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Its walls now visible under the lumination of fire and fairy magic, we found the cave riddled in thorny vines, running every which way. We knew about this from Jimmy-san’s info, but knowing didn’t alleviate the bad itch I was feeling.

“These things aren’t gonna come alive and whip at us right?”

“They certainly look like they could, but as far as we know, they won’t”

These, very obviously, out of place vines lining the cave walls were apparently nothing to worry about.

Jimmy-san and the investigation team he led had taken samples of this plant back to analyze, but had found no abnormalities. Apparently, it wasn’t physically possible for these vines to move like tentacles or something, as their internal structure didn’t allow for it.

Well, that’d be where magic came into play. Like my Sword Arts, inanimate things could be easily controlled via magical enchantment.

But then again, there was also the fact that going to the trouble of moving around these thorny vines wouldn’t work to deal us any damage. Never mind Fiona, even I had enough fire magic to burn these away.

“Perhaps the Lust Rose is growing them as a hobby?”

“A monster with hobbies? Is that even possible?”

“When they’re intelligent to a degree, anything can happen”

And here I thought she was joking.

Even if it wasn’t doing this as a passive interest, it could be growing these for some other reason. If there were ants that cultivated mushrooms as food, it wasn’t so far-fetched that a moderately intelligent monster was growing vines, ploughing a farm or even dabbling in a bit of gardening.

The danger looked minimal, but I’ll keep an eye out on the off chance they do start moving.

We kept walking deeper and deeper, twisted vines all around.

“Nothing but these vines here huh――”

I hadn’t sensed anything as of yet. The scenery looked so monotone that I began to doubt whether we were really moving forward.

“Ah, Kurono, look, the way splits here~”

The first change in anything came after Lily, who was walking ahead and lighting our way, reported a fork in the path.

“Huh, well, they did tell us this was here”

The passage was cleanly split in 2, both left and right paths curving slightly, in a way that shining a light through wouldn’t show too far ahead.

“Right, this is where it gets serious”

Any adventurer that went past this branching point had began losing it, ending up victims to the Lust Rose. Once inside, we’ll be in enemy territory, where the Lust Rose could attack any time. We were about to enter a rank 5 danger zone.

“I’m on vanguard, Fiona’s middle, and Lily, you’re at the back”

“Roger that”

“kaay!”

I thought we could use the Living Dead to take my role, positioning ourselves further away in a wait and see approach, but there was a chance that the Lust Rose could hijack the homunculi and turn them against us. We decided to avoid that can of worms.

According to little girl mode Lily, they were still in the post-production stage, as in, not going to be useful for this job. No helping that.

“OK, let’s head in”

We’d now finally stepped into the forked path.

I chose to go right. No particular reason, just a feeling. Plus, there was no real way of knowing what difference awaited us in the different paths, since no adventurer that’d gone past this point had returned alive. It really didn’t matter whether we took our time choosing carefully, or just picked a random path.

“... Doesn’t look all that different”

The cave, now after the branching point, looked pretty much the same, in height, in width, and even in the ups and downs. The thorned vines all along the walls also remained, of course. And we still hadn’t sensed any abnormalities.

“Hm, that’s――”

Just then, I saw something shine under the light of the Torch floating beside me.

After moving closer, still on alert for any presences, I quickly figured out who it was.

“Isn’t this the Golden Hero Michael?”

He was an ice statue in brilliant, golden, full plate mail armor. More precisely, he was encased in a block of ice, like Saeed of the Evileyes. That man I’d once fought at the Curse Carnival was also similarly sealed in ice.

But Michael here won’t be coming to life if we decide to melt him out of his prison. Mostly because on the other side of his helmet’s visor, which had been lifted up, I could only see bone.

Not too far away, we also found his companions, the mage in a robe and a stout archer holding a bow, both of them, also iced skeletons.

These three must’ve been the party called Golden Age, the one Jimmy-san mentioned, the first victims of the Lust Rose.

“... This is strange, if they’d only been encased in ice, they wouldn’t decompose into bones”

Fiona’s concern was plenty warranted, now that I thought on it. Even if they weren’t especially trapped with ice element sealing magic, they were still encased so cleanly that I doubted if their bodies would completely decompose this fast.

“Maybe they were drained?”

Little girl Lily came up with the answer in a snap.

“That makes sense, which would mean, the Lust Rose froze them and then started absorbing their life force”

“So they got iced, all while in some pleasant dream?”

That’d explain a lot of things. Michael here had apparently been saying something about his ‘mommy’ all the way until his communication signal was cut for good. If they were being slowly and gradually frozen over while still under the illusions of mind control, it wouldn’t count as enough of an external force and they wouldn’t wake from it.

Actually, since the Lust Rose was dwelling in these frigid mountains, there was always a big chance that its inherent magic, Extra magic, was ice attribute. And looking further at what I know about the other trial monsters and their elements, ice was the only one left by elimination.

First, since I already had fire, earth, and lightning, they’re obviously out. Then, according to the documents I read up in the guild, the Pride Gem, Gluttony Oct and Envy Rei were water, wind and light, respectively. Not much was known about the Lust Rose so I couldn’t determine its element at the time, but thinking in terms of my trials, there’s no way it wasn’t the ice element trial monster.

Whatever, not like knowing this will give us any advantage, and nor will it change what we had to do. We had to subjugate the Lust Rose. Only after that could the guild come in and collect the bodies of these three. Our mission’s success would also serve the purpose of giving them a proper burial.

