Chapter 13: That Which Lurks on the Fourth Floor…

Chapter 13:
That Which Lurks on the Fourth Floor…

 

THE DUNGEON ELEVATOR sure was handy, but it had its limitations. Apparently, you had to wait a full hour between uses. I had to make sure I didn’t forget that.

At any rate, I stepped out onto the third floor and almost immediately encountered a dead reaper—all white bones peeking out of its tattered rags and an ungodly huge scythe that looked like it belonged in a legend. It was predictably around Level 100 and had the Execution Slash skill.

The creature wafted toward me. It moved slowly, so I grit my teeth and watched, and waited. Sweat beaded on my forehead and nape. Closer. Closer. There.

When the reaper was within five yards, I held out my hand and cast Holy Flame. A spray of white fire roared out of my hand. The plume was wide enough to fully engulf the monster. It was almost beautiful, and something about the holy element made it feel like a sacred act.

“Auuughh…”

The reaper moaned as it thrashed, the white flames ravaging its mass of rags and bones. For a while it was hard to tell what was going on, but before long the monster was reduced to an ashen corpse.

I let out a breath, relieved, and not a little pleased. “Huh. I guess I’ll take the scythe. Seems pretty high quality.”

Unfortunately, my Discerning Eye wasn’t quite able to evaluate weapons yet.

 

Discerning Eye for Items — 300 LP

 

It was cheap to make, just like Discerning Eye, so I went for it.

 

Great Scythe: B-Grade. No attached skills.

 

Too bad. It would’ve been nice if the scythe came with any skills, but it was by no means a terrible item. I also learned at that point that items had grades just like some skills did.

With the dead reaper disposed of, I located the stairs to the fourth floor. After that encounter, I’d also handily passed Level 40. I also didn’t notice much of a change in my overall energy levels or physical condition, so Holy Flame probably didn’t use that much magic.

By then, I’d leveled up quite a bit and I probably could’ve gone back up, but I decided to touch my feet to the fourth floor so that if nothing else, I could use Dungeon Elevator to go right back. Plus, it couldn’t hurt to look around a little, right?

Unlike the previous three levels, the fourth level wasn’t a maze. Instead, it looked like one long hallway. Strangely, there were no monsters in sight, either. I started inching straight ahead, keeping my guard up, when suddenly the hall opened up into a room with no doors. The hall seemed to continue on the far side, but that wasn’t what had my attention.

“Whaaa? Where did all these people come from?”

There were at least a hundred of them, chatting and milling about. The sheer number of people actually made the spacious room feel rather cramped. From the looks of it, the crowd consisted mainly of adventurers, since most of them were clad in armor and robes. Except, no one but me was supposed to be able to get in here, so how was there anyone, let alone so many? And why were they so relaxed about being on the fourth floor of a dungeon filled with bizarre, high-level monsters?

As my thoughts whirled and I began to panic, one of them shouted and pointed, directly at me: “A human! A living human is here!”

“Wow! When did he get here?!”

They all turned toward me. In an instant, I was surrounded. It happened so fast I couldn’t react. If they meant me harm, I wouldn’t have been able to do anything. But I was beginning to understand that the glimmer of light in their eyes was friendly—these people meant to welcome me. It was at this point that I finally realized something kind of important. Their bodies were all completely and utterly translucent.

“You’re alive, aren’t you?” said one of them. “A human, in the flesh!”

“Uh, um, of course I am…aren’t you?”

Tentatively, I tried to use Discerning Eye, but it gave me absolutely nothing. No names, no levels, nothing. That’s what sealed it for me: these people were dead. I’d tested the skill on the body of a dead animal I’d found in town and received similar results.

“Oh, don’t freak out,” one of them said. “We’re ghosts, you see.”

“O-of course you are,” I said. “And…there sure are a lot of you.”

“Our souls retain our forms from when we were alive. Normally, when people die, their souls move on. Or at least, we think that’s how it works. But apparently if you die in this dungeon, your soul ends up here.”

And I guessed that meant here-here, like couldn’t-leave-this-room here.

“Sorry if this sounds rude, but how did you guys get in here?” I asked. “I’m surprised anyone figured out the password.”

“Password?” They all gave me a puzzled look.

It seemed none of them got in the way I had. That was a little weird, considering it was how both me and my master had gotten inside.

“Okay, so, another possibly rude-sounding question, but how long ago were you alive?”

“Sorry, we don’t really have a sense of time. But I believe it was the holy year of 12XX.”

“Th-three hundred years ago?!”

My master had gotten herself trapped on the second floor two hundred years ago, so these ghosts got in some hundred years before that. They told me that this place was a hidden dungeon back then too, but a few people still knew about it and would come and go as they pleased.

