Headless Rotting Corpses (Day 1)

(Caution: depiction of corpses.)

[Tier-Group 3: Control Room]

"Mint, is the expansion of the sphere of influence going smoothly?"

"Personal secretary-dono, there's one spot where the resistance is oddly strong. The location is about 5 km east-southeast of Hiratsuka, the Toshima Magistracy. It's not along the Nakayama Highway, and there's no village to be seen there either."

"Do you have any footage?"

"No. Right now I've sent a drone-laden vehicle out toward the Nameless Bridge, so I'll need you to wait two hours. From here, naturally, the drone's flight range falls short."

"It doesn't seem like anyone is living there, at least. Let me try strengthening the dungeon energy a bit more. If it's just a traveler or a pirate happening to cross the desert without taking the highway, then once they move along, we can fold the area into the dungeon's sphere of influence with no trouble."

[Tier-Group 3: Control Room]

Two hours later, Marie entered the Control Room with the Dungeon Master in tow.

"Director, the troublesome spot still isn't inside the sphere of influence, same as before, but we've got footage now."

"Looks like there's nothing there at all."

"Since you can't tell where the boundary of the sphere of influence is, I'll display the range on the screen. This area here is the part we haven't been able to fold into the sphere."

In a lowland east of Hiratsuka there was an empty lot holding nothing but an old stone Buddha some 3 m tall, with a stone monument standing beside it. The whole thing was barely a hundred meters square, if that. The exact depth, however, was unknown, since on the side facing away from the Library-City Dungeon the obstacle itself cast a shadow that the dungeon's sphere of influence couldn't reach past.

"As things stand, it doesn't look like any kind of land that's actually being used. There's what seems to be a stone Buddha, so it might be a ruined temple."

"Marie-san, can't you push the energy higher?"

"I'll go to maximum output. If it's the residual psychic imprint of an abandoned village or the like, this should be able to wash it away."

When Marie poured in the dungeon energy, the ground swelled up in lumps, and something began to emerge from underground.

"What is that? Headless… corpses?! Do Preta move even without heads?"

It was a horde of headless, rotting corpses.

"Master, Preta or no, there is no way a thing should move without a head."

"Zombies, then, I suppose. But Marie-san, can zombies actually exist?"

"Zombies are a Haitian legend, and they don't exist in reality. It wouldn't be strange for them to exist as the monsters of a 'Zombie Dungeon,' but dungeon monsters can't leave their dungeon, so as long as we go around it, we'll be fine. Something as unscientific as corpses moving on their own is, above all, virtually impossible anywhere outside a dungeon. I'm certain this is an unknown dungeon, or else a newly born one."

"A dungeon. Once again it's gone and parked itself in an inconvenient spot. We can't expect any worthwhile products out of zombies, and I wonder if we can just sweep them clean."

"If we go by the conventions of stories, zombies can be stopped by destroying the head, but these had no heads to begin with. Still, since dungeon monsters don't come out of their dungeon, there's no need to deal with them immediately."

"And if anything does come out, it'd be a Named monster at most, I'd guess."

"Dungeon monsters can't leave their dungeon, so there's no fear of them reaching Hiratsuka. Named monsters can come out of the dungeon, but outside the dungeon's sphere of influence their special abilities won't activate even if they have them, and a number that small the Toshima Magistracy can handle. Just to be safe, since there's a chance a few headless zombies might make their way to the Nameless Bridge, I'll send word to Toda Village to be on guard. I'll dispatch a messenger to the Toshima Daikan as well."