Love, Witches, & Other Delusions

by Natsume Akatsuki

“?!”

  Tears brimmed in her eyes and her cheeks went red, no doubt from excitement as much as disappointment.

  She was at least as happy as she was hurt, and it was too much trouble to care, anyway.

  I decided to forge ahead.

  “Don’t misunderstand me, you two. I’m the only one who’ll be going into the dungeon. I just need you guys to get me there safely.”

  All three of them looked at me in shock.

  2

  We headed to a mountain about a half day from town and proceeded up an animal trail from the foot.

  We walked and walked the treacherous trail, which was covered in snow and thick with overhanging branches.

  Then, suddenly, we spotted a sturdy-looking log house.

  The front of the house bore a sign reading EVACUATION SHELTER.

  And in the rock face near it, a dungeon entrance yawned, so dark you could barely see in.

  The entrance itself looked natural, but when I peeked inside, I found a neat staircase leading deeper in.

  This dungeon was called Khiel’s Dungeon.

  It was named after an Arch-wizard from long ago, a peerless talent named Khiel, who fell in love with the daughter of a noble family.

  The two happened to meet when the noblewoman was out for a walk, and Khiel, who had until then been completely absorbed by magic and had shown no inclination to love or romance, fell head over heels at first sight.

  But of course, a love like theirs could never be.

  In this world, differences of class were crucial.

  Khiel knew that all too well. He threw himself into magical practice and study, as if to forget the seeds of love in his heart.

  Day followed day, and eventually he became known as his country’s greatest Arch-wizard.

  He begrudged no one his magic and gave his all for his nation. He earned the praise of many.

  Then came a summons to the king’s castle, where a banquet was held in his honor.

  The king told Khiel that he wished to reward his service. Any one wish the Arch-wizard might name, the king would grant.

  And Khiel replied that he had one wish in this world that had never come true.

  It is not known what the Arch-wizard Khiel asked for. The story goes on to say that the Arch-wizard kidnapped the noble daughter and built this dungeon, where he hid the two of them.

  What happened to them after that wasn’t passed down.

  I guess if you think about it, it doesn’t seem likely that a lone spell-caster could prevail holed up in a dungeon.

  By now, this story of how the dungeon was created had been largely forgotten; it was just a place for beginners to get some good experience in dungeon diving—as I was about to do.

  I stopped at the entrance to Khiel’s Dungeon and turned back to the three women behind me.

  “All right. I’ll be going it alone from here, so you guys wait in that shelter. If I’m not back in a day, go back to town and get Taylor and his friends to come help…although since today is just kind of reconnaissance and experimenting, I don’t think I’ll be long.”

  The three of them got worried looks on their faces as I spoke.

  Darkness folded her arms. “You’re really going? I’ve never heard of anyone hitting a dungeon all by himself. I can see how with your plan, having someone along in noisy full armor wouldn’t be very useful, but…”

  True, this was unprecedented.

  “I, too, would most likely only cause trouble if I were to come along… Are you sure you will not rethink this?”

  Aqua jumped in at Megumin’s expression of concern:

  “Don’t worry! I’ll go with you!”

  She sounded very confident, but—

  “No, you don’t need to. I’m telling you, it’ll be easiest by myself.”

  I repeated what I had explained to her on the way here.

  “With the Second Sight skill Keith taught me, I can see in the dark. I’ve already tried it out. Even in pitch-blackness I can get a sense of a space and any objects in it. So by myself, I don’t need a light. Monsters who track adventurers by the torches they carry won’t be able to find me.”

  Of course, if that were all it took to tackle a dungeon single-handedly, all the world’s Archers would already be doing it.

  Still…

  “You know I’ve got the Thief skills Sense Foe and Ambush, too. I can see well enough in the dark to figure out the terrain, and if I sense enemies, I’ll just go around them. And if I can’t go around them, I can use Ambush to hide up against a wall until they go by…I think.”

  Though I couldn’t be sure, since I hadn’t had a chance to test that.

