Chapter 232 – Entering the Dungeon (1)

While the swordmasters and the allied forces were fighting against the undead army, we were climbing the mountain to enter the ravine.

Originally, there was a comfortable path to enter the ravine, but now that path was filled with undead pouring out from the ravine.

In order to enter the ravine without encountering the undead army, we had to cross over the mountain itself, a bit away from the ravine entrance.

The hero’s party, consisting of three mages, two saintesses, and one hero, was rushing through the rugged mountain.

No, only one person was actually working hard to run through the rugged mountain.

Yelena, our spatial mage whose skills had improved remarkably, was flying low in the air while carrying her disciple.

Zahina was moving through this pathless mountain as if she were taking a stroll on flat ground.

She leaped between trees and bounded from rock to rock like a mountain goat.

She didn’t seem to be using magic, yet she was running more comfortably than the mage flying through the air.

While the three women crossed the mountain with ease, I was doing my best to move my two feet.

Instead of expelling mana and leaping over the mountain as I usually would, I ran quickly but as carefully as possible.

The reason I did so was because of the luggage I was carrying.

“…Do we really have to move like this?”

While I was running, the luggage in my left arm asked me with a flushed face.

In response to her question, the luggage in my other arm answered on my behalf.

“There’s no other way. Yelena unnie needs to take Irene, and Zahina unnie needs to scout ahead, so we have no choice but to be carried by Sir Egger.”

“I suppose so, but…”

“I’m sorry. Please bear with it a little longer. We don’t have much time, so this couldn’t be helped.”

“No, I wasn’t asking for an apology. I’m being carried comfortably, so I feel bad instead…”

In response to my apology, the saintess of Ea, Princess Meliya, quickly shook her head.

Then she turned her head away without saying anything.

Yerim had spoken for me, but I understood why the princess felt awkward.

Although we were in the mountains where no one else could see, being carried in the arms of an unrelated man would naturally make the princess uncomfortable.

Moreover, another woman, the saintess of Earth, was being carried in my other arm, which must have been quite bewildering for the princess.

But there was no other choice.

Although saintesses had sturdier bodies than ordinary people, they were still only slightly better than the average person.

With such bodies, they couldn’t run through this mountain path at the same pace as the others.

As Yerim said, the mages couldn’t help them, so I had to carry the two of them.

In truth, even with a reason, it was disrespectful for a knight to casually hold the imperial princess, who was also a saintess, but I was a knight who remembered my past life.

I used methods from both worlds when necessary.

So we crossed the pathless mountain under Zahina’s guidance.

While crossing the mountain, we encountered undead that had flowed into this mountain, but fortunately, we were able to deal with them all before they noticed us.

After crossing the mountain, just before entering the ravine, we encountered another group of zombies, and Yerim muttered with a gloomy face.

“If Uncle Hoffman were here, we might have been able to avoid fighting.”

At her words, Zahina, who was dealing with the zombies, turned her head toward us, and when she looked at her, Yerim shook her head frantically with a surprised face.

“Ah, I don’t mean that Zahina unnie did anything wrong.”

At Yerim’s words, Zahina smiled slightly.

“It’s okay. I think so too.”

At Zahina’s smile, Yerim bowed her head with an apologetic face.

“I’m sorry for bringing it up unnecessarily.”

I put her down on the ground as she apologized.

And then I patted her head.

“It’s okay. There’s nothing wrong with remembering a comrade who went ahead of us.”

“Hehe. That’s right, isn’t it?”

Yerim, whose mood had improved at my words, walked forward energetically.

After putting Princess Meliya down as well, I took out a sword from my pocket.

Though it looked more ordinary than the swords I had before, this was a famous sword brought from the imperial treasury.

It had no special functions, but it was a remarkable artifact with the property of being unbreakable.

I drew my weapon and walked to the edge of the ravine cliff.

The rocky cliff where my companions were crouching down and looking below seemed to be over a hundred meters to the bottom of the ravine.

As I had felt before, this ravine was truly a natural fortress.

Except for the entrance to the ravine, ordinary people would find it difficult to go in and out.

Even decent knights would find it difficult to move around elsewhere.

That’s why the allied forces had set up a base inside this ravine after the Demon King fled.

I had also lived inside this ravine for quite some time back then.

The place where I had been was in the center of the ravine, in front of the dungeon, but now neither the allied forces’ base nor the barracks where I had stayed were visible.

In their place were countless undead continuously pouring out and the gate from which they emerged.

“Huh, is the gate supposed to be there?”

In response to Yerim’s question, Zahina shook her head.

“No. It used to be inside the Demon King’s dungeon.”

She was right.

The gate through which we had chased the Demon King to Earth was deep inside the dungeon.

“It seems the Demon King changed the location of the gate. To continuously pour out that many, it would need to be on the surface.”

