Chapter 21

Chapter 21

I tried moving my leg, which was still trembling faintly. Fortunately, I could walk just fine.

—Kiiing…!

Whether it thought I was going to leave it behind or what, the little thing that had been circling around my legs immediately clung to me and rubbed its body against me.

Somehow, I felt like a terrible owner abandoning a dog I’d raised without having done anything for it. I stared blankly at the puppy rubbing its tiny body against my ankle, then finally sighed and picked it up, cradling it in my arms.

‘Ah, well… now that my skill’s taken effect, it won’t pose any threat to me anymore.’

If anything, the fact that it used to be an A-Rank Dungeon monster made it somewhat reassuring. …When it was my enemy, it was anything but reassuring—more like infuriating—but it wasn’t now, so maybe that was what mattered?

I looked down at the puppy, which was wagging its tail happily the moment it settled into my arms, with a complicated expression.

“So, how do we actually get out of here?”

It seemed like I was the only one who’d ended up separated from the party, including Mr. Yoon Juyeong… and I had no idea what to do about it.

The moment I thought about getting out of here and scouting the area, the advice about not doing anything in a survival situation and just waiting quietly for rescue came to mind. But then again, sitting still here didn’t feel right either, since this situation was far from ‘normal.’

‘What do I do.’

I reflexively stroked the fluffy thing in my arms and gently bit my lower lip. If both staying put and scouting the area came with their own risks…

I stopped thinking and glanced down at the small animal nestled in my arms.

‘I’ve got this one too… so maybe I’ll go with scouting the area.’

Fortunately, I had a small weapon I could use in sudden crisis situations.

I lightly patted its head as a way of saying I’d be counting on it from now on. The little thing wagged its tail like a propeller and let out a happy yip.

…Honestly, it really was adorable.

* * *

“What on earth is this place…”

After wandering around with the former A-Rank monster—now a puppy—cradled in my arms, I was able to figure out that this place had once been someone’s garden, one that must have been quite beautiful.

Holding the puppy with one hand, I looked down at a rose that was drooping its head, half-dead.

“Hey, Blackie. Do you know where this is?”

—Kiiing.

“What, you don’t know either? You’re the one who dragged me here.”

—Kiiiiing…

The little thing, which I’d temporarily named Blackie, let out a pitiful whine from my arms as if it felt wronged. Honestly, what did it have to feel wronged about?

No matter how I thought about it, the one who should be feeling wronged here was me, not Blackie. If this thing hadn’t snatched me back then, I’d probably be watching Mr. Yoon Juyeong tear through the A-Rank dungeon without any trouble by now.

‘But still, the fact that no one’s come after this much time has passed…’

First possibility: the party members abandoned me. Second possibility: the place I’m in right now is somewhere you can’t reach through normal means.

Those were the two scenarios I could think of, and after mulling it over, the conclusion I arrived at was the latter.

“Well, if this were a normal dungeon raid, I wouldn’t be so sure… but this time, we have to complete the quest given by the Administrator, and the clear condition is ‘everyone returns alive.’”

No matter how I thought about it, it didn’t seem like the party members would just abandon me and leave. Especially considering Mr. Yoon Juyeong, who had taken me as his master regardless of my own wishes—I really couldn’t see him leaving me behind.

That left the latter possibility: ‘I’m currently in a place that can’t be reached through normal means.’

‘Hmm… so should I consider this as having entered some kind of hidden stage?’

Five years had passed since dungeons suddenly started appearing, but not much had been uncovered about them.

Why dungeons appear, how they form, where the so-called ‘hidden stages’ said to exist in each dungeon are and how to reach them—dungeons held countless secrets, and hunters like us were in the position of peeling them back one by one, like layers of an onion.

‘If this isn’t a mutation caused by the boss monster’s corruption, but rather a case where I met a specific condition and was ‘forcibly’ entered into a hidden stage…’

Each dungeon’s hidden stage was, true to its name, a ‘hidden’ space filled with countless secrets. But even so, hunters had managed to uncover one thing about hidden stages.

The fact that both entering and exiting a hidden stage require specific conditions to be met.

For example, the hidden stage of the most widely known Volcano Golem Dungeon is activated when the core of the final boss, the ‘Volcano Golem,’ is placed into the volcanic vent.

And once you enter the hidden stage that way, you then have to obtain the ‘Glacier Golem’s’ core and throw it into a nearby frozen pond.

‘Hmm… Did I do anything when I came in here?’

I stroked Blackie’s fluffy fur and tried to recall the situation when I entered this place.

