing a mass migration of them.

Ss’zsl bit his lips to avoid making a sound. Cave slimes were high-rank monsters known to be exceptionally heavy and resilient to damage; lake slimes were fast and immune to fire and cold; swamp slimes were extremely poisonous and iron slimes were only vulnerable to magic. What were such rogue monsters doing in their territory? Patrolmen like him were supposed to eliminate threatening monsters regularly. It hadn’t been a week since trouble started, yet there were already hundreds of them openly wandering.

Was a Queen Slime among them? The last thing they needed was a calamity on the surface as well.

It was a danger that he thought warranted at the very least some investigation. If there was anything amiss, then he was also responsible to report such an event.

Besides, they were in his way.

“You… Ss’zsl?”

He thought he was experiencing an auditory hallucination from fatigue, since he suddenly heard someone utter his name in the middle of the night, just after the entire army was swallowed by the dungeon.

“Hey! It is you! Dude! Ss’zsl!”

The ground rose slightly and a pile of small rocks… crawled out. Ss’zsl stared questioningly at the event, wondering how it was connected to hearing his name until the rocks started talking.

“Finally, some familiar faces. I’ve been looking for someone for ages.”

He couldn’t believe his earholes. “Kog…? Is that you?”

“Ye, it’s me alright. Where have you guys been? I was ordered to station myself outside the camp when the ground suddenly opened and swallowed everybody. Only I didn’t get dragged inside,” Kog said as he clumsily climbed the tall tree to where Ss’zsl hung.

A sigh of relief escaped Ss’zsl’s scaly mouth. He thought everybody had been done in by the dungeon. Thankfully it had not been so. And if Kog was fine, then perhaps some others were, too; maybe news had already reached the city already, even.

“Retreat to the city. Inform them what happened here. But do not let them send reinforcements.

Have them announce to all the cities of the races – a dungeon has awakened. This is something we, as monsters, cannot conquer.”

Ss’zsl cursed out. “Shit.”

“… Kog. Did you go back to the city yet? Did you report what happened already?”

“No. I didn’t. I was ordered to remain here, by Captain Blanc. ‘Until you hear from me again’, she said. I didn’t want to risk my neck with insubordination even with all this happening.”

“Huh…? By the captain?”

That was strange. It was as if…

“… Anyway, that’s good, I guess. We need to go back. I’ve been ordered by the Captain as well. Something bad happened. I was told to lead you back as well.” Ss’zsl decided to lie for once. Though it was presumptuous of him to assume, he felt as if there was a reason why Kog had been ordered by the captain to remain, and had given him vague orders as to when to move out again. He had no idea how to relay the information to Kog without dragging it out, though. He was pressed for time, and too many things had happened during the time he had been trapped underground.

“I’ll tell you on the way. But we need to move.”

“The captain did? Huh… then good thing you met me here. This entire place is absolutely crawling with high-rank slimes. They’re everywhere, even on top of trees and underground. Like damn, they just appeared out of nowhere en masse.”

“From where?”

“From the general direction of the city, but not exactly. They’re all headed towards the mountain. Don’t worry, I think the city’s safe.”

He slithered up the tree and looked towards the direction of the city. True enough, the emergency smoke signal was nowhere in sight. In order to facilitate quick deployment of reinforcements towards the city, they employed that system used by the humans. If it was lit then something had breached the city walls and everybody was required to come back to the city.

As far as Ss’zsl knew, the patrolmen hadn’t been pulled from their territories; only the city’s inner military had been mobilized, so even if the signal was given they would still be able to reinforce the defense in case of an invasion.

“Good thing the Captain told me to stay. So, let’s get?”

“… Right. Towards the city, then.”

Kog jumped back down to the ground. With his feet planted, he steadily grew to his full size of over fifteen meters, completely dwarfing even the tallest trees in the area. Sure enough the sea of slimes immediately noticed him and rushed to attack. Ss’zsl jumped on top of his extended claws and the mountain spirit started to run with deftness unexpected from one of his size.

As the lake receded from his sight, mixed feelings sprouted in his heart. He thought back and wondered if there was anything different he could have done so they could have all left the dungeon together. He also wondered about the human and the captain. He thought about the arachne’s words at the end—

It was a dungeon that they couldn’t defeat.

He shivered uncontrollably, both from the meaning behind those words and the cold winds that assaulted his cold-blooded body.

As he took one last look at the area, it was then he noticed:

There were thousands of slimes. And they were all moving towards the mountain that they came for.

.

“Yo, what is this?”

“UuuuaaAAaa…?”

“Is this real? Should we… go back again?”

