“Understood. I shall do as Your Majesty commands.”
“Then, we’ll leave matters at that.”
While they had walked some distance away to discuss this, someone with keen hearing might be eavesdropping on them.
“Then, let’s change the topic. Tell me about the hazards we might face before reaching the Dwarven Capital. A basic outline is fine.”
“A good question. All who wish to reach the Dwarven Capital must pass three trials.”
“Trials? Interesting. Summarize them.”
“Mm, the first trial is the Great Rift. There is a slope ahead of the gate that leads to the fortress. After the fortress is the Great Rift that splits the earth. Now that the suspension bridge has been strung, it hardly qualifies as a trial. However, when crossing it, one must prepare oneself to receive concentrated attacks from the enemy.”
“Do the Quagoa use ranged weapons?”
“Umu, I haven’t heard of that before. However, it might be dangerous to assume they don’t, right?”
It made a lot of sense. The possibility also existed that they could use the magic weapons from the fortress.
“Then, the next trial is an area of flowing lava. Even the heated air alone can be fatal. One must cross it via a narrow path of trimmed rock. There have also been sightings of a huge monster there from time to time.”
“A monster, you say?”
The form of Guren, Area Guardian of the 7th Floor, came to mind.
If the monster was similar to it, things would be very troublesome indeed.
…Come to think of it, Slimes and human society are quite closely linked. Is it the case in this country as well? If they have rare slimes here, I’d like to bring them home.
Just as Ainz thought of the slimes that lived near the sewer filters, Gondo moved on to the last trial.
“The final trial is the Maze of Death. It is a cave with countless branches, filled with poisonous vapors. If one inhales those vapors, their limbs will be paralyzed and their hearts will stop beating.”
Gondo looked towards Aura and Shalltear.
That gesture seemed to be saying that Ainz might be fine, but those two would be in trouble.
They’ll be fine… Well, I guess I can tell him when we get there.
“And what is the right path through the caves?”
“Regretfully, I do not know. I looked through all my connections, but even the elders did not know. Neither did the members of the Council. Perhaps it might be recorded in an archive…:”
“But you didn’t find it either, did you? Well, I doubt you’d be able to easily locate a document that was so critical to national security. We’ll gather information when the time comes and adapt to the situation.”
Ainz committed the information about these trials to memory, and gestured to the others.
“Let’s go, then.”
Ainz, Shalltear and Aura took the lead. Gondo lined up with ten or so soldiers and their commander on their way to retake the fortress, and then the gates slowly opened. The stench of death filtered through the gap, so they had an idea what to expect, but then a gruesome scene revealed itself to all present.
The gentle tunnel which sloped down was broad and it had been leveled for easier passage. However, the walls and floor were covered in blood, guts and chunks of meat. Quagoa corpses littered the ground.
“Urk!”
The stench of gore, offal death filled the room. It was too much for Gondo, who had no experience as a warrior, and he began retching. The Dwarven soldiers’ faces had turned green, and not because of any trick of the light.
Ainz’s body had no concept of nausea, so it did not cause him any problems. However, he did not enjoy this smell.
A squelching noise came from underfoot. It would seem he had stepped on the innards which had fallen out of a bisected Quagoa.
Ainz sighed and then cast [Mass Fly], allowing everyone to take flight.
It would seem the Death Knights had reveled in their carnage here. Anyone who slipped and fell in this tunnel of blood would surely lose their strength to the filth and the stench. More importantly, the sight of someone lurching around beside them while covered in blood was a gruesome one.
The group descended the sloping passage, unblemished due to the flight spell.
Thanks to the dimly glowing rocks embedded along the way, there was still some light to see by. However, the space between each rock was filled with darkness. Of course, Ainz possessed darkvision, and it posed no problems to him.
After going down the slope — a distance of about 100 meters — they could see the entrance to the fortress before them. No, it would be more accurate to say that it was the fortress’ back door.
Once they passed through the opened doors into the fortress, they could go beyond the fortress and cross the suspension bridge ahead. After travelling west from there for several days, they should be able to see the former Dwarven Capital.
The Fortress’ entrance was littered with Quagoa corpses. Some of them looked like they had not been killed by the Death Knights, but gnawed. Those must have been the victims of the Death Knights’ zombies.
Ainz’s undead detection did not pick up any contacts. It was probably because the zombies had reverted to regular corpses after the Death Knights were destroyed.
Ainz looked around. There were no undead reactions now, but if he left them like this, things might become dangerous, given the characteristics of this world’s undead.
“It is commonly accepted that leaving corpses untended will result in undead spawning. What do you plan to do?” Ainz asked the soldiers who had been following them.
“Yes, sir. We will clean them up,” the commander answered. “Well, we say clean, but it’s more like dumping them into the Great Rift in a place where it won’t matter even if we attract a monster.”
“And after that, you’ll need to repair the fortress, and then find out how the Quagoa attacked? It seems you have a lot of work ahead of you.”
They would part ways here. The only people who would be taking part in the reclamation of the Dwarven Capital were Ainz, Aura, Shalltear and Gondo. Well, the Hanzos were around as well, but they did not need to know that.
The Dwarves smiled bitterly. While it was true that the investigations were risky — they ran the risk of encountering Quagoa, after all — it was nothing compared to Ainz’s task of attacking the Quagoa main camp. That was probably what they meant.
“Then, we’ll enter the fortress. We will go in first to ensure it is safe, so wait outside until then. To be on the safe side, could you protect Gondo?”
After the commander replied in the affirmative, Ainz stepped through the open door.
As he stood at the center of the tragedy, Ainz asked Aura (who was standing behind him) a question.
“Aura, can you sense anyone using a stealth ability to hide here?”
“Nope. There’s nothing alive in this fortress.”
Aura put her hand on a long ear, and made a listening gesture as she answered. If Aura the ranger said so, then there would be nothing living within this fortress.
Still, they could not lower their guard.
The person who had defeated Ainz’s Death Knights should have passed through here. If that person had taken a lot of stealth-specialized classes, they might be able to deceive Aura’s perceptive abilities.
Still, anyone like that would generally have poor attack power, and they would be easy to deal with even if they launched an ambush.
There were many corpses within the fortress, but unlike the sloping passage from earlier, there were Dwarven corpses everywhere.
Ainz passed through the fortress and towards the gate which was opposite the one through which they had entered. After opening the gate, he saw the Great Rift yawning before him, and not even Ainz’s vision could see its bottom.
Since there were no Quagoa beyond, it would seem they had retreated without setting up a base of operations here..