Three people were alive. Surprised, and relieved.
Once we all lowered our weapons, the red dot from Danger Discernment vanished.
Because the condition for being an enemy no longer applied.
The red dot — the enemy condition — meant the person harbored hostility or killing intent toward me.
That is, they had the intent to attack me.
To put this incident simply...
There was "the intent to attack — raising one's weapon and standing guard because someone had come, without knowing who it was."
That alone was enough for Danger Discernment to display a red dot.
Once they confirmed who I was and put away their weapons, the red dot disappeared.
"I'm Seed. A member of the Lid of Tartarus."
The short, blond man holding a spear introduced himself.
Visually, about Agaro's age, maybe. He had a cut scar above his eye.
"I'm Dokkas. Also a member of the Lid of Tartarus, baa."
The one who introduced himself after Seed was a dwarf.
He bore a vague resemblance to Hoss, but had a beard.
"I-I'm Mires Cornwell. A g-guild-affiliated ruins inspector..."
The woman answered in a timid manner. Her long gray hair concealed her eyes.
Large fox ears and two tails. The same fox-tribe as the witch. Just one tail short, though.
She wore glasses, but they were just frames with no lenses — I wondered if they even served a purpose.
"I'm Agaro."
"I'm Narcissus Utopia!"
"Um, um, I'm Juicy Tassan."
"I'm... Wof."
"!"
"!"
"Huh? What are you even talking about? You..."
"Man, I'm glad you're alive! Really glad. But let's not stand around chatting here. I'd love to sit down and have a proper talk somewhere!"
"Yeah, we've got a place we use as a base."
"This way."
"Ah, um..."
The three of them led the way.
"Hey, wait—"
"Narcissus."
I whispered to her.
"Hmm? Oh, oh. So that's how it is."
"So please."
"You really don't have to worry about that... but well, everyone has their own way of seeing things. Fine, I understand."
The reason I used a fake name was that I didn't want to attract attention.
Maybe I was just flattering myself.
But when I learned about Cerberustarn's reaction, I had a feeling it really wasn't like that.
That was why I gave a fake name. I didn't want to attract attention, and it just wasn't the right atmosphere for it.
We arrived at the control room, which had a pedestal in it.
A mat was laid out in one corner, with two sleeping bags placed on it.
"We mainly use four rooms, with this control room as the hub."
"Four?"
"Yeah. Food production room, shower room, break room, and the toilet."
"Food production?"
"Miles figured it out using that pedestal over there. Apparently it can produce some kind of high-nutrient paste, and that's what we've been eating. Looks rough, but the taste is decent. There are dozens of varieties so you don't get sick of it — that's the nice part. There are drinks too."
"Alcohol?"
"Unfortunately, no."
Ceed smiled. Agaro looked disappointed.
"Anyway, back to what I was saying. The shower room has a shower — hot water comes out and you can wash yourself. The break room is used by Miles. I don't need to explain the toilet, right?"
"I-I'm the only one with a r-room, all b-by myself... s-sorry about that."
Miles bowed her head.
"It's fine. You're a woman, Miles, and if you hadn't been here, we'd have starved to death."
"Life saver, she is."
Miles bowed to the two of them once more.
"Things seem pretty well set up here. Feels reassuring."
"Come to think of it, where did you guys come from, Agaro?"
"That's what I need to talk about, but first—"
Agaro carefully pulled a delver tag from his pouch and showed it to them.
Seeing it, Suid and Dockas caught on right away.
Mirese realized a beat later and crumpled to the ground, trembling.
"Ah—aahhh... ah..."
"Are you okay?"
"H-hey, are you alright?"
"S-sorry..."
Better leave her to Narcissus and Juicy.
"What happened?"
When Agaro asked, Suid began to explain.
