Chapter 297

Chapter 297

“It’s a maze-type dungeon.”

A strange light appeared in Zeon’s eyes as he looked around the inside of the dungeon.

Maze-type dungeons were fairly common.

That was because there was no method as convenient and cost-effective as a maze when it came to defending against intruders.

As a bonus, if traps were laid throughout the maze, it upgraded nicely into a proper death trap.

The dungeon Zeon and Briel had entered was exactly that kind of place.

BOOM—!

The moment they stepped into the maze, an explosion erupted.

That was because a magic circle that caused a mana explosion had been engraved beneath the floor panel.

Fortunately, Zeon stepped back just before the explosion, so he took no damage.

Briel and Gaia looked at Zeon with worried expressions.

“Are you okay?”

Squee?

“I’m fine, so don’t worry.”

Zeon reassured them and looked down at the floor.

“It seems to activate by detecting weight.”

“I’ll check.”

Briel took a small metal object from the subspace inside her pointed hat.

“What is that?”

“A new toy I made.”

“A toy?”

“Yeah! You’ll see.”

When Briel pressed a button on the metal object, four legs suddenly popped out.

Squee?

When Gaia was startled and backed away, Briel smiled and said,

“It’s a toy I made from metal I got from Steel Fortress.”

Squee?

“It was too hard, so it wasn’t easy to process into any other shape. That’s why I only added four legs.”

Originally, she had planned to make it in the shape of a cute puppy. But with Briel’s current level, it was impossible to fully process this metal. So she roughly added only four legs to the body, made it walk, and then stopped researching it.

She had planned to improve the rest little by little over time, but after meeting Gaia, she had completely forgotten about the research itself.

That was because spending time with Gaia was too enjoyable.

The reason Briel had taken out the toy she had abandoned for so long was simple.

It could walk.

And it was unbelievably sturdy.

There was no better item for passing through a maze where explosion magic circles were engraved all over the floor panels.

BOOM—!

When the toy stepped on the floor, the magic circle caused an explosion.

Fortunately, the explosion range was not very wide.

That was because the range had been limited for the purpose of eliminating only the intruder, not blowing up the entire maze.

Fortunately, the toy was sturdy enough to withstand the explosion.

There were a few scratches on its surface, but it had no problem walking.

BOOM—!

An explosion occurred roughly once every twenty steps.

Each time the floor exploded, the toy jolted hard, but it did not break.

Following behind the toy, Zeon said to Briel,

“That’s impressive. Are you trying to make a Golem?”

“Yeah! My goal is to make a Golem that looks like a dog.”

“Why a dog, of all things?”

“Because they’re cute.”

“I see.”

Zeon nodded.

Pet dogs were extremely rare.

It was a world where even people struggled to feed themselves. There was no way they had the leisure to take care of dogs too.

Naturally, it was difficult to find dogs in the slums.

Even in Neo Seoul, only a very small number of people kept dogs as pets.

Of course, raising a dog cost an enormous amount of money.

It was too much for Briel in many ways. So what she had thought of was a Golem that resembled a dog.

“But is it all right to handle such a precious Golem so roughly?”

“It’s fine!”

“Hm?”

“I scrapped that plan.”

“Why?”

“Why would I make a Golem that looks like a dog when I have such a cute Gaia right beside me?”

Briel hugged Gaia tightly as it flew beside her.

Squeeee!

Gaia also wagged its tail as if to say Briel was right.

“No matter how well I make a Golem, it can’t be as cute as Gaia.”

“Then are you just going to leave that Golem alone?”

“No! Later, I’ll remodel it into a combat Golem.”

“Is that possible?”

“It’s not impossible. The Awakened in the North District all use mechanical parts, don’t they? If I get some useful parts and reinforce it in various ways, it’ll turn out pretty decent. The problem is the ego......”

“Ego?”

“Yeah! If it’s going to judge things on its own and fight, it needs an ego. Without an ego, all it can do is walk like that.”

Before Kurayan perished, Magic there had developed to an extreme degree.

They had created Golems with egos and used them in battle. But when they crossed over to Earth, much of the technology for making Golems was lost.

However, Golems made in Kurayan remained in some dungeons. Golems isolated in the gaps between dimensions still moved properly even now.

In fact, even the Three-Legged Crow, the supercomputer of the North District, had a Golem brain hunted from a dungeon as its base.

Briel did not hope for anything on that level.

She only needed the ego of a lower-grade Golem that could think a little.

Zeon smiled and said,

“You’ll be able to get one someday.”

“Yeah! It’s not like I need it right now, so there’s no reason to rush.”

“For now, let’s focus on this dungeon.”

“Okay!”

At some point, the floor panels stopped exploding.

It seemed they had passed through the area engraved with explosion magic circles.

Even so, Briel did not put the toy back into the subspace.

The maze was not over yet, and they did not know what traps might remain.

The dog-like toy silently advanced.

All kinds of attacks rained down on the toy.

Sometimes poison gas was sprayed, and at other times the floor collapsed.

Because they were all basic traps, Briel’s toy did not take much damage. But that was because Briel’s toy was made from an exceptionally hard material. If it had been a human, they would surely have suffered a serious disaster.

