Chapter 84
“What—what do you mean by that? Did you find a way?”
I widened my eyes and leaned toward Adrian.
Honestly, if there were a way, I wanted to end things without fighting Hypnosian.
He already felt uncomfortable enough—he was intelligent, reasonable, someone I could speak to.
And after our last conversation, that feeling had only grown stronger.
Adrian raised both hands, motioning for me to calm down.
“No, no. I’m saying if. A hypothetical situation, nothing more.”
“Oh… I see. I thought you’d actually figured something out. I got my hopes up…”
The disappointment hit me hard, and I let out a long sigh.
“How would I know something even the incubus himself doesn’t know? I’m not some walking encyclopedia.”
He shrugged.
But you kind of ARE a walking encyclopedia…
Who was it that found a technique even Johanna—the magic prodigy who’d lived an extra hundred years—had never heard of?
The method that allowed me to share the goddess’s blessing?
Him.
This man right here.
So yes, I had hoped. Just a little.
“Judging by your reaction, you’d prefer not to defeat him if there was another option.”
“That’s… true.”
I nodded gloomily.
It was just pitiful.
To be forced, in every generation, to fight the goddess’s chosen hero with your life on the line—either kill them or die yourself.
“And according to him, he’ll resurrect anyway.”
“…Even so, dying over and over isn’t exactly pleasant.”
He wasn’t some mindless monster.
He used human language. He communicated like a human being.
How could I possibly feel comfortable fighting someone like that?
“……”
Adrian fell silent, thinking deeply—so deeply he seemed to forget I was standing right in front of him.
Only after quite a while did he speak again.
“…Ah. I’ve kept a busy person too long. As Miss Elaine said, tomorrow’s schedule will be tight. You should get some rest.”
And just like that, our conversation ended anticlimactically.
At dawn the next day.
Before the sun had even risen, while the sky was only beginning to lighten—
We set out for the desert, accompanied by the guide assigned to us by the king.
“Hahaha, it is the honor of my family to escort the famous warriors of the Hageon Corps! I am Mazita, your humble guide.”
The man with the weasel-like mustache rubbed his hands together as he bowed repeatedly.
He was the very picture of a sycophant.
A merchant by trade, he claimed to know the geography of the desert like the back of his hand.
He also insisted he remembered the exact spot where the darkness first appeared, walking ahead with unearned confidence.
So in the dungeon simulation later, this guy becomes the guide system…? Gods, I miss Ferdia.
Ferdia was a woman around my age, so I’d felt comfortable with her.
And more than anything, when everyone else treated us coldly, she was the only one who reached out first.
Of course I felt more attached to her than this goat-bearded uncle.
But Mazita continued rambling on with the same fawning grin.
“I dare say I could cross the desert with my eyes closed! Darkness or no, I am not worried at all, hehehe!”
“Haha, reassuring to hear.”
Leo, our party’s designated social-machine, responded politely to his slimy laugh.
After we passed the city boundary—
An endless desert stretched before us, blanketed by a massive swath of dark cloud-like haze.
“My goodness… Before the sandstorm, the darkness wasn’t nearly this widespread. How could it have grown so much so quickly…”
Mazita swallowed nervously.
Apparently, the last time he had checked was right before the storm.
“B-but please don’t worry! I will guide you safely, absolutely safely—just trust me, hehehe…”
But the fear vanished from his face in seconds, replaced with his usual groveling grin.
I had to wonder if all merchants were built this way.
Either way, we needed his help to clear the dungeon.
I clapped my hands twice to rally the party.
“Alright, let’s go. Don’t wander too far from me, okay?”
“Yes, ma’am, got it!” Darron grinned, hefting his axe onto his shoulder.
Lena invoked enhancement magic on her limbs, and Leo opened his glowing spellbook.
Everyone looked much more seasoned the second time around.
It was reassuring.
I loaded my gun, fired a round into the ground to activate my technique—preparations complete.
Then we stepped into the darkness.
Of course, unlike at <Silva Grove Forest>, no message appeared telling us we’d entered a dungeon.
Because this darkness wasn’t the dungeon.
Even once we reached the area where the darkness began, there would still be nothing.
Only after that empty trek would the real dungeon finally open.
If I could, I would’ve skipped ahead like hitting a “chapter jump” button—but doing so would basically admit I knew the future.
Annoying… but I have to endure.
Unlike weaving through dense trees like in Silva Grove, the path here was almost perfectly straight.
The only hazards were the occasional antlion pit.
The antlions here were huge—some over two meters long—and the pits they dug could swallow a person whole.
“Oh—watch your step. You might get dragged into an antlion pit,” Mazita warned sternly.
Predictably, Darron jumped three feet in the air and clung to the guide’s back.
“Argh! I hate bugs!”
Seeing such a big, axe-wielding guy terrified of insects was… amusingly contradictory.
To be fair, I hated bugs too. Especially ones bigger than humans.
We trudged through pitch-black darkness and sinking sand for who knew how long.
“Pengsoon, are you doing okay?” I asked, looking down at the tiny penguin waddling after us on her short legs.
When she fell behind, she’d flop onto a snowy path she summoned herself and slide along on her round belly like a sled.
“Squeak! Squeak-squeak!”
She chirped happily—not tired at all.
Just seeing her warmed my heart.
“If items drop, you know what to do, okay?”
“Squeak!”
This dungeon was practically Pengsoon’s debut.
We hadn’t brought her when we chased Hypnosian a few nights ago.
…Honestly, I’d just forgotten about her then.
I still remembered crouching to pick up coins dropped by skeletons one by one, and then suddenly remembering Pengsoon’s existence and groaning in despair.
When we returned to the inn, Pengsoon had pecked me furiously, outraged I’d left her behind.
Even that adorable anger had been so cute…
Truly, pet therapy was real.
“…Something feels off,” Leo murmured.
“Yeah. Strange,” Lena agreed, frowning.
“W-what do you mean strange?” Mazita asked nervously, terrified he’d somehow failed to impress us.
“…We’ve been walking forever, but where are the monsters?”
He had a point.
In Silva Grove Forest, we couldn’t walk five steps without an obsidian bear roaring in our faces.
Then another enemy would show up right afterward.
But here—nothing.
No monsters. No animals. Not even a hint of life.
“Y-yes, that is strange. Once you enter the darkness, monsters many times stronger than usual should be swarming…”
It was abnormal.
Even if not monsters, there were desert animals.
Local monsters like the Catersi species lived naturally in the Aither Desert.
But here—nothing.
“……”
And because I knew the truth, I could only keep my mouth shut.
We quickened our pace toward the center where the darkness began.
We practically ran.
Finally, we arrived at the heart of the darkness.
“…Hypnosian’s nowhere. There’s nothing here,” Darron said, baffled.
“Hey, merchant uncle. You sure this is the place?”
“Y-yes! Absolutely! This is definitely where the darkness first appeared, I swear, but… how…?”
Mazita stammered as sweat poured down his face.
I folded my arms and watched quietly.
It was time for my favorite—Adrian—to shine.
My Adrian is handsome, pretty, cool, and smart—he has everything. Isn’t the world unfair?
I remembered babbling nonsense like that to Sohyun in the past and mentally erased the memory.
No way I was going to say that kind of unhinged fangirling about the real Adrian standing here.
“This is the correct location, yet there is nothing here,” he murmured, brushing his soft lashes downward as he stroked his chin.
“…If it is not aboveground, then it must be underground.”
He finally spoke the line I had been waiting for.
