WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Mordor

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Mistaken as the Dungeon Boss Monster ◈

Chapter 2: Accepted into the Nest

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<Lv: 44>

Race: Death Knight

Passive Traits: [Advanced Swordsmanship], [Natural Healing]

Active Traits: [Enhancement], [Evolution]

Stat...

"This is actually real."

A status window floated clearly before my eyes.

I'd spent two hours denying reality before I barely managed to accept it.

I'd been transported into a game. Something so unreal that I'd only ever seen in webtoons and web novels had happened to me too.

"Ha."

A cold breath escaped with my sigh. The breath of the dead, not the living. It reminded me once again that I'd become a Death Knight.

Even my reflection in the spring looked utterly bizarre.

Instead of a face, I had a skull that resembled a Black Death-era doctor's crow mask. Deer-antler-like horns rose from it, while white hair devoid of color and vitality hung down.

My body was hidden beneath black iron armor, but it was probably all bone. I looked exactly as I remembered.

Of all games, I'd been transported into 72 Dungeons, and to make matters worse, it was on Undead Difficulty.

Putting aside my miserable situation, what was I supposed to do now?

What else? First, I had to survive.

This was an age of dungeon raids and monster extermination. The moment humans spotted me, I was bound to be hunted by an Extermination Party.

Wasn't the human faction the reason Undead Difficulty was so brutal in the first place?

"At least I still have the status window."

My base stats, as shown in the status window, were decent.

But was I absurdly overpowered? Not at all.

I was only a Death Knight, a high-ranking undead.

The only difference was my active traits: Enhancement and Evolution.

Ironically, this character's original class had been an Enhancer.

That was because the Easter egg turned you into a random undead.

Anyway, an Enhancer was a class that fought by enhancing weapons or evolving familiars. Or rather, a class that made others fight.

And now? All my enhanced weapons were gone, and so were my familiars.

Yet my active traits had remained intact.

"Right. It's better than nothing."

At least they hadn't been reset.

Evolution was useless for now.

I couldn't use it on myself, only on familiars.

I wasn't a high-ranking Lich, and I didn't even have a baby skeleton familiar. It was practically useless to me.

Enhancement, on the other hand? Every piece of a Death Knight's basic equipment was A-rank. If I succeeded at enhancing them, I might become an overpowered Death Knight carried by my gear.

Creak, creak.

Even drawing the greatsword from the rusty scabbard strapped to my back was a struggle. It felt like scratching a chalkboard with my nails, making my fingertips tingle.

As I finally drew the greatsword and looked it over, a status window notification appeared.

[Black Knight's Black Iron Greatsword (A)]

[Durability: 90]

[Enhancement Chance: 10%]

[※Warning! If enhancement fails, the item will be destroyed automatically!]

[If enhancement fails, the cooldown will reset.]

[Would you like to enhance the Black Knight's Black Iron Greatsword?]

[YES/NO]

"Destroyed?"

Had I read that wrong? There hadn't been anything like this before.

In the game, even if I failed, I could retry after a one-hour cooldown and keep going until I succeeded.

Was I getting this shitty penalty just because this was reality?

...What if the others were the same?

[Black Knight's Black Iron Armor (A)]

[Enhancement Chance: 4%]

[※Warning! If enhancement fails, the item will be destroyed automatically!]

[Black Knight's Black Iron Gauntlets (A)]

[Enhancement Chance: 8%]

[※Warning! If enhancement fails, the item will be destroyed automatically!]

[Black Knight's Black Iron Helmet (A)]

[Enhancement Chance: 6%]

[※Warning! If enhancement fails, the item will be destroyed automatically!]

My hope that it wouldn't be the case faded like a dying ember.

No. Don't fall apart here.

I'd feel better if I just thought of it as never having had those traits in the first place.

Think positively. Positive thinking.

Who was I? A Death Knight who would almost never die.

I didn't need to eat, sleep, or fight, so wasn't this completely lucky?

Food, clothing, and shelter were already taken care of without lifting a finger.