Basically, that meant this place had been sealed by someone between two and three hundred years ago. But by who? And why? Maybe because so many people died in here? Or was there some other even more serious reason behind it? I was at a complete loss, but I’d have to leave my questions for the time being. The ghosts had a request.

“You said your name was Noir, right? We actually have a favor to ask you.”

“I mean, I’ll hear you out,” I said. “But I can’t promise anything.”

“We want you to bring us a priest who can Exorcise our souls so they can move on to the next world.”

There was a certain subset of undead monsters that, when killed, infected corpses and turned them into zombies. To prevent this from happening, those souls needed to be Exorcised and sent on to the afterlife. It was a skill typically mastered by priests and clerics.

“We just can’t take it anymore. Our bodies may not experience pain, but we don’t feel alive either!”

Well, you literally aren’t alive. The comment didn’t seem exactly appropriate, so I kept it to myself.

Worse, I wasn’t sure what to do. I really didn’t want to tell anyone else about the dungeon—and anyway, my master had told me not to. It’d be different if I knew someone I could trust, but a total stranger was too risky. Who knew what could happen? I might not even be able to come back if more people found out about this place. But all the same, I couldn’t just leave the suffering souls.

“Please, we’re begging you!”

“Sir Noir, please! Sir Noir!”

They got down on their knees and begged. You’d need an incredibly thick skin, cold mind, and black heart to disregard something as pitiful as that. I was running out of ideas, so I tried making the skill.

 

Exorcism — 50 LP

 

Huh. It was a lot cheaper than I thought. Well, that was easy.

“All right. Okay. I’ll Exorcise you.”

“You can do that?! That’s impressive, you look like a total flake!”

“You know,” I said, “I just remembered, I actually have something I need to take care of—”

“Wait! I’m sorry! I’m so sorry! You’re so dashing, Sir Noir! You’re so cool and dependable and awesome, Sir Noir!” The ghosts frantically tried to convince me to stay. Funny, considering they’d just been insulting me.

“I’m not really sure how I feel about you kissing my ass…”

“You’re, like, so totally incredible, Sir Noir! You’re the bravest and most handsome man I’ve ever met. Isn’t that right, girls?”

“Where do I even start? Sir Noir has such piercing eyes and firm lips and his boundless kindness conceals his brave and manly figure. He is, without a doubt, the most beautiful boy in the whole world.”

“Am I really that desirable?”

“Of course you are! If I still had a body, I’d ask you to take me right here, right now! I’d want you to have your way with me!”

“But am I handsome?”

“You are super-duper hot!”

“All right, all right, stand in a single-file line, I’ll Exorcise you.”

A joyous shout rippled through the crowd. I usually thought of ghosts as something scary, but these guys couldn’t be further from frightening.

Turned out, the Exorcism skill was simple enough to use. All you had to do was touch the target and focus. The one major complication was that they didn’t have physical bodies, so I had to directly touch their souls—as much as I could ‘touch’ something like that.

“Ahhh, now I can finally cross over to the other side. Thank you.” The first spirit’s already faint body faded out and then disappeared entirely. They looked happy right before they were Exorcised. It must’ve been boring being stuck in this place for so long.

“Where did you die anyway?”

I asked the same question of each of them.

“This is kind of embarrassing, but a golden slime got me with its venom on the first level…”

“A trap in a room on the second level.”

“A monster on the third level. Its scythe just grazed my finger, but I died. From that?!”

Most of them had died before the fourth level, but not all of them.

“I was eaten by a giant crocodile on the fifth floor.”

“My entire party was swallowed by a giant snake on the fifth floor and we were dissolved by its stomach acid.”

It sounded like level five was pretty darn dangerous. I was lucky to have gotten that information. I asked the same question of the last soul, a man in expensive-looking armor. He had died on the third floor too, but he gave me some exceedingly useful information.

“As a token of my appreciation, I would like to bequeath a powerful weapon unto you, Lord Noir. Three hundred years may have passed, but you may yet be able to dig it up.”

“It’s buried?”

“Indeed. Do you know the clocktower on Main Street?”

“It’s still there, yeah.”

“Dig a hole beneath the largest tree in the park to the east. There my weapon is buried.”

A troubling thought occurred. I made sure to ask him why he buried it, if it was such a powerful weapon.

“It is most powerful, however…I was plagued by ill omens once I came to possess it, so I sealed it away. But you, Lord Noir, may be able to make use of it. If you cannot, sell it or destroy it, whatever you please.”

“Got it. I guess I’ll have to take you up on that.”

Once I Exorcised the final ghost, I headed down the hall on the far end of the room. There, I found another set of stairs. I hesitated for a while, but then I made my way down. Carefully. I mean, what if there was one of those giant monsters lurking just at the end of the stairs?

But my fears proved to be for naught. There was nothing in the passage, so I hurriedly used Dungeon Elevator to return to the second floor. Then, I dutifully described everything that had transpired to my master and once more left the dungeon.