Chapter 9

Urgent patients flooded in all at once.

Most of them were armed soldiers, too.

“Hah… s-someone please bring me some strong liquor…”

Among the soldiers who hadn’t lost consciousness, some couldn’t bear the pain and called for alcohol.

For a moment, he wondered if a war had broken out nearby, but the wounds were too crude for weapon strikes.

It felt like he was seeing the patients who had been injured by the Orcs not long ago.

‘They said all the Orcs had been wiped out.’

He had his doubts, but this wasn’t the time to question it.

“Please gather the patients in one place.”

While the soldiers moved the stretchers, he slowly gathered his power.

‘Healing Wave.’

Whoosh-

A brilliant light filled the surroundings.

The wounds of the soldiers enveloped in the light closed rapidly, and the voices groaning in pain faded one by one.

But the problem didn’t end there.

No sooner had he finished healing than new wounded soldiers came in one after another.

‘Healing Wave.’

‘Healing Wave..!’

It was only after casting Healing Wave about three more times that he could finally hear the situation.

“A Dungeon has been discovered within the territory.”

“A Dungeon, you say?”

It was the first time he’d heard of such a thing.

But without letting on that he didn’t know, he searched the Gallery.

He managed to find the information he wanted by filtering through a tab and flipping through several pages.

Title: Dungeon Theory (1)
Author: Dungeon Is The Answer

A Dungeon is not a space that exists in reality.

It is a space from another world connected to reality. That is what is commonly called a Dungeon.
.
.
(Continued)

The first two lines were enough to grasp the definition of a Dungeon.

What he was curious about, though, was why the soldiers had gone inside one.

The reason became clear through what a soldier hesitantly confessed.

“Well, you see, the Lord said he would give a great reward if we found the Priest’s luggage. So we followed the traces the Orcs left behind, and we thought the luggage might be in the cave we discovered…”

“…”

“Of course, we had no idea the place we entered was a Dungeon.”

So it was because of him, in the end.

The soldiers had gotten hurt trying to find luggage that didn’t even exist in the first place.

“Tell the Lord this: what I carry isn’t valuable enough for people to get hurt trying to recover it. And-“

A sigh escaped him on its own.

“If my luggage is ever found and brought to me, I’ll simply leave for another city.”

It was a bluff, of course.

But given the Lord’s temperament, it would work well enough.

“I suppose you can say what you want about your luggage, but we’ll be in for some hardship until that Dungeon is dealt with.”

Priest Margaret clicked her tongue as she spoke.

Her tone suggested something terrible would happen if the Dungeon were left alone.

He finished reading the rest of Dungeon Theory, which he’d only skimmed a few lines of.

…

A Dungeon, once created, releases the monsters inside at set intervals.

If these occurrences accumulate, all the monsters are released at once from within the Dungeon, and this is called a Dungeon Backflow or Monster Wave.

There are roughly two ways to prevent a backflow.
…

‘I knew it felt familiar.’

He already knew something similar to this.

The Tower.

A mysterious structure that had appeared in his hometown one day.

A Dungeon resembled that structure.

‘In fact, it’s basically just a miniature version of the Tower.’

The Tower also had connected spaces unrelated to the outside, and if you failed to clear a floor, it would eventually collapse and pour out monsters.

The Dungeon described in the article wasn’t much different.

‘Is it just a coincidence?’

It was possible they were related, but it was hard to judge without even seeing an actual Dungeon.

He thought about asking the Gallery, but asking users who didn’t know of the Tower’s existence would hardly yield a proper answer.

If that was the case, the solution was simple.

“Priest Margaret, I’ll be going on a short business trip.”

He just needed to see for himself.

At that, Priest Margaret slowly nodded and said,

“We don’t get paid overtime, so don’t you dare complain about it later.”

“That’s unfortunate.”

And he meant it.

Even though his expression said otherwise.

…

“Please, get on, Priest.”

“Then I’ll gladly accept.”

The wagon the soldier offered was a shabby luggage cart loaded with supplies.

The ride was far from comfortable, but at least it was better than walking.

“Take care out there.”

Meanwhile, Priest Margaret, who had come to see him off, seemed to be worrying out of concern.

“And don’t go yelling at Orcs like you did at that troublemaker when you lose your temper.”

“Do I look that reckless?”

He was.

“Well, I suppose you wouldn’t if you valued your life.”

He did value it, but he’d probably do it anyway.

“Heh heh, then I’ll see you in a few days.”

“Go safely.”

The farewell was brief.

It was about time to get going.

Clatter, clatter-

The wagon rolled its wheels, keeping pace with the marching soldiers.

Not long after Priest Margaret, who had been seeing them off at the city gate, disappeared from view, a soldier walking beside the wagon approached and spoke up.

“At this pace, we’ll arrive before sunset. Please get some rest.”

It was the best courtesy a soldier could offer.

But with everyone else marching hard, sleeping would draw unwanted attention, so he smiled lightly and shook his head.

“I don’t really feel sleepy. I’ll just enjoy the scenery.”

“Yes, sir.”

‘Come to think of it, if we arrive before sunset at this pace, it’s quite a distance.’

They had departed a little past noon, so the distance was roughly 15 kilometers.

It was a fair distance from the city.

