The Villainous Noble Who Kept Rewinding After Death: The Story Somehow Changed When I Committed Suicide

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The Villainous Noble Who Kept Rewinding After Death: The Story Somehow Changed When I Committed Suicide

Chapter 327: Riddles

Having finished exploring the entirety of the first layer, we returned to where Olga and the others were, guided by the response of detection magic, just as they were taking a break.

“Hmm? Eir? What are you doing here?”

“I finished the exploration a bit early. I decided to change the plans and joined up right away.”

“Haha. You’re quick with work, huh? Then, report back while you take a little break.”

“Thanks, we’ll do that.”

Following Olga, we headed to the place where they had been resting, received drinks from a magic bag, and I sat down on the ground, accepting what was offered.

“So? You mentioned the exploration was over; how did it go?”

“Well, first off, there were no traps on this layer. However, there might be some in the next layer, so we’ll have to check that out.”

“Gotcha. Up until we got here, we faced monster attacks, but there weren’t any traps. Just like you said, there might be some in the next layer, but for now, it’s safe to say that this one is clear.”

“Yeah. As for the monsters, since it’s a lava area, most of them were fire types, and A Rank monsters attacked us in groups.”

“We had the same trouble. A pack of Flame Wyverns and Flame Wolves assaulted us multiple times; it was pretty rough.”

It seemed that the monster attacks had been quite severe not only on the outside where we were exploring but also on the inside where Olga’s team was. Looking around, I could see exhaustion reflected on the faces of the others.

“Oh, and just to confirm, were there any stairs leading to the next layer in the area you checked?”

“No, we didn’t find any. So I thought you might’ve found some while exploring, but judging by your reaction, maybe there aren’t any?”

“Yeah. I went along the wall, but didn’t see anything like that.”

“Great, this has turned into a bit of a hassle.”

“Yeah.”

I had hoped that Olga’s side would find the stairs leading to the next layer, but unfortunately, it seemed they hadn’t found anything either.

“In a normal dungeon, there’d usually be stairs or something to help you move between layers, but we didn’t see anything like that.”

“Same here. We fought some monsters, but even with my teammates’ help, we searched behind the rocks and everything, yet no path to the next layer appeared.”

“That leaves just one possibility.”

“A quest type, huh?”

Quest types are dungeons where a specific action must be completed in order for the next layer’s stairs to appear, like defeating twenty monsters of that layer or walking ten thousand steps without resting; they require set quests to be specified.

However, it’s not about searching for a quest without hints. Instead, hints leading to quest completion are hidden somewhere in that layer, so to conquer the layer, we must first find those hints.

When I was traveling in the Empire, I had attempted two quest-type dungeons, but since there was already some攻略information, I didn’t have much trouble then.

But this time, we needed to find the hints ourselves, which honestly felt like a bit of a hassle.

By the way, Fiera, who was with me at that time, was trying to find the answer herself by looking for clues, but in the end, she yawned and rubbed her sleepy eyes, as if she hadn’t understood anything at all.

“Gate-type dungeons with quest types? This is too troublesome, isn’t it? Ugh, I should’ve brought Rai along. I’m not good at stuff like this!”

“Yeah, I can tell just by looking at your face.”

“Tch. How rude.”

“It’s a joke. More importantly, the problem is how to find the stairs to the next layer.”

“El. Do you have any idea?”

“Let’s see. Since you guys have a better overall understanding of this place, didn’t you spot anything while exploring?”

“Hmm, that’s true.”

As I said this, I glanced around a few times and closed my eyes to think as I recalled my memories.

“Hmm. Moving along the walls, this layer was shaped like a neat rectangle. The positions of rocks and the frequency of monster appearances had no pattern, and while there were high-ranked monsters, there were no special ones.”

“I also observed the surroundings, but nothing particularly stood out to me.”

“The sizes of the magic stones didn’t differ either.”

“There were no irregularities in the flow of magic within the dungeon.”

“There were no changes in temperature or air, either.”

“Right.”

As Shuvina and the others pointed out, there didn’t seem to be any particularly noticeable areas, and the magic stones we gathered from monsters were similar; moreover, there was no difference in the flow of magic or temperature.

“Hmmm…what could it be…?”

Feeling utterly puzzled, I looked up at the sky and suddenly felt a soft sensation at the back of my head, prompting me to tilt my gaze back.

“What are you doing?”

“I was thinking maybe I should support my neck since it felt tiring.”

“Is that so?”

“Yeah.”

To briefly explain the current situation, Fiera, who had somehow moved behind me, was in a position that felt like she was hugging me from behind, with my head resting against her impressive chest like a cushion.

