Awesome Shut-In Necromancer

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I was curious about how this came to be, but one thing was certain: Serejia didn’t seem to be doing this of her own volition.

“I’ll explain in detail later, but for now, can you get me out of here?”

“Um…”

“Is there a problem? If it’s you, it should be easy enough.”

As Serejia mentioned, pulling her out of the dungeon wasn’t difficult, but of course, there was a problem.

“It feels a bit too creepy, doesn’t it?”

Isn’t that obvious?

It could just be a coincidence, but the fact that we were reunited like this felt a bit contrived to me.

And that meant…

“If someone who knows about our relationship staged this situation, wouldn’t they have something up their sleeve?”

“I don’t have any specific memories of being tricked.”

“Of course you wouldn’t remember, you’re the person in question. Is that even a proper thing to say…”

As I muttered with a frustrated look, Serejia shrank back and quickly offered an excuse.

“Even though I’m a demigod, if my memories were manipulated, I wouldn’t feel any discord. Or do you perhaps have a separate contingency plan?”

“Well, if I just leave you like this, wouldn’t that be no problem at all?”

My casual remark seemed to give Serejia a picture of something ominous.

“W-wait, you’re not serious, are you?”

“I am.”

“No, we’re only at that level of relationship…”

“Then what kind of relationship do we have?”

In the end, Serejia was left speechless, fidgeting and clutching at my waist.

“But you’re the great Lord of Death! You wouldn’t die even if you killed someone; what’s the harm in playing along with a trick or two?”

“Aren’t you worried at all? What if something goes wrong?”

I wasn’t particularly scared, but to be honest, it wouldn’t be entirely without risk. I still had no clear understanding of the power behind all this.

“Do you know how hard I worked to get you sent back home? Please, just close your eyes and help me out this one time!”

Serejia was quite earnest in her plea for help.

Judging by her appearance, it was clear she couldn’t escape the dungeon on her own. This meant that even behind this incident, there was a power so great that even a demigod like Serejia could do nothing about it.

However, I couldn’t simply disregard the favor she had done by sending me back to Earth, so eventually, I sighed and summoned the Book of Death.

This was to forcefully dislodge Serejia, who was bound by a coercive contract to the dungeon.

“If it were anyone else, I would have just abandoned them. You should be thankful.”

“Is there really no other medium? The Book of Death isn’t very compatible with me…”

When I caught her gaze and signaled her to take the hint, Serejia immediately bowed her head.

“Okay, I’ll go in without complaint.”

“Of course, you should.”

So, I forcibly severed the contract and secured Serejia within the Book of Death before leading the other hunters of the strategy team out of the dungeon.

For now, that marked the moment when the immediate crisis was averted.

#

“So, there’s a dungeon that appeared in Thebes?”

“Yes. More specifically, it was after Henesia and Astrid followed you to this planet.”

As I listened to the more detailed story, it turned out that the events happening in Thebes weren’t much different from those on Earth.

Dungeons of various ranks had appeared all over the planet, growing more powerful over time.

Serejia mentioned that she had seen the massive gate that had appeared on Earth several times already.

‘Well, that’s not too strange.’

There was roughly a ten-fold difference in the passage of time between Earth and Thebes.

Considering that Henesia’s group first appeared about seven months ago, that meant about six years had passed in Thebes since then.

‘Moreover, Thebes originally had a high concentration of magical energy, so it wouldn’t take long for dungeons to gain strength there.’

However, that wasn’t the important part. Reflecting on the last time with the martial artists, it seemed this incident had occurred on at least three different planets.

That was just what could be confirmed, so it was almost impossible to gauge how many other planets had experienced the same thing.

No matter how I thought about it, this was far from normal.

“Yes, that’s right. There have probably been more cases than we think.”

Serejia seemed to have a point to make.

So now, it was time for me to hear the truth from her.

After taking a moment to steady herself, Serejia opened up with a somewhat gloomy expression.

“Thebes has completely fallen.”

“…Is that really true?”

Henesia, who had joined us at my call, asked in disbelief.

After all, Thebes would have been intact when she was around, so it would be hard to accept so easily.

And I felt the same way.

‘…….’

I had guessed from Serejia’s demeanor, but hearing it directly was quite the shock.

Even though it wasn’t just me, Thebes had its share of prominent figures. To think that it was taken over by some nobody in just a few years was downright ridiculous.

“What the hell were the others doing? Is it even possible to so easily give up their homeland?”

I had also caused plenty of trouble in Thebes, but hearing that someone else suffered the same fate irked me considerably.

However, sensing my reaction, Serejia struck her chest in frustration and shouted.

“What’s with that attitude? To be frank, more than half of it is your fault!”

“…Huh? Me?”

“You clear out anyone who bothers you and then turn them into undead if you like them, so of course, there won’t be anyone left who’s capable!”

C-could it really be like that?

Honestly, I had plenty of areas where I felt guilty when thinking from that perspective, so I subtly turned my head away.

“Especially, the absence of Lord Makarov, who was supposed to be the negotiator, was significant… at least if he had been there, we wouldn’t have fallen so easily.”

“No, you were the one who told him to go get the Goddess’s Tear.”

“What do you expect? It’s a one-of-a-kind item. Who would’ve thought he’d go and get his throat cut in frustration?”

The image of Makarov meeting his end at the hands of Charon, the ferryman of the underworld, flashed through my mind as I avoided Serejia’s gaze.

There were six negotiators in Thebes, but they all perished because they faced off against me.

At this point, it felt like it was indeed partly my fault.

But there was nothing I could do. How could I have predicted that it would lead to such an outcome?

“…Let’s leave the past behind. If you’ve experienced all that, you must know the details of what happened.”

This was where the truly important conversation began. Although the situation wasn’t particularly positive, we were finally getting closer to the secrets behind all this.

And frankly, with the intel I had gathered up to this point, I already had a fair amount of certainty regarding the presence responsible for this mess.

“By now, you must have a rough idea of what’s going on, right?”

“…Honestly, there aren’t many beings capable of causing such an event.”

Not those half-baked demigods like Serejia, but true entities of a higher tier with real power.

One of the celestial rulers often referred to as gods in the world might very well be behind this incident.

“Yes. As you guessed, one of them is recklessly waging conquest wars.”

By “gods,” I didn’t mean a singular being that governs everything like many might think.

From my experiences with contemporary faith and otherworldly faith, they were simply entities above humans.

‘The problem is, the gap in their tiers is far greater than one can imagine.’

Of course, even among them, there are varying levels of power. And frankly speaking, there are some who aren’t all that remarkable either.

Perhaps it was Kelsipheed, the boss of the S Rank Dungeon that appeared in Korea, who was at that level.

“However, seeing the scale of the chaos being wrought…”

“Yes. It wouldn’t be surprising if the opponent possessed considerable divine power.”

“Why does it sound like you haven’t even encountered them?”

Serejia stated that she had been forcibly made the dungeon’s boss and dragged to Earth after Thebes fell.

If that were the case, there should have been some degree of contact.

“No. That being didn’t even reveal themselves in front of me.”

Serejia trembled slightly, as if that alone was immensely humiliating.

“From their perspective, I was probably not worth the effort.”

“…No, that sounds a bit odd.”

Of course, Serejia had a point. If I had only heard her words, I would have thought the same.

However, in actuality, I had someone under me who had entirely different experiences.

Someone who had witnessed the one who made them the master of the dungeon and heard various things from him.

That was none other than Gordon, the Lich who was the boss of the hidden A Rank Dungeon.