The important thing was finding a way to hide without being discovered by humans.

The forest I was in looked dangerous at a glance. Human-made snares were scattered throughout it, and plenty of trees had been cut down.

It was practically advertising, "There's a human village nearby."

If I wandered around in broad daylight, any death that followed could practically be called natural causes.

On top of that, this was a spring.

Wild animals gathered where there was water, and hunters patrolled springs to hunt those animals. That was probably why there were snares nearby.

Exaggerating only a little, someone might have already spotted me through the bushes and passed by. Please let that not have happened.

'I shouldn't move carelessly right now.'

During the day, villagers could enter the forest, while the forest at night was dangerous for humans.

If I wanted to move while avoiding humans, the dark of night was the right time. More than anything, undead took damage after prolonged exposure to sunlight.

As a Death Knight, night would make an excellent cover for me.

It would've been nice if one of my traits had a stealth function, but it was unfortunate that I had a spellcaster class.

Was there somewhere good to hide until nightfall?

A forest with sparse vegetation should have plenty of places to conceal myself.

I should look for somewhere suitable for undead, someplace sunlight couldn't reach.

If there really wasn't anything, should I dig a hole and bury myself alive?

"Hm?"

There was a hole behind some vines and a large rock, its interior impossible to see.

Thanks to the vines concealing it, you couldn't even tell there was a cave from a distance.

"Accepted."

It was already naturally hidden. There was no reason to turn it down.

* * *

"Hey, rookie. First time exploring a dungeon, right?"

"Y-Yes? We were heading to a dungeon?"

"Explorers going to a dungeon, my ass. Why are you scaring him? Hey, rookie, shoulders back!"

Thump! Thump!

Henry nearly pitched forward from the rough hand slapping his back.

The senior members of the exploration party burst into hearty laughter at the sight.

"Ha... Seriously... Why's a guy acting like such a girl?"

"If he were born a woman, he'd be popular. Even now, Henry's popular with men who have strange tastes."

"Ha ha..."

Henry scratched his cheek and laughed awkwardly with them.

The Wemard Ivory Exploration Party wasn't particularly famous. It was simply one of countless exploration parties scattered across the capital.

Only a few of them made a living as explorers. Most were idle drifters hoping to strike it rich by searching ruins for treasure.

Their mindset might have been lax, but their experience couldn't be ignored.

Aside from Henry, the rookie, the members had lived as explorers for over a year, while their captain was a hardened veteran who had spent decades in the profession.

"Captain, isn't that it? The place those country villagers told us about."

"I think so."

"Wow, you really wouldn't notice it unless you looked carefully. Still, it doesn't look like ruins at all."

"It's better than sitting around doing nothing."

"That's true."

When they reached the middle of the mountain behind the village, they found a cave hidden behind vines and boulders.

The entrance looked creepy and gloomy, but to the exploration party, it felt like home.

The members followed the captain at the front without hesitation.

'We're going in there?'

Only Henry stood frozen in place.

He'd only heard rumors that ancient ruins were located in secluded places like this.

But there was a huge difference between hearing about it and seeing it in person.

They were really going into that frightening cave? It looked just like a dungeon.

Henry, who had joined to strike it rich like everyone else, only realized after seeing the cave for himself that this wasn't work he could do with a careless attitude.

"What are you doing standing there, rookie? Hey, rookie! Henry!!!"

"Y-Yes!"

"Fuck. There's a limit to how much you can space out just because you're new. Cut it out."

"Sorry, senior!"

Even when he finally followed them, Henry's steps weren't light.

Once the exploration party entered, the member at the front lit an oil-soaked piece of firewood.

When the area brightened, there was nothing particularly surprising to see. Henry, who had been tense, let out a sigh of relief.

"What? Were you scared?"

"W-Well, yes. A little."

"A little, my ass. Your face turned completely pale. I get it, though. The first time you enter a place like this, it doesn't feel like ruins. It feels like a dungeon, right?"

"Gasp. How did you know?"

"It's the same for everyone, idiot. We're all people."

