Dungeon Tour Guide ch. 165 (Patreon)

Lucas

“You’re going to be able to destroy all the king’s forces with ease,” Carly said. “I [See] your hordes of monsters. With your [Intertwine], you may be the most powerful being on this planet once you gather all the adventurers within your domain.”

“I think so too,” I said. “I don’t like the idea of the king pulling off another bullshit ritual, though. The last time, he brought a ton of otherworlders in, and I have the distinct premonition that he’s going to sacrifice all of them if that’s what it takes to get to the next part of his plan.”

“That is also entirely possible,” Carly said. “You have a number of ways to address this. First: you can kill all the otherworlders yourself.”

“Absolutely not. Do you know how much effort I’ve put in to save even one life?” I was genuinely offended to hear that suggestion, especially coming from someone who claimed to be able to see everything I could do and understand my motives.

She cracked a smile. “It’s good to know that you are as good a person as I assumed you were.”

“Oh, come on,” I said. “Don’t hit me with that ‘it was just a test’ kind of bullshit again.”

“It is an option,” Carly said with a shrug. “I’m personally opposed to it, but I would rather not go to my grave thinking, ‘maybe we could have won if I had just gotten that one suggestion through.’ I hope you understand.”

I did, unfortunately, which meant I couldn’t get all that mad at her.

“Continue on, then,” I said.

“The second method, as far as I see it, is to abruptly gain power,” she said. “Although I can [See] past many veils, the king’s power outclasses mine. I cannot see further than fifty miles from this dungeon, and I suspect that the king’s rituals may lie in my blind spots. If you are able to extend the bounds of your dungeon that far, you may be able to interrupt it.”

“That’s impossible,” I said, but the gears were already whirring in my head.

I’d received a message from Nora shortly after learning of Tuyu’s death. She’d been even more subdued than Thorn had been in delivering the news, but I’d learned one new thing.

She had a load of Dungeon Cores.

Weeks ago—what felt like an eternity ago, now—I had learned the process of core absorption with Iris. In the matter of moments, I’d leveled up multiple times simply by eating other, depowered Dungeon Cores and absorbing all the mana they’d ever had to offer.

I wondered if I could do the same here.

Still, that wasn’t the only problem we faced.

“Even if I do manage that,” I said, “How are we going to deal with the otherworlders? They’re going to die in about eighteen days if I don’t figure out a way to cancel their quest. How do we help them?”

“Ascension,” Carly said.

“What?” I replied. “That’s like answering ‘with a gun’ to the question ‘how should I deal with my noisy neighbor?’ How is that the answer?”

“My spells aren’t working amazingly right now, what with the ongoing end of the world,” Carly said, “But I remember the offer for ascension. It’s simple. You go to the next plane, and everything resets. That means any active quests—”

“You’ve received quests before?” I asked.

“Yes. Rarely, and only in times of great need. Sometimes in dungeons.”

Why hadn’t I ever received one, then? Was that just a thing for people that weren’t part dungeon, or had I just never been considered to be in a “time of great need?”

“Sorry. Continue on.”

“As I was saying, active quests are removed, alongside any malus or bonus you might have on your body. The first part seems to be the most pertinent, at the moment.”

“It is,” I said. “You’re saying that if I make it to the next plane, I could end the quest?”

“No.” Carly shook her head. “It ends conditions on you. If something else—even the target of a quest—ascends, then the people who needed that target are… how do the children say it? ‘Shit out of luck,’ I believe.”

I winced. “Then, what you’re suggesting is impossible.”

“Not impossible,” she disagreed. “Just very highly improbable.”

“I would have to force an entire group of otherworlders to join me,” I said, trying to remember the numbers I’d heard. “That’s… even assuming I somehow spread myself across the entire kingdom, that’s something like a million ascensions. I just don’t have that kind of power.”

“You can’t always save them all, Lucas,” Carly said sadly.

“No,” I said. “I will. We’ll find a way. We’ll always find a way.”

