The grand temple. Southeast.
A thin column of smoke rose steadily — a campfire, as expected.
They'd made clever use of what was left of the collapsed outer wall of the grand temple. A campsite had been set up there.
Three tents. Barrels and wooden crates. It had a lived-in feel to it.
And the campfire.
"......"
"......"
"......"
On a log chair by the campfire sat Rel and Hoss.
Across from them, the giant salamander lounged with a pipe clenched in its mouth.
What a surreal scene.
A large pot hung over the fire. That smell. It was a mixed-meat stew.
"Y-you guys..."
"......"
"......"
"You're late. Axe. Wof. Mineha."
"Welcome back."
"You hungry? There's plenty of stew. Loads of beans in it, too."
The two of them were utterly nonchalant, paying no mind to our reaction.
The giant salamander puffed on a pipe. Something about that pipe looked familiar.
"Glad to see you're all in one piece."
"Good to know you're doing well."
"Why are you all so calm about this!?"
"We're used to it by now."
"Got ourselves tossed into this place."
Hoss's words made our eyes go wide.
Anyway, we figured we'd listen while having some of the stew.
...Wait. Giant salamander!?
"That's a land catfish, isn't it!?"
"That's a monster!"
The other two noticed too.
They were right, of course—but I'd seen this one before.
"Could you be Alexander?"
"It has been quite some time, Master Wof. The name's Alexander. I hail from Ipomea Nil. A humble land catfish, I am. Pleased to make your acquaintance."
"You know it—wait, it talked!?"
"Hey, hey. What's going on here? Rel, Hoss—"
Axe demanded, nostrils flaring.
Alexander. The land catfish I'd caught in the river. And I'd caught him twice, at that.
Land catfish look an awful lot like giant salamanders.
It's a monster, but some say it's an animal too—I can never tell which.
It was injured once, so I saved it with an elixir.
Back then, it suddenly started talking, and that really caught me off guard.
It said it wanted to repay the favor, but I didn't really expect anything.
Who would've thought we'd reunite somewhere as unexpected as this.
"Calm down. He's a benefactor. Well, a benef-monster, I guess."
"Alexander's one heck of a guy, I tell ya."
"Now you're makin' me blush, y'know."
"So what happened?!"
"Spit it out."
"Sure thing. It was the second day after Hoss and I linked up. We were exploring the Temple District in the west when suddenly we got attacked by an unbelievable monster. A mimic puppet box."
"You mean—?!"
That mimic.
"Mimics are silver-rank upper, right?"
"I heard the Doom Sword took one down recently."
"Yes. It showed up at the Junkyard. I was there at the time."
"What did you say?"
"Wait, you were there?"
"I was there, y'know."
"You were there?"
"I heard there were quite a few casualties back then."
"Yes… a lot of people died."
And all of them were children. That was a scene straight out of hell.
Everyone fell silent. Hoss cleared his throat and went on.
"Anyway, let's get back to the story. Even we can't handle a puppet box. When we got swarmed by all those puppets, it was Alexander who bailed us out, y'know."
"It was an instant kill. Alexander took out that puppet box in one shot."
"Wait, Alexander? You were that strong?"
The second time around he'd been baited by me, and he was injured on top of that, so I had zero impression of that whatsoever.
Alexander scratched the back of his head and deflected modestly.
"Nah, nah, I can just scrap a little, is all. Old skills you pick up — they stick with ya."
"Instantly killing a puppet box isn't 'just a little.'"
"No matter how you look at it, that's lower or mid gold-tier strength."
"Just being alive to talk about it is basically proof enough, right?"
"That's a fair point."
"Yeah, right?"
"Told ya."
"Well, I guess so."
"My, my, everyone. You sure don't pull your punches."
Alexander laughed.
Gold-tier. Lower rank.
Monster threat levels are classified as "Bronze-tier," "Silver-tier," "Gold-tier," "Treasure-tier," and "Supreme Treasure-tier."
Monsters can use Relics starting from the Bronze-tier.
The more Relics they wield, and the greater their power and effects, the higher their threat level rises.
On top of that, their rating spikes especially hard if they have a humanoid form or wield Relics that use human speech.
Applying that standard, Alexander would fall somewhere around Gold-tier — lower to mid rank.
Gold-tier is a threat level that takes multiple Rank-II delvers working together to handle. In other words, that's how strong they are.
Hoss went on.
"Let me get back to the story. At first, we figured he had to be an enemy since he's a monster. But there was no way we could've taken on something that could one-shot a puppet box. Then he goes and says to us, 'Are you two alright?' — and we just stood there, completely blank. After that, we had a proper talk and figured out Alexander wasn't an enemy."
"How can you tell he's not an enemy just from that?"
"For starters, Alexander isn't a dungeon monster. Regular monsters can't stand dungeons and won't go near one."
"We natural-born monsters especially hate dungeon monsters."
"Natural-born monsters, huh."
"And Alexander had come here on business."
"On business?"
"Business?"
"Huh? Business?"
"Alexander's job was dungeon infrastructure — setting up return teleportation circles."
"..."
"..."
"..."
We were struck speechless by the casually delivered remark.
"You mean the return teleport — the teleportation array for going back. They're installing one?"
The dungeon had teleportation arrays set up on each key floor that could send you back.
I was pretty sure the return teleportation array existed in the Legacy from Relic[Teleport]too.
So they were installing one... they'd been installing one.
"That's right. And it was a request from the Delvers' Guild, no less."
"On top of that, it was the Grand Guild's job."
"Grand!?"
