Chapter Two Hundred and Eighty-Five: Fastest Rescue
“Help! Help me!”
“Ah, I can hear his voice.”
Though the knight was nowhere to be seen, a scream rang out after a loud gasp, as if he had finally regained his breath.
“Below! There’s something below! Help me! Hurry! You commoners!”
“Oh, found him. Look, can you see him, Little Karen? He’s stuck on that ledge in the shadow.”
Just barely within the reach of light, next to the cliff’s pitch-black darkness.
Gathering magical power in her eyes strengthened her vision. On that slightly illuminated icy protrusion, she could indeed make out a tiny moving figure like a bean. It seemed only his clothes were caught, and his hands could not reach the wall. And at the bottom of the crevasse, which looked like darkness to Karen, there was apparently something.
“Hurry up!”
“If you’re looking for help, calm down!”
For the first time, Urte, who had maintained a respectful attitude toward nobles until now, shouted using informal speech.
But from below, frantic shouting continued in rapid bursts.
Taking out the rope from her pack, Urte said to Karen:
“If you go to help someone in such an excited state, you’ll get caught up in it, so in times like this, you wait until they calm down. Just because you’re asked for help doesn’t mean you should go rushing to help right away, Karen.”
“I couldn’t even climb down a cliff like this in the first place, could I?”
“I’m not talking about right now, I’m talking about someday.”
“But if they look like they’re about to fall unless we help quickly—”
“Then it’s just how it is! It can’t be helped, and that’s the end of it.”
Urte said coldly and looked down at the agitated knight.
“In situations like this, waiting for them to calm down actually lets you rescue them faster than acting in panic.”
“You mean ‘haste makes waste’?”
“Exactly.”
However, it seemed he might fall if they waited for him to calm down.
Karen rummaged through her rucksack.
She took out a bottle of dried herbs she usually put in sachets—her calming magical potion—and held it out to Urte.
“This is a calming magical potion. Can you use it?”
“Oh! Is it the opposite of smelling salts?”
“Yes. It’s an aromatic potion with a calming effect that makes you feel at ease and relaxes your body, but I’m a bit worried that the moment he calms down, the strength will leave his body and he’ll fall.”
“Hmm. Well, if that happens, it can’t be helped.”
Urte grabbed a handful of the dried herbs from the bottle and put them in her pocket. She slung the rope over her shoulder and, knife in hand, descended the icy cliff smoothly without even a safety line.
“Still, nothing happened even when the wagon passed through on the way in. Is this the kind of trap that only activates when leaving the dungeon?”
Sepl chatted with a relaxed spectator’s face.
What Urte was doing probably wasn’t particularly difficult from an adventurer’s perspective.
“Maybe the adamantite was too heavy. Since it’s a magic metal, its properties change when you pour magical power into it, right? Like feeling lighter.”
“Yeah. That’s why it can be made into armor and weapons.”
“But the actual weight doesn’t change, so… it might have been heavier than the wagon.”
“Ugh.”
Sepl grimaced.
“So he fell because he took adamantite out from the sixth floor…”
“The deposit itself might be a trap. In this dungeon.”
A trap that manipulated human desires to ensnare them.
Perhaps the lack of monsters was to make people think it was easy to take adamantite out.
Karen’s spine shivered.
Since dungeons were said to be the goddess’s trials, this should be the goddess’s doing.
When Urte used the calming potion on the knight halfway down the cliff, the shouting man suddenly fell silent.
“Seems like a rather nasty dungeon.”
In other words, the goddess had a nasty personality. Karen felt like she’d known that for quite some time.
—Young Julius had escaped this dungeon with his life on the line.
“Miss Karen!”
Hearing her name called from a distance, she looked up.
Probably because they hadn’t found Karen, Gottfried and Licht had also come to the fifth floor.
“What are you doing!?”
“Sir Gottfried! A knight fell into this hole below, so we’re currently conducting a rescue!”
Gottfried, who came running down the slope as if sliding, looked down at the knight being pulled up from the crevasse opening and nodded.
“I see. It seems our knight caused you trouble.”
“Please don’t worry about it. Right now, we’re companions diving through the dungeon together.”
Gottfried had an unusually stern expression.
His brows furrowed as he looked down at Karen.
“Miss Karen, there’s a possibility Master Julius might be in danger.”
Karen’s eyes widened.
“Master Julius should have already conquered the dungeon by now. It’s taking far too long.”
“…Shouldn’t Mr. Julius be able to conquer about ten floors without any problems?”
“Indeed. That should have been the case, but in reality, that’s not what’s happening.”
“Karen, let’s hurry to where Julius is.”
It was Licht who said this to her.
Licht, with a stern expression, approached Karen. The reason Licht, who had been sticking close to her since entering the dungeon, had disappeared was apparently to consult with Gottfried about Julius.
There was none of the frivolity from when he had approached Karen with that carefree attitude.
“Your worry might have been right.”
Everyone said Julius would be fine, but was that really true? Even if it were, Karen had wanted to go meet him. Karen had many things she wanted to say, but swallowed them.
“—Then I’m glad we came to meet Mr. Julius.”
Looking at Licht’s face, she could see that everything Karen wanted to say was already being internally repeated by Licht himself.
They rescued the knight from the crevasse and returned to the sixth floor.
Seeing the knight bound with a rope so he wouldn’t escape again, his fellow knights pressed Urte.
“What did you do to Elmar!?”
“I merely rescued him after he fell down the cliff.”
Urte put on a top-grade pleasant smile, then respectfully handed over the knight and came back irritably.
“We helped their comrade, and what’s with them? That attitude!”
“Those nobles seem pretty irritated.”
“They must be terrified of the dungeon on the verge of collapse. If that gentleman can’t conquer it, there’s no telling what state the tenth floor is in.”
At Urte speaking in an extremely hushed voice, Sepl nodded.
“Hmph. So they’re all cowards.”
“Shh! Even if it’s true, you’ll be resented if you incur nobles’ anger!”
Urte covered Sepl’s mouth as his voice became too loud.
The knight, freed from his bonds by his fellow knights, hung his head. But there was no sign he would run out to the fifth floor again.
Even from a distance, seeing the knight’s calm state, Karen narrowed her eyes.
“Karen, pack up the luggage. As soon as you finish packing, we’re leaving.”
Licht spoke as if hurrying Karen.
In front of the sixth floor’s cave, the knights who had returned from inside had already finished packing.
Was everyone wearing serious expressions because Julius’s situation had already been made known?
Had the knight who panicked and tried to escape been trying to flee from a dungeon on the verge of causing a massive collapse stampede that even Julius couldn’t prevent?
While looking at Licht’s eyes filled with fear and anxiety, Karen said:
“Understood.”
“If you understand, hurry.”
“But before that, let’s have lunch.”
When Karen clapped her hands and said this, Licht’s eyes opened wide, then immediately after, his face contorted.
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