And then, after we’d walked another 10 minutes or so,

“There sure are a lot of them”

Skeletons in ice were dotted all over inside the passage of thorny vines.

They must’ve all been pretty high ranked adventurers; I could tell that all their armors and robes were high quality from a glance. And, none looked like they had a hard fight, they all had zero injuries as they remained as statues.

“They too must’ve thought up many countermeasures against the monster, and yet still failed”

“And look, our mind controller isn’t partial to people either”

“Ah~, I spot a punpun~”

There were some non-humanoid bodies mix­ed in too. Lily pointed out a large, white boss punpun that had a long gash along one eye and had its paws raised up in an intimidating pose. It looked a lot like a stuffed bear exhibit.

“This guy isn’t a skeleton, you think it doesn’t eat monsters?”

“It’s likely kept this as reserve food. If you look around, you can see that there are monster skeletons here and there”

She was right, from a quick glance, I found what looked to be a wolf skeleton, also encased in a block of ice. On further looking around, I spotted one of a harpy too. Though, there wasn’t anything as big as a dortus, those just wouldn’t fit in here.

Given all that, the Lust Rose looked to have no problem preying on man and monster alike, first planting them under mind control and later draining them to the bone. The way this monster operated, what with lying in wait inside its cave, it was very similar to a spider’s web or an antlion’s death trap.

Could we really avoid being ensnared into this unseen mind control and draw out the reclusive monster responsible...? I was suddenly struck by this vague sense of doubt.

“... This doesn’t feel right”

“Did you sense something?”

“No, it’s not that, but well...”

I focused hard on it, but no, there was no trace of any presence, nor anything out of the norm. Only the thorned vines along the walls, and the many bodies in ice. Nothing else but the three of us showed any movement.

“What about you, Lily?”

“Hn~, nothing he~re?”

So nothing of note. That’s a double confirmation. But what’s with this turbulent unease in my chest?

“Dammit... Something, there’s gotta be something we missed...”

A bead of sweat flowed down my cheek. My sense of discomfort was only worsening.

“But you said you didn’t sense anything, no?”

Fiona also had a point. We hadn’t.

“Do you think we should retrace our steps for now?”

“... No, we’ll proceed”

I didn’t think we’d gain anything new going back and trying again. Right now, I just wanted to do something about this doubt, this unease; I had to know what was causing this.

“Let’s keep going, but a little slower, so we can pay better attention”

The girls seemed OK with that, so we continued exploring.

But, as before, no change. For all our progression through the cave, the same pattern just went on and on, as if mocking me for worrying so much. The only sounds were those of our footsteps, and the only things keeping us company were the occasional person or monster encased in ice. The thorned vines also still covered the walls, their density never increasing or decreasing, and I couldn’t see a single flower blooming on them. Actually, I didn’t know if this species even had flowers.

It was all so monotone, I was starting to get bored when,

“Oh, cave splits here”

We’d arrived upon our second fork in the road. It was like the first one, split cleanly into a left and right path. Actually, it was the exact same.

Well, the rest of the cave looked the same, so why not the forks too?

“Which way, Kurono-san?”

“Left”

“Any reason?”

“Just a feeling”

Yup, just a baseless feeling. Fiona and Lily didn’t seem to mind, so we’ll be entering left.

“OK, let’s head in”

We stepped into the forked path.

I chose to go left. No particular reason, just a feeling. Plus, there was no real way of knowing what difference awaited us in the different paths, since no adventurer that’d gone past this point had returned alive. It really didn’t matter whether we took our time choosing carefully, or just picked a random path.

“... Doesn’t look all that different”

The cave, now after the branching point, looked pretty much the same, in height, in width, and even in the ups and downs. The thorned vines all along the walls also remained, of course. And we still hadn’t sensed any abnormalities.

“Hm, that’s――”

Just then, I saw something shine under the light of the Torch floating beside me.

After moving closer, still on alert for any presences, I quickly figured out who it was.

“Isn’t this the Golden Hero Michael?”

The golden armored warrior was trapped in ice like Saeed.

“... This is strange, if they’d only been encased in ice, they wouldn’t decompose into bones”

“Maybe they were drained?”

I was convinced by Lily’s instant deduction.

“So they got iced, all while in some pleasant dream?”

As I thought, the Lust Rose had ice type Extra magic.

Whatever, not like knowing this will give us any advantage. We should carry on ahead.

And then, after we’d walked another 10 minutes or so,

“There sure are a lot of them”

Skeletons in ice were dotted all over inside the passage of thorny vines.

“They too must’ve thought up many countermeasures against the monster, and yet still failed”

“And look, our mind controller isn’t partial to people either”

“Ah~, I spot a punpun~”

Lily proclaimed as she pointed at a boss-pun, which looked a lot like a stuffed bear exhibit.

“This guy isn’t a skeleton, you think it doesn’t eat monsters?”

“It’s likely kept this as reserve food. If you look around, you can see that there are monster skeletons here and there”

“Oh yeah, it’s kinda like a spider’s web or antlion’s death trap. The thing’s got no problem preying on man and monster alike”

And so, we only kept walking.

Somehow, I didn’t feel anything amiss. Maybe with everything so monotone, I was letting my guard down. Better fix that.

“Oh, cave splits here”

We’d arrived upon our second fork in the road after a while.

“Which way, Kurono-san?”

“Left”

“Any reason?”

“Just a feeling”

Yup, just a baseless feeling. Fiona and Lily didn’t seem to mind, so we’ll be entering left.

“OK, let’s head in――”