When I found the captured Black Spider Woman, I was the only one there.
Why me?!
"Where did everyone go..."
The three women who were supposed to be chasing her. And Ambrosius, who had disappeared who knows when.
Of all people, it had to be me who found her. There was something indescribable about that feeling.
All I was doing was quietly trailing after the Red Ants, like normal.
The Black Spider Woman seemed to be unmistakably the same one from back then.
The Red Ants dragged her off and led her into a small building in the residential area.
I intended to rescue the Black Spider Woman.
She was a monster, but I owed her for saving me once. It was time to return the favor.
There were no guards in front of the building.
When I went inside, there was a staircase leading underground.
As I descended, I pulled a knife from my knife belt.
A "large curved knife." Its shape was like a saber in knife form.
I held it in my hand with a casual feeling of, "Oh right, I haven't used this one yet."
Was the basement some kind of storage? Wooden boxes and barrels were stacked up, making it cramped.
As I crept forward while hiding, I found a door, and there was a single Red Ant standing guard.
I took the water stone from my pouch.
Here's the plan. Throw the water stone at a wall some distance away.
That sound caught the Red Ant's attention, and it started to approach.
Once it turns its back, I'll stab it from behind with this knife.
That's the plan.
Still, ants really are terrifying.
All clicky and crunchy, giving me the creeps — forget calling them human-sized monsters, they're just plain abominations.
Don't even get me started on the worms... They're a physiological assault.
That's why I've made my decision. I am never, ever entering a bug-type dungeon.
"Alright..."
I threw the water stone. It hit the wall exactly where I wanted it to.
*Click?*
Puzzled, the Red Ant sentry went to go check.
It turned its back to me. Now.
"Take this!"
I lunged at the Red Ant from behind. The knife blade snapped against its scales.
With a crisp snap, the "Badly Bent Knife" broke clean in half. Give me a break.
*Click-click-click!?*
"Banish!"
I cast Banish in a panic and obliterated the Red Ant.
This spell is the only thing I can count on.
"...River-bandit war loot. Most of it's garbage."
I sighed and Banished the broken knife.
Neglecting maintenance didn't help, and on top of that, the Rieve River was laced with salt, which made metal corrode easily.
Even so, if I'd treated it with even a little care, it wouldn't have turned this brittle.
I Banished the door.
Locked or not, it didn't matter.
In the dark room, a black spider woman was sitting with her knees hugged to her chest.
She blinked at me.
"H-hello."
"...Um... Wof."
"Wait, you can talk? More to the point, you know my name?"
Maybe she'd remembered Giiza-san calling me that.
"I'm sorry."
"Why are you sorry? Don't worry about me saving you or anything."
"That's not it. Did you escape?"
"Huh? What are you talking about?"
"...Me. Inside is the will of Heizen's dungeon."
"...Huh?"
I was stunned.
Inside this black spider woman was the will of Heizen's dungeon?
"...Did you escape from that shrine maiden?"
"You mean Narcissus?"
The black spider woman nodded.
Well, that made sense.
"There was an anomaly in the Heizen Great Forest, and I had the translator summon me. I tried to put up with it, but I couldn't take it anymore and ran off. I slipped into this black spider body I'd been making as a Dungeon Lord, but then that red ant nearly caught me, so I ran and ran and ended up in those ruins. That's when the worm showed up."
So she really had been put off by what I said. Well, I hadn't exactly given her any reason to like me.
Also — the black spider woman. She was a Dungeon Lord?
If things had gone differently, we would have fought her and the black spider woman?
I wasn't sure how to feel about that.
"An anomaly — you mean something wrong with the dungeon?"
"No. Someone used the Dungeon Core."
"Someone... they're the one pulling the strings behind the worm and the Red Ant?"
"That's right. A man."
A man, huh.
Sounds like he'd be some real pain in the neck, like Biggs.
Seemed like I'd have to take him down.
I was mulling that over in a rather carefree way when the noise outside picked up.
I peeked out, and the Red Ants were scrambling around in a panic.
"What's all the commotion?"
The black spider woman — Will — seemed curious about it too.
This commotion — oh, right.
"Oh... actually, she's here."
"Here? Who's here?"
"Narcissus."
"What!? Why!?"
Will reacted strongly.
I explained to her.
"That's the situation."
"...I thought she'd be locked away. I underestimated her."
So she really did plan to keep her locked up after all.
"Anyway, I'm pretty sure Narcissus is behind this commotion."
"As I suspected... that shrine maiden is always pushing her luck."
I couldn't deny that she does ridiculous things.
But this is a chance.
"I'm heading to that temple."
I'm curious about the Treasury Hall too, but eliminating the mastermind comes first.
It's harsh to put it this way, but I want to use Narcissus and the others as bait.
