12. The Land of the Dead

As I entered the fourth floor, the air was chillingly cold.

Cold, the temperature of a morgue. To keep the corpses from rotting, from falling apart.

The stone pavement didn't look much different, the dim flames of torches flickered intermittently.

Still, it was cold here. Not a place for the living, another world.

"Mid-level Light..."

Since ghosts were hard to see, I decided to strengthen the light source.

My mana上限 had increased enough that I could afford such a luxury. My Magician rank must have also risen.

"What's this, a person?"

Someone was slumped against the stone wall, sitting down. For a moment, I thought they were alive, but no, they were all shriveled up.

Good thing I strengthened the light source. Upon closer inspection, other than their skin being bloated, they were still wearing clothes, and their original form was well-preserved. But they were dead, a corpse.

I didn't know the cause of death, but since their body was covered in wounds, it was probably one of those.

Not a mummy... I think it's called adipocere, this kind of corpse.

The temperature was low here, so the activity of putrefactive bacteria was weak.

Blood had drained from the wounds, and by chance, the preservation was good, resulting in this.

"...I wonder when they died."

When there are few bacteria and no decomposition, the corpse saponifies and becomes like this.

I had expected zombies or skeletons to appear, so seeing this gave me a strange, unpleasant feeling.

"Hey, you're going to start moving anyway, right? Get up already."

I poked it with the tip of my spirit blade, but it didn't budge.

Somehow, it was eerie. I didn't want to look at it. I picked up a torch that was leaning against the passage wall and pressed it against the corpse.

"Oh, it burns well."

*Whoosh*, flames erupted, engulfing the corpse.

Well, it was adipocere, so it was natural. The fat in the body had become like wax, so it was burning.

Perhaps it wasn't a monster.

Maybe it was the corpse of an adventurer who had reached this point, covered in wounds, and had died from exhaustion.

The monsters that appeared on the fourth floor of Genoria were supposed to be only zombies, skeletons, or ghosts. Something like this shouldn't be here.

At least, there was no such event in the game.

If there were actually humans who had gotten lost and died here, just like us...

"There's no point in brooding over things I don't know."

Of course, the setting of Genoria included other adventurers who had tried it besides the players. There were also a few NPC (non-player character) events.

There would also be differences in versions. North American, European, East Asian, and the Japanese-translated and ported versions would all have differences. And since modding was popular, even if the basic system was the same, there might be added elements I didn't know about.

"Well, whatever."

Either way, there was only one thing for me to do.

"Move forward."

That was all.

But before challenging the boss, I decided to take a detour.

The next large room was filled with the familiar hordes of zombies and skeletons, which actually made me feel relieved.

I retreated once, lured them out little by little, crushed the skeletons' hip bones, and swiftly severed the limbs of the zombies to immobilize them.

The work of turning corpses into pieces of meat was enjoyable.

The spirit blade 'Onsetsumaru' was functioning properly as an undead killer.

Each time I swung it, the snake-like undulating blade glowed bluish-white, returning the rotten flesh and bones that moved against the laws of nature to their rightful form.

It was tragic that they moved around like this even after death. This was a requiem.

Some of the zombies weren't human. There were orc zombies, kobold zombies, troll zombies, and even slime zombies.

Everyone who came down from the upper levels was killed and turned into the undead.

Even the scavenger slimes that ate corpses on this level turned into zombies, so the corpses remained indefinitely.

It was quite well-done.

The undead zone on the fourth underground level served to separate the living areas of the weaker creatures from the upper levels and the stronger creatures from the lower levels.

The undead were like earthbound spirits and didn't go outside the fourth floor. 'Invasions' didn't happen to the creatures on the fourth floor, so newbies who couldn't deal with ghosts wouldn't be attacked and die.

If they were going to make the game balance this well in some areas, I wish they had done something about the other imbalances too.

In any case, ghosts were untouchable without the right magic or weapons to deal with them.

There were also troublesome monsters like ghosts that could pass through walls, and it would be terrible if these overflowed into other levels.

