Paladin, Ray Starling
“Now—you have fifty-eight minutes left! Hurry up! Do your best!” Urged on by the dungeon boss herself, we started running. There were some things that didn’t quite make sense, but we didn’t have the time to hesitate and think about it.
The four of us were now rushing through a damp, natural-looking cave.
“Maaan,” said Chelsea. “We talked about goin’ to the Tomb Labyrinth to help Maxie farm up some money, but I can’t say I expected to go to the Depths of Jealousy first.”
“Now’s not the time to say shit like that! Hell, I’m the one who borrowed the key, so this is my fault too! If she takes the arena, then forget about payin’ him back! There’s no way I could make up for that!”
“Same here...” The spare key I’d given to Max had let Overlord Invidia enter the arena, and Juliet was the one who’d brought her there. That meant they both seemed to feel pretty guilty about all this.
“Hey, don’t let it bother you,” I said. “She probably could’ve used her ult from outside the arena just as well. I do appreciate the help though.”
“R-Right!” Juliet said.
“Leave it to me! I’ll slice up her and her tentacles!” Max added.
As we talked, the cave seemed to change a little, and we arrived at a fork in the path.
“Left or right, huh? Pretty standard,” said Chelsea.
“Hey! You two saw this place in her videos, right? Doncha know the right path?” Max asked.
“The problem with that is...this place’s structure changes with time.” I said.
“I saw about three videos, but one of them had a guy go ‘Hey! I saw this place on G’s channel once!’ and then run straight into a trap, so...” Chelsea said.
“A reply truly scribed in crimson... (That makes me think of the Red Pen Teacher...)”
Shu had once told me that despite them both being in the category of “created dungeons,” Overlord dungeons like the Depths of Jealousy were a good bit different from the Tomb Labyrinth.
Apparently, the Tomb Labyrinth was the newest of these dungeons, created shortly after the time of the first Azurite, while the others had existed since before the pre-ancient civilization. The Tomb Labyrinth was deeper and housed stronger monsters, but the Overlord dungeons came out ahead in terms of troublesome gimmicks and tricks.
Incidentally, Shu had actually destroyed an Overlord dungeon while fighting The Earth.
“Wait, you’re tellin’ me you can die by just pickin’ the wrong path?!”
“Yes,” Chelsea and I instantly replied in perfect unison.
This place really was just that much of a pain.
“Then again, we can’t just stand still here,” I said. “I’m gonna keep going.”
“Huh?”
I took the left path and took a step forward. “Nemesis?”
“Certainly.” Understanding what I was planning, Nemesis prepared herself.
And when I was about three metels into the passage, my face was instantly and fully obscured.
A blue-purple mist had burst out from every direction, completely swallowing me up. Through the air I breathed and even through contact with my skin, the mist inflicted countless debuffs on me.
“I see... These must be the debuffs of these Depths...”
The Depths of Jealousy was an Overlord dungeon specialized in debuffs.
It was especially rife with poisons, bindings, and curses. That single spray had given me a whole seven status effects: Poison, which drained my HP; Magic Drain, which sapped my MP over time; Soul Drain, which caused me to lose SP; Weakness that halved my stats; and finally Lethargy, Paralysis, and Frailty which further reduced my STR, AGI, and END respectively.
There were so many debuffs that conventional items and skills wouldn’t be enough to deal with them, so most people would be forced to fight the monsters here while greatly weakened. That could easily kill anyone who was unprepared, and that made this dungeon really difficult—especially for tians, who only had one life.
Apparently, G had become the current Overlord Invidia by taking shelter in her otherworld, R’lyeh. ZZZ had probably become Overlord Acedia by using his dream invulnerability, so they were kinda similar in that regard.
Anyway... I’d just confirmed what we were dealing with.
“That was the wrong path. Past the trap, it’s a dead end.”
“Hey! Are you okay?! You look way too calm for getting all those crazy debuffs!” Max shouted, staring at me as I stood painted blue-purple by the mist. She had nothing to worry about, though.
“If anything, I’m even better than before,” I said as I showed her Nemesis.
“Truly! It has been long since this form was useful!”
She was currently in her Flag Halberd form.
Indeed, if we were dealing with debuffs, nothing was more effective than her second form’s “Like a Flag Flying the Reversal.” This might’ve not worked in the original Overlord dungeon, but this whole area was now a part of an Embryo—in other words, an enemy. That meant that Reversal could function against these debuffs. And since these status effects weren’t from a Superior Embryo fully focused on debuffs like Miss Eldritch’s Kaguya, I could reverse them into buffs without a problem.
Because of that, my matchup with this dungeon was actually pretty good.
“Though, it hit us with over twice the amount of debuffs as Hellish Miasma right from the start,” said Nemesis. “That feels unfair—perhaps even illegal.”
“No it isn’t!” G insisted. She must’ve still been observing us. “That’s just how the Depths of Jealousy works! Overlord dungeons become way harder the more people enter them! With four of you here, the dungeon will be going all out right from the start!”
Right. I’d almost forgotten that was a thing they did.
I feel like Figaro could totally get an open Overlord job, though, I thought.
“Anyway, I’m the right person for this. I’ll be our canary,” I said as I took the lead and advanced.
“Huh. A canary? Aren’t you supposed to be a Starling? How did you mix those up?”
Ignoring G’s comment, I considered that she had probably anticipated this. Her voice didn’t seem to contain even a hint of surprise that I’d used her debuff traps against her.
That could mean that she had worse traps prepared.
We gotta stay cautio—
“Ngh...?!”
“Ray?!” Juliet cried.
“Ooof... A spiked ball just jumped from the ground and went straight for his crotch... Scary stuff,” Chelsea commented.
G, you bitch! Couldn’t you set up a more normal trap?! I’ve got pain turned off, but that almost felt like it’d been switched back on!
“Ray, are you okay...?” Juliet asked.
“I-I am. My gear’s fine, and I’ll heal the damage pretty quickly with the reversed Poison...”
It didn’t hurt, but I did feel weird, like my insides had been flipped upside down...
“So there’s physical traps too, huh? Not just debuffs,” said Max.
“Well... Actually, these spikes are covered in poison,” said Chelsea as she grabbed the spiked ball.
I would’ve liked her to stop touching it, in that case.
“Actually, while I kinda get the poison mist, I’m not sure if the Depths of Jealousy is supposed to generate traps like this spikey thing. It’s just not what you’d expect from a place that looks like a natural cave,” said Chelsea, considering the trap that had attacked me.
“You’re right! That one is different. Some of the traps here were gifts from our sub-leader.”
G gave this answer like it was nothing, but...
“Who the hell gifts people traps?! And traps this messed up, at that?! It was so bad it reminded me of Mori-Mori from high school!”
“Who? That just makes me curious,” said Chelsea.
“She was a senior who challenged people to games and set traps for them, only to have them all blow up in her face!”
“The fact that you refer to her using such an odd nickname makes it clear what kind of treatment she gets...” said Nemesis.
Yeah... Honestly, she was even more of a joke than Miss Eldritch. She deserves the nickname, I thought. This trap, though... No way, right?
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