That's what it amounts to.
But I know they wouldn't lose.
"I'm coming too. If I touch the Dungeon Core, this commotion should die down."
"Let's go together then. By the way, can you fight?"
If he built it as a Dungeon Lord, then it was a tasteless question.
But the way he'd fled from the Red Ants didn't exactly scream "combat-ready."
"For some reason, I can't fight. My body is complete, so I should be able to, but..."
"What about Relics?"
"None."
"...Then let's head to the Treasury first."
"Treasury... why's tha—"
"There are a ton of Relic Plates in there."
The truth was, when I'd entered the Forbidden Land...
...I'd used the Fortune's Ring on my Search Relic Plate to confirm things.
There was a building next to the temple, overflowing with green and yellow light. That was the Treasury.
There had been three prominent blue flashes, and one of them was probably the Rank-Up.
"I don't have Relics on me, but I can use them. That about right, eh?"
"Yes. I want every bit of fighting power I can get."
"Got it. But I don't want to have to protect you all the way there, no?"
"Of course."
I... picked up a knife from a different sea.
Lend me your strength. Four tentacles.
We headed outside.
The Forbidden Land looked like a warzone.
The reason I say it "seemed like" is that I've never experienced war.
But from games in my past life memories, I had a rough idea of what it would be like.
There were probably several hundred Red Ants, I'd say.
Or maybe even over a thousand.
That massive horde of Red Ants was in complete chaos.
Explosions.
Hit by what seemed like artillery fire, the Red Ants were sent flying one after another.
I wondered if such a weapon even existed, but there was one possibility that came to mind.
It was Mineha's new spear — Spiral Thorn.
A preposterous weapon — or rather, a weapon of mass destruction — that could punch through the Heizen Great Forest.
Since she'd had a terrible time with it herself, she'd adjusted it over and over.
She'd seemed happy that it was now quite usable.
If this bombardment was the result, I could see how that might be an improvement over piercing through the Heizen Great Forest.
"What on earth is happening?!"
"Never mind that — let's hurry! With their numbers thinned, this is our chance!"
"Chit-chit-chit-chit-chit!"
"Chit-chit-chit-chit!"
"Kch-kchii!"
Three Red Ants spotted us.
Instantly, a tentacle coiled around one, and I took down another with Banish.
The remaining one closed the distance to zero with a single step and drove a Vibration fist into me.
In the instant it fell, I grabbed Ishi's hand and ran.
In the distance, countless black spheres were visible. Megadia's Black Spot.
She swallows them and they vanish. How is that different?
I don't think it's fundamentally different. I'm just secretly envious.
She can produce and control countless black spheres, like Phantasmagoria.
When I use Banish with my line of sight, I can fire it off.
But when handling it as a semi-transparent sphere, for some reason I can't release it from my hand.
Narcissus can't release Banish from his hand either, so that's probably just how the ability works.
But the Clown had launched it while still in sphere form.
And even if it was through line of sight rather than a sphere—he was still firing Banish.
Generous actually fires it while it's still a sphere.
So it should be possible to fire it in sphere form.
I think there's a reason I can't do that.
And I have a pretty good idea what that reason is.
My Banish rank is too low.
The rank of my Relic Banish is too low—that's why I can't release it.
In fact, when I was in the Kingdom of Unreality, I couldn't use Banish at all.
So if I rank up—Banish will become much more usable.
But the Relic Plate for ranking up that's sitting in the Treasury belongs to Pakira.
So I won't use it myself. I'll hand it over to Pakira, as promised.
We made it to the Treasury without much of a fight.
There were Red Ants, but dispatching them wasn't much of a hassle.
For a treasury, the security was surprisingly light. Maybe it wasn't considered that important?
Or maybe they didn't even know it was a treasury.
Well, from the outside, all you could see was a plain, white, boxy building.
Maybe its bland appearance was what hid the treasury.
"Hm? The door's locked? That figures."
"What do we do?"
"...Banish."
I got rid of the keyhole. This trick never fails.
I headed down the stairs underground — down, down, down — and when I finally arrived, I caught my breath.
"The Junkyard...?"
Mountains of treasure, all jumbled together with no order or system whatsoever.
My first instinct was to think it was the Junkyard. But on closer look, it wasn't junk. It was gold, silver, and jewels.
This was definitely the Treasury. But what was with this complete mess?
"Who's there."
A voice. A man's voice.
Someone was here. They'd spotted me.
"Hm? A child? A boy?"
"......Red......mask...?"
The man was wearing a red mask.
That was all I could see.
So I called out. I screamed.
"Biggs!"
"What—the hell? How do you know my name?!"
"YOOOOOOOOOSH!"
YOOOOOSH-AHHH-RAGHH!!
I punched the red-masked man flying.