WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Dionysus
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◈ The Wizard's Memoir ◈
Chapter 31: Breakthrough
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Etran let out a long yawn as soon as they opened their eyes.
They had marched for three-quarters of a day and fought a battle last night. Even at the ripe young age of seventeen, they couldn't shake off the fatigue so quickly. Mental exhaustion had also built up, though Etran was too unfamiliar with it to recognize it.
“That really is our only option.”
As proof, the venerable elders in their twenties and thirties, who had fought even harder, were already awake.
“If the Guild sends people...”
“There's no time. It'll take at least three days.”
Etran stayed quietly in bed and listened. Olivia, Rolf, and the axe warrior were having a serious discussion about the cemetery dungeon.
Someone suggested waiting a little longer for a party from the Guild, but the situation didn't allow it. One day to get there, one day to return, and at least another day to gather adventurers. At this rate, the oak forest, all of Elf Garden, would be covered in zombies by then.
“We'll clear the dungeon ourselves.”
Their final decision was to act swiftly. The longer they delayed, the worse things would get, so they would move in and clear it quickly. With the two parties working together, they had a chance.
“First, once the rest of my party wakes up... Shit! You scared me.”
Olivia jumped at the sight of Etran lying there with their eyes wide open. That seemed to mark the end of their lazy morning. Only then did Etran stretch and get up, drawing a chuckle from the archer.
“What a strange one.”
“What? Are you insulting our mage? Wanna die? Wanna die?”
Dahlia threatened the archer with a flurry of short punches. Swish! Swish! The archer didn't spare even a chuckle for that.
Rolf was on cooking duty today. They lit a fire in the hideout's hearth and set an iron pot over it after roughly scraping out the remains of the last meal.
Now on their eleventh day of camping, the axe warrior's party couldn't take their eyes off the meat and vegetables they hadn't seen in so long. It was understandable, considering they had spent more than five days gnawing on nothing but hardtack.
“What about Ash? Should we leave Ash here?”
“We should ask them. Would it be all right to bring a mule?”
“There's enough room, but I don't know how many monsters there'll be.”
“Being left alone here would be just as dangerous, so let's bring Ash. We need to travel light anyway. We can load all our bags onto the mule.”
Since the subject had come up, they began the briefing while continuing to eat.
Like most ancient tombs, it was built of stone. Sixteen small rooms lay in different directions around a large central chamber. Five had collapsed under tree roots and couldn't be explored. Each room contained between three and seven zombies.
“They'll have respawned by now.”
“And there'll be a hell of a lot more of them.”
The stairs to the second level were in the room due north. The dungeon entrance was due south, so they would have to break through at least three rooms: a small room, the large chamber, and another small room. They had hoped there might be a shortcut, but the axe warrior shook their head.
“We checked the beginning of the second level. Its layout was the same as the first.”
“So the second level has sixteen rooms too...”
It wasn't something they could clear in a single day. If there were third and fourth levels, it might take weeks. The difficulty of finding the conditions for clearing the dungeon would rise exponentially with every level.
When Etran and Rolf looked worried, Olivia cleared away the clutter of bowls and spoke briskly.
“There's no point sitting here worrying about it. Let's just give it a try. We already know it'll be dangerous, so prepare properly.”
The leader was generally right. Five humans, one halfling, and one mule began bustling about.
@
Unlike the citadel dungeon, the underground dungeon was hard to spot.
Using an oak tree with its bark stripped off as a starting point, they carefully counted their steps until they found a hole eight feet, or roughly 2.4 meters, across in either direction. Without a guide, even a seeker would have wasted an hour or two looking for it.
“How did you find a place like this?”
The inexperienced adventurer asked in wonder. The axe warrior laughed heartily and called it professional know-how. In other words, they had stumbled upon it.
Nothing serious had happened on the way here.
As the archer had warned, there were a few zombies that didn't take afternoon naps, but they weren't a threat. The warriors dealt with them without Etran or Rolf having to waste any resources. From here on, however, things would be different.
“I can't promise what'll happen down there. Be ready for anything if you're coming.”
Olivia's and Fimmel's parties formed a new battle formation.
The axe warrior, who knew the way, would serve as the main tanker. The shield warrior, Olivia, stepped back to become the secondary tanker. The archer and crossbow wielder would take turns attacking from the middle, while the seeker and mage moved to the very rear.
“Why am I at the back?”
Etran questioned the arrangement. The archer and crossbow wielder were fast, but neither could match a mage's firepower.
“So you can save your mana.”
“But I...”
“I know, I know. You've got a huge mana reserve. Even so, take it easy for now.”
As they had experienced last night, this was no ordinary dungeon. They needed to be fully prepared for anything. Dahlia had been sent to the back for the same reason. There would be plenty of work for a seeker from the second underground level onward, so they needed to conserve their strength.
The decision had been made by experienced leaders with good instincts, leaving little room for argument. Etran took Ash's reins and obediently fell back. The axe warrior strapped a targe to each forearm and struck them together with a Clang!
“Let's go.”
They descended the stairs, worn down by the years, one step at a time. The slope was gentle, but the stairs went deep. Whether because of the tension or the shifting light and darkness, it felt as though they were going down forever.
Etran sent up a Light Orb and examined the ceiling. Neatly squared stones had been laid in overlapping layers to form a curve. Etran knew nothing about architecture, but the arched roof looked very sturdy.
‘Are these ruins from the ancient kingdom? Or from remote antiquity?’