“That may be up to the goddess to decide,” she said, looking up. The expression in her eyes was a familiar, stone-cold hatred.

“We deserve a win after all the shit she’s tossed our way,” I said. “But I’m assuming we’re getting no help from her. We still have time. I’ll gain power. We’ll find a way to save them all. No matter what it takes.”

The [Omniscient Librarian] looked at me with eyes that seemed to pierce straight into my soul. “Are you sure about that?”

I wasn’t sure. Even if it was horribly selfish, I didn’t know if I could give my life up, even for a million people. I was terrified of death, especially my own, and no matter how many lives I wanted to save, I didn’t know if I could give mine to save more.

Yes, I could rationalize the decision to not sacrifice myself and enable the quest. If Centerpoint Dungeon died too early, then the king’s insane plan, whatever it was, would almost certainly succeed. Even if we broke me after the king was done plotting, there was still the question of who was going to supply food and water when all was said and done.

But in the end, my heart trumped my mind. I knew that we could delay breaking Centerpoint until after the king was dealt with. I knew that I had already started to set up infrastructure to support a kingdom even if I died.

I didn’t want to die.

I didn’t want anybody else to die.

And right now, those two choices were looking mutually exclusive.

So I had to figure out another way.

“I’ll leave you to it, then,” Carly said. “I believe you may have some friends joining you soon.”

Right on cue, the Pallbearers hit the edge of the dungeon.

Nora was with them, I saw. I was terribly glad to see her alive and well. I’d learned she was alive through the ARI already, but seeing was truly believing. I’d feared the worst when she’d vanished for so long.

And, I realized, they weren’t alone. They’d come with luggage. Absurdly, it felt a little like the first time Minus One had come to me. They hadn’t even named their party back then, and they had given me a picnic basket of goods.

Now, of course, things were different. I was hundreds of times larger, and there were literally a hundred thousand more people than there were back then. The “picnic basket” this time was actually a huge mass of crates that were individually as tall as the [Alchemist], which K’lon was carrying.

Inside them, I saw, were 1,243 Dungeon Cores.

“Oh, wow,” I said, “This is going to be good.”

#

Anderson

The spire was durable. Anderson had poked it from afar, at first, using [Eagle’s Eye] and the quietest setting on his rifle to plink at the runes as stealthily as possible, but he’d given up on that when he realized that he wasn’t even making a dent in the marble-like substance.

Afterwards, he’d started using more of his arsenal. When the tower didn’t respond to his initial pokes at it, Anderson whipped out the [Grimoire Cannon] for a few shots.

That garnered a bit more of a reaction, though not by much. It was pretty obvious that there was some kind of protective spell defending the tower from direct damage, because though he managed to break a sizable chunk of the surface off, it disintegrated before it hit the ground. Before he could line up another blast, the building repaired itself like it was healing a wound in fast motion.

Well, then. That was inconvenient, wasn’t it?

Maybe he could destroy it if he used something with a higher yield, but Anderson knew that using his entire arsenal here was a risky bet at best.

Even if Lucas hadn’t told him what to do, Anderson had entrusted himself with the safety of everyone he was managing. Dying here was not going to help that.

But finding out what the king was doing was critically important. Everyone agreed that the king hadn’t been idle. He’d summoned a load of otherworlders to this one, given them a quest to fulfill or die, then disappeared to hide in his castle.

This tower couldn’t be the only one. Nobody else had reported coming into contact with any spires of this kind—while Nora had found a tower, the one she’d traversed had been a production facility, while this one clearly wasn’t.

Or maybe it was, and it was just further along in its development than the one that Inquisition’s [Alchemist] had described.

Either way, Anderson was sure that it was the next step in the king’s endeavor to… take over the world? Kill a million people? He wasn’t sure of the motives, but he’d leave that up to people smarter than him.

For now, he could do what he did best and shoot.

