bookworm

What a pickle this is. Now that I know all this, I really must reconsider our approach to this Rimuru.”
The demon lord Rimuru was a greater threat than Gadora pictured. What was the correct way to address this? Gadora had his friend betrayed and killed; he wouldn’t stop his crusade against Luminism now. But now everybody in the Seven Days Clergy—the most urgent target of his revenge—was already dead.
Now there was no reason to advocate for the West’s fall so passionately. Gadora and the Empire worked together because they had common goals…and if that was no longer on the table, Gadora had no real obligation to the Empire.
…No. There is still another. The god, the one at the top—the demon lord Luminus remains.
His friend’s belief in their god killed him. There was no way a demon lord borrowing the name of a deity could be allowed to stay alive. The realization made Gadora renew his drive to soldier on.
Or it made him try to.
“Sir Gadora, forgive me if I am out of line, but I feel that stopping this campaign is your best choice.”
“Hohh?”
But the sight of Razen looking concerned for him made Gadora doubt his resolve all over again.
“Even now, my master, I see myself as nothing more than your faithful servant. However, I have now devoted even more of my loyalties to another. And if you are going to wage war against his country, it will force me to become your enemy as well.”
“You don’t mean Rimuru…?”
“No. It is Sir Diablo, one of many serving him, who is my master now.”
This more than surprised Gadora a bit. Razen was his apprentice, one he was quite proud of, and hearing him serve someone who himself served a demon lord was a hard pill to swallow.
“I hate to interject,” Saare said without prompting, “but I’m gonna take this opportunity to say something. Diablo’s the guy…um, I mean, the demon who defeated me.”
The demon who was stronger than me? I have a hard time believing it, but if Razen serves him now, I can’t discount it as a lie…
He still didn’t think he’d lose, but Gadora made sure to keep the name Diablo in his mind.
“And let me tell you this as well, Sir Gadora,” added Razen. “Sir Diablo is one of the old demons.”
“I’d imagine so. If you lost to him, he’d have to be an Ancient. Maybe even a Prehistoric—a rare breed indeed.”
If he was both that and a named creature, his powers could easily surpass a demon lord’s.
“No, nothing of that level,” said Razen. “He is far, far above that—”
“He said he was a Demon Peer,” Saare cut in.
“That…?!”
That’s ridiculous, Gadora almost shouted. Demons could only evolve up to a set level—that was a hard rule, and as far as he knew, only one demon had ever defied it. This Arch Demon found a way to enhance himself up to Demon Peer, and it made him the most powerful, most villainous of all demon lords—Guy Crimson, the Lord of Darkness.
“Sir Gadora, the life span of my master, Sir Diablo, is not a matter up for debate. I trust you understand what I mean by that?”
Razen’s words seemed a planet away to Gadora. He couldn’t believe it; he didn’t want to believe it.
“A—a Primal?” he mumbled.
“Yes.”
The affirmation cruelly reached his ears. He tried to calm his heart as he discerned how truthful this was.
There certainly seemed to be ample reason to doubt Razen. If a Primal Demon had taken physical form anew, it wouldn’t be strange at all to see one reborn as a Demon Peer. If Razen was being truthful, it’d mean a massive rewrite of the Empire’s campaign. Looking at Blanc, the Original White, and the headaches she’d caused the Empire, there was no need to explain just how dreadful a threat this was.
But…wait a moment. If a Primal has acquired a physical body, why hasn’t any tragedy ensued?
Gadora had composed himself now. But even he knew the question wasn’t important.
Now hold on just one minute. Does it even matter whether Diablo’s a Primal? He’s certainly taken Razen as his disciple—that much is obvious—and that could very well mean he’s at least a Demon Peer already…
Then, hearing Yohm and the others chat among themselves, he froze.
“Yeah, but isn’t that Sir Diablo guy the butler to Rimuru or somethin’ like that? Like, when I went to the opening ceremony for our railroad earlier, I heard he didn’t want to deal with Rimuru’s personal stuff on his own any longer, so he scouted some friends and brought ’em on board.”
“Oh yeah, I caught sight of one of ’em! Rimuru made her his special diplomatic envoy, so we met at the Council. She’s got this snow-white hair, these deep-red eyes… Like, crazy hot.”
Gadora sank weakly into his seat.
It—it can’t be! Those are the exact physical traits of Blanc…
It was looking more and more like the truth, but to Gadora, it was nothing but a nightmare. He looked at Razen, currently sagely nodding to himself.
“This is all true?”
“I would never lie to you, my master.”
Then Gadora realized something. Razen and his cohorts were being truthful. And it was purely out of concern for Gadora’s health that they urged him to stop this war.
“It’s that bad?”
Gadora’s question was greeted with silent nods across the room. And when he saw this, a new thought made the blood drain from his face.
Ah! Shinji’s group might already be out on the field!
The Tempestian capital of Rimuru was teeming with people. It was a real metropolis now, experiencing a major boom—and even to otherworlders like Shinji and his friends, there was nothing rustic and unsophisticated about it. The capital in the province of Nasca wasn’t so bad, but the surrounding towns still had a barnyard-animal smell to them. Nothing so unpleasant here. It was an incredible surprise.
“I thought they razed this whole city and left nothing but a gate in place. Guess that was wrong, huh?” said Shinji; Marc and Zhen responded in kind.
“I doubt it, man. Maybe they can flip it on or off, or maybe our agents saw an illusion or something.”
“…We must remain on guard.”
The trio looked at one another and braced themselves once more.
