Dungeon Tour Guide ch. 52 (Patreon)

Please give feedback. I'm tired. Pumping these out in one day is hard.

“Sorry, what?” the [Tactician] asked. “I believe I may have misheard you.”

“I need monsters,” I said. “The dungeon needs monsters.”

“Your dungeon is one that [Assimilate]s,” Iris declared, instantly refocusing. The speed at which she could change from surprise to all business was honestly a little scary. “Interesting. Those are rare.”

“This dungeon is a little out of the ordinary,” I said, holding back a wince as I realized that that might’ve been saying a bit too much. “I mean, look at how much the Kingsguard want to attack it.”

“That is true,” Iris conceded. “Monsters, then.”

“Yes,” I said. “I can communicate with the dungeon, and I can tell that it wants to produce more beasts so that it can stop intruders. It wants to keep me safe, and doing so requires stronger monsters than what it has right now.”

None of that was technically a lie.

“I understand,” Iris said. “I do have some questions for your dungeon—well, you, I suppose—as well.”

“Go ahead,” I said, aware that she hadn’t offered any help.

“May I propose a trade?”

“A trade,” I repeated. “Go on.”

“The Alder Corporation is strong in numbers and strong in capital,” Iris said, “but I must admit that it lacks military might. Should I have wished to go down that path, I easily would have conquered this kingdom and its neighbors, but I am a woman of wealth, not war.”

“Get to the point, please,” I said, though I could already see where this was going.

“You know by now that I am deploying mercenaries,” Iris said. “Their combined military might rivals a lesser kingdom’s army. However, they will not be deployed only to protect Ketz. I have other interests to hold in mind. Furthermore, the Guild is weak here due to the utter lack of conflict that this area usually sees.”

“And it’s being actively interfered with,” I pointed out.

“I had been made aware of that,” Iris said, heaving out a sigh. “I must admit that that issue is one I should have addressed a fair amount of time ago.”

“Anyway, your point is that this place has no protection, right?” I asked. I’d had the same line of thought just minutes ago, so it was fresh in my mind.

“That is indeed an issue,” she said. “Invaders will run amok, and they will ruin the investments I planted so carefully.”

“You want me to protect them,” I said, the deduction basic enough for a kindergartener to make. “Your money?”

“Money is a secondary concern. What I wish to protect is artifacts,” Iris said. “Research, decades of it, all concentrated in the buildings here. Guarded enough to slay any bandits that may happen upon it, but evidently not guarded enough to save it from the high-level Kingsguard.”

Magical items. Not gold, not real estate. Items.

I sympathized with that. I hadn’t seen much of what the Alder Corporation could do, but if their other innovations were as interface-breaking as the ARI, that was a true treasure trove of knowledge that would be lost if the city was taken.

“Why can’t you bring other guards in?”

“I can and will,” Iris said, “but my numbers are stretched thin and the quality of my hires are… less than optimal. The king refuses to deploy the strongest soldiers, hoarding them for his own personal use, so we have only those sellswords who would kill men for coin.

“I do not trust my vaults with them, and I would thus request the use of the dungeon as a temporary vault. Should the enemy break through to the deepest depths of this dungeon, we have likely already lost.”

“Sure, alright,” I said. “What about the people of Ketz? Of the adventuring town that’s still springing up?”

“The people, of course,” Iris said. The minor conversational stumble made me feel like she genuinely hadn’t been thinking about them. Had she actually just forgotten about them?

Well, shit. Color me surprised. Iris was a pretty nice woman and—at least to my eyes—seemed to be a pretty decent mother. It’d almost been to the point where I’d thought that Rose had been exaggerating about how much she’d cared for her assets.

Not that it mattered anyway. It was a strike against her character, but it was less than what it would’ve been if she’d actively denied them anything. At least she was willing to be cooperative.

“How much room is there in the dungeon?” Iris asked. “Can you tell?”

“Enough for three, maybe four hundred,” I said, ballparking. The majority of that space was underground, though I could theoretically clear out one of the dungeon paths. Doing that meant assuming that the Kingsguard were going to prioritize attacking me over attacking the other people to the extent that they would be willing to ignore the citizens of Ketz if I drew the attackers’ aggro.

It was risky, but we didn’t have many choices.

“This is doable,” Iris said, a thousand-yard stare in her eyes. I could almost see the gears turning in her brain as she activated a [Tactician] skill, analyzing the interior of the dungeon.

“You have space for at least three hundred in addition to the bulk of my artifacts, which will have to be enough,” Iris declared. “At a cursory glance, at least.”

“Why did you even ask?” I muttered. Louder, I continued, “Alright. Do you know how to predict them coming?”

“Not if they send assassins,” Iris said. “Their army, though? Yes. We have measures to detect where they are and where they are coming from. Who do you think sent that alert out on the ARI?”

