Silas wandered along, his hands behind his head. “It’s a bit quiet, isn’t it?”

“Well, the dungeon is broken,” Milo replied gently, looking around him. His robes swished along the floor, straight hair parted around his face.

“Is no fun,” Alice grumbled, back slouched, hands in her pockets. She glared around her, searching for something, anything.

“I mean, there were plenty of slimes, but… it feels kind of… empty,” Silas said, gesturing vaguely.

Milo gave him a look. “It is broken.”

“Oh yeah, I mean… but at first, right, it was broken in an interesting way. All the midbosses right up front… I wasn’t down for that boss rush, were you? Now it’s just kind of…” He waved his hands at the empty cavern around them. Blue light glowed from the distant crystals, but nothing moved, nothing attacked.

“Boring,” Alice finished, displeased.

Milo shook his head. “Even so, it’s still in a broken state. Whatever happens, we can’t expect it to operate as normal.”

Silas shrugged. He glanced around again, ambivalent. “Oh well. At least it’s easier to reach the final boss this way. I mean, when Fontea and Jaro decided this was a waste of time, I thought we’d get stuck way back at the lava trap, but here we are.”

Furrowing his brows, Milo raised a hand to his chin. “That is a good point. What happened to the lava trap? Why was it covered over like that?”

“Dungeon’s broken. I don’t know. Maybe one of the midbosses covered it for some reason. Look, we aren’t here to figure out dungeons, we’re here to collect the dragon’s hide.”

“I thought we were going to figure out what was wrong on our own,” Milo guessed, tilting his head.

“Eh, that’s just something I told Bessa to get a discount. She’s all about that small-town hometown thinking,” Silas said, waving his hand. “Who cares about any of that crap? This dungeon is just our first step to becoming A-rank adventurers. And then… we’ll be the first to clear the biggest dungeon on the continent. The Deeps!”

“That’s a long ways away from clearing this tiny dungeon,” Alice pointed out, skulking along. She gestured ahead of them. “Not even midbosses to fight right now.”

“Look, we need every scrap of money we can get our hands on to make it as adventurers in the capital. We left money on the ground in this dungeon. Might as well go pick it up,” Silas reasoned.

Alice and Milo exchanged a glance. Milo shrugged.

“We’re almost to boss battle. Be prepared,” Alice said. She drew her blade and slunk off, vanishing into the shadows.

“Hey! We aren’t even at the labyrinth yet. Come on,” Silas sighed. He reached after her, but too slow. Alice was gone. Nothing remained but darkness.

He looked at Milo and sighed. “Rogues.”

“Er, you’ll protect me, right?” Milo asked nervously, clutching his staff close.

“Yeah, yeah. Why did Fontea and Jaro turn down coming with us, anyways?” Silas asked.

Milo shrugged. “It is only a scrap of hide, and we have to delve the entire dungeon to get it.”

Silas clicked his tongue. “Oh, come on. It’s broken. Nothing’s even really attacking us.”

The ground rumbled. Stone hands surged at them from all directions, the floor, the walls, the ceiling.

Milo squeaked, leaping back.

Laughing, Silas flourished his lute. “Don’t worry, Milo. They can’t hurt us.”

A melancholic song filled the tunnel. The stone hands slowed, barely inching along. Silas led the way through the hands, ducking and dodging as they groped at the air. Milo followed after him, clumsily copying his movements. The stone hands, caught in the power of Silas’ song, gripped slowly after Milo. He flinched away, picking up his robes to keep them from getting caught in the hands’ grasp.

Silas passed to the far side and turned back. “Alice, you through?”

“Ahead of you,” Alice replied, stepping out of the shadows.

“Damn. How do you vanish like that?” Silas asked, lowering his lute.

Alice grinned. She raised a dagger-holding hand to her lips and extended a finger. “Trade secret.”

Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

Milo glanced over his shoulder at the stone spirits. “Does it seem a bit too easy to anyone else? Almost like the dungeon is… asleep.”

“Eh, don’t worry about it. We did just defeat it so hard it broke. It wouldn’t be surprising if it’s easier on the way back,” Silas said, shrugging.

“Yes. Don’t worry,” Alice agreed, nodding.

Milo glanced over his shoulder at the stone spirits. “If you say so.”

Stone wrenched out of the wall. A stone colossus loomed over them, easily a foot taller than Silas. Huge mitten-like hands slammed down at Silas and Milo.

Alice darted out. A hand wrapped around Silas’ and Milo’s waists, and the two of them flashed backward. The colossus slammed its hands down onto the floor.

“Stella! Wake up!” it howled.

Silas blinked. He exchanged a look with Milo, who stared back with equal wide-eyed horror. “Did… did it just…”

“Silas, play! Twang-twang!” Alice snapped, slapping him on the back of the head.

Silas snatched up his lute and began to strum, repeating the same melancholic beat from before. “Got it, got it! Milo, it’s a golem. None of us are equipped to take it out! You have restraining magic, right?”

Milo raised his staff as an answer. Bright blue light gleamed from the bulb at the staff’s end, lighting up the tunnel. “Sand trap!”

The stone floor beneath the golem’s feet turned to sand. It sank into the floor, falling slowly backward. The golem thrashed, reaching out for the border where sand returned to stone.