Let’s see. I caught that white wolf bastard, and I rolled across the ground because of the roar it used as its last move. Then Mr. Yoon Juyeong finished it off with a final blow, and right after that, something suddenly bit my foot, so I turned my head and there was this little guy whining in my arms now.

Right after that, something black that appeared under the black wolf’s feet pulled Blackie in…

“I have no idea.”

No matter how much I thought about it, there was nothing that could be called a ‘specific condition.’ I narrowed my eyes slightly and looked down at Blackie, who was cradled in my arms. Blackie rubbed its head against my arm, then seemed to sense my gaze and lifted its head slightly.

“Blackie, do you have any hints or anything? No matter how much I think about it, I have no idea why I’m here.”

Considering that, from the very beginning, it was none other than Blackie who dragged me into this space, it was just a ‘what if’ assumption, but it was possible that Blackie, not me, had fulfilled the conditions to enter this space.

…Though I had no idea if monsters inside a dungeon could even enter a hidden stage.

“This is driving me crazy. I’m not going to end up living here forever, am I— Ugh!”

As I was aimlessly walking while gently stroking Blackie’s soft fur, something suddenly grabbed my ankle.

Naturally, because of that unidentified something that had abruptly caught my foot, I lost my balance and fell hard, tumbling to the ground.

“Ugh, aah, that hurts like hell… Huh?”

—Grrrr…

I was rubbing my knee, which had taken a hard hit from the fall, and trying to get up when Blackie, who had leaped out of my arms as if spring-loaded, started growling at something. Only then did I look at the unidentified thing that had grabbed my ankle.

“A doll?”

It was a doll about the size of a person’s knee. I patted the back of Blackie, who was still growling beside me, and stared at the doll, which was still holding onto my ankle, with wary eyes.

‘There’s no way an ordinary doll would be inside a dungeon.’

If a doll suddenly appeared inside a dungeon, its identity was extremely obvious.

A monster. A life form inside the dungeon that could take all sorts of forms.

As if to confirm my guess, the doll that had been holding my ankle gave a little shudder. And at the same time, Blackie, who had been baring its teeth and growling, shot forward like an arrow and bit the doll in one go.

“Kyaaaaah! Please don’t do that! Save me! Kyaaaaah!”

“Whoa?!”

The moment Blackie roughly bit the doll and pulled it off my ankle, the doll suddenly started screaming in a high-pitched tone. I jumped back in place like someone who had just seen a ghost appear in a horror movie.

“Aaaah! Please, please don’t! Aah! It hurts! Please, save me, Master!”

“Blackie, go throw that thing away somewhere!”

“Uwaa!! Please spare me! Uwaaang! Not there! Not there, Master!!”

—Grrrrrr!

And in the middle of all this, it said ‘Master.’ It was a truly insufferable doll, having uttered the word that had recently topped my list of most hated words.

I gently rubbed my ankle, which the doll had grabbed, and glared at the doll as it was repeatedly thrown, bitten, and slammed around by Blackie.

“Kiiieeeek!!! N-not there! There is my precious—”

“Blackie, stop for a second and come here.”

—Yip.

Blackie, who had been playing with the doll like a toy for a while, immediately dropped the doll in its place and ran over to me at my single word. I carefully picked Blackie up and looked at the doll, now covered in dirt and Blackie’s saliva.

“What exactly are you?”

“Sniff, hoo-hoo, Master, Maaasterrr! How could you treat this poor servant so roughly!”

“What the hell is this ‘Master’ business. I don’t remember ever becoming the master of something like you.”

“Oh dear, oh dear. Our Master is even going to abandon this poor servant. Oh my! It’s already miserable enough being turned into a rag doll like this!”

“Well, I don’t remember ever becoming the master of a rag doll… But anyway, while I’m being nice about it, I’d appreciate it if you’d properly introduce yourself.”

The doll, which had been pretending to wail while prostrate on the ground without a single real tear in sight, finally sat up.

The creature wiped its face with its dirt-caked rag hands in a pretense of cleaning, then turned its button eyes toward me.

“Sniff, I am Avan Dun Gardener… a being who was once the gardener created by the great Ruler for His garden. Sniff.”

“…Gardener?”

“Yes, indeed. I may be in this sorry state now and unable to even prune, but once I was a very capable—”

“No, spare me the boasting. More importantly… that ‘garden’ you’re talking about, is it by any chance the ‘Ruler’s Garden’?”

‘Great Ruler’ and ‘garden.’ No matter how I thought about it, these weren’t words I could just let slide.

I glanced at the status window I had opened without the doll noticing. Still, in the skill section of my status window, a familiar word sat there. ‘Ruler’s Garden (S).’

“Yes, of course.”