Chapter 41: To the Forest Again ④ – Grave of Death

After dealing with the Globo, we began exploring.

The large space was circular. The walls were made of brick, but oddly, the surface and the gaps between the bricks were whitish.

When I touched it, it felt strangely slimy.

“This wall feels weird.”

“Ah, ah, Wof-boy. You shouldn’t touch that. That’s fat.”

“Fat?”

“Yes, yes. Human fat. More precisely, corpse fat.”

“Huh? Ew!?”

I quickly pulled my hand away. It was smeared with grease.

Corpse fat?

“Hey, don’t tell me—”

“Woof? Um, um, is this… corpse wax?”

“Oh my, you know your stuff.”

“Um, um, um, Zekatoria-chan uses it often.”

“Ah yes, the girl who’s holed up in that catacomb.”

“What is she doing? That sister of Rell…”

If I remember correctly, corpse wax is when a body turns into a wax-like substance instead of decaying.

Under the right conditions, it doesn’t rot or mummify—it just becomes like wax.

And that wax covers the entire wall? All the way up, into the darkness?

How many thousands—or no, tens of thousands—of bodies would that take? The thought was overwhelming.

The witch gave a wry smile.

“My, oh my, this is quite something. A Grave of Death, huh?”

“Of all things, it’s a Yomido. No wonder it was massively purged. And a curse on top of it…”

“Good grief. This is a real mess.”

What are they talking about? I remember “Grave of Death” being mentioned in the description of [Offering of Death].

In times like this, it’s best to wait—Juicy will ask soon enough.

“Um, um, what’s Yomido and the Grave of Death?”

“The Grave of Death is a term for undead-type dungeons. The City of Death. The Valley of Death. The Island of Death. The Tower of Death. The Grave of Death. The Castle of Death. The Mountain of Death. The Prison of Death. They’re all among the worst dungeons, and each has a deep core. Yomido’s followers use offerings to summon and create them as sacred places.”

“Summon and create?”

“Well, well, there’s a relic that does that. Using all the offerings, it creates a Grave of Death.”

“What does that mean…?”

Even without asking, I could imagine it. Using all the offerings. The [Offering of Death] relic.

Walls coated in corpse wax. So… that’s what it means.

“Well, well, how exactly it works, I wonder.” 

The witch said vaguely and quietly.

No one spoke.

Then Agaro spoke up:

“Oh, and Yomido is an evil god. A death god who commands eight Death Kings. His followers are called Yomido Cultists—basically synonymous with heretics. If you guys want to become explorers, you’d better remember this. Yomido’s followers are anti-dungeon extremists. Enemies of explorers.”

“Y-Yes.”

“Um, um, woof. Got it. Yomido is the enemy of explorers.”

“Good. Now, onto the main issue. Before you entered, you all felt the relic activate, right?”

“Yes… the relic activated on its own.”

“Um, um, is this a curse, by chance?”

“Yes, it is. A curse.”

A curse—in other words, a debuff. A debuff relic.

I knew they existed, but I didn’t think I’d get cursed before officially becoming an explorer.

[Offering of Death: Once you leave the Grave of Death, you become an Offering of Death. After 4 days, you will again become an Offering of Death.]

So you can’t leave the Grave of Death. After four days, you become an offering again.

Basically, you become part of the dungeon—like this corpse wax… That’s awful.

Maybe drinking an Elixir will remove the curse. I’ll try it later.

“Of course, of course, there is a way to lift it. Free the Grave of Death. In other words, defeat the dungeon lord—the King of Death.” 

The witch said.

“…How strong is this King of Death?”

“I’m not sure of the exact rank, but it’s definitely not a Supreme Treasure class.”

“Probably, probably mid-tier Gem Rank.” she added.

Mid-tier Gem Rank… I had no idea how strong that was.

I think a single Gem Rank being can destroy an entire city.

“For the record, I definitely can’t beat it alone.” 

Agaro said.

“Agaro-san!?”

“I’m still weak, you know.” 

He said with a self-deprecating chuckle.

Really? To me, he seems like the strongest guy I know.

“Um, um, what about the witch?”

