With help from the other subordinates, we dragged Troach and Kanlo out in a single pull. A moment later, the trap’s lid shut with a dull, heavy sound.
“Phew… That woke me up. That was scary, huh, Kanlo?”
Kanlo nodded, unable to speak.
“Are you okay, Troach?” Mizuho asked worriedly.
Troach stood up and combed her hair back. “I really messed up there. Didn’t notice it at all. Seems it wasn’t made to trigger under the weight of only a single person, or maybe it only activates a set period after being stepped on.”
I looked at the floor more closely, focusing on the area around the pitfall. You could barely see the gap in the lid now that it was closed tight. Now that was some outstanding craftsmanship—industrial capability, even.
Raising my head, I looked around. Troach took notice of that.
“What’s wrong? You’ve got a look on your face.”
“What is an advanced machine like this doing here…? This place looked just like a naturally formed cave.”
If someone wanted to dig a pitfall, there were much simpler ways to go about it.
“They pop up sometimes—traps that don’t fit in,” explained Troach.
“Pop up…?”
As I struggled to puzzle that one out, Mizuho stepped in. “Do you remember what I said about the Dungeon Calamity?”
“Yeah. The dungeon formed on its own, expanded, and covered the whole world—”
As I said that, I figured it out.
“…You mean these traps aren’t man-made—they were produced naturally?”
“Most likely, yes. And it isn’t just the traps. This passage, the rooms, the strata—they all look constructed, but the Dungeon Calamity created the majority of them. That’s why sometimes you encounter things that don’t match the location.”
“Is that right…?”
“Oh, but not everything, of course. Just as people have modified the labyrinth to make it into a living space, other races and monsters have rebuilt things to make it easier for them as well.”
“But there’s also a lot of unexpected traps that come out of the environment nearby. The magical ones are even more of a pain to deal with.”
“Huh,” I grunted. This would be troublesome. I’d have to expand my concept of what these devices could be.
Traps were always annoying to handle—just by making someone suspect one might be around, you could hamper their actions. A true master of snares and tripwires could manipulate the actions of entire enemy forces based on where they did or didn’t lay their snares. Fighting back meant predicting how the one who’d set the things thought.
According to Troach and Mizuho, however, Million Dungeon’s pitfalls and other hazards hadn’t been set with any strategy in mind.
“Ahh, here we go. This is what I stepped on.” Troach had located the trap’s switch. One of the rocks on the floor was actually a pressure plate. With a piece of red chalk, she drew a circle around it.
“Be careful you don’t step on this, everyone!”
There was another switch on the opposite side of the hole, nicely symmetrical, and the pitfall would open no matter which was activated. It seemed like we’d be fine if we avoided them, so we crossed over the cover one at a time.
From then on, we were even more careful as we proceeded. What’s more, we were carrying meat from the six greatbats we’d slain. Even after draining the blood, the bodies were cumbersome, which slowed the pace of the subordinates carrying them.
It would have been easier to leave them there and pick them up on the way back, but when I suggested as much, Mizuho and Troach told me other creatures would snatch the food up without leaving so much as bones behind. Million Dungeon seemed to be a place that punished even the slightest missteps.
When I first heard we’d be eating the greatbat meat, I was surprised. Apparently, though, it was standard fare in Million Dungeon. And come to think of it, there were regions on Earth where people ate them, too. A friend who went to Papua New Guinea said they were surprisingly delicious, though you had to cook them well to eliminate the dangers.
As I was busy pondering the taste of greatbat meat, the passage’s appearance changed once again. The walls of exposed, sturdy boulder gave way to dirt, and we began to see things that looked like small, white beards hanging out of the ceiling. Plant roots.
Before long, we set foot into a new room.
It was spacious and circular. The walls and ceiling were all covered end to end with ivy. Under our feet was a stretch of green. The floor rose slightly toward the center, forming a hill about a meter high.
Atop that mound was a tree. A beautiful, gracefully shaped, leafy thing that stretched up and out toward the dome-shaped ceiling…
“Hey, everyone, we found a tree!” Troach called from over her shoulder.
Cheers sounded. With timber that big, we’d have enough fuel to last us for a while. We couldn’t chop down the entire thing, but harvesting its branches would be more than enough for now. We could probably use the ivy on the walls, too. The subordinates set to work, each taking out axes and billhooks.
We entered the room carefully and proceeded with caution.
This was the first time I’d felt something soft underfoot since coming to this world. I’d heard about plants growing in the dungeon before, but it still struck me as mysterious.
That was when I realized how quiet Mizuho had gotten.
“Something wrong?”
“Something…isn’t right, at least.”
Mizuho frowned and scanned the chamber. I’d been paying attention, too, naturally, for any signs of change, yet all seemed quiet at the moment, and aside from the sound of our feet parting the grass, the only thing to be heard was the rustling of leaves.
I looked back up at the great tree atop the hill. Amid the swaying branches, I spotted several red fruits. They looked a lot like apples.
“Mizuho, is that fruit edible?” I asked, holding the lantern up toward one in particular. Mizuho squirted up at the treetop…
She and I realized what was amiss at nearly the same time.
“There’s no stars!” Mizuho cried sharply.
Plants weren’t supposed to grow without light. A tree like that would never have flourished in a room without any stars.
What’s more, how was the tree swaying without any wind?
“Get down!” I bellowed just as the thing began to move more. Its long, undulating branches split the air like whips, slamming into Troach, who was in the lead.
“Agh!”
With a pained cry, Troach was knocked away. I jumped out in front, grabbed Mizuho, and took us both down to the ground just as a big tendril mowed over our heads.
The ground was unexpectedly soft and damp. This was no grass—it was a massive sheet of moss!
A split ran through the tree’s trunk, and from inside, large eyeballs appeared. Sharp teeth now lined a spot that had looked like a cavity. It must have been waiting for us to get close. Abandoning all pretense, the tree-thing bent its trunk and swung all its huge branches.
Mizuho shouted the monster’s name. “It’s a treant!”
I stood on the moss, then helped Mizuho up as I turned around, meaning to order the subordinates behind us to withdraw. However, I then saw something that made me doubt my eyes. The ivy all over the walls was moving on its own. It was obviously making a clear effort to seal the entrance we’d come through.
“Mizuho, what are those?”
The young woman widened her eyes when she saw what I was pointing to. Then she moaned.
“Bloodsucking kudzu vines. If you get close, they’ll wrap around you. Be careful!”
It seemed we’d been led right onto the dinner table of a bunch of man-eating plants.