Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody, Vol. 2

by Hiro Ainana

  I somehow managed to stop myself right at the edge of the cliff that had suddenly appeared. My feet dug in to the ground so hard that the edge of the cliff started to crumble beneath me, but I escaped to solid ground with a light step back.

  “What happened? Where am I?” I muttered to nobody in particular.

  From what I could gather, I’d been teleported by some kind of magic or something. It seemed different from Zen’s ability to travel from shadow to shadow—but where in the world had I ended up?

  I looked over the scenery spread out before my eyes. The area seemed to be some kind of mountain pass.

  The cliff on which I stood overlooked a basin that seemed like it could hold Seiryuu City many times over, surrounded by mountains on all sides.

  The bottom of the basin was shrouded in mist, but I could faintly make out the withered, leafless branches of some tall trees.

  The surrounding mountains were bare of greenery, too, and there wasn’t an animal in sight.

  I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.

  Then I opened them and looked around again.

  …It’s still there.

  This time, I kept my eyes closed awhile and counted up prime numbers, trying to calm my mind.

  Then I steadied my resolve and opened my eyes again, but it still hadn’t disappeared.

  So it really wasn’t an illusion.

  I stared at the enormous tree that loomed in the center of the basin.

  If it were just a normal large tree, that would be fine.

  But, to my immense disbelief, this tree was just as large as the mountains surrounding it.

  “Is this what they call a ‘world tree’?”

  I had no idea how it wouldn’t collapse in on itself at that size, but I’d have to entrust that problem to future generations of researchers and focus on what I had to do for now.

  The AR display next to the apparent world tree read Cradle of Trazayuya.

  The giant tree was adorned with filaments that looked like a spider’s thread. It was hard to see them clearly among the branches, but judging by the scale, I would guess that they were passageways.

  If I wanted to rescue Mia, my destination should be somewhere in that tree.

  Opening my map, I saw that this region was called the Gray Rat Emirate. Luckily, it appeared to be the territory right next to Seiryuu County, so I wouldn’t be stuck in the middle of nowhere after rescuing Mia.

  I used “Search Entire Map” to explore the emirate and choose a route back home in advance.

  The nearest populated settlement, a gray-ratman village, was far on the other side of the mountains, so even if I had to use Meteor Shower in the process, there would be no innocent casualties.

  A stairway to the Cradle stretched up before my eyes. I’d walked a little ways along the edge of the cliff from where I’d been before.

  However, these particular stairs were actually just a series of glass-like panels floating in midair. It was probably magic; there was no visible support at all. They were each about ten feet wide, but with no handrails, it looked as if you’d be sent flying headlong into the basin below if a gust were to blow through.

  Normally, I would have been very reluctant to use these, but my “Fear Resistance” skill kept me perfectly calm.

  …That’s pretty dangerous.

  Once this incident was taken care of, I’d have to make sure to deactivate “Fear Resistance” again.

  Once I’d made my way up most of the stairs, I heard a buzzing sound.

  Looking toward the source, I saw bee monsters bearing down on me.

  They were still far away, so they hadn’t shown up on my radar yet.

  Opening my map, I saw that the area name had changed from Gray Rat Emirate to Cradle of Trazayuya.

  Immediately, I used “Search Entire Map” to lay bare everything there was to know about the Cradle.

  Additional information about the approaching bee monsters showed up in an AR display.

  They were called “crimson needle bees,” and they were small-fry with single-digit levels. They appeared to be poisonous, though, so I took out a Magic Gun to dispose of them before they could get any closer.

  The Magic Gun I usually used was still back at the general store, so this was a spare one.

  I started reading through the information about the world tree. If Zen knew I was doing this, I bet he’d say I was “cheating.”

  It looked like I could just climb straight up the tree trunk, but if he used the special functions of the Cradle to teleport me again, there’d be no point.

  I guess I’ll have to try playing by his rules.

  If my goal was just to vanquish Zen and the Cradle, I could make short work of it with Meteor Shower, but that wasn’t an option if I wanted to get Mia home safely.

  “What is this?”

  There was an imposing gate at the entrance, which was no surprise.

  But I couldn’t hide my bewilderment at the sign hanging next to it.

  The name of the facility and the rules for conquering it were written out in Elvish. Below that, the instructions were repeated in Shigan and four or five other languages.

  It read as follows:

  This training facility is meant to be used by elves. The protective safeguard devices will not work for any other race, so proceed with caution.

  There are no rules prohibiting anyone from using the training center, but you do so at your own risk.

  The training center is not responsible for any injuries or destruction of property that occur inside.

  So it was some kind of forest dungeon meant to be used by elves for training.

  According to the disclaimer, there were safeguards inside, but they’d be no use to me if I was going to destroy the Cradle. And I doubted that the so-called protection would keep Mia safe if the facility broke down.

  Zen had said people couldn’t die inside the facility, but I had no way of checking whether this meant he had extended the effects of the safeguards to races other than elves.