The fact that only the fourth floor was a realm of the undead felt almost like Genoria's conscience.

Well, in reality, it wasn't out of consideration for newbies.

It was probably because if you were killed by a zombie, you would also become a zombie, so they did it to prevent the entire Genoria from becoming a zombie game.

"Alright then..."

I didn't head straight to the boss's room but went to a small room at the back.

When I poked the floor with the tip of my sword, a pitfall opened with a *clack*. In front of the unremarkable hole, I hammered in a stake and hung a rope down.

Using the rope allowed you to descend without taking fall damage.

There were two types of pitfalls: those that simply dealt impact damage and returned you to the upper level, and those that led to the lower level.

The one I descended led to the fifth underground level. This pitfall didn't connect to the main floor of the fifth level, but I continued further.

At the end, there was a door with iron bars. Beyond that, I could see a button-operated door.

This was supposed to be a point where you couldn't proceed further in the game.

Either the developers gave up halfway through, or it was abandoned with the intention of expanding it later. Genoria had quite a few meaningless, wasted spaces, so it wasn't that concerning, but I knew how to proceed beyond this point.

On the wall next to the iron bars, I moved forward while also moving sideways.

In other words, I moved diagonally. Then, for some reason, my body slipped right through the iron bars.

Was this just a bug?

I didn't think so. It was a type of hidden door.

And so, when I opened the button-operated door at the back, a dazzlingly bright large room spread out before me.

The first sunlight in a long time.

"So bright."

Yes, despite being on the fifth underground level, sunlight poured in here.

Looking up, I could see reflectors installed in the large circular area above. They had probably devised a way to gather light sources and bring them down here, with careful consideration for lighting. It was incredibly realistic.

Perhaps because of the sunlight, plants grew here, there was a wooden log house, and even fish swam in the pond connected to the underground water veins. There was a small field, and the environment was set up for a comfortable self-sufficient life.

I had arbitrarily named this place the Garden.

I had looked into it, but there were no hints as to why the Genoria developers had created such a villa-like hidden room.

"It's probably a rest area."

In the room on the fifth floor I had just come from, there were other hidden doors.

The passage that continued around the fifth underground level, like an encircling belt, allowed me to check the air holes and spring water circulation in the large rooms of the dungeon, and I thought it was a kind of maintenance room.

The brilliant game designer who developed Genoria, the noble Lord Knight, had probably taken a break here, in the middle of the labyrinth.

Maybe he had made it this far, taken a rest, and then started working on the rest of the creation. Thinking that way was a little fun.

Or, seeing that it connected to the maintenance room, it might have been prepared as a staff room for maintaining the labyrinth.

Genoria would later become a massively multiplayer online game (MMO), but perhaps that concept had been envisioned and designed from the beginning.

The maintenance system surrounding the labyrinth was considered a waste to achieve Genoria's unique realism, but it was prepared from the start as backstage for making it an MMO.

Thinking that way made sense.

What a grand plan.

At the stage of 1989 AD, the noble Lord Knight had foreseen the current online game environment and incorporated it into the design...

It was just my delusion, but thinking that way made me excited.

The legendary genius game designer had conceived his ideas here.

"Hmm, still the same."

I tried entering the log house. There was just a simple bed, a desk and chair, a bookshelf, a closet, cooking utensils like pots and pans, and a cupboard, but it felt completely devoid of any sign of life.

When I saw the adipocere corpse, I wondered if someone might have reached this place, but it didn't seem so.

When I opened the item box attached to the log house, it was filled with rare items with decent magical effects.

Amulet of Evasion, Bracelet of Swiftness, Pendant of Protection, Pendant of Health, Ring of Mana, Ring of Resistance, Ring of Warning... Magical accessories galore.

"It's still the same here..."

Magical accessories with auxiliary effects only had one effect.

I wondered if there might be cumulative effects, so I tried putting on as many rings as I could on my fingers, but only the first one seemed to have an effect.

