Passing through the newly lively woods, Erich continued forward in the direction he remembered, and the scenery before him gradually changed.
The withered, black trees grew sparser, and the soil beneath his feet slowly turned into cracked, dry sand. Once the forest receded completely, something that shouldn't have been there stood right before him.
A fully enclosed iron box was embedded between thick pillars. Its surface was painted with the academy's emblem, and its entire body gleamed with a polished metallic luster. A lever stood next to the door, with a bronze plaque hanging beside it, engraved with: 【Third Floor】
I know what you want to ask: why would something like an elevator appear in a dungeon? Why wasn't it a more magical teleportation array instead?
Erich could only tell you that this elevator was built by the academy.
In the past, the entrance to the third floor was a spiral stone staircase. It was long and steep, making a trip down exhausting. Later, that stone staircase was destroyed by a certain class of students. Supposedly, several upperclassmen got into a conflict in the stairwell and came to blows, blasting away more than half of the staircase.
The academy evaluated the cost of repairs, and considering that people got hurt falling there every year anyway, they simply demolished the stairs and installed this elevator instead.
The expenses were split among those students, but since they all seemed to be high nobility, they didn't care much and even paid quite a bit extra.
Erich walked over and pulled down the lever, and the iron door slowly opened.
The inner walls of the elevator were smooth, and a magic crystal was embedded in the ceiling, illuminating the interior brightly.
Erich stepped inside, closed the door, and pressed a button labeled "3".
The elevator car sank slightly, then began to descend smoothly. Through the iron walls, he could feel something deep within the dungeon faintly vibrating.
Erich suddenly felt as if he were back in his previous life, riding an elevator.
Before long, the elevator car gave a gentle shudder, arriving at its destination, and the doors slid wide open.
A gust of wind carrying dry dust rushed inside, making Erich cough and frown. He stepped out of the elevator, his foot sinking into soft sand.
This was the third floor of 【Old Radiant City】.
Sky light of unknown origin dyed the entire space a heavy, dark red, carrying an indescribable oppressiveness.
In the distance, a city of broken walls and ruins stretched across the sand. Collapsed towers and crumbling city walls piled on top of each other, making it hard to tell whether it was a ruin or a graveyard.
Erich took a deep breath. It was dry, pungent, and carried a lingering, metallic stench of decay.
“The scent of the undead.”
He muttered to himself, setting off toward the city.
【City of the Undead】
This was what outsiders called the city that lay on the third floor of Old Radiant City.
As the name suggested, this was the domain of the undead.
Those wandering outside the city were mostly mindless grunts, roaming purely on instinct, having forgotten even who they were. The ones inside the city were completely different—they were high-level undead who retained clear, conscious minds. They were at least third-tier, and some were even fourth-tier.
These undead had even established their own order among the ruins, living out their daily lives.
So, what did these undead living in the city call their home?
【Radiant City】
They stubbornly referred to their home by this name, as if the city were still the brightly lit place it had been thousands of years ago.
Erich soon arrived at the city gates. There were no guards, only two skeletons sitting against the wall. Shriveled knuckles peeked out from beneath their robes. They remained completely motionless, making it impossible to tell if they were napping or guarding the gate. Erich blended in with the sparse stream of black-robed figures entering and exiting the city, and walked inside.
The tavern was located deep within a crooked alley in the western part of the city. The words on its sign had long since worn away to illegibility, and a lantern emitting an eerie green glow hung by the entrance.
Erich pushed the door open and stepped inside.
Every single patron sitting in the tavern was an undead draped in a black robe.
While the undead outside the city were mindless, the undead inside subconsciously denied their own deaths. They lived their lives according to their memories of the living. However, an undead body was fundamentally different from a living one. Thus, they donned black robes, wrapping themselves tightly from head to toe, leaving only their eyes exposed—as if by doing so, they were still ordinary people.
This self-deceiving behavior actually made things easier for visitors. As long as one wore a black robe, they could easily slip into the city. The academy had even thoughtfully placed a stack of black robes next to the elevator, specifically for those heading down to the lower three floors.
The black robe Erich wore as he sat in the tavern was indeed one provided by the academy.
For some reason, a sudden cheer erupted in the tavern. The black-robed undead raised their cups and clinked them together. Turbid liquid splashed out, spilling onto the tables, but no one bothered to wipe it. Erich also raised his own cup, clinked it with the undead next to him, and brought it to his lips to fake a sip.
What a joke. As a living person, how could he possibly drink the same stuff as the undead? Heaven only knew what was in that cup. Looking at the turbid liquid and the floating debris, he had absolutely no desire to find out. Nor did he have any interest in experimenting on himself to see what would happen if he drank it.
So, why did Erich come to a tavern?
Because he was lost.
In games, there was auto-pathing—just click a destination on the map, and the character would walk there on their own. But there was no such luxury in reality. Erich only remembered the name of a hidden boss; as for the boss's exact location in the city, he only had a vague impression left in his mind. Moreover, this City of the Undead was far larger than he had imagined. The alleys twisted and turned in all directions, making walking into them feel like entering a labyrinth.
That was why he had come to the tavern to gather information.
No matter where you were, taverns were always the places where information flowed most freely. If that was true for the living, it was surely the same for the undead.
Erich set his cup back on the table and pricked up his ears to listen to his surroundings.
The undead at the neighboring table were shouting over one another. They talked about how the number of outsiders had increased again, and how the bishop had made another breakthrough. But despite all their chatter, not a single one mentioned the name Erich was looking for.
He picked up his cup and took another mock sip, contemplating whether he should try a different tavern. If this one didn't have the information, another one surely would. Taverns run by the undead lined this street one after another; there were plenty of them.
Just as he was thinking, the tavern door was pushed open, and a black-robed figure walked in.
Rate on N.U.