“Alright. Run!” Silas’ song turned to an upbeat, rollicking tune. Alice snatched up Milo, and the three of them dashed into the darkness ahead.

From behind them, stone scraped and scratched over stone, boulders grating against boulders. Silas glanced back. Two glowing red eyes stared out of the darkness at them, floating in front of the empty, flat plane of its face. The golem’s arm gripped the floor so hard the stone cracked. The stone that made up its face cracked in two horizontally, revealing a flat boulder mouth heavy enough to crush a skull to mush.

It let out a low rumble, one that almost sounded like “Stella…”

Icy sweat broke out down Silas’ back. He whipped around and let the music carry his feet onward, speeding around the corner.

Only when they were a safe distance away did his fingers slow. Alice put Milo down, and they returned to walking. Silas rubbed the back of his neck, occasionally glancing back. Words came to his lips repeatedly, but never escaped. He looked at Milo, only for Milo to look away.

At last, he could hold it no longer. Silas shook his head. “It wasn’t just me, right? You heard it too, right? It talked.”

Milo shook his head. “I don’t know what I heard. I don’t know.”

“Talking monster… is that bad news? Must be reported?” Alice asked.

Silas ran his hair back. “I don’t know. It’s not good news. In a dungeon this small… A dungeon this small shouldn’t be spawning aberrant monsters. We should tell that fixer guy when we get out. He needs to know about this.”

Milo nodded. “Leave the investigation to the specialist.”

“If you say so,” Alice said, shrugging.

Silas shook his head. “There’s talking monsters, and then there’s talking monsters. Some monsters are supposed to talk, and that’s… you know, fine. But when monsters that aren’t supposed to talk start talking… I mean, that’s only something that happens in the deep floors of S-tier dungeons, not on the first floor of low-level dungeons like this.”

“Mmm,” Alice allowed.

“Maybe we were wrong. I don’t know. Golems can make weird noises, and that was an aberrant golem. Maybe we don’t need to look too deep into it,” Milo said, tightening his grip on his staff.

“There’s no harm reporting it. Worst case, we look a little crazy. No loss, the guy’s going to hate us for going in the closed dungeon anyways,” Silas said.

Alice laughed. “True.”

A strange scream echoed through the passage. Silas looked up sharply. “We’re almost at the labyrinth. Alice, you can still carry Milo?”

“Mmm, for long enough,” she said, nodding.

“Right. We’re doing Operation Topside again,” Silas declared.

“I don’t like Operation Topside,” Milo complained. “I almost puked last time.”

“Tough luck. It’ll take too long if we try to dispel all the traps in the labyrinth, and I don’t feel like doing the route again,” Silas replied.

“Should have done from start. Doing labyrinth right way on way to boss wasted time and energy,” Alice argued, crossing her arms.

Silas sighed. “Yeah, yeah. Everyone’s a critic. I was worried skipping the labyrinth would draw the screamer over. Didn’t want to take that risk before the boss. Turns out it doesn’t. Yay! Now I have to take everyone’s shit about it for the rest of forever.”

“I appreciate your careful leadership, Silas,” Milo said, nodding.

Alice scoffed. “Is mark of coward. Need to take more risks.”

“Take more risks? When Jaro only has so many—” Silas cut himself off. He shook his head and jabbed a finger at Alice. “You try being leader for a day and see how easy it is.”

“Bet it is easy. You let me be leader, I’ll show you,” Alice replied, brandishing her knives.

“Alice, come on. Silas, you too. Let’s get that dragon skin and get out of here.” Milo glanced over his shoulder. “I don’t like that aberrant monster on our rear. What if it can follow us through the dungeon? Through the labyrinth?” He swallowed, eyes darting over his shoulder. “…Out of the dungeon?”

Silas cleared his throat. “Thanks for that nightmare, Milo.”

Milo chuckled. “Don’t worry, I already had it.”

“Look, let’s jut run to the boss room, grab the skin, and get the hell out of here. We aren’t going to fight any aberrant monsters, we aren’t going to aggro any secret screaming bosses, we’re going to get in and get out. Everyone in agreement?” Silas asked, looking around the group.

“Get in, get out,” Milo mumbled to himself. He nodded.

Alice shrugged. “Boring, but okay.”

Shaking his head, Silas slung his lute over his shoulder, eyes on the monsters hovering above. “As soon as I begin the slowdown debuff, run.”

Alice gave him a thumbs-up and snatched up Milo. Milo clutched onto Alice for dear life.

Over in the corner, the wall sloped up a bit, providing a kind of step stool to the labyrinth wall. Silas stepped on it, grabbed onto the top of the wall, and hauled himself up.

Keening cries sounded from all corners as the bats darted down on him. Slime began to drip thickly from the ceiling, as slimes oozed closer.

Swinging his lute around, Silas strummed madly, simultaneously sprinting along the top of the wall. His hands moved automatically, his eyes glued to the wall beneath his feet, dodging missing bricks and leaping the gaps between aisles. “Alice, go!”

“Alice go,” Alice replied.

The three of them sprinted over the labyrinth, drawing ever closer to the boss room. Silas licked his lips, raising his eyes for just a moment to look ahead. He could almost see the dragon skin where they’d left it, still propped up on a few rib bones. His fingers itched, hungry to latch onto the skin and drag it home to the traders’ tent. Wait for me, my beautiful pile of gold!