  I was heading into a dungeon, but without a hunting quest or anything.

  Killing monsters down there wasn’t going to earn me any money, so it would be best to avoid combat.

  Stay away from monsters, pick up any treasure.

  It was kind of cat burglar–esque, but it was something that only an Adventurer, capable of learning skills from every class, could do.

  There weren’t a lot of perks to my class, but this was one of them, and I intended to take advantage of it.

  From my bag, I pulled out the scent-masking potion I’d bought at the Guild to use against monsters with a keen sense of smell. The creatures in this dungeon had probably adapted to life in the dark; they must be able to track foes without using their eyes.

  Such as by catching their prey’s scent, for example.

  Some of them might have sensitive ears, but I was praying my Sense Foe skill would activate before they noticed any noise I was making.

  I wouldn’t be able to do anything about enemies who had heat detection, like the pit organs on a snake, or ultrasonic sonar, like a bat. But I’d heard this dungeon didn’t have monsters like that.

  I had studied at the Guild about the creatures in this place before I came.

  I mean, I had kicked the bucket just the week before. I admit I wouldn’t have minded seeing Lady Eris again, but I didn’t want to die over and over.

  I doused myself with the scent-masking potion. I had no idea how effective it was, but it must have been better than nothing.

  And when I had used Ambush against the Beginner’s Bane, it had noticed my smell but ultimately moved on. Meaning Ambush apparently masked smells a little bit, too.

  This would work. This should work.

  Anyway, today was just an experiment. If it succeeded, I would consider that profit enough.

  The dungeon I was diving in this time was actually a bit low-level for me. If my tactics worked here, I could move on to farming a more lucrative dungeon next.

  After all, this place was just a half day from town. Other adventurers had probably already picked it clean.

  It would be fine. I wasn’t likely to have any trouble with the kinds of enemies I would find here, anyway.

  “All right, I’m off. It’s cold and there might be monsters out here, so just take it easy.”

  I waved and headed into the dungeon.

  But I heard someone following me.

  It was Aqua, of course.

  “Didn’t you hear what I said? It’ll be best if I go alone. Even if you come along, you won’t be able to do anything in the dark.”

  She chuckled at my words as a confident expression spread across her face.

  Man, I wanna smack her.

  “Now, Kazuma, have you forgotten who I am? I’m not really an Arch-priest. Come on, say it. Megumin and Darkness may stubbornly refuse to believe it, but you know what my real ‘class’ is.”

  “The goddess of debt, right?”

  “Wrong! The goddess of water! Sheesh. Even ‘goddess of party tricks’ would have been better.”

  Frankly, I didn’t care what she was goddess of. What was her point?

  “Whatever. I am still a goddess. And the eyes of a deity can see all things. Remember just before you came to this world, I knew how you had died? My powers may be diminished here on the mortal plane, but
I still have a couple of godlike tricks up my sleeve. I can’t quite see everything anymore, but I’m sure not bothered by a little darkness!”

  I got more and more concerned as Aqua’s bragging dragged on.

  I was worried about just what mistake she would make this time.

  What to do? How to turn her down? But even as I was thinking, Aqua said:

  “Dungeons are usually home to undead, and they track living beings by their vitality. In other words, your Ambush skill won’t work on them. Guess you need me with you after all!”

  I had a really, really bad feeling about this.

  3

  I had lost count of how many stairs we’d walked down since entering the dungeon.

  We’d been walking through the dark for a long time, but there was still no sign of any corridors.

  I’d assumed the starter dungeon would be a bit smaller. This would take some time to explore.

  But today, we were there only to find out whether my little cat-burglar plan would really work.

  People who went in and seriously mapped out dungeons would probably consider my approach heresy.

  I could feel Aqua behind me, totally unconcerned as we went down the stairs.

  “Hey, Kazuma, how’s your night vision working? My unclouded eyes can see you trembling and tiptoeing along no problem! If you’re having any trouble seeing where you’re going, just let me know, okay?”