"Well, there's no such easy way, huh."

I think the setting was that the same accessories would cancel each other out.

For now, I equipped the Bracelet of Swiftness, which increased agility.

There was another important item here.

A rucksack of infinite storage. The space inside the bag was magically distorted, and theoretically, it could hold an infinite number of items.

Of course, that was just theoretically. Although it had some gravity-reducing effect, the more items you put in, the more the weight accumulated, and eventually it would become too heavy to carry.

Conversely, it was a useful item that could also be used in an interesting way: by packing it full of items until it was too heavy to carry and then throwing it at enemies to kill them.

It was a rare item that you would eventually get in the mid-levels, but since I didn't have the 'Trap Disarm' skill and couldn't open trapped treasure chests, it was helpful to be able to get it reliably here.

Also, there were interesting but completely useless items here, such as the 'Telesight Crystal', which acted like a video phone.

Besides that, there was an axe for chopping firewood, a rope ladder, a hoe, a shovel, a fishing rod, and other tools lying next to the log house.

There was even a spinning wheel and a loom. They weren't just for decoration; you could actually collect cotton and make cloth.

Looking at the environment here, it might have been an experimental area for production-related skills like cooking, sewing, lumberjacking, and carpentry, which existed in Genoria but were mostly useless.

It was probably a little service for players who had gone to the trouble of finding this hidden area and enjoying the useless skills, with rare item drops that wouldn't break the game balance.

That's right, aside from the others, I should take the 'Ring of Warning' to Seki.

It was an item for beginners that vibrated to warn them of danger when traps or strong monsters approached.

It wouldn't be very useful for me, but it should increase the survival rate of beginners.

Wait a minute, if I only gave a ring to Seki, Kumiko would be noisy.

It would be extra baggage, but it wasn't very heavy, so I might as well take a few more accessories.

"Well, that's about it here..."

I had even entertained the delusion that the brilliant game designer, the noble Lord Knight, might be sitting in a wooden armchair inside the log house, greeting me with a smile and saying, "Well met, player."

But perhaps there was no true creator god in this world.

"Well, if it's my own sanctuary, that feels good too."

This hidden area wasn't even listed on overseas websites, so no one else knew about it.

Maybe only I and the developers knew.

That was the ultimate bliss for a player.

Basking in the sunlight for the first time in a while, I picked a tomato from the field and bit into it. A fresh, juicy taste spread in my mouth.

I hadn't usually paid attention to it. I had even thought tomatoes tasted bland and bad, but this one was truly fresh and delicious. Even the green smell of the stem was delicious, and I devoured it whole. It was a taste that made my body rejoice.

The tomatoes here were a variety that could cause an agricultural revolution, growing in three days if you planted the seeds. But that didn't necessarily mean they tasted particularly good.

I had probably been deficient in vitamins from not eating properly, and my tongue had become too accustomed to rich flavors, so I hadn't noticed it, but vegetables were originally foods with sufficient sweetness.

"Come to think of it, how many days have I been holed up in the labyrinth?"

Somehow, being underground all the time had made my sense of time vague.

First, I thought I would take a bath. This rest area had a drum can bath prepared. Or, should I say a Goemon bath?

A shower would have been fine, but since it was there, I drew water in a large tub and started a fire to heat it.

Since even a wooden draining board was prepared to put underneath, I wouldn't get burned if I was careful getting in.

Even if I did get burned, I could heal it with a potion, so it was a convenient world.

I casually picked up some firewood, lit it with an elementary Fireball spell, and then just waited for it to heat up while eating a watermelon I had picked from the field.

"Is it hot enough yet? It's been a while since my last bath. I might as well do some laundry too."

It sounded poor, but it was quite serious. My clothes and body were covered in monster fluids, so a little washing wouldn't be enough to get them clean.

Everything was prepared here, but there was no soap or detergent. Since it wasn't that heavy, I should have bought some in town, but it was too late now.

"Oh well."

