Your Majesty, Dinner Is Ready. - Chapter 57

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 57: No Desire to Advantage
The Sin Library is a popular Dungeon.
Even though venturing inside demands several days of grueling hardship, treasure-hunters hoping for a quick fortune cluster there in droves.
“You said you wanted to do an Exploration Duel.”
Bartimir, a law-abiding demon who stood quietly in line, broached the subject casually.
“Honestly, I’m surprised. That’s what I was planning to suggest first.”
A soft smile played across the mouth visible between the bandages.
“Wait—is that a demon?”
“Hey, hide your valuables. They’ll steal them.”
“I heard rumors they can take things even from a Pocket Dimension….”
Explorers dressed in slum-worn garb were muttering and glancing sideways at me, but Bartimir paid them no mind and continued speaking.
“You said you’d set the rules, right? I’m fine with it, so do whatever you want.”
“Even with such an open attitude? What if I adjust the rules to be overwhelmingly favorable to only myself?”
“What’s the problem with that?”
The demon dark mage seemed genuinely baffled, as if he couldn’t fathom what I meant.
“Isn’t the common wisdom that the harder and more grueling an exploration is, the better?”
“Ah!”
Merlin, who had been standing pressed against my side listening to our exchange, suddenly let out a small exclamation.
“What is it, Merlin?”
“Nothing. I just finally understood perfectly what the butler meant when he said the two of you were similar.”
“I understand what he meant too, now.”
Abel nodded in agreement with his sister’s words, his tone matter-of-fact.
Looking closer, Pendrick and Rosalia weren’t reacting much differently either.
“What about those kids?”
Bartimir showed interest as I patted the siblings’ shoulders.
Now that I thought about it, I hadn’t introduced them yet.
“They’re my wards—a brother and sister. The older one, Merlin, is a Thief, and the younger one, Abel, is a cook.”
“Hmm.”
The demon examined both children’s faces in turn, then suddenly leaned his face close to Merlin’s.
“Kid, you’re in for a rough time.”
“Pardon?”
“The Sin Library has a special internal law—if a Thief enters, they fall straight into absolute darkness and the abyss.”
“Really…?”
Merlin’s eyes widened in alarm as she looked up at me.
She’d grown accustomed to me by now, but her innocence still remained, which secretly reassured me.
If she became too familiar with me, she might stop reacting vividly and turn as apathetic as Odillon.
Right after, Bartimir lightly touched the crown of Merlin’s head.
“Just kidding.”
The tiger-girl who’d been watching his unflappable manner vacantly gestured for me to lower my head.
I bent at the waist as instructed, and she whispered into my ear.
“Could he be Kar’s lost sibling, perhaps…?”
“No chance. Biologically, Elves and demons can’t have children together.”
“Even so….”
While Merlin and Abel compared and analyzed Bartimir’s and my faces side by side, I introduced the remaining two.
“The neat-looking one here is the swordsman Pendrick. And the elf is the assassin Rosalia.”
“Good composition. Though the siblings are still quite young.”
After offering his terse assessment, Bartimir placed one hand on his hip.
“So what are the rules you’ve decided for this Dungeon exploration?”
At that moment, I was certain our minds weren’t so different.
I answered slowly, drawing out the time as much as I could.
“A 3-versus-3 Exploration Duel.”
With exactly six people here, we could divide perfectly into two teams.
“Each of us becomes a captain of an exploration party and leads our members. How does that sound?”
“It’s passable enough, but how do we decide the winner?”
“Once results come out, the loser gracefully concedes victory in good conscience.”
It was a rule that would result in an eternally undecided outcome if no one admitted defeat in the end—a loophole—but only rationalists who lived in perpetual intellectual scrutiny would fret over such flaws.
A true explorer should know how to cleanly acknowledge the difference in expedition capability between themselves and their opponent based on the appeal of their emotions.
“I like it.”
“Don’t you?”
“So how do we divide the party members?”
“Let’s do it this way.”
I placed both hands on the heads of the tiger-kin siblings.
“I’ll take these two with me. Bartimir, you conduct the exploration with the other two.”
