000-020 · 000-prologue
Prologue: The Man Who Came From the Abyss
『Grrrrrr!!』
『Gah! Gah!』
『Grrrowwrrr!!』
Clack. At the same moment a massive mouth snapped shut behind her, sparks flew from the fangs that had just barely missed.
"Haa, haa, haa, haa...! What do I do...! Someone...!"
The girl being chased had even forgotten about the viewers watching her as she desperately ran to escape the three deaths closing in from behind. How far did she have to run to get away? How could she shake off death?
She couldn't even think logically. Her instincts just screamed "Run," so she kept running through the dungeon.
(Why... why is this happening...! ?)
The fangs and claws of death in wolf form closing in from behind would easily slice through her body if they caught her. Or even just a grazing body blow might tear her body apart.
This shouldn't have happened to begin with.
To start with, today she was supposed to be doing a dungeon tutorial stream for beginner explorers in the dungeon's upper layers.
So, yeah.
She had never even imagined, as little as ten minutes ago, that she'd end up encountering a pack of unique monsters with strength at least equivalent to the lower layers.
(Besides! There were supposed to be no signs of a unique appearing today! And yet!)
"Nyaaaaaaaah!!"
If she didn't scream or cry out, her heart might break. And once broken, she wouldn't be able to survive.
But this flight, too, would come to an end.
She had been filming in a place off the upper layer's main route that you wouldn't normally see, and the paths to the dungeon entrance and other layers were far away.
And even if she kept running, no one would be able to help her so soon after the unique monsters appeared. Her viewers had probably reported it, but they wouldn't be able to assemble a raid party to deal with a pack of unique monsters that quickly.
(At least... at least I have to keep them away from other people!)
As a pioneer, she'd deliberately run away from the upper layer's main route where mostly beginners would be, so there were no people around.
In a situation like that, with the girl not being overwhelmingly strong, there was no way she could survive.
『Graww!!』
"Guh, uu!?"
When she rounded a corner, the unique monster wolf leaped at the front wall to compensate for the girl who couldn't accelerate, ran along it, and then clawed her back in the moment she'd slowed down, however briefly.
The wound on her back was shallow enough not to be fatal only because her experience as a dungeon explorer had made her twist her upper body slightly.
(It hurts! It hurts!)
Her brain was flooded with that emotion, but the legs forged through dungeon exploration didn't stop. Her running became a bit unsteady, but she still moved forward.
In an instant. In the girl's senses, dazed by pain, she felt a slight surge of mana nearby, and her gaze unconsciously turned in that direction.
There was a small hole. A hole just barely big enough for the girl in her forward-leaning posture to squeeze through. Her tiny remaining reason and instinct were screaming.
(Escape in there...!)
『Grrbaww!!')
Just before she could dash into the small hole, the claws of the unique monster that had leaped at her, kicking off the dungeon ceiling, gouged out her shoulder along with the dungeon wall.
She couldn't help thinking about what would happen if she jumped in there, or about whether the unique monster couldn't pass through because the hole was small. But choosing there was probably the right answer.
『Grr-grr-grr-grr!』
『Grrrrrrrr』
The moment she slipped through the small hole and collapsed, the unique monster that couldn't follow through dejectedly jammed its head into the hole and scratched at the wall, gratingly.
"Safe... ?"
The girl, who no longer had the energy to stand, dragged her body away from the hole and lay on her back.
"A small room...? There was... something like this here?"
She could still sense the unique monster wandering near the entrance, but it seemed unable to enter the small room, so the girl took a slight breath.
>>Kana-chan, are you okay!?? >>Potion! Don't you have a potion!? >>The bleeding's bad! >>Isn't the rescue team here yet!?
Now that she was lying down and catching her breath, the hologram window that had been minimized during her escape floated up at the edge of her vision, and her viewers' anxious comments started flowing in.
"Haa, haa, haa, haa. Hoooo..."
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, then exhaled, trying to regulate her ragged breathing.
"Everyone, I'm... fine?"
Then she tried to smile at her viewers as she opened her eyes.
Seeing most of her vision, including the hologram window, glowing with a pale blue light, she couldn't help but gasp.
Immediately after, the glow intensified, and at the same moment that light vanished, her body disappeared from the upper layers.
"Robo! You've gotten enough Nimustock tails already!"
The man who'd collected the tail of the monster he'd been fighting up until a moment ago called a halt to his beloved dog, or rather, beloved wolf, as it started to run off in search of its next prey.
(Eh!? You're done already!?) - Robo had an expression like that as it looked back and forth between the Nimstock herd ahead and the man, regretfully, but unfortunately there were other things he wanted to collect today as well.
"We've got to go get Water Oil too. We're going up - here we go."
A few layers above their current location, there was a wide area with a pond he needed to draw from.
『Baw』
"Roger that, let's go～"
Ducking the beloved wolf that came running at him, he headed toward the magic circles that connected layer to layer.
And a few layers up to the Water Oil layer. As they progressed, picking up rare ores here and there, Robo, who had been wandering around showing interest here and there, suddenly stretched out its neck and raised its head high.
"What's wrong?"
The man spoke to Robo as he watched the wolf's nose, which was positioned higher than his own head, twitching several times as if sniffing something.
Both the man and Robo were used to these dungeon gathering activities, and Robo wouldn't pay attention to just anything. It was a different story if a unique monster appeared, but in that case the dungeon itself would vibrate slightly, so the man could sense it too.
『Baw-baw, baw』
"Someone? A person?"
『Baw』
He trusted Robo, so he didn't say that was ridiculous, but the man tilted his head. He couldn't imagine anyone coming to this layer of the dungeon.
『Grrrrr, baw!』
"The smell of blood. Take me there."
He didn't particularly want to meet anyone, so he could have ignored it, but when Robo, with his good nose, said "I smell blood. It's strong," he couldn't just leave it alone.
He leaped onto the thick-furred back and tapped its belly with his feet, and Robo began running toward the source of the smell.
The dungeon was structurally complex, but Robo, who could follow the flow of the smell and was familiar with walking this layer, wouldn't get lost. As they got closer, the man, whose five senses were enhanced compared to normal people, could also smell the blood.
"It's still fresh. Did they trigger a trap?"
As expected from the fresh blood and the destination, it seemed the injured person was in a small room with a magic circle that caused random layer transfers - basically a trap - separate from the one used for layer-to-layer movement. The man had used it often himself, so he understood its properties, but basically it wasn't something a human would trigger.
Leaving the surrounding watch to Robo, he passed through the entrance of the small room and felt the slight residue of mana that must have been left when the magic circle activated.
And lying on top of that was a girl bleeding - probably the target Robo had sniffed out.
"Hey you, if you can hear me, answer. Just a nod is fine."
He called out to her while keeping an eye on the machine-like thing floating above her head, but the girl showed no reaction. He could confirm she was breathing, but she was bleeding considerably. If she were a high-level explorer she wouldn't die, but he didn't know what level the girl was.
"Is this thing... a drone or something?"
He couldn't just leave the girl, who was dressed like a surface explorer, so he decided to take her back to his base for treatment and princess-carried her. The machine floating above the girl's head was concerning, but since it was connected to the girl's mana flow, he caught it just in case and stuffed it into his pouch.
"Drive safely, okay?"
『Baw』
Riding Robo with the girl in his arms, he laid her across his broad back and secured her by holding her with both hands. The girl's blood might dirty Robo's white fur, but he could wash it later.
As he was thinking that, they'd already reached the magic circle leading to the next layer.