They had been transported here via the elemental magic Warp Portal by Kagali, who had visited Tempest before. She left before very long, but they were due to meet Gadora here later, so his magic would drive their return trip. Until then, they were ordered to investigate as much as they could without exposing themselves to danger—and Shinji’s band, being no fools, intended to stick to that.
“Ms. Kagali sure was pretty, huh?”
“Whoa, Shinji, you wanna get dumped?”
“Dumped? I’d need a girlfriend first. It’d make for a more exciting life if I had one, but…”
“Huh?”
“…Forget it, Marc. He’s too slow on the uptake.”
Marc and Zhen shrugged at the whining Shinji. As they continued entertaining each other, they reached the town entrance and underwent the entry inspection. They had Free Guild ID cards provided by Yuuki, so the process went surprisingly fast—a basic rundown, and they were on their way.
So they procured an inn, then started touring around town on their “intelligence-gathering” mission. It was all quite a surprise.
As otherworlders, they enjoyed great physical strength and generally good treatment wherever they went. This, however, didn’t mean they did whatever they wanted, the way the demon lord Rimuru did, and they probably couldn’t anyway. Yuuki had worked hard to improve their diets and living environments in general, and that was starting to trickle down across the Empire, but this city was well beyond that point.
Shinji knew a fair bit about this already, so he was more amazed than surprised. There was takoyaki, okonomiyaki, yakisoba…even desserts like crepes and cakes. They also found places offering incredibly high-end meals, making them wonder how they ever tracked down the ingredients. From street stalls and cafés to restaurants and fine dining, Tempest had it all. Everyone seemed so passionate about their food, and so much of it re-created the tastes and aromas of their old world. The locals must’ve been flummoxed at first, but now they were used to all the variety. Shinji, for his part, cried literal tears of joy when he saw the curry rice on offer at one eatery.
Even the bathrooms were first-rate. And their inn was nice and comfy, too—complete with an open-air bath, added as entertainment for the masses.
“Hey, you guys mind if I live here?” said Marc. “Like, how about we just don’t go back to the Empire?”
“Whoa!”
“Uh, my bad… I’m just kidding. Don’t get so angry, Shinji!”
“I’m not angry, I’m just…like, seriously ready to consider it and stuff.”
“…I want to live here, too.”
They all exchanged glances, then sighs. Until now, they thought the Empire was the world, running at the bleeding edge of civilization. Now that they knew about Tempest, they realized how wrong they were. The town was alive with energy; there was tons of good stuff to eat. It was comfortable to live in, it seemed like a hub for entertainment and civilization, and new games and diversions were being invented every day. These games were all very familiar from their original world, and after the harsh environment they had been living in, such pleasures left the trio feeling nostalgic. The Empire had culture and entertainment of its own, but that was strictly for the nobility. It wasn’t as free as this town, and it wasn’t priced low enough for common people.
Meanwhile, look at this place.
“No, no, no, we really can’t…”
“Yeah. I’m sure Yuuki would be pissed, and I’d be scared of Lord Gadora, too. There’s about to be a war, besides…”
“…Desertion’s punishable by firing squad.”
They were right. War was fast approaching. This town was a clear target, incapable of avoiding the storm of battle. The three knew all about the Empire’s military might, and thus it hardly seemed worth the time to consider Tempest’s chances against their enemy.
So without anything else to do, Shinji and his friends gave up on the idea—and then, following their orders to the letter, they began challenging the labyrinth.
………
……
…
“Y’know,” Shinji began, “they said the Hero Masayuki just beat Floor 50, but this is actually pretty damn easy, huh?”
“Ha-ha!” Marc laughed. “Of course it is! Remember what Yuuki told us? He said Masayuki wasn’t actually anything that special.”
“…But you can’t play down his skill,” Zhen pointed out.
“Yeah, all the more reason he was super-careful, I bet. It took him over half a year, after all.”
This lively chat between Shinji and his pals took place as they advanced through Floor 40. They began their journey through the Dungeon on high alert for anything in their way, but the intensity was starting to wear off. It was just too easy.
Before going in, they gathered as much intel as they could to avoid needless danger, but as the trio saw it, this was like a game packed with tons and tons of side quests and bonus content. Zhen grew up without much in the way of video games, but Shinji and Marc were hard-core gamers—Shinji was a big fan of RPGs in particular, finding time between research stints in college to play through the big franchise titles.
Pooling their knowledge, the trio concluded that this Dungeon was a huge joke. Whichever sadistic maniac designed it was clearly out to destroy the challengers—but if you were familiar with video game tropes, a lot about it was familiar. This held especially true in one way—Zhen Liuxing was gifted at detecting traps, and with his advice, they could find them all with surprising accuracy. And in this labyrinth, if you could deal with the traps, the monsters just weren’t all that strong.
“I bet a lot of challengers had trouble getting far in this just because it’s too new. Like, nobody’s got the right knowledge for it.”
“Yeah. I called it an obstacle course earlier, but that still sounds pretty right to me. Once you understand how the creator’s twisted, evil mind works, it’s actually pretty doable.”
“…And we don’t die, either.”
They found out about the Resurrection Bracelet in their prior research. The admission desk even gave them one for free. With it on, if you died in the Dungeon, you’d be warped back to the front door safe and sound. When they heard about this, Shinji’s team exchanged quizzical stares. It was really hard to figure out how to take this. Here was this dead-serious world they lived in, and now someone had created this wacky comedy world inside it.
Now the main issue they faced was not knowing just how deep the Dungeon went. They could keep advancing all they wanted, but they could only hold so much food at once. Shinji wasn’t sure how best to prepare for this, but over at admission, the guy at the desk told them about something unexpected.
