Chapter 25
I had finally found the location of the underground prison and spat out a curse.
“Goddamn trash game.”
The specific dungeons in <Become a Hero> were roguelike in format, with their structures changing every time you played.
Because of that, even I — who knew <Become a Hero> inside and out — had to rely on brute force to find the underground prison’s location.
When I arrived at the underground prison, the monsters were just about to move people.
If they were taken like that, they would end up in exactly the same state as the monsters.
I didn’t want to needlessly increase the number of enemies.
So I pierced the chest of the bastard who was about to kill a little girl.
What made these monsters irritating was their tenacious life force.
Unless you killed them in one blow, they regenerated without end.
When I ignited the Flames of Gehenna, his screams grew louder and his thrashing became fierce.
Soon he turned to ash and vanished, and at the same time a girl appeared before my eyes.
She sat down on the spot, looking extremely startled.
The girl tried to say something to me, but I immediately turned my gaze away.
It wasn’t just that I wasn’t into playing the hero — more importantly, the noise here had drawn other monsters down to check the situation.
I charged at the monster that had come in, driving its feet into the ground.
It hadn’t reacted to my speed and its head was torn off.
But it hadn’t stopped breathing; it drew out a sharp hand and flailed it.
I swung my saber again and cut off its limbs.
The monsters didn’t bleed.
As if their flesh had been clumped together, the severed feet, legs, and torso of the thing writhed like worms.
Truly a horrifying regenerative ability in many ways.
Especially visually.
After I had sorted the situation out, I looked around.
Those locked in the prison shouted toward me.
“Set us free!”
“Please save us!”
A considerable number of people were imprisoned in the underground prison.
By the look of it, the count easily exceeded a hundred.
In fact, there was no need to free all of them.
The scenario’s objective was, after all, only to retrieve the heart, and this world wasn’t reality but a virtual reconstruction of memories recorded in a book.
The mansion was full of monsters, and if I told them to escape on their own they’d surely be captured again.
If that happened, there’d be no point in having come to save them.
What should I do? Ignore them and go?
These bastards weren’t particularly threatening apart from their regeneration… no, it was still better to save them.
If I left them, there was a high chance they’d end up turning into monsters.
I was already strengthening the boss of the Hidden Dungeon; if the minions started bothering me too, there would be too much to handle.
The most certain and worry-free method was, after all, to kill all the humans here.
It would be the surest way to prevent them from increasing the monsters’ numbers.
At that moment, a scream came from somewhere.
“Eek!”
“You fucking bitch! Because of you we almost died!”
When I turned my head, the girl who had almost been killed by the monster moments before had been grabbed by the collar by a man.
A child who looked younger than the girl lunged at the man.
“Don’t hurt our Noona!”
The child clung to the man’s leg and bit his thigh hard.
“Arrggh! Are these things crazy in pairs!?”
His pot-lid hands came down toward the child.
Thud!
With a sound like a gong, the man’s body was stopped by my armor.
From the sound it made, that was at least a fracture.
The man blinked for a moment, then looked at his hand.
His hand was stained red and swollen.
“Arrgghhh!”
The pain that arrived belatedly made the man slump and writhe in agony.
“You should’ve checked who you were hitting before you hit them.”
Who punches a kid who’s small enough to be at his waist?
No matter how unreal the situation before me was.
To my eyes those people were truly living and moving.
If I had been that rational and cold-hearted in the first place.
I wouldn’t have clung to <Become a Hero> for so long just to see one happy ending.
I ignored the fallen man and continued weighing my options.
I had decided to free them, but how should I get them out?
In the game, when you discovered people the screen briefly went black and a message popped up saying the people had been successfully rescued.
But here I had to escort them out myself…
Should I send them back the way I had come, in reverse order?
The monsters would pursue us.
At that moment the girl who had been grabbed by the man’s collar earlier approached me.
The girl approached me boldly, though she seemed afraid.
“Th-thank you… Did you come here to rescue us?”
Not exactly.
I had come here to deal with the monsters in the mansion.
But since I had already decided to save them, I might as well give a polite answer.
I nodded and replied.
“That’s right. But there are a lot more prisoners than I expected. It’ll be hard to protect everyone and get them all out safely.”
At that, the girl’s face brightened, and she began asking questions eagerly.
“What’s it like outside?”
“Not good. The monsters are still rampaging, and the entire area is engulfed in flames.”
After thinking for a moment, the girl spoke again.
“I think I know a way we can get out of here safely.”
“There’s such a thing?”
She didn’t seem to be lying.
“As you may know, this place used to belong to a family famous for their magic. And usually, noble houses like these have secret passageways, don’t they?”
“So?”
“This place is underground. But sometimes, I’ve heard the sound of wind coming through the walls. Don’t you think that might be where the secret passage is?”
Her words made sense.
“It won’t hurt to give it a try.”
I glanced around the prison.
Given that they had locked up over a hundred people, it was far larger than I expected.
It would be tough to search the entire place alone—alright.
I shouted to those imprisoned.
