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.
Upon realizing there were intruders in his domain, Adalmann the Immortal King let a smile cross his fleshless lips. His teeth softly scraped together, making a light clattering sound. It might've been hard to tell, but this was Adalmann's
take on a villainous grin.
"You seem to be in a good mood, Lord Adalmann."
This was Alberto speaking, a former paladin and Adalmann's closest associate, following in his footsteps even after his boss fell into a trap and died. After joining Rimuru's force, Alberto had been demoted all the way down to skeletal fighter, about as low-level a monster as you could be, but at least he wasn't rubbed out entirely. He normally wouldn't be able to speak at all, but he demonstrated perfect fluency. Why? Simple—the Alberto of right now was no longer a plain old skeleton. He wasn't even a death knight, several rungs up the ladder. No, he was a Death Paladin, far above either of those—and while he was a wight and possessed no material body, he looked just the same as before death. True, he was rather pale, and there were blue will-o'-the-wisps floating around him, so it was clear he wasn't living and breathing, but regardless.
Adalmann, meanwhile, had no particular attachment to his flesh body—in fact, he rather liked being nothing but a skeleton. But Alberto didn't share his view, and given how his magical force far surpassed a regular death knight's, he had the ability to freely construct whatever body he wanted from magicules. And Alberto had both an affinity for and a sense of pride in his old appearance, a fresh and energetic-looking (or as energetic as a ghoul could appear) young man. This body was protected by an ominous-looking set of armor, making it clear at one glance that Alberto wasn't to be trifled with.
"Yes, Alberto. A very good mood. It seems we have guests."
Alberto nodded gleefully. "Ah. So our moment is here at last?"
They knew each other so intimately by this point that few words were needed.
"Indeed. The time has finally come—time to serve the demon lord who granted us this peaceful abode. With as much power as we've been given, you know that mistakes will not be permitted."
"Of course not. I, Alberto, am fully aware of that."
"Hee-hee-hee… Forgive me for repeating myself, then. All this excitement must be loosening my tongue."
The two looked at each other and smiled. Then another joined in. "Groorrrrggghh!!"
A bloodcurdling scream echoed across the city of the dead.
"Ah, I see we're not the only excited ones here. Very well. Today you will have an occasion to fully unfurl your powers. Prove your loyalty to our god!"
Quietly, but thickly, the area was awash in the incoming trio's ardor. Adalmann's faith had died once, only to be reconquered by his new god—the demon lord Rimuru. It had been several months since tasting bitter defeat. He hoped fervently that he could help Rimuru, and so in just those few months, Adalmann had regained his powers as a wight king, more powerful than even at the pinnacle of his career. That was how deep his faith extended.
To Rimuru, of course, this faith was as excessive as it was stifling. In fact, he had already thought Sorry, guys, but you don't have a chance and pinned his expectations on the next guardian—but Adalmann didn't know that, and he was eager to fight.
This time, for sure—and every time after this—defeat was not an option. He had to win—and continue winning. And so Adalmann and his cohorts waited for the foolish intruders who would come at any moment, carefully discussing their strategy as they anticipated what was to come.
An intense battle began…and ended in an instant.
Well, really, I'd like to call it intense, but in fact it was so one-sided that it left my mouth agape. I'd even brought along a deck of cards in case things got boring midway, but I never had to bust them out.
In the end, Adalmann simply dominated. It was a stark, vivid victory, one I could hardly believe I was watching. The challengers were hardly pushovers; they weren't sick or injured. They were in perfect health and enthusiastic to start fighting…but Adalmann's team performed above them in every way.
Statistically speaking, this wasn't a mismatch. I had finished analyzing the challengers' skills, and they looked stronger than Adalmann. All three of them merited an over-A rank, and each one boasted their own unique skill.
Shingee's in particular was Restorer, quite a rare one. It granted him control over the structures of tiny viruses, letting him destroy living creatures from the inside. He could even modify the composition of the air around him to create lethal, contagious viral clouds. It was pretty crazy, really. Could any living thing deal with that? Like, unless you could detect these clouds of pathogens you'd need a microscope to see, you had no chance of beating Shingee. That, and he could use this to heal people, too, even more efficiently than medical nanomachines. The all-purpose flexibility Restorer offered was just amazing.