Since I was the only one here, I stripped naked, casually washed my clothes, and hung them to dry. I didn't know how to care for the leather armor. It was better not to do anything reckless. All that was left was to enjoy the bath.

Since I would get dirty again soon exploring the labyrinth, I didn't care about the details as long as I could wash off the grime from my body.

"Phew, this is the life."

The human body doesn't produce vitamin D without exposure to sunlight's ultraviolet rays.

You could become ill from calcium deficiency, so it was better to consciously bask in the sunlight like this.

Maybe recovery potions solved those kinds of problems, but there was also the mental aspect.

If I stayed holed up in the dungeon forever, even I, with my reclusive tendencies, would get depressed.

I decided to get plenty of sun until my clothes dried, and then return to exploring the labyrinth.

　　　　　※※※

I headed to the fourth floor again, aiming for the boss's room.

I had to face a quite troublesome enemy, a ghost. Even if you ran, its translucent body would pass through walls to attack, so you had no choice but to defeat it quickly before being surrounded.

If I didn't have the spirit blade, I could only defeat it with a priest's prayer or anti-spirit magic that worked on incorporeal enemies.

Moreover, it even had long-range magic attacks like Fireball.

"Damn it!"

You could avoid magic attacks by keeping your distance, but it was faster to just endure them and keep slashing.

Fire resistance and magic resistance also increased by receiving those attacks, so I endured the pain of the burns, thinking of it as experience points.

Even though I knew I could heal wounds with potions, the feeling of my own flesh burning was extremely unpleasant.

To forget the pain and discomfort, I had no choice but to fill my brain with adrenaline from the excitement of battle.

"Uoooooaaaaah!"

Even though it was a spirit body, I felt a solid sensation when I slashed it with the spirit blade.

Even ghosts could be properly cut down, killed.

"Gyaaaaaah!"

Did ghosts feel pain when cut? They even screamed.

That's what happened when you didn't quickly pass on.

"Haa haa..."

My body was fine, but couldn't something be done about my clothes and equipment getting burned?

At this rate, my hard leather armor would probably be ruined soon.

Even if I wanted to get new equipment, I couldn't open any treasure chests other than the boss's room.

From the fourth underground level onwards, lethal traps started to appear. For me, who didn't have the Thief skill, it was an insurmountable wall.

Bombs that just scorched you were still okay, but the scariest trap was the paralyzing poison stuner.

If you got hit by paralysis that was so strong you couldn't move your body, all alone amidst a horde of enemy monsters, it was the same as instant death.

"Well, I'm not complaining though."

The difficulty around here was the real thrill of solo play. I had come down here from the beginning with that in mind.

Even with its extreme difficulty, Genoria was a well-made game. It wasn't impossible to攻略; if you thought carefully, there were always breakthroughs prepared.

Before I knew it, I had reached the front of the boss's room.

The boss here was the Zombie Carrier. It wasn't a particularly strong opponent, but it was an enemy you had to be careful of.

Even if you were attacked by an undead, you wouldn't be infected and turn into a zombie unless you were killed, but the Zombie Carrier was a powerful source of zombie infection.

If you took a certain amount of damage from its sharp claw attacks, even players could become undead. If that happened, it was game over.

No, Genoria was an interesting game, and even if you became undead, the game continued. There was even a way to play through to the end as an undead character. But I had absolutely no intention of doing that with my own body.

This wasn't some quirky light novel; there were no zombie protagonists these days.

After gathering recovery and detoxification potions and finishing my physical enhancement doping, I burst into the boss's room to find a large mass of dead flesh.

At first glance, it looked like a bloated zombie, but 'meat golem made by gathering dead flesh into a human shape' was the closest description.

The writhing dead flesh was physiologically repulsive.

Moreover, it had sharp poisonous fangs and would even infect you with zombism with them, making it the worst.

"Mid-level Fire, Flying Fire!"

The Fireball spell. It was standard theory that zombies were weak to fire. I kept firing it to the limit of my mana and even threw the nearby torches at it.

