WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Mordor
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Surviving the Frozen Dark Fantasy as a Genius Mage ◈
Chapter 40: Prisoner's Tower
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The stench of beasts and blood stung my nose.
We caught our breath in the fog-shrouded garden, surrounded by the corpses of Twisted Hounds.
‘Elena's okay, and so are Daisy, Hans, and even the dwarf.’
Our party had come through that chaos unharmed.
There were thirteen of us, and Gimlius had shouted himself hoarse as he cut down the hounds rushing at Daisy and me.
[Guilt into courage and faith. Gimlius burns with fighting spirit.]
The other parties had not suffered much either, aside from a dark elf slave warrior and two human members of the elf man's party getting bitten on the arms.
Both sides had taken damage, but their responses were completely different.
“Lowborn wretch. You bled against trash like this?”
“I apologize.”
Drian, the dark elf assassin, berated the bleeding slave warrior.
Meanwhile, the elf mage took out a wooden bottle of ointment and personally treated his party member.
“Are you all right?”
“Y-yes, thank you, Elrond, sir.”
Now I knew the elf mage's name.
“If we stay here, the monsters will keep coming.”
After picking up the Mana Stones, I took the lead as soon as I said that.
Mob mentality.
I wanted to move first and deny them time to get any other ideas.
···
Thankfully, the two groups that had gone back to glaring at each other began following behind our party while keeping their distance.
Under normal circumstances, we would've discussed what spells or graces everyone had, along with the loot split, so there wouldn't be any arguments later. But with the two groups on such bad terms, everyone stayed silent.
‘We'll work together for now, but if anything happens, we'll kill them all.’
‘Something like that, probably.’
And they expected us to explore a Secret Dungeon and kill the boss monster in this state?
Phew. This wasn't going to be easy.
The one good thing was that Secret Dungeons hid enchanted items that were normally difficult to acquire.
‘If I loot this place properly, I can make the kind of money that would take more than ten expeditions to earn!’
Naturally, as a veteran, I knew the locations of all the hidden treasures.
For example, there was a hidden piece inside that well.
It was deep and dark, and monsters could appear inside. How was I supposed to retrieve it? Just as I was considering that...
At Darnen's signal, the dark elf assassin swiftly climbed into the well and brought out the hidden item.
“This is it, right, Darnen?”
“Mm.”
Fuck, I should've shoved Elena in first and worried about whether it would work later.
They'd taken it.
“What's wrong?”
“That was fast.”
Ignoring the dark elf mage, who tilted her head in confusion, I thought to myself.
That woman knew this place.
That had to be why someone as strong as a fourth-floor Expedition Party member had entered an outer dimension on the first floor.
‘I forgot that all the high-level mages in this world are intellectuals.’
‘If I'm not careful, they'll take everything.’
After passing the well, we soon came upon a tower with a drawbridge.
A decrepit, three-story structure shrouded in fog.
It was the Prisoner's Tower, which we had to clear to escape.
Whooooo.
The darkness inside the tower was as thick as the fog outside.
“I smell blood.”
Elena and several front-line fighters from the elf and dark elf parties moved their torches around.
Rotten barrels and broken furniture filled the place. The brick floor and ceiling formed a grid pattern, and old bloodstains clung unpleasantly to the walls.
Despite our tension, no monsters had appeared yet.
“There are torch brackets here...”
The tower contained beds and wardrobes, as if people had once lived and slept here, along with torch brackets placed here and there.
“Don't touch it carelessly, you lowborn wretch. Do you want to die?”
A human party member from the elf side tried to light one of the torch brackets, only to be cursed at by Drian.
“Those damn black bastards...”
The human warrior spat out an insult, but the dark elf was right this time.
There were special gimmicks and traps that activated simply by lighting a flame or changing the shape of a magic circle.
As far as I knew, this wasn't one of those traps, but there was no harm in being careful.
“What? There's nothing here.”
The Expedition Party members clicked their tongues after rummaging through shabby rooms and the armory.
Unlike them, I was searching through a bookshelf that looked useless.
[Cowards who lack the courage to accept the coming end, or the courage to fight against it. I seal them here.]
[This is a place dedicated to Nasihira, the God of Fear.]
[The imprisoned sinners shall suffer eternal punishment, stripped of all humanity and intelligence.]
[Hehe... gooo... oooaaahhh...]
The handwriting on the last line looked smudged, making it especially unsettling.