“Oh yeah, no worries about that. When you reach a stairway, you’ll see an entrance to the inn. It’ll cost you money, but you can stay in there all you want. You actually don’t have to worry about food that much, either. Sir Rimuru said all refreshments are ‘under three hundred yen’—his words, not mine. I dunno what he meant by yen, but I’m sure it’s something important, you know? Oh, and there are merchant traders stationed at the inn, too, and they’ll buy anything you find but don’t need.”
They literally thought of everything. Shinji cared a lot more about buying actual food than just light refreshments, but he didn’t want to shout that out and be accused of insulting the leader of Tempest, so he kept that frustration to himself.
………
……
…
It had now been a week since they began navigating the labyrinth. The three of them were at a room in the inn, relaxing as they gazed at the booty they won.
“…You know, is it me, or are we making a ton of money the past few days? And this inn’s supposed to be a bare-bones joint, but it’s actually pretty nice. Cheap, too. And the money from the equipment we don’t need has to be really adding up now, huh?”
Marc was clearly enjoying himself.
Zhen lifted his head up a bit at this, a little curious. Shinji, in response, took a roll of gold coins out of his bag, their golden shine attracting the eyes of everyone in the room. This wasn’t just the money they earned for selling items from monsters and chests; between that and the reward money for bounty hunts and the like, they had obtained several dozen gold coins and even one stellar. It was a laughably high pay scale.
“Yeah, we’ve saved up quite a bit. And from what I’ve heard since, not even the frontline dungeon runners have made it past Floor 50 yet. Only Masayuki’s party has reached that point, so that makes us number two.”
Even Masayuki and his team were reportedly stalled at Floor 60 right then, and everyone else was getting blocked by the boss monster on Floor 40. Thanks to that, Shinji’s party had won the Dungeon Party of the Month award.
“Oh yeah, that’s where that tempest serpent is, right? He was pretty strong, but still, y’know, nothing we couldn’t handle.”
The tempest serpent was an A-minus foe in rank, one that’d give even seasoned adventurers fits. Its dangerous ranged-breath attack was a menace in cramped quarters. There was nowhere to run, so you had to face up to the monster—but the snake’s body was tough as metal, and if he coiled it around you, it was all over. You’d normally want to be on high guard against it, but Shinji’s team managed to defeat it without too much of a fuss.
What amazed them wasn’t the monster’s strength but what they obtained after defeating him.
“So what’s with this weapon? The one with a slot in it? Because it got appraised for this crazy high price…”
So high, Shinji noted, that he was too afraid to sell it.
These weapons with slots began to appear around Floor 40, and they were like nothing they had seen in the Empire, so Shinji’s party couldn’t understand the premium. They could sell them for a high price, but they honestly weren’t sure whether they should.
“These recessed slots, though… My appraisal magic didn’t turn up anything. Maybe we better keep ’em until Lord Gadora shows up.”
“Yeah, we didn’t find any until Floor 40, so…”
“…Right, yeah. We’ve only seen them in boss chambers and as drops from the stronger monsters around Floor 50.”
“Y’know, though, we saw them around town, too, didn’t we? They were pretty rare, but they’re circulating. People say there’s a tiny chance you’ll find them in chests from Floor 30 on.”
“Yeah. And it’s clearly a good make, but is it really worth those prices?”
“…Is there some secret to them?”
“I’d guess so. The merchants don’t tell us anything, either. They just kinda smile at us.”
“That is so suspicious. We better not pull the trigger until the old man shows up. But hey, look at this thing!”
Marc picked up his Minos Bardiche pole ax and showed it off to his friends. It gleamed a beautiful silver, an exquisite showpiece made of mithril. This put it in the realm of Unique weapons; they’d picked it up from a treasure chest guarded by the Floor 50 guardian.
“This is a Unique, y’know? You don’t even see these in the Empire too much.”
He must’ve liked it a lot. His companions wondered if he’d start hugging the pole ax and bringing it to bed with him. But it was a nice piece. Becoming an Imperial Guardian granted you access to a set of Legend-class gear, but any officers and enlistees below that got normal, sturdy, non-magical equipment. Unique gear was hard to find even for career officers, so Marc could be excused for his excitement.
“Yeah, Yuuki told me the Empire mass-produces its weapons, so… And we hardly even get to see it, but supposedly the Legend-class gear is all identical.”
“…Is that even possible?”
Zhen was asking Shinji, in essence, whether it was possible to manufacture Legend gear on any kind of scale. Logically, it was said to be unthinkable.
“That’s kinda jumping the gun, isn’t it, Shinji? Just because it all looks the same doesn’t mean there’s a factory or something.”
Marc laughed off Shinji’s idea, perhaps a bit miffed the subject was turning away from his new prize. If there was a factory, he thought it’d lower the value of the Unique in his hand.
“Well, you couldn’t manufacture these any normal way. Lord Gadora told us how hard it is to produce a lot of magisteel at once, even. But if you can keep things under the right conditions, it’s not impossible.”
“…The right conditions?”
“Yeah. Basically, you need someplace with a super-high concentration of magicules. Like, enough that it’d instantly kill most people. Even if you’re B rank, it’d kill you given enough time—if you’re above an A rank, all it’ll do is make you really sick. So if you can put a sword or armor in there for a long time—like, hundreds or thousands of years—those are the right conditions to make it evolve. Then, once the equipment finds an owner it accepts, it’ll start doing its own unique evolution.”
“Oh, like you’ll find that kinda place.”
“…Yeah, I doubt you would, either.”
“Right? But Yuuki and Lord Gadora said they exist.”
“…Okay. But so what if it’s just ‘possible’?”
