The Hyzen Plains were booming.
That was because the Great Hyzen Forest was sealed off.
There were monsters on the Hyzen Plains too, but... they weren't all that strong.
You could get by if it was just Alpha or Beta-class ones.
But I'd heard that many had moved away from Hyzen because Gamma-class ones weren't worth the trouble.
On top of that, the subjugation villages on Finger Rock had taken severe damage. Reconstruction was in full swing, but they were short on hands.
They were so understaffed that even subjugators were being dragged out on commission requests.
From the Guild's perspective, they wanted to reopen the Great Hyzen Forest as quickly as possible.
But after the last Forest Wave, they couldn't just ignore the danger.
And then the news about my dungeon creation came in, so you can imagine how thrilled they were.
I honestly felt bad about that.
But when I considered the big picture, I believed it was something necessary for Hyzen's future.
"What we're heading to now at the southern tip is a subjugation village that was abandoned a few years ago."
We were making our way to the destination aboard a special high-speed carriage custom-built by the ZenZela family.
It was an absurd thing that could go three times normal speed. And no, it wasn't red.
There were no rules about carriage specs for commission requests, so it wasn't cheating.
Inside the carriage, we sat facing each other.
No one sat next to each other.
And Giza wasn't in his usual butler outfit.
She was wearing a thin, grey bodysuit that covered her entire body.
Over that, she had on protectors made of pale leather and metal.
The pale protectors reminded me a little of the dwarf armor Hoss carried around.
According to her, this was the subjugator style, though... I never would've guessed from when she wore that butler outfit.
She was the type who looked surprisingly different depending on what she wore.
Her chest, which was a respectable size, swayed occasionally with the carriage's rocking, and seeing that made my heart skip a beat just a little.
"Why was it decommissioned?"
"A large monster appeared, and in the fighting that followed, Finger Rock crumbled. It could no longer serve as a subjugation village."
So Finger Rock had been the safe zone of the subjugation village.
"When it crumbled, its effect disappeared too?"
"Yeah. And on top of that, that place was a fairly large subjugation village. The guild had no choice but to decommission it. That area's on the edge, so relatively strong monsters tend to show up there. It's a popular hunting ground these days."
"I see. That must be why there were so many witnesses."
"But even they ended up with casualties."
"The Spider Woman..."
"Originally, there were no spider-type monsters in Heizen."
"Really?"
That surprised me.
The carriage arrived at Finger Rock's subjugation village. Seriously fast.
This was now the southernmost subjugation village.
The village here sat on top of Finger Rock itself.
The carriage made its way up a spiral path and stopped at the village's stable.
"…The air here is unpleasant."
Gieser muttered as he stepped down from the carriage.
The village had a faintly tense atmosphere about it.
"There are few subjugators around."
Or rather, there were few people passing through at all.
"Wof. Over here. You can see it from here."
Gieser beckoned me over.
From that spot, I could make out a massive collapsed boulder and buildings lined up directly below it.
So that was the abandoned subjugation village. It was bigger than I'd expected.
Hm? Beyond that, I could faintly see an enormous gray wall.
"What's that wall back there?"
"That's a mountain. A rocky mountain. It encircles Heizen completely."
"…There's no way over that, is there?"
Even calling it a mountain, it looked nothing but a wall to me.
In my past life, I had memories of climbing things like that using gear and equipment.
Rock climbing. Even so, getting over it would be extremely difficult.
"That's right. Which is why it's practically impossible to reach here by land."
The official routes were designated as river or sea.
"An unnaturally isolated island. As I suspected, this is a dungeon."
"Isn't it a bit late for that? Wof. We can hear what the witness has to say, but what do you want to do?"
"Please."
"This way. Apparently he's at the tavern."
We entered the monster-hunting village's only tavern.
The only one, yet it was nearly deserted — just a single customer.
A man sitting alone at the counter, sipping his drink little by little. Could be him.
"Hey. You the witness?"
"...Yeah, that's right. You from the guild?"
"That's right."
The man looked Giza over, then glanced at me.
