With that, we became a team of explorers, seeking to upset a record that hadn’t been broken in five hundred years.
♢ Eugene’s POV ♢
After Sumire and I vowed to reach the 500th Level together, I heard a voice calling out.
“Helloooo?! Eugene!”
Someone was approaching from the direction of the Dungeon Elevator. It was the middle-aged dungeon staffer I was acquainted with. Whew. They got here earlier than I expected. I could see other dungeon staff with him; they must have hurried here due to the emergency.
“Hey!” I greeted him. “You came to help us?”
“Man, I can’t believe what a mess Cerberus made of this level,” he said.
“Tell me about it.” I lost count of how many times I thought I’d die.
“Here! Take this Healing Drink. You look awful!”
“Thanks.”
I accepted the potion and chugged it down. The cloying sweetness spread over my tongue and the recovery effects coursed through my body. Within seconds, the fog that had enveloped my consciousness cleared up.
“Would you like some as well, young miss?” the middle-aged man asked, and Sumire shook her head.
“No, I’m okay! I was hiding the entire time.”
The drink’s neon green color might have put her off. It didn’t taste bad, though. The other members of the dungeon staff were inspecting the damage from Cerberus’s rampage as well as the corpses of the Martial Arts Club members. I could hear them chatting as they worked.
“Aw, jeez, that thing really had a field day here.”
“It’s gonna be a real drag looking for missing body parts.”
“We should demand overtime.”
“Wha—?! How can they speak like that?!” Sumire exclaimed, furious. But to the dungeon staff, this was an everyday occurrence.
Admittedly, I don’t think this level of gore is commonplace.
“Calm down, Sumire,” I said before turning to the middle-aged dungeon staffer. “Hey, can you start with this girl here? Her name is Leona, and she’s a friend.”
“Sure thing. This little lady, right?”
The staffer approached Leona’s body. He took out a bottle and tilted it to produce a drop of liquid, dazzling rainbow in hue. It fell and landed on Leona’s body, and the moment it did, light enveloped the corpse. The next moment, the wounds closed up and her eyes snapped open.
“Huh?!” Sumire exclaimed.
Leona blinked several times, gathering her bearings, and then pushed herself upright into a sitting position. She was still a little unsteady.
“Hmm? Sumire and Eugene? Wait, the dungeon staff’s here too?” Her gaze was unfocused, like she’d just woken up.
“Leona, how are you feeling?” I asked.
“Uh... Whoa, why does it feel like I went through some absurd ordeal?”
“Don’t push yourself too hard. No one should remember their last mom—”
“My last moments?” She paused, then raised her voice. “Ahh! Wait, I remember! Hey, listen, I’ve got something crazy to share!”
“What is it?”
Mere seconds after her resurrection, Leona was already back to her energetic self.
“The Guard Dog of the Underworld killed me, right?! So that’s where I got sent! I was wandering around for a bit, and the last thing I saw before I came back was the dog! It was in the Underworld!”
“Well, yeah. That’s where it lives,” I replied.
Ah, right. Getting killed by Cerberus means you’ll see it again after your own death. Sounds like a real drag of a reunion.
“It looked kinda sheepish,” Leona continued. “Like, if you’re gonna be all torn up after killing someone, don’t do it, right?! Whoa, wha—?! Speaking of torn up, my clothes are a disaster! Do you even know how much these cost?!” She stared down at herself, grimacing.
“Wh-Wh-Wh-Wh—” Sumire was trying to say something, but the words weren’t coming out.
“Sumire?” I asked.
“Sumire, is something wrong?” Leona questioned.
At our prompting, Sumire screamed, “WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON?!”
Oh yeah. The whole “contract with a Demon Queen” thing took so much out of me that I didn’t even think about how Sumire must be feeling. I forgot I never told her something vital about explorations.