"We went to check the 44th floor and got jumped by a shady bunch. We turned the tables on them, but I have no idea why there'd be a band of thieves on a special floor. We tried to report it to the guild, but we screwed up and Mirese got snatched. We couldn't just leave her behind—she's a woman, after all. Who knows what they'd do to her while we were off reporting to the guild. So we headed for this town to rescue her. They had a necromancer, and the zombies he controlled were a pain, but we cornered the bandits in these Avusdrakudu ruins. We rescued Mirese and killed their boss. That part went fine. But there was something terrible in these ruins—something worst of all, sealed away. That necromancer bastard unleashed it. That's when we got separated from the other three, and we fled in here. We got lucky, but another problem came up."
"Ah—so that thing being outside is why you can't get out."
"That's part of it, but there's... another problem too."
"Another one? Suid. What is it?"
"Before that, Agaro—how did you guys get in here?"
"O-outside, there's—uh, that thing, that thing..."
"Nah. No way from the surface. No way."
"That thing—"
Agaro spoke.
Seed, Dokkas, and Mirese were stunned.
"Whaaaat? You took that thing down...!?"
"It's true."
"How the heck did you do that!?"
"D-d-d-defeated... you d-defeated it? H-how, how did you—"
"That's—sorry. I can't answer that."
I was the one who did it.
"R-right... as expected of a First-Class Delver."
"Being able to take that thing down isn't normal, I tell ya."
"...R-really... you actually... took that thing down...?"
"I'm First-Class too, you know. Not that I could ever take something like that down!"
Narcissus said, brimming with confidence.
"Y-yeah."
"D-dead on."
The two of them were somewhat taken aback by Narcissus's enthusiasm.
"S-so, we can get outside... right?"
"That's right. There's also a forced teleportation stone. We can get out right now."
"Seed!"
"S-Seed..."
Dokkas and Mirese looked at him with expressions that said, "What are we going to do?"
He wore a troubled expression, lightly shook his head, then looked at Agaro.
"...If we can beat that one... Agaro. There's one more problem."
"What is it?"
"There's something on the lowest floor that absolutely has to be destroyed."
"Absolutely?"
What now.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"It's... an event trigger device."
Seed said gravely.
"An event trigger device...?"
"A device that can generate events at will."
Events at will?
"Huh. That sounds like quite the thing."
"Um, um, uh, it's a really big deal!"
"Y-yeah. It's, uh, really, d-dangerous, so..."
"Something like that exists?"
I was skeptical, but the purple glow on the lowest floor did seem to support that claim.
"It does. Agaro, you should understand why it needs to be destroyed."
"...Yeah. That thing's gotta go."
If it could really generate events freely, then yeah—obviously.
That's absolutely not going to end well.
"Um, um, um, do we really have to destroy it? If it can generate events at will, can't it do the reverse too?"
"It can't. All it can do is generate events."
"Besides, even if you could get rid of it, that thing isn't exactly manageable. If it ended up in the wrong hands, it'd be a disaster."
In fact, the bandits had already been trying to misuse it.
"It already became a disaster. The thing that broke the seal on that was the power of the Event Generator. It triggered a 'break seal' event, and the seal came undone."
"That's the worst..."
"Something like that. It's anything goes, isn't it?"
"Was it sealed in the same place as that device?"
My obvious question.
As if it's the kind of thing whose seal could be easily broken at any time.
"No. That device was brought by the necromancer. Well, you can tell just by looking at it — what kind of device it is. Now you understand, right? An Event Generator. It has to be destroyed, no matter what."
"Yeah."
"Let's smash it to pieces!"
"Then why don't you do it yourself, Seed?"
Agaro asked in a calm tone.
He was right. If it really should be destroyed, Seed should have done it long ago.
Seed let out a sigh.
"...The necromancer. He became undead as the price for unsealing that thing."
"He became undead and now he's guarding the device."
"A-a-and t-that undead, it's a, a L-Lich!"
"A Lich, huh?"
A Lich. A high-rank gold-class undead. I'd heard they were wielders of Dark Relics.
"And that bastard turned into a Lich while still holding onto the necromancer's Relic."
"That's troublesome."
"But it's not unbeatable. Right? 'Doom Sword.'"
"Yeah. Let's take it down quick, smash that device too, and go home."
We were finally starting to see the end of this.