Vol.3 Ch.49 - Enter the dungeon

Finally, we can officially start this damned dungeon raid already (took uslong enough)! After we got dressed, Miss Dola noticed the quality of myattire, complimenting the red coat with an It suits you. Miss Lionheart gotready soon after, although she groaned the most about getting out of bed. Iunderstand where she’s coming from, but we gotta do what we gotta do, andthere’s no other way around it. I noticed Sullivan steal some glances at herdirection, but I didn’t think much of it. He’s probably staring at the cleavageher tank top only accentuated. Linus, being the Old Man that he was, took thelongest to get out of bed. There was actually a point in which I thought hecroaked in his sleep, to be honest (but don’t tell him that!)After we got all our gear ready, we set off into the freezing wasteland thatwas the Northern Pole. I inquired about the location of the dungeon, shakingand shivering the whole way through, to which they simply glanced back andreplied It’s another 30 minutes that way as they pointed to what my compassshowed as East. F-F-F-F-Fuck…“S-S-So,” I shivered, “anyone got any stories to get our minds off of thesheer cold?”“Ooh! Ooh! Pick me!” Miss Dola raised her hand, “Okay, so this is a storyabout how I became an adventurer! Basically, my goal was to get rich fromall these ultra-hard commissions and retire early! But don’t take me for anamateur, this is my 6th commission, and I’m doing just fine!”“No one considered you an amateur,” I said, “but isn’t there a bit more to itother than money? Y’know like, the thrill of adventure?”“Nah.” She brushed off my question, “I don’t really care all that much, unlessI get a reward for making a huge find or something, I couldn’t really careless. I’m just in it for the money. Brown Iro and all that.” She offhandedlyremarked.“Oh right, now that you mention it, you’re the first Brown Iro I’ve met.” Icommented, “So you’re aiming for an easy life, eh? ‘Finish school, get a job,marry, have kids and retire’ was the motto for your Iro I believe?”“Wow, you really know your stuff, Lune! You’re making me blush” Shecomplimented my knowledge, “But yeah, I don’t want anything grand in life, Ijust wanna skip the pleasantries and enjoy a quiet life, I guess. You can tickoff the first two of those, but marriage, kids and retirement are still in theprocess of being done.”“Well, I can’t really say I understand why you would just accept such aboring life, but I guess that’s because of our Iros differing. I wish you luck insatiating your desire.” I said sincerely.“Ugh, you read Eldenfreud?” She scoffed, “God I hated that guy, his bookswere so morbid, too much for me. But thank you, Lune, I appreciate it.”After walking for a while more, I asked Sullivan the same question, purely tosee his stance on the matter. He was apprehensive to answer, before justquietly murmuring I’m looking for someone… and refusing to elaborate. Itried pressing him a bit more, since I have quite a vast portfolio of friendsmade, so maybe the person he’s looking for is someone I knew.“I’m looking for… a girl.” He muttered once more, “You don’t know her, tobe honest, neither do I.”“How’s that work? Are you indebted to someone who knows her orsomething?” I asked earnestly.“Jeez, get the picture already!” He raised his voice, “I’m looking for… asoulmate.” He lightly blushed.It took all my mental strength to not burst out with laughter. You’re riskingyour life daily to find a girlfriend!? And in the middle of the North Pole, noless! Pf t-! I can’t with this guy, can he be any more of a laughing stock? Iknew he was a douche, but to be this much of a scum is something new toeven me, the leader of a Gang! I internally critiqued him, all the whilemaintaining my composure on the outside, as I at least had the decency to notout him in front of everyone.“Did you say something, Sully?” Miss Lionheart tilted her head.“Uhh…!” He flubbered a bit more, realizing she might’ve heard him.“We were just talking about why we joined the ITA.” I said in his stead,“He’s got quite the cool story behind it, but never mind him. Miss Lionheart,what’s your story?”I decided outing him or being sarcastic would only harm the party’s unity, soI tried my best to sincerely talk him up some in front of the other partymembers as I tossed the ball to her.“Oh my, well that sure takes me back.” She calmly remarked, “If I remembercorrectly, I was just following along with my boyfriend’s whims at the time. Iwas very young, and very naïve, so I would listen to anything he would tellme.”