The Hero’s Party Members Treat Me Well for Some Reason

36 – Settlement and Farming, and ???(2)

The Chonghwaseong is extremely vast and complex.

The party members have been wandering around this place for the past few months, almost to the point of exhaustion.

But there’s one misconception they have, and that is that everyone is convinced that the Chonghwaseong is the final destination.

Is there even a possibility for that to be true?

“This place should have a place to live too.”

The Real World is just that, the Real World.

It is a place specially designed to meet someone.

It’s a bit more luxurious than other rooms, and except for the fact that insects can easily enter due to its spaciousness.

The Real World is just the Real World, no more and no less.

In other words, it’s a boss stage.

And now, it’s time to explore what lies beyond.

The Chong King’s bedroom, laboratory, warehouse, and so on…

But fortunately, there’s nothing more dangerous ahead.

Although there have been many betrayals before, honestly, I couldn’t be sure, but as far as I knew, that was the case.

“Will there be none?”

After going through all that trouble, it can’t be there. If it is, I might just commit suicide. You should be able to live if it’s dirty, right?

Anyway, we began to explore the remaining rooms after passing through the control room. Fortunately, we found what we were looking for quickly.

If you walk straight from the entrance we came in, you’ll come out right away on the other side.

“It’s surprisingly intact here…”

“Yeah, you’re right.”

“Hmph, I guess they made it more sturdy since it’s their place to stay.”

And so, we moved on to the next room, occasionally mocking the dead King Chung Wang behind us.

Unlike the distances we had traveled so far, the space beyond the control room wasn’t very large.

To put it in some perspective, it was spacious enough to take in at a glance.

Of course, the rooms were divided into multiple sections, so it would take a bit of time to check them all…

Considering the distances we had traversed thus far, this much was a piece of cake.

“Hero, are we moving together, or should I go separately?”

As I was looking around, the Holy Maiden asked.

I answered without thinking.

“I find it more convenient to move separately…”

“Then let’s do that.”

“Do you think the other party members will object?”

“I’ll try to convince them. They’re probably tired and want to rest as soon as possible.”

And so, she approached the other party members again.

Then, she began persuading them. They quickly agreed to her persuasion.

“Well, since everyone’s tired, it’s probably better to split the roles.”

I felt a brief sense of wonder as I watched this.

Indeed, I had grown somewhat closer to her during this battle.

She was the only one who had gone through the ordeal with me, and she was the one who had personally delivered the final blow.

She was probably the only human who had witnessed me using my specialty.

“Come to think of it, when I woke up, my body was clean.”

I was definitely in a filthy state when I passed out.

My whole body was covered in blood, and on top of that, it was teeming with liquefied grasshopper corpses.

But when I woke up, I was as clean as if I had just taken a shower. Perhaps she used purification.

She must have been very tired, but she walked me to the purification ceremony. Even if I didn’t know her true feelings, I couldn’t help but be grateful.

Thanks to that, I was able to wake up feeling a bit refreshed.

Anyway, that’s how we ended up acting separately.

Camilla and Adele took care of the storage room, Lily and Ullysse took the bedrooms, and I was in charge of the research lab.

Cre-eak…

As I pushed the door, the chilling sound unique to rusty doors reverberated. The pungent smell of mold and the faint scent of chemicals greeted me.

I thought to myself.

“It’s a relief to be in charge of the research lab.”

Behind the alchemy laboratory, there were two places that brought in the most income. The storage room and the research lab.

Among them, the storage room had all sorts of treasures and high-level materials. However, there weren’t any useful items, so I generously allotted them to my party members. After all, the money earned there would go towards party maintenance, so it didn’t matter much.

Next was the research lab.

The research lab was a space where the traces of Chungwang’s research remained.

At first glance, there didn’t seem to be anything particularly appealing.

“To others, that is.”

But the worth of an item depends on who is looking at it.

The scattered reagents and insects around were just subjects of investigation to others.

But to me, they were a source of immediate usable power.

Now that I could use Bug Arts, I had plans to put those insects modified by that guy to good use.

That way, I roamed around the inside of the research lab and looted what I needed.

The eggs of the bug with large compound eyes.

The powder that helps create summoning circles.

Even the bug-exclusive test tubes enchanted with spatial magic.

“Oh, this one is still here?”

I even acquired the larvae of the dimension-piercing thorn bug.

The adults were probably used by Chungwang, so they were nowhere to be found… But where were the larvae?

