Reverse Dungeon

Ian didn’t let the travel time go to waste, either.

If this is as real as it looks, shouldn’t I be able to do two things at once?

The moment the thought occurred to him, he decided to put it to the test.

“Louise, teach me archery.”

“Me? How could I possibly presume to teach you, Lord Ian...”

“I should learn from you. Better than learning from Sema, at least.”

With Louise standing beside him, Ian began relearning how to hold a bow.

Thanks to the skill, he could at least nock the arrow and take a stance that looked somewhat convincing. The problem was that he had no idea what came after that.

Maybe I can’t shoot because I don’t understand why I’m supposed to hold the bow this way?

Ian had never been at the top of his class, but he did know a thing or two about how learning worked. If you wanted to study properly, you had to understand why a problem was solved a certain way.

Maybe archery was the same. To shoot properly, he first had to understand why he was supposed to shoot that way.

When Louise saw Ian’s initial stance, he thought, What am I even supposed to teach him?

Ian was clearly familiar with archery. His posture was excellent. Louise, a mere hunter, felt it would be presumptuous to instruct a noble who had likely been trained in archery since childhood.

Then Ian fired his first arrow.

Louise thought again, ...What am I even supposed to teach him?

Ian knew absolutely nothing about the fundamentals of archery. The arrow he released corkscrewed through the air, wobbled wildly, and dropped to the ground.

“Oops.”

Ian stepped back to avoid it. If he had not moved, it would have gone straight through his foot.

“......”

Louise tried to look on the bright side.

“Lord Ian, your reflexes are extraordinarily sharp.”

“Will that help with archery?”

Louise pretended not to hear him and began his explanation.

“First, let me explain why your arrows aren’t flying straight...”

So it won’t help much.

Ian understood.

In the end, Ian’s experiment was a success. Just as a person in reality could cook while listening to the radio, he could practice archery while walking.

Ding!

[The level of the skill has increased.]

[Archery LV.1 → LV.2]

“I’ll prepare the rabbit Lord Ian caught,” Louise said.

Lord Ian caught it?

Sema thought the arrow lodged in the rabbit looked suspiciously like one of {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} Louise’s, but he wisely kept his mouth shut.

Of course, Ian knew even without Sema saying anything.

Wow... this character really isn’t broken at all.

His training efficiency was atrocious. After spending days shooting arrows, his Level 1 skill had only risen to Level 2.

Ian lay back and ate the rabbit Louise had cooked, thinking the situation over.

Still, he was much better off than he had been in the original Ian route. He could practice while traveling, which was the sort of thing that would have needed a difficulty patch if this were a game. Training while moving was basically cheating.

The only drawback was that the person doing it was Ian, which made it feel a lot less like cheating.

On top of that, he had an incredibly powerful card in his hand: the combination of playable character stories.

What would happen to this world if all those playable character routes overlapped?

Every player must have wondered about it at least once. The world crisis would accelerate. More tragedies would occur. Struggling to survive in a collapsing world—how thrilling!

...With those thoughts in mind, Ian pulled the blanket over himself.

No, no. That’s not it.

More playable routes meant more ways to clear the game, didn’t they? And if overpowered characters started joining the world’s narrative, the odds of the world collapsing should go down.

Some characters might even clear the game for him. Keith, for example, could defeat the Demon King single-handedly if properly developed by the late game.

Ian was not excited like a gaming addict. He was assessing the situation with cold, rational calculation.

Or so he told himself.

Route combination is incredible, though...

His heart was beating just a little faster.

Gazing up at the stars scattered across the night sky, Ian let out a quiet breath.

Can I go home if the Demon King dies?

He had no intention of killing the Demon King himself. He disliked pain. Coughing up blood had already been miserable enough; if the Demon King hit him, he might lose the will to live entirely.

The best-case scenario was for someone else to grow strong enough to kill the Demon King while Ian focused on developing the dungeon and playing defense.

Ian decided he needed to check whether the other playable characters had begun their routes. A person ought to be prepared for the possibility that the world might end.

And if their growth was too slow, he might have to help them along.