“That was you?” I asked, whipping my head around to look at her. “I thought you would—“

“You think I can’t maintain control over my own creation?” Iris asked, smiling lightly. Her smile didn’t reach her eyes. “For shame, Lucas. Of course I can. An official declaration of war between the Alder Corporation and the Omen king would be terrible for the value of the firm and a reason for the damned king to step in and make things worse.”

“Because there can’t be a war,” I said.

Iris nodded. “Now, I believe you said you needed monsters?”

“I do. The dungeon can reproduce them—which I think you deduced already—and I’m not comfortable leaving the defense of this dungeon—which, I’ll remind you, I live in—up to your corporation or the Guild.”

“Completely understandable.” Iris replied without skipping a beat. “I am incapable of procuring them now, but if you could give me a written or verbal list of your requests, there are dungeons across the kingdom that I could retrieve monster essence or proper monsters from.”

“They can leave dungeons?” I asked.

“Of course. They do inevitably suffer from dungeon sickness and expire, but that should not be an issue when their ultimate purpose is this dungeon.”

“I… guess.” That felt wrong on a fundamental level, but I didn’t contest it. This was cruel to a few monsters, maybe, but those monsters were made of mana and would be saving real lives.

At least, that’s what I told myself.

“I wrote down a list,” I said, retrieving the paper from my pocket with a quick use of [Replicate] and handing it off to the [Tactician].

“Thank you.”

“Beyond the monsters, I have one more request,” I said. I paused momentarily as I wondered whether it’d be better to let Rose say it, then shrugged. I’d be in favor of letting her work out her issues with her mom on her own usually, but this was an emergency. “Your daugh—er, Minus One possesses an artifact.”

“I’m aware of it,” Iris said. “I have kept tabs on it for a while. From my cursory analysis, at least one of its effects are heavily dampened while under the effect of the [Security Seal] that surrounds it, and all of its effects are at least partially dampened.”

“Right,” I said. “Will you be able to open that seal up? Rose said you might.”

“I can,” she said, grimacing. “It is risky. For me to be sure that I won’t suffer backlash, I will need the night to prepare. I can make an effort to have the monsters ready by tomorrow at noon.”

“That works for me,” I said.

“In exchange, you will agree to house my artifacts.”

“And the people of Ketz.”

“Them too.”

I nodded, and Iris shook my hand, mana infusing into both of us and initiating a [Greater Contract].

“For insurance’s sake,” she said, no trace of levity in her eyes.

“I know how it is,” I said. “Good luck.”

Without another word, she left.

The moment I was sure she couldn’t see me anymore, I pumped my fists.

As much as she’d been a bit of an asshole during that conversation and showed callous disregard of human life, she’d promised to get me what I needed.

This was good. I needed this.

[Assimilate] only worked once a day. Assuming she got here bright and early on day 2 and the Kingsguard attacked on day 7, that left me days 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 to [Assimilate] monsters. I’d have to pick five of them, and that meant a quick change to my plans.

I returned to the drawing board, so to speak, muttering to myself as I drew out ways to reshape the dungeon into the efficient machine of victory that it needed to be to defeat and capture the Kingsguard.

I hope to the goddess that this’ll work.

By the time Anderson and Lisa came back, this time flanked by Ed and Jackson, the sun had set and I was ready for tomorrow.

__________________________

They were ready for the first room this time. Anderson was still level 2, but he was just about on the cusp of leveling when he entered. In addition to that, they had two additional members in the party this time, members who chose to hold back a lot less than Lisa did.

The [Sharpshooter] still wasn’t used to working with a team, that much was obvious. Twice, he nearly shot one of his teammates. On one particularly unfortunate occassion, he shot at a flying [Mephit] in the middle of a three-round burst and the bullet kept going, stopped from blowing someone’s brains out by virtue of the [Force Shield] that Jackson had going.

With all four of them there, they had more than enough knowledge to know the common pitfalls of the first room that had stopped the other parties from clearing it their first time. Anderson even managed to level up midway through the fight, granting him access to more mana and probably more spells for his gun.

It was the second room that ended up giving them trouble. The first [Fake Hydra] they took down easily enough, Ed and Jackson demonstrating the true potential of their duo as its blows landed fruitlessly agains the [Force Shield] while Ed used his spells to reduce the pseudo-hydra’s heads to ash.

After that, though, things started to fall apart. Once again, Anderson just wasn’t strong enough. With his level-up, his normal bullets had additional magical effects to them, so he was able to damage the [Fake Hydra]s at the very least, but the [Displacer] variants of the earth constructs were taking almost no damage.

On top of that, while Lisa was able to take one or two of the ECDVs down on her own, she wasn’t doing enough to peel them off her team. They were repositioning themselves every few seconds, and while Lisa chased a damaged one down to smash it to pieces, one of them teleported behind Jackson just as the [Fake Hydra] went to strike the [Sharpshooter].

______________________________

“A few lessons learned there, I’d hope,” I said, casting two [Greater Restorations] at once. “First, Anderson, I hope you understand why you should rely on your team.”

