Mystery(1)

[Dungeon and Stone] was a hardcore game.

Even if you don’t make any particular mistakes, the characters you’ve painstakingly raised can die at any time during the game.

In that sense, the news wasn’t particularly surprising.

The archer in Lee Baek-ho’s party, Layton Bright, had died.

I suppose it was to be expected.

After we fought the Bone Dragon, everyone was randomly teleported to different coordinates.

Surviving alone on the 9th Floor is never easy for any character. And if you’re injured, it becomes even more difficult.

If Jayna hadn’t been lucky enough to run into me, she would have met her end right then and there.

But still…

“……Huh?”

No matter how prepared you think you are, news like this still hits you hard.

“W-what are you talking about…? Mr. Bright is dead…?” GM asked again, clearly shocked. But Ruin Gramps continued in an emotionless voice, as though he were simply stating facts.

“I found his corpse on the way here. It seems this area was too harsh for him to survive alone after pushing himself to his limits.”

“T-that…”

The GM seemed at a loss for words upon hearing the news of his death.

How ironic.

Ruin Gramps, who had probably spent more time with him, didn’t seem to care at all.

“Anyway, since Bright is dead, the only one left to hang the cloth on the tree to deliver the message is Baek-ho.”

“I… I see…”

“Alright, that’s enough about Bright. More importantly, what’s going on here? What exactly is that structure?”

“… We don’t know either. It was already here when we arrived…”

“Hm. Very intriguing.”

Ruin Gramps’s eyes sparkled as he approached the building, and I paused for a moment.

I closed my eyes and observed a moment of silence.

‘Layton Bright…’

Judging by the fact he was with Baek-ho, he probably wasn’t a good guy.

But I offered my condolences nonetheless. It would be too sad if this brutal labyrinth didn’t allow even that.

“…Mr. Bright always said he wanted to quit everything.”

I turned toward the voice. It was Jayna.

“Well. I guess he got what he wanted. He doesn’t have to do anything anymore.”

…What the hell? Is she a psychopath too?

I thought so at first, but when I saw her expression, I couldn’t help but smirk.

Her words sounded sarcastic, but I could feel it. This was her way of mourning.

“Your allies are fortunate. They have people who will grieve for them when they die.”

“Then why don’t you just join us?”

Jayna flinched at my casual remark, then smiled faintly and replied.

“That won’t do. I need a lot of sacrifices.”

“As for sacrifices, you can take care of that by killing Plunderers in the labryinth or those Noark bastards.”

“…You are aware that I’m one of those ‘Noark bastards’, right?”

Ah, that’s true.

“Thank you for the offer, but I’ll decline.”

Suit yourself.

It wasn’t like I was being serious anyway.

If I were to accept Karui’s priestess as a clan member and that fact got exposed, the ‘Three Churches’ would become my enemy as well.

Considering I already have enough trouble with the Royal Family, that’s not something I can afford.

‘Now we just need Rek Aures and Baek-ho to show up.’

After that, Ruin Gramps and GM began examining the phenomenon, while the rest of us simply waited on standby.

A day passed. Then two…

On the third day, Rek Aures finally appeared.

He looked extremely ragged — the word ‘tattered’ didn’t even begin to describe it.

“H-ha… ha… I… I’m alive…”

Just from his appearance, it was clear what he had been through over the past few days.

Relief washed over him the moment he saw us, and he fell asleep on the spot. Jayna went over to heal him and take care of him.

And…

“So you’re telling me you weren’t the one who tied the cloth.”

“…It’s shameful, but yes. I just barely fled from the monsters and crossed into the Primordial Land, but right then—”

“Enough.”

It felt like his explanation would go on for a while, so I cut Aures off and shifted my gaze to the rest of the group.

“…Isn’t this strange? The situation suggests Lee Baek-ho tied the cloth, but he still hasn’t shown up.”

“Yeah. At first, I thought maybe he went to hang clothes in other regions… but after this long…”

“If that were the case, he would’ve returned at least once already.”

After Aures joined the group,my questions only grew.

If he hadn’t hung the cloth either, then the only one left was Lee Baek-ho. Just where was he, and what was he doing?

While we were discussing this, Ruin Gramps put forward a theory.

“Maybe Baek-ho has already gone inside there ahead of us.” He pointed to the building to the left of the monument.

It was clearly shaped like an entrance. Even after examining it thoroughly from the outside, we still couldn’t determine what was inside.

Since we didn’t know what to expect, we had decided to make a decision only after the whole party had gathered, but…

‘That’s true… If it’s Baek-ho, he’d just walk in by himself, saying he’d ‘check it out for a bit’ before we got here.’

“…It’s a reckless thing to do, but for some reason, it doesn’t seem strange if it were him.”

Everyone agreed with Ruin Gramps’s idea.

However, even though he was the one who suggested it, Ruin Gramps shook his head at our conclusion.

“No, it’s definitely strange. No matter how he appears in your eyes, from my perspective, he is more cautious than anyone.”

“What?”

“Contrary to his appearance, Baek-ho never does anything reckless. He’s so cautious that sometimes I’m the one who gets irritated just by staying next to him.”

“…Hold on. Are we talking about that Baekho?”

“Confidence and caution are two very different things.”

“But you’re the one who suggested he may have gone inside.”

“Correct. Because all other possibilities have been eliminated. But if that cautious Baek-ho went inside… then he must have had a clear reason.”

Hmm…

“Well? Bjorn Jandel, what do you think?”

Too many things about this were confusing. If Ruin Gramp’s speculation is true, it means that once you go in there, it’s hard to get out.

That makes sense because if you could come and go freely, Baek-ho would have come out at least once by now.

“Let’s wait one more day before deciding.”