“From now on, we’re looking for a secret passage. Anyone who feels a breeze, I’ll personally get you out of your cell.”
At my words, people began moving busily, and soon someone shouted.
“I can feel wind coming from this wall!”
I moved toward the voice.
Just as he’d said.
From the wall in the deepest part of the underground prison, I could feel a faint flow of air.
I knocked lightly on the wall with my fist.
Tok tok.
A hollow sound.
A secret passage.
I kicked the wall hard.
With a rumbling sound, the wall crumbled, revealing a hidden tunnel.
“Good. Go.”
At my command, the people who had found the passage, along with those in the same room, let out cheers and rushed toward it.
I went ahead and freed the others in the nearby rooms as well, and they too hurried toward the passage.
Having been treated as less than human and waiting for death, it was only natural they’d want to escape this place as quickly as possible.
That large crowd disappeared into the passage in an instant.
“You’re not going?”
I looked at the girl who still remained.
“No one even thought to thank the knight who saved them…”
She looked displeased as she stared out, clearly unhappy about it.
Feeling oddly proud, I spoke.
“Then why don’t you thank me on their behalf?”
At my words, the girl and her younger brother bowed deeply.
“Thanks to you, Sir Knight, my brother and I were able to survive. If something had happened to him because of me, I never would’ve forgiven myself. Thank you for saving us.”
“Thank youu!”
I knew full well that this girl was nothing more than a fragment of the past created from shards of memory.
Even so, I couldn’t wipe the smile from my face.
“I want to be just like you someday, Sir Knight.”
“You shouldn’t become like me.”
“Huh?”
I gave a bitter smile at the boy’s innocent question.
There was no need to tell children everything.
“No, never mind. By the way, have you seen anything strange nearby? Something like a fist-sized, glowing jewel—or maybe a monster that looks far uglier than the others and can speak?”
The Heart of the Nameless One was usually hidden randomly somewhere within the mansion.
But occasionally, with very rare probability, a monster that had taken the Heart of the Nameless One and regained its instincts would appear as a random encounter—an ally.
To beginners, it was a useful ally for the boss battle.
To veteran players, it was a good monster to deliver the Heart of the Nameless One to.
But the girl shook her head at my question.
“I’m sorry, but I haven’t seen any jewels or monsters that looked stronger than the others.”
“Really? I see.”
I pretended to sound disappointed.
But truthfully, I wasn’t disappointed at all.
Because for some time now, an unknown presence had brushed against my senses.
Unlike the ordinary monsters that gave off no sign of life, this one radiated a distinct vitality.
But the presence I sensed felt too foreign to belong to a human.
It seemed I had, by an extremely slim chance, encountered one of those rare random encounters.
That meant I could save myself some trouble in finding the Heart hidden within the mansion.
I patted the girl’s head.
First, I needed to get these children out of here.
“Thanks for telling me. Now hurry and leave this place. And don’t ever let the monsters catch you again.”
I used the 【Dark Relic】 to create a dagger.
The children let out gasps of amazement at the sight.
“Just in case, take this with you. You’ll need at least something to protect yourself.”
“Th-thank you. I’ll take good care of it and return it to you.”
“Keep it.”
“I can’t accept something this expensive!”
“Don’t worry about it. Just go.”
It would disappear once the dungeon was cleared anyway.
The girl bowed her head repeatedly in thanks, then took her younger brother and disappeared into the secret passage.
After confirming they were gone from sight, I threw a punch at the wall.
Rumble.
The wall collapsed, sealing off the passage.
I couldn’t risk any monsters discovering it and following them.
A cold silence soon fell over the underground prison.
“Come out. I know you’ve been hiding there for a while now.”
“...”
But there was no response.
Why wasn’t it answering?
In the game, it had regained its memories from when it was human and had been quite cooperative.
It wasn’t even trying to hide its presence, as if it wanted me to find it.
Yet it refused to respond—strange creature.
I surrounded myself with crimson flames and illuminated the figure hidden in the darkness.
Then, a massive figure came into view.
I lifted my head to look at it.
It was taller than me by at least a head, its slender frame and voluptuous body barely covered by a sheet of pale, tattered cloth.
“U… ah…”
It seemed this was the companion and random encounter character one could meet with an abysmally low probability in the Nameless One’s mansion.
But something about her condition was off.
Her speech was painfully clumsy, the way she spoke no different from that of a five-year-old child—
as if she had only just learned how to speak.
“What the hell…”
I stared intently at her chest.
There was no Heart emanating powerful energy within it.
Something was wrong.
Had there ever been an instance where this creature moved around without a Heart?
Moreover, in the game, this character had never appeared in a female form.
Then, the monster that had been watching me began to approach.
I immediately raised my guard and assumed a combat stance.
But soon, the creature stopped right in front of me and sat down on the spot.
“What?”
“Ah… bba…”
“What did you say?”
“Appa…”
After saying that, the creature lowered its head toward me as if asking me to pat it.
And it looked up at me with pleading, sorrowful eyes, begging not to be abandoned.