Without a word, he gestured for us to sit.
"Nothing major. I saw something, sure, but I only caught a glimpse."
"What did you see?"
"...Thought I was hallucinating at first. The great forest got sealed off and earnings took a nosedive. This area's the only place that still pays, but it's not exactly a breeze. The forest was always the real money. But a guy's gotta eat, so I started taking some risks out here. Figured I'd worn myself out and started seeing things. A completely naked woman."
"Huh?"
"Wait, what?"
"...No mistake about it. She was completely naked. And quite the beauty, too... but I realized right away — that wasn't an ordinary naked woman. Her skin had this... texture. Too smooth. Not human skin. And above all, she was black."
"Black?"
"Yeah, not dark-skinned. Black from the top of her head to the tips of her toes. And — damn it all! Why am I only remembering this now? That woman, that black naked woman — she was the spider woman from the Forest Wave! She was white back then, so what's with the switch to black? Huh?!"
"Calm down. You've had too much to drink. Barkeep — water."
Giza forced water down the throat of the man who was losing it.
"...The black spider woman."
That's when it hit me. The white and black souls. The white one became Nekia.
The black one—Nabel should have taken care of the dungeon's anomaly.
"This doesn't bode well."
Giza muttered, even after physically quieting the man down.
The man was slumped over the counter. Well, whatever.
We headed for the subjugation village in the ruins.
From here on, it was on foot.
We cleared the monsters along the way with ease and arrived at our destination.
"...It's a ghost town."
"That's an interesting way to put it."
Giza gave a wry smile.
Right—does this world even have that expression?
Buildings lined up in rows, and the scale of the place was more town than village.
The Finger Rock had collapsed, and several buildings lay crushed beneath it.
"It's strangely quiet."
"Strange. With ruins this extensive, it could easily be a monster nest."
"..."
[Danger Discernment] showed no reaction either—wait. What? Three red dots appeared out of nowhere. Heading this way.
Head-on, bold and straightforward, from the front.
But there was nothing there. Could it be transparent—no, that wasn't it.
"What's with this rumbling?"
"It's underground! Giiza, watch out!"
"Kyaaa!"
I shoved her out of the way in a flash. She let out what sounded like a cute scream, but I wasn't about to dwell on that.
Bursting out of the ground where Giiza had just been standing was a worm-type monster—literally a worm.
"What the hell is this thing?!"
"It's a woooorm!"
Ugh… its whole body was elongated and slimy for some reason.
The ring-shaped mouth at its tip was lined with jagged blades, and something wriggled deep inside.
Disgusting.
Tentacles sprouted around the mouth, with four bulging eyeballs wedged between them.
Disgusting.
And there were three of them.
Disgusting.
"Ugh, I've never seen a monster like this."
"There aren't any in Heizen?"
"Nope. This disgusting thing? I've definitely never laid eyes on it!"
Well, same here. First time for me too.
I only sound like I know what I'm talking about because of memories from my past life.
The three worms squirmed about.
I was still shaken by how disgusting they were, but...
"[Banish]"
When I hit one of the worms with a Banish through nothing but my eyesight, it tore apart and went flying.
Disgusting organs scattered everywhere— wait, what the heck, those intestine-like organs are alive!?
They had eyes and came lunging at Giisha.
"Aaah!"
"Giisha!"
"Don't underestimate me! [Weakness Breach]!"
She stabbed the intestine-like monster with an estoc-like sword, and it died.
[Weakness Breach] — so that's Giisha's Relic.
Somehow it seems like a strictly better version of Juishii's [Weakness Insight].
"Are you okay?"
"Yeah. Can't believe something like that was hiding in there. Stay sharp."
"Got it!"
I can't afford to attack carelessly.
Two worms left. They're just writhing around without doing anything.
Are they being cautious?
More importantly, where'd that black spider woman go?
The two red dots are these two, huh? And a white dot?
That position is on the roof.
I looked up in a flash. My eyes went wide.
The black spider woman was on the roof.
She was overlapping with the harmless white dot.
You're kidding!?