“Well, you know, I’m starting to wonder if this bardiche was mass-produced, too…”
“No way.”
“You wouldn’t think, would you? But there’s a slot in this ax. Have you ever seen one of these out in the wild?”
“No. What’s with that anyway?”
“…It’s a pretty weapon. Kind of eerily shaped, but…”
Shinji wasn’t out to complain. He wasn’t jealous of the overjoyed Marc. Neither he nor Zhen could wield large weapons the size of bardiches anyway. But:
“But the way they’re just giving these weapons away to people… Is it me, or is this nation more insanely powerful than we thought?”
Marc and Zhen fell silent. They were feeling the same way—after he won that Minos Bardiche, Marc was even worried they’d confiscate it at the front counter. They knew the rules dictated that anything you found in the labyrinth belonged to the challenger—but a weapon this strong? Would a nation really allow you to waltz out the door with it?
If Tempest took it away, Marc and his friends were prepared to accept that. They were beholden to Tempest at the moment, and they had to respect the nation’s decisions. That’s something that applied anywhere. Besides, they were technically spies, and no spy would go out of their way to stir up trouble.
But the reception they got was beyond any expectation. All the employees in the front-desk area applauded them, shouting “Congratulations!” in unison. Even more astoundingly, they gave the party another cash bonus. The party didn’t really need any more evidence by this point—Tempest really was a crazy land.
“And even outside of the weapons, this whole nation’s nuts, isn’t it?”
“It’s a shock. I mean, we could earn a ton more money just beating this Dungeon, and it’d be more fun that way, too. Like, do we really stand to lose anything? If you’re a wimp, it’d be hard to make a living off this, but with us…”
“No, Marc. Remember what Zhen said about desertion?”
“…Firing squad.”
“…Right, yeah, there is that. But still, I think it’d be so much more fun to live here.”
Shinji and Zhen nodded at Marc’s words. But reality didn’t work that way. It was certainly an inviting idea, but they couldn’t go pursuing this pipe dream all day.
“And you know the war’s gonna wreck this place anyway.”
“…Yeah. I mean, if Tempest does win, I’ll gladly switch sides. But what kinda nation’s gonna accept a deserter and a traitor, y’know?”
“…I don’t want to lose everything.”
They all sighed, figuratively abandoning their sweet dreams.
It was time to mentally switch gears, and soon, their thoughts shifted to the next day’s dungeon hacking.
“Okay, so we’re gonna head for Floor 51 tomorrow. That point on, people call the Haven of the Dead. Marc’s Minos Bardiche is made from mithril with the holy attribute, so it oughtta perform well against undead and ghosts and stuff.”
“Yeah, that’s the other weird thing, y’know? This whole place really is set up like a video game. Like, having the boss guard the one key thing for tackling the next section…”
“…And the challenge amps up step by step.”
Shinji picked up on this as well. He was the biggest RPG player in the group, so it occurred to him long before anyone brought it up. But he tried to banish the thought. It was just too creepy, because a lot of it was so familiar. And if anything, the boss monsters stationed every tenth level were getting harder way fast.
First was the B-rank black spider, then the B-plus evil centipede. Floor 30 featured a B-plus ogre lord leading a small force of minions working together, making it more than a test of brute strength—this was a choke point for many parties. Floor 40 had an A-minus tempest serpent, and finally, Floor 50 had Bovix, a talking magic-born tauroid. By this point, you were now talking about monsters who maybe showed up once every hundred years—a Hazard, to use the danger level Yuuki devised, which made it an A ranker. Certainly, Bovix was a menace, the kind of magic-born you’d expect to be serving a demon lord…and while Shinji’s team had trouble, they still beat him. If they were really serious, chances were just one of them could’ve done it—besides, since you didn’t die in the labyrinth, you had the freedom to try some pretty reckless tactics.
“Right, if a monster that class is guarding Floor 50, I can only guess that the next one’s gonna be that much stronger.”
“…Might even be the last battle.”
Marc agreed with Shinji, Zhen brooding hard over the future. Things had gone smoothly up to now, but all three agreed that it’d turn into an uphill battle pretty quick.
“I think Marc’s gonna remain the key to our offense. You got a Unique with special buffs, so let’s just see how far it’ll take us.”
“…Yeah.”
“And I don’t think you can collect many more monsters this powerful, either. I think Floor 60 is the bottom of this thing, but if it’s not, that’s just scary.”
“Oh, no way,” said Shinji—but he’d heard ominous rumors. Rumors he had no intention of telling Marc or Zhen. He was sure it’d lower their morale if they heard this labyrinth might actually have a hundred floors.
It’s crazy, he concluded. The next boss was concerning for him, but he wasn’t going to get worked up about it. He figured they would win at the end of it—they couldn’t die, after all—but it was likely to be a long, hard ordeal.
“But hey, we can’t die either way. Let’s just try to keep our guard up.”
Marc and Zhen nodded at this. Their goal was the very bottom—and to find out about the top-secret research facility there. Once they went over everything a final time, they retired for the night.
Three days passed. After conquering a poisonous swamp and a corroded wasteland, Shinji’s team finally discovered the stairs to Floor 59. They were a short trip down to Floor 60 and that much closer to the boss’s chamber. It had taken a week to reach Floor 50, but nearly half that again to get to 60. The size of each floor was shrinking, but the difficulty had ratcheted up to overdrive.
“You guys ready for this?”
“Yep.”
“…Yeah.”
They had rested up the previous night. They were fully prepared, ready to take the challenge.
“So they say the boss here is another guardian type, like on Floor 50. We can expect another sentient monster.”