Either way, it was an unimaginably distant past by human standards.
Etran turned their attention from the past to the present. Viewed from the very back, the party was a remarkably uneven bunch. The tallest member, the axe warrior, was twice the height of the smallest, the halfling. The archer and crossbow wielder were the same height, but one was one and a half times as wide as the other.
‘Adventurers.’
Setting aside objective features and going by feeling alone, adventurers were all about individuality. Etran wondered if any other line of work brought people together regardless of profession, background, race, age, or gender.
While these idle thoughts passed through their mind, they reached the last step. Before them lay the southernmost room, one of the eleven the axe warrior's party had explored.
“There they are!”
Rolf raised the crossbow and squeezed the trigger. A quarrel vanished into the darkness and drew out an eerie cry.
“Graaaargh!”
Etran brightened the Light Orb as far as it would go. The underground zombies, untouched by the sun's effects, rushed them all at once. An axe and a mace went out to meet them in turn.
“Wesley! Shoot!”
The archer, Wesley, drew five arrows at once. They held three in their left hand, put one between their teeth, and nocked the last. Then they fired at an incredible speed.
Three times, their right hand took an arrow held against the bow and set it on the string. The arrow between their teeth came last. The whole sequence was so fast that it looked as though an arrow appeared on its own whenever they drew the string.
‘Isn't a bow much better?’
That thought lasted only a moment. Shooting quickly didn't mean shooting more.
After firing five arrows in a row, the archer lowered the bow. Drawing a longbow even once took effort, and their muscles were screaming after doing it so many times in succession. In contrast, Rolf kept winding the windlass and firing steadily, one shot at a time. They had fired five and four shots respectively. Not a single shot had missed.
“Whew... Whew...”
The monsters the two shooters couldn't finish were left to the warriors.
The two-handed axe severed a limb and threw a zombie off balance, then the six-flanged mace smashed its skull without delay. Apart from loose, rotten teeth and disease-carrying nails, the monsters had nothing that could be called a weapon. The corpse monsters became plain corpses, piling up one after another.
“There are so damn many!”
When the first party had explored this room, there had been three. Now there were twenty. The number respawning had risen almost sevenfold.
“So a room that had seven...”
“Will be crawling with fifty.”
At that point, they needed to worry about their weapons before their stamina.
Arrows and quarrels could be recovered, but some inevitably broke with use. Bladed weapons also suffered damage fairly quickly. Zombies had little blood or fat, but after hacking through ten or so, a blade's sharpness noticeably declined.
“That's why I use a mace.”
Olivia proudly showed off their trusted weapon. But even blunt weapons would bend or break if used to strike things over and over.
“Wait. If they respawn in a day, isn't clearing them out pointless?”
Dahlia spoke while drawing the shotel they hadn't even used, just to show it off. With monsters appearing in such insane numbers, there was little point calculating individual contributions. Besides, the only parties tackling the dungeon were Olivia's and Fimmel's.
“Wouldn't it be better to just break through to the second level?”
There was no need to kill every last one of the so-called trash mobs. Everyone briefly looked at Dahlia, then turned away. They hated to admit it, but it was an excellent idea.
@
They kept their tactics and changed their strategy.
It was usually the other way around, but this time they meant it literally. They would maintain their battle formation and break straight through to the second-level entrance due north.
“A timed run?”
“A timed run?”
“You get dungeons like that now and then. If you don't get through in time, a trap shuts you in, and you're as good as dead.”
“...That sounds terrifying.”
There was no trap here, but the danger was much the same. Zombies might be slow, but being caught by one was extremely dangerous. Whether human or monster, something clinging on for dear life wasn't easy to shake off. Once their numbers reached double digits, a person could be crushed to death without even being bitten.
“We'll open a path. Stay close.”
“If things go wrong, abandon the animal. Using it as bait should buy us some time.”
“No!”
“No!”
Etran wrapped Ash's reins around their hand and gripped them firmly. Despite their looks, mules were very fast animals. There was no need to worry as long as Etran didn't lose hold.
The leaders of the two parties gripped their favored weapons and moved forward. One step, then another. Step, step. Stepstepstepstepstep... They broke into a light run, then a full sprint, charging forward with frightening force.
The Light Orb couldn't keep up, and a zombie suddenly appeared ahead. Without hesitation, the bear-like warrior smashed it with a targe. Bang! It was only a blow, but it sounded like an explosion.
Olivia also held their shield close and shoved zombies aside. They swung the mace as little as possible. Whenever a zombie grabbed at them, they knocked it away with their armor and kept advancing.
At some point, zombies surrounded them on all sides. There was no way to count them. Fifty? A hundred? They kept pouring out of the dark passages to the north, south, east, and west. There might have been more than two hundred, or even three hundred.
“Eyes forward! Keep running!”
Dahlia called out the warning. The warriors were breaking through so quickly that there was no time to look around as usual. A few zombies managed to squeeze into the middle of the formation, but Rolf and the archer dealt with them smoothly.
“There are so damn maaany!”
How long had they been running? The axe warrior gave an unusual battle cry and launched a front kick. The zombie blocking the way folded at a right angle and went flying. Just as Etran wondered what that had been about, the reason became clear. A place darker than the darkness appeared beneath their feet.
It was really only a shadow cast by the angle of the Light Orb, but somehow it looked like the mouth of a huge monster that even light couldn't reach.
“The second level!”
Etran shouted brightly. From here on, they would be in a truly unexplored dungeon, one Olivia's party would have to conquer.
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