Declared Dead, Exiled, and Betrayed— Now I Walk Away, but I'll Save One Who Cared - Chapter 11

“Michelle, you saved us.”

“Thank you!”

“That was incredible.”

“I honestly didn’t know how we were going to make it, Michelle.”

Back on the surface, the adventurers crowded around Michelle, expressing their gratitude one after another.

“Sorry I was late. But the stampede isn’t over yet. The Elder Wolf and the Orc King weren’t the real bosses.”

Under normal circumstances, those two would have been powerful enough to serve as the final bosses of a stampede. However, neither of them carried the mark.

Stampedes occur sporadically in dungeons across various regions. There is no fixed pattern for which monster will become the boss, except for one common trait—they always originate from the lower levels.

Additionally, they all possess the mark—a strange black crystal.

Some call it the “Crystal of Malevolence.”

For some reason, every stampede boss drops this item. But neither the Elder Wolf nor the Orc King had.

That meant the stampede wasn’t over yet.

More monsters would be coming.

And they would be even stronger than the ones we had just fought.

The boss of a stampede is the very monster that initiated the event. All other monsters are either under its command or are creatures fleeing in fear of it.

The weight of this realization silenced the adventurers.

Then, one of them muttered, “By the way… where are Jekyll and Claire?”

Upon returning to the surface, we had regrouped with some of the adventurers who had fled. Although their retreat was disgraceful, we couldn’t afford to argue—our forces were too thin.

Some of them, perhaps ashamed, had stayed after seeing Michelle and me return. Others had even re-entered the dungeon to fight.

“Jekyll? That bastard… He had the audacity to keep working as an adventurer here after deliberately triggering that trap and sending Lax plummeting to the lower depths?”

“Huh?”

That’s right—we never finished that conversation. I had asked Michelle to reveal the truth in front of everyone.

But was now really the time?

Did we even have time for this?

“What do you mean? Jekyll told us that Lax was the one who triggered the trap…”

“Hah?! That’s ridiculous!”

“What…?”

The adventurers were visibly shocked.

Perhaps it wasn’t just Michelle’s words—it was the fact that she, usually so quiet, had raised her voice.

“Disarming traps is the thief’s role. That’s why they move ahead of the party, detecting traps before the rest of us. Our formation was always the same: I, as the tank, followed right behind Jekyll, with Lax behind me as the leader and strategist, and Claire at the rear. There’s no way Lax would have stepped on a trap!”

“Now that you mention it…”

“Then why did Lax fall?”

“Because he didn’t! Jekyll was the one who triggered the trap!”

“But Jekyll made it back, and Lax was the one who fell into the pit. Doesn’t that mean Lax was the one caught in the trap?”

“Don’t be ridiculous! Lax used ‘Change’—a spell that allows the user to switch places with someone else. He protected Jekyll and took his place!”

“What?!”

“You’re joking…”

The adventurers were stunned into silence.

But the shock I felt was far greater.

Lax had protected Jekyll?

And after that, Jekyll and my sister had done that to him?

“Lax was the leader. It was instinct for him to protect his party. He even checked behind him to make sure Claire and I were safe before casting the spell.”

“Unbelievable…”

“Still, wasn’t Lax stealing from the bounty rewards? That doesn’t change the fact that he was a terrible person.”

“That’s not true!”

“Huh? Shifa?”

“I wasn’t sure whether I should say this, but now I will. The reason you never received your bounty rewards was because of my sister, Eranda. The only money you got came from a fund that Lax personally set up. This has been happening for three years.”

“What…?”

“Wait, what do you mean, Shifa?”

I didn’t have all the answers yet.

I still didn’t know exactly how the stolen money was spent or where it had gone.

I had spoken in the heat of the moment, and now I had no way to explain further.

“Hold on. We’ll talk about that later. For now, everyone should be recovered. Before more monsters arrive, we need to seal this entrance.”

“Understood!”

The best way to counter a stampede is to eliminate the monsters as they emerge.

The second-best option is to locate and defeat the boss, then destroy the mark—the black crystal it drops.

Once the crystal is broken, the stampeding monsters lose their momentum and retreat.

However, when neither of those options is feasible, the last resort is to seal off the entrance entirely.

This method can sometimes cause the monsters to disperse on their own.

If they have no exit, they may simply scatter and disappear.

But if a particularly strong monster is present, it could break through the barricade and force its way out.

In that case, blocking the entrance only buys time, but any time gained is better than nothing.

Another issue is that once the entrance is sealed, there’s no telling how long it will take for the stampede to dissolve.

In fact, no one can be certain whether the monsters have scattered or if they’re still pounding away at the blockade from the other side.

Which means the dungeon will become unusable.

For a city that thrives on the valuable drop items obtained from dungeon exploration, this is a huge economic loss.

Even so, protecting the people comes first.

At the very least, it buys time.

There’s no other choice.

“If we seal the entrance, it should give Lax time to return. I understand that there are doubts about him, but I’ve been asleep—I don’t know the reasons. Right now, we focus on what needs to be done. Afterward, you can tell me everything.”

“Yes, ma’am!”