“Oh, I see…” Sullivan slumped his shoulders, “Where’s this boyfriend nowthough, sounds quite irresponsible to leave your girlfriend alone on the otherside of the world, doesn’t it?”“Oh, he died during a commission against a Minotaurus.” She stated withouta care in the world, “But don’t worry, he wasn’t the brightest fellow.”Everyone expressed their condolences to her with a sad gaze, except forSullivan who donned a hopeful expression while doing so. Dude…“How about you, Lune?” Miss Dola asked back, “Do you have any reason forjoining the ITA?”“To be honest, I wish I didn’t. I only joined because I needed a passport, butit was always my dream to travel to and document every country in the worldone day. I’d like to be to future generations what the great Schnell Douglaswas to me.” I said with a nostalgic expression, “I started off in TrivisNumerica, exploring with my childhood friend Edward and my other friendAnna. Together we helped spread Anna’s grandfather’s restaurant brandacross the entire country.”“I remember this one! You told this whole story to me when we first met!”Linus joined in on the conversation.“Yep! It’s been a few years since we’ve parted ways from Anna, as shestayed behind to spread the brand to an international scale. Me and Ed on theother hand went to explore Great Hiana, and there we became Generals ofthe largest gang in the country. Wow, saying it out loud like this kind of makesit hard to believe, eh?” I stopped my recollection of the previously transpiredevents as I realized they stopped listening, thinking I’m hyperbolizing thecontent.“Don’t worry, Lune, I’ll vouch for you.” Linus said as he turned to the otherparty members, ”Kiddos, I’ve seen it with my own eyes. This boy is in factthe leader who unified the entire Great Hiana underworld in a single year.The gang he commands is known as ARA, I believe?”I thanked him for being on my side all this time, but it also made me feeldouble the shame of jumping to conclusions and attacking him back during theparty’s first meeting. To think so much goodwill and kindness could bepacked in a single Old Man…“Well, here we are.” Sullivan stopped the conversation as he pointed to alarge, luxurious-looking shrine, “Shaid’s Temple, otherwise known as theDungeon we were commissioned to explore.”“Finally!” I screamed out in joy, “Finally some shelter from this damnedfreezing winter land! My fingers were starting to get numb from the cold!”“Yeah…” they looked at me with a sorry expression, “It actually isn’t at allwarmer in there than it is out here. In fact, due to the moistness of the walls,it might actually be colder.”FUCK!***Making our way inside, we find that the entrance in and of itself was like thefirst trial, in that the large stone door was tightly closed shut. We triedbudging it open, they said, but to no avail. No matter, I’m sure there’s a wayin, we just gotta use our brains a bit.“Look, there’s a little hole up there where we could probably squeezethrough.” I said after looking around the premises a bit.“Yeah,” Sullivan said, pointing to Miss Dola, “maybe Marina could orsomething, but no one else.”“That’s good enough, Miss Dola, I’ll boost you up.” I said, cupping my handsand leaning against the wall under the hole.“No way!” she immediately protested, “What will I do in there alone?!?”“Find a way to open the door from the inside, duh.” I said, as if recitingcommon knowledge, “This is like the first chapter of Schnell’s handbook.”“Come on, dearie, you’re our only hope.” Miss Lionheart tried convincingher as well, “All the boys are too big to fit, and certainly, thanks to my assetsI can’t either.” She said, fondling her chest.This seemed to aggravate Miss Dola quite a bit, so she did it purely out ofspite. Now this might just be because I got used to Cecily’s lightness, or justthe fact we all wore heavy coats, but I could barely lift Miss Dola (even withmy strength training!)She hopped up and entered the hole no problem, though. From the other sidewe could hear a thump and an Ow! before she gave us the okay and triedfeeling up the walls for any lever to open the doors.“Found something!” She said with joy, “But I can’t really make out what it iswith these gloves, I’ll have to take them off and feel it up like that.”I guess she has guts, after all. I’d never take my gloves off at this temperature,I’d rather die!