Next, Marc's power was derived from his unique skill Hurler. It allowed him to throw anything he could hold in his hands like a javelin—really, anything he could lift up, including monsters. Combine it with gravity-control magic, and
he'd be more of a threat than nearly any mass-based weapon; I'd say the skill was more suited for effectively taking on entire armies instead of single targets.
Finally, Zhen's unique skill was a kind of mix of useful tools. The unique skill Observer allowed him to instinctively dodge threats, detect danger and traps, and discover monsters and other presences before they appeared. He could even pick up on Shingee's viral clouds. All this was combined with Zhen's own fighting abilities, which made him capable of evading or fleeing just about anything. He was fast, he was nimble, and traps basically didn't work on him— the mortal enemy of any labyrinth.
That about summed it up. It was a real buffet of sweet-looking skills, and I'd definitely be gaining some inspiration from them. Each one was a huge boon by itself, but they also worked so well with one another—the real key to this trio's record-making run. I don't think I could be blamed for assuming they'd steamroll right over Adalmann.
But I was wrong. Turns out Adalmann had spent the past few months getting buff, so to speak.
I mean, normally, a non-sentient monster would never really change in terms of fighting ability from what it's originally granted. If it could survive several decades or so, you'd see some improvement then, but the process took more than a few years, at least. And then we have Adalmann and Alberto here.
"…Like, what is this? How did these guys get so powerful?!"
And also, what the heck's up with that dragon?
Peeking into the boss chamber, I spotted Adalmann, Albert…and an evil looking dragon I had never seen before, nearly forty feet in length and oozing a deadly looking miasma from its mouth. Who the hell dragged that in? Something clearly had been going on while I was out on my international tour.
"Heh-heh-heh! Surprised, aren'tcha? I kinda kept this from you on purpose, but y'know how you gave those guys some new equipment? Well, they really dug that stuff, so they've been working extremely hard on their training! And um, you know how high the magicule levels are across the Dungeon, right? Well, they've been absorbing some of it, and now Adalmann and Alberto have regained their old powers!"
Ramiris sounded like a guy on a prank video revealing everything to the victim. And—yeah, taking a closer look, Adalmann had evolved from wight to wight king. He was still a skeleton, and his gear was just as gaudy as ever, so I didn't notice at first, but his magical power was off the charts now. Alberto, meanwhile, had skipped death knight entirely and now was a Death Paladin, a super-high-level monster.
"Wight kings and Death Paladins have magicule levels about even with an Arch Demon, don't they…?" I said.
"Kwaaah-ha-ha-ha! Look at these meek little underlings, striving so hard to be of aid to us!"
They made evolution sound so easy—and what's more, they powered up beyond anything I could've guessed.
"What about that dragon?"
"Oh, didn't you know, Rimuru? That's Adalmann's pet!" Ramiris announced. Pet…?
Hmm… Come to think of it, I did remember Adalmann talking about keeping a pet, maybe. I just didn't expect it to be this wicked-looking dragon. It was, in fact, a death dragon, the alpha predator of the undead-monster hierarchy. Shuna and the rest of the cabinet were familiar with it, apparently, so Ramiris honestly thought I knew as well. That was my fault, I suppose. It's so important to have everybody on the same page in upper management.
So as for how this battle unfolded… Well, there's really not much to say. In fact, Adalmann didn't even move an inch from his throne, and the death dragon stayed ensconced on his left side. Only Alberto stepped forward, and he beat all of them himself. Marc's Minos Bardiche wasn't even given the time to strut its stuff—it was stopped in its tracks by the similarly Unique-class Cursed Sword, and Marc was promptly slashed down afterward.
The sight stopped Zhen in his tracks, leaving him open for a moment, and Alberto seized the opportunity. His speed made him almost seem to disappear for a moment as he unleashed upon Zhen, and that by itself spelled the end for him.
This made Shingee mutter "Huh?" in surprise. He scrambled toward Alberto, blasting out a Holy Cannon magic spell. This was a common ability among paladins, but not many civilians had access to it—Shingee didn't mention any paladin training in his immigration papers, so I imagine it was a hidden last resort for him.
This spell was suited for speed, and it landed a clean, direct hit on Alberto. It seemed like he dodged it for a moment, but maybe Alberto let his guard down —or so I thought. But I had no reason to worry. Alberto simply didn't move, because he had no need to evade it.
Shingee managed to squeak out an "Oh, come on!" before Alberto swung his sword down upon him. Then it was all over.
