Splash!
All of a sudden, I felt the sensation of being plunged into a mass of liquid. Normally, that would be a cause for panic, but in this case, I actually felt relieved. It seemed like I’d finally made it back.
Only living humans panicked in the water anyway, since they needed to breathe. Motivated by their fear of death, they would thrash about for any way to get out of their situation.
Things were different for me. Since I didn’t actually need air, I could’ve spent an entire day meditating underwater, if I felt so inclined. That’s why instead of panicking, I was able to calmly assess my current position.
Upon looking around, I realized that I was exactly back where I’d started, which was a relief. I wasn’t sure what I would’ve done if I’d been dropped into yet another unfamiliar locale.
Still, it seemed that a decent amount of time had passed—Capitan and the others must have been worried. But while the average party might have already given up on me, assuming I was dead, Capitan knew that it would take a lot more than that to make me kick the bucket. He’d wait—for a while, at least.
Either way, I needed to get out of the water. Figuring that the light filtering into the water showed which direction was up, I began to swim toward it. There wasn’t much distance to cover, and slowly but steadily I began to ascend.
And then, something suddenly plunged into the water from above. For a brief moment, I thought it might’ve been a monster or something like that, but I quickly realized that it was someone’s hand—one I knew quite well, in fact.
After reaching out and grabbing the familiar hand, I was hauled powerfully out of the water with an audible splash. I was also soaked through, but I knew it wouldn’t last long—the robe that woman had gifted to me was always quick to dry.
You might’ve assumed that my mask would rust, since it was made of something vaguely metallic, but no matter how much water it was exposed to, it always remained the same pristine, ominous skull. It was a shame, since a bit of rusting might’ve weakened it enough for me to break it. I could only assume that whatever mechanism made it impossible for me to remove also made it impossible to damage.
“Rentt! You’re okay!” came Capitan’s voice, dragging me away from my idle thoughts and back into reality. It was his hand that had pulled me out of the water.
“Yeah, somehow,” I said. “Sorry I lost you guys. You must’ve been waiting for a while, right?”
“Not that long—hasn’t even been twenty minutes. You gave us a fright when you suddenly up and vanished, though. We tried searching for you in the water, but no luck. Even started wondering if you came across some other passage and decided to take it for some reason.”
“Twenty minutes?” I paused. “I’d thought it was much longer.” That was about how long I’d been talking to that woman. The vision I’d had—one of the dungeon’s memories, according to her—had been much longer.
“Why?” Capitan asked curiously. “Did something happen?”
“Yeah, just... A lot, actually. You didn’t see anything strange, did you?” The woman had mentioned there was a chance the others might’ve seen the vision too.
Capitan’s eyes widened. “No, not me.”
The way he phrased that made it sound like...
“So someone else did?” I asked.
“Diego,” he confirmed. “He passed out earlier—not for long. Says he saw a strange vision. Waved it off as his thoughts playing tricks on him, but from what you’re saying, I’m guessing that’s not the case, huh?”
So Diego had seen it too? That sort of made sense. It seemed like Capitan and the trio hadn’t seen the vision at all. I was no expert in these things, so could only think of a few theories as to why that had been the case, but it seemed safe to assume it was because the people in the vision had been Diego’s parents.
This dungeon had a long history—it had been around since before Lucaris even existed. The number of people who’d delved into it over the generations must’ve been uncountable, and the same went for the number of memories it must’ve accumulated. The inner mechanisms of dungeons were beyond me, but it seemed natural to conclude that Diego was the reason I had seen that vision in particular.
I’d have liked to meet that woman again so I could’ve asked her, but I knew that was just wishful thinking. She definitely wasn’t the kind of person you ran into every day. If I ever did get another chance, though, I had a very long list of questions for her.
That aside, the first thing I needed to do right now was...
“I’d like to ask him about it,” I said. “Where is everyone?” Capitan was the only one around—I couldn’t see Diego, Niedz, or the others anywhere.
“They’re scouting out the area up ahead,” Capitan answered. “This is usually a safe area, but there’s no guarantee nothing is going to show up. Since we don’t have all day, I thought it best to get Niedz and his friends accustomed to the dungeon.”
“Will they be okay?”
“They have Diego with them, so they should be fine. The monsters that show up around here aren’t that strong, anyway—just lesser sahagin and the like. Five or so would probably be enough to get Niedz, Lukas, and Gahedd in trouble, but Diego could handle ten on his own, and they never show up in such numbers anyway.”
It seemed Capitan thought of Diego quite highly. To be fair, so did I—the way he’d moved during our first encounter had been enough to tell me that the beast-folk possessed a great deal of inherent skill. He hadn’t revealed all of his cards, obviously, but at the bare minimum, I knew he could handle himself.
As for Capitan, he didn’t need to have seen Diego fight to reach the same conclusion—he could’ve simply picked it up from the way the man moved. That was a master for you. My judgment wasn’t nearly as good, so my quick reads on people’s skill levels weren’t always quite that accurate.
“All right,” I said. “Will they be back soon? Or should we follow them?”
“They’ll be back soon. I told them not to go too far, ’cause I knew you’d come back.”
Any number of things could’ve happened to me, but it seemed that Capitan had chosen to have faith I’d pull through regardless. I was lucky to have him as my mentor. “Sorry,” I said.
“It was no problem, really. What happened, though? Diego didn’t vanish, so there must’ve been more going on than just the vision you had. Where’d you go, anyway?”
“Honestly, I’m not completely sure myself. But—”
I proceeded to give Capitan a summary of what’d happened to me—including my conversation with the woman. There was little I needed to hide from him... Well, actually, there wasn’t a single thing I couldn’t tell him, in fact.
“Strange...” Capitan mused, when I’d finished. “This incredibly powerful woman—you said she isn’t an enemy? Hmm. Still, I’m not sure just pondering the topic will turn up any answers for us.”
That was a rather blunt way of putting it, but I couldn’t disagree. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”
“It’s the same in the forest. Sometimes, you’ll run into a real scary monster out in the backwoods, but they tend not to have any interest in tiny humans like us. The woman you mentioned is probably the same. And if they ever do show an interest in you? Not much you can do besides try and fight back, even knowing it’s futile. That sound like an accurate description of her?”
“Pretty much,” I agreed. Capitan wasn’t just spouting empty platitudes—he was speaking from the experience he’d gained over a lifetime spent as a hunter. Sometimes, there really were forces beyond a human’s ability to resist. “I guess I’ll set the matter aside for now, then. The dungeon comes first.”
Capitan nodded. “Yeah. We’ve been talking a while, so Diego and the others should be returning soon...”
Suddenly, a chill ran down my spine. I exchanged a look with Capitan, realizing that he’d gotten that same sensation.
“Did you feel that?!”
“What was that?!”
Whatever had struck such terror in us, I sensed that it was far up above. The next moment, an immense mana signature flooded the dungeon, and the entire structure began to tremble.