While its dead flesh burned sluggishly, the Zombie Carrier leaped at me.

"Guaaaaaaaah!"

A deep voice, thankfully it didn't seem to have the intelligence of the Murder Troll on the third floor.

"You don't talk, do you, huh!"

"Guoooooooon!"

Letting out a sorrowful cry, like a scream or a roar, the monster, a huge mass of dead flesh, just swung its poisonous claws.

It was faster than it looked, but its movements were monotonous due to its lack of intelligence. I kept slashing at it with the spirit blade 'Onsetsumaru' using hit-and-run tactics.

"Ora, ora, oraaaaaa!"

"Guoooooooon!"

If I just crushed the thick arms that swung its poisonous claws, it would be my win.

While avoiding the attacks of its swinging arms, I kept swinging the spirit blade until my arms felt like they would break off.

"Gigyagya gyagya gyagya!"

With a *bototo* sound, both arms of the Zombie Carrier fell off as if rotting away. The mass of dead flesh let out an indescribable roar.

Just when I wondered what the enemy, now unable to attack with its poisonous claws, would do, it charged straight at me with its huge body.

"Uah, a body slam?"

I hurriedly dodged, and it fell forward with a *zushaaaa* sound, scraping its face against the stone floor.

The Zombie Carrier skillfully got back up using only its head and legs. Of course, not letting it get away with that, I kept slamming slashes from the spirit blade into its back.

"Gigya, gigyaaaaaa!"

"Quite persistent."

The Zombie Carrier thrashed around with just its legs and head, but the damage from my slashes was definitely accumulating.

With each cut, its violent movements gradually slowed down, and eventually it stopped moving.

"Haa haa..."

I caught my ragged breath and drank a recovery potion. I also drank a detoxification potion just in case; I had taken several hits from its poisonous claws.

If the cumulative damage was high, you could really turn undead. The detoxification potion wasn't a panacea, but since it was poison damage, it should work.

A treasure chest appeared, so it must be dead, but just to be sure, I took the torch from the room and burned the remaining mass of dead flesh. I could only feel safe after burning it all.

It would be unbearable if it suddenly revived when I turned my back. Undead enemies were not to be underestimated.

"Alright, the treasure chest..."

As always, gold coins just piled up and became baggage, so I discarded them. The strict weight limit when playing solo was another element that increased the difficulty and made it fun.

All I needed were disposable gems for mana recovery and items that were truly useful.

"Diminish Mantle, huh?"

A rare item as expected. Usually, either a 'Black Robe' or a 'Dark Robe' would appear in this treasure chest.

Both were made of fire-resistant cloth, had inherent magic resistance, and increased stealth.

This 'Diminish Mantle' was a higher-tier rare item. It had the effect of reducing the power of all long-range attacks, not just magic but even dragon's breath.

Normally, it would only appear with a very low probability, but when you defeated a boss solo, the drop rate for rare items increased dramatically.

Genoria had something commonly known as the 'Solo Player Bonus'. It was like a reward for playing alone.

Including the fact that the boss's treasure chest wasn't trapped, Genoria's game balance was adjusted for experienced players to enjoy solo play.

The 'Diminish Mantle' felt like slightly heavy fabric when I put it on, but that probably meant its defensive effect was stronger.

Being able to equip it over my armor wasn't bad either. Of course, it also had a solid effect of increasing stealth.

For example, Genoria had a skill called Stealth Hiding.

It was a skill that thieves and ninjas excelled at the most. Samurai were not good at it, but to survive alone, there would be a need to slip past strong enemies.

From now on, I should gradually train that as well. My goal was to be an all-rounder who could survive alone.

And finally, I opened the door to the fifth floor with the 'Key of the Dead'. This was the pattern. Let's quickly head to the fifth floor.

Zombies and skeletons weren't that strong, but enemies that were already dead were hard to kill.

There was no thrill in cutting down enemies that were already dead. I didn't want to come to this floor much anymore.