But… I mean, Alberto's still undead, right? Isn't he weak against the holy attribute? I know I'm not the only one to think that—but Alberto was kept safe, and it was entirely thanks to Adalmann. It turned out to be his previously hidden extra skill, known as Holy-Evil Inversion, at work.
Report. Holy-Evil Inversion is a secret skill crafted by the subject Adalmann. It has the effect of swapping the holy attribute with the evil one and vice versa.
Adalmann used this to change Alberto's attribute from evil to holy. The effect didn't extend to his equipment, but since Alberto was undead, there wasn't any life force for his cursed gear to suck away, so his elemental attribute didn't matter along those lines. Plus, if an ally applied that skill to him, there was no chance of his body resisting it.
A holy undead? What kind of joke was this? It was unholy, if anything, but Adalmann's Holy-Evil Inversion made it a reality. And as a spiritual life-form, Adalmann had natural resistances to each kind of elemental attack. Most melee strikes didn't work on him. As a duo, they had also overcome their weakness against holy attacks. Really, I didn't see how any normal dungeon-runner team could take them.
So Adalmann won, and without even using any of the magic I taught him. Shingee's team was defeated in truly anticlimactic fashion, fading into clouds of light before departing the chamber.
"Rimuru, my lord, were you watching us? We dedicate this glorious victory to you!!"
Watching Adalmann shout this dedication at the top of his nonexistent lungs, a thought occurred: Isn't Adalmann's gang a little too much force to bust out for Floor 60?
I mean, yeah, I did tell him that if a party approached, he should fight back with a party of his own. He certainly took that advice to heart, and he certainly didn't try to outnumber his opponent, no. But this is getting pretty close to fraud. Like, come on! If you have a special-A monster, a Calamity-level threat— and three of them at once—you could destroy a lot of the smaller kingdoms out there! And by the looks of things, they still had some other tricks they were hiding, too.
So I decided to interrogate Ramiris about that later. For now, I needed to offer Adalmann my congratulations.
"Well done, Adalmann! Why don't you come up to the control room? No need to talk through the screen like this."
"Oh, ohhhh…! Such a joyous honor! I will be by your side posthaste, my lord!" As stiflingly formal as always. Well, that's how he is, I suppose. "And Alberto can talk as well these days, huh? Can you bring him along?" "Very well. As for my death dragon…?"
"Um, let's have it keep guard over there, okay?"
"Yes, my lord!"
The death dragon whimpered a bit about that, but I had to stand firm on this. I mean, it's freakin' forty feet long. Maybe we could fit him in the special chamber we made for Veldora on Floor 100, but this control room just ain't that big. I felt kinda bad for the guy, but he'd have to give up on that.
So I ordered Shion to make some tea for Adalmann and Alberto. "Can he drink it?" she asked. "He's nothing but bones."
"…"
Rrrrr…ight. Yeah. Looks like Alberto found a body, kind of, but Adalmann's still nothing but a skeleton. Maybe he can enjoy the aroma, at least?
"Well, this is… You know. A polite gesture for him."
"I see. Very well!"
We chatted a bit more as we waited for their arrival.
"We are here, Sir Rimuru!"
"I offer you my sincere gratitude for the honor of personally experiencing your holy visage."
Adalmann and Alberto both kneeled before me. In person like this instead of through the screen, I realized just how much more powerful they were now—I could hardly believe they were the same people as before.
"Yes. Well done. Alberto was your name, was it? You have proved to be quite an effective fighter. And, Adalmann—you have done an exemplary job as a guardian. Keep up the good work!"
"That's right! Keep it up!"
Veldora and Ramiris heaped praise on them before I could speak up. If they got to give out all the praise first, I wasn't too sure what I should follow up with…but let's just keep it benign.
"Yeah, I tell you… It's been a while since I've seen you guys, so I'm kinda shocked at how much you've grown."
Grown…or I suppose "evolved" is the right term, isn't it? That trio was pretty strong, so I seriously thought they'd struggle…but no, I better not say that. Sometimes, there are things better thought than stated out loud.
""Yes, my lord!!""
Both of them were visibly moved. I had them sit down, trying to hide my pangs of guilt.
"Truly… Truly a fine aroma," said Alberto. "If offered by anyone else, I might have taken it as sarcasm, perhaps…"
Oh yeah? Hmm. Shoulda seen that coming. If you can't drink it, it's just unfair, isn't it?
"…but when offered by my lord, I find the scent deeply satisfying for my heart. It has truly rejuvenated my body."