“Right. A lot more trouble than the Death Lord yesterday.”
“…Gotta go all out from the start.”
As long as they kept their cool, this boss would go down like the others—all three thought so as they quietly nodded. Then, ever so carefully, they opened the door and swarmed inside.
Going back a little bit…
I was in my chamber, debating with myself over our surveillance system.
Right then, Soei’s and Moss’s agents were on standby at important points across the Forest of Jura. We were also covering the entire coastline from Farminus to northern Englesia—and even the mountain peaks in between. But despite that, I was still anxious about our intelligence gathering.
For me, the time lag was the scariest thing. Our agents were spread out in teams of two, but there was every chance they could both be killed at once. If so, all intelligence would cease from that location. I’d hate to lose those people, but the resulting delay in transmission could put the entire nation in danger. I warned Soei about this in no uncertain terms.
Even if our monitors were found, whether they were killed or not, they might be forced into battle. That, again, would cause delays, so I was feeling around for a way they could work while keeping themselves safer. As I did, I stumbled upon the idea of using magic to surveil our lands. Distant-view magic like this existed in the shamanistic family, but it turned out to be kind of tough to wrangle—all you could really do was view a target, and it didn’t give you too much information about them. It could also focus only on a single point, so you had to cast the spell again to watch somewhere else. This took valuable time, and your target could slip away in the meantime—the magic just wasn’t flexible enough for the job. Besides, if the target put up a magical barrier, the distant-view spell would simply bounce off it and dissipate.
Thus, I concluded, the spell was useless since you couldn’t observe foes above a certain level of power with it. But I had another idea—the physical magic Megiddo.
Megiddo uses collected water droplets as a lens to focus sunlight on a single point. Reworking this magic, I thought, could make it work as a kind of surveillance spell. For example, what if we floated up balls of water across the land that reflected the area below it? If we could transcribe that somehow, we could easily check on faraway scenery. If not, perhaps we could project an image through a high-altitude lens, expanding and broadcasting the signal through a monitor. We’d need a combination of a telescopic lens, photograph device, and a system for transmitting the information. Essentially, it was like building a monitoring satellite entirely with magic.
Making all the required core magic work seemed like a hassle, but Raphael stated that with physical magic, spirit magic, and Dominate Space, it’d be possible to implement. After that, I just needed to work out the little details with Raphael—and with that, I had the complete magic I wanted.
Once this monitoring system was finished, it’ll be a lot easier to gather information. It was safe, reliable, collected a massive amount of data at once, and made it a breeze to keep up with enemy movements, no matter what they did. You might be wondering why I was wasting time during such a busy period with this, but this was actually really important. “Those who control information control the world,” as they say, so I was sure I could control a war with it, too.
During the Russo-Japanese War, Admiral Heihachiro Togo commanded his naval forces as it destroyed Russia’s Baltic fleet in the Sea of Japan. In this fight, the key question for Togo was whether he’d have a chance to encounter the enemy fleet. He had to guess at where he’d intercept the enemy and be in position to engage them; if he messed that up, the battle never would’ve been fought, and Japan likely would’ve lost the war.
That, I felt, was similar to my current situation. If I spread my forces too thinly, there was a good chance I’d lose, given how much I was outnumbered to start with. Victory came down to whether I could read the Empire’s moves and concentrate our forces at the most suitable point of land. Meanwhile, if the Empire spread itself too thin, I could work out my plans in further detail and destroy every pocket of resistance. But if I wanted to work the battle to my advantage like that, and (most of all) if I wanted to be sure of victory, I absolutely had to complete this monitoring magic.
…Which, you know, I tried to build up the drama there, but we actually had a test setup already complete. What I was asking Raphael for now was extra frills—the little things that’d make it easier to use.
What? Why don’t I do it myself? Don’t be silly. Raphael is my skill, so by anybody’s definition, I’m putting in all the hard work.
You know what? If you put it that way, I think I’ve been overworking myself a little. I think I’ll take a quick rest to soothe my fatigue.
I had my first cupful of Shuna’s tea in a while, savoring the moment.
As I relaxed, wondering if I should give my completed monitoring magic a shot—
(Sir Rimuru, I have an urgent report for you!!)
—Beretta’s strained voice came in through a Thought Communication.
………
……
…
He had quite a surprise for me. It turned out a second party had made it past Floor 50.
The first one, it goes without saying, was led by Masayuki. They were taking a break from the Dungeon as we prepared for war, but they made it as far as Floor 59—and thanks to them, our labyrinth was running a brisk business. Tons of challengers used our services on a daily basis, filling up our coffers—and they got a lot out of it, too, of course.
Over the past year, our regular customers had really been stepping up their game. Little by little, we had begun to see more people take on levels in the 30s. Some were coming up with strategies that took advantage of the “no death” rule, such as “zombie attacks” (continually dying and coming back to fight the enemy again) and “sacrifice runs” (leaving someone behind to get preyed upon as the rest of the party forged onward).
Once you were into the 30s, though, you had more than just unfamiliar insta-kill traps to deal with. The monsters there began working in teams, and gimmicky tactics weren’t as effective any longer. But some of our dungeon runners really were up to the challenge. Parties taking a strictly conventional approach still struggled to keep up, but they were honing their skills, and their equipment was improving by leaps and bounds, too. That, in turn, helped to strengthen them further. It’s funny what your body can get used to—some runners began to develop instincts for traps, dodging them no matter how vicious they were.
