Kuro no Maou

Chapter 180 Rank 2 Quest

The mossy stone passage was so narrow that not even two people could walk properly side-by-side each other.

There was no light as there were no windows, and the airtight passage gave a somewhat suffocating feeling but it was only obvious as this passage was a part of a building that was underground.

If Lily’s light ball would disappear, this place would be completely drowned in the depths of darkness.

This place was one of the danger rank 3 dungeons, [Revival Catacomb].

The monsters that live here are mainly Skeletons, ghouls, and other undead type monsters.

Just as the name of the dungeon suggests, any living being that died here ‘revives’ with false life energy as an undead.

Of course, since no magic that can fully resurrect someone exists, the revived undeads hold neither will nor memories.

That’s because, the ultimate part of one’s existence, the [soul], disappears from this world the moment one dies, so a person won’t revert back to his own self just because his body became able to move again.

This underground tomb that was converted into an evil dungeon because it was overrun by undeads was now only used as a graveyard by those insane necromancers.

“Say, this might be my imagination but isn’t this heading deeper and deeper as we continue?”(kurono)

We [Element Master] that became rank 2 just recently are currently completing a quest needed to get our next rank up.

Is what I said but the subjugation of20 skeleton soldiers, which is our objective, and the proof of subjugation [imitation heart]; we already have collected 40 of them and have clearly completed our quota but,

“What a coincidence, I was thinking the same thing.”(Fiona)

We were supposed to be heading back up to return but I feel like the reverse is happening right now.

“Nee, Kurono, look.”(lily)

“nn?”

Lily who was wandering around my legs was picking up something round shaped from the dirty mossy ground.

On looking closely, it was a core of a slime that we had defeated while heading into the dungeon.

As Lily dropped it, the round core rolled away near our feet towards where we were heading.

“Clearly, it’s sloped downwards.......”(kurono)

Thanks to this experiment, it was proved that this passage was further heading deeper inside this dangerous dungeon.

“Should we go back?”(Fiona)

“un, we need to confirm whether there’s any stairs heading up from the room at the end of this passage as well.”(kurono)

That’s true. As Fiona replied that, we started walking once again.

Now that I think about it, all the excitement and tension of going into a dungeon I had before had begun to descend just like this dark gloomy passage.

It’s obvious but there was no treasure lying around here and there, in the first place, there was no tasteful thing like treasure boxes here either.

From what I heard, in some dungeons where the system of the Ancient Ruins was still working, through what unimaginable theory, weapons and magic items were periodically generated apparently.

But right now, in this [Revival Catacomb], there’s no such dreamlike perpetual motion system that exists and it’s only an impure place where undeads and monsters keep on being born.

Thus, there were only walking corpses and other undead type monsters here and was made of the same unchanging passages of stone.

It kind of reminds me of that white facility so I feel depressed when comparing this to being inside that forest.

While praying to find the exit quickly, we silently kept on walking till the end of the passage.

.

.

.

At the end of the passage was a large dome-shaped open space which was the biggest open space I’ve seen in this dungeon except for the entrance lobby on the first floor.

It’s diameter seemed about 40m and looked like a gym, no, though I haven’t seen one but maybe it’s a dance hall?

But still, I could only overlap this place with that hall where those maneuvering experiments took place. Even the wideness is almost the same.

Well, leaving my personal impressions aside, after looking around, it seems that this hall acts like a crossroads of passages inside the dungeon.

On the opposite of the passage we came through, another passage of the same size was continuing. And on both sides, 2 even bigger passages were present.

What’s important here is that the passage on the right was a descending staircase and the passage on the left had an ascending staircase.

“Alright, looks like we can go back with that.”(kurono)

I doubt those stairs would take us directly to the exit but it still will bring us closer to the exit.

Without any hesitation, we stepped into the hall and started to move towards the ascending stairs but,

*GOGOGO——-*

A sound like that of stone hitting stone began resounding from all 360 degrees of the hall.

Looking at the wall of the hall where Lily’s light was barely reaching, apparently there were stone coffins lined up on the wall.

They were completely assimilated with the wall as if they were pieces of artwork so I hadn’t realized till now but as expected, if the coffins began opening up while making a sound, I couldn’t ignore it even if I wanted to.

“Sorry, I guess I made them wake up.”(kurono)

From inside the coffins, skeleton soldiers that we had been defeating till now appeared.

Wearing black surcoats somewhat different from those of the Crusaders, and broken and chipped off armour and helmets, they were the undead soldiers rank 2 classified.

The weapons they held were curved scimitars and round shield sets. Some held tridents so that the narrow passages don’t pose a problem, and maces. They had no sense of unity as if everyone picked up whatever weapon they liked.

“What should we do?”(Fiona)

In front of this lineup, Fiona asked me that but honestly speaking, I’m fine with both either running or fighting.

If we fight then we get more reward, and if we run then we can get out of this gloomy dungeon as faster.

Should we earn as much as we can? No, here we should quickly finish up the quests for rank up, right?

Then, let’s run, the moment I was going to say that, footsteps began resounding from the staircase to which we were about to run to and dark brown giant figure appeared.

“What the heck is that? I’m seeing that for the first time.”(kurono)

Is what I asked but, this monster with a cow’s head and a human-like body could only be a minotaur.

This figure that was making *bumoo* sounds from its nose had its fur peeled off at some parts and even some parts of its cranium was visible. Also, it’s right eye was hanging out.

This kind of damage was the same for the rest of its body as well.

So basically, rather than a minotaur, it’s more of a zombie?——

“It’s a Minotaur Zombie.”(Fiona)

“No special name, eh?”(kurono)

It seems my prediction was right.

In any case, this Minotaur Zombie, even while rotting, was blocking our escape route with its huge body.

It’s eyes that had lost the light of life had clearly captured us in its sight

It seemed to imply that it won’t let us run away that easily.

“Can’t be helped, we’ll kill them.”(kurono)

“Roger that.”(fiona)

“Un!”

Now then, though it’s a pretty big area, if Lily’s [Meteor Strike] or Fiona’s [Aur Soleil] exploded here, we’ll become part of the undeads as well definitely.

Let’s be careful not to get too excited and use our full power.

I brought out the [Hararetsu] which seemed to close to evolving and the [Mithril Sword] that was good against such undead enemies from inside my shadow and took my stance.

It seems Lily and Fiona are also ready.

At the same time, the Skeleton soldier and the Minotaur zombie also started attacking enthusiastically.

“Let’s go!”

Against these undead enemies, I took one step forward as I fired myself up.