  Was she worried about me or insulting me?

  “I can see fine. For example, I can see you jumping and cringing at every noise. Just try not to trip and fall down the stairs, okay?”

  Aqua laughed easily. “Sure. I can see plenty well to run away, so if there are any monsters coming, just say the word. And since you can see so well, don’t try to touch my butt and tell me you just made a mistake in the dark or something.”

  “Don’t worry—I’ve got zero interest in touching your butt. Let me tell you what I am interested in. I’d love to know if I can lose you somewhere down in this dungeon and go home by myself.”

  Aqua and I stopped in our tracks and looked at each other.

  “Oh, Kazuma, you’re such a joker! Hee-hee!”

  “And you’re an idiot, Aqua. I would’ve thought after all this time, you’d know when I was being serious! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”

  As we spoke, we finally came to the bottom of the huge staircase.

  There wasn’t a single ray of light, but thanks to my skill, I could accurately see the dungeon’s stone walls and how large the hallway was.

  In the black space, physical objects glowed blue to my eyes, like a thermograph.

  From the bottom of the stairs, the hallway split off to the left and the right.

  And I noticed something there, right at the bottom of the staircase.

  “What’s that?”

  My night vision showed me everything in a faint blue; I couldn’t tell objects’ actual colors.

  So all I could see were the basic contours of what I took to be decaying human remains…

  …

  “Yiiikes!”

  It was the rotting corpse of an adventurer.

  Had he tried to brave this dungeon alone, as I was doing? Or had he died and his companions had left him behind?

  I didn’t know what had brought him here, but that was definitely a human body sprawled out in front of me.

  Aqua approached the corpse.

  “…He’s becoming an undead. Hang on, Kazuma.”

  She began to mutter something like a prayer, and a soft light enveloped the corpse.

  She must have given guidance to the lost soul to prevent it from becoming an undead.

  Maybe if she did that sort of thing more often, more people would believe in her.

  I was pretty sure finding a dead body right at the bottom of the stairs was going to completely break my resolve.

  If Aqua hadn’t been there, I would certainly have turned right around and gone home.

  “But it’s nothing to be all yiiikes! about, Mr. I’m-gonna-tackle-this-dungeon-alone. Pffft heh-heh-heh!”

  With that, I was determined to leave her stranded by herself in this dungeon for a while.

  …Something was coming.

  I stopped, my Sense Foe skill alerting me.

  Maybe it had been drawn to our voices, or to the light when Aqua had guided the lost soul.

  I looked at Aqua, pointed in the direction the enemy was coming from, and jerked my thumb in the opposite direction in a let’s get out of here gesture.

  “Huh? What are you doing with your hands? Is that some kind of dance? Turn on a light. You want shadow animals, forget about rabbits and dogs—I can do Mobile Fortress Destroyer!”

  “No! What’s with Destroyer, anyway? I mean an enemy is coming, so we’d better run! Damn, it’s found us! Back me up—I’m going in!”

  I was a bit embarrassed by the shout I instinctively let out as I dove forward.

  I could see a small humanoid creature rushing toward me in the dark as I drew my sword. I leaped at it and struck!

  “Hrm, what’s this thing? I can make out the shape but not the color, so I’ve got no way to tell. Do you know what it is?”

  The small humanoid corpse lay at my feet.

  Aqua looked at it and said, “It’s a low-level devil called a gremlin. Magic clusters in dungeons more than it does on the surface, so sometimes you get minor devils like these.”

  I see. I did recall a monster with that name from the information about this dungeon I had gotten at the Guild.

  …I had a sudden thought.

  “Hey, could I ask you something? You can see pretty well in the dark, right?”

  “As well as I can in the day,” Aqua answered. “Why?”

  She didn’t seem to find that statement remarkable.

  I took a long pause.

  “When we’re sleeping in the stable at night, have you…seen anything?”

  “Uh-uh. When I hear a rustling from your direction, I just turn over and sleep facing the other way.”