Thanks to all that, the front-running parties had started reaching the boss monster on Floor 40…but as of now, that was the last stop for most. The monster they faced there was a tempest serpent, an A-minus creature. This was the very same black snake I first ran into way back when, packing an effective breath attack that just annihilated parties. Many of them got destroyed, lost all their equipment, and tearfully trudged into the shops to buy more. We’d be kind enough to lend them Tempest-brand equipment and the like—on a “you break it, you bought it” policy, of course, and that turned into another nice income stream.
So yeah—thanks, black snake! That little reptile was great for shaking our challengers down for all the profit they made up to that point. He was such a wonderful, reliable, moneymaking guardian for us…but ohhh, death should not have taken thee, black snake!
That—and even our guardian on Floor 50 got done in. With Masayuki’s party, we were admittedly cheating a little bit, so this new party must have been real legit. We had to award them the bounty as well, but it was more than worth it for all the free advertising. The entire labyrinth lit up again upon the birth of a new set of heroes, and now things seemed busier than ever before.
Floor 50 was defended by a pair of sentient magic-born, Bovix the tauroid and Equix the equinoid, who took turns serving as the boss. I ordered them to the job, and neither was a pushover at all, so seeing someone pull off the upset amazed me. After all, if nobody was around to challenge them, they usually sparred each other, helping add more creativity to their battle approach. I was witnessing some real intelligent strategy in their fights now—they weren’t just big brutes any longer. What’s more, they had become best friends, no longer snapping at each other all the time.
This second party’s success reminded me that I put a frankly pretty awesome prize in place for beating Floor 50. You only got it the first time you beat the boss, but it was a guaranteed drop from the treasure chest—one item, picked at random, from the Unique-class Minos series. I named this after the mythical labyrinth-guarding minotaur, and they were both completely insane-looking and stupidly powerful. In the weapons department, we offered the Minos Bardiche and the Minos Trident. There was no shield, and armor filled out the rest of the list. I figured it’d be a while longer before someone made it this far, so I don’t think I had more than, like, ten complete sets made yet—but this was definitely top-of-the-line gear, a team effort crafted by the best of Kurobe’s apprentices.
Losing one of them was a problem, but what impressed me more was this party’s fighting skill. Bovix and Equix got a lot stronger when I named them, and if they managed to beat one of them, I’d honestly wanna recruit them for our nation. If they said no, well, they might be our enemy someday, and that would kinda suck, so I planned to keep them under surveillance.
That was why I left instructions to inform me immediately if Bovix or Equix ate it, and that’s what I got from Beretta just then.
………
……
…
(Who are they?)
(The winning team is a party of three people, all possessing unique skills.)
Maybe I know them?
It turns out I didn’t.
So here we had a set of just three guys, unique skill users, who beat Bovix…and they were pretty brand-new to the Dungeon, too, not veterans at all. In times of peace, I’d just sit back and marvel, but we were at war’s eve right then, and in my eyes, they were likely spies picking at low-hanging fruit.
We needed more intel on them badly, so I delayed my magic-monitor practice and headed for the command room inside the labyrinth.
I found Ramiris and Veldora already there.
Deeno and Vester had the day off, apparently. Vester really had been looking haggard lately (Deeno, not so much), so I wanted him to get as much rest as he could. Ramiris and Veldora, meanwhile, couldn’t have been better. I’m not sure they even knew how to be tired. They never stopped—like children, if something had their attention, they just kept going.
“Well, look who’s here! Hello, Commander!” chirped Ramiris. “No changes to report yet!”
No changes to what? Ah well. I’m sure she’s just playing navy captain in her mind.
I looked at the large screen set up in the room. It currently showed three young men, the group who had been storming through the labyrinth.
Their fighting style, I have to say, was extremely unique. One of them seemed to be grabbing the air itself, gathering and throwing it with intense force. Maybe some kind of air-compression blast? Definitely not something a normal person could pull off. The man was large, firmly built, with brown hair and a chiseled face, and he had on a tank top and jeans. You read that right: a tank top and jeans. Definitely otherworlder fashion, I thought.
Now for the other two. One was small, skinny, and mostly hidden inside a large black robe. The other was a young man wearing chain mail with a lab coat over it. Yes, a lab coat—the kind you see in labs and hospitals, although not at all in this world. His face suggested he was Asian—and almost certainly Japanese. I couldn’t guess about the dude in the robe, but Lab Coat and Tank Top sure seemed like otherworlders to me.
Regardless, they were still fighting as I watched on-screen. They were facing a pretty tough challenge—a pack of six death wolves, lunging at them faster than a normal person could respond. They must have calculated that remaining far away would leave them open to attack with no way to respond. Once you plunged below Floor 50, even the minion-level foes had real intelligence.
A death wolf, by the way, was a B-plus monster, and that was for a single one of them. Six at once was an extremely dangerous encounter—and being a ghost type, they were impervious to melee attacks outside of holy or magic weapons. Their bodies were made entirely of magicules, so even if you sent them flying, they’d just regenerate themselves and jump right back in. Unless you had a good way to handle them, you couldn’t win—show any weakness for a moment, and you’d be torn apart.
But:
“Don’t mess with us, you stupid mutts! Hraahh!!”
This was Tank Top the air-thrower. Now he took out the ominous-looking battle-ax on his back and started swinging. A single swipe took out three at once, their bodies fading into particles of light.
…Whoa, that ax! I remember that ominous-looking thing. It’s the Minos Bardiche, isn’t it? Once you got into the realm of Uniques, magical force came with the package as a given. That made this a type of magic weapon, easily capable of damaging ghost types; the magic alone could hurt monsters all by itself. We also worked hard on the materials for that bardiche; if I recall, we made them out of mithril, a special mix of magisteel and silver. That instilled the holy attribute, geared for mowing through undead and ghost enemies.