  As far as I could tell from the map, the training facility was actually the artificial spiderwebs I’d seen before, rather than a dungeon inside the tree.

  There were some parts where the thick outer shell of the tree trunk had been eroded, but most of the facility appeared intact.

  Once I passed through the gates, there was a monster lying in wait for me.

  Its title read Wandering Monster, so this seemed to be a random encounter rather than a planned ambush.

  It was about three feet tall in the shape of a preta, a hungry ghost.

  I thought it was a goblin, the epitome of small-fry monsters, but the AR display specified that it was a Weed Goblin.

  Basically, it was a cluster of weeds imitating a monster.

  I was able to defeat it with a single kick, sending the weeds flying everywhere with a light poof. I guess that made sense, since it was only level 1 or so. A whitish core fell to the ground, but I left without picking it up.

  The Cradle had a total of two hundred floors, divided into groups of ten floors that were connected by a total of twenty spiral staircases.

  The first staircase was right before my eyes, with each of the eight doors along the way serving as openings to different levels.

  The label FIRST GRAND STAIRCASE was written on a monument in front of the stairs.

  A few branches stretched from the walls in the large atrium-style hall around the staircase, from which sprouted lantern-like sources of light and various fruits.

  However, it seemed unnatural that a single branch bore oranges, pears, and melons. It was like something out of science fiction, where scientists used genetic engineering to alter the DNA.

  There were monsters stationed in each of the rooms attached to the large staircase, and the higher the floor, the higher the level of the monsters. This added weight to the sign on the entrance that had claimed the place was a “training facility.”

  If I had been visiting under different circumsta
nces, it might have been a good way for my kids to train.

  At the top of the grand staircase, the door to the 10th floor was adorned with nine holes.

  According to the black stone tablet next to the door, it could be opened using jewels called “key orbs,” which could be obtained only by defeating the boss monsters on each floor.

  Although Zen had denied it, I could only see this as an RPG.

  If you tried to open the door without the jewels, a “gatekeeper” would apparently appear and challenge you to battle.

  Defeating this gatekeeper would also unlock the entrance, so I decided to fight it immediately.

  When I used the knocker on the door, a magic circle appeared on the landing in front of it, and a fully armored knight appeared.

  The AR display told me that it was a monster called Living Armor. At level 10, it was certainly stronger than the other monsters I’d seen in this area, but from my point of view, there was virtually no difference between them.

  I dodged the hatchet swinging down toward me and casually dealt a front kick to the living armor’s center.

  It would probably hurt to kick it with my toes, so I twisted at the waist to drive my heel into it instead.

  “Geh!”

  I’d gone overboard. I had fully intended to defeat it in one blow, but the armor was more brittle than I’d expected, so my foot went straight through to its back.

  I nearly fell over but managed to recover by moving the living armor’s body into Storage before I lost my balance.

  “…Phew, I rushed that a little.”

  I muttered aloud to the empty room to play off my embarrassment, then walked through the door that had swung open as if to invite me in.

  On the other side was a second grand staircase leading up to the twentieth story on the opposite side of the world tree. This layout was seriously ripped straight from a video game.

  …A game?

  Just before breaking into a run, I screeched to a halt instead.

  Maybe it was just my imagination, but the structure of this dungeon seemed a lot more obviously gamelike than the one that had been under Seiryuu City.

  It was as if someone very familiar with console RPGs had created it.

  In which case…

  I opened the map, searching only for monsters on this floor.

  …there it is.

  A creature with a level that was unthinkably high for the 10th floor.

  I pushed through a hidden door in the wall and proceeded down a hallway made of ivy that ran straight along the path, like a mass of plumbing.

  At the end of the corridor, the vines gathered together, forming a cocoon-like object about sixty feet around.

  What I was looking for was in the center of this mass.

  If I could defeat this thing in battle, I should be able to make a shortcut to the upper levels.

  If someone who enjoyed classic dungeon-crawlers designed this place, then there should definitely be a gimmick like that in here.

  Those games always had a setup like this. By stationing such a powerful guardian here, the designer could ensure that low-level players couldn’t use the shortcut, but at a high level they could defeat the guardian to access the deeper levels of the dungeon more easily.

  “Don’t hide. Come on out.”

  In response, a lump in the ivy drew open, and a soft green light seeped out from within.

  I waited for the powerful guardian to make its appearance.

  “Oh, c’mon—don’t bother me. I don’t have much magic right now, y’know. We can fight some other time.”

  “I’m sorry, but I can’t do that.”

  “Ughh, I’m telling Traya about this. I’m not gonna go easy on you!”

  What emerged from the cocoon was a green-skinned little girl who looked about five or six years old. Her emerald-green hair, more than twice the length of her body, dragged on the floor behind her.

  …This was the boss?

  Per the AR display, she was a level-21 dryad. Her actual age had so many digits that I couldn’t be bothered to read it. She was definitely much, much older than Mia.

