How long had I been swimming?
The light filtering down from the water’s surface had faded to a faint glow, and my surroundings were as close to the dark of night as they could get without being pitch-black. A night on the surface under the stars would have provided much better visibility.
That we were able to navigate our way down at all was thanks to the sea lamps we each held, a type of magic—uh, I mean, cursed tool. Conveniently, it would remain lit underwater for an indefinite amount of time, with the caveat that if you tried to use it on the surface, it had a chance of literally exploding in your face. Hence why it was regarded as cursed.
Apparently, it had originally been considered an ordinary, if flawed, magical item until an eccentric had decided to randomly try it underwater one day and discovered its primary purpose. I couldn’t tell you how that person had come up with the idea of bringing a lamp underwater, but it was thanks to their efforts that we could operate in the depths with any efficacy at all, so I wouldn’t be complaining.
It occurred to me that there were a lot of things in this world that made you wonder how they came to be. Most foods, for example. I badly wanted to ask the population of a particular local region how they had come up with the idea of eating great winter frogs and curtis mants—a type of killer mantis.
In the end, it was probably the same story as all of humanity’s other achievements: constant, repeated failure until something strange slipped through that happened to work. That description kind of applied to me too. I was fairly certain that there weren’t many other adventurers out there who had been turned undead after being eaten by a dragon, and likely fewer still dreamed of reaching Mithril-class one day.
Hey, following that logic, I would count as a step forward on the path of human progress, wouldn’t I?
Such were the idle thoughts playing through my mind as I continued to swim downward. Before long, I noticed the light of the sea lamp in front came to a stop, then swayed side to side. That was the signal we’d decided on beforehand—it looked like Capitan had reached the dungeon.
One by one, the other lamps all gathered around the first. Mine was the last to join. As I got closer, I could see everyone’s faces by the lamplight—Capitan, Diego, Niedz, Gahedd, and Lukas.
It was a relief to see that we’d made it without losing anybody. I hadn’t been particularly worried for Capitan, Diego, or myself, but Niedz or the others could’ve easily gone astray. I’d kept a close eye on their lamps to ensure that didn’t happen, but it was nice to have confirmation. Depending on certain factors, the journey down to the dungeon could’ve been even more dangerous for them than the interior, since at least they wouldn’t get separated from us easily once we were inside.
Speaking of the dungeon, we had arrived. Our six sea lamps revealed its entrance—partially, anyway. It was too large for the light to reach it all. Niedz, Lukas, and Gahedd, having never seen it before, were staring with wide eyes.
The Dungeon of the Sea God’s Daughters, on the whole, appeared to be a gargantuan stone temple. Curiously, its pillars and roof were curiously wrapped in vine-like plants that resembled their surface counterparts. Coupled with the thickets of massive coral that clustered together in every available open space, it made for a magical sight indeed.
While there didn’t seem to be any aggressive-seeming monsters around, there was a fishlike behemoth swimming lazily around the dungeon’s vicinity, large enough to swallow all six of us up in one bite if it were so inclined.
Niedz sent me a look that said, “That thing isn’t going to attack us, is it?” but I couldn’t give him a definitive reply. Not all monsters were hostile toward humans, but like ordinary animals, it wasn’t unusual even for the friendly ones to suddenly bite the metaphorical hand that fed them out of nowhere. If that behemoth felt like it, we could very well end up as food in its stomach, just like that old folk tale of the giant fish that had swallowed a ship whole.
I could use Splintering or something to extricate myself, of course, but the others weren’t so fortunate. They’d have to cut themselves out the old-fashioned way.
Since it was preferable to avoid that problem altogether, it was best that we hurried into the dungeon. The others seemed to share my thoughts, because Capitan signaled us to follow after him and began moving again.
The reason we’d stopped to regroup lay in the coral and vegetation surrounding the temple. With how much there was, it made the path to the entrance a veritable maze. If we’d proceeded with the same distance between us as on the way down, we’d have lost sight of each other quickly. Additionally, it seemed that the giant fish was prone to aggression, if you irritated it enough. So if we wanted to spend the least amount of time getting into the dungeon as possible, we needed Capitan to guide us.
We followed him through the forests of coral and plants. The former I’d kind of expected, but the more I examined the latter, the more I realized they looked exactly like the greenery found on the surface. There were even flowers in full bloom.
Was this a case of a dungeon bending the rules of nature, or had these plants always been here? I couldn’t tell—while I considered myself quite knowledgeable about the medicinal uses of plants, I wasn’t much of a botanist when it came to everyday flora, let alone an undersea variety I’d never encountered before.
I saw Lukas pluck several of the flowers, though, so maybe they were relatively well-known in Lucaris. I made a mental note to ask him about it later—there had to be all kinds of things he knew that I didn’t. If we could share, it would benefit us both.
The six of us reached the dungeon’s entrance. Though not exactly small compared to us, it was small enough to seem mismatched against the sheer size of the dungeon. It also wasn’t located in the center, but in the far corner. I wondered why that was.
Since we were still in the water, however, there was no one capable of answering my question. Capitan gave us the signal to advance, and we followed after him.