Well, great, but Shion made it, so…
"…How delicious. Sweet—and fragrant like nectar. I, Alberto, cannot offer enough gratitude for this wondrous moment of bliss."
Geez, don't lay it on too much…
I guess Alberto had built a physical body for himself with magicules—a kind of temporary vessel, made possible inside the labyrinth.
"Why don't you take on a full body as well, Adalmann?" I asked. "…Pardon me?"
"Well, I mean, then you could enjoy that tea more, so…"
"Y-yes, perhaps, my lord, but in my case… Well, I prefer to project a certain image, you could say…"
Uh-huh. That was kinda over my head, but if it was important to Adalmann, it's nothing I have a right to comment on.
"Fair. No need to force it, in that case."
I changed the subject.
"By the way, I was really impressed by how you approached using Holy-Evil Inversion. The fact that you developed it at all shows me how hard you've been working."
"Thank you very much! Sir Beretta provided me with some assistance. And also…"
I asked about Holy-Evil Inversion as a quick way to shift the topic, but this was actually pretty surprising. It turned out that even Luminus lent him a hand.
"Lady Luminus taught me Day-Night Inversion, one of her secret techniques, you see. An 'apology,' as she referred to it. Sir Beretta then applied his unique skill Reverser to modify it, and then I was able to master it."
And there you have it. I suppose Luminus was "apologizing" for letting the Seven Days Clergy act out of line.
Why was Granville trying to kill someone as talented as Adalmann? I had my own reasoning for that. Outside of Granville, the Seven Days Clergy members were all obsessed about keeping their positions safe from threats. They were all trying to eliminate Adalmann, but Granville must've reasoned that he'd only be useful if he could overcome the trap they set for him. Instead, Adalmann and that dragon zombie killed each other off—something Granville may not have intended. Maybe his perspective was along the lines of "Well, if you can't beat an enemy at that level, you'll never become a guardian of humankind anyway" or the like. Seeing Granville's final moments—supremely proud but all alone in life—I couldn't help but think that.
Still, it wouldn't be right to bring it up with Adalmann. It's something I'd like him to realize himself someday—but for now, time for another subject change.
"Well, that's wonderful! I'll have to send Luminus my thanks later on. But, Adalmann!"
"Yes!"
"At this point, you can beat the guardian of Floor 70, can't you?" "…How do you mean, my lord?"
He seemed confused, so I spelled it out for him in detail.
...…
...
…
Currently, Floors 61 through 70 were nicknamed the Golem Zone, filled with inorganic, tirelessly working sentries. Some of the specialized area bosses on those floors even wielded test versions of the firearms we were working on. There were also a lot of brutal traps, headed up primarily by land mines—but none of them were particularly lethal. The zone was overall meant as a trial for people playing the healer role in adventuring parties.
The main boss of this zone was a new machine, a modified version of the
Elemental Colossus. Vester had finally completed it with the help of Kaijin. It still boasted the high defense magisteel offered, but now it was lighter and more compact, making it mobile while keeping the pilot's seat fully protected. It wasn't sentient, but it had room for a pilot inside, although it could also run on the thoughts of a remote pilot.
At the moment, I believed Beretta was operating it remotely. I liked that—it certainly eliminated the threat of viral cloud attacks, and not even a Minos Bardiche could cut through a magisteel body. Its armor also featured a layered structure, the shielding scales from Charybdis granting it the powers of Magic Interference.
It was a completely invincible metal guardian—once the Elemental Colossus, now called the Demon Colossus. And I was fully sure Shingee's party would never make it past Floor 70.
...…
...
…
However, after seeing how Adalmann fought today, I was starting to reconsider matters.
"Veldora, who do you think's stronger—Adalmann or the Demon Colossus?" "Hmm… Adalmann, without a doubt."
"Right? So you see, Adalmann, we're going to promote you to Floor 70." There you go. If Veldora agreed with me, I couldn't be mistaken.
Understood. The power comparison between the subjects Adalmann and the Demon Colossus is—
Oh, um, I don't need the numbers, thanks. This is more about image, so…
"Ah, ahhhhhhhh…!! I, Adalmann, promise to expend every effort to live up to your expectations!"
"And I, your humble servant Alberto, promise to support my master, Adalmann, with every fiber of my being."