"Wait, isn't that like headquarters!?"
"The Grand Guild is the main body of the Delvers' Guild, right?"
If each town's Delvers' Guild was a branch, then the Grand Guild was the headquarters.
Mineha clutched her head.
"Hold on. I can't keep up with all of this. Bottom line — land catfish. What even are you?"
"I'm just a plain old land catfish, like you see."
"That's not what I'm asking!"
"Alexander is a former First-Class Delver."
"Huh?"
"What?"
"Huh?"
We let out bizarre noises in response to Rel's casually delivered words.
"R-R-1st Class!?"
"What's that!?"
"..."
1st-Class Delver. There were only twenty-seven in the world. Also known as King of Delvers.
Even if he was a former one, one was right in front of me— I was seeing one for the first time.
Alexander flicked the ash from his pipe into the campfire. Smooth.
"That's all ancient history."
"Alexander... I heard about him from my master. He was called the Dungeon Master. A delver among delvers..."
"That's right. The Dungeon Master himself, in the flesh."
"Even we were surprised."
"I do know the name. It was the leader of 'Raven Saga'... a party formed exclusively of 11st-Class delvers that lasted for just a single night."
"Raven Saga? What's that?"
"Oh, now that's a rare thing to know about. Brings back memories."
"Something like that existed?"
"You knew about it pretty well, Axe."
"Yeah, I heard a little about it once."
"It's a tale from long, long ago."
Alexander drew on his pipe with a knowing look. Smooth.
"I get that it's impressive... but can monsters become delvers?"
I asked straight out, because the question was bugging me.
Alexander blew smoke from his pipe and spoke. Nifty.
"Can't be done these days."
"Ah, I figured."
"Animals used to be allowed back then, right?"
"Wait, animals too!?"
"The rules have changed now. Both monsters and animals can only become delvers under special exceptions."
"Huh, you really know your stuff."
"Like a fifteenth sister."
"She's a know-it-all, isn't she?"
"She loves trivia. Always picking up useless knowledge."
"It was a little useful, wasn't it!"
"---Times change, y'know. I got old and retired, but there are way fewer active delvers who are monsters or animals now."
So they still existed. Active delvers who were animals or monsters.
"But they can still be recognized as special exceptions, right?"
"There's a reason for that. Relics."
"Relics?"
"You've heard of Relic holders with transformation types, right?"
"Y-yeah."
Transformation types. There really were Relics like that.
Transformation types included animals and monsters.
I heard you stay transformed for long periods to get used to the form.
"That's why there's a special exam for that, you know."
"I see..."
Take the exam while still transformed? Couldn't you just undo the transformation at that point?
So Mineha was like that too.
"You. You were thinking I was in the same category just now, weren't you?"
She hit the nail on the head. Can she read minds!?
"No, not at all!"
"Then look at me!"
I averted my gaze.
Mineha glared at me with a pout.
Everyone else laughed. Then, since I was getting hungry, I tried the assorted meat soup.
There were all kinds of beans in it, which made me happy. Beans are highly nutritious and give you strength.
No bread-beans, though? I wanted to eat those again.
Rel spoke up abruptly again.
"So we can head back."
"Oh, right. The return teleportation circle."
"We can go back?"
"We can finally return to the surface."
"Yup."
"But it hasn't been installed yet. Also, I'll remove it after the Axe crew has left, so there's that."
"What do you mean?"
"The reason is that, as things stand, this place can't really be called a dungeon. The floors are all disconnected and unstable. But this is, more or less, the 'deepest level.'"
"The deepest level?"
"Come on. So this is it, huh?"
Axe-san was visibly flustered.
Alexander-san flicked his pipe ash into the bonfire and nodded.
As expected, he was good with his hands.
"Yes, that's what it looks like to me. The 'deepest level,' it is. I originally had a commission to install a return point on the 'lowest floor' of a certain dungeon, you see. But then that earthquake happened, and all sorts of things went sideways, and I ended up here instead."
"Is that so?"
"That's why there's a high probability that the floors aren't connected beyond a certain point. A return transfer circle is meant for delvers. There's no point installing one in a place no one visits. It would be a waste, but still."
"It certainly would be a waste."
I knew a return transfer circle cost more than double a return stone.
"Is there a possibility that someone might wander in here by mistake?"
I raised that as a question — maybe things like that could happen.
"I'll tell them to seal it off, so that side of things should be fine."
"But even so, if someone gets in, it's at their own risk?"
"That's about the size of it."
"There really are people like that, so it's a pain."
"My seventh sister is the same type."
"You'll be sorry someday, you know."
"Don't worry. I've already been sorry more times than I can count."
"Well, that sure don't make me feel any better."
"Still, though... what exactly is going on with this dungeon?"
Axe's words carried real weight.
Then Alexander spoke up quietly, puffing on his kiseru.
"Multiple dungeons spawned by the earthquake of the anomaly. Those could very well have originally been a single one, I reckon."
"Originally a single one... now that you mention it, that would explain why there were so few floors."
"More like the dungeon got chopped to pieces, yeah?"
"The earthquake from the Relic anomaly split one dungeon apart, and now another earthquake is trying to pull them all back together. That's how I see it, I reckon."
"So it really is the earthquakes, huh."
"..."
Could earthquakes really do that? But I'd already experienced it twice.
Hmm. But in the end... I asked.
"Alexander. What exactly is the dungeon anomaly?"
Everyone turned to Dungeon Master Alexander.
He took a puff of his kiseru and then spoke quietly. The man really is versatile.