Up ahead, Cault faced a narrow hallway lined with uneven gray stone tiles, arranged in sets of two. He flipped a copper coin down the passage. It landed on a slightly raised tile with a sharp Tck! A sudden whistle rang out, and a jagged stone pellet shot from the wall, shattering against the opposite side.
Cault narrowed his eyes. The hallway was booby-trapped with pressure plates, each triggering a deadly projectile. He continued tossing spare coins, mapping out their placement. The pattern wasn't complex—just a zigzag. Any tile jutting above floor level concealed a trap beneath it.
Carefully, he maneuvered through the hallway, avoiding the treacherous tiles. Before long, he emerged onto a ledge overlooking a vast, glowing pool of baby-blue water. It stretched two hundred meters, with walls fifty meters apart—walls composed entirely of compacted skeletons, their twisted forms forming a grotesque menagerie. Water seeped from the gaps between the bones, feeding the pool below.
Cault scowled. He hated swimming. He hated water. He hated anything that made him cold. Yet, oddly, he loved winter—specifically, the nights in Mazarman when his adoptive family would roast duck while he dozed by the fire, safe from the ice storms outside.
Reluctantly, he stripped off his armor. Beneath the cold metal and hardened exterior, his soft calico fur bristled at the chill. He packed his gear into his travel bag, slung it over his back, and dipped a cautious toe into the water. A shiver ran through him—it was ice-cold. Bracing himself, he slid in and began to swim.
Minutes later, he pulled himself out on the far side, shaking off the chill. He now stood inside a vast iron-walled chamber, four hundred by one hundred feet. In the center of the room, three black coffins lay side by side on the floor. A red clay line ran straight through the middle of the space.
Cault scanned the room, searching for clues. The coffins. The line. A warning? A summoning circle? He exhaled sharply. Whatever it was, he had little choice but to press on.
He stepped forward, carefully skirting around the coffins. The moment his foot crossed the red line, a deep shudder reverberated through the room.
Cault froze.
The coffins trembled.
Something was waking.
The coffins shuddered three more times before all three burst open at once. Their heavy lids creaked as they swung outward, revealing the undead figures within—three corpses clad in rusted chainmail and tattered leather. As they rose from their graves, Cault instinctively assessed his opponents and arrived at an obvious conclusion: skeletons.
Without thinking, he charged—only to freeze mid-lunge, his hands fumbling at his waist. His stomach dropped. He was still unarmed. And naked.
One of the skeletons lunged, its rusted blade slicing through the air where Cault had stood a moment before. He leapt back just in time, cursing under his breath. Quickly, he yanked his travel bag off his back, slamming it onto the ground as he reached for the longsword strapped to its side.
The skeletons stumbled toward him, their movements clumsy yet relentless. Cault drew his sword in time to parry an overhead strike, then twisted away from a second skeleton's thrust aimed at his chest. He countered immediately, slashing at their exposed ribs and underarms each time they overextended. Their strikes were slow and poorly coordinated—easy for him to read. His blade met brittle bone with sharp, crunching impacts.
One by one, he dismantled them, shattering joints and severing necks until the skeletons collapsed into lifeless heaps. Only when they were reduced to unmoving fragments did Cault finally lower his sword. He exhaled, sheathed his weapon, and took a few moments to don his armor before pressing forward.
Ahead, a massive iron gate loomed over him. He scanned its surface for a smaller entryway or a visible lock but found nothing. Then, something unusual caught his eye—a scattered stack of papers lying at his feet.
Cault knelt, flipping through them. His pulse quickened. The title read: Arithmetic and Literacy Standard Level.
He knew this test. The government distributed identical packets to local schools in Mazarman and other rural villages. But why was it here?
He scanned the room, searching for more clues. A short distance away, a quill and ink pot lay abandoned on the ground. His brow furrowed. Who had left these here? And why?
Then, it clicked.
Without another thought, Cault sat down, dipped the quill into the ink, and began filling out the test.
When he finished, he stood, waiting to see what would happen next.
"Well then. Are we done messing around? Because I don't have time for these antics," Cault called out, his voice echoing through the chamber.
A slightly high-pitched voice responded hesitantly, "I'm sorry, sir. I didn't have any better ideas. I wasn't sure how to measure your literacy and education level within the doctor's time constraints."