They kneeled before me again as they made their pledges. They had changed so much when I'd taken my eyes off them. The Demon Colossus was hardly any slouch, but honestly, it didn't really have the gravitas a boss needed. That, and if it got broken again, it'd just break our hearts. We have to implant it with a soul, or it wouldn't be subject to Ramiris's powers in the Dungeon, so we can't experiment to see if it'd get resurrected after being smashed up. Maybe with a soul, things would be different—or if there was a pilot inside it, would that work? Oh, but if someone was possessing it, maybe it wouldn't be treated as an item any longer…
Regardless, we sadly had no plans along those lines yet. I thus saw no reason why we shouldn't promote Adalmann and his crew.
"All right! Then as of today, I want to have Floors 51 through 60 switched with Floors 61 through 70."
"Roger! You got it!" said Ramiris.
And so we restructured the labyrinth right then and there.
Following Adalmann's exemplary performance, the Dungeon had a new hierarchy. That took care of matters for now, so I was about to order Adalmann out of the control room when the previously silent Diablo spoke up.
"We seem to be at the end of the conversation, so I have something I'd like to report to you."
"What's that?"
"Well, my servant Razen sent a magical call stating that he has something to urgently discuss with you. It seems his former instructor or the like called upon him, and now this man is asking for an audience with you, Sir Rimuru. His name is Gadora."
Hmm… Never heard of him.
Report. He is listed as the author of a number of books on sorcery.
Oh, he's famous, huh? I thought Razen was a pretty well-known and talented sorcerer himself, but his master must be even more so, huh? Kinda interesting. I
wouldn't mind meeting him, but…
"Wouldn't that be a trap, though? We're on the eve of duking it out with the Empire, so a meeting at this point seems really suspicious, I think…"
"Exactly! There is no need at all for you to meet with such a dubious person, Sir Rimuru!"
Shion was even more doubtful than I was—and I could see why. Given the times we lived in, if my personal guardian wanted to keep me away from danger—well, she was just doing her job. I wasn't nearly as wary as her, so I figured it was better to listen to my advisers for matters like these.
"Indeed… I see no need to lend an ear to the opinions of someone on the level of Razen. In fact, I hardly even need to listen to him at all."
Diablo made this sound like an accepted fact, but I was sure he just wanted to be excused from all this. Regardless, if both of my personal secretaries were advising me against it, I was ready to call this off—but then I noticed Adalmann fidgeting a bit. Yeah, I understood how he felt. Sometimes, just when you're about to leave your boss's office, a phone call or unexpected visitor comes along. You don't want to interfere, but you don't want to just walk out on the boss, either…so you're stuck there, helplessly watching the clock tick away. Or is it just me?
Regardless…
"Sorry, Adalmann. That's all I needed from you, so you guys can leave."
"N-no, my lord! There is no need to be concerned about us. But apart from that…"
"Hmm?"
"To tell the truth, I…um…"
"Yes?"
"This man, Gadora, that you speak of…"
"Mm-hmm?"
"I believe this may perhaps be a friend of mine."
"Huh?"
I turned my eyes to Adalmann. He was shifting a bit in his seat, looking flustered. I almost wanted to say No, Adalmann, you're allowed to have friends. I don't think you've betrayed me…
So I asked Diablo to hold his opinion for now while Adalmann gave me more details. He and Gadora, as he put it, were close friends over a thousand years ago. I figured he'd have to be long dead in that case, but Gadora was a master level wizard, so it wouldn't be unheard of if he wove his own magic to extend his life. After all, this was the very man who cast Reincarnation on Adalmann to save him.
Adalmann also recognized the name Razen; as he recalled, he was one of Gadora's primary apprentices. We kept discussing them for a while, and as we did, it was increasingly clear this Gadora wanting to see me was the exact same guy.
"Diablo?"
"Understood. I will arrange a date and time."
Such a talented secretary. All I had to do was call his name, and he instantly recognized my intentions. My not-so-talented other secretary had no objections, so I decided to go ahead and give Gadora a tryout.
With their defeat on Floor 60, Shinji's party got to experience returning from death for the very first time. They woke up to find a large audience thanking them, cheering them, booing them, even reassuring them that they couldn't have avoided that loss. Their battles in the labyrinth were broadcast live, and Shinji's conquest was turning into a popular diversion.