He closed the distance, careful to check his every step for potential traps, triggers, or monsters lying in ambush. It was suspiciously empty. Had the king assumed that nobody would come across these towers, or were the defenses just closer?

Anderson composed a second message to the rest of the adventurers. He figured it would be good to have a record in case he wound up doing something incredibly stupid and dying.

Back when he’d started, Anderson had never really critically thought about any of the adventures the Guild had sent him on. He’d just executed the tasks they gave him, then done whatever he could to maximize his own profit, even if it was at the expense of the rest of his party.

There was nobody guiding him now. Even though he had everybody to talk to, he was the only one here. Alice and Alex were needed back with the otherworlders, and images couldn’t be sent across the ARI.

He had to figure this out on his own.

That wasn’t to say it was impossible, of course. The last few months had been a lifetime in terms of learning, and he was no slouch at processing information now.

[ARI - message failed!]

That was weird. The air felt heavier in a certain radius around the tower. Was that a dampening spell of some kind? If it was, it would explain why nobody with powerful [Farsight] or similar spells had spotted these out already.

Anderson retreated until hte message succeeded.

Looks like there’s a dampening field preventing communication spells from working that stretches up to a quarter mile around it, he added to the end of the message. I’ll be back in a bit, hopefully. Just need to check what this does.

A few moments later, he received a message back.

#

It’s Lucas. Good luck, Anderson. Don’t get yourself killed, but do what you can.

We’re counting on you.

#

“Now there’s some fun pressure,” Anderson muttered. “Here goes nothing.”

He dashed back into the radius of the dampening field, once again careful to evaluate his surroundings for traps. [Gunslinger] didn’t seem like a class that was suited for it, but he had high natural awareness, and his [Eagle’s Eye] let him see potential ley lines or mana triggers laid beneath the ground.

It was disturbingly empty up until he saw the base of the tower itself, where the Dungeon Cores lay. The ritual circle was absolutely littered with mana, traps, and all sorts of nasty shit that Anderson didn’t even want to think about touching.

Thankfully, he didn’t need to touch it.

He willed his [Autotarget] into existence, tossing the coins to the sky. This combo had served him well against a horde of monsters—against a structure that couldn’t move or defend itself, it would be devastating.

Once he had the [Autotarget] coins set up into a rough circle in a hundred-foot radius around the spire’s base, he fired his [Arcane Autocannon].

Overwhelming purple and black energy burst forth from his magically enhanced gun, then rebounded between the [Autotarget]ing coings, gaining power with every bounce until it set the very air on fire.

It took a few minutes for the lightshow to die down after he fired the last of his arsenal, but when it was faded, the grass and shrubbery around the spire had vanished into ash. The ground itself was scorched.

Even the tower had taken damage, though not as much as he’d hoped it would. Massive, jagged cracks ran down the sides, exposing the innards.

Anderson’s eyes widened as he looked further.

The inside of the tower was full with those golden spheres—Dungeon Cores, he realized.

But that wasn’t all.

They’d been wondering where the native populace had gone. The Cataclysm had slaughtered them in droves, but sometimes, the number of dead just didn’t line up. While their parties had each come upon stomach-churning scenes of carnage, it hadn’t lined up with how many people had lived here.

One time in particular, Anderson and Alice had come across a village that had clearly been teleported wholesale into the sky—what few intact bodies remained looked to be related, and the remnants of a town were strewn around them.

“There’s not enough bodies,” Alice had said.

“There are plenty,” Anderson had replied, forcing himself to commit the scene to memory.

“No,” Alice had replied. “If they had escaped, there should be mana traces here. I don’t see any. There aren’t enough bodies for a village. There isn’t enough blood.”

“You know this how?”

“I am a living [Nightmare],” Alice had said. Anderson wasn’t going to forget the haunted look in her eyes anytime soon. “Trust me. I know.”

Alice, he thought now, I think you were right.

He stared.

The Dungeon Cores glowed.

The people within the tower screamed.

The tower screamed.

Anderson ran, and the world lit up behind him.