No way. When she went back to where she came from, she heard the fairies from earlier complain, making threats and shouting like children from the other side of the wall. They were definitely angry.

“… Aaaa…”

“… Why do I even try.”

There was no mistake about it.

Despite all the times Elaine has flipped her coin, deciding seemingly at random each time, in the end it made no difference. All the paths converged. There was, in the end, only one road in front of her.

She wondered if the Fairy Heart had meant for it to happen. But after all that time it never activated again. For an hour she even had Claire check if there were hidden passages along the walls by extending her fleshy tentacles along both sides – there were none.

A large double door made of shining gold faced her. It was as intimidating as it was captivating. Depicted on it was a detailed scene of a large dragon devouring the world. Set between them at eye level were fist-sized gemstones at the corners of an equilateral triangle that was inscribed in a circle. There were only two gemstones, a red and a blue one, set on the left and right corners respectively. In the middle was a handle, which Elaine assumed to function as a way to open the doors.

It was beautiful, but also dreadful to look at. After all, it wasn’t the first time Elaine had seen such a thing. And she was sure what it was.

“Floor boss,” she uttered as she winced in disdain.

Not only that, it was a floor boss at such a depth.

Compared to the monsters that roamed freely within the corridors of the labyrinth, the floor bosses were much stronger, even compared to the ones on the following floors. If she were to assign levels to them, if a floor’s regular monsters were level one, then the floor boss would be level five, and the regular monsters on the next floor would be level two. That meant that whatever foe they were going to face there, if it hadn’t frozen to death, would be the toughest enemy she was ever going to face. Until the next one at least.

“Please be dead, please be frozen, please be dead.”

Being an introvert who had a habit of talking to herself, she started screaming like an idiot towards the ceiling. Her zombie had a blank look on her face, which was a relief since she wouldn’t be able to take it if she instead looked at her with dead fish eyes.

The Fairy Heart obviously pointed her to that place. It had saved her once before, so what would be the point if it wouldn’t do so again?

Again she screamed, like an idiot, at the empty space above her head. She clutched at her hair exaggeratedly. Though she wanted to pull it to see if pain would snap her out of that nightmare, the two layers of thick gloves on her hands prevented her from getting a good grip.

Finally, she clutched her locket. Did she even have a choice?

She looked back towards her undead. It stared back at her with the same glassy, unfocused eyes it always had since the beginning. Claire looked unreliable, like a newborn who had just been assigned her first responsibility in life. But she was better than nothing, and quite frankly, Elaine wouldn’t give her up for anything else at that point.

At least, not anything realistic the dungeon could offer.

Claire could defeat those ‘scourge crawlers’ singlehandedly, and do in a chimera in one hit. She was also able to escape the stomach of an invisible wolf, and fend off the attacks of fairies who didn’t die from the mystical cold that killed off all the other monsters in the dungeon.

Not only that, she saved her from death when she fell down the pit, and many more times. And—she had given her a name, whatever that meant.

“Can you do it, Claire?”

“…”

She didn’t respond with her usual groaning or moaning. Instead, she silently stared back with an unusual force behind her eyes. Somehow, it gave Elaine confidence. It stopped the shaking on her knees, and warmed her frigid hands. She inhaled deep and sighed, her breath quickly turning into mist. Conviction replaced unease, knowing that they would have to do it sooner or later anyway. But just in case, she took her coin out and flipped it.

The image of a glowing star welcomed her decision.

“That’s it, then.”

If she hesitated any further, it would only be due to excuses. So, she placed her hand on the handle and turned.

Various mechanisms could be heard from within the door as the lever slowly rotated. The entire action was smooth, as if the joints had just been lubricated prior to Elaine’s arrival. It contrasted heavily with the old, ruinous appearance of the dungeon’s upper floors.

After she had rotated the handle by just around ninety degrees, the sound of a latch being released echoed unnervingly throughout the halls. In the silence of the dungeon, that one noise haunted her, causing her previously-built confidence to shake slightly. But the dungeon did not wait for her to recover. The door started to open, slowly, at the very least allowing Elaine to prepare herself for whatever it was that awaited her beyond.

It was dark. Only a few lights could be seen at first, but she was certain that it would be the largest chamber Elaine would see in her life.

Claire silently stepped forward, ready to protect her from anything. Seeing her small back soothed the last of Elaine’s misgivings. Surely, she would be alright. After all, the protagonist shouldn’t die that early, right?

But as the door opened wider and wider, there was one thing Elaine immediately noticed, something that told her things wouldn’t be as easy as she hoped it would be.

The room inside was warm.

And there was a golden dragon inside.

“Shit.”