‘At this distance, I’d think leaving it alone would be fine too.’

Coming along on this business trip himself wasn’t his place to say, but the Lord’s hasty decision to send soldiers was hard to understand.

However, after seeing the scenery unfolding along the road, he understood why.

‘There are farmers.’

Of course, not everyone lived within the city walls.

And considering the farmland around them, the Lord’s position made sense.

“A wheat field.”

He was lost in thought, looking at the scenery, when the soldier spoke to him, perhaps thinking he was interested in the wheat field.

“For reference, that’s my parents’ field. When early autumn comes, they always brew beer with the leftover wheat. It has a special taste, different from barley beer.”

“That sounds like it would make anyone’s mouth water just thinking about it.”

“Haha, if it’s you, Priest, I’d be happy to offer you some anytime.”

The soldier who struck up a conversation had a fairly warm demeanor.

But just as he thought the soldier was being too friendly, he realized the man’s face looked familiar.

And if there was one type of soldier whose face he’d recognize, there was only one kind.

“…You’re the soldier I treated last time, aren’t you?”

“Haha, yes, that’s right. You remember.”

The soldier’s face lit up at being recognized.

“You saved my life back then. And I wasn’t just saying that earlier, so please do come by.”

“I will.”

The soldier glanced around at his surroundings and then returned to formation.

He must have stepped away for a moment just to express his gratitude.

‘…Anyway, liquor brewed from wheat they grew themselves.’

That wouldn’t be bad.

What he liked most wasn’t the liquor itself, but the fact that it was made from wheat they’d grown themselves.

‘I’ve heard that if you spread Heal, crops grow well too.’

If he got to take charge of a Church, tending a vegetable garden didn’t seem like a bad idea at all.

He arrived at his destination while pondering what crops to plant in his garden.

“We’re here, Priest.”

Snapping back to attention at the soldier’s call, he surveyed the area.

Not far away, he could see a cave emanating a suspicious aura.

“That cave you see is the Dungeon entrance. We’ve posted guards, but please be careful. You’d never do such a thing, but you absolutely must not go inside.”

“Of course.”

He acknowledged the soldier’s words.

Even for him, facing several Orcs alone was not something he was confident about.

‘Two of them, I could manage, barely.’

That didn’t mean he wasn’t going to go inside.

Deciding to find a suitable excuse to enter with the soldiers later, he lent a hand with odd jobs like moving supplies and setting up tents.

“Oh, Priest, you don’t need to help.”

“How could I just watch while everyone else is working so hard?”

Besides, he’d served in the military himself, so he knew. Nothing was more irritating than someone lazing around while everyone else was busting their backs.

But the soldiers seemed quite unfamiliar with this kind of behavior.

“Do all Priests act like this?”

“No way. I’ve been a mercenary for a long time, so I know. Priests who can use Miracles usually have heavy feet and heavy heads.”

“Hey, what if the Priest hears you?”

“Priests always stay so quiet that they can’t hear well even with a little noise. Don’t worry.”

“R-Really?”

For the record, he heard everything.

‘Looks like Healers are treated the same way here too.’

Back in his hometown, Healers were called Heal Dragon people.

As the soldier said, it was a term that originated from the way they held their heads high and stiff even while climbing the Tower together.

‘But that’s not how it should be.’

There was no need to provoke the resentment of comrades climbing a place that was basically a death trap together.

After all, it was obvious what choices those comrades would make the moment things got truly dangerous.

“Whew, that’s the last of it, Priest. Good work.”

Once all the supplies were moved, the soldiers who had been setting up tents finished their work around the same time.

He was assigned a tent right after.

“This is the tent for you, Priest.”

The tent was spacious.

But as he looked around the inside, he couldn’t help but frown.

Inside the spacious tent, there was only a single blanket.

It wasn’t that he was unhappy about the lack of blankets.

“It seems I’ll be using this large tent all by myself.”

“Haha, you deserve to rest comfortably, Priest.”

He shook his head.

While playing the part of a Priest, he had no intention of openly accepting special treatment.

“That won’t be necessary. I’ll sleep with the soldiers. I have no intention of receiving special treatment even in a place like this.”

“But wouldn’t that be uncomfortable?”

“If I’m going to whine about something like that, I should just cut my peppers off.”

“Khm..”

The soldier hastily covered his mouth.

Fortunately, the vulgar joke seemed to work, and the soldier’s demeanor relaxed considerably.

In the end, a few more blankets for the soldiers were brought into the tent.

“..Oh, right. The Dungeon subjugation is scheduled to begin before noon tomorrow.”

“Is the reason we’re not going today because it’s getting late?”

“The time of day doesn’t matter much. I don’t have a lot of Dungeon experience myself, but the time inside a Dungeon is fixed anyway.”

The soldier paused for a moment.

“The reason we’re not departing right now is that it’s better to enter at full readiness, and there are some people who haven’t arrived yet.”

“There seem to be quite a lot of soldiers already. More are coming?”

“Not exactly soldiers, but…”

The soldier glanced around and lowered his voice.

“A Knight is coming.”

A Knight.

Could it be a Knight of high Rank?

Even for a Knight, the soldiers seemed overly awed.

“And the Lord’s daughter as well.”

That explained the awe.