Chapter 322
The next morning.
Leon woke with an urgent need to pee and stumbled out of bed. He was halfway to the communal washroom downstairs when he nearly collided with someone he recognized.
"Fingri?"
His vision was still blurred with sleep, but the shape in front of him resolved.
"Leon! What a coincidence — you're staying here too?"
Fingri greeted him with his usual friendly smile, though something exhausted lingered at the edges of his eyes.
"Heading to the dungeon?"
Leon took in Fingri's full gear and drew the obvious conclusion.
"Yeah. Getting late — any longer and I'll be waiting in line. Oh, right—"
Fingri remembered something and started digging through his pocket.
"Was actually planning to track you down. Running into you here just saves the trouble."
"What's this?"
Leon rubbed his eyes and squinted at the sheets Fingri pressed into his hands. Dense, crooked handwriting covered the pages — apparently a guide to the Cathedral of the Deep.
Rough. Clearly assembled overnight, in a hurry, with no real organizational logic behind it. Just whatever had crossed Fingri's mind, written down as it occurred to him.
"You wrote all this?"
Leon looked up, genuinely surprised.
Fingri puffed his chest out with visible pride.
"Fought the Cathedral's boss yesterday, actually. Lost by a hair — but today's the day I take it."
He kept going.
"I've read plenty of guides from your team before, so I figure I owe you something back. Wanted to return the favor this time. Don't hold back on using what I learned — put it to work."
Fingri laughed and walked off, radiating confidence, moving fast enough that it almost looked like he was afraid Leon might try to refuse.
"Ah…"
Leon watched his back, mouth half-open around something he wanted to say and ultimately didn't.
There was no way, at this point, to explain that Bone Fang had already cleared the Deacons of the Deep the day before.
Maybe I just… don't tell him. Way too awkward otherwise.
He hoped, genuinely, that Fingri wouldn't stumble onto that information some other way.
Right then, a shaft of morning sunlight hit him through the window and Leon jolted fully awake.
"Oh no — it's already morning?!"
He scrambled to wake Maru and the others.
As dawn broke, the four of them sprinted out of the Royal Capital, dew-covered grass flattening under their boots as they made for the teleportation gate.
Ordinarily, at this hour, most of Roland's Royal Capital would still be asleep — a small handful of early risers the only exception. But since Sein Dungeon's arrival, the daily rhythm of both the capital and the nearby Garden City had reshaped itself entirely around adventurer schedules.
Thin mist drifted across the ground. Leon's group cut through it, and behind them, silhouettes materialized and vanished in the fog — at least a hundred, all adventurers, all up before dawn heading for the gate.
That should count as hardworking, right?
No. Honestly, these were the lazy ones.
Sein Dungeon closed at midnight and reopened at three in the morning. Genuinely committed adventurers didn't even bother returning to the city — they pitched a tent right beside the teleportation gate and slept in shifts.
"Boss, we're finished! Why did we sleep in?!"
Maru clung to Terl's shoulder, the two of them together resembling something between a small zombie riding a large one.
The whole party sprinted at full speed. Watching them run, the adventurers behind started running too — no idea why, but if everyone else was moving, might as well join in.
"I have no idea how we overslept either!"
Leon tucked the short, sturdy Drew under one arm while he and Terl charged forward with long, hard strides.
They'd specifically planned to be first into Irithyll. Leon had even brought a Recording Crystal — the moment they stepped inside, he was taking a picture. Just this once, he was going to indulge a little vanity.
But if this delay let someone else get their own Small Doll and beat them there —
Unacceptable.
Running was the only option left.
By the time they reached the teleportation gate, though, a huge crowd already surrounded it, standing in orderly lines.
Despair crossed Leon's face. He caught a stone with his foot, stumbled, hit the ground, rolled twice, and crashed directly into someone.
"Ah — sorry."
He held his head and got up, apologizing, then opened his eyes to find every single person around him staring.
"?"
I know the faceplant and the rolling was embarrassing, but why the collective staring? Has nobody here ever tripped in public before?
"Are you Leon?" someone asked.
"…Yes."
Something about the way the crowd was looking at him felt off.
"What's going on?"
"So it really is him."
"Can't believe we're seeing him in person."
"So young and this accomplished already."
Question marks piled up behind Leon's eyes.
Reading his confusion, the crowd parted silently, clearing a path straight to the teleportation gate. When he reached it, the reason for the staring finally became obvious.
A stone tablet had appeared beside the gate.
[Cathedral of the Deep — Deacons of the Deep — Leon, Maru, Drew, Terl]
[Catacombs of Carthus — High Lord Wolnir — Leon…]
[Raya Lucaria Academy — Rennala, Queen of the Full Moon (Replica) — Stella]
For a moment Leon couldn't parse what he was looking at.
Then it clicked — the boss names, paired directly with whoever had cleared them first.
A permanent record of first clears.
"Wow, Boss! We're famous again!"
Maru's eyes lit up.
People had originally talked about carving first-clear names onto a stone monument outside the dungeon. But Sein Dungeon kept expanding — different bosses in different regions, cleared by different people, made it genuinely impossible to determine who deserved the "first" title overall. The idea had quietly died from complexity.
And now the dungeon had gone ahead and done it itself.
Leon's happiness peaked. Feeling the collective attention and admiration of the surrounding crowd, he straightened his spine like never before.
From today on, every single person who walks through this gate sees this tablet. Everyone sees my name.
Does this mean I've been written into history?
Hahahaha.
A little theatrical self-satisfaction felt entirely earned in this specific moment.
Then Fingri crossed his mind.
Oh no.
This is about to be very, very awkward.
He scanned the crowd. No sign of Fingri anywhere. Already inside, presumably — which meant he'd definitely already seen the tablet.
Leon felt embarrassed on his behalf now, secondhand.
He probably wouldn't have the nerve to face Fingri again for a while.
And the feeling was probably mutual.
Life was full of these moments, apparently.
Out of respect, the crowd let Leon's group cut to the front of the line.
The feeling of preferential treatment —
"Boss, if you had a tail right now, it'd be wagging so hard it'd fall clean off."
Maru had appointed herself the party's official commentator.
"Mm-hm~"
"Ew — please stop making that noise, it's genuinely disgusting."
Drew and Terl exchanged a glance and shrugged, smiling.
Irithyll of the Boreal Valley belonged to the Eagle Dungeon system, so in theory, more people should be able to access it than any single region of Sein Dungeon proper. That applied only to entry through the capital's teleportation gate, though — anyone hoping to exploit that population advantage to explore other Sein Dungeon regions would run into scaled-up difficulty for the trouble.
Beyond that, Wade hadn't imposed many additional restrictions.
Leon's group wasted no time. They headed straight to Firelink Shrine and used its bonfire to teleport directly to the one outside Wolnir's former arena. Irithyll's skyline unfolded before them again — except this time it wasn't an unreachable city hanging in the distance.
They had actual, legitimate access.
Leon glanced back at Wolnir's arena. A fog gate now sealed the entrance — walking through it meant another boss challenge.
"Eat first."
Leon pulled bright-red fruit, roasted over a fire earlier, from his pack and handed pieces around. Bodies that had been shivering against the cold gradually settled.
[Spicy Pepper]
Eaten raw, produces intense heat. Cooked into a dish, produces a warm, cozy feeling instead — sufficient to resist extreme cold.
Sourced originally from Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Leon had simply skewered them and roasted them over a fire. Eating one bought temporary resistance to Irithyll's cold.
The method had come from ordinary adventurers, in fact — everyone had spent time hunting for a solution to the region's brutal weather in anticipation of eventually reaching it. Two approaches had proven most reliable.
One: Spicy Pepper, from the Gourmet Zone.
Two: a hot drink sold by the Felyne blacksmith in the Forest Zone.
Both warmed the body and held off the cold. The Felyne blacksmith had started stocking miscellaneous items half a month back — Demon Drugs, Shock Traps, and the like. The hot drink had turned out to be one of the most valuable discoveries from that inventory.
Both Spicy Peppers and hot drinks remained fairly scarce on the open market. Leon hadn't managed to stockpile enough of either, so he'd packed torches and other backup supplies too.
"Time to run!"
The moment they set foot on the bridge into Irithyll, everyone broke into a sprint. Nobody looked back — whatever monster was waiting there, crocodile or dog, they had zero interest in finding out or fighting it.
Straight through was the only plan.
A few steps from the city proper, the barrier appeared. Leon raised the Small Doll toward it.
A strange sound effect. Vision blurred briefly and cleared.
They were inside Irithyll.
Behind them, the crocodile Lord of Cinder roared its fury from the bridge, glaring — unable to cross the barrier, reduced to raging helplessly at their backs.
"Bleh, bleh!" Maru stuck her tongue out at it, thoroughly smug.
Leon took in the full sweep of the city ahead of him and felt something well up.
A genuine city. Magnificent, weighted with history, and threaded through with the small evidence of everyday life that once existed here. Standing in it, he could almost picture the people who'd once walked these same streets.
They'd arrived in what looked like a small plaza. From here, two roads split off in opposite directions — a staircase climbing upward on the left, and a narrow path threading between buildings on the right, its destination unclear.
Leon had already decided the target before they'd even entered.
The enormous cathedral at Irithyll's center. With everything he'd learned exploring Sein Dungeon, a structure carrying that much visual weight was almost guaranteed to be hiding a boss or a serious elite.
"Left. Head up, look for the cathedral."
Heavy snow blanketed the Boreal Valley, painting everything in cold, muted tones — the kind of palette that naturally carries sorrow with it. Faint, low music seemed to drift through the air from somewhere unplaceable.
The snowfall cut visibility badly. Leon pulled on a pair of goggles, finally able to keep his eyes open properly.
"Something's wrong!"
The instant his vision cleared, Leon shouted, jumping back and drawing his weapon.
"Enemies!"
From the staircase above, a "crowd" of translucent, pale-blue silhouettes advanced toward them, limb proportions distorted well beyond human — grotesque, in the strictest sense — and fully armed regardless.
Nobody was inclined to underestimate them.
What genuinely unsettled Leon was the count.
Dozens.
Is this seriously our welcome package? My heart cannot take this today.
On the bridge behind them, Sulyvahn's Beast let out a happy roar, seemingly calling them back — the tone unmistakably mocking.
The narrow right-hand path sat silent. But faint black wisps drifted through the air along it, and pairs of floating eyes watched from the shadows, waiting patiently for someone to walk that direction instead.
Unless they retreated entirely, fighting the phantoms was the only path forward.
Leon needed exactly one second to decide.
He charged the phantoms alongside his party.
A real man doesn't run.
Maximum output. Everything into one strike.
Swift Slash.
He surged forward —
And —
"Bang!"
Slammed headfirst into the staircase.
A crisp crack rang out from his neck.
"Huh?"
Everyone stopped dead.
What had they just watched?
Had Leon passed straight through the monsters?
The phantoms hadn't reacted to the adventurers at all — continuing forward in their slow, silent procession, entirely indifferent to the presence of anyone real.
Maru cautiously poked one. Her hand passed through it without resistance.
Confirmed.
These weren't real monsters.
Not "looked like phantoms." Genuine phantoms, purpose-built to terrify anyone approaching.
"Um… I think I can still be healed…"
Leon lay on the ground, neck bent at a distinctly wrong angle, calling weakly for help with the last of his patience for the day.