He had brought Louise with him not only because Louise was strong, but also to share experience points with him.

The achievement [Finding the Elf Tree] would grant a considerable amount of experience.

And so, while diligently practicing archery, Ian arrived at the Elf Village.

The village lay in ruins. A once-glorious civilization had crumbled, leaving only its traces behind.

As expected.

Ian touched a half-collapsed marble column.

If the player took the playable Elf character’s route, this village would not be rebuilt until the late game.

In that route, the player could obtain the from this ruined temple. That was what Ian had come for.

And while I’m here, I might as well borrow some seeds the elves stored away...

“Is this really the place, Lord Ian? It doesn’t look like anywhere we can borrow seeds from!”

Sema’s frightened voice came from behind him while Ian casually stepped into the ruined temple.

“Yeah. This is the place.”

“But, Lord Ian, even if it’s an Elf temple, it’s still a temple. Isn’t it wrong for us to just barge in like this...?”

“It’s fine.”

“......”

Sema had nothing more to say.

“If there is a curse, I will take it in your place. Please don’t worry, Lord Ian,” Louise said loyally.

“We’re not going to be cursed. What kind of temple curses people just for entering?”

“It looks like the kind that would...” Sema muttered.

In any case, Ian was leading the way. There was no chance the other two would refuse to follow.

As if escorting him, Louise and Sema took positions on either side of Ian and stepped into the depths of the temple, disappearing into the darkness.

Ian studied the dust-covered floor and the cobwebbed ceiling.

Was it this rundown even when the Elf character came here?

He had no way of knowing how far the Elf route had progressed in this world.

Then he heard an odd sound.

Click, click!

It was the sound of something hard striking against something else. Beneath it came another noise, like leather dragging across the floor.

The sounds were coming from outside.

“Lord Ian!”

Louise reacted instantly, darting toward the temple entrance like a flying squirrel.

“This way! You need to get out!”

But Ian was looking somewhere else.

Part of the ceiling had collapsed, leaving the sky exposed. Through the gap, dark clouds were gathering overhead.

Anyone could tell those clouds were an omen. Something terrible would happen once they arrived.

And Ian knew exactly what that terrible thing was.

He pressed a hand to his forehead.

Why is this happening now...?

It was not a curse, no matter what nonsense Sema had been muttering. But this temple did have defenses against intruders.

Ian, however, had already touched the “something” that was supposed to keep those defenses from activating.

The fallen column.

Originally, a statue of the temple’s goddess had stood on top of it. According to the setting, if you placed your hands there and prayed, you would avoid incurring the wrath of the Elf Goddess.

I prayed!

The system window had definitely appeared.

[Would you like to pray?]

He had absolutely clicked [Yes].

Are you kidding me?

Ian gritted his teeth and grabbed Sema by the back of the neck.

“Run!”

“Aaaaaah!”

Sema ran without understanding why.

But the entrance was already surrounded.

A horde of skeletons had appeared beneath the gathering clouds, blocking their escape.

These skeletons looked slightly different from those made from human remains. Their clothing was different, too.

They were skeletons made from the bodies of elves.

The master of this temple was the Goddess of Death.

These skeletons were priests who continued to serve her even after death.

Damn it...

Click, click.

Clack, clack...

The weapons in their hands knocked against their own bones with every step. The stench of old rot mingled with a strange, dusty odor.

The pressure of hundreds of skeletons bearing down on them was impossible to describe.

“Lord Ian, get out first! I’ll open a path!”

Louise drew an arrow.

“I-I’ll help too...!”

Sema gripped his staff with both hands.

A shot from the staff—

Boom!

—and burst uselessly.

Useless...

Here, Louise was the only one who could actually fight. But even he could probably handle only a few dozen at most, and not all at once. That was the number Ian estimated Louise could bring down before being overwhelmed.

Bad matchup.

Skeletons were bones.

Arrows would not be very effective, and poison would do nothing to them. That was a completely different problem from how specialized the skill was.

In the end, Ian drew his bow as well.

“Make way!”

There was no other choice.

Ian and Louise began firing in the same direction.