The New Gate (LN)

“As long as you don’t die completely, you can recover even from fatal injuries. That’s good enough to know.”

Shin took a breath and murmured. When he heard about the resurrection of the dead, the image of Marino, his lover, flashed in his mind, though he did not say it in words.

Her body had already been returned to the earth, and her soul and body had been taken to heaven. Even so, the fact that he thought of… even if only for a moment, it was probably an unfulfilled wish on the part of those who had been left behind.

“No, no. Let’s think of something else.”

Shin shook his head to change his thoughts, as he felt that he would feel depressed if he continued to think about it.

He thought about the fact that the skill Revive was not triggered, apart from the effect of the revival potion. There was no sign of activation, so perhaps the skill itself, unlike the item, was no longer effective. 

“And what about the equipment?”

Some of Shin’s equipment featured an auto-revive effect for single use that automatically revives him at 20% of his maximum when his HP reaches zero during a battle.

Although it was in the form of an item, it was closer to a skill because it had a skill attached to it. This was unpredictable and probably no longer effective like the skill Revive.

The revival potion was somewhat effective. That’s all that is clear right now. Shin decided that it was better to assume that there was nothing else.

Although he hoped that he would never get the chance to find out.

“Are you thinking about something?”

Schnee placed a cup of tea she had taken the trouble to prepare for him on the table.

“About the potion. I heard that Hibineko had used it once, so I asked him about it.”

Shin told Schnee about his conversation with Hibineko.

“I think just being able to avoid inevitable death is enough of an effect. Looking back, I haven’t heard anything about the revival potion since that ‘day’. However, Wilhelm… As we knew, there certainly seem to be people who know that such a thing exists. Maybe there are people who have benefited from it without us even knowing about it.”

Since the “Dusk of Majesty,” Schnee had been traveling all over the continent.

Given that she had connections with the royal family, it was not surprising that she had heard about the revival potion. However, as far as she remembered, she had never talked about it or heard of it.

She said she had heard several stories of people recovering from serious illnesses who were just waiting to die – a few times over the past 500 years – and that the potion might had been used to treat them.

“That’s like near-death in a sense, too. I guess it’s fine if you just think of it as a cure for an incurable disease.”

From what Wilhelm had told, it was probably not such a peaceful story.

“Do you want to tell everyone?”

“Yeah, I don’t think the current members would think anything strange.”

Shin then sipped his tea.

The tea was probably the same one Schnee had brewed when they were in Erkunt. It tasted so good.

“By the way, are the meals ready?”

Shin asked, wondering if he’s not taking her attention away from him too much if she’s cooking, since he got a little deep into the conversation.

“It’s all set, I’m just going to serve it.”

“I see, as expected of Schnee.”

Now all that was left was to get the group together and they could eat.

There was still a little more time until the time they had decided to gather, so Shin decided to do a little research on the dungeon of the Wraith Plain.

So far, there was not a trace of a dungeon. However, the guilds and countries certainly have records of them. If so, why can’t he find it?

One, simply because they were looking in the wrong place.

• There were still some areas that have not been explored, so they cannot say that there is no possibility of that.

Two, because it has already disappeared.

• If there had been some trouble since Eleven made contact with it, and the dungeon itself had disappeared, it was only natural that it couldn’t be found. However, it was hard to believe that that half of Origin could be, or would be, done away with.

Three, conditions were not met to enter the dungeon.

• Obtaining a specific item, defeating the gatekeeper. Dungeons with those conditions existed at the time of the game. If one searches for an unexplored area and can’t find it, this is the most likely reason.

Even just by thinking about it quickly, he could come up with a good number of possible reasons. Shin thought about the most likely reasons, hoping to find some clues.

“Let’s take a look at the event review function.”

Conditional dungeons were not uncommon for events held during the game.

Perhaps he could at least find some clues by looking up information on past events in the menu, so he looked at each one in turn.

“Anything comes to mind?”

Shin asked after he shared his thoughts with Schnee.

“Could it be trying to prevent anyone other than Shin from entering?”

“If you think about it that way, it makes a little sense why I haven’t been found until now. However, if that’s the case, then it also becomes a question of why they haven’t found me even though I’m here.”

Shin and his team should have been the only ones searching in the restricted area last night. If they’re merely hiding the dungeon’s entrance, he couldn’t help but think that they should have just invited them in.

“Anyway, let’s assume there’s a dungeon for now. At this point, let’s send a message to Eleven as well.”

Shin sent a message hoping to hear about the time they made contact. He regretted it a little, wondering why he didn’t think of it first.

As he was looking at event information, starting with those from the past, he received a message. It’s from Eleven.

It had been less than five minutes since he had sent the message. 

“Well, there’s nothing better than a quick reply, right? Let’s see.”

He immediately opened the message.

It contained a detailed description of the circumstances that led to their contact with Hades at that time. As Shin read through the message, he realized that it was not an actual entrance to the dungeon.

“Now that I think about it, I heard that part of the dungeon was exposed, but I haven’t seen it.”

“Yes. I don’t think I’ve seen anything like that.”

Shin dug into his memory and thought that Eleven must have said something similar when he talked to him.

In the first place, if there wasn’t anything that looked like an entrance at all, there wouldn’t be any talk of a dungeon.

Even if he did not know how long it had been there, there was no doubt that it had existed at least in the past.

The message described the device Eleven had released was about the size of a small dog. It was said to have entered through a structure that appeared to be a passageway protruding from the ground.

“The knight at the base didn’t say anything about that, right?”

“Maybe it was already gone by the time they arrived.”

It was a deserted place to begin with. If there was a change, it would not be easy to find out when it happened.