If I raise them well, I too could perform that annoying thorn attack like Chungwang.

After wandering around the research lab like that, the last thing I picked up was this. In the musty and eerie research lab, on the only clean and organized desk, there was a single book placed.

“The Origin and Summoning Ritual of Loneliness Venom.”

I wonder if I’ve ever read this until the very end.

The book was covered in fingerprints.

That’s how sincere he was about summoning solitude.

“Hmm…”

I looked at it and briefly brushed away a trace of curiosity.

“Someday, I’ll have to summon as well…”

In a way, it could be called the flower of insect arts.

This skill, reaching the pinnacle of summoning magic, could eventually summon even ancient catastrophes.

Of course, I can’t summon for the third time now that I’m dead.

We still have the second one; the first one is irrelevant.

“The problem is the enormous amount of resources required for summoning.”

Just by looking at the appearance of the King of Bugs today, I could tell.

He used up most of the bugs he had just to summon a single worm. I also have to put in that same amount of resources.

It’s an absurd amount of resources.

But still, I had to summon it no matter what.

They are individuals with the power of the King of Four Kings, so of course they have to be summoned.

“Ah, I don’t know, let’s just get ready for now.”

That’s how I grabbed the guy’s book. After all, the lonely summoner is a stack type.

You don’t need to put everything in at once; you can steadily add resources over time.

So someday, I too will be able to summon.

Kiiii…

After finishing farming like that, I stepped out of the research lab once again.

My colleagues were still investigating, as there were no traces of people in the corridor.

Well, compared to the research lab, the other two rooms are subtly spacious.

I know the items in the research lab, and the area is relatively small, so I finished quickly, but it was clear that it would take some time for them.

Without a choice, I decided to wander around the corridor for a while.

I’ve already collected everything I need, but just in case.

With the increase in variables in the game, there might be something new.

But unfortunately, there were no new items.

There was just something that shouldn’t be there.

“…Huh?”

After wandering around the corridor for a while, a strange ‘uneasiness’ suddenly enveloped me as I passed a certain point.

There was something there, but I forcefully ignored it.

The feeling of hurriedly erasing what I should have seen from my mind.

Feeling something strange, I turned around and soon discovered a small hole.

A hole of a suitable size for only one person to pass through.

The hole that pierced through the hallway was both unfamiliar and abrupt.

What was even more amazing was that nothing could be seen beyond the hole.

As if it were completely black, a perfectly pitch-black hole.

Just to be sure, I created a small fireball and threw it, but nothing could be seen beyond it.

If it were someone else, suspicions would have arisen by now. What on earth is this?

Yet the more I examined the appearance of the hole, the stronger my strange conviction grew.

This, it seems familiar to me.

I decided to turn on the system to confirm the hole, just in case.

Occasionally, the system would provide information about the name or background of a place.

However, when I checked the hole using the system.

[#!^$◇ ◆ ◈맯뒳뷽?긜긳긇깑?]

It only appeared as broken characters.

I became certain here.

This, it is the hole that I know. I’m not sure why it exists, but I am certain.

Having reached that conclusion, I decided to go inside the hole to see for myself.

[WARNING!]

As soon as I put one foot into the hole, a warning symbol appeared.

[WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! WARNING!······]

As I squeezed my body into the hole, an insane number of warning messages started blaring.

A vast amount of warning messages filled my field of vision.

“Step aside.”

I ignored it.

At least as far as I know, this place was not a dangerous space.

And if the warning messages were appearing to such an extent, then I should have been dead already.

With that in mind, I continued to descend further beneath the hole.

In the sight, nothing was visible, yet a peculiar chill crawled down my spine.

[What?!#$%&*]

Amidst this, the system seemed to have malfunctioned entirely, continually sending bizarre characters.

With no discernible judgment, I used the sensation in my fingertips as a guide and continued downward.

After crawling for a while, suddenly…

aaargh!

[Unintelligible characters]

The space expanded.

The incessant warning tones echoing in my head vanished, and even the darkened sight brightened.

Somehow, a refreshing sensation coursed through my body.

The place I arrived at was a ground about the size of a single room.

Not a speck of dust on the floor, no patterns on the walls—a space entirely devoid of distinct features. The only noticeable thing in the bland area was at its center.

At that bright spot in the center of the plain, there lay a peculiarly glowing stone.

I approached it to examine.

[Indecipherable symbols]

Still, broken letters.

I sighed.

“…Why is this even here?”