How to Survive as a Dungeon Manager in Another World

Episode 3 – I Did Good, Right?

I almost died.

No exaggeration, I genuinely almost died.

Had she not grabbed me before I fell.

“Um, are you alright?”

“……”

Would *you* be alright?

I cast a somewhat resentful look, and her gaze darted away, a flush of embarrassment blooming across her face.

“…It was a mistake.”

“Yes, a grave misstep indeed.

Almost met my own end trying to prevent a suicide.”

She murmured, voice low.

“Unfair. When someone comes barreling at you wreathed in magic, you have no choice but to dodge.”

“Who in their right mind chooses to end it all at someone else’s workplace, of all places?”

Indifferent as I may be to others, I’m not one to simply stand by and watch someone commit suicide.

Who was it acting like they were about to plunge any second?

And then has the nerve to dodge when I rush in?

The more I think about it, the more absurd it seems, but I’ll bite my tongue for now.

No good will come of dragging this conversation out.

But still.

“Suicide? Who?”

“Are you really asking?”

“Yes. I am unaware.”

Honestly.

I pointed at her.

“Who else? You, of course.”

“…Me?”

At that moment, she tilted her head.

A look of utter incomprehension on her face.

“Suicide?”

I nodded.

“Me?”

Yes.

You, precisely.

“…?”

Still not understanding, perhaps?

She simply cocked her head to the side, without answering.

“Me? Why?”

“Why are you asking *me* that?”

“……?”

Arms crossed tight, she sank deep into thought.

What in the world occupied her mind?

It was impossible to even guess at the contents of her head.

“…Aha.”

After a stretch of silence, she finally spoke.

A soft giggle escaped her lips, her mouth quirks pulling upwards as if something struck her as terribly amusing.

“So, you came running to me? Afraid I’d die?”

“Took you long enough to figure that out, didn’t it?”

“Sorry. It never even crossed my mind.”

The moment she heard those words, her face blossomed with light.

Her lips parted slightly as she stared, utterly captivated, before another giggle slipped out.

‘Filthy beautiful, isn’t she.’

I couldn’t fathom her reaction, but I wasn’t particularly curious.

I knew full well I wasn’t overly affectionate, nor kind.

Right now, all I could think about was finishing the investigation as quickly as possible, returning to my office-slash-home, and getting some rest.

But.

“You didn’t want me to die.”

…Now that, I hadn’t foreseen.

“Were you worried?”

She padded closer, stopping right before me, a faint smile playing on her lips.

A smile.

A smile, with flushed cheeks…

‘Has she lost it?’

Her gaze, her voice, everything felt subtly different.

The sudden shift in the air was simply absurd.

“You need me?”

“No.”

“Then why did you save me?”

“I believe I made it clear. This is my place of work.”

A tilt.

She inclined her head, just so.

“Workplace?”

“Yeah, I’m, uh, the manager here.”

She still didn’t seem to grasp my meaning.

Well, naturally. A manager for Blackmoore—she probably never considered, never even *heard* of such a thing.

“There was a manager here?”

“Yep.”

“Never heard of it before.”

“Figures. It’s a recent development.”

I was already starting to find this tedious.

The knot in my stomach told me my patience was wearing thin, too.

‘Looks like I prevented a suicide, at least…’

But her expression gave absolutely nothing away.

I needed to make *certain* she got home, before any other foolish ideas took root… and to do that, I needed to find out who she was, where she came from.

‘…Who *is* she?’

I stared intently, studying her.

Frankly, I had no clue.

Trying to deduce her identity from only the original text’s descriptions… the information was just too scant, far too insufficient.

“What’s your name?”

“My name?”

“Yeah, we haven’t even introduced ourselves yet.”

Just her name, and I’d know.

With that thought, I asked.

But then.

“Ludine Carlisle.”

Huh.

Something about that felt… familiar.

No, it was definitely a name lurking somewhere in my memory.

“Ludine… Carlisle…?”

“And you?”

“…Luke Richter.”

Rudine Carlyle.

The second daughter of the Carlyle Earldom, one of the Empire’s three Guardian Houses.

And a b*stard.

But that was only a fragment of her.

I remember it clearly.

Ten years from now.

What she would become, hidden away in Blackmoor.

How could I not?

The seed of doomsday, threatening the continent.

Among them, the third seed, born under the ‘Heavenly Star of Slaughter’.

Which is to say.

“Luke Richter…”

She is a villainess.

“…a striking name.”

And one who will be called the world’s end.

*Thump. Thump.*

The sound of footsteps approached, neither slow nor especially hurried.

“…”

What is this?

They seem to be drawing closer.

“What are you up to now?”

“I’m following you.”

Abruptly.

I stopped dead in my tracks.

“So. Why are you following *me*?”

“Because you’re a benefactor, wouldn’t you say?”

“A benefactor?”

“Aye. You did save me, didn’t you?”

“What does saving you have to do with you tailing me?”

“Is that what matters?”

I turned my head, glaring at her.

And tossed it out like a stone.

“Aye. It matters.”

She chuckled, a cheeky grin spreading across her face as she bent at the waist.

It was the expression of a mischievous, petulant child.

“See, I… ran away from home.”

She spoke the words of a runaway delinquent.

“Ran away from home?”

“Aye. So I have nowhere to go.”

Of course.

But what I was really asking her was why, out of the Empire’s vast expanse, she’d chosen to end up here, of all places, in Blackmore.

“Why here, of all places?”