The Socialite team.
Expedition leader Kar, Merlin, and Abel.
The Dark Mage team.
Expedition leader Bartimir, Rosalia, and Pendrick.
Naturally.
Our lineup was at a disadvantage.
“…That’s a bit much.”
Bartimir narrowed his eyes.
“Why should our team have the advantage? The Dungeon already favors me as a demon. I’ll take the siblings.”
“That won’t do. Why would you take my wards?”
“Then split them evenly.”
“I refuse.”
As we stood in a tense stalemate, Pendrick spoke softly.
“…Asmi, why don’t you want either side to have the advantage?”
– Exactly what I was thinking.
Since this seemed endless, I proposed a compromise.
“How about this: your expedition enters three hours after mine.”
“Hmm, that seems fair enough.”
“What part of that is fair, exactly?”
“You haven’t learned the deeper pleasures of exploration yet. Though that’s natural at your stage.”
I patted the novice explorer Merlin on the shoulder, then extended my hand to Bartimir.
“Let us both explore without regret.”
“Agreed.”
As we shook hands, I studied Bartimir’s face concealed beneath the bandages.
I didn’t notice it before, not when Emir died so futilely, but seeing him this close, I could tell.
‘He really does look similar.’
Despite belonging to an entirely different race.
Bartimir bore a resemblance to me even in appearance.
Was there some other factor beyond the meta-reason that I had created this world?
The more I learned, the more my doubts about my own existence deepened.
Though compared to exploring the Dungeon, such concerns seemed trivial and petty.
“We’ll stay back, so go ahead and enter first.”
“See you later, boss!”
……
After Team Dark Mage withdrew from the entry queue, we finally had our turn after quite a wait.
When I presented my Identification Badge to the Priest, his shoulders flinched.
“Kar? You must be the Socialite that Valentin praised so highly.”
It seemed the holy knight Valentin had been boasting about my abilities and character to others.
There was no downside to befriending high-ranking members of the Harmony Faith early on.
“Would you like a brief explanation before entering?”
“I’m already familiar with all the rules. Please explain to these children instead.”
“Understood. Friends? I need your attention for a moment.”
The smiling Priest withdrew what looked like a prop from a storybook narration from the pocket dimension of a Rosary with a small shield attached.
The front was adorned with charming paper cutouts of a library’s bookshelves and books glued onto it.
“What a cute explanatory tool, perfect for you all.”
“…We’re not that young, you know?”
“She’s right…”
All children say that sort of thing, naturally.
“Look here. The Sin Library is, as the name suggests, a dungeon manifested as a library. But doesn’t something feel off? ‘Sin,’ no less!”
“Do they only have scary books inside?”
Merlin asked with a concentrated expression, dropping his earlier grumbling.
“Exactly!”
The Priest turned the board over to show the back.
Unlike the bright, pleasant front side, it displayed a library with a dark and ominous atmosphere.
Whisper-whisper.
The tattoo snake crawling up my forearm writhed with delight.
The Silent One was expressing his will: ‘This is precisely the atmosphere I love.’
“This library was actually built in the Demon Realm during a time before the Grand Cathedral existed.”
A structure erected in the Demon Realm’s golden age, when they were the wealthiest race on the continent.
It collapsed during the Holy Alliance’s massive invasion of the Demon Realm, leaving only traces behind today.
“The demons, who waged war across entire lands to consume negative concepts, even competed with each other over who could torment other intelligent beings in the most terrifyingly creative ways imaginable.”
“…Good heavens.”
“Eventually, one demon went so far as to publish a record of their own atrocities in book form, and after that, it seems everyone else began publishing their own works as well.”
The Priest bent at the waist, meeting the siblings’ eyes as he continued his explanation.
“All those books created at that time gathered in one place—the Sin Library, they call it. A facility far more massive than Pletica itself!”
“Larger than Pletica?”
Abel’s tail went stiff with a snap.
Merlin, equally startled, glanced sidelong at Bartimir standing in the distant shadows.
“The demons turned out to be far worse a race than I’d imagined….”