“By the way, Fiera, didn’t you sense anything?”

“Hmm… not particularly. But…”

“But?”

“I felt like I had a similar sensation.”

“Similar? What was that?”

“It’s hard to put into words, but I kind of felt déjà vu while we were moving.”

“Déjà vu, huh…”

At first glance, it might sound like Fiera was being vague and nonsensical, but her instincts as a beast-kin were not something to be dismissed lightly. If she mentioned feeling a sense of déjà vu, then surely something must’ve caught her attention.

“Déjà vu… movement… rectangle… ah, maybe…”

Thinking that far, one possibility popped into my mind. I slipped out of Fiera’s embrace and used flight magic to soar upwards.

Once I reached the center point, I slowly adjusted my position while rotating, and finally uncovered the secret of this layer.

“I see. So this is the true nature of the déjà vu. Fiera’s instincts never fail!”

Realizing what Fiera was referring to with her sense of déjà vu, I quickly returned to Olga and the others.

“Olga! I figured out how to conquer this layer!”

“Really? What was it?”

“I’ll explain once we get there. First, let’s move, but are the others ready to go?”

“No problem. They’ve been resting since before you arrived, so they should be pretty well rested. We can move right away.”

“Then, sorry, but let them know to gather their things.”

“Got it!”

Olga instructed her teammates to pack their belongings, and they quickly finished preparing, with me leading the way back along the path we originally came from.

“Eir, is there really a path to the next layer here?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah, but this is the entrance we came through when we entered the dungeon.”

Just as Olga pointed out, we had returned to the entrance of the dungeon, and it appeared she wanted to express her confusion while pointing at the entrance.

“We’re in the right spot. Hey, Olga, doesn’t this gate seem strange?”

“Strange? What do you mean?”

“Now that you mention it, it is odd. In a normal dungeon, the entrance should be connected to the walls, but this gate is separated, and its back side is visible.”

“You’re right.”

As Shuvina noted, it was my first time entering a gate-type dungeon, so I thought this was the norm. However, an entrance located in an empty space and with its back visible felt a bit odd.

“So, from what I saw earlier when I looked at the whole dungeon from above, this place is mirrored.”

“Mirrored?”

“Yeah, it was like a reflection, with the same rocks positioned in the same places on either side of the center point, and magma flowing similarly on both sides.”

At first, I didn’t understand what Fiera meant by déjà vu, but after looking at the whole dungeon from above just now, I realized all the configurations were identical, as if I had opened a paint palette enclosed between pages of a book.

“I see! So, that’s it.”

“I get it now.”

“Right? I never expected it to be constructed this way.”

“As expected of Eir!”

“I understand now too!!”

“Huh?”

“I don’t quite get it.”

While it seemed that Shuvina and the others were able to arrive at the answer quickly, Fiera and Olga still didn’t seem to be following along, so I decided to do a final check for clarity.

“In other words, this layer is two sides of the same coin; the front is the back, and the back is the front. Therefore, the entrance, which is the front surface, also serves as the exit to the next layer.”

“Ahh. I see, …. huh? But if that’s the case, then how do we exit this dungeon? If what you say is true, passing through this gate leads to the next layer, right? That means there’s no real exit.”

Olga’s question was completely valid; if my words were right, trying to go out of the dungeon could lead us directly into the more challenging next layer.

“I told you earlier, right? That this gate is weird. Why can we see the back of it? That’s because the back is the exit to leave this dungeon.”

“The back is the exit?”

“Exactly. As I said before, this gate is structured so that the front is the back and the back is the front. In other words, if we pass through the front again to head to the next layer, going through the back side will lead to the exit of the dungeon.”

“I see. But that’s awfully complicated. And if you accidentally go through the front again, you just end up in the next layer, right? That’s not just problematic.”

“Yeah. This dungeon may be more dangerous than we anticipated.”

Once you find the answer, it doesn’t seem like a big deal, but trying to leave the dungeon without realizing this fact and passing through the entrance again would surely cause a huge amount of trouble.

“For now, we definitely need to report this to the Guild. If a transfer magic circle can be established, it may not concern adventurers who reach that point, but it’s too dangerous for first-time explorers.”

“Well, I’ll leave that to Olga. More importantly, what do we do now? We found the path to the next layer, shall we go?”

“There’s still plenty of time left in our schedule, plus you guys took care of the fighting on the way back here, so we shouldn’t have any stamina issues. Let’s keep moving!”

“Understood. Then let’s go. Just to be safe, I’ll go first, and you guys follow after me.”

“Got it!”

After confirming that Olga and the others nodded to my command, I started walking toward the entrance, just as I did when we came in, and slipped once more through the gate.