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Chapter 168 – Central Dungeon Strategy・Makyo and the Others Part 6
Sylvia and I head toward the botanical garden dungeon, our backpacks strapped with leather bags.
As we pass through the ruins of Midgard, we see “migrating” monsters raising their young. The young monsters gradually take on the appearance of their parents and spread their wings on their backs.
“A-are you going to eat them for lunch?”
Sylvia suddenly asks from behind.
“No, we don’t attack monster children. And if they attack in a group, it’ll be trouble.”
“E-even Makyo thinks that way?”
“What do you think I am?”
Sylvia laughs and follows behind.
Come to think of it, Sylvia is from a vampire clan. Unlike Hel, she isn’t cursed, so she’s physically and magically capable in the demonic land. She even has the special ability to control monsters.
She manages the crocodile ranch and can forge weapons. She comes from a good family and is very talented. She has an excuse to return to East Kenya, and she knows how to survive anywhere.
“…Why are you staying in the demonic land?”
“Eh!?”
“No, someone as talented as you doesn’t need to stay in the demonic land to survive, right?”
“I-is now the time to say that?”
Was that a question I shouldn’t have asked? Maybe she was still adjusting her mindset after returning home the other day.
“I’m sorry. Forget I said anything.”
“I want to know what I’m capable of. I’ve lived my life as a slave for the sake of my people, my clan, and my family. I’ve even shaved my head.”
Sylvia said this with a smile, not stuttering once.
“I’ve abandoned the pride and obligations of nobility. I’ve decided to live as I please. In the demonic land, I can do whatever I want, right?”
“Yes, you can do whatever you want, except die.”
“Kukuku, you’re still weird, Makyo.”
“What? Is that bad?”
“There’s no lord like that. You’re supposed to collect taxes and enforce the law.”
“It can’t be helped. I’ve never met a lord before. I thought they just sat around in their castles far away. But I’m starting to realize that’s not the case. Is that no good?”
“It’s a bad lord. But that’s fine. No, that’s fine.”
Sylvia was smiling, so I decided it was okay.
As we talked, we arrived at the ruins of the botanical garden.
Thankfully, we weren’t attacked by any Guardian Spiders, nor did we have to deal with any monsters or plants.
I put on some work gloves in case I touched anything poisonous. I also wrapped a handkerchief around my mouth in case I was affected by mushroom spores.
“I know it’s dangerous, so let’s collect anything we can.”
“G-got it. I brought some bottles just in case.”
We brought bottles that had previously held pickles from the Kingdom of Meiju. They were delicious and quickly disappeared.
I grabbed my hatchet, and Sylvia grabbed her large hammer; we entered the botanical garden dungeon. Both of our weapons were made from monster bones.
A wide space spread out at the end of a long passageway. In the center of the room, a giant spirit tree stretched out, and light rain continued to fall.
Vines thicker than a Rock Crocodile’s body twisted upward but collapsed under their own weight before reaching the spirit tree’s branches. The sound of the vines falling could be heard from all around.
Large sleeping flowers grew in clusters on the ground where the vines had fallen, scattering pollen. Purple slime and fist-sized seeds flew in from all directions.
The slime was put into bottles, and the seeds were put into leather bags. We will check their effects when we get outside.
We carefully walk over the fallen vines, being careful not to inhale the pollen.
Whoosh!
The sound of wind cutting through the air rang out, and razor-sharp grass as thick as a human arm fell from above.
Even after cutting them with a hatchet, more kept falling. There was no end to them, so I jumped toward the trunk of the spirit tree.
Sylvia followed closely behind.
The spirit tree’s trunk was covered in blue-white moss, so I gathered some for later use.
As we moved along the trunk, we found what looked like a brass doorknob buried in the moss.
“That’s a doorknob, right?”
“Y-yeah.”
I scraped away the moss around it, curious.
It was humid, and I was sweating. I wanted to take off my mask and gloves. However, there was smoke-like pollen floating around, so I couldn’t. An unknown sticky liquid splattered everywhere, and I could hear an unpleasant sound like the wings of small insects.
By the time my gloves had turned completely blue and white, a solid door appeared before me.
Not wanting to stay in this space, I pushed the door open as hard as I could.
In front of me was a wall made of an unknown material and a staircase leading down.
“I-is it concrete?”
“Let’s try to recover somewhere without pollen.”
I went inside and closed the door.
It was cool and not humid at all. Most importantly, there was hardly any smell of plants.
I threw away my work gloves and mask, wiped the sweat from my forehead, and changed my clothes.
“Are you ready?”
I handed Sylvia the water bag, which she had finished changing, and asked her.
“Yeah.”
She took a sip of water and replied. There hadn’t been much to find so far, so now was the real test.
A faint light could be seen at the bottom of the stairs.
I lit the magic stone lamp and carefully descended the stairs. When I touched the concrete wall, red powder stuck to my hand.
“What do you think it is?”
It was odorless.
“It’s definitely not blood. Dried blood would be more brown.”
There were no signs of a struggle. Perhaps the red powder was being used to prevent plant growth.
At the bottom of the stairs, a field of white and purple glowing flowers spread out before me.
The room itself was dark, so the only light came from the flowers on the ground.
“D-do you know what kind of flower this is?”
“The flowers are small and densely clustered, and the leaves are large. It might be a potato plant. Should we dig it up?”
The soil was soft, and small insects were wriggling around inside it. It was moist, so it seemed like good soil.
“If this kind of soil can be found in a dungeon, then we could probably recreate it in the lab. Oh!”
A fist-sized potato emerged from the soil. Unlike the flowers, it wasn’t glowing, but it was extremely soft and rotten inside.
“It smells awful.”
“T-this one’s been eaten by bugs.”
Sylvia showed me a potato riddled with holes.