“Ah, friend! No prejudice now! The books published by demons themselves make up only a third of the collection.”
Even so, that was quite substantial.
There was a reason why Socialites, dark mages, and demons formed an unholy trinity of bias and contempt.
“The rest are volumes that filled the library as it expanded on its own, drawn by the Demon Realm’s dense magical essence.”
“You mean books were created automatically?”
“Yes, that’s right. They say the word order and grammar are a bit awkward when you read them, but the content is steadily filled with brutal torture techniques and firsthand accounts. The flow of magical essence really is remarkable, isn’t it?”
“…So then, why do explorers come to this Dungeon? A place filled with nothing but such horrifying books.”
While Merlin tilted her head in confusion, Abel spoke up.
“Probably because the rewards are exceptional.”
“Your friend is absolutely right!”
The Priest spread both arms wide.
“Don’t be surprised. Every single book filling this library is a Secret Art Tome.”
“…Really?”
The siblings’ eyes widened in astonishment in unison.
“So if we go inside and read anything at random, we can learn a Secret Art?”
“Exactly!”
“That can’t be right….”
“It is, isn’t it? Something that shouldn’t be possible?”
Abel’s mouth had fallen slack, but her eyes soon narrowed with suspicion.
“But I learned that a Dungeon never works in an explorer’s favor, Priest.”
“My goodness. You’ve been taught very well indeed!”
“Our patron here taught us.”
I quietly flashed a peace sign with my right hand.
“That’s right. A Dungeon never freely grants an explorer true benefit.”
If you had a taste for freebies, your hair would sprout as the hairs of your conscience.
No such thing as a priceless reward obtained without cost in a Dungeon existed.
“All the books are Secret Art Tomes, yes, but every single one of them has a serious defect.”
As if this explanation too were part of his repertoire, the Priest produced an illustration board depicting a malevolent-eyed book.
“For example, if it’s a Secret Art that grants tremendous strength, the price is death itself. You’re drawing out all your remaining lifespan as raw power!”
“…So there are no useful Secret Arts?”
“If there weren’t, explorers wouldn’t keep coming in such numbers, would they? As you search, once in a hundred thousand books, you do find a Secret Art Tome with minor flaws. The problem is, you can only know the effect after you’ve learned it.”
…….
Merlin’s tail, which had risen all the way to her neck in shock, slowly descended.
Abel, less disappointed than her sister, fell silent in thought for a moment before speaking.
“What are the Conquest Conditions?”
“It’s simple. Somewhere in this vast library, there’s a single librarian. You need to find and make contact with them.”
Finding one librarian in a library larger than Pletica.
It was more realistic than searching for a needle in a desert, at least.
Still, we’d naturally need to be prepared to camp inside for days.
“Is there anything else you’d like to know?”
“Mm, nothing more. Thank you!”
“Then step inside!”
Following the Priest’s guidance, gentle as a nursemaid, the three of us opened a single book jutting from a towering shelf in the middle of the field and peered inside together.
A story of a cruel demon forcibly tattooing hideous marks onto a goblin’s skin.
When we’d finished reading the page, we found ourselves standing in the heart of a library whose sky was filled entirely with books.
“Wow….”
Merlin, gazing up at the towering shelves arrayed as densely as trees in a forest, opened her mouth wide.
“It really is vast. Just wandering around would exhaust you.”
“Shall I carry you?”
“Shouldn’t I be the one carrying you, Kar? You’re frailer than I am.”
“A fair point.”
I straightened Merlin’s lopsided hat and set off walking without hesitation.
The siblings hurried after me.
“Kar, don’t tell me you already know where the Librarian who satisfies the Conquest Condition is?”
“Of course I do.”
A conscientious librarian who works in the Sin Library but despises the criminal conduct peculiar to demons at the height of their power.
The person fell within the search radius of the Sky Invader, which abhors all manner of purity and nobility.
“But we can’t just rush through satisfying the Conquest Condition and leave, can we?”
This is an Exploration Duel.
Simply mapping out the ordinary route held no meaning.
“Let us find the Hidden Piece first.”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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