Subject Runes - V1 Chapter 10

Early in the morning on the day of the Freshman Welcome Dungeon, all club members had already gathered at the Adventurers’ Guild and taken over a huge block of table seating. The adventurers around us were watching with obvious curiosity.

“What’s all this, then? What the hell’s about to start?”

“The usual yearly thing. All the little noble boys and girls go storming a dungeon together. Same old event.”

“Ah, that thing they do every year. Still, it’s basically just make-believe, right?”

“Idiot! Don’t say that so damn loud. The nobles might hear you.”

“He’s right. Besides, they’re important prospects. Some of them might join our parties as mages someday. Watch your mouth.”

“Whoops. Right, right.”

With the guild adventurers watching us with keen interest, Wolf, the club captain, began announcing the party assignments.

“We have ten new members this year, so they’ll be split into five groups of two. Senior club members will then join them to form five-person parties. Naturally, since the club alone couldn’t cover all necessary roles, we asked a few adventurers from this guild to temporarily join as companions. All right, I’ll announce the groups now.”

Wolf spread a sheet listing the party members across the table and read it out loud.

A: Frontline — Azoth, Keith, temporary adventurer
Backline — Marl, Sasha

B: Frontline — Cain, Rogers, Wolf
Backline — Milmo, Burn

C: Frontline — Dan, Neon, temporary adventurer
Backline — Azmaiya, Selene

D: …

Neon poked me in the side and asked in a low voice, “Who were Rogers, Milmo, Burn, and Azmaiya again?”

“Rogers is that new upperclassman club member who keeps hanging around Selene. The other three are senior club members. Azmaiya-san is a third-year and the healer.”

“I see, I see. More importantly, isn’t this lineup awful? Why the hell am I separated from you while ending up in the same party as Sister Selen?”

“Personally, I feel a hell of a lot better knowing Selene’s in the same group as you.”

“I’m going to complain to the captain.”

Leaving that behind, Neon headed over to Wolf.

Ignoring the idiot, I decided to greet my party members.

After Sasha, Keith, Marl, and I each introduced ourselves in turn, the temporary adventurer started his own introduction.

“I’m a Rank B adventurer: Waltzfaelstark Baltoka Mohorovitch. Nice to meet you.”

That was a long damn name. Some foreign noble or something?

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Mohorovitch. Forgive me for asking, but are you a foreign noble?”

“No, I’m just a commoner from a nearby village. So forget the stiff surname crap and just call me by my given name.”

The front-line shield user, built like a proper adventurer and carrying a greatsword and tower shield on his back, held out his right hand to me with a gentle expression.

“Understood, Walt… something-san.”

“Waltzfaelstark.”

“Uh… right.”

Even if I wanted to call him casually, his damn name was too long to remember. Hell, his surname was shorter, so let me use that instead.

Pulling myself together, I moved on to picking a quest.

The receptionist had already gathered several promising quest options for us.

Most of them were standard jobs like magical-beast extermination or treasure hunting, but one of them caught my eye immediately.

“Excavation of Ancient Magical Ruins in Escher Cave.”

Escher Cave was already quite famous as a ruin from the ancient magical civilization. The investigation there had long since been completed, and the place had become a tourist attraction. But…

“According to this request form, a new passage was recently discovered inside Escher Cave, so it seems a ruins researcher requested escort support from the Adventurers’ Guild.”

According to Senior Sasha, the cave was a natural formation, so there was little risk of traps, and our role would mostly be exterminating magical beasts living inside it.

“If the upperclassmen are fine with it, I’d like to take this one. I’m interested in the ancient magical civilization.”

When I said that, Keith answered, “The freshmen can decide which quest to take. What do you think, Marl?”

“I don’t really have a preference, so this is fine with me.”

In the end, no other party wanted that quest, so it was quickly decided that we’d be heading for Escher Cave.

Apparently the other parties had settled on their quests as well.

“Dan’s going treasure hunting in the Dungeon City of Dangarl, huh? I’m taking a magical-beast extermination quest in the dungeon at Mount Bispol.”

Cain tapped his sword—not a practice sword, but a real one—and flashed a grin.

“Hell yeah. If you’re talking dungeons, you’re talking treasure. If you’re talking treasure, you’re talking labyrinth cities. What other choice is there, right, Neon?”

