Lewd Dungeon, Chapter 220 (Patreon)

Chapter 220 – Aftermath

The fight with the dragon was over. For Miguel, and the other people standing on the roof of the Adventurers’ Guild building, watching the projection that one of the guild’s scryers managed to put up in time to show the battle, that was a cause for relief. But it was also a cause for growing concern, and Miguel wasn’t the only one to think that way.

“Are you sure it is ok to leave things like this, Guildmaster?”

Miguel chuckled as he turned to see who spoke. It was Doctor Valentine. With wry smile, he asked, “Leave things like what, Doctor?”

The doctor frowned at him. “You know exactly what I mean! That perverted bastard was powerful enough before. He took down that entire fleet of ships that an angry goddess sent after him, and captured most of their fighters! And he’s turning himself into a fucking god! And now? And NOW? NOW he has himself a fucking DRAGON!”

Miguel shook his head. “And what, exactly, do you expect me to do about it? It isn’t like I have any chance of controlling him. Hell, only about three percent of the adventurers in Miami haven’t signed his contract, and one in four claims him as their chosen deity.”

Valentine blanched. “That many? How?”

“Because he offers two things that are universal in their appeal: pleasure and control. And both are far more insidious means of coercion than pain. People can ignore pain, but pleasure is harder to resist.”

She nodded, slowly. “Yes, I can see that. There’s a reason why pleasure cults are easier to draw in converts than an ascetic one. And the idea of being able to control things, especially when the world has changed so much is just as attractive. I understand it all, academically, but I just didn’t think it would happen so fast, or without more pushback.”

Miguel smiled. “Who says there hasn’t been pushback? There’s been no less than three attacks on him by one religion, you know. And he isn’t exactly popular with any of the ‘local’ religions, either. Anyone who has come at him to try and ‘purge’ him has been dealt with so horribly that he hasn’t had to deal with it too often.

“And when his followers are out in the world? They might do a bit of preaching, but nothing more than what those other religions do. It isn’t like he sends priests into the local Catholic church to try and convert people there for mass. Like it or not, he is playing by their rules. And the people who are swayed by him aren’t typically the ones who would be in the pews to begin with.”

“What about that Father whats-his-name?”

“Oh, him? I actually managed to speak with him and his party, once. They went into the Dungeon repeatedly, and were converted there. That’s how he does it. He doesn’t actively go out and try to convert people, unless they come to him in some way.”

Miguel snorted. “Hell, even the shrines we have in the guild halls are purely decorative, unless one seeks out what he’s saying. No one is getting forced to sign away their soul, or anything like that. Honestly, he’s been a lot less pushy than most of the ‘Evangelical’ types. No one from his church ever goes walking around asking random strangers if they’ve been ‘saved’.”

“But then—?”

“But nothing. I don’t like it. Frankly, I hate that he’s gone and gotten even more powerful. But I have to face the facts as they are, rather than just going by what I want to happen. He’s the only one who could have stopped the dragon without wiping most of Miami off the map. And no one has the power to force him to give up the dragon if he doesn’t want to.”

Ambassador Zygrash shook her head. “At this point, it would probably be more prudent to figure out what caused the dragon to attack, and where it came from. Tier 4 creatures are rare enough in the wider galaxy, but there shouldn’t be any here, now. Not yet. The mana densities aren’t strong enough to support a dragon population.”

Bethany frowned. “Are you suggesting that someone brought the dragon here from elsewhere, Ambassador? And just let it loose to attack the city?”

“No, Guildmaster Johnston. Not necessarily. Dragons will often seek out unclaimed territory or worlds to lay their eggs, and those eggs can rest undisturbed for ages until they take in enough mana to hatch. While the idea of someone bringing a dragon to Earth to attack is possible, it is far more plausible that the dragon was here all along, and only hatched after the ‘System Apocalypