Chapter 13

As I had grown accustomed to living with Prati.

"Found a dungeon."

She said this out of the blue.

"A dungeon...?"

Is it that kind of thing? Where you go underground to find treasures, fight monsters, and face a boss at the bottom?

I shouldn't jump to conclusions based on preconceived notions from my previous world, so I decided to listen carefully to Prati's explanation.

"I found it while exploring around here, near the cove. It's a cave type."

"Exploring...!"

So, when she occasionally disappears, she's doing this?

Actually, it's necessary. It's important to explore the area around our home and understand what's there.

I got so absorbed in farming after being traumatized by a wild boar attack when I first entered the forest. Ideally, I should have completed this task before Prati arrived. I feel rather inadequate.

"So, what about this dungeon?"

"Huh? What? You don't know what a dungeon is, sir?"

She looked at me as if I were an unbelievable fool.

...Well, I can't help it; I'm from another world.

Even things that everyone in this world knows, I have to learn from scratch.

I thought it might be troublesome to explain, so I kept it a secret, but now I realized something.

I was summoned by the king of this world.

If that's the case, summoning people from other worlds isn't that rare, and there's no need to keep it a secret.

So, I decided to reveal everything to Prati.

"Wow, you're a hero, sir!"

After my explanation, Prati looked like everything made sense to her.

"Hero? No, I'm not..."

"The human race calls people summoned from other worlds 'heroes,' right? Even a mermaid like me knows that much."

So, in this world, a hero is anyone summoned from another world.

If that's the case, I'm a hero too, then?

"There's a spell in human magic to summon heroes from other worlds. ...But wait, aren't heroes supposed to fight the demon race for the sake of humans?"

"That's why I'm living in seclusion here."

"I love that kind of life! I'm even more in love with you, sir!!"

It makes me happy to hear that.

But we're getting off topic. The topic is the dungeon.

"Shall I give you a lecture, sir, since you're a beginner in this world? Let's go!!"

"Go? Where?"

"To the dungeon. It's faster to see it in person than to just talk about it."

That's true.

We decided to head to the dungeon after finishing today's farming work.

* * *

"This is the dungeon?"

From the field area where we live, it's a two-hour walk.

The dungeon was that close.

"...It's a cave."

"Yes, I told you it was a cave type."

The cave was in a corner of a raised rock formation by the sea.

It looked like any ordinary cave.

If I hadn't been told in advance, I would have thought it was just a hole formed by seawater erosion.

But I could feel something strange intuitively.

The stagnant air emanating from the cave entrance was intense.

It's as if an invisible giant tongue was licking my face all over.

"Of course, you can feel the strangeness of the dungeon."

Prati didn't seem too bothered.

She seemed to have already gotten used to this feeling. As expected of a native of this world.

"Dungeons form in places where mana flows accumulate. Stagnant mana warps space and creates a different world. That different world is the dungeon."

She explained the fundamental theory of dungeons.

Mana... I guess it's similar to magic power in my understanding? Or perhaps qi? The energy of all things?

In any case, it flows and circulates throughout the world.

In some places, the flow stops and stagnates, forming a dungeon.

That's why the mana concentration inside a dungeon is high, and it results in the transformation of monsters.

In other words, dungeons are where monsters are born in this world.

"Monsters born in dungeons eventually overflow and come out. All the monsters wandering on land and in the sea are from some dungeon."

"Isn't that dangerous?"

"Of course. That's why dungeons near settlements are of utmost concern to the residents. If monsters overflow, it's dangerous for everyone, and the fields can be destroyed."

That's a big problem.

If monsters come out of this cave and destroy the vegetables we've worked hard to grow, it could be heartbreaking.

"What should we do, Prati? Can't we just destroy this dungeon?"

"Destroy the dungeon itself? To do that, you'd have to change the flow of mana, which is a huge task. It's more practical to regularly enter and clear out the monsters."

"Ah, I see."

"You can also get monster materials."

Hmm?

"Anyway, let's go into the dungeon. We'll check it out and clean it up a bit."

By "clean up," she means "clear out the monsters," right? Not just one, but many.

Well, according to Prati's explanation, it's more efficient to clear them out in the dungeon before they overflow.

Most importantly, my wife Prati is eager to go in, and I'm worried about her going alone.

So, I'll have to go with her.