Turns out he's not dead, of course. MC discovers that one of the supposed "enemies" are just trying to survive. Beastkins I think he calls them and that's where he's been all this time after he was supposedly blown up. We find out he's the survivor's main antagonist as well. LOL He just doesn't want them to kill each other if he can.
@larcek Isn't it the path they already used once? Digging?
And probably they didn't consider it because they got stuck on the ticket solution (and it took a level 999 villager to dig) - but maybe they all together might be strong enough to dig, since they know exactly where to dig and what they are trying to reach. (So they can spend the maximum effort.)
If they take any of the options, even the digging one, someone's efforts will still be in vain. Take the ticket option and someone will be left behind, take the digging option and David just wasted 20,000 gold for nothing.