Dan tried to get Neon to agree, but Neon was muttering in obvious displeasure.

“What’s with that sulking? Party C’s lineup is amazing. Starting with Selene-san, it’s nothing but beautiful women. You might not get how great that is since girls are always swarming around you in class, but older women are damn nice too.”

The temporary adventurer in Dan’s party was a female swordswoman—a bit on the large side, but she had the dependable big-sister vibe. Senior Azmaiya had a soft, fluffy sort of atmosphere.

“Dan, you’re seriously hopeless. Just because you don’t get much attention normally doesn’t mean you should get this carried away. I just hope you don’t get so damn nervous when it matters that you screw something up.”

As always, Marl mercilessly shot Dan down, but she was not wrong. Dan had his arm around Neon’s shoulders, getting way too full of himself while ogling the older girls.

Actually, the Neon whose shoulders he had his arm around was secretly a girl too, which meant everyone in his party except him was female.

The bastard had become the harem protagonist men dreamed of.

…No, maybe ignorance really was bliss.

“All right, we’re starting the Freshman Welcome Dungeon now. Everyone, move to the transfer circle.”

A transfer circle was a magical device used for instant travel to faraway places, and the amount of mana required varied depending on distance.

Escher Cave was relatively close, so we were able to cover the trip using our own mana. But since Walt-whatever-san was a commoner and had no mana, we used a magic stone bought with dungeon club funds to cover his share.

In an instant, the transfer circle took our party to Escher Cave.

And right beside the cave entrance, unbelievably enough, there was a tourist information center.

A tasteless facility that completely killed my sense of adventure, but that tourist center was where we met up with the researchers we were assigned to protect.

Then, tagging along with a crowd of tourists, we made our way deeper into the cave.

It felt absolutely nothing like a quest, but the researchers gave detailed explanations about the ruins as we walked, so for me it was actually fascinating as hell. Then one of them suddenly pointed to a side passage.

“This way leads to the passage that was recently discovered.”

A rope blocked the path, marking it off as restricted, and a guard stood in front of the barricade.

“Please be careful.”

Once the guard saluted and let us through, I went deeper into the side passage together with the researchers.

When we reached the end of it, the space opened into a slightly wider chamber. Flat, smooth stone covered the floor, walls, and ceiling, and from the front wall jutted out something like an altar.

Behind that altar was a staircase leading downward.

“This staircase behind the altar is the newly discovered passage.”

We descended the narrow stairs in single file.

At the bottom, the cave continued once more.

This area had apparently already been explored to some extent, and magical lighting devices had been installed along both walls at regular intervals, illuminating the cave interior.

After we advanced quite far, those lighting tools stopped, and the area suddenly grew dark.

“From this point onward, we’re entering unexplored territory. Please proceed slowly and carefully while watching for magical beasts. We researchers will be placing barrier tools to ward them off, so don’t move too far ahead.”

“Understood.”

Now the real part started.

Senior Sasha was the strategist of Party A, and those of us on the front line would move according to Keith’s instructions. The veteran adventurer Walt-whatever-san would apparently step in if things went to hell.

I moved at the very front, holding a lantern and sweeping its light ahead as I advanced slowly.

Behind me to the right was Walt-whatever-san, following with sword and shield ready. Keith was behind me to the left in the same stance.

Behind them came Sasha and Marl. The researchers followed after that.

Underground water ran from the ceiling down the walls, forming puddles here and there across the ground.

The footing was slippery as hell, so we advanced with caution.

No sunlight reached this place, so no plants grew here. There was not even a trace of magical beasts—just a dead world where only the echoes of our footsteps bounced off the cave walls.

The researchers steadily installed the barrier tools. Nothing happened, and after about three hours of slow progress, we stopped for lunch.

“No magical beasts showed up, huh?”

Marl, sitting beside me, murmured that.

“Yeah. But since we had to stay on guard the whole time, we didn’t cover that much ground. I’m still tired, though.”

“I’m in the back line, so it’s not as bad for me as it is for you, Azoth, but I’m still really tense.”

While Marl and I were talking, Sasha said, “We’ll be staying inside the cave tonight, so this afternoon we’ll keep moving while looking for a spot suitable for camp.”

“If there’s nowhere ahead we can camp, at the very least this spot seems good enough to fall back to,” Keith added.

“All right. Once we’ve rested a little, let’s move on.”