Prologue

Prologue

The soldiers were fighting in pairs, beating back waves and waves of creatures they had never seen before. As they had no weapons, there was no choice but to endlessly brandish their fists.

“Fuck! I’m a fucking soldier! The fuck am I supposed to do without a goddamn weapon?!”

More and more fantastical “monsters” commonly depicted in Japanese animation continued pouring through the passage ahead. Soldier after soldier succumbed to the overwhelming numbers. Even though they had been promised US$10,000 in hazard pay, you can’t put a price on staying alive. The troopers endlessly punched the enemies leaping at them, cursing the top brass the entire time. After taking several punches, the monsters would finally turn into smoke and drop tiny black stones. Every once in a while, there might even be a card. It was these soldiers’ mission to gather these stones and cards, but the danger was just far too great. And most of all, none of these men had a personal stake in the battle.

“Captain, sir! Permission to retreat?!” cried one of the servicemen in desperation.

If this had been in the Middle East theater, they could have called command on the wireless to ask for permission. However, this was an entirely separate dimension with no way to reach those on the surface. It was up to the present commanding officer to decide things like when to retreat. Seeing the unsustainability of continuing hand-to-hand combat with such a numerical disadvantage, the captain made up his mind.

“All right, we’re pulling back! Rick, Hauser, you two carry the wounded! Anson, Johnny, you’re bringing up the rear with me! We’ll have to buy time for everyone to get away. Snap to it!”

All of the soldiers were wearing stab-proof shirts and vests, but several of them had had their ears or noses viciously bitten off. Although the bleeding was quite severe, thankfully, none of the wounds seemed fatal. The group began their retreat, leaving the larger-bodied members with the more powerful punches protecting their back. However, the number of enemies was far more than what three people could handle. They were gradually getting locked in, and retreat was starting to look impossible.

At this moment, a separate squad approached from behind. The two switched places, with the new squad taking up the fight as the first one finally successfully disengaged.

＊ ＊ ＊

“Just send in more soldiers! Tell them that anyone who brings back a potion will get a medal!” screamed a dictator of a certain country in Africa, his spittle flying everywhere.

A mysterious ability named Slots had been discovered by those who had entered the country’s dungeon. As it turned out, Slots could generate so-called panaceas that greatly surpassed what modern medicine was capable of. It didn’t take a genius to predict that such products would go for sky-high prices on the black market.

This dictator, who needed a healthy influx of foreign currency to purchase his luxury condos, sports cars, and brand name watches, had realized that it was far more effective to accrue wealth through the dungeon than it was to squeeze it out of his dirt-poor citizens.

“Children! Elderly! I don’t care! Just throw as many into the dungeons as possible and make them fight!”

The lives of his people meant nothing in this dictator’s mind. As was the case with most poor countries, every family in his country had a minimum of five or six children. He knew that the large majority of them were so starved that they would gladly risk their lives just to have a bowl of maize congee. In other words, children were disposable. It wasn’t as if they had a long life ahead of them anyways.

“Heh heh heh. I can buy so many more guns and tanks, more than enough to crush that pesky resistance! Then I will invade the other countries and eventually make all of Africa mine!”

The dictator stared at the numerous Potion Cards in his hand, his mind enveloped in dreams of blood and conquest.

＊ ＊ ＊

While every country that’d seen the emergence of these underground spaces named dungeons within their borders dispatched their armies to investigate, exploit, and otherwise interact with those dungeons in some way or another, a man and a girl were simply wandering about within a dungeon located in a certain South American country.

“This is wheat. Those strange creatures drop food when they die?”

“Mm-hmm. There must be lots of very hungry people around here.”

The man gripped the club in his hand and brought it down on the head of the monster lunging at him. Several days had passed since he’d first stepped foot in this space. At first, he had had a really tough time due to being hungry, but that wasn’t as much of a problem anymore. Munching on the apples dropped by the monsters had proven more than enough to sustain him. He had heard about the truth of this space and the world’s doomed future from the girl. Even since then, he had fought as if possessed. His body had grown drastically thinner, but he felt power welling up in inverse proportion. After spending several days down here, he had returned above ground to procure water and clothes and then had come right back down. He’d spun the Slots, obtained new armor, and then continued fighting. He had long since stopped counting the number of monsters that he had massacred.

“Am I right? Or am I wrong?” the man mumbled repeatedly under his breath while wandering around within the dungeon like a ghost.

Eventually, he found the stairs that led to the next floor below. The monsters got stronger and harder to deal with, so he summoned more of the monsters that he had obtained through the Slots. Slowly but surely, his army of monsters was growing.

“Hee hee hee... Hee hee hee hee hee!”

The man had started to go mad. And yet, the girl said nothing, merely watching over him.