Dungeon challengers, of course, had the right to turn down any recording or broadcast of their exploits—it was a purely optional contract to sign. But Shinji had two reasons to go through with it—one, they got a cut of the broadcast fees; and two, they figured becoming famous would help keep them safe. They were in enemy territory, so if they became known names, it'd be that much harder for someone to assassinate them—and since the contract only allowed
their boss fights to be broadcast, they didn't have to be on edge the entire time.
It looked like the contract would be pretty lucrative for them, besides, so Shinji had no reason to turn it down. The same was true for his companions, so Shinji signed on the dotted line…and the result was this huge crowd greeting them now.
"Boy, that was too bad! Hope you train up a little more and try again!"
"Man, those guys never stood a chance. What kind of monsters were those anyway? He swung that sword like it was a twig…and what about that skeleton on the throne? Some kinda legendary monster?"
"It was probably a wight king. The earth-shattering ruler of the dead. Not even an Arch Demon could take him!"
"Whoa. So was that dragon alive or not, though? It didn't look like a statue or anything, but if it could've joined the battle, too, I don't think any human being had a chance in there."
The questions came hard and fast from the audience. Shinji's party just smiled and waved as they found their way out of there.
"Well, I'm gonna keep my eye on you heroes!"
"You're all gonna be in the record books alongside Sir Masayuki now! If you wanna beat that boss, you better find a way quick while Sir Masayuki's preparing for the war!"
"Yeah, I got money down on you guys doing it, so keep it up!"
The voices remained just as loud behind their backs as they retired to their inn.
Once they reached their room, the three of them flopped down on their beds. "So now what're we gonna do?" Marc asked.
"Who cares?" an utterly exhausted Shinji replied. "Just lemme rest a bit."
They put everything they had into that boss battle…but it made everything up to Floor 59 look like preschool. On Floor 60, even the non-boss adversaries worked with a clear command structure—the sentient Death Lord they
encountered led a team of fighters into battle. They managed to beat him and make it to the boss chamber, but what ensued in there was just wretched.
"…You gonna report back to Yuuki?"
Zhen's reminder made Shinji get up. He sat down on the bed, sighing, as Marc and Zhen picked themselves up and sat around him.
"I don't really know what we can report. We had no idea that side-quest zone was gonna be so hard."
"Yeah, it wasn't too bad up to Floor 59, but what the hell was up with 60? A Death Lord with a whole platoon of death knights—like, they had a whole army loaded up for us in there! Any normal soldier would've had his ass kicked in the blink of an eye!"
"I know."
"…That was awful. Everything got so well defended on that floor. And those three bosses—not just the knight who beat us, but the skeleton on the throne and the dragon… Those had to be secret bosses, I think."
Now they were lost in conversation, too excited to worry too much about each other. The easy-breezy atmosphere up to yesterday had disappeared in under twenty-four hours.
"And that boss sittin' on the throne… That was a wight king, you know. I guess someone with high-level appraisal magic managed to identify it…but it's so different from how it looks on-screen!"
"One hundred percent," Marc said in agreement with Shinji. "Having that show up when we were totally unprepared for it… How could we even deal?"
"…Honestly, I never wanna see it again."
Zhen's companions were on the same page. And the wight king didn't even participate in the battle. It didn't move from the throne—just sat there, exuding royal dignity.
"I mean, that minotaur guy seemed like a 'regular' boss, y'know? He was around an A in strength. But wasn't Floor 60 way too much of a step up?"
"…Yeah. Too much. I'm starting to think everything up to Floor 50 was meant
to put us off our guard."
"But now I'm really sure of it," avowed Shinji. "If monsters that strong are protecting it, there's got to be something in that maze."
"Yeah. That Alberto guy was just way out of our league."
"Even his equipment! I tried appraising it while Marc engaged him, but it was all Unique from head to toe."
"Ah, that explains it. I came in figuring my Minos Bardiche could cleave right through all that."
"I guess weapons you pick up from treasure chests work well on the next boss only in RPGs, huh…?"
"Well, yeah. I think we got too full of ourselves in there."
"…Yeah."
They looked at each other and heaved a sigh in unison. Now they were a bit calmer. It was time for some tea and a moment to catch their breath.
"Wanna try again tomorrow?"
"Are you serious?"
"…Not against them. We'd lose every time."
"Yeah…"
"Also, that 'hero' talk… Yuuki mentioned Masayuki to us before, right? Like, that kid who has incredible good luck and nothing else? And he took on Floor 60?"
"I don't think he has yet, no. His party advanced down pretty easily as well, but they say he's never died yet in there."