  She seemed pretty lethargic, but for some reason her eyes sparkled when she saw me, and she leaped toward me.

  I didn’t sense any intent to harm, so I just caught her.

  “Are you a human? You should be mine!”

  “Come again?” Her words were so unexpected that I gave an admittedly stupid response.

  But why had she asked if I was human? Could she tell that I was level 310?

  “I’m sorry, but if you’re proposing to me, I’ll have to ask you to wait another fourteen or fifteen years.”

  Why was I this popular only with younger women and children?

  I wished a sexy adult would fall for me once in a while.

  “I’m hungry. Gimme food!”

  “All I have is some dried meat. Will that do?”

  I had left the rest of my food with Liza and the others.

  Once I got back to Seiryuu City, I’d have to replenish my stocks of food and treats.

  “I don’t need your dumb human food. Gimme magic!”

  As far as I could tell from the AR display, the dryad had powers like “Charm Person,” “Drain Spirit,” and “Drain Magic.”

  I didn’t want my MP to be permanently reduced, so I asked her for details, but her response wasn’t very reassuring: “It’ll only hurt for a second, then it’ll start to feel good.”

  When I pressed further, though, it turned out that it was no different than using magic normally, and the MP would recover with time as usual.

  In that case, I had a ridiculous excess of magic, so I guess it was fine.

  “C’mon, please?”

  “All right. How does it work?”

  “Like this.”

  The little girl placed her hands on my cheeks.

  I thought she was going to draw it out like that, but before I could react, she brought my face down to hers and kissed me. To make matters worse, she even pushed her tongue into my mouth.

  I had forgotten that while she looked like a little girl, she was actually extremely old.

  After about ten minutes of her doing what she wanted, I was finally released.

  “Phew, I’m stuffed!”

  Her face flushed with satisfaction, the girl puffed out her flat chest.

  …I’m just going to forget this ever happened. Yeah, I’ll think of it like I was bitten by a dog or something.

  “As thanks, I’ll open the corridor for you! You wanna use it, right?”

  “Yes, please do.”

  Thank goodness. If I found out that I’d been wrong about the shortcut after all that, it would’ve been nothing short of devastating.

  She’d taken only about three hundred MP, so I’d recover from that in a few minutes, but the emotional damage was much more severe.

  I walked into the corridor that the dryad had opened.

  > Title Acquired: Dryad’s Victim

  Now, there was a title I’d rather not have earned. I wished that I could reject it in protest.

  The next room looked like a laboratory.

  The door was labeled TRAZAYUYA’S AREA.

  Given the state of it, it hadn’t been used for a long time. A musty smell filled the air. Instead of stone, the floors and walls were made of a resin-like material.

  I wondered if it might be made of sap, but it seemed more like linoleum.

  The area was fully equipped with a dining room, a bedroom, and a bathroom. Judging by the dust that covered the floor, Zen had probably never been to this place.

  The lab’s library was full of books and written notes. I had no idea how many decades had passed since it had last been used, but the books had deteriorated considerably. Aside from a few magic tomes, most of them looked like they would crumble as soon as you touched them.

  With no other choice, I put them into Storage so I could read them straight from the menu.

  Plus, if I used the menu to read
them, I’d be able to search their contents.

  I knew this wasn’t the time for reading, but I skimmed through them quickly, hoping to find some information about how to interfere with the forced teleportation function.

  As I’d already expected based on the area name, the person who had created the Cradle was named Trazayuya. This Trazayuya seemed to be an elf like Mia, so my guess was that the dryad had been referring to him when she mentioned “Traya.”

  All the books were written in Elvish. If I hadn’t gotten the “Elvish Language” skill during my conversation with Mia, I probably wouldn’t have been able to read them at all.

  The ink had faded in some places, but I was able to get a rough idea by skimming it.

  Trazayuya had modeled this “Cradle” after a dungeon, aiming to develop a place where elves could train safely.

  The notes described his struggles, and a consideration toward his race that bordered on overprotectiveness.

  We elves have a very weak hold on life. Compared to other races, we fare alarmingly poorly in desperate situations. As a result, many of our youth have died in labyrinths. This Cradle must have features that will allow elves to safely escape when their lives are in danger.

  I read that the facility had a “Cradle Core” instead of a “Labyrinth Core,” so while it couldn’t grow on its own like a labyrinth, it would still suck up magic from the surrounding land to purify the core.

  Then I found a sentence that concerned me.

  …And so, I have completed a facility that can implant a core into an existing creature, allowing the creation of artificial monsters.

  Were monsters originally ordinary living things?

  Thinking back, all the monsters I’d fought so far had been giant or otherwise malformed versions of normal animals.

  …No, considering that I’ve seen moving skeletons and undead creatures, I guess I can’t make that generalization.

  I tried to put my thoughts back on track. I could contemplate this kind of thing later.

  Trazayuya had created three prototype facilities: one for cultivating monsters, one for producing golems for work, and one for producing servant puppets to wait on him hand and foot.