“Man, the Minos Bardiche can take out those death wolves in one hit,” I muttered.
“Yes, I believe Bovix drops that,” Veldora replied with a nod. “And look at how used to that weapon he is, so soon after picking it up. He’s got a good head for battle.”
As I watched the trio fight, I listened to Veldora and Ramiris recap this party’s progress for me. Would’ve been nice to have had some fries to snack on as I did.
From how they put it, Tank Top had been defeating most of the monsters so far, and looking at him, I could believe it. He was strong.
What about the traps, though? The guy in the black robe had a knack for quickly finding them, tipping off his two companions. Our trickier, more ingenious traps began popping up on Floor 51, but as I looked on, Black Robe accurately marked out the positions of each trap they encountered. It must’ve been his unique skill—he was the ideal man to bring with you on a Dungeon run.
Finally, Lab Coat had only taken action once, really, according to my partners, during the battle against Bovix. Veldora’s description of events was too cryptic to understand, so I asked Raphael to read out the labyrinth’s past memories for me. When it brought them up, well, yeah, it was strange. All he really did was take a syringe out from a pocket, inject both of his partners—and then Bovix visibly slowed to a crawl. Was this some kind of status ailment?
Understood. According to an analysis, the attack sustained by the subject Bovix involved a nerve poison. The room was filled with poison gas, preventing the movement of those not resistant to it. It is no longer in effect.
Oh, poison gas? And it looked like they could customize this gas for maximum lethality on the target, too.
Heavily slowed, Bovix was easy pickings for Tank Top—but Lab Coat delivered the final blow, removing a silver scalpel from a shirt pocket and slicing through the jugular vein. Lab Coat was the leader, it seemed, playing a control-tower role instead of getting involved in actual combat much. He was good at it, too, capable of fighting if he needed to, so Tank Top up front was pretty much free to go wherever he wanted. It was a really intelligent, well-balanced party.
Suddenly, there was a knock on the door. It quietly opened up, revealing Shuna; she had brought along a file with information on these three people.
“Here’s the immigration data we have on this trio.”
With a light bow, she handed me the piece of paper.
Shingee: age twenty-three, magician
Marc: age twenty-six, warrior
Zhen: age seventeen, huntmaster
It contained a brief list of their names and professions. Their profiles listed them as being from a small province of the Empire. When asked what brought them to Tempest, they said a merchant told them about the Dungeon, and they came over to test their skill. Yeah, right. That was such a lie.
Raphael, meanwhile, was giving me its own analysis. As Beretta said, each one of them had their own unique skill. The idea that these three just happened to come together at the same time and form a party sounded pretty farfetched to me.
That, and their listed professions piqued my interest. The term magician was reserved for advanced casters who learned at least two families of magic—in Shingee’s case, this was spirit and elemental magic. Smart young man, for sure. A warrior, meanwhile, had to be a master of both weapons and martial arts—to be exact, one core martial art and at least one weapon. This could be a sword, a bow and arrow, or even throwing weapons like knives or stones; you were free to pick the one that suited you the most, but you then had to master the deepest levels of it. In Marc’s case, he was a brawler with throwing-weapon and pole-arm proficiencies, a real multifaceted talent.
Finally, a huntmaster was the moniker applied to those at the pinnacle of the hunting profession. It required a mastery of bowhunting, as well as Formhide, one of the more difficult Arts to learn. You also had to master the Detect Danger skill, and overall, it took a lot more than raw talent to become a huntmaster. In a hunting guild, they were revered as reliable partners. There just weren’t many people with trap and monster discovery skills, both a vital part of any search mission. Huntmasters pretty much always came from hunting-oriented clans, and it was an extremely difficult job to get into otherwise.
So here we had three people with three esoteric, high-level jobs forming a party. It was all but asking us to suspect them of something.
“These really look like spies who took the bait.”
“Indeed…but would spies so blatantly take center stage like this?”
Diablo, standing unnoticed in the background, picked up on my muttering. He had offered me assistance in magical development, eagerly awaiting my new ventures in monitoring magic, and me canceling our next meeting about it really set him off. His eyes told me he was resenting the on-screen trio for it, but I think he was judging them correctly.
“Oh, I was wondering that, too. I thought it might be a diversionary tactic, but things are calm around town right now.”
It was certainly a very suspicious party, but all the information they gave seemed to be the honest truth. Would they be stupid enough to not cover their tracks at all? Or was this a clever feint, devised to make us start suspecting everything except for them?
“I’m sure you’re overthinking this, Rimuru,” said Veldora. “Aren’t you always telling me that honesty is the best policy?”
“Well, it is. But we need to figure out how we handle these challengers!” replied Ramiris.
Glad you guys don’t have a care in the world. I truly began to envy Veldora and Ramiris for that. But oh well.
No matter who they were, we had to watch out for them. Shingee was the black-haired man in the lab coat—I’m just gonna assume he’s using a fake name, and his real one is actually Shinji.
Marc was the brown-haired tank top guy, and he did more than throw air around. Whether it was a monster corpse or a pebble on the ground, he could throw anything you could grab. I saw him throw a (still-alive) monster at a pack of skeletal warriors, crushing two of them, and it almost made me spit out my tea. He probably wasn’t lying about his warrior job; I could tell by the way he expertly wielded his Minos Bardiche, taking down one ghost after another.
