We returned to the first room to see if the teleportation door was functional. The door on the far left was supposed to lead back to the entrance.
"Well then, let's see if it opens."
Apparently, no key was required when teleporting outside from here. When Halfa turned the knob, the door swung open without any resistance.
"Wait, what is this place?"
"It’s dark... and there’s a strange haze..."
Halfa and Spira peered through the doorway, but visibility was poor and they couldn't see far ahead. All that was visible was a white mist drifting through the dim light. It looked strangely familiar, though...
『It is the place we passed through when we first entered the dungeon!』
That was it!
Shiroru’s words brought it all back. It was the passage connecting the wilderness and the dungeon. At the time, I had been focused on the back of our guide, so I hadn't recognized it immediately, but seeing it now, it felt a bit eerie. It would certainly take some courage to walk through here alone.
"I see. Visibility is poor. Even if someone were to pass through, the risk of being spotted would be minimal," Lowell remarked.
I agreed with him. Being able to enter and leave the dungeon without passing through Aingurna would be incredibly convenient for anyone trying to move in secret. I suspected the assassins headed for the Kingdom of Lievril had used this very path to reach the surface.
For the time being, I stepped out first. There were no signs of anyone nearby, and everything seemed fine. Once I called out, the others followed through the door one after another. When Masso-san, the last of us, shut the door, the teleportation gate vanished as if it had been nothing more than a mirage. So that was how it worked.
"Tort, what's going on with the key, nya?"
"Ah, it’s glowing!"
"If that’s the case, it looks like we can return to the room from here, nya."
Just like at the teleportation gate back on the Tenth Floor, the key I had taken from my Storage Ring was emitting a brilliant light. When I tried turning the key, the teleportation door reappeared exactly as expected. Since there had been no reaction when I used the Item-finding Rod in Aingurna, this space was likely treated as being on a different floor entirely.
"This is convenient," Lowell noted. "It means we have a shortcut every ten floors."
"Umu, this is a lifesaver. I slipped away without saying a word to my men, after all," Masso-san added.
This was going to make traversing the levels significantly faster. It would also be useful for Masso-san when he needed to return to the Tenth Floor. However, since we had no immediate business there, I opened the door once and then closed it again. Just like before, it vanished in an instant.
Now that we had confirmed how the key and the door worked, I wanted to head back to the city... but I wasn't sure which way to go. The space was uniformly dim. There didn't seem to be any light leaking in from an exit, leaving me with no sense of direction.
"Well, we should just start walking, nya. If we end up outside the dungeon, we can just turn around and head back in, nya."
Following Rache-san's advice, we walked for a short while. When the haze finally cleared, what appeared before us wasn't the city, but the vast, open wilderness. We had headed in the opposite direction.
"Oh? Aren't you the boys from the other day?"
"Eh? Ah, hello again."
The man who spoke to us was one of the guards at the gate. He was the same person who had been on duty the day we first arrived in Aingurna. However, he looked startled when he saw Rache-san and Masso-san following behind us. As expected of A-Rank adventurers, the two of them were quite famous in Aingurna.
"You've certainly made friends with some real big shots," he remarked, clearly impressed.
Just then, I felt a persistent tapping on my leg. It was Shiroru.
『What is it?』
『I feel the presence of Lamuyadas-sama! Open the Pandora Gift!』
Since the guide was right there, I used the Bracelet of Bonds to converse privately. It seemed there was finally some word from the Destiny God, whom I hadn't heard from in a while. The fact that it happened the moment we left the dungeon was curious, though. Did his messages not reach me inside the dungeon? Like some kind of poor reception or interference?
No, that couldn't be right—there had been clear interference when I met Shiroru back in the Cygnil dungeon.
At any rate, I decided to open the Pandora Gift. Just in case there was some kind of barrier to communicating with the Destiny God inside the dungeon, I moved to the shadow of some nearby rocks. While the guard was busy talking to Rache-san and Masso-san, his attention was diverted. Since the sun was beginning to set, he likely wouldn't notice what I was doing. I signaled to Lowell and the others and slipped away quietly.
"Now then, I wonder what’s inside... Hm?"
Inside the Pandora Gift was a rather magnificent necklace. As usual, there was also a folded slip of paper. It began with a short note: “I can’t convey everything in a short message, so I’m trying this as a test.” Below that was the item description.
The Apostle's Necklace (Provisional).
The effect read: “When worn, the user is temporarily treated as an Apostle of the Destiny God. This allows the user to receive oracles.”
...Wait, was the title of 'Apostle' really that casual?
Perhaps this was a desperate measure. There must be a rule stating that oracles can only be delivered to a Maiden or an Apostle. Maybe he had just cooked up a random item to bypass the restriction? Though, if that were allowed, I really wished he would have just given me the oracle normally.
Still, I had wanted to speak with the Destiny God at least once. If he was providing the opportunity, I had no reason to refuse.
The moment I fastened the Apostle's Necklace (Provisional) around my neck, a wave of lightheadedness washed over me. In a single instant, the world around me transformed.
A solitary house stood before me—a modern, two-story residence just like the ones I had seen in my previous life. Could this really be the Destiny God's House?