“Some kind of mechanism that mass summons lesser undead? … I don’t want to think about that.
Don’t make me imagine this tomb packed tight with zombies everywhere.”
Greenham replied and looked around the room while blowing away a skeleton’s head as if he was trimming a tree. The number of undead remaining could be counted with two hands, and the wide open doors showed no signs of reinforcements for the undead. The fight would be over soon.
In that moment, he felt a chilling sensation rising from the bottom of his feet.
His sense of danger told him to evacuate, but it would be too late in this situation. Even so—
“Alert! Everyone get out of the room—”
The rogue shouted as if he had the same feeling.
But it was too late. The hard floor suddenly vanished. A floating sensation enveloped their bodies and a few heartbeats later their disoriented bodies hit the ground.
Greenham heard his comrades’ pain filled voices, but stood up with his axe that he had not let go while he was falling and attacked the skeletons rolling around on the floor.
“Exterminate them!”
Since the undead took damage from the fall — the skeletons were especially weak against crushing damage, and thus took significant damage from falling — it was easy to mop them up.
Greenham looked around the room only after cleaning up all the undead.
They had fallen into a magic trap which made the floor disappear. Looking up, the ceiling was far above them. At least twelve meters above. Three meters above the floor was a door, and three meters above, for total of six meters, was the open door through which they had first come in. They had fallen about two floors total.
If describing the overall shape, it was like a long pillar. The bottom was shaped like an inverted pyramid, and the slope was steep enough to make someone fall all the way towards the centre if they slipped. Actually one of their comrades had already fallen down and was pinned in the middle by all the zombies that had fallen down.
It was amazing that nobody was hurt after falling from such height.
The strange thing about the layout was at about three meters up from the bottom where there was a closed door. There were four tunnels on each side, for total of sixteen.
“It’s almost like the room was designed to drown people. Like water would start pouring out in massive quantity from that door. No, even worse, it could be something like slimes.”
“I agree. We should look around that door to see if it’s safe to escape through.”
However, it was difficult to climb two floors up on a smooth surface with nothing to grab onto. The rogue could probably climb without a hitch, but for someone wearing armour like Greenham, it was impossible. Comparatively, the door on the bottom had was an unknown, and possibly dangerous, but it would be easier to reach.
Just as they were discussing how to climb, something stuck its head out from one of the sixteen tunnels. It was a bloated corpse, a “Plague Bomber”.
The reason why it was bloated was because it was filled with negative energy. It was an undead which exploded upon death to inflict damage to the living and heal the undead.
The undead built like a slab of flesh flung itself out of the tunnel. It hit the floor with a disgusting sound, but the problem was what came next. Its circular body could not gain traction against sloped floor and crashed into Greenham’s team like a boulder.
“Watch out! Get away!”
“Don’t say that to someone who’s in charge of all the thinking.”
Everyone, including the magic caster who was nearly crying, barely dodged the undead as it kept rolling towards the centre of the floor. When the next plague bomber peeked out, they realized the previous one was just the first of a horde and instinctively knew what was about to happen.
“Run! This room’s going to get buried with them.”
If anyone was pushed by an undead, they would fall towards the middle and be crushed underneath the bodies. Even if they did not die from being crushed, they would be immobilized and continue to take negative damage by plague bombers exploding from their comrades’ attack.
“This trap really is evil. Someone boost me up!”
“Nonsense, then that person won’t be able to dodge any attacks.”
Even if they dodged the first attack, they would lose their balance and won’t be able to dodge the next one. Asking someone to become a boost in situation like that was cruel.
“Then I’ll use flying magic!”
“Don’t bother with ‘Flight’! You can’t haul all of us up by yourself.”
“Not that! Crap, they’re falling! I’m talking about ‘Web Ladder’.”
“That sounds good! Then to that nearest door please. Greenham, please cover him!”
“—No, don’t bother. We’re going through the door we came through! That door is dangerous!”
There was no time to ask the rationale behind why he thought the door was dangerous, but their trust in Greenham was absolute.
“「Web Ladder」!”
The magic activated and spider web spread up the wall.
This magical spider web had a strange stickiness about it. If one didn’t want to move, it would stick in place, but if one wanted it to move, it would let go immediately. It was a magic perfectly suited to use in place of a ladder.
Greenham’s team climbed with perfect movement, despite their fear.
The one who barely reached the open door first carefully surveyed the area. If they were pushed back here, then it would really be the end.
He breathed a sigh of relief. The worst case scenario had been avoided and there was no sign of undead. After he finished checking for undead, he hopped into the tunnel and pulled up the people underneath.
“We’re alive! To think we were almost crushed to death by undead, it’s got to be one of the worst kind of death out there.”
“The design of this place is just evil. My legs hurt from the fall, cast some healing magic for me.”
“I think negative energy just scratched the tip of the foot when it exploded. Really scary.”
“We were lucky. But please don’t ask magic casters to dodge attacks anymore.”
Everyone complained while catching their breath.
“Oi, Greenham, why did you want to avoid that door? I thought that door would be the real deal.
They usually always have an escape route near dangerous place.”
“It was just a hunch… Do you mind throwing a useless weapon at it?”
Greenham replied with his regular tone and the rogue threw a dagger at the door. The dagger flew straight and appeared as if it would hit the door, but part of the door sprouted a tentacle and deflected the dagger.
“That’s… a “Door Imitator”! No, considering the colour of the tentacle, it might be an undead Door Imitator. A monster that restrains the opponent with sticky tentacles while attacking them.”