"Oh. Has any other party tried it?"
"The chatter I heard said the top runners are all tackling Floor 50 at the moment, but none of them signed broadcast deals, so until now, Masayuki had the best public record. Beyond that, there's a few broadcasting parties stuck on Floor 40."
Signing a contract didn't mean you were watched inside the Dungeon at all times. The cameras were only situated in the boss rooms every ten floors, and occasionally camera crews would follow you around for special events and so on. Thus, thanks to being the first team to Floor 60, Shinji's party became the big celebrities of the moment—and with the way they kept rewriting records, people were starting to place bets on them.
"Y'know, I'm willing to bet Masayuki got tipped off. He probably knows Floor 60's home to a secret boss."
"I guess we shoulda expected to lose, then. Like, two guys at that level, plus a dragon? This labyrinth is so unbalanced."
"…It was pretty well-balanced until Floor 50. I really do think that was meant as a hidden boss. The hidden town's probably right past that."
So they continued talking and consoling themselves for a while, before moving on to their future plans.
"You know, guys, if we've got crowds cheering for us in this city, I don't think we can really do any kinda spy work."
"Nah, nah, that's not a big problem. Like I said, we're safer this way." "…All we've done is go into the labyrinth so far."
"So should we wait for Lord Gadora to show up? Because I think we hit a pretty big dead end down there. Or," Marc said with a grin, "you wanna try training or something?"
Shinji chuckled. "Well, there's definitely something past that chamber, and the guardian's way stronger than anything else we saw. I think I can report that much to Yuuki."
"Tell him how big the labyrinth is, too. It must've been magically expanded or something, because it's way too large and deep to be man-made."
"…And don't forget, he was far stronger than anything on any other floor."
Shinji meekly nodded at Marc and Zhen. "Right, right. Okay, once I'm done with my report, you guys wanna tour around some more?"
There was no need to spend any more time talking about it. The three of
them mentally flipped the page as they went out into the night.
Their first stop was a secluded spot outside of town, where they made their report as agreed upon. After sending the summary report to Yuuki, they received a magical call from him about ten minutes later.
"Hey. Glad you're doing okay."
"Well, we were until last night, but today was awful for us."
"Ha-ha-ha! Yeah, sounds like you guys got your asses kicked. So what are you up to next?"
"I think it'll depend on Lord Gadora. We've got no way to pass Floor 60 by ourselves, and the labyrinth's not really set up so we can sneak our way around it."
"Yeah, I'm sure. All right. Now, lemme ask you something else…" "Yes?"
"Can you go into more detail on just how strong the Floor 60 boss is? Just, like, anything you felt in there is fine."
Only Shinji and his friends understood the angle of this question. What Yuuki asked, basically, was how high up in the Imperial Guardians this opponent would be.
Shinji thought it over a moment. The imperial army's ranking duels held little interest to him. He didn't care much about working his way up the military ranks, so he had never tried challenging anyone before. He owed Yuuki for picking him up and taking care of him, so he just served him as a way to pay back the debt—in the military, though, since he didn't like lending a hand to organized crime. The moment Yuuki began leading the Composite Division, he transferred over there from his original assignment in the Armored Division.
He wasn't the only otherworlder in the East to think along these lines, either. Quite a few of them avoided making shows out of their power, dodging major responsibilities and just living normal lives. That made it harder to accurately gauge their strength, so nobody could really say whether the Imperial Knights
were truly the strongest or not. They were by name, at least—and in a way, it was natural that they were ranked on such a detailed basis.
"I'd say he'd at least make it into the top fifty. I don't think anyone lower than that would stand a chance."
"Are you talking about Alberto alone?"
"Yes. Oh, and I dunno if this helps, but I was deployed as an army medic for an anti–Arch Demon mission once. I only got a quick look at that fight, but the wight king I saw today had pretty much the same magicule count, I think."
"Do you mean the Crimson Shore disaster?"
"Oh, um, yeah."
"Roger. Okay, thanks for the guidance. You guys can go on R & R until you regroup with Lord Gadora."
With that, the magical call ended.
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The Crimson Shore disaster was considered among the most ignoble events to ever occur on imperial soil. It had its origins in a beautiful lakeside province that rebelled against the Empire and declared independence. They were at a military disadvantage, of course, but what their king did to make up the difference wound up triggering a catastrophe. He had tapped into secret demon summoning arts—an all but forbidden taboo.
