Chapter One Hundred and Eighty-Three: Easy Promise
Lyos and Julius came to see her off as far as the boundary line, and after that, Karen returned alone to the blank zone.
By the time she arrived at the settlement, the sun had set. Too many things had happened today, and Karen was already exhausted. So the darkness of night that concealed her was rather an ally.
The settlement still had no sign of human presence. It was so quiet and devoid of the warmth of life that she almost thought perhaps the kidnapped Waltride hadn’t been brought here after all.
Even so, Karen headed toward her destination—the particularly large mansion—while hiding in the shadows of buildings.
There, she became certain that Waltride was here. There was a presence of magical power. Those with magical power couldn’t enter this place of their own will; only those who had been brought here existed. In other words, this presence must be Waltride’s.
However, she really couldn’t bring herself to enter from the front, so while hiding in the surrounding grove of trees, Karen circled around to the back.
While searching for a window that looked easy to sneak through, Karen finally realized why the settlement had been deserted.
There was a large hole in the back of the mansion.
The overly bright moonlight illuminated not only the large hole but also things she didn’t want to see. On top of the rubble from the collapsed wall, the residents of this place lay piled on top of each other in unrecognizable states.
All the inhabitants of this settlement were probably here. That’s why Karen hadn’t found anyone or been found by anyone.
“Ugh…!”
Karen covered her mouth, feeling nauseous.
Several of the corpses clearly bore traces of having been eaten.
It couldn’t possibly be Julius. Not because Karen wanted to believe that, but because the bite marks on the gnawed body parts showed that the jaw of the one who bit them was at least twice the size of a human jaw. They were monster bite wounds.
In this place where monsters shouldn’t appear or approach, a monster had apparently appeared and devoured them. It was clearly an unforeseen situation even for the people of this settlement.
Judging from the state of the bodies, several days had already passed. In that case, the monster that had ravaged them was probably no longer in this area.
Karen stroked her chest in relief that Julius hadn’t gotten caught up in it, then steeled herself again.
She entered the mansion through the large hole in the wall, avoiding stepping on the corpses. Once inside the mansion where moonlight didn’t reach, it was too dark. It would be difficult to explore inside like this.
Karen lowered her knapsack and took out something borrowed from Boromias.
The magical tool, Blue Lamp. It was a lamp that emitted blue light when a magic stone was inserted, and that light could only be seen by the person holding it.
Though she worried for a moment whether the magical tool would work in this place, when she inserted the magic stone into the magical tool, it began to emit a pale blue light.
The light that only Karen holding the lamp could see illuminated the entire room. There was no interior decoration. Bare wood and stone walls were draped with cloth only as a token gesture. Things that hadn’t been visible before were now illuminated, and Karen groaned. There were dark red bloodstains that appeared to show where humans had been dragged toward the inside of the building.
“Haah…”
She couldn’t help but sigh.
The trail of dragged blood was, in a sense, a useful guide. There were other guides as well—the corpses dressed in white coats. They had apparently been conducting some kind of research here. Corpses dressed as researchers had collapsed everywhere. They appeared to have tried to block the path of the intruder, dragging bodies inside, only to be struck down in return.
The same was true of the corpses at the entrance to the large hole. It seemed they had fought while alive against a monster trying to break through the wall to enter. Rather than fighting, they seemed to have tried to prevent it from entering at the cost of their own lives.
Ordinary swords and knives without a fragment of magical power, even fire pokers, lay scattered about. They had tried to protect something inside the mansion. As if ahead there was something precious to them worth protecting even at the cost of their lives—at that moment, she heard a woman’s sobbing from ahead on the path.
A somewhat low female voice—
“Lady Waltride…!”
Following the voice, Karen reached the innermost room. Though she searched for other doors or windows, it didn’t seem possible to enter except by opening that door.
Karen drew Fairial Kris. If the kidnappers were here, she would have to fight. Being an adventurer’s daughter, Karen wasn’t completely ignorant of swordsmanship—she at least knew how to grip and swing one.
Steeling her resolve, Karen threw the door open. Beyond it, Waltride had indeed collapsed. But the one sobbing wasn’t the princess.
It looked exactly like some kind of research chamber with strange devices. Against the wall, numerous egg-shaped containers were lined up in rows. Inside the containers was a greenish-yellow glowing liquid. The way the liquid glowed varied, and in that liquid floated black stones—eggs—of various sizes.
The particularly large device in the innermost part was destroyed, and the liquid from inside the container had spilled out and spread across the floor. With its back to that device sat a white, gigantic horse monster with wings.
“—!”
Karen bit her lip to suppress a scream.
The monster had its legs folded, and with tears streaming from its closed eyes, it cradled a large egg with its forelegs and wings, sobbing. That voice sounded exactly like a human woman crying.
The color of the egg the grieving monster held was probably from one of the containers behind it. The monster had apparently destroyed the device’s container and extracted the egg from inside, leaving it drenched in the liquid.
That egg was probably originally pure white. But now the lower half of the egg was stained a dark, dull color. No matter how you looked at it, it wasn’t in good condition.
Right beside that egg, the unconscious Waltride lay sprawled. Her chest was rising and falling slightly, so she seemed to be alive.
Karen wasn’t even given time to feel relieved about that.
The monster opened its golden eyes with a snap and looked at Karen with bloodshot, glaring eyes.
In that instant, Karen was exposed to intense magical pressure. Just a moment before, she had only been able to sense magical power that seemed to be Waltride’s.
Feeling the absolute disparity between them as living beings, Karen very easily envisioned death. Crushed by the overwhelming difference in rank, tears overflowed from Karen’s eyes. She clearly understood that one wrong move meant death.
‘You are—‘
“I’m Karen, an alchemist!”
Without even wiping away her flowing tears, Karen shouted, cutting in.
C-rank and above monsters could understand human speech. A C-rank or higher monster that understood human speech and was a white horse with wings.
The only one Karen knew was a pegasus. Pegasus, an S-rank monster that appeared in the kingdom’s founding mythology.
As in the case of the founding ancestor, Sybilla, it was a monster of reason and intelligence that could become a familiar if negotiations succeeded.
This powerful monster that should be the boss of the fortieth floor of the Earthfill Royal Capital Dungeon was somehow here on the eighth floor.
It had crossed floors. Floor-crossing was a characteristic of dungeon collapse. Why, how—suppressing the endless flood of questions and fear, Karen took the initiative.
“Would you perhaps be interested in an alchemist who can make panaceas!? For your child? Egg? I would be happy if you would consider purchasing one!”
‘—Panacea?’
Through Karen’s preemptive sales pitch, the pressure emanating from the monster clearly lessened.
‘You can cure this child?’
“Of course!”
Naturally, she had no way of knowing such a thing, but if she said no, death would be the only outcome. Understanding this instinctively, Karen made the declaration, staking both her own life and Waltride’s on it.
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