Zhen was the black-robe dude, and I was sure he could use his eyes to detect traps. I thought it was Detect Danger at first, but judging by how he could avoid any dangerous place before it triggered, I figured a unique skill was granting him that. For most parties tackling Floor 50 and below, not even the monsters were as vicious a danger as the traps. The undead didn’t need to breathe, so we adjusted the air in those floors to make sure everything was normal. There were some oxygen-free chambers as well, ensuring a quick death even if you just stumbled in unawares. To this we added poisoned lakes, acid swamps, rooms with corrosive gas, and so on and so forth. They’d damage both you and your equipment, making for a truly atrocious gauntlet for challengers to gnash their teeth about.
These were all ingenious traps that said a great deal about their creator’s personality, and the whole concept of the floors past the fiftieth was to use them to keep people from advancing. But if someone could see through all of them, they were useless. What’s more, Zhen had an excellent sense of direction; he could easily find the shortest route through something, not letting rotating floors or anything else stop him.
This whole labyrinth was meaningless to this trio. If anyone got hurt, Dr. Shingee could heal them. They could even disable poison, so I couldn’t expect that to work too much. They may have only been a trio, but they couldn’t have been better suited for deep dives.
Three days passed. Veldora, Ramiris, and I squealed with glee as we watched Shingee’s party press on. No, we weren’t watching for hints we could use for our own conquest. Really, we weren’t. We were just watching them in awe, is all.
Diablo was sitting in a corner of the room reading while Shion was learning some new baking skills from Shuna, who poured out more tea for us—black tea, with a pleasant apple flavor.
“By the way, Rimuru,” Veldora began, “you mentioned that they ‘took the bait,’ but what did you mean by that?”
Huh? …Oh, wait, you mean our conversation three days ago? Veldora’s brain ran about as quickly as a dinosaur’s sometimes, but then, that made sense for him.
“Ah, don’t worry about that.”
“Oh, don’t be a stick in the mud. Tell me!”
He never usually cared about stuff like this, but today he just wouldn’t get off my back. Whatever.
“Okay, well, to tell the truth…”
I decided to lay it on him. When I said they took the bait, that’s exactly what I meant.
We had added some evacuation training earlier because it had become possible for us to—as nutty as it seemed to me—sequester the entirety of the town inside the Dungeon. Ramiris’s intrinsic skill Mazecraft really was amazing. I knew she could freely reorder and rearrange each floor, but it turned out she could treat the ground level above the Dungeon as another “floor” for her purposes.
Once the town was quarantined inside, it’d remain in there for twenty-four hours, but things like air and water supply weren’t an issue. In fact, we could still see the sun, so I figured this “quarantine” wouldn’t put much stress on our citizens at all. This took a gigantic amount of energy, of course, but so what? We got Veldora.
So essentially, we were crafting our war plans based on the assumption that our town could be stowed away for safekeeping. This was something we tested out several times, and that was the bait meant to catch imperial spies. All we left behind on the surface was the labyrinth’s entrance gate, which had to look incredibly suspect. In my talks with Benimaru and the rest of my cabinet, we concluded that someone from the opposing side was bound to investigate.
“Ah, I see! Boy, my master’s really powered me up, too, huh? Glad to see I’m pitchin’ in a little!” said Ramiris.
“Heh-heh-heh… So this is thanks to me, is it? Heh-heh…”
Veldora looked at me, blatantly fishing for compliments. It drove me up the wall, but it really was thanks to him.
“Yeah, you’ve been a huge help to all of us, Veldora.”
“Kwaahhhh-ha-ha-ha! Yes! Yes, I imagine I have been! So may I have some of that cake?”
No!
I was looking forward to that slice.
“Please, take mine.”
Ahhh, thank you, Diablo!
“Sorry about that.”
“Not at all. If it will aid you, Sir Rimuru, this much is nothing.”
Such a big help, that one. Might as well indulge his graciousness this time.
Savoring my slice of cake, I looked up at the screen. The party was about to take on the guardian at the end of Floor 60.
“Well, if we know they’re spies, shouldn’t we detain them?”
“Nah. I wanna test them out, so I figured we could see how far in they make it. I hate paying out so much money to them, but it’s generating a lot of buzz, so I can live with it.”
If worse came to worst, I could always arrest them and confiscate their winnings. I wanted to look incredibly generous for now, paying what I promised, and then wring whatever I could get from them in exchange.
“A fine plan, Rimuru.”
“It’s so dirty! You’re a true genius, y’know that?!”
Veldora and Ramiris also had kind words for me, although I can’t say they made me feel too happy. Shuna, meanwhile, just rolled her eyes at us.
“I have to say, though, this didn’t turn out like I meant. I didn’t expect him to score a Minos Bardiche on the first try,” I said. “That’s a holy-attribute weapon, and it just rips through ghosts and undead.”
“We shouldn’t have offered that guaranteed drop the first time around…,” Ramiris lamented.
Floor 60 was guarded by Adalmann. I had him go by the moniker the Immortal King in the hopes that he’d drive away challengers like back in his wight king days…but really, his strength lay mostly in commanding armies. He was weaker than Bovix or Equix solo, and I had a suspicion we’d be disappointed once more today. As a wight, too, he was laughably weak against the holy and light elemental attributes. As long as Marc bandied that Minos Bardiche around, I really didn’t like Adalmann’s chances.
I had given Adalmann as much advice as I could, but the traps were supposed to be the main performers in this group of floors. I never expected a blockbuster performance from the boss himself, and that was why I felt okay with giving challengers a weapon that struck at his weak point. Now I felt like I wasn’t fair to Adalmann.
Sad to say, I didn’t see him stopping this trio. I’d like to think I’m just assuming the worst…but yeah, I hope he won’t have a grudge against me for this. So I turned my expectations toward the guardian of Floor 70 instead.