If I couldn't clear this so-called "game," I wouldn't be able to leave this space. Searching the temple for a way, I found my target almost immediately.
"This is a dungeon, right?"
At the far end of the temple stood a massive door, and beyond it stretched a stone corridor rendered entirely in blue as far as the eye could see. No matter how you looked at it, it was a dungeon. In short, it meant I had to conquer this place.
Standing around twiddling my thumbs wasn't going to help. Since there was no exit and the rules demanded clearing this dungeon, I figured pressing forward was my only choice.
Slipping on the Escape Boots, I drew the knife from the sheath at my waist and held it in my left hand. I was weak, and a knife offered better odds than a simple stick.
The chill of the stone floor bit into my skin, sending a shiver through me as if icy water had been dumped down my spine. This was the adventure I had dreamed of ever since I was a boy—the very adventure I had abandoned after being branded incompetent at the Revelation.
Before that Revelation, I had been forced along the path to inherit the Heinemann sword style. But what I had truly yearned for since childhood was to become a hunter like my mother, not an instructor at a sword dojo.
That was why, during the Revelation Ritual at that temple, I had secretly prayed for a Gift completely unrelated to swordsmanship. I thought that if that happened, Grandfather would finally let me become a hunter. But in the end, the Revelation branded me a failure, stripping away not only my dream of being a hunter, but even the path of the sword I had trained so desperately for until then.
That was probably why the prickling tension against my skin excited me beyond all reason.
Hugging the wall, I kept careful watch over my surroundings while making sure not to neglect my rear so I could retreat back to the surface at a moment's notice. That was the cardinal rule of dungeon exploration. Well, it was just knowledge gleaned from the Hunter manual in my mother's room, anyway.
Advancing a little farther down the blue stone passage, I came upon a crossroads. Which way should I go? Straight ahead seemed like the most straightforward choice.
"Huh?"
The moment I took a step forward, a creature crouching in the right-hand passage, devouring something, entered my field of vision, and my thoughts ground to a dead halt.
In that instant, an agonizing pain tore through my entire body, as if a stake had been hammered into my spine. A heartbeat later, catching sight of the crimson liquid gushing like a geyser from my right arm and realizing what the creature was currently feeding on, the horrific reality finally set in.
Yes. What that grasshopper-headed monster was eating was my right arm.
"Ghyaaaaahhh?!"
Panic took over. Screaming like a strangling rooster, I sprinted blindly toward the exit.
What had just happened to me? Did that thing attack me? But I didn't see a single thing! What on earth was that monster in the first place? No, why was I even being put through this right now?!
I didn't know. I didn't understand anything, but the sheer terror of it all was overwhelming, absolute, and paralyzing!
I'm terrified! I'm scared! I'm scared! I'm scared! I'm scared! I'm so scaaared—!!
The maddening pain from just a moment ago vanished with unnatural suddenness, leaving only the feverish heat surging through my veins and a blinding, mind-numbing dread to drive my legs forward at full speed.
I couldn't remember much of what happened after that.
I was staggering across the wasteland outside the temple.
Through my rapidly fading consciousness, I threw myself into the eerily blue spring, and everything went black.
When I opened my eyes, the sun was shining down brightly. Squinting against the glare, I looked around.
It seemed I was floating on my back atop the vivid blue water.
Feeling a faint sense of dissonance at the fact that my body wasn't sinking, I forced my sluggish limbs into motion and hauled myself onto dry land.
My mind was a complete blur, refusing to function properly. Why was I in a place like this again?
Mother summoned me to the royal capital, I was jostled in a carriage for about a week, I talked with Rose while camping, I crawled out of the tent to relieve myself, and then I ran into that red-haired man...
"——!!?"
The string of nightmarish memories assaulted me in rapid succession, and the blood drained from my face like a receding tide.
Right! That was it! I was chased here by those beasts, went inside the temple's dungeon, had my right arm devoured by that grasshopper monster, and ran for my life—! What about my arm?!
"M-My arm is completely fine..."
Letting out a massive sigh of relief so profound it brought tears to my eyes, I collapsed onto the ground.
It must have been a nightmare. If that had been real, there was no way my right arm would be intact. Yeah. It had to be a dream. Just as my rational thoughts finally began to return—
"Wait... the sleeve on my right arm..."
Sure enough, there wasn't a single scratch on my skin. Yet the sleeve covering my right arm had been ripped away entirely from the shoulder. And the dark stains ringing the torn fabric... At a glance, they looked unmistakably like clotted blood...
"Elixir."
I unconsciously muttered the word that floated to the surface of my mind.
Right. That explained everything. It all fit together horribly well.
My right arm had been ripped off by that grasshopper monster, I barely escaped with my life, plunged into this Spring of Elixir, and passed out. Which meant the only reason my right arm didn't have a scratch on it right now was because the elixir had completely regenerated it...
If what happened in that subterranean dungeon wasn't a dream but absolute reality, then I would be forced to step foot into that hellish place all over again.
"You've got to be kidding me! No! Anything but that, absolutely not!"
I hadn't been able to perceive even a fraction of that grasshopper's movements. If it had severed my neck instead of my arm, I would be dead. The fact that I was breathing right now was pure luck—nothing more than a fluke.
"No, I can't be certain yet. After all, my arm is safe and sound, so—"
Desperate to pull myself together, I glanced back toward the temple, only for my vision to be filled by the massive spray of blood splattered across the stone ground.
"Haha..."
I see. Of course. It was always like this. Whatever I hoped for was inevitably crushed in the cruelest way imaginable.
Staring at the impossibly thick, towering gray wall blocking my future, I felt a dry, hollow laugh rise from my throat. Before long, that laugh dissolved into a sob.
Faced with such an overwhelmingly merciless fate, I broke down and wept aloud for the first time in years.
Once I had cried until I had no tears left, my emotions finally settled, and I regained enough composure to think rationally.
Either way, the current me stood no chance against that grasshopper. Stepping back inside would only turn me into monster feed. Yet the only way out of this space was to conquer that dungeon.
Would Rosemary send a search party if I waited until morning? No, as if her attendants would ever obey an order to look for someone like me. Even if Al-san gave a direct command, they would flatly refuse. Besides, time inside and outside this space was completely frozen, meaning the arrival of "tomorrow morning" was impossible in the first place.
This was bad. I was utterly trapped. Still, I refused to die like a dog in a place like this. And there was still a sliver of hope that things might turn around. For instance, what if I wasn't the only one trapped here? If someone else was challenging this dungeon, waiting around might eventually lead to a chance encounter.
If that was the plan, securing food and water became my top priority. On that front, water was guaranteed thanks to the supposedly infinite Spring of Elixir. The real problem was food.
"I guess there really isn't anything..."
I searched the entire area, but there was no fruit, no foliage, and not a single small animal in sight. Beneath the shadows of the rocks and stones lurked caterpillar-like bugs, but they were deadly poisonous and completely inedible. Well, even if those grotesque things weren't toxic, I wouldn't want to put them anywhere near my mouth anyway.
Damn it! Don't give up yet. If time inside and outside this space was completely frozen and I didn't age, maybe the very concept of hunger didn't exist here. Or perhaps the elixir could even cure starvation. For now, I had to bet on those possibilities.
Above all else, wasting stamina was strictly forbidden.
Flopping down onto the ground, I shut my eyes.