The Invaders of the Large Tomb

A corner. Normally they would be wary of a monster around the corner, but considering the footsteps that came from behind them, there was no time to carefully look around before going.

They left everything up to luck and just ran.

On the either side of the hallway, there was a door made of stone, but they were afraid of running into a dead end and didn’t bother opening it.

Loud metallic sounds echoed through the hallway from the people wearing full plate armour, which could attract other monsters, but there was no time to cast ‘Silence’.

They ran and ran and ran.

After turning corners after corners and running down the tunnel at full speed, they had lost their bearings and could no longer tell where they were. If possible, they wanted to return to the entrance, but they couldn’t relax just yet.

“Are they still chasing us?”

Greenham asked while still running. The reply came from the warrior at the back.

“Yea! They’re running, too!”

“Damn it!”

“Stop running after us! Just use flight magic!”

“If they use flying magic, then they can just attack while following us, you idiot!”

“Let’s lock ourselves in some room and negotiate…”

The magic caster shouted while gasping for air. He was the least physically fit out of all the members and looked as if he was about to collapse. Greenham decided this was not the way to go.

They couldn’t last any longer.

Undead monsters like Elder Liches felt no such thing as fatigue. At this rate, they would eventually catch up and slaughter the exhausted workers.

“How are there so many Elder Liches…”

It was something that defied common sense.

“Is the master of this tomb something even stronger than an Elder Lich?!”

That was the only explanation he could think of. But did such undead exist? Greenham had no answer.

“Damn it! This god damn tomb!”

The warrior at the rear shouted while breathing hard.

As if waiting for that moment, the floor began to glow in shapes. It was big enough to surround all of Greenham’s group.

“Argh!”

Someone’s voice rang out with what sounded like a scream—

—and then there was a floating sensation, different from when they had fallen earlier.

♦ ♦ ♦

Greenham’s vision was nothing but pitch darkness. There was something crunching underneath his boots and he felt a slowly sinking sensation, as though he was being sucked into a swamp. He had panicked for a bit, but it didn’t seem too deep as he stopped sinking after he was submerged to about his waist level.

Greenham spoke out in the realm dominated by pitch darkness and silence, like a lost child looking for his parents.

“…Is there someone here?”

“Over here, Greenham.”

The voice of one of the comrades, the rogue, rang out. He didn’t sound too far away. Probably about the same distance they were keeping when they were running.

“…Is there anybody else?”

There was no reply. It was the expected answer. Considering there was no light, the magic caster or the warrior wasn’t likely to be here. He should consider it lucky that at least the rogue was with him.

“…It seems there’s only us.”

“That means… Che, I guess you’re right.”

He looked around with taking a step forward. The deep darkness was everywhere and invoked the fear that he wouldn't be able to tell where he himself ended and where the darkness started. There was no sign of movement anywhere.

“Should we turn on the light?”

“Sure thing.”

He wondered if their movement would break this silence, or activate a trap, and other negative thoughts creeped in. However, human eyes could not see in the dark and they needed some kind of light source.

“Hold on a moment.”

With the rogue’s voice, some kind of moving noise came from the darkness and there was a light.

The sight of the rogue holding a glowing stick was the first thing in view. And countless shining objects which reflected the light. It reminded him of the treasures in the mausoleum.

But that wasn’t the case.

Greenham barely suppressed his screams and the rogue looked as if he was about to have a seizure.

The light brought up countless reflections. Insects filled the entire room and the identity of the reflections were cockroaches. The room was filled with cockroaches of various size ranging from ones the size of pinky finger to ones which were over a meter long. Furthermore, they were stacked on top of each other in countless layers.

The crushing sensation and noise by his feet had been the cockroaches. Considering they came up to his waist, he didn’t want to imagine how many there were.

The room was so wide, the light did not reach to the walls. Considering the effective area of the glowing stick was fifteen meters wide, he could roughly comprehend how wide the interior was.

When he looked up towards the ceiling, he could see a humongous swarm of cockroaches reflecting the light back at him.

“What… is this place?

The rogue murmured in groaning tone. Greenham could understand what he felt like. He felt if he spoke, they would all start moving at once.

“Just what is going on?”