Outside the Light Eagle's portal, there was a sea of people.
Everyone had come to watch the so-called competition.
Most were mercenaries — this was effectively their home turf. The rest were adventurers and residents from nearby cities.
The portal sat between two cities: the royal capital and the "Garden City," Cadia.
As the name implied, Cadia was essentially the royal capital's backyard. It had flourished on the strength of its beautiful scenery and tourism, and its population was no smaller than the capital's own.
In short, it crushed Bedford City in every conceivable way.
Thanks to the Light Eagle's deliberate promotion, residents throughout the area had all heard about the competition. And owing to the natural confidence of big-city folk, their faith in famous masters, and the Light Eagle's formidable reputation, more than ninety percent of the spectators were backing Kent's team.
As for Luluwo?
Who was that, exactly?
Never heard of her.
It turned out the famous Skyrim Group was only well-known around Bedford City. Out here in the wider world, nobody recognized them at all.
Not long before, someone had discovered that teleportation between the Firelink Shrine bonfire and the Catacombs of Carthus bonfire was possible — but the feature only unlocked after dying in Carthus at least once. After dying there, adventurers would automatically revive at the local bonfire by default. They had taken to calling that bonfire's location the "Tomb Chamber."
There was just one catch.
After teleporting between bonfires, people felt strangely dizzy and lightheaded.
Wade: Because using bonfire teleportation is equivalent to dying halfway. Your mental energy takes a serious hit!
All in all, the Skyrim Group was fighting on enemy territory this time — minimal support, an opponent with the crowd firmly in their corner, and Kent's side subtly talking them down at every opportunity. Aside from the adventurers from Bedford City, almost nobody was rooting for them.
"Heh heh."
Kent stroked his beard, basking in the adoration of the crowd. He glanced sideways at Luluwo and her group, his face radiating smug satisfaction.
Even at his age, the old man still loved being in the spotlight — and unlike Gapar, he never waved away a compliment. If someone praised him, he accepted it with open arms and asked for more.
No support.
A powerful opponent.
A difficult challenge.
But if something at this level could stop Luluwo, then the world was severely underestimating her.
"You outdated fossil — your strategy sense got left behind by the times! Hurry up and wash yourself clean so we can loot your gold! The new era has no room left for someone like you!"
"Captain, please stop antagonizing him!" Tami cried out in a panic.
Luluwo threw Kent a very rock-and-roll middle finger, spun on her heel, and dragged her entire group straight into the portal before anyone could say another word.
"That woman—!"
Aston moved to charge after her, only to be stopped by Kent, whose expression had shifted into something darker.
"Heh."
A cold sneer.
"Behind the times? Ha. Someone like me — who has absorbed and synthesized hundreds of years of dungeon exploration experience — could never fall behind." He turned to his group. "We're going in."
"Everyone move! We're departing!" Aston bellowed.
For hundreds of years, dungeon explorers had followed the same accumulated body of knowledge and proven procedures.
How could it possibly be wrong?
Ancestral wisdom was called ancestral wisdom for a reason — it had remained effective for generations!
The nineteen people entering alongside Kent were all devoted followers of his school of thought. Whatever he said, they did without question.
Stepping through the portal, Kent's group arrived at the Tomb Chamber and found the bonfire sitting cold and unlit.
"Be careful. From what I've heard, lighting the bonfire forces you to experience visions. If it's some form of mental interference magic—"
Before Aston could finish, Kent had already lit it.
"The most important quality a dungeon explorer can have is courage. If you can't even face the unknown, what kind of explorer are you?"
Aston swallowed his next words.
But before he could even compose a response, the world shifted around him.
His heart lurched.
What unfolded before his eyes was nothing less than the ongoing Sein Dungeon cinematic series.
Aston had always instinctively recoiled from the unknown.
But once the bonfire was lit, what you saw was no longer your choice.
Sweeping, mournful music.
Fire burning and fading.
The Lords of Souls and the Lords of Cinder—
By the time the group finally surfaced from the visions, their eyes were distant and glassy. One man had collapsed to the ground, muttering incoherently to himself.
Aston struggled to make his body respond.
Perhaps the others had felt the weight of history pressing down on them. What Aston felt was raw fear.
Fear of enormous, incomprehensible power.
The faint wariness he had always carried toward bonfires was now magnified beyond measure.
Then he noticed Kent.
The old man was smiling.
A blissful, utterly serene smile spreading across his wrinkled face like a chrysanthemum in full bloom.
He murmured to himself:
"Interesting. My name absolutely must be written on this dungeon's First Clear Monument."
Something had ignited in him. He had agreed to this expedition with only reluctant interest. Now he was genuinely invested.
"Move out!"
The group marched from the Tomb Chamber in high spirits, stepping fully into the Catacombs of Carthus.
"A classic graveyard-type dungeon. Undead monsters will likely make up the bulk of the opposition — bringing plenty of holy water and anti-undead items was the right call."
The moment they emerged into the dungeon proper, Kent was already working, analyzing and commenting as they advanced with practiced ease.
"Stay wary of every bone you pass. Even the smallest fragment can animate into a monster. Same goes for coffins and jars. The defining trait of undead creatures is that they're nearly impossible to guard against. Mages — holy-light protection, now."
"And don't touch those wooden suspension bridges until we've tested them. What's everyone's body weight? Use Mage Hand to load equivalent weights onto the bridge first."
The mage had barely stacked a few coffins onto the bridge when it snapped with a sharp crack and plummeted into the darkness below.
The group erupted in praise.
Kent accepted it without a trace of false modesty, and with morale riding high, they pressed onward.
The Catacombs looped endlessly back on themselves. Every passage looked maddeningly similar to the last, and after wandering long enough, disorientation set in like fog. Along the way they weathered several waves of monsters, a rotating wall trap, a collapsing floor, two fog traps, and multiple branching paths.
Even Aston was beginning to feel turned around — but when he glanced over at Kent, the old man was calmly sketching in a notebook.
Peering closer, Aston saw that Kent had already mapped every route they had traveled, complete with small distinguishing details for each area.
He looked completely unaffected.
Aston could only shake his head in admiration.
A true master.
Luluwo likely didn't possess this kind of spatial memory. It was equal parts raw talent and the fruit of decades of relentless training.
After walking for what felt like an age, they finally spotted their first purple glow.
[Carthus Milkring — Common Quality]
A ring worn by the warriors of the desert kingdom Carthus. Slightly increases bodily agility.
Carthus swordsmen freely wielded curved blades, moving as lightly as drifting sand. Accompanied by the fame of High Lord Wolnir, they swept across many nations.
"Take it."
Kent tossed the ring to Aston, who glanced at it briefly before passing it to one of his subordinates.
"I've never seen a dungeon that provides item backstories before, let alone builds an entire compendium around them. Truly unusual."
Kent leafed through the Hunting Manual he had purchased from other adventurers. Information on the ring had already appeared inside — fragmented, but with threads that connected to other entries in ways that made them strangely compulsive to read.
"Every detail points to the same conclusion. The ancient kingdom buried beneath this graveyard was extraordinarily powerful." He paused. "And extraordinarily cruel."
He turned to the magic section, where spells used by encountered enemies were automatically recorded.
[Pyromancy: Acid Surge]
A strange Carthus pyromancy capable of spraying corrosive acid to damage equipment.
The fiercely competitive warriors of Carthus would use even pyromancy to claim victory. But when one looks upon the corpses they left behind, what honor truly remained in their actions?
Just two entries, and already the warlike, bloodthirsty nature of the Carthus people came through with vivid clarity.
Kent's expression tightened slightly.
Age had a way of making a person value peace — and his impression of Carthus was not favorable.
The mercenaries reacted differently. Some frowned. Some looked indifferent. Some were clearly impressed. And Aston — Aston showed a faint flicker of something that looked almost like longing.
What kind of image would High Lord Wolnir eventually take on in the eyes of the Light Eagle Company?
The exploration continued.
The deeper they went, the more dangerous everything became — traps growing more elaborate, monsters more aggressive. After successfully steering the group clear of danger once again, Kent received another wave of praise.
"Absolutely extraordinary, Master. The depth of your foresight is staggering," Aston said with genuine enthusiasm.
Kent raised his chin with quiet pride.
Then he pointed ahead at a gravestone in the middle of the path.
"You see that gravestone? Does it seem strange to you?"
Strange?
Aston stared at it. He couldn't detect anything unusual whatsoever.
But if the master said it was strange, it was strange.
"You're right! It appeared far too abruptly. Deeply suspicious!"
"Precisely. Based on my experience, there's a powerful monster concealed inside — one that likely activates the moment someone approaches. You there — splash it with holy water. Everyone else, prepare holy-light magic. We'll catch it off guard."
And so a group of fully-armed mercenaries surrounded a gravestone in the middle of a dungeon corridor, chanting incantations and dousing it in holy water while blasting it with holy light from every angle.
It looked less like dungeon exploration and more like an extremely aggressive exorcism.
"Excellent! The monster has been eliminated!" Kent announced triumphantly.
Cheers all around.
"…Have these people lost their minds?"
Inside the Lord's chamber, Wade watched through magical surveillance with total speechlessness.
Because that gravestone was literally just scenery.
He had placed it there purely as visual dressing.
There was no hidden monster inside it whatsoever.
A moment ago he had still been half-impressed by Kent. Now he was beginning to wonder if the man was simply an elderly version of the Overly Cautious Hero.
A Cautious Old Man.
That said — there was one thing Kent had gotten right.
The gravestone did have something attached to it.
Wade's expression curled into a wicked grin.
Just as everyone crowded around discussing whether they should dig up the grave to check for dropped loot from the "defeated monster" —
A thunderous impact shook the air.
"BOOM!"
By the time they registered what had happened, a gigantic iron cage had crashed down from the ceiling, perfectly centered on the gravestone, swallowing all twenty people in one fell swoop.
Every single one of them.
The group slowly turned toward Kent.
Kent's smile held for a moment, then stiffened. He coughed twice.
"A sinister dungeon, using the environment itself to conceal the ceiling from view."
Yes. Of course. That makes perfect sense.
Despite their mounting doubts, the group rallied behind him and joined in cursing Sein Dungeon.
Then the rattling started.
From beneath the ground, countless skeletons clawed their way to the surface — all of them carrying bows, clearly intending to turn the trapped mercenaries into pincushions.
People threw themselves against the bars, but the cage wasn't going anywhere — Wade had modeled it after the giant Basilisk cage from Dark Souls II, and it was built accordingly. The mages threw up magical barriers to stop the arrows, but pure defense had a time limit.
At the height of the crisis, Kent remained perfectly calm.
He crouched down, pressed his palm flat against the floor, and nodded once.
"Blow the floor open. There's a path below."
"There's actually something underneath!?"
"Just blow it open!"
Explosions rang out against a backdrop of descending arrows. The ground shuddered violently and split apart, revealing a dark chamber below. The drop was survivable.
"Jump before the cage comes down with us!"
The mercenaries leapt. They hit the ground and barely had time to draw breath before instinct sent them diving sideways.
A beat later, the floor above gave way entirely, and the massive iron cage came crashing down after them.
"AHHH!"
When the dust finally settled and firelight pushed the darkness back, two mercenaries were found pinned beneath the cage.
Not merely dead. Severed clean at the waist.
Their bodies dissolved into streams of light and returned to the bonfire.
"…That was my error."
Kent's expression was grim.
"It's not your fault. It's this damned dungeon—"
Aston drove his fist into the nearest wall.
A cracking sound answered him immediately.
The wall split, and from the gap, thick darkness began seeping out.
If Darrick had been present, he would have known exactly what to shout.
The Abyss.
One by one, humanoid figures covered in writhing black masses emerged from the darkness, radiating a danger that pressed against the chest like a physical weight.
Pus of Man.
Aston threw himself at the nearest one, while the other mercenaries engaged the rest. Kent withdrew deep into the group under protection, scanning the hidden chamber for any possible means of escape.
"This dungeon truly lives up to its reputation. It anticipated our movements."
His expression had sharpened into something approaching respect. He called out his orders:
"Knock on every wall and section of floor. Find the weakest point and dig through it with everything you have."
As the others scrambled into action around him, Kent allowed himself a private thought.
This dungeon's design is genuinely unusual. But at its core, it still operates by the rules. It's nothing I can't handle.
"All dungeons are fundamentally the same," he mused quietly. "Appropriate monsters in appropriate locations, pushing adventurers' minds to the edge of their limits — and always, always leaving a thread of hope at the moment of greatest despair."
What Kent didn't understand was that dungeons literally ran on mana.
But decades of exploration had allowed him to sense the underlying truth regardless:
Dungeons required mental stimulation.
And so the true nature of a dungeon was — desperate survival against impossible odds.
It was a secret he had never shared publicly.
"These monsters exist to push us mentally. They won't actually be that dangerous!"
"AAAAH!"
One mercenary had his torso bitten clean off by a Pus of Man, blood spraying in a wide arc.
Another was reduced to paste.
And at that exact moment, a third Pus of Man dragged itself free from the wall, its maw yawning wide toward the remaining mercenaries.
The slap to Kent's face arrived with brutal efficiency.
Even the corners of his mouth twitched.
What was wrong with this dungeon's monsters? Even mercenaries couldn't handle them? That shouldn't be possible. The whole point of a dungeon is to stimulate the mind—
That was because Sein's design philosophy had always aimed to kill people outright.
Here, the notion of "surviving against impossible odds" was seasoning — served occasionally, for specific dramatic moments.
The relative gentleness of the Catacombs' first half had itself been a trap, designed specifically to lure people deeper before the real teeth came out.
Other dungeons emphasized sustained mental stimulation because they lacked bonfires. Death meant being ejected entirely, so killing adventurers once was simply inefficient.
Sein operated under no such constraint.
"Kent — it's no good! The walls are too thick, we can't break through!"
"That's impossible. There has to be a weak point somewhere—"
Cold sweat gathered on Kent's forehead.
This feeling was like challenging an old friend to a race, only for them to suddenly ask: "But what is the meaning of life?"
What was wrong with Sein Dungeon? Why wasn't it following the rules? Where was the miraculous escape route that was supposed to be here?
Kent undeniably had exceptional talent. His environmental awareness was razor-sharp — if a survival tool existed somewhere nearby, he would find it and use it immediately.
But if there were no survival tools to begin with—
He had nothing.
"There's a book inside the wall?"
Someone digging frantically had uncovered a book buried within the stone and pressed it into Kent's hands.
Kent glanced toward Aston.
Despite his role as logistics captain, Aston was a formidable fighter in his own right. He had already solo-killed one Pus of Man while taking only light wounds, and was now fighting alongside the others against the rest. But new darkness continued seeping through the cracks in the walls, birthing more.
In that desperate moment, Kent felt a sudden premonition.
This book contains the way out.
He tore through the pages.
It appeared to be a history of the Kingdom of Carthus.
Completely useless for escaping their current situation.
Under any other circumstances, he would have found it fascinating. But right now—
This dungeon had shattered every piece of common sense he possessed.
Though he hated to admit it, somewhere beneath the surface, he was already beginning to—
Several translucent ghostly hands burst from the book and seized Kent's head, subjecting him to the most forceful and aggressive shampooing in recorded history.
"AAAAAHHH!"
The sudden attack caught everyone completely off guard.
Aston's eyes went wide when he saw Kent under assault, but a fresh surge of Pus of Man cut him off before he could reach him.
Age was not a shield against rough treatment.
Kent's body simply could not endure the ghostly assault. He was teetering on the edge of death, seconds from dissolving back to the bonfire —
When one of the ghost hands yanked something free and drove it directly into his face.
A painting.
It hit hard enough to nearly break his nose.
And the instant his face made contact with it —
He understood exactly what it was.
[Painted World — "Carthus Warrior"]
The world around him vanished.
Dust filled the sky.
Yellow sand raged in every direction.
War horns thundered across a vast battlefield.
"Where… am I?"
Kent's hands — the hands he was staring at — were wrong. His entire body was wrong. The realization sent a spike of terror through him.
And yet the power surging through this unfamiliar body was extraordinary enough to send a counter-current of exhilaration through that same fear.
What was happening—
"Warriors of Carthus! Charge forth and slaughter the enemies before us — for the High Lord!"
Kent suddenly understood where he stood.
A battlefield.
Beside him: bloodthirsty Carthus warriors.
Ahead of him: a routed enemy army collapsing in terror, their formation already broken.
And behind him —
A presence surged outward like a tide.
The aura of a king.
The aura of the Abyss.
A domineering will that seemed to hunger for the world itself.
High Lord Wolnir.
The name surfaced in Kent's mind unbidden, arriving with a certainty that felt less like his own knowledge and more like something ancient pressing itself into him from outside.
And yet some mysterious force held him in place, preventing him from turning around to look upon the High Lord directly.
At the same time, his body moved without his permission — weapon raised, legs driving forward, charging toward the broken enemy lines ahead.
[Painted World — "Carthus Warrior"]
[Records the journey of an old Carthus veteran. He was High Lord Wolnir's most loyal warrior, present in every campaign, claiming glorious victory after glorious victory, bathing himself in the blood of his enemies.]
[Except for the final battle.]
[Against the army of the Undead.]