However, the fact that a part of the dungeon was exposed in Wraith Plains should have already been known. It seemed a little strange that the knights dispatched from the country were not noticing this.

“After the meal, we should go to the base and check it out. Maybe we should check with Wilhelm as well.”

Shin sent a message asking Wilhelm to tell him everything he knew about the dungeons in Wraith Plains. Wilhelm would be willing to help if it might have something to do with this case.

“…Say, Schnee. After putting all this information together, I was wondering if something seems off?”

Shin couldn’t help but feel like he had overlooked something. That’s what he felt while going over information with Schnee.

Shin groaned, unable to put his discomfort into words, and Schnee muttered something to him.

“I guess so… Come to think of it, how can everyone be so sure that there is a dungeon? If, as Wilhelm says, no one has ever dived there, then we should be talking about the possibility that the dungeon exist or not. And even the documents that were left in the country didn’t seem to indicate a clear entrance.”

“…That’s it.”

That was the nature of the discomfort Shin was feeling. It was that everyone was working under the assumption that there was a dungeon.

Wilhelm said he had never heard of anyone diving into the dungeon.

Both Barlux, the guildmaster, and Rionne, who brought documents from the archives of the Bayreuth Kingdom, said they had not been able to survey the center of the dungeon and did not know the exact location of the entrance.

In other words, no one in Bayreuth Kingdom has investigated the innerside of the dungeon.

So why the assumption that there was a dungeon? Wilhelm had said when they used to work together that the dungeon’s magic power was released at night.

At the time, Shin did not think too much about it and let it slide, but where in the world did this information come from?

Now that he thought about it, both the guild and the country assured him that there was a dungeon, but there was too little other information about it.

There should be no information about the location of Hades, as far as Shin knew.

𑁋

“Eleven said that he actually went into the dungeon, so did someone else go in and give out the information? No, if that’s the case, the guild or the country would have reported it.”

There were many differences between Eleven and Shin and his group. It would be difficult to pinpoint the conditions.

“Hmm… Now that I think about it, it seems like there was an event like this…”

No one had confirmed it, but it spread as a fact. Shin felt as if he had experienced such a phenomenon before.

Shin searched his memory to see if he might have been caught up in this event because he had had a similar experience.

“Events like this, where you feel like something is wrong, and it’s like the undead springing up…. horror type or mythology type. And then there’s the mystery-solving type? But those were supposed to be purely a test of deductive reasoning.”

Events in games vary widely, from those in which many players can participate, to those limited to players with certain jobs, those with a limited number of participants, and those specific to a season. From among them, he will pick out the ones that seem to apply to the current disturbance.

“…Is this it?”

Shin’s hand stopped as he scrolled through the event materials.

The name of the event written at the beginning of the page was “The Abandoned City of Arkhan.”

A city that flourished in ancient times will be revived beyond time!

Rumors of a dungeon spoken among the city’s residents. Gather information and open the way to the ancient city!

Heroes of old await your challenge!

“Oh yeah, that’s the catchphrase.”

Reading the details of the event brought back memories of that time in Shin’s mind.

Gathering rumors obtained from the residents, hints for entering the dungeon were disclosed step by step. In the dungeon, warriors of an ancient civilization that once flourished await as boss monsters. Defeating them would earn them rare items as rewards.

In this event, too, the residents assured that there was a dungeon, even though they should only have heard rumors about it. That was similar to what happened this time around.

Shin also went around collecting rumors in order to enter the dungeon, so he may have subconsciously remembered them.

“Is it the abandoned city of Arkhan? I’m sure it’s a dungeon that can only be entered during certain hours?”

“Ah, it’s either on the night of a full moon or a new moon, and the time period is from sunset to sunrise. The timing is too limited, but it was an event that was held for a long time.”

In the game, the moon phases faster than in real life, and it’s only four days from full moon to new moon. The reverse was also true.

However, players could only enter the dungeon every four days, and even then, it was a time-limited dungeon. Shin recalled that there were many complaints from players who wondered why such a specification was chosen.

Of course, Shin personally was not so dissatisfied, since there were other events being held at the same time.

“With this, it’s not hard to see why dungeons come and go.”

The structure of the abandoned city was simple enough to be called a dungeon, and the level of difficulty was such that, even without reincarnation, if one raised their level to 255, they could advance depending on their equipment.

However, the boss was different. The passages converged at regular intervals and led to the arena.

Waiting there were monsters with designs inspired by various jobs, such as warriors, hunters, and wizards.

Basically humanoid monsters. One proceeded by defeating progressively stronger boss monsters, and finally fought knights with the names of weapons. A knight with the same weapon as the player who entered the arena would appear, and defeating it would receive a rare item.

The knight’s skillful coordination made one suspect that a player was inside.

Since the boss was designed to appear in the same number as the number of players, it was said that fighting one-on-one with a small number of players would have a higher chance of winning.

The setting was such that warriors from ancient times would appear looking for a fight, and there was no such thing as transforming when their HP was depleted. The weapons they used were also in accordance with their professions.

In the event, they were told that there was a king to whom they owed allegiance, but we never heard that they had seen him.

If the hidden king was Hades, it makes a little more sense.

The king of the city of the dead who had already perished, hence Hades.

It fitted too well.

“Do you know when the next new moon or full moon is?”

“If I remember correctly, there was a full moon four days later.”

The span between the full moon and the new moon seemed to be getting longer now, extending from four days to six days. 

If this coming night doesn’t work out, we may have to change our plans. Thinking so, Shin operated the menu to see if any other events might apply.

←Previous  |  Next→ (Now with 7-Days Free Trial)