Their voices echoed through the low-ceilinged cave.

It should have been noisy, yet no one told them to stop.

Even if they had grown used to it through years of exploration, humans instinctively feared the dark, and creating this sort of atmosphere in the darkness eased their nerves.

"You think I teased you about going to a dungeon for nothing?"

"Ha ha. You're right. If you'd lied and brought me here, I really would've thought it was a dungeon."

"You wouldn't have come in. You'd have screamed that we were an exploration party, not an Extermination Party, and asked why we were entering a place like this."

The members who knew Henry's shrill voice chuckled.

Wanting to pretend he hadn't heard, Henry blurted out the first thing that came to mind to change the subject.

"But this can't really be a dungeon, right?"

"Of course not. Do you think we came in without investigating first? We looked into it before entering."

"Really? It's really not one?"

"You're such a scaredy-cat. Use your head a little. According to the villagers, this cave has been here for a long time, right?"

"Yes, that's right."

"Don't you think anyone else had the same thought as you? Even without a report, whenever a place like this is found, a team from the Subjugation Guild comes by at least once to perform Mana Detection."

There were many ways to tell from the outside whether a place was a dungeon.

Most could be identified with certainty through Mana Detection.

In fact, only places that underwent Mana Detection were registered as dungeons by the Subjugation Guild.

The cave where the exploration party stood had already been identified as an ordinary cave, and it wasn't a place anyone could even suspect of containing ruins.

They had only come because the village chief had told them that any explorer should visit it at least once while staying in the village, and they had been itching for something to do.

"Ah. You never know, though. This place might be a dungeon."

"...What?"

Henry's face turned pale in an instant.

The senior continued, trying to hold back a laugh.

"Do you know what an Irregular Dungeon is?"

"W-What's that?"

"Sometimes there are dungeons that can't be identified from the outside. They say even the greatest mages can't make sense of them. Those are called Irregular Dungeons, I think. Anyway, what I'm saying is, this place could be an Irregular Dungeon."

Gulp. Henry's Adam's apple trembled.

The senior noticed, and their eyes curved into crescents. Teasing scared rookies was a senior's specialty anywhere.

"Irregular Dungeons are far more dangerous than normal dungeons. I told you, they're dungeons that can't be identified from outside through Mana Detection. Why do you think that is?"

"You just said even mages couldn't make sense of it..."

"Fuck, you're dense! There isn't an established explanation, but there are plenty of theories. Do you know what the Subjugation Guild considers the most likely one? Mana concealment. Concealment."

"Concealment?"

"Yeah. What if a dungeon boss can hide the dungeon's mana? Then it must have some intention behind it. And that means it's a boss with high standing and intelligence. They say the Irregular Dungeons that have actually been discovered were among the higher-ranked 72 Dungeons."

"The 72 Dungeons!"

The 72 Dungeons, called both the origin of dungeons and humanity's public enemy.

Children feared old hags, but the 72 Dungeons were a source of terror for everyone, young and old, male and female.

Henry's lips, already pale, began to tremble.

What if this really was an Irregular Dungeon? Wouldn't that mean it was one of the 72 Dungeons?

"If this is an Irregular Dungeon, we're all dead. Every last one of us would die screaming. Well, if you cried loudly when you were born, you should cry even louder when you die."

"That's enough, Jack. You're taking the joke too far with someone who just joined."

"Yeah, yeah. Looking at his face, he'll piss himself if I keep going."

Clank, clank.

Then metallic sounds echoed from an unknown source. They weren't noises the group had made among themselves, but sounds coming from beyond the darkness.

"Shh!"

Starting with the captain at the front, the members noticed the suspicious sounds one by one.

The vice-captain extinguished the torch and lit the lantern's wick. Then they extended an arm toward the darkness ahead, and everyone froze in place.

Ink-black full-body armor that seemed to blend into the darkness like camouflage. A skull for a face instead of a human one.

When the Death Knight turned its head, a chilling glow shone from its eyes.

Footnotes:

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