DanMachi Vol.14

CHAPTER 9: HELLO, DEEP LEVELS

The deep levels? ...Is it scary down there?

I asked that question once.

I wanted to hear the answer from that flower so far beyond my reach. To the girl I look up to so much.

What does the world look like from the heights where that swordswoman who bears the name of first-tier adventurer stands?

How perilous is the stage where my idol stands as she pursues her adventures?

I asked her out of curiosity, or maybe because I wanted to get a little closer to her.

When I was there, I felt for the first time that monsters...that the Dungeon was frightening.

We were up on the city walls, surrounded by blue sky. I couldn't see past her golden eyes.

She answered me with the gaze of an adventurer who had risked her life many times.

It's not the kind of thing you can understand by only hearing about it...but if you go there, you'll understand.

She spoke very clearly.

If...one day in the far, far future you're able to go there, then...

I'm trying to remember that conversation. What did she tell me that day?

For some reason, I can't seem to remember the words.

My ears are ringing.

The sound is like the shrill cry of a child who's just woken from a nightmare.

A cry of reason, screaming in denial of reality.

The shriek of my instincts assaults the depths of my mind. "The deep levels..."

The whispered fragment of a thought falls from my lips and melts into the darkness.

Stillness pierces my ears.

The pounding of my heart thunders through my whole body. The gloomy blackness of the maze embraces me.

A strange milky color seems to stick to the walls, and the ceilings are so high I can't even see them. The scale of the labyrinth is so enormous it seems impossible.

I'm on the thirty-seventh floor.

I am in the abyss that all adventurers fear—the deep levels of the Dungeon.

"........."

My neck feels frozen in place, so I move just my eyes to look around.

I don't see any monsters nearby. No telltale sounds or signs of them, either.

I squint into the dimness, barely able to make out my surroundings.

My current location is a tremendously large room. The distance from the center of the chamber, where I am, to the walls must be at least four hundred meders. Aside from a couple of specific places like the Great Wall of Sorrows on the seventeenth floor and the pantry, I've never been in a Dungeon room this big. The phosphorescence illuminating the walls is weak as candlelight.

Right next to me is the dead body of a huge serpent.

It's the lambton, otherwise known as a wormwell, that expired after we sliced our way out of its belly and crawled through a fountain of blood. That was after it swallowed us on the twenty-seventh floor and burrowed its way down here with us in its belly.

"......! ...Ah..."

I stare with one wide eye at the huge corpse.

My mouth opens and closes of its own accord, severed from conscious thought.