His orders were to summon the most powerful demon they could manage, and his court sorcerers did his bidding. The Arch Demon they summoned wound up laying waste to the entire province.
This was a small province, its total population less than ten thousand, and it had no chance of outgunning the Empire. But the king still had good reason to go rogue—his only daughter, the princess of the realm, was being claimed by an imperial noble as his concubine.
With the Empire being as vast as it was, the emperor didn't waste his time in the nitty-gritty dealings of the tinier provinces. All imperial territory belonged to him, its management left to the nobility, and so nobles had free reign to treat the provinces as they pleased. It was thus common to see a frontier earl use the emperor's authority to act like a brutal tyrant over the region he ruled.
What the demon wanted, however, was the splinter kingdom's princess. The king steadfastly denied this request—but once his head sorcerer caught sight of the demon's full glory, he went mad, his spirit crushed forever, and he agreed to the demand. Thus, with an evil smile, the demon possessed the princess's body. The king was enraged, but that rage was soon replaced with terror—for once the demon had a body, that was when the massacre began.
When the Empire was informed that the province was leveled, they decided to send out a force to subdue this demon. They were fortunate they did, for if they had acted any later, it could have been the birth of a second Guy Crimson.
This force arrived to find the beautiful lake turned a deep shade of red, dyed by the blood of the province's citizens. It was a black mark on the history of the Empire, the worst thing to happen to it in centuries.
It was ultimately the Armored Division, its bases located across the Empire, who put an end to the Crimson Shores incident. That's what the history books said. But the truth—as Shinji was witness to from far away—was that a small group of soldiers defeated the Arch Demon all by themselves.
The whole affair struck Shinji as fishy, really. Clearly, the nobility was oppressing the countryside—but once the demon aimed its terror at the Empire's own citizens, Shinji began to wonder if the truth was as cut-and-dried as reported. For one, the Empire reacted almost too quickly. In the time it'd take to report the incident to the imperial mainland, debate over countermeasures, and form an expeditionary force, the demon could've easily completed its full manifestation. Instead, the Empire stopped this just in the nick of time—thus proving, in Shinji's mind anyway, that they were tipped off in advance.
He had no intention of telling anyone else about this. When he saw the strength of the demon his deployment was fighting, it taught him that some
things were better off left unexplored in his life.
I have to imagine those guys had to be at the top of the Imperial Knights…
No matter what he did, Shinji doubted he'd ever have a chance against them. It truly felt like they belonged to some other world—and that's when he stopped caring about his army rank.
...…
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…
Shinji breathed a sigh of relief as Marc and Zhen eyed him carefully. "You done?" asked Marc.
"…Thanks for handling that," said Zhen.
"Sure. I think that about covers it. Now we get to chill out until Lord Gadora shows."
"All right. But damn, you survived Crimson Shore?"
"…Good thing you did."
"Yeah. By playing possum. One of the better decisions I made in my life, I think."
"Aw, hell, you deserve a medal just for making it out. Didn't like two-thirds of that force get killed off?"
"That's right. I never wanna join anything like that again. I mean, I was an army medic, and I couldn't even do anything."
"…Oh?"
"Yeah, every attack killed its targets instantly, so healing didn't matter. That's why I bugged out real early on."
"Wow. That sounds rough. Arch Demons are really that bad?"
"Well, the one I saw was. Beyond bad. And plus, I swear we made eye contact once, but if you ask me, I think she let me go. Her eyes were, like, bloodred. Just remembering it makes me wanna piss my pants."
Shinji gave his surprised-looking audience a smile.
"But if that skeleton's on the level of an Arch Demon like that, there's no way we can take him."
"…It's really on the same level?"
"The magicule counts are anyway. They say that the longer a demon's existed, the stronger they are…and I think the one I saw was pretty old."
It had to be, or else the highest echelons of imperial government wouldn't have taken such drastic action. But Shinji stopped himself from saying that.
"But there's no point dwelling on it. I heard they're working on a machine that can tabulate the power of your adversary, but I don't really see the point. Even that knight Alberto—based on his magicules, I can't even imagine how strong he is. And do you remember back in our classes? How good you were in a fight involved a lot more than just how strong you were."
"Right. I get what you're sayin'."
"…Yeah."
"That sort of thing. Some demons are just beyond anything we can measure. That's all I want you to remember."
The way Shinji put it, they couldn't even begin to work on that level. The other two took that to heart.