Cault sighed, rubbing his temples. "Fine. I forgive you. But let's put an end to these tests."
"Alright," the boy stammered. A smaller door within the iron gate creaked open. In the entrance stood a young human boy, no older than twelve. He wore a plain white shirt and trousers, his brown hair unkempt, his expression awkward and uncertain.
Cault brushed past him, stepping into the next room.
Inside, he found a small, round man curled on the ground, writhing in pain. His body was oddly shaped, like an overstuffed sack of skin. His eyes—milky white with tiny black specks for pupils—were squeezed shut as he clutched his stomach.
Standing over him was an elderly woman in a lab coat and purple-tinted glasses. She scowled down at him.
"Frii, I don't care for your excuses," she snapped. "There will be no eating in my facility—especially when the department head is paying a visit on behalf of the Queen."
Without another word, she turned and strode briskly out through a door on the far right side of the room.
Cault turned to the groaning man on the floor. "The doctor. Where is he?" He spoke slowly, punctuating each word so the writhing figure could understand him.
Frii groaned, still gripping his stomach. "Oh, look around! He's right up ahead."
Cault lifted his gaze.
At the far end of the room, a man in a white lab coat stood motionless before a massive glass tank. He stared into the murky liquid, watching as a body dissolved within. What remained was a skeletal frame, with only a few chunks of flesh stubbornly clinging to the bone.
The man was human, appearing close to sixty, with a heavy brow and short silver hair. He studied the gruesome scene in silence, as though contemplating something far beyond the destruction before him.
"Hello, Doctor. My name is Cault. It's a pleasure to meet you," Cault greeted, keeping his tone measured. "I was wondering if you could explain my current predicament?"
The doctor turned slowly to face him. "Pleasantries aside, this is my testing facility," he said, his voice brisk, dismissive. "It was designed to test any would-be adventurers. Easy, wasn't it?"
Cault frowned at the nonchalant response. "Yes, it was effortless. But explain the lich."
The doctor tilted his head slightly, his gaze flickering with mild confusion. "I believe Frii was supposed to place a doll at the entrance to spook visitors," he muttered.
"Doll, you say." Cault's grip on his sword tightened. "So you're a necromancer. That much is clear. But your choice of a lich—it wasn't random, was it? No, I think it says something about your intentions. You've raised hundreds of undead, displaying them proudly along your walls like grotesque trophies. It's disgusting."
Cault took a step forward, leveling his longsword at the doctor's throat. "So tell me, before I end your filthy life—what are you really up to?"
The doctor remained still, unfazed. Then, with a hollow chuckle, he said, "My mistake... Oh, but actually, I haven't made any mistakes." He turned fully to face Cault, his expression eerily blank—almost doll-like. "Regardless of my subordinates' choice of villain, none of it matters. There is nothing to cherish about life. So what if it's gone? Most people I've studied can't give me a reason to live beyond some fleeting sense of self-satisfaction."
His eyes narrowed. "Tell me, Cault—do you fight out of selfless heroism? Or do you do it to distract yourself? To cope with your coughing fits and your... delusions?" The doctor's lips curled slightly. "Oh yes, I know who you are. Cault of Mazarman. A primary school teacher—how poetic. Of course, a madman like you would come up in my files as a dangerous element."
The words barely left the doctor's mouth before Cault struck. His blade flashed in an instant, slicing cleanly through the doctor's neck.
For a moment, there was silence. Then—hissss.
Turquoise liquid sprayed from the wound. The doctor staggered back, his head lolling unnaturally to one side. And then, with slow, deliberate movement, he lifted his own severed head free from his shoulders.
Cault's eyes widened. Beneath the flesh, the doctor's body was a skeletal frame—his bones stained a deep violet. His vital organs, including his eyes and brain, floated within a translucent turquoise gel encased in his skull.
"Pointless effort, really," the doctor said, almost amused.
Cault gritted his teeth. "What are you!?"
The doctor's hollow gaze bore into him. Then, in a voice that echoed through the dungeon's vast chambers, he proclaimed:
"I am Doctor Claud Pyre Septis. But to the ignorant—you shall call me God!"