Chapter 2: A Hole Appeared in the Garden

"What's this? Did it cave in...?"

Yuzuma restrained the barking Mamezo with his hand and crouched down to peer into the gaping hole. It was a round, vertical hole, about a meter deep, with a horizontal tunnel at the bottom.

As he was thinking it was deeper than expected, something stirred inside the hole.

"Huh? What is it, is something in there?"

He leaned in further, but it was too dark to see clearly. "Can't help it," he said, returning to the house. He took a flashlight from the top drawer of the dresser and went back to the garden.

He turned on the flashlight and examined the inside of the hole. The horizontal tunnel in the hole was less than the size of a tatami mat and didn't lead anywhere. It was a space where an adult could barely fit by crouching.

And it was there, in the back of the hole.

It was about the size of a handball, a gray creature that was trembling and moving.

"What... is this?"

It was a mysterious creature, but he had a vague memory of seeing something like it before. Yuzuma hurried back to the house and searched on his smartphone.

The site that came up was one that listed dungeon monsters.

"There it is! This is it."

What Yuzuma found was the entry for a "Slime." It was a monster that often appeared in games, but the slime on the site looked more ominous.

The size was listed as sixteen centimeters in diameter, about the same as the one in the hole.

However, there were differences. Normally, a slime's body is translucent and comes in colors like blue, light blue, red, and green.

But the one in the hole was not translucent and had a unique gray color.

"Is it not a slime?"

Yuzuma searched the internet further. His eyes stopped on an article.

It was about a "Metal Gray Slime" sighted in an American dungeon.

"Metal Gray Slime?"

The article reported that a strange slime was discovered in the medium-sized dungeon "H211" in the American Midwest. The slime was metallic in color, moved very quickly, and disappeared in an instant.

The leader of the exploration team, Eric, testified that it was definitely a new species of slime, but the evidence was blurry, and the details were unknown.

Yuzuma continued searching for more information and found that there were sightings in Italy as well.

The Italian explorer Rossini reported encountering a slime made of metal during a large-scale dungeon exploration. Rossini said he tried to slash it with his sword, but it was extremely hard and didn't even scratch. However, there were no clear images or videos, and many people considered it a tall tale.

"Even though there are few sightings, it still seems to be a slime."

Yuzuma frowned. If that was a slime, then the hole in the garden was a dungeon.

Could a dungeon really appear in a residential area? He thought and searched his smartphone further. When in doubt, the internet is the best place to look.

From the news articles and posts he found, it seemed that dungeons had appeared on private property and in corporate grounds.

"Well, for a supernatural phenomenon like a dungeon, it doesn't matter whose land it is."

When a dungeon appears on private property, it's typical to contact the nearest police or local government. After that, officials from the prefecture or state come to investigate, and the dungeon is confiscated by the national government.

There were no details about the procedures for transferring the land or compensation.

"This sounds like a hassle..."

The idea of strangers trampling through his garden and making it off-limits was the worst. Mamezo would lose his play area too.

Yuzuma glanced at the smartphone article again.

The "Metal Slime" that was sighted wasn't defeated. If the one in the hole was that Metal Slime... wouldn't defeating it be a world-first?

Such a thought suddenly crossed Yuzuma's mind.