That wasn't important.
I quickly pulled out a thick bundle of parchment tucked between the books.
[White Parchment] x 3
Scrolls.
They were valuable items that allowed ordinary people, not just mages, to use spells.
These White Parchments could store one spell and be used whenever needed.
“...”
The hidden piece concealed near the prison entrance.
When I picked it up, Darnen, who had been searching nearby, fixed her gaze on me.
I shrugged.
What?
“You seem familiar with this place, Mr. Ian.”
The elf man hadn't spoken, perhaps because he didn't want to reveal a weakness, but he seemed unfamiliar with this place as well.
‘The dark elf group entered this first-floor Secret Dungeon to find that, and the elf mages followed them here?’
She looked like she wanted an explanation, so I gave her one.
“Yeah. I'm a genius mage, so I know everything.”
“...I see.”
Was it because she was an elf and a fellow mage?
She seemed to accept this body's genius almost instantly.
“No, I think she just doesn't know where to start picking apart your nonsense...”
Leaving the stupid elf's jab behind, I began explaining the Prisoner's Tower.
“The first floor has the prison area, the second floor has the Blood Cave, and the third floor has the Guardian's Room.”
Once we left the Jailer living quarters where we were now, the real prison would begin.
Not long after we moved, we came upon a prison area filled with iron bars.
There had to be dozens of cells.
The darkness was so thick that nothing could be seen beyond the bars.
Still, strange sounds echoed from within, as if something was sniffing the air.
“They look filthy.”
Darnen and Drian stared beyond the bars, apparently able to see something.
Dark elves possessed darkness-piercing eyes as a racial trait.
They were more suited to exploring the Labyrinth than anyone.
Clang!
An arm suddenly shot out from between the bars, and a man thrust his face against them.
His head was bent at an unnatural angle, and his pupil-less eyes stared at us.
“A zombie?”
“He isn't dead. He's a living prisoner. But he's out of his mind, so you can think of him as a zombie.”
Clang! Clang!
Uuuuuuuu!
When we tried to ignore them and move on, the bars opened on their own, and the prisoners inside crawled out.
They must have scratched the walls and bars for so long that their nails had fallen out or broken off, leaving their fingers red with dried blood. Their bare legs were black with grime.
Most importantly, every one of them was naked. Their genitals, either rotting or afflicted with venereal disease, were exposed in full.
They had the disgusting appearance of beasts in human form, but after seeing every kind of monster, they were almost cute by our standards.
“Should we kill them all?”
“Yeah.”
Arrows fired by Hans and the other Scouts pierced the Jailers' necks or eyes.
The front-line fighters from each party swung heavy greatswords and maces, slaughtering the beastlike humans.
Splat!
They were weak, but there was a problem.
“Damn it! Everyone, group up! There are too many!”
“Fuck that. How are we supposed to trust you bastards?”
There were a fucking lot of them.
On top of that, no one was cooperating, which made the battle more difficult.
‘Looks like they don't intend to step in.’
I looked at the mages from the two parties.
Spells were powerful.
High-ranking mages could wield more varied and potent magic, powerful enough to reshape heaven and earth.
Yet they shared one limitation with novice mages.
Their number of spells was fixed.
That was why mages wanted to conserve them.
It was even more so when the mages of the two parties were hostile toward each other.
In the end, that meant more pressure fell on everyone else.
And my role as a free mage grew more important.
‘Though I need to conserve my spells too...’
[Frost Burst]
“Everyone, fall back.”
The tip of my staff gleamed bluish, and a wave of frost poured forth.
Screeeech!
Like prehistoric humans facing an ice age, the prisoners flailed while letting out incomprehensible cries, then froze solid.
The front-line fighters pushing them back from all directions only had to shatter the frozen statues.
And collect the Mana Stones, of course.
‘The Mana Stones are unusually good because it's a Secret Dungeon.’
“As expected of Ian!”
“Haha! Its power is amazing every time I see it!”
The warriors' delighted faces stiffened.
Thud! Thud!
Massive footsteps suddenly echoed from deeper in the dark corridor.
The prisoners who had survived, though they seemed to lack all reason, heard it and trembled in fear before retreating behind the bars.
“A golem?”
Someone muttered.
But it wasn't anything that cute.
Huff, huff.
‘There it is.’
The instant I heard its disgusting breathing, I spoke to Daisy.
“Daisy! Light!”