If an ordinary Awakened had entered this dungeon without knowing anything, they might already have died.

After breaking through countless traps like that, they were finally able to enter the center where the dungeon’s core was located.

“What is this?”

Briel looked disappointed after arriving where the core was.

Usually, there was a boss where the core was, but there was nothing like that here.

All they could see were ordinary weapons decorating the walls.

Zeon checked just in case, but they were not items containing any special power.

However, the types of weapons were unusual.

Suppression batons, handcuffs, binding ropes, and other weapons that only prison guards would use were displayed there.

“It seems this dungeon was part of a prison.”

“Part? Aren’t dungeons usually isolated whole in another dimension?”

“That’s right! This is my first time seeing something like this too.”

This room had clearly been used as a place where prison guards stored equipment.

If the maze had also been used to block intruders or escapees, then that made sense.

What did not make sense was that there were no cells in sight where prisoners would actually be locked up.

This was the first time Zeon had encountered such an unusual case.

“Tch! What is this? It’s a completely broke dungeon.”

Briel looked utterly deflated.

Zeon smiled and said,

“Not every dungeon has good items, so don’t be too disappointed. Just think of it as an interesting experience.”

“Okay!”

Squeeee!

Zeon looked at the item that served as the dungeon’s core.

The item was a book.

It seemed to be a prison guard’s journal.

He opened the journal, but it was written in Kurayan script, so he could not read it. Just in case, he showed it to Briel as well.

“It seems to be ancient Kurayan. I can’t read it.”

“Ancient? Old letters?”

“Yeah! I think they’re letters used a very long time ago.”

“Then there probably aren’t many people who can read it.”

“There probably aren’t many even in my village.”

“Then it doesn’t matter if I destroy it?”

“Yeah!”

Briel had already lost all interest in this dungeon.

Whether a mere journal seemingly written by a prison guard was destroyed or not did not matter to her.

When Zeon waved his hand, blue flames appeared.

The blue flames fiercely burned the prison guard’s journal.

RUMBLE, RUMBLE—!

When the journal that served as the core burned, the entire dungeon began to shake.

The dungeon was collapsing.

Ssssss!

An exit leading outside appeared before them.

Briel said,

“We’ll go out first.”

“Yeah!”

As soon as Zeon answered, Briel escaped first with Gaia.

Zeon, who was about to follow them out, stopped.

CLANG—!

That was because the prison guard’s journal had burned away, and some kind of key had fallen in its place.

Zeon picked up the key.

“Is it a cell key?”

No matter how he looked at its shape and size, it looked like a key.

He could not tell whether it was truly a cell key, but there was no time to confirm it here and now.

Zeon put the key into his subspace and escaped the dungeon.

CRASH, CRASH, CRASH—!

Immediately after Zeon exited, the dungeon collapsed completely.

When he came outside, Briel and Gaia were waiting for him.

“You’re late. Did something happen?”

“No! Let’s move quickly.”

“Okay!”

Squee!

They had not done much, but they had spent quite a lot of time inside the dungeon.

The sun was already sinking toward the west.

Soon, the sun would set completely, and darkness would fall.

They had to find a place to stay quickly.

Fortunately, they had hardly used any stamina inside the dungeon, so Zeon, Briel, and Gaia were all still full of energy.

More than anything, because they were traveling together, it was not boring.

Briel and Gaia followed Zeon while chattering excitedly about something.

Squee?

“Why am I trying to make a combat Golem? Obviously, to protect us.”

Squee?

“Can’t I protect us as I am? Sorry! I have no talent for fighting at all. I can use simple Magic, but it’s not much help.”

Squeeee!

“Thanks for comforting me! You really are the only one. Hehe!”

The two continued chatting for quite a while after that.

Zeon let their voices pass in one ear and kept walking.

How long had they walked like that? Zeon smelled something strange mixed into the air.

‘A burning smell?’

The scent of something burning was mixed into the air.

Everything in sight was sand.

Ordinary sand did not give off a burning smell like this.

Zeon climbed the tallest sand mountain and looked around.

A strange light suddenly appeared in his eyes.

That was because he saw black smoke rising in the distance.

“Something is burning.”

Squee!

Briel and Gaia, who belatedly climbed the sand mountain as well, were surprised when they saw the smoke.

Zeon said to them,

“Let’s go!”

“Okay!”

Squee!

The three descended the sand mountain and ran toward the place where the smoke was rising.

When Zeon arrived at the scene, he frowned.

That was because black smoke was rising from the sand.

“Is there something burnable beneath the sand?”

When Zeon waved his hand, the sand flowed away like an ebbing tide. In the place where the sand vanished, a fairly large underground space appeared.

The black smoke was rising from the underground space.

Zeon took a moment to steady his breathing.

That was because the moment he saw the underground space, he instinctively realized what this place was.

“It’s a survivor village.”

“A village? Then there are people underground?”

“There were, it seems.”

Zeon and Briel passed through the black smoke and descended underground. Then a miserable village came into view.

Between the ruthlessly collapsed ruins, human corpses could be seen.

“It looks like they were attacked by Scavengers.”