“I was banished.”

“Banished?”

A nod.

She nodded, her grin widening.

“I made a blunder, you see. So they banished me.”

“To Blackmore?”

“Aye, to Blackmore.”

No, that doesn’t make sense.

Just what sort of blunder could possibly lead to banishment to Blackmore?

Ludine Carlyle was the calamitous villainess who would later be known as the Blood’s End.

The ‘Heavenly Star of Massacre’ she possessed instinctively yearned for blood, ultimately urging her on to carnage.

Her innate nature was, naturally, evil.

And her strength would, by the final chapter, boast a combat power counted among the best in the world.

She was also one of the individuals recruited by the original protagonist in the future.

‘Seems fine for now, though…’

I gazed at her.

Shorter than me, yet a potent magic radiated from her being.

‘Something’s off…’

More than one thing, truth be told.

She had intended to end her life.

But to my knowledge, the character in the original work was certainly alive.

Which meant, she wasn’t supposed to die at this point in the timeline.

…Could it be?

“Hey.”

“Hmm?”

I swallowed hard, then snapped.

“You were really trying to kill yourself?”

“Yeah, I was. Just felt so wretched and pathetic, I thought I’d just plummet and be done with it.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

She smiled, eyes gleaming with a mischievous spark.

A smile utterly devoid of sincerity.

‘Shit, what the hell?’

A headache begins to pound.

The first person I encounter in days since arriving is an apocalyptic villain… surely this is a joke?

“So, you’re still going to follow me around?”

“Yep. Nowhere else to go, is there?”

Judging by how she’s been acting on her own whim since earlier, she has no intention of heeding my words.

And now that I knew her true identity, I couldn’t treat her carelessly.

The truth was, Blackmore was perhaps the only place for her in the entire Empire.

‘I’ll be running into her constantly.’

No, really, I’m going to go insane.

It might have been better not knowing her identity at all.

Then, her voice drifted towards me.

“You’d prefer it if I kept my distance?”

“That’s a rather sharp question.”

Of course, I didn’t bat an eye.

“Yeah. It’s uncomfortable.”

I said, cutting it off clean.

Emphasized with a tone as decisive as coercion.

“I don’t want to drift apart…”

“How much have you even seen of me?”

“You saved me, though.”

“No, why is the conversation going there again?”

My head throbs.

A truly meaningless and foolish war of attrition.

Truthfully, the following itself isn’t that big of a deal.

The problem is her explicit intention for following me.

Whether she’s just following me to find shelter.

Or whether she harbors a darkly hidden ulterior motive.

‘There’s no way for me to know, I suppose.’

But there’s no need to openly show my displeasure.

No reason to create enemies in a place like this.

Gently.

As kindly as possible.

I summoned the depths of my depleted civil servant spirit and smiled.

But even before I could persuade her.

Kuguguguguguung—

Along with a vast vibration, the earth began to tremble.

“!!!”

A faint sign of life was felt beyond the undergrowth.

The sound of something brushing against dry branches tickled my ears.

At first it was just like a shadow, but its form began to reveal itself, little by little.

It was, something reminiscent of a wolf.

“…”

Krrr-!

From the darkness, a pair of brilliant yellow pupils flashed, clotted blood dripping between fangs.

A Phantasm Beast.

A particularly ferocious and aggressive type of magical creature, even among them.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Each step the monstrosity took was punctuated by an earth-shattering roar.

The dirt floor trembled, and the thunderous burst of sound made my ears ring.

“…Tch.”

Not exactly a surprise.

Given the location, the emergence of a Phantasm Beast wasn’t anything out of the ordinary.

…Though, in the case of a magical beast, its viciousness meant it was a clear and present menace that had to be eliminated upon encounter.

I knew I’d run into one eventually, but I hadn’t expected it so soon.

Lost in thought, I turned my head toward Ludine.

‘What’s with her now?’

She was staring blankly at the enemy before us.

Apathetic eyes.

So devoid of emotion, it was hard to believe she was even human.

Just as I was about to cautiously call out her name.

“———”

The corner of Ludine’s mouth twisted violently.

But the twist wasn’t a simple smile.

It was a grotesque distortion.

And then.

I saw it.

Something began to stir within her inky black eyes.

“!!!”

It was blood.

Blood redder than anything, chilling, and dark.

It welled up within her eyes like a crimson bloom, slowly, agonizingly opening.

She fidgeted with the dagger clutched in her right hand.

And then.

— *Whirr*.

Her raised right hand slices through the empty air in a vertical arc.

Immediately after.

*Sskrrr—*

A massive, vertical line is etched into the air.

As if space itself were cleaved, light and shadow misalign, creating a fault line.

“…What is this?”

*Kreeeee—!!*

Sparks erupt.

Simultaneously, a noise that tears at space itself fills the air.

The spatial fault line, the misaligned light and shadow, begins to compress around the etched line.

And then.

“!!!”

*Fshwack—!!*

At the same moment, an invisible blade cleaves the demon in two.

No, to be precise, it bisects it.

From the crown of its head to the tips of its toes.

It was an impossibly clean, unreal strike.

“…”

One half of the demon’s body slowly slides, collapsing.

The cross-section was as clean as if a sponge had been hollowed out.

What on earth did I just witness?

As I blinked stupidly, trying to make sense of it all…

“How was it?”

Ludine grinned, her face splattered with demon blood.

It was as if—

“Did I do well?”

An innocent, almost childlike smile.