“Got it!”
Daisy cast a Divine Power spell and illuminated the darkness.
Under the radiance, something with skin as pale as plaster covered its eyes.
Urrr...
Its bumpy skin was covered in lumps, and its eyes were narrow slits.
Its hunched back and muscular body made it resemble a troll.
“W-what... a troll?!”
“Even in an outer dimension, something like that appears on the first floor...?”
Even for a Secret Dungeon, a monster with that kind of reputation wouldn't appear here.
That was...
“It's not a troll. It's a Jailer.”
A monster that only appeared in this Prisoner's Tower.
“Fuck, it has three legs...”
Gimlius was intimidated for an entirely different reason.
The creature, nearly three meters tall and wearing only a scrap of cloth below its waist, had something as massive as its body hanging between its legs.
“Rape... rape.”
What was worse was that it smacked its lips while looking at us, then made the thing stand erect.
[Guts, whose leg was broken, was captured by the Jailer.]
[Back, let me see your back...]
[Thud, thud, thud! The sound of flesh rubbing together echoes.]
[Death would have been better.]
If a character got caught by that thing, they would suffer a horrifying fate.
Whether they were male or female.
“It's a monster that realizes true gender equality.”
“Are you insane? What kind of bullshit is that? Ugh, disgusting...”
“H-how are we supposed to fight that...?”
Elena's face twisted, while the front-line fighters who had to face it head-on were intimidated.
Thwang! Thud!
Hans fired his crossbow, but the creature casually blocked it with its thick forearm.
A crossbow bolt that worked against second-floor monsters barely pierced its skin.
“M-my lords! That's impossible!”
“Elrond, sir...”
Then someone bravely charged at the Jailer.
“Raaah!”
A warrior with short legs, equipped with dwarven-style armor, an axe, and a shield.
It was our alcoholic homewrecker, Gimlius.
“God of Fire and Anvil! Protect...”
Despite that momentum, Gimlius couldn't withstand the force of the Jailer's mace and was sent flying miserably.
“Gack!”
‘I’ll give him credit for courage.’
Its reckless aggression and toughness alone were on par with a higher-tier third-floor monster.
That bastard's weakness was...
‘Sorry, man to man.’
I fired an Ice Spike at its dick.
Urr?
A cold, stinging sensation.
The creature blankly looked down at its severed genitals, then frothed blood from its mouth.
Screeeeeeech!
Then it began stomping around and thrashing madly.
“Huh?”
“Hey! Hey, hey! That just made it angrier!”
Elena was horrified, but after stomping in place a few times, she rushed forward.
At first, her steps were light.
Then she accelerated, moving unpredictably.
Clang!
Elena lightly kicked off the bars set into the wall and appeared behind the rampaging Jailer.
Yet its skin was so thick that even her Bracelet of Wrath-enhanced strength couldn't pierce it.
“Tch.”
Just as the Jailer tried to mindlessly slam its mace down onto its own back...
“Get in there!”
“Kill it!”
The front-line fighters from the other parties blocked its path.
They battered it with shields and drove axes into its knees.
“Now, elf!”
Elena seized the chance, wrapped one arm around its thick neck, gripped her sword in a reverse hold with half-swording, then stabbed into its eye socket and twisted.
Was her posture unstable?
Or was the blade too short?
She failed to destroy its brain.
Tch, what a shame.
Still, considering it was her first time fighting a higher-tier monster, she had fought well.
‘I’ve got White Parchment anyway.’
‘Let's test the power of that spell.’
Watching the situation, I brought together the fingers of my left hand, the one not holding my staff.
Crackle!
For a moment, my hair and fine body hair stood on end as a tingling sensation spread from my palm.
The next moment, flashing lightning formed into the shape of a wedge in my hand.
[Lightning Arrow]
My new spell, acquired through the magic experiment last time.
“Everyone, get away from it!”
Like a barbarian hurling a javelin, I threw the Lightning Arrow.
Flash!
Light burst forth.
Graaahhhhk!
A monster on the level of a higher-tier third-floor creature.
The freak had continued rampaging even with a sword in its eye and shattered knees, but when it was struck by the Lightning Arrow, its body convulsed wildly before collapsing.
Sizzle!
It met a miserable end, charred black and smoking.
“...!”
“Hmph. This body is none other than Ian, God of Thunder.”
I casually shook my hand, still crackling with electricity.
Footnotes:
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