"U- Urgh…" A grunt followed by queasy movements. Dakgu felt stiff all over, almost like a corpse. But he knew that couldn't be so as he was indeed living.
Looking around the room, Dakgu found he was in fact inside of his own home. It was a dainty little place which only held some scribbles on how to improve the boar farm situation. There were also some scrapped notes on dealing with the foreign orc population but as it turned out that was beyond the scope of his knowledge.
These small bits of knowledge kept on coming back to Dakgu until he finally froze, something was missing.
"I- I can't remember" Dakgu muttered in fright. Even the moonlight that shone through his windows seemed unfamiliar. It was supposed to be daytime after all.
Dakgu tried to stand up from the bed on which he lay but he soon found it was pointless. He felt weak to the core and his sluggish body seemed to be incapable of moving.
"Wh- What the hell" Dakgu felt this all had to be a nightmare. That was when he finally noticed some eyes that watched from beyond the dark. It had to be a sleep paralysis demon, that all but confirmed he was in a nightmare.
The demon was a mighty tall figure, the scent of blood reeked from their every hair. They held a butcher's knife in one hand, it sent a shiver down Dakgu's spine. That at least until the light settled and the figure was lit up by the faint moonlight.
"Gor- Gorgo!" It was Gorgo, one of Dakgu's close associates. He loved to eat boars so he liked raising them. He was one of Dakgu's subordinates in the boar business.
"Dakgu you crazy bast*rd!" As everyone had fled Sanctuary except for the sacred tribe orcs Gorgo naturally came to know of Dakgu's state. Well, he was still a bit late to know as he was in the back of everything but when they were retreating with the help of Ed he couldn't have failed to notice.
"What did I do?!" Dakgu said surprised by Gorgo's strong reaction,
"Look at that! Your injury has got you wrong in the head! Or were you always like that…" Gorgo exclaimed before muttering words that were not very pleasing for Dakgu to hear.
"That- That's not very nice…" But Dakgu decided to skip the matter.
"I'll go get Ed and Sharog or whatever, Umm, sit tight" Gorgo said before promptly leaving just as he came, without notice. Dakgu didn't think much of it, he only smiled wryly.
***
When Bob first opened his eyes, the sight before him was… black. That was because he seemed to have been encased in some sort of cloth. Bob was unsure what to make of it until a realization dawned upon him… He fell victim to this dungeon again!
The first expedition with the Freedom Union which he miraculously survived was still ingrained in his mind. With that as inspiration, he had steadily grown in strength and was shortly thereafter drafted into Balin's royal company.
He felt things were going well and the shadow cast onto him by this dungeon seemed to finally start to vanish. One could only imagine his face when he heard the company was heading back into the accursed place!
At first, he was willing to abandon his teams at all costs but after much persuasion from friends, he grew somewhat confident after that. To his credit, he had grown stronger and so had his teammates so maybe, just maybe, he could get revenge!
Oh, how naive the Bob of the past was! Bob thought chastising himself. He started to struggle to try and get free but it was also at this time that Ed had left the system space and his struggling only made Ed take notice of him.
'Right, I tossed the human here' Ed thought before grabbing the human and taking him out of his cloth prison.
"Ah!" Bob screamed seeing the cold eyes of an orc staring at him. No, it wasn't coldness… it was indifference. He was meaningless.
'What should I do with you…' Ed pondered.
He had thoughtlessly tossed him aside next to the garden shack, but that didn't mean he planned on neglecting the human. He obviously wanted to obtain as much information from him as possible, but there were simply too many methods to achieve this.
There was negotiation, there was also torture, coercion, drugging, many options. He could even combine some! Like, torture negotiation. The rate of successful negotiations went up through this method but so did the death rate…
'Ahem, let's probe first' Ed wasn't sure what this human thought of him or where his heart laid.
'Sorry for the rough treatment, the name's Ed' When making new friends the first step was to introduce oneself. For Bob who was prepared to die however this approachable attitude caused him to freeze up.