Indeed, seeing the undead pouring out now, if it had been in its original location, the dungeon passage would have been completely blocked with undead.

“Can the location of the gate be changed at will?”

To my question, Yelena shook her head.

“It’s a difficult task. You need to recalculate the formula, and it requires a lot of mana… I don’t think I could have done it easily due to lack of mana.”

Yelena didn’t say it was impossible.

But if even she said it was difficult, it would be nearly impossible for others.

That meant only the Demon King could have done it.

The reason why the Demon King undertook such a difficult task.

We looked down at the undead army continuously pouring out of the gate with disgusted faces.

“My goodness… how can they keep coming out like this? The undead that attacked the empire were already over hundreds of thousands, and now there must be well over a hundred thousand more.”

At the princess’s words, spoken with an incredulous expression, I smiled bitterly.

“There are more people in that dimension than in Ea. Plus, the country the Demon King attacked had a particularly large population.”

“It was the most populous country in the world.”

Despite her grumbling words, Yerim watched the pouring undead with a sympathetic face.

Zombies wearing clothes with Chinese characters and English, and skeletons holding guns used by the Chinese military.

Most of the undead coming out of the gate were Chinese… As expected, the undead crossing over this time were the main force of the Demon King’s army that he had created on Earth.

The true army of the Demon King, making the hundreds of thousands of undead that had crossed over earlier seem like mere advance troops.

Although we had created a better allied force than before, it was impossible to face this endless undead army.

I asked Yelena, who was watching the undead horde flowing through the gate and into the ravine.

“It would be difficult to destroy the gate, right?”

Yelena, who had been drawing magic circles in the air for a while, nodded at my question.

“Yes. It’s difficult to approach because undead keep coming out, but more than that, the defenses are solid this time.

That gate is connected to the Demon King. As long as the Demon King continues to infuse it with mana, the gate won’t be destroyed unless the connection with the Demon King is severed.”

As I thought.

The Demon King wouldn’t repeat the same mistake.

The Demon King I saw before was quite hot-tempered, but that Demon King would have been obliterated by the nuclear explosion.

That Demon King had disappeared, and it seemed we were back to dealing with the original, rational Demon King.

“I wonder if that’s why the Demon King came over directly this time?”

“Yes. After seeing the previous gate destroyed, he seems to have decided to come himself.”

Thanks to that, we could fight the Demon King without going back to Earth, but…

“So in the end, we need to kill the Demon King to close the gate.”

“Yes.”

Until now, we had been blocking the Demon King’s path in various ways without fighting him directly, but now we could no longer do that.

In fact, even if the Demon King and the gate weren’t connected, as someone appointed as a hero by the gods of both dimensions, I had to fight the Demon King now.

“So in the end, he sent the undead to the battlefield and hid himself in his home…”

If it had been the Demon King I saw recently, he would have moved with the undead, wanting to fight directly, but the current Demon King, despite having power, was inside the dungeon like the Demon King of old.

A Demon King in a dungeon and a hero’s party entering the dungeon to kill him.

I couldn’t help but laugh at the repetitive nature of the story.

“So it’s becoming a fairy tale hero’s adventure again this time.”

At my words, Yerim raised her hand excitedly.

“You mean the story of a hero party invading the Demon King’s castle? I like that story too.”

Looking at the undead legion covering the ravine, I agreed with Yerim’s words.

“The characters have changed a lot, and the props have changed a lot, but in the end, it’s the same plot.”

“Then the ending will be the same too, right?”

At Yerim’s words, all party members looked at me.

I nodded firmly.

“We’ll make it so. I like happy endings.”

At my words, Zahina said with a smile.

“I also like the epilogue where heroines fight over the protagonist hero.”

At Zahina’s unexpected remark, Yerim’s jaw dropped.

“What? Where did you see that?”

Zahina looked at Yerim with a puzzled face.

“It was on the tablet Yerim gave me. It was a fantasy novel among the BL novels. There was a saintess and a mage with the hero…”

“No, wait! Stop! Why was that in there?”

Yerim covered Zahina’s mouth with her face turning red.

Seeing this, everyone smiled slightly.

A small farce that unfolded before the battle with the Demon King.

If this had been an army or a knightly order, it would have been something to be angry about, but we could all laugh happily.

That was because everyone recalled the memories from not long ago.

The conversation we had before Hoffman died was just like this.

Besides, I thought the problem wasn’t the fantasy novel epilogue but introducing BL culture to the daughter of the Divine Tree, though I didn’t say it out loud.

It was time to move.

“Let’s all go.”

“Yes.”

At my words, the party members who had been crouching down all stood up.

Then Zahina and Yelena’s magic concealed our bodies, and the divine power of the two saintesses enveloped our surroundings.

Now the final preparations were complete.

I took the two saintesses in my arms again and jumped off the cliff.