“Let’s just take the small ones that aren’t rotten.”
We collected bean-sized potatoes and put them in a leather bag. We also put some soil in a hemp bag.
“T-there seems to be another room.”
I could see the passageway that Sylvia was pointing to.
It was dim, but moss growing on the ceiling illuminated the floor.
There were several doors along the passageway.
“Is this an experimental facility?”
The doors were locked with magic circles, but they opened easily with a puffing sound when magic power was applied.
“I-it stinks!”
“Ugh! Is that a green onion? It smells awful!”
The room behind the nearest door looked like a green onion field. Curved and stretched out, the pure white green onions were beautiful, but most of them had rotted and fermented, giving off a smell so strong it made our eyes water.
We collected the chestnut-like seeds from the green onions growing toward the ceiling, placed them in a leather bag, and quickly left the room.
We returned to the passageway and took a breath of fresh air.
“This should keep monsters away.”
I showed Sylvia the seeds in the leather bag.
“A-anything can be used for something.”
“One more thing is clear. The people who lived here were definitely growing crops.”
“T-the first large room was for protecting the fields? That makes sense, but there are no living quarters.”
So far, we haven’t found any signs that people lived here.
“Let’s go to the next room.”
We plugged our noses and opened the door on the opposite wall. Again, we heard a puffing sound as the air escaped, and the wind from the hallway blew through the room.
Bang, bang, bang, bang!
Countless tiny objects hit my entire body.
“It hurts!”
I let my guard down completely.
I was wary of the smell, but I didn’t expect to be hit by something like that.
Each time I exhaled, the wind in the room blew the particles toward me.
Holes appeared in my leather armor, and my skin turned red. Sylvia used me as a shield and clung to my back.
I crouched down to dodge the flying grains and examined the ones that had fallen. They were corn kernels—red, yellow, brown, and white.
“They’re hard and painful.”
I turned around and showed Sylvia the corn.
“Grain is important.”
She said this and smiled, showing her teeth.
“Let’s wait until they all explode before we go in.”
I concentrated my magic in my right hand and cast a wind spell. Then, I swung my fist and closed the door.
Bang, bang, bang!
The sound of corn hitting the door echoed through the passageway.
I applied a healing potion to my red, swollen skin and waited for the noise to stop.
When it did, I opened the door and picked up the corn that had fallen on the floor. I wondered if the inhabitants of this place grew one crop per room.
I opened another door further down the passageway.
Something white fell from behind it.
“It’s a bone. Probably an Imp’s.”
Sylvia picked up a small bone and showed it to me. It was a small skull, but it looked human. There were also what appeared to be thin wings.
The room was lined with blue tomato seedlings that were not rotten.
“Did they die while growing tomatoes?”
“Y-you mean the Imps were growing tomatoes?”
“I don’t know, but it’s possible. Plants need insects or monsters to carry pollen.”
The tomatoes were green and hard. I picked one and put it in a leather bag.
The tomato room felt smaller than the others.
As we returned to the hallway and headed further in, we saw countless marks on the floor, as if something had been dragged.
“W-was there a murder here?”
“They might be Lamia’s tracks.”
The tracks continued beyond the door.
Pssh.
A sound rang out, and when the door opened, the room was filled with the smell of thick blood. Furthermore, large amounts of yellow pumpkin fragments were scattered about. Ribs and what appeared to be human limbs were also buried in the floor and walls.
“Did Lamia, who likes human heads, attack the pumpkin field?”
“A-anyway, this smell is making me dizzy. Should we stay away?”
Sylvia must be feeling the vampire blood stirring.
As we searched every room along the other passageway, we found bamboo that grew rapidly when it absorbed magic, as well as succulents that had absorbed too much moisture and spread throughout the room.
Finally, when we opened the door at the end of the corridor, we found signs of human habitation.
There was a table and chairs, as well as a closet containing dishes and clothes.
There were also small palm trees and cacti in pots. In the center of the room, directly in front of the entrance, a large, glowing sphere was floating in the air. Several bunk beds were along the walls, but all of them seemed to have had their bases removed, leaving only the supports.
There was no one alive.
“Makyo.”
Sylvia pointed at the floor.
She had found another trail of something being dragged.
The trail continued along the wall, but there was no door.
“A hidden door?”
I pressed my palm against the wall and infused it with magic. A blue-white magic circle appeared on the wall.
But that was all.
This time, I released all my magic.
Clatter, clatter, clatter.
The wall easily collapsed, revealing a hidden room.
Inside the dark room, I saw a shelf filled with bottles containing parchment.
In the back was a bed shaped like a spider’s cocoon with pumpkin vines growing out of it.
As I approached it, I saw a person lying down with their head blown off. Pumpkin vines were growing out of the head.
“There was a person whose head turned into a pumpkin…?”
Clang!
Sylvia broke one of the bottles on the shelf and read the parchment.
“T-that’s right. It seems that Lamia, Imp, and Pumpkin Head were running this dungeon.”
She unfolded the parchment and showed it to me.
Sure enough, there were pictures of the three of them, along with some old writing.
“A message from the past…”
I opened the bottles lined up on the shelf and read the messages from the people of the botanical garden dungeon.
The cocoon-like bed was a cryogenic preservation bed. It said that it was used to preserve a beloved man. It seemed that the writer was a woman. She was struggling with the fact that she was gradually turning into a monster herself. She wrote about her faith in the temple of the goddess of fertility.
I gathered the parchments and stuffed them into my leather bag. Then, I took the seeds from the pumpkin-headed corpse.
“Maybe monsters will grow from them?”
“If so, that’s fine. Let’s take them to the genetic research institute’s dungeon and have them examined.”
We collected all the seeds and fruit, then left the botanical garden dungeon.
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