The many scenarios he ran in his head which ran contrary to this caused Bob's mind blanked. Ed who saw this could not help but frown,
'I know I wanted a weakling but how did those simple words break him?' Ed was unaware of Bob's previous trauma. But how could he be blamed? What were the odds of someone involved in the previous attacks coming back to die?
"Le- Let me go! Please!" Bob who came back to normal after about 5 seconds begged with a deathly pale expression. He could foresee his head being lopped off like that of many others!
'Usually, you introduce yourself first…' Ed grumbled before deciding to assess things and find out for himself.
[Bob Burgesr (Magic Swordsman)]
{ A B-class water swordsman who saw great progress after overcoming a great trauma. Bob's trauma seems to be reoccurring}
Having read this assessment Ed had to admit Bob was a praiseworthy man. To see great progress after overcoming trauma, how great! It was a pity that his trauma seemed to be resurfacing for unknown reasons but this was nothing but advantageous to Ed.
'I can't let you go, but I can let you live' Ed decided to put in some bait. Who didn't value their life? Bob also seemed wise, so Ed was confident he would be tempted.
"Wh- Why would you do that?" Bob asked while shivering, nevertheless still holding onto a thread of caution. He once overcame his trauma and gained some confidence so he was not the same bob of the past!
'I'm a curious individual, you just have to let me know things about the outside' Ed replied not missing a beat.
Bob clenched his fists deep in thought while trembling profusely. Sweat started to form on his brows and dripping to his chin.
"I, I, I can do that" Bob said unclenching his fists and slowly losing his fear. The words he had uttered set him down an erroneous path, but one could only have morals and be a man of justice if they were alive.
'Great, let's start with something easy…' Ed had lots of things to do so he couldn't ask too many questions. Just the important things could get him started.
'How is this dungeon seen by the outside?' Ed asked holding some amount of expectation. Bob was surprised by this first question. He was not surprised by the question itself as it was a fair thing to wonder but… wasn't this mob too knowledgeable?
Most mobs wouldn't be able to hold a civilized conversation but even if they could, they wouldn't use the word dungeon. Using this word meant that they knew they were trapped in a dungeon and Bob was sure that he wouldn't be able to cope with this knowledge had he been a monster.
"Um, this dungeon is... The cave of myths... " Bob said recalling the things he had seen and the names that were flying around. A dungeon that was never cleared did not have a name, but rumors went far.
Supposedly, Augustus Galeburst had appeared as a boss, how crazy! This was only discovered recently too. Eon had never reported the happening but after by chance reading the reports some historians or overall knowledgeable individuals were able to make the connection.
"Is a highly dangerous dungeon. It's- It's Hell!!!" Bob's continuation was left there as his eyes had started to dart about with a hint of madness. The more he was made to think about the danger of the dungeon the more miserable Bob felt.
"WAAAAHHHH!!!! WHY!?!" Ed's eye twitched as Bob broke down into tears and wailed like a banshee. Ed sighed deeply disappointed by the shameful display. He grabbed Bob and smacked him on the head.
'It's a pity that he has gone mad already' Ed had many methods he looked forward to trying. Like the rash venom1, he concocted the other time for example. He had expected the subject to go mad after lots of trial and error so what was this about?
'Sigh… Let's go into the system space' Ed was disappointed but he had to wait for Bob to settle down. That aside, a cave of myths…
'I wonder how fitting that is' Everything did feel a bit unreal. But it wasn't just that, the dead Blurak which had appeared helped give Ed a clue as to why exactly the humans would name it a cave of myths.
'Then the other bosses were all…!' That meant that the lich used to be human too! As a skeleton that was to be expected but... It wasn't just spawned from the dungeon, he had life experience knowledge.
'I'll have to think about the next boss then' Whatever the next boss was, he had to make sure to get as much knowledge as their heads held. Well, head, it was weird to use plural, wasn't it?