Episode 24
Even if it’s an unused Old School Building, having a monster den inside a school is just not right.
I was wondering what in the world happened to cause this… but then it hit me.
This is a dungeon.
It’s a game-specific feature, or rather, an environment.
It’s like how you encounter monsters in the sewers even though it’s supposed to be a peaceful town.
And if this Old School Building is like this, it means some kind of event probably happens here in the original story.
So, it looks like this is the place. Then, I should kick down the locked gate right away… but no. I have to preserve the environment.
In the original story, you probably get the key somewhere, or you can enter from another place. If I kick it down, the route will be ruined.
If there’s no other way, I’d force my way in, but luckily, I can do whatever I want here.
This Old School Building is a three-story wooden structure, long enough to fit five classrooms side by side. There should be plenty of entrances.
I walked around, looking at the exterior from a distance… and there it was. A window on the second-floor hallway was open.
“Yo, ho, hoit!”
I could just jump in with a big leap, but I’ll be smart and slip in by scaling the wall. It’s a feat that would never happen in the original story.
I kicked away a rat Monster that immediately came at me and moved so that other Monsters wouldn’t find me. This is also part of preserving the environment.
“Hmm…?”
After looking around the classrooms on the second and third floors, I couldn’t quite get a feel for it.
Every classroom I peeked into was just a dusty, old ruin, and I couldn’t imagine Millie being imprisoned here.
Maybe it’s because the setting sun is shining in, but all the classrooms I’ve seen so far are too bright, and it doesn’t feel right for imprisonment. Would the impression change at night?
“Darker is… the first floor?”
The protagonist enters from the first floor, defeats Monsters while exploring the dungeon, and fights the boss on the top floor.
I had left the first floor alone, thinking that such a sense of beauty was being applied, but if it’s just about darkness, the first floor, where the surrounding trees block the sunlight, is probably the darkest.
The first floor I headed to seemed to have a different layout from the other floors.
The second and third floors were all normal classrooms of the same size used for classes, but the first room on the first floor was strangely large. The interior has been completely removed, but from the few remaining traces… probably the staff room.
The second room is almost certainly the infirmary.
And the last room on the first floor… won’t open. It’s locked.
“Ugh, what a pain.”
The key is somewhere in this school building, and if you find it and open this, there will be a treasure chest inside. That’s how it would be in an RPG.
I went outside the school building and peeked inside from the window, and it was a room like a storage room filled with all sorts of things.
From the looks of it, the darkness is good. But it’s just too cramped.
It seems like the most suitable place for imprisonment, but it’s too cluttered with things and feels cramped.
The protagonist who rushes in to rescue her will probably fight on the spot, so there should be enough space.
“No, in an RPG, does the size not matter…?”
If this were an action game, you’d need a space to run around, but in an RPG, the fight can happen in a gap where only one person can pass.
It may not be realistic, but there’s no point in complaining about the game’s specifications.
If that’s the case, then this storage room is still the first candidate, so the next thing I need is the key to enter this room.
“…………Enter from the window?”
This is just a game-like reality. I don’t think there’s any point in preserving the environment. The protagonist will probably kick down the door and force his way through anyway.
I decided that the protagonist I haven’t met yet is a muscle-brained idiot, and I cut out the fixed window with the ‘Iron Severing Palm’ I learned at Fighting Skill Level 5. It’s a convenient technique where a sharp, pale blue aura comes out of your hand. I might be getting more and more inhuman.
“Yo, ho!”
I put my hand on the window frame in a high position, jumped lightly, stuck my head and upper body into the window, and somersaulted into the room.
I made a brilliant entrance that was different from the rude protagonist who would kick down the door, and looked around the storage room that seemed to have nothing.
In terms of the game, there’s no way there’s nothing in a suspicious locked room. Thinking so, I searched the room and found an overly suspicious hole leading to the Basement behind something like a screen.
“…………”
I swallowed the words, “Is there really such a suspicious hole?” There’s no point in complaining about it here.
I peeked into the hole, but it was dark and I couldn’t see well, so I illuminated it with Pefu’s light. So far, I’ve been using Pefu more for light than for healing.
Fortunately, the hole illuminated by Pefu wasn’t so deep that I couldn’t see the bottom, and I could see a stone floor about five meters below.
There were metal handles embedded in the wall all the way to the floor, and I would probably use them like a ladder to climb up and down. However, judging from the dust left on the handles, it seemed that no one had been in and out for a while, although the period was unknown.
I jumped into the hole, wondering if there was some kind of abandoned facility, and it wasn’t a Basement, but an underground passage.
I proceeded along the narrow path and came to a heavy door decorated in an overly ostentatious manner.
This is definitely the Boss Room. That means this is the passage in front of the Boss Room. If it’s a lenient game, there would be a save point around here.
“Helloooo?”
If there was a boss inside, it might be bad if I defeated him. With that concern, I knocked, but there was no answer.
Or rather, there’s no sign of anyone inside, and besides, I’m probably the boss here. That means this is my room.
Thinking so, I opened the door without hesitation, and it seemed to be a fairly large room, but the back was dark and I couldn’t see anything at all.
As expected, one Pefu is too dark for a room, let alone a passage. So, I looked around to attach about ten Pefu to a suitable stick to make it brighter, and found a mysterious switch next to the entrance.
This is the boss’s room, and I’m the boss, so it’s my room. And the switch in my room is my switch. So, I switched it on without hesitation, and the mysterious lighting fixtures that seemed to be installed on the walls of the room lit up all at once.
I was thinking that if it exploded, I would tell the next Geld to be careful, but it seemed to be just a switch to turn the lights on and off. It’s starting to feel more like a home.
Looking at the room that had been lit up again, I could see that the left and right sides of the room had completely different appearances.
The left side had a living-like interior with a kitchen, cupboards, a bed, and a table, and the door visible in the back was probably related to the toilet and bath.
The right side had many bookshelves, and desks with experimental equipment such as suspicious beakers and test tubes were lined up.
When I checked the spines of the books crammed into the bookshelves, almost all of them were related to magic. In other words, this was a room where a wizard used to seclude himself and do research.
“This is it.”
I’ve decided to imprison her here. There’s no way there’s nothing in this room. There’s enough space to fight.
There’s a high possibility that it’s a room for another event, but if that’s the case, I’ll apologize and start over.
Now, all that’s left is to wait for Millie to join the Harem.