So we waited one more day to see if anything would change, but Baek-ho still didn’t appear.

It was time to make a decision.

“Havellion, do you have any idea what might be down there?” I asked while looking at the steps that led down into pitch-black darkness.

“I’ve never heard of anything like this existing in the Primordial Land.”

“Right, that’s what I thought…”

Honestly, it was the same for me.

It wasn’t just the Primordial Land; I had never seen such an entrance anywhere in the Star Grave. The fact that it had appeared out of nowhere, despite not being there last time, was also highly suspicious.

But still…

“Alright, I’ve decided.”

“We’re going in, I assume?”

“Yeah.”

There was never any chance I wouldn’t.

The whole reason we circled the entire Tomb of Stars was to look for anything suspicious—and now that something like that had appeared right in front of us, there was no way I was going to ignore it.

“There’s no point waiting any longer. If Baek-ho is inside, we need to follow him.”

Let’s just go in.

***

At first, I thought it was a dungeon. There was bound to be some gimmick I didn’t understand and just as many unseen traps that could easily kill us.

Even so, we descended the stairs carefully.

Naturally, I took the lead, with Rex Aures at the very back. The ranged members were positioned in the middle.

Step, step.

I placed my feet carefully, one step at a time.

It was just the proper thing to do in a “dungeon” with no intel.In the game, the first run was always just for gathering information. I had to be content with that.

In that sense, all five of us had ropes tied around our waists, linking us together in a chain. We also anchored the rope to a stake at the entrance, like a climbing setup.

“Ugh! This is bad! This is bad!”

Not long after descending the stairs, a loud voice came from the back.

“The rope’s been cut!”

“……What?”

“It’s not my fault! I didn’t do anything, I tell you! I just followed—!”

“He doesn’t seem to be lying. Look at the cross-section here, it looks like it was cut by something sharp…”

“Everyone, move close to the wall.”

I climbed back up the narrow stairs and checked the end of the rope myself. As expected, there was no sign of Rek Aures making any mistake.

Besides, this was a magitech rope built to withstand hundreds of metres of strain, it wouldn’t snap that easily in the first place.

“Everyone, back up slowly.”

We tried to go back.

But…

“Haven’t we climbed more steps than we descended…?”

“Yes. We went down 213 steps. But we’ve already climbed over 240.”

No matter how far we went back, the entrance did not appear.

In short—

The exit was gone.

“W-we’re trapped!! Trapped in here!!”

“Don’t panic,” Jayna said sharply to Aures. “We all expected something like this.”

“R-right…”

“That so?”

As Jayna scolded Rex, the GM approached me. “Since we’ve confirmed the way back is blocked, I suggest we proceed as originally planned.”

It was a reasonable suggestion.

But something felt off.

Not exactly off, but…

‘Going down makes the entrance disappear, and going up creates endless stairs…’

A sense of déjà vu.

There was a rift like this.

“The Golden Ruins.”

There had been something like this at the entrance to the fourth-floor rift.

‘And now that I look closely, even the walls feel similar…’

If this area is based on the ‘Golden Ruins’, then blindly going down isn’t the solution.

There’s a piece hidden here too.

If you keep climbing up the stairs after the entrance is closed, you can experience a special event.

‘Since we don’t know what’s behind us, let’s clear the event first.’

Of course, there’s no guarantee that the same event will occur here. However, the only thing we’d lose by testing it was a bit of time.

“I’m going to climb up. Be careful not to get left behind.”

“Huh? But…”

“Just follow me.”

I quickly climbed the stairs.

And then…

“How long are we going to climb? There’s still nothing but stairs.”

“It’ll be a hassle going back down…”

By the time we estimated that we had climbed about half the total distance

Step, step.

Strange footsteps echoed from ahead.

“Stop.”

“Ah, are we going back now—”

“Quiet.”

“……?”

“Someone is coming down from ahead.”

I had no idea who it could be. This wasn’t how the special event worked.

Just who… is it?’

Although I couldn’t be sure, there was a chance this would lead to a battle, so I signaled for everyone to raise their guard.

And then.

“……”

“……”

The approaching footsteps abruptly stopped.

‘Did they notice us too?’

The tension in the air tightened like a drawn bowstring.

Gulp-

I swallowed hard without realizing it, and the moment I tightened my grip on my shield—

At that moment, I heard the other party rushing toward us at incredible speed.

“Prepare for battle!!”

I broke the brief silence with that shout, and something came charging at us from the darkness.

I raised my shield on reflex, then froze as the charging figure stopped right in front of it, tapping it lightly as if playing around.

“Surprise! How about it, were you surprised?”

Seeing him speak so casually and without a care, I let out a long sigh.

Is he actually insane?

It was Baek-ho.

I honestly considered hitting him over the head just this once, but Baek-ho only giggled and poked me in the side.

“Bahaha! You were really surprised, weren’t you? You totally were. Are you okay? You looked kinda scared.”

“…You should pay attention to the situation before making jokes like that.”

“Aw, come on. How could I not? I finally get to reunite with my precious comrades!”

“…….”

‘But seriously, I didn’t think you guys would be inside already. Why did you come down without waiting for me?”

…What?

“Come on, you can’t be mad at me over just a little prank—”

“…What did you just say?”

I lowered my voice and Baek-ho paused, sensing that something was wrong.

I quickly asked the one thing I needed to confirm.

‘This is important, so answer seriously. Did you tie that cloth to the tree?”

Up until now, I had been almost sure it was him.

But Baek-ho furrowed his brows and tilted his head.

“What are you talking about? That cloth… wasn’t that something you guys put up…?”

At his response, a cold shiver ran straight down my spine.

…If it wasn’t Baek-ho.

Then who the hell was the one that told us to come here?

 

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