The [Sharpshooter] nodded sheepishly, head hung. “I didn’t realize monsters that strong could just… exist and multiply.”

He sounded so defeated, a far cry from the cocky arrogance of just a couple days before. Being told that you were on the shortlist of people that were likely to die in the next week would do that to you, I supposed.

Well, being knocked out in one blow would probably have the same effect, and that had happened. Jackson had taken a hit too. While he’d avoided unconsciousness and death, it’d still been enough for the backlines to disintegrate until it was just Lisa fighting, and then I’d had the dungeon call for a stop to it.

“Lisa, you’re really strong, even for your level,” I said. “But you need to hear this. You’re an incredible solo fighter. But if you’re with a team, you need to fight with them as a team. If you’re going solo, let them know that you’re breaking off. You could’ve fought off the monsters putting the most pressure on your allies if you didn’t get so distracted killing your target.”

The [Spellblade] nodded, chagrined. “Thanks for the outside perspective.”

“Anderson, you need to get stronger,” I said. “There’s no two ways about it. You already leveled up once, which is promising. Here’s hoping that we get a few more by the end of the week.”

The [Sharpshooter] gave me a weak thumbs-up.

“Ed, Jackson, good work,” I said. “But Jackson, you need to be ready to move. Just because you’re the tank doesn’t mean you can stop kiting around enemies. You weren’t ready when the construct teleported behind you, and that cost you. Ed, you need to be warning Jackson and moving with him.”

“Understood,” the [Shieldbearer] said. “Thank you for the healing.”

“I’ll try an’ keep this ol’ man kickin’,” Ed said with a smile.

“Good,” I said. I didn’t have it in me to give them a long-winded goodbye. “Looks like two runs a day’s the limit for most people. Be back tomorrow. We’re going to run this three times.”

____________________________________

The break of dawn saw the sky turning pink, dew appearing on the grass outside the dungeon, and a very serious set of four people with a comically large covered wagon behind them.

“Hello Iris. Hi M-1,” I said. “Is the wagon…”

“Monsters and monster parts,” the [Tactician] said. “Rose tells me you have an identification spell?”

“I do,” I said, caught off guard by the non sequitur. “What’s up?”

“We have everything ready to go,” Iris said. “We’re examining the artifact now. If it’s important, better to have it now than later.”

Made sense.

“Why bring it here? Do you not have an identification spell?”

“I do,” Iris said. “Past experience with Kingsguard artifacts tells me that it is probably laden with magical traps. I am aware that dungeons have a tendency to counter these effects. Even if this one does not, you are one of the most effective healers within a hundred kilometers.”

“Right, got it,” I said. “Then shall we proceed?”

The process was… not as involved as I thought it’d be. Iris drew a spell circle out of pure mana just above the ground, and Rose placed the baseball-sized sphere on top of it.

“Dispelling [Security Seal] in three… two… one…”

Nothing happened. Iris didn’t seemed too perturbed by that, though, and the intensity of the pure white mana increased.

“Setting two. Dispelling [Security Seal] in three… two… one…”

…

Iris was getting visibly tired now, and the spell circle was bright enough that it was hard to look at.

“Setting eleven. Dispelling [Security Seal] in three… two… one…”

The mana in the air reached a peak, and then it broke. In a single second, the pattern of mana disintegrated as the spell circle took its effect.

A moment later, all hell broke loose. With how much mana Iris had put into her first spell, the [Neutralize Magic] spell she cast afterwards was too weak to nullify the spell effect before it hit its intended target.

In the brief heartbeat before the mana surged into its intended target, I felt the shape of it.

It was familiar. I’d dealt with this before.

Rose wasn’t the closest one to the artifact, but through whatever metric it used to determine its target, I felt the spell sink into her.

The [Bard] breathed in deeply.

“Stop her!” I shouted, pointing at the blue-haired girl.

Nobody reacted fast enough, their reactions stunted by the speed at which the spell took place so I dove at her myself, arms outstretched.

Rose breathed out, screaming a [Song of Displacement] at the same time. It was different than it usually was. Stronger. Twisted. Broken.

All three of us flew upwards, the spell affecting each of us equally. It wasn’t at the same intensity it usually was, but it was still enough to get us away from her.

That was fine. I’d learned. I’d prepared for this.

I opened an air vent under Rose, and she flew too.

As I fell, she rose, and with the angle I’d launched her at, I was just barely able to grab her around the waist and cast [Remove Greater Affliction] as many times as I could.

When the four of us crashed to the ground, shattering at least four of my bones, Rose had none of the effects left on her.

“Not the best way to start a day,” I muttered, drawing out [Healing Stream]s for everyone.

And then I caught sight of the item.

[Compound Level Device]

Effect: Sharply increases the rate by which levels are gained.

Alternate Effect: [LOCKED}

Suddenly, day two was looking a lot better.