“Argh! I can’t recognize it from touch after all!” She said, “Throw me a torchor something!”After we lit a torch (with a match), I tossed it over to her, to which we hearda loud scream. After asking what happened, fearing the worst, we actuallygot the best outcome.“W-What I was holding was… a human skull.” She assured us of her safety,”It just scared me a bit, that’s all. But at least I can now see a lever thanks tothe torch.”After those words, we heard a lot of gears turning, mechanisms moving, andthe shrine door opening. As such, we promptly entered to reconvene with thehelpful Miss Dola. We congratulated her for her bravery in doing what shedid, but I think all she wanted was to wash her hands…Officially entering the dungeon, what we found in front of us was anotherpuzzle. This was a simple one, three stone blocks, and a clear indentedpathway suggesting we had to move them to their designated spots in order toprogress further. It’s something I’d read about in almost every chapter ofSchnell’s handbook, to the point where he actually jokingly started referringto them as…“The Annoying Block Puzzle!” Sullivan shouted out, finishing my thought, “Ialways wanted to try these. Lune, you know what I’m getting at, help me outwith these!”“With pleasure!” I said, taking off my coat as I rolled up my sleeves to getready for work.The process was way more tedious than we had originally thought, though, assome of the pathways converged, leading to us realizing we had to maneuverthe blocks in a specific way, so as not to put a block in the wrong spot. Butthis was nothing for the Schnell appreciators! We expected this to be thecase, and since we read up on a lot of Schnell’s encounters with this verypuzzle, we solved it in just about 10 minutes. The others sort of just sat downand waited for us to finish, since they couldn’t even follow what washappening.“Umm, pardon my impudence, O’ Great Bookworms…” Miss Dola raisedher hand, “But how do you even understand this puzzle layout?”“That one’s simple!” Sullivan explained, “The key is to imagine the layoutfrom a top down Point of View, which makes the entire puzzle a cakewalk!”“I do believe that tip was first mentioned in chapter 16 of Schnell’s ‘Journeyto The Archipelago’ handbook, Mister Streiks?” I asked him with my mostformal tone.“Indeed it was, Mister Grimheart. You’ve a very keen eye for these things,good on you!” He answered back in a similar tone.“Jeez,” Miss Dola groaned, “to think you’d forget all your previous quarrelsin the blink of an eye purely because of this Schnell shmuck.”Both of us immediately stopped what we were doing and turned to face her,making the loudest gasp we deemed appropriate. We immediately shoutedYou take that back! at her, since insulting Schnell was blasphemous in ourpresence. She laughed out loud a bit, since we both said the same thing at thesame time, noting how similar the two of us actually are.“We’re not!” Sullivan said first, “He’s got a wife, and a daughter on top ofthat! What’ve I got? Nothing!”Well now I feel kind of bad for almost making fun of him. I guess this must’vebeen eating away at him for quite some time. I heard finding a lover by acertain age was commonplace in some religions, so maybe that was the case?This is why I just say I’m a Pantheist and/or tell anyone who asks that I’m notinterested in religion. I like all the stories of each God, but I don’t like therules and restrictions they each enforce. I guess I’ve no other choice but to behis wingman when we get back home, then. I’ve decided, this cool of a mandeserves a woman, damn it!After we all cheered him up a bit with words of encouragement, we finallybrought him back to his old, prideful and confident self. As I was about tohead further inside the dungeon through the door that opened after wecompleted the puzzle, Old Man Linus hesitated for a bit.“I think we’ve done enough for today.” He said, “Let’s head back home andrest for now. We’ll continue tomorrow, no need to rush.”“There is no way to close the door leading out of the Shrine,” I refuted, “Thisis a race against the clock, we’ll get buried by the snow if we don’t finishthis up in one fell swoop. And if we wait for tomorrow, then the Shrine willjust get buried and we won’t be able to enter anymore.”They all seemed rather alarmed at my observation, so they had to grit theirteeth and, despite their worried expressions, follow me into the second floor.