  “…Thank you very much, Milady Aqua.”

  Other monsters might be attracted by the smell of the gremlin’s blood.

  We quietly left the body behind.

  4

  Aqua seemed somehow different today. She wasn’t the frivolous Arch-priest she had always been before. She wasn’t the goddess of parties or debt.

  “O souls who wander lost in this cold, dark dungeon! Be at peace; be at rest! Turn Undead!”

  She let off a burst of light, turning all the wandering ghosts in a wide area. This Aqua was a true goddess, someone I wouldn’t be embarrassed to be seen with anywhere.

  The fact was, I had taken this dungeon too lightly. The combination of night vision and Ambush was very effective; it was enough to deal with most monsters. But as Aqua had said, the living seemed to appear like signal fires to the long-suffering undead who roamed the dark, cold halls. We had turned quite a few of them since we got here. If I had been on my own, I would have been a helpless undead punching bag by now.

  I’d had no idea there would be this many zombies in the dungeon.

  I wanted to kick myself for being so uninformed.

  After purifying the nearby undead, Aqua let out a little sigh at a job well done.

  “Nice work. You seriously saved my neck. I would’ve been in big trouble if I’d come down here alone.”

  Aqua was not displeased by my show of gratitude.

  “Oh? Have you finally come to appreciate me? …I wonder where the treasure is, though. I guess we can’t hope for much from a dungeon that everyone and his adventuring brother has already been through.”

  By that point, we were in pretty deep.

  Well, maybe deep wasn’t the right word. The whole thing was only one floor.

  It was just huge.

  Each time we turned a corner, Aqua, who claimed she could see as clearly as daytime, marked it with chalk.

  I figured normally you proceeded through a dungeon slowly and carefull
y, mapping it out, keeping your torch lit, on the lookout for monsters and traps.

  But the two of us, perfectly capable of seeing in the dark, moved ahead at a steady pace with me in front, sensing out any enemies or booby traps.

  I had demonstrated the viability of this form of dungeon diving and part of me was ready to head back, but having come so far, we were unwilling to return empty-handed.

  I confirmed there were no enemies or traps in the next room and then entered gingerly so as not to make a sound.

  I looked around the room…

  “Feh. Nothing good.”

  “Hey, Kazuma, this whole sneaking-around thing, your comment just now…it kind of makes me feel like a cat burglar.”

  Aww, stuff it…I feel the same way.

  I felt a little bad for my colleagues who had taken this dungeon seriously and crawled through it bit by bit.

  “…? Hey, Kazuma, look over there. What’s that?”

  She seemed to have found something in one corner of the room.

  When I went over to look, it was…

  “Treasure! This is a treasure chest! We did it, Kazuma! We hit the jackpot on our first dungeon dive!”

  I hurriedly stopped Aqua as she went toward the chest, delighted.

  “Whoa, hang on. Lots of people have done this dungeon already. Don’t you think it’s weird that a chest would just appear here? …Yeah. My Sense Foe skill is definitely reacting.”

  The reaction, of course, was coming from the treasure chest right in front of us.

  I see. Is this one of those Mimics you always hear about?

  “Oh… So it’s a Dungeon Mimic? That’s too bad, but oh well.”

  Aqua tossed something over near the chest.

  It was the empty bottle of scent-masking potion.

  The bottle arced up in the air, then came back down, landing near the treasure chest…

  The instant it touched the ground, the entire wall and floor gave a groan and wrapped themselves around the bottle, swallowing it up.

  Just a second ago they had looked like ordinary surfaces, but now they were moving slightly, as if chewing.

  “Y-yuck! What the hell?!”

  A Dungeon Mimic, was that what she’d said?

  “Just like its name implies,” Aqua said, “it can’t move on its own, but it can make part of its body look like a treasure chest or a pile of gold, and when someone steps on it to reach it, it eats them. Some Mimics have even been known to make part of their bodies look human to attract monsters that normally prey on adventurers.”