Chapter 3

I silently offered Linus my deepest condolences for his terrible luck and shook my head.

“I don’t think so.”

If this truly was the world of The Butterfly Garden’s Secret Affair as I knew it, then dungeons and gates shouldn’t exist.

Even if I generously assumed dungeons had begun appearing in this world too, this one wasn’t right.

This was a dungeon I had cleared back in my original world.

I remembered it clearly because it was the first dungeon I had ever participated in after awakening.

A D-rank dungeon, Laneier’s Garden.

It didn’t contain high-rank monsters, but for a low-rank dungeon, it had been surprisingly tricky to clear.

And now the only awakened person here was me, and even a honey-sweet civilian had been dragged into this mess.

The only fortunate part about this worst-case situation was the number floating next to “Laneier’s Garden D”: 99%.

If the clear rate was already at 99%, that meant only one monster remained, the boss, the dungeon’s ruler.

“Hmm?”

While I stared at the status window, trying to remember where I had hunted Laneier last time, the number suddenly shifted from 99 to 100.

[Status]
Laneier’s Garden D 100%
The dungeon will vanish in 23 hours 59 minutes
□□■■□■□ □■

The dungeon ruler was dead, and the dungeon had been cleared.

I had no idea what happened or how, and honestly, I didn’t care.

What mattered was that I didn’t have to kill a monster in front of Linus.

Thankfully, I could still maintain the persona of the miraculously recovered, frail duke’s daughter who had awoken after a decade-long coma.

Now all that was left was to escape this cursed dungeon.

But what were those broken symbols? Was it an error?

I’d never heard of an error appearing in a status window.

I narrowed my eyes and stared at it, but there was no way to figure out what it meant.

It wasn’t the status window that was malfunctioning, it was my life.

I waved my hand to dismiss the window, then spoke casually to Linus.

“For now, should we look for an exit?”

“Shall we?”

Without suspicion, Linus agreed and extended his hand to me.

Even after being sucked into an unknown place, he remained a man whose manners were as sweet as honey.

With Linus escorting me, we began walking, and while looking around, he said,

“It seems this is a maze garden. It might take some time to find the exit.”

Just as he said, Laneier’s Garden was a maze made up of dense, towering trees.

If not for the red-bean-colored sky, it could have easily been mistaken for a noble’s ordinary garden.

Honestly, breaking through the trees and forcing a path would be faster, but with plenty of time left, I decided to wander slowly.

I didn’t want to appear knowledgeable about this place in front of Linus.

“I heard that to escape a maze garden, you only need to keep walking in a single direction.”

I said it while pretending to know nothing, and Linus answered with an impressed expression.

“Is that so? I’ve only heard of places like this and never entered one. If I were alone, I would have been terribly lost. I’m glad you’re with me, Ayrbet.”

“I’m also very glad to be with you, Linus.”

I offered the polite response, and Linus stopped walking and widened his eyes.

As I thought his eyes looked like red gemstones, he softened his gaze and smiled brightly.

“To think I’m lucky enough to stroll through a garden with someone so beautiful.”

I didn’t know if he was being positive or just optimistic.

Since I couldn’t exactly say Actually, we’re inside a dungeon and you’re horribly unlucky, I simply smiled awkwardly in return.

After walking together for a while, we reached an area where trees had been violently broken and burned.

The ground in one part was deeply gouged, as if a battle had taken place.

There, lying face-down in the crater, was Laneier, the ruler of this dungeon.

Habits truly were terrifying.

The moment I saw the monster’s corpse, my body moved on instinct.

Without thinking, I reached into Laneier’s half-shattered skull and dug around for the monster core.

“Oh, it’s still here?”

Once I located it, I pulled out a fairly large blue crystal.

The appearance of dungeons, something I once thought was the omen of Earth’s destruction, ended up changing humanity’s future in many ways.

The monster cores extracted from certain monsters became the alternative energy source humanity had desperately longed for.

It was only natural that dungeon clearing became the most important national industry.

Because of that, raid teams were constantly hounded by the Dungeon Management Bureau over core collection.

Thanks to that, the formula monster corpse = core extraction had been hammered into my body.

…Someone please explain this to him for me.

I was crouched in front of the monster corpse, Linus was staring at me in shock, and the monster core in my hand shimmered brilliantly.

“Ah… Ayrbet…?”

Linus looked at me with an expression impossible to describe, and a heavy silence stretched between us.

As I opened and closed my mouth helplessly, wanting to cry, he reached into his coat and offered me something.

A handkerchief.

“Um… this is, well…”

I couldn’t bring myself to take the handkerchief, nor could I manage a proper excuse. I had nothing to say.

To Linus, who had no way of knowing what a monster core was, I must have looked like some insane woman rummaging through the skull of a dead creature.

Even so, honey-sweet Linus gently took my hand and wiped it clean himself.

After wiping my hands, he even cleaned the monster core and placed it in my palm.

“It seems to be something valuable.”

“No, it’s not that. I mean, this is… well…”

I opened my mouth again, and Linus waited patiently, but once more, I had nothing I could say.

I couldn’t explain anything without starting from, Actually, I’m a former raid team member who possessed this world.

Even if I told him the truth, would Linus believe me?

More likely he’d think I was genuinely crazy.

In all the possession romances I read, characters always hid their identity perfectly and lived just fine, so why was my life like this?

It was the kind of moment where killing monsters back in the dungeons felt like the easier job.

After hesitating and hesitating, I finally dropped my head in defeat. Then a large hand suddenly appeared before me.

A gentle voice followed.

“It looks like the exit is over there.”

I couldn’t sit around forever, so I took Linus’s hand and got up.

When I looked in the direction he pointed, I saw the red-black light of the gate shining faintly in the distance.

Once again, I walked beside Linus, still holding his hand, stealing glances at him.

Even his side profile was dazzling, and he walked quietly without a word.

I couldn’t tell if he had decided to pretend not to notice what I had done or if he was so shocked he didn’t even want to talk to me.

What if he went back and spread rumors that I was a crazy woman who dug through monster heads?

If he would just clearly ask, “Are you insane?” then at least I could deny it somehow, but he said nothing, and that silence was far more agonizing.

While I tormented myself with useless worries, we eventually reached the gate.

There was no way I could walk straight back into the Butterfly Garden, where all the nobles of Arendel were gathered.

When you don’t know what to do, breaking straight through is the answer.

That was the only life lesson I learned during my eight years as a dungeon slave.

I swallowed dryly and tugged on Linus’s sleeve.

“Linus, um… you see…”

“Please speak, Ayrbet.”

“Could you keep what happened just now a secret?”

“If that is what you wish, then I will.”

Linus answered smoothly with a gentle smile.

I let out a relieved breath and was about to bow in gratitude when he continued speaking.

“In return, I have a request.”

“A request…?”

I watched his lips nervously, unable to guess what he might ask.

Linus hesitated for a moment, making me even more anxious, then finally smiled shyly with a boyish expression and asked,

“Would you take a walk with me again another time?”

The unexpected request left me momentarily speechless, but it was a question that required no deliberation at all.

“Yes, I will! I love walks, absolutely!”

I nodded vigorously and answered in a loud voice.

As long as it’s not a dungeon walk, I can do five walks a day.

At this moment, no dog in the world could love walks more than I did.