Dungeon Survival Chapter 1

New story, Dungeon Survival in a Zombie World. This looks interesting and this may take over Dungeon Gacha Life once I completely translate it. For now this will be on and off.

Story Synopsis :

Both dungeons and zombies arrived at the same time.

As God's voice echoes throughout the world, dungeons begin appearing one after another

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Amidst the chaos in the world, a dungeon appears in my apartment

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As there is no choice but to enter it, I secretly challenge the dungeon without telling anyone around me.

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When I return from the dungeon, the world has been overrun by zombies (I'm here now)

 Chapter 1: The Day the World Started to Change

「Why is this happening!?」

「Uuuuuhhh! Aaaaaaahhhh!」

Having just come home from a certain 『errand』, I had a high school girl whom I was fairly sure I knew pinned down on my bed with my voice cracking with confusion. The girl thrashed against my grip like something less than human, moaning through a mouthful of drool, her eyes rolled back.

Her school uniform hung off her in disarray, with her cute underwear peeking out from her collar and her skirt in a way that made the whole scene look one step from an assault. Taken at face value, this could only look like I was some creep who was drugging a high school girl to have his way with her but I need you to stay calm here.

This was happening inside my own house, where this high school girl had let herself in without permission and I was one bite away from getting my throat torn out.

「Matsuri-chan? If you can, I really need you to tell me what's going on here!」

「Uuuuuuuuh. Aaaaaaaaaaaaah!」

「Doesn't seem to be working, does it!」

I held her down with a strength that was just as far from human as the strength she was using to try and tear free from me. While I racked my brain for some way to restrain her without hurting her, my mind drifted back to earlier. I believe somewhere in those memories, there had to be a clue that would explain all of this.

After all somewhere in this world, where a dungeon could show up out of nowhere and nobody even blinked anymore, some nonsense like this could happen at any moment.

* * *

『I hereby impose a trial, for the further growth of humankind.』

That voice rang out inside the head of every human being on the planet about two weeks ago. At first, the sudden voice sparked every theory under the sun from mass hallucination to divine visitation but before anyone could settle on an answer, the world was forced to change whether it liked it or not.

Dungeons had appeared.

The news thrilled maybe a handful of hardcore web novel fans and pushed the rest of the world further into chaos. Dungeon entrances, portal-like holes to who-knew-where, popped up everywhere with no regard for location. The government sealed them almost instantly, before Japan's otaku crowd could even think about doing anything with them.

Whatever mysterious voice had built these dungeons apparently had some mercy in it, because monsters didn't come pouring out of the holes the moment they appeared. So the holes just got sealed off as they were found and the government told everyone to report any that they came across right away.

The Japanese government was carefully investigating what lay inside these holes but not much of what they learned was making its way to ordinary people. Most ordinary people just waited on further news, stewing over how slow Japan's response was. But not every otaku out there was contented to sit and wait for an official announcement.

They pooled whatever information was leaking out of the less well-behaved, less centrally-controlled countries abroad.

Word had it that registering with the dungeon's system got you a Status. Word also had it that monsters roamed inside these dungeons and defeating them earned points you could spend to level up or 『purchase』 skills. And word had it that leftover points turned into a lump of energy once you left the dungeon, one that might just be enough to spark an energy revolution.

Most people out there could do nothing but cower at the sudden appearance of these holes but people all over the world were diving in headfirst and were thrilled to do it. Once that word got around, wanting to go in ourselves didn't sound so crazy anymore.

In the end, Japan couldn't stay the exception either.

Before long, scattered reports started popping up in Japan too, from people who'd found an unconfirmed hole and jumped straight in. They posted what they found inside, got their accounts deleted but those rose from the ashes like phoenixes anyway. So the information kept spreading, even as it got more and more garbled.

Every single one of them said the same thing: everything that had come out of other countries had been true.

That was about a week ago. And it was right around then that a hole to who-knew-where opened up in my room, the one I lived in alone near campus.

Let me be honest: right about then, I'd already misplaced my law-abiding spirit somewhere.

I took one look at the hole that had suddenly appeared and understood exactly what was going on. Apparently I'd landed myself in one of those 『a dungeon showed up in my house』 situations you sometimes read about in novels. And if I went and honestly reported this like an idiot, I'd almost certainly get kicked out of my home, at least for now.

It's not like I'd been dead set on hiding it from the very start, either.

It's just that the rent was cheap and I got along fine with my landlord next door. And I even played games sometimes with his daughter, a high school girl named Matsuri-chan so this place felt comfortable. Sure, if the government kicked me out they'd probably find me somewhere else to live but they weren't about to hand me some cozy place a ten-minute walk from campus. So the thought of losing this room just because I'd reported things honestly didn't sit right with me.

Of course, it's not like I didn't think about what would happen if I hid it and got caught later. But when I weighed the appeal of having my own private dungeon against the hassle of reporting it, the balance tipped toward keeping quiet.

No, let me be even more honest. Even if I ended up getting chewed out for it later, or worst case, actually arrested, once a dungeon had shown up in my own home, I simply couldn't have chosen not to go in.

I knew it was a reckless thing to do, and that I could die doing it. Worse than that, my own actions might end up triggering the collapse of the world. Even so, if I'd been the kind of person who could calmly file a report and leave it at that, I wouldn't have poured this much of my life into dungeon-crawling RPGs and web novels in the first place.

Once I'd decided to keep it a secret, thinking 『well, guess I'll just go in and see』 was only natural.

The university had just wrapped up its late-term exams and was heading into spring break. Students at this time of year tend to go quiet for a while anyway, off traveling with friends or holed up at home gaming through the break so nobody thinks much of it. Well, these days, with dungeons popping up all over the world, it sounded like people were doing less traveling and more fleeing to the countryside, but still.

Either way, if I decided to spend my break exploring a dungeon in my own house, that wasn't going to strike anyone as strange.

From there, the plan was simple enough. To keep the dungeon hidden, the first thing I worked out was how to cut down on the chances of anyone showing up at my place.

The more contact I had with the outside world, the higher the risk someone would find out about the dungeon in my house. So I told my university friends I was going dark to hole up and game for a while, and had Matsuri-chan pass along the same story to her father, my landlord. That way, even if I never left the house at all, nobody would think it was strange.

After that, I went and bought up every piece of gear and supply of preserved food I could find at the home center and the supermarket. I grabbed a metal bat, a pair of safety boots, a helmet, and rain boots just in case, plus rope, a compass, graph paper, and assorted tools for whatever might come up. On top of that, I bought portable rations and water, along with flashlights and batteries that were just enough to stay under the radar. I picked up a headlamp too.

Anyone who knew what I was actually up to would've taken one look and thought, 『why stock up like this just to play games?』 But once I'd stuffed everything into a big backpack, none of it stood out at a glance.

Besides, with dungeons showing up everywhere, the whole country was already stocking up in case something happened. Society looked normal on the surface but underneath, chaos was already building up.

None of that really registered with me at the time, though. I had bigger things on my mind: the dungeon in my own house.

With all my preparations finally in order, I stepped into the dungeon five days ago. Of course, at first I'd planned it as a day trip.

Go in during the morning, come back at noon, and if I still had energy left over, go back in for the afternoon too. If I didn't, well, the afternoon could just be a debrief with myself.

And then, just as I strode proudly into the hole in space, a voice rang out in my head.

『Welcome to Dungeon No. 18764. No registration data found. Would you like to register?』

That was the moment it really hit me: I'd actually entered a dungeon.

Let's start sorting through my memories from around then.