“Hmmm, at that rank, I could beat folks like The Blade of Blades or The Ruiner of Destruction. Against The Seven Lords, The Fiery Saint, or The Second Coming of Generous, it’d probably be an even fight.”

There are quite a few high-level people out there. They’re probably all top-tier explorers. Even The Second Coming of Generous is mentioned casually.

Agaro tilted his gourd flask, saw a drop fall, and said:

“Well, well, there is another option.”

“There’s a way other than fighting?”

“It’s quite simple. Become a follower of Yomido.”

“Eh—that’s…”

Yeah, no thanks.

“Um, um, that’s a bad idea.”

“Yeah, I’m not about to join Yomido either… not as an explorer.”

“Yeah, yeah, even Kon wouldn’t go that far.”

Then why’d you bring it up…?

Anyway, we decided to aim for the dungeon’s deepest level.

Several corridors branched out from the circular chamber.

But we had no idea which path to take.

I used both [Crisis Discrimination] and [Wheel of Fortune], just in case.

Juicy pointed to the second corridor from the right.

“Um, um, um, I think this passage is the best.”

“Then let’s go with that.”

“Sounds good.”

“Um, um… are you sure?”

“Hmm, hmm. Should be fine, I think.”

Ignoring Juicy’s hesitation, we entered that corridor.

Come to think of it, I wasn’t feeling very serious about this either.

Why is that?

We can’t leave here, and in four days, we’ll become offerings to death.

To stop that, we have to defeat the Death King within four days.

And the Death King is mid-tier Gem Rank. That’s a level only 1st-class adventurers can face.

Even so, there’s no sense of urgency in the air. I, too, felt strangely detached from it all.

It was odd.

As I was thinking that, I slashed through a skeleton wielding a rusted sword and shield with my Elixir Knife.

“Were these guys part of the mass purge? They look like soldiers.”

“Hmm, hmm. Who knows.”

“Um, um, I get excited when I see bones.”

“Don’t put it in your mouth. That’s a real human bone.”

“Woof?”

Wait, that was real?

Even if it wasn’t, I still wouldn’t want Juicy to bite into bones.

More skeletons appeared in the corridor, and we defeated them. Globos showed up again, and we took them out.

We even faced Blood Slimes—semi-transparent with skulls inside them—and beat them too.

In a hallway with walls covered in corpse wax like a castle interior, we ran into a group of headless knights and defeated them.

There was a river of blood with a massive bridge made of bones, swarming with groaning zombies—we defeated them as well.

“…Things are going smoothly, huh.”

“That’s how it is in the upper layers. You’ve got 1st-class and 2nd-class folks with you. And as far as strength goes, even you guys are solid for explorers. Especially the Tasan girl—she’s no ordinary one. But still, that witch… what is she thinking?”

“What do you mean?”

“You think that witch doesn’t know about the Grave of Death? No way. And yet she chose this team. Even dragged her own apprentice into it.”

“…You think so too?”

I’d had my doubts as well. It did seem off for the witch to not know about the Grave of Death.

The witch is, as you can tell, a pretty laid-back person.

But that’s because she tightens the screws when it matters that she can afford to be so careless.

She’s the type who works hard so she can slack off later.

That kind of witch wouldn’t send us to investigate that forest without doing some homework first.

I was sure she’d worked on things behind the scenes.

Still, this time, I couldn’t figure out her true intention.

Did she already know about the curse—the [Offering of Death] debuff relic?

I had to get an answer out of her, no matter what.

We found stairs and descended. We arrived at a similar corpse-wax chamber.

After fighting various undead, we found more stairs, descended again, and entered another nearly identical space.

We repeated that a few times until we suddenly emerged onto a withered grassland.

Even though we were underground, the sky above was always in a state of dusk—an ominous twilight that stirred unease.

Dead grass stretched across the plain, which only deepened the sense of dread.

The monsters here were skeletal: Bone Wolves, Bone Sheep, Bone Bulls, Bone Boars…

And even Bone Bears. There was even a Bone Crocodile.

Is it all just bones down here?

After brushing those aside, we began to see buildings scattered ahead.

A village.

A village, huh.

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