Lord: Starting from a Goblin Nest

You phased into a section of the wall again, but uncharacteristically, it was a long time before she floated back out.

”It’s empty in here, but I didn’t find a door.”

The banshee’s voice was tinged with confusion. ”How is anyone supposed to live in a room with no door?”

”Shouldn’t you be wondering how a room like that was created in the first place?” The five-and-a-half living people stared at You in amazement. ’She’s been dead for so long, her thinking really isn’t like a normal person’s, huh?’

”We’re not down to the next level yet, are we?” Sera peered down, aided by the glow of the Light Magic. ”Why is there an empty room over here?”

There was nothing on the second level aside from some beasts and cave-dwelling monsters. They were currently at the boundary between the second and third levels.

”I don’t know about that. I just know it’s big inside—very big!” You tried to gesture to indicate the space’s size and height, but she phased right through the stone wall above her. It seemed the space inside was possibly two stories tall.

”Is it thick?” Aive reached out and knocked on the stone wall. It was definitely hollow inside, but judging the exact thickness was difficult. Though the party had brought pickaxes for potential use, they didn’t dare to start digging carelessly in a mine that was centuries old.

”Not too thick,” You said, drifting a couple of laps around the area. ”Maybe you won’t have to break it open. Look here, can you squeeze through?”

You had found a narrow crack. If you pressed your face to it, you could faintly see the darkness within, but squeezing through would be another matter entirely.

”I’m definitely out,” Sera said, shaking her head. ”Look at these muscles! I can’t even fit my forearm through!”

”Me neither...” Silvia glanced down at herself. Her build would likely have an even harder time than Sera’s.

Victoria and Aive were both in armor. If they took it off, they might be able to squeeze through, but voluntarily removing their protection in a place like this was not a good idea.

”Honestly, my head’s a bit big,” Delaford muttered as he started to squeeze his way in. Ron cast Light Magic on his shortbow to help Delaford see his surroundings better.

Dark Vision was one thing, but having a real light source was always better than not.

”Hey, banshee, I think you got it wrong!” Delaford’s voice soon came from behind the wall. ”No wonder you said there was no door!”

”This room must be from the level above! It fell!”

”Fell?” Ron asked from the outside.

”The floor collapsed!” the goblin said. ”Look at this room full of corpses and bones! I’m sure they fell down!”

”There are... six, seven, eight corpses. All Ghouls. As for the bones, I can’t identify them—wait a second.”

”Delaford? What did you find?”

There was a moment of silence from inside before Delaford’s voice rang out again. ”A notebook! There’s a notebook here! I also found some writing on the wall, smeared in blood!”

”But I can’t read what’s written on it.”

”Toss it out here,” Silvia said. ”Let me see. And is there any way for us to see what’s on the wall?”

”I can!” You phased inside and came back out, leaving a string of shimmering, illusory text on the wall beside them.

”Dwarf Language,” Silvia recognized it at a glance. ”I’m so hungry?”

”’On a certain day of a certain month, Old Hammer and his crew, after being trapped for three days and returning from the unfinished fifth level, started acting strange. They became withdrawn, not answering one question in ten...’” Ron said, picking up the notebook Delaford had tossed out and opening it to a relatively intact page.

”’The Empress suddenly ordered the mine shut down, but why?’” Silvia read, frowning as she leaned closer. ”’Old Hammer and his men clashed with the soldiers who came to enforce the order, and I joined them. My wife and six children are counting on me to put food on the table. I can’t lose this job!’”

”’We hid the soldiers’ bodies. The foreman has been persuaded to our side. If the Empress won’t pay our wages, we’ll pay ourselves. This is a gold mine, after all!’”

”’But what did I find? I got up in the middle of the night and saw Old Hammer and the others go to where the bodies were buried. And then... they dug them up?’”

”’I have to find out what’s going on. Old Hammer and the others have been doing this for three days now. When I asked them about it, they claimed I was sleepwalking.’”

”’They’re getting stranger and stranger. We sleep in the same dormitory, and I can smell a rotting odor coming off them.’”

Ron turned the page again, only to find the next few entries had been torn out. The diary entries after that were, without exception, stained with blood and bloody handprints.

”’I gathered a few other miners to confront Old Hammer, and we ended up fighting them. The reckless Alchemist threw an Alchemy Bomb that collapsed the floor, and everyone fell through.’”

”’We finally won, but it was a pyrrhic victory. I tried calling to the people above for help, but it was a few soldiers who appeared. They ignored us and walked away.’”

”’I can hear the rumbling of the machinery outside has stopped. So the mine was shut down after all?’”

”’Poor Stone. He must have been infected by Old Hammer. He kept trying to attack me last night. To save my life, I had no choice but to tie him up.’”

”’These people are insane! They’re all insane! I didn’t tie up Stone so you could eat him! Oh, God...’”

Silvia glanced again at the words You had copied onto the wall. ”The rest of the diary is illegible. I’m guessing what’s on the wall is how it ended.”

”It’s almost the same ending as those three from the first level. The ’Old Hammer’ in the diary must have gone through something similar,” Ron said, walking over to the crack and pulling Delaford out.

”There’s not much food in the mine, sure, but it couldn’t have gotten this bad, could it?” Aive frowned. ”A five-level mine... did this happen on every level?”

”It was all the mines in the Ancient Kingdom,” Silvia corrected. ”Have you forgotten? The ’plague.’”

”Hardship creates Ghouls, and Ghouls, in turn, create new hardships. I’m guessing the last Empress ordered the lockdown only after she inspected a mine and discovered what was happening.”

”But Ghouls transformed in this... manner don’t immediately become feral. They retain their consciousness for a time. The Empress must have faced a rebellion from her no-longer-human subjects under those conditions, which led to her eventual overthrow.”

”I was hoping this would be in my wheelhouse,” Ron sighed. ’If this is the ’plague,’ I’m afraid it’s not something I can cure.’

”Maybe the fifth level will have the answers we need,” Aive said. ”Let’s hope the lower levels don’t have so many Ghouls.”