After confirming that the monster had died, I lowered my head.
It really hurt and I felt like dying.
The opened side simmered and new flesh appeared. [Super Regeneration] was activated, and the wound was being regenerated.
However, it felt like the recovery was slow. It could be because the injury was serious or the magic that attacked me slowed it down.
I soon recovered from my injuries and rose from where I was sitting.
I felt as if my body was drained of strength.
Of all the risks I’d been through, this time was the most dizzying.
If I had been hit in the head rather than the side, I would have died. No matter how effective [Super Regeneration] was, it wouldn’t be able to restore even the head.
The light of the magic circle that was illuminating the space also disappeared when the monster died.
I stared at the dead man and looked back at Asher with a sigh.
Asher was sprawled against the wall and lay motionless.
I went over to her, picking up her messy clothes.
“Hey.”
I didn’t know if her injury was serious or how should I wake her up, so I patted her cheek first.
As her eyelids fluttered, Asher slowly opened her eyes.
I asked her as she blankly blinked her eyes in relief.
“Are you okay?”
“...Yes. How much am I... that monster?”
“Dead.”
Asher, who was confused, let out a small sigh, as if she understood the situation, and then became devastated.
To be honest, it was fortunate that she was only hit once and flew away and then retired from battle. I could see the level, but she couldn’t. So, this must be another blow to her self-esteem.
“Sorry. Nothing else...”
“He was as strong as the Overlord.”
At that, Asher widened her eyes and looked at me.
I took a Scarlet potion out of my arms.
The attack hit her right below, so she was fortunately safe.
Asher shook her head, planted her sword on the floor, and stumbled to her feet.
“It’s okay.”
“Just drink a little if you don’t want it to be poured on your wounds.”
“No. It’s really fine.”
How stubborn...
She kept repeating that it was okay even if I was practically forcing it to her, so I pretended to bring it to her mouth.
Startled, Asher stepped back, tripped over her foot, and fell again.
I looked down at her as she fell, a little startled by her furious reaction.
“Your condition is not normal, after all.”
“...”
Asher’s eyes looked this way, and I felt a faint mix of embarrassment and resentment from her gaze.
Who kept insisting on rejecting the potion here?
“It’s an order, so drink.”
Eventually, Asher took the Scarlet potion and drank it.
She was an irreplaceable talent for me. How could even a hundred bottles of this potion be wasted?
If there was any trouble, I had to fix it right away, so that there was no problem.
By the way...
I sighed inwardly and turned my head back to the fallen monster.
What the hell was that bastard?
Why was there a monster of such a crazy level in this forest?
No matter how many strong mages were there in the golden age of ancient magic, at level 97, they would have been one of the strongest on the continent.
He said he’s Enpyrus Deima.
It was a name I didn’t know about the ancient NPCs because the game rarely mentioned them.
The ancient era almost had no records other than the ruins buried all over the continent.
I moved and went up to the altar.
Looking around the dead man, there was something like a book.
I picked it up and paused.
This was because the book crumbled at the slightest touch. How old was this?
I had no choice but to crouch down in front of the book and flip through the front pages as carefully as I could.
“...”
What?
I stared blankly at the letters written in the book.
So... these were ancient characters, but I could interpret them perfectly.
Earlier, I paid little attention because all I could think of was to survive, but I actually had a natural conversation with the monster in an ancient language.
Being able to understand and speak ancient language, I easily concluded.
Because I had experienced this sensation once before.
It was like that when I first possessed this body.
The first time I entered this game, I communicated with the prisoner in the common language of the continent with no problems.
I didn’t know the details, but I wondered if something similar to that time had happened.
'Is the conversation a trigger?'
It made sense if the trigger was having a direct conversation with someone in a language I didn’t know.
I planned to check it out later, but for now, I turned my attention back to the contents of the book.
- I wanted to be an eternal being.
The first sentence of the book began like that.
- All living beings are born with a mortal destiny. Even if aging is delayed by magic or other powers, even if the living body is discarded and the dead body is resurrected, the end will eventually come. I wanted to overcome that limitation. I wanted to shed my mortal shell and become an eternal being.
What followed word by word was about magic research.
Even after reading it, I didn’t understand it, so I skipped it.
- But in the end, I couldn’t fulfil my dream even with so many efforts.
- The end has come to the body that has lived for thousands of years. Originally, I could have lived longer, but the burden accumulated through various studies came to a limit.
- If I use the necromancer to resurrect as the body of the dead, I can prolong your existence. However, if that happens, I can never return to being a living being again, and I will have to live the rest of my life in the body of the dead. It’s denying me everything.
- I met my end here, where I have been with my whole life. I don’t want to leave a legacy. All that remains is this diary.
- Loneliness. I never imagined that the day would come when I would feel this feeling. If I had known it would be like this, it wouldn’t have been so bad to raise a few decent guys as disciples.
Up to this point, it seemed like an ordinary life of a mage crazy about magic.
But why did he stay alive like this without dying?
The answer to that came immediately after.
- At the moment of death, I have everything down, and then a new realization came.
- I realized how to increase the lifespan of this body, but it was useless. For me, the body of a high-ranking being was needed as a sacrifice. Far from looking for a sacrifice, his now dying body could only survive within the barely opened barrier. What a cruel fate.
- The way to be reborn as an eternal being, a flawless existence, was dimly visible. It can’t end like this. Even if I can’t move because I’m confined to this place, I will wait for someone who will find this place someday. Even if eternity of time passes, I will not disappear and will wait...
Sacrifice... was that why he went wild with joy when he saw me?
Perhaps because of the [Soul of the King], I seemed to be a high-ranking being in his eyes.
What followed that was increasingly messy.
I could see in the writing that his mind was getting more and more broken, perhaps because I was confined alone for so long.
After skimming through the contents, I closed the book.
Nothing special.
I was just dumbfounded.
So this place wasn’t the place written on the map, and this guy named Enpyrus wasn’t the creator of the dungeon.
I accidentally, unluckily, found the place where the crazy ancient mage was sealed instead of the dungeon I was originally looking for.
'...What kind of crazy coincidence is this?'
Did I receive any penalty for possessing this body?
If I could see the stat window, wouldn’t the luck stat displayed be -99?
It was like when I was looking for [Super Regeneration], when I was looking for the [Floating Veil], just whenever I tried to find a Mystery, it felt like a crisis always happened.
Once again, I cursed inwardly and got up from my seat.
In his diary, he wrote he would not leave any legacy, so it didn’t seem like there would be any relics to look for.
Still, I went out of the aisle just in case, went around and looked around, but couldn’t find anything.
I just found out that this underground space is absurdly large, no less than my castle. Could a space this huge be buried entirely in this forest?
Feeling empty, I said to Asher.
“Let’s go out.”
***
When we returned aboveground, I couldn’t see Railo.
Where did she go?
I waited, wondering if she had gone to see something, but after a while she did not come back.
If she was attacked by something, there should be a sign of battle here, but there wasn’t anything like that.
Asher looked around and said.
“There doesn’t seem to be any sign that she’s still here.”
“...”
I pondered and concluded.
She must have run away.
It was a situation that could only be explained that way.
When she saw Asher’s skills, it intimidated her, so she decided to just leave.
Because she witnessed where the dungeon was, she could have thought we might try to kill and silence her.
The way back is not complicated, so it doesn’t matter...
I sighed inwardly.
So where the hell was the dungeon that Teir found?
It was a pity to just go back like this, so I looked for more.
We continued moving in the direction the branch pointed.
After quite a while, I found another luminous tree.
The luminous tree grew close to a fairly large rock, and the surrounding area was full of bushes.
I went closer and looked.
Examining the overgrown bush revealed a small passageway between the rock and the ground.
“...”
I stared at the passageway, then turned my head.
Asher came closer too, staring down the passageway, and then our eyes met.
Fuck...
A string of curses rose in my throat before it finally subsided.
So, because I chose that first luminous tree, we went through all that hard work looking for something that wasn’t there.
Kwaaang!
I had Asher widen the passage and went inside.
When a wide space appeared after passing through a narrow corridor, I saw wooden giants standing in the center like wooden dolls.
[Lv. 48]
Looking at the shabby level above their heads, I clicked my tongue slightly.
Yes, it’s right here. The dungeon that Teir discovered.
Soon, blue light lit up in their eyes, and letters in ancient languages appeared on the wall next to them.
- Adventurer, face the ordeal.
- Overcome the trials and claim my legacy hidden in this dungeon.
- If you destroy the magic stones on each edge to avoid the guardians, their movement will gradually slow down, and if you destroy them all, it will stop.
I looked around the space.
As the saying goes, each of the walls at the edge of the space was studded with magic stones. Destroying all the magic stones seems to be the condition for clearing the dungeon.
Cooong.
Soon, the Guardians began to move and approach us.
I told Asher.
“Asher.”
“Yes.”
“Destroy them.”
Waa!
Asher’s blow swept away all the Guardians.
