Surviving in a Frozen Dark Fantasy as a Genius Mage - Chapter 37

WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Mordor

◈ Surviving the Frozen Dark Fantasy as a Genius Mage ◈

Chapter 37: The Portal Knows the Answer

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Transfer devices that made Expedition Party members laugh and cry.

The Labyrinth had a whole fucking variety of portals.

Red portals that led to the next floor, blue portals that returned you to another area or city, random portals, Secret Dungeon portals, lower-floor portals, and so on.

The two portals before us were red and blue.

Entering the third floor was the kind of madness that meant you wanted to kill yourself, so our choice was the blue portal.

The second floor was the same as the first.

It could return us immediately, but another area could appear instead.

They called that hitting the ceiling.

If another area appeared, taking a blue portal there would guarantee our return.

‘There are other ways to open a guaranteed return portal...’

‘But we don’t have what we need.’

That uncertainty, so unreasonable it felt unfair, was what sharply raised the already brutal difficulty of Dungeon of Death. It was also the gimmick that drove hardcore gamers wild.

Of course, it also made it a fucking dead game with barely any players.

‘Salt Cave, or Burning City.’

If another area appeared, things would get even worse.

“...”

So, standing before the portal, we took a moment to pray.

Maybe other Expedition Party members with plenty of food would find this portal and arrive while we waited?

Maybe it would return us to the Labyrinth.

That was our hope.

“Daisy. What does your god say?”

“There’s no answer.”

“Please... Please...”

Everyone prayed for luck in their own way.

I did too, but honestly, I expected the worst.

‘Isn’t the Coin of Fate going to appear?’

The Coin of Fate hadn’t appeared either, and I wasn’t exactly lucky.

‘If I were lucky, I wouldn’t have run into a Heavily Armored Draugr in the snowfield!’

After waiting for about an hour, we held hands.

“Here we go.”

“Yeah.”

Then we entered the portal.

* * *

Whoosh.

The distant sound of waves reached us from somewhere.

The salty smell and damp air filled my nose.

The moment I opened my eyes and saw where we were, I sighed.

“Haah, fuck.”

Of course.

Like I’d get lucky enough to make a fortune, pick up artifacts, and then, ta-da, return at the perfect time.

“This is...”

“Salt Cave...”

Whoosh!

Under the dim torchlight, damp rocky tunnels covered in puddles and moss came into view.

It was the Salt Cave, another area on the second floor.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck...”

It wasn’t a return portal.

As we fell into despair, Gimlius reacted even more violently.

“Fuuuuuck!”

His face turned red, and he suddenly shouted.

“Gimlius! Quiet...!”

“Has this dwarf bastard lost his mind?!”

Silence was essential in the Labyrinth.

While Hans tried to stop him, Elena, who wasn’t on good terms with him, immediately slapped Gimlius across the face.

Smack!

Hans covered his mouth.

“Mmmph!”

He still hadn’t calmed down, so I sighed and pulled the bottle I had confiscated from him out of my backpack.

“Gimlius, here.”

“Ian?”

“A little should be fine.”

As he gulped down the liquor, Gimlius’s breathing settled as if his earlier agitation had been a lie.

“Whew. I made a fool of myself. Sorry.”

That was the bad thing about addiction.

Without the substance they depend on, addicts suffer from extreme anxiety and irritability.

‘It should be fine as long as he doesn’t get drunk.’

A moderate amount of alcohol reduced stress.

In this extreme situation, I intended to tame Gimlius.

“So it’ll take at least four days to find the next portal...?”

“That’s the average. If we’re lucky... really lucky, we might find an Escape Portal within a few hours.”

Despairing wouldn’t change anything.

We needed to figure out how to get through this.

“Everyone, get ready. Warm up, then we move immediately. Hans.”

“I’ll lead.”

Hans calmly took the lead with his crossbow and lantern.

Drip. Drip.

One advantage the Salt Cave had over other areas was the nearby light sources.

Glowing sea sponges and luminescent jellyfish shimmered in pools of water on the ground, lighting the surroundings. Crystals that gave off light were embedded in the ceiling from time to time as well.

“This was one of the requested items too, wasn’t it? Harvesting Sea Glowstone.”

Elena casually pressed a hand against the wall and pried a glowing mineral free.

“This place is better than I expected...?”

Daisy looked around.

Despite what Gimlius and I had warned her about, the Salt Cave was quiet and even had a mysterious atmosphere.

‘Is it really?’

The farther we went, the more we realized Daisy had been wrong.

Drip. Drip.

Along with the sound of water dripping in the darkness came strange cries.

Ooh-ooooo.

By the time it felt as if we were entering a pitch-black maw, the cave grew increasingly sinister with every step. Rotten seaweed and slime stuck to the soles of our boots.

Red coral like blood vessels and grotesque barnacles grew in deformed clusters along the walls.

The biggest problem was...

“Urgh!”

The rotten stench that grew stronger as we explored.

It was a disgusting smell, like fish left at room temperature for dozens of days.

“Bleeugh!”

Daisy vomited the moment she smelled it.

Fucking hell, vomit was contagious. I tried to hold it in too, but I couldn’t and ended up throwing up.

[The moment they stepped into the deep-sea depths, grotesque architecture, humid darkness, and a stench strong enough to rip their noses off greeted the Expedition Party members]

[Corpse cleaners, latrine keepers, even Priests at relief shelters treating lepers, no matter how hardened they were, all vomited everything in their stomachs]

[It was not simply a matter of enduring it with a strong stomach or willpower]

Now I understood why the game had text like that.

‘Fuck, reality really is worse!’

That revolting smell was one reason the Salt Cave was so infamous.

“Cough, cough!”

“Urrgh!”

Hans dry-heaved, and even Gimlius, who had been so confident, violently emptied his stomach.

The surprising part was...

“Are you all kidding? What are you doing? We’re already short on food!”

Elena was completely fine.

Fuck, what was that?

How could she stand this smell?

Coughing through a throat burning from stomach acid, I pinched Elena’s nose.

“Ow! What are you doing?”

“I was checking whether your nose was fake...”

“Quit screwing around and take your hand off my nose.”

What kind of elf was she?

Normal elves had sensitive senses, so this should have been even harder on them.

‘I’ll definitely uncover that bizarre creature’s secret.’

Leaving that unsolved mystery behind, I took perfume from my pack.

It was something Alchemists made, essential when exploring the Salt Cave. More precisely, it was blended with enough artificial scents to numb the nose quickly and keep you from smelling anything at all.

Spritz, spritz!

“Ah, I can breathe again... Thanks, Ian.”

“Ugh. If only I had liquor... I made a fool of myself.”

After I sprayed the perfume, the party members felt a little better.

“I’m... fine. A Scout’s sense of smell is important, so I need to adapt.”

Hans’s response was surprising. He refused the perfume so he could adapt to the environment.

This old man was more capable than I thought.

Anyway, a smell like this meant we had truly entered...

‘The fishfolk’s territory.’

We needed to be careful.

“Watch the ceiling. There could be Crystal Slimes attached to it.”

[Shining Light]

The light Daisy raised illuminated the uneven ceiling of the cave, which was higher than expected.

Tiny insects and unknown things that had hidden in the darkness fled from the light.

We had no appetite, but our stomachs were empty and our stamina had dropped, so we eventually ate the food we had saved. That left us with only two meals, less than a day’s worth.

Step.

Elena’s ears perked up, and at Hans’s signal, we stopped.

Beneath the darkness, a giant water beetle the size of a child clung to something and slurped up its juices.

Judging by its shriveled limbs, it looked like the corpse of an Expedition Party member who had met a tragic end. The giant water beetle spotted the torchlight, became excited, and suddenly flew at us.

Buzzz!

It had a swollen egg sac hanging from its back.

At the same time, it burst, sending dozens of tiny water beetles flying at us.

The mystery of life being born even in the Labyrinth, my ass.

Aaaah, fuck! That’s disgusting!

The sight sent chills down my spine.

I had never resented not being a Fire Mage this much.

No, I could just fry them with Lightning Arrow...

“Ptooey.”

As I thought that, Elena spat and swung her axe, splitting the water beetle in two.

Gimlius spun like a whirlwind and crushed the hatchlings with repeated blows.

“Get back, Ian! Daisy!”

Hans stepped in front of Daisy and me, waving his torch and burning the hatchlings.

We searched through the shriveled lump of flesh the water beetle had been feeding on.

It was a corpse that seemed to belong to an Expedition Party member.

“We can’t eat this, can we?”

Elena said something insane.

We searched the victim’s remains, but there was nothing worth taking, including food. Their equipment was encrusted with salt and rusted beyond use.

“Of course we can’t, you crazy elf.”

“Then why are you tearing off pieces of the corpse?”

“I have a use for them.”

“Emergency rations?”

“No!”

As I worked on something, Daisy remembered the advice I had given before she bought her equipment and let out a sound of admiration.

“So that’s why you told us to get leather equipment...”

That was why the Salt Cave was infamous, and why leather equipment was more valued than iron equipment there.

If the dwarf who fell into the swamp had been wearing leather gear, it would have been easier to pull him out, right?

Elena and Daisy admired my judgment, while Gimlius lowered his head.

“Enough. Please forget that... Didn’t I say I was sorry?”

“I hope we find other Expedition Party members...”

After we made our way through narrow, wide, and uneven seafloor caves, Hans clenched his fist to signal us.

Daisy withdrew the light of her Divine Power until it nearly vanished, and extinguished the torch.

“Stay quiet. Let your eyes adjust to the dark.”

We lowered our bodies and watched ahead.

Beyond the faint light of crystals embedded in the walls, fishfolk with pumping gills were there.

Gulp. Gulp.

Their body structure was grotesque, as if fish heads had been forcibly shoved onto human bodies.

Blue scales stretched thin over their bones glistened with unpleasant slime, while the gills split open at their necks flared sickeningly whenever they breathed.

They carried enormous harpoons corroded by salt and stained red with blood, as though they had already found a victim.

“There’s a Shaman too.”

As if that weren’t enough, there was a troublesome Shaman among them.

“Ian. What should we do?”

Go around them? Or fight?

‘There are more than I expected.’

‘Considering there’s a Shaman, we might need to use spells.’

As I considered it, the ceiling trembled and an odd vibration ran through the cave.

At the same time, a green field of energy wriggled into view in the corner.

“Eh?”

“I-Ian, isn’t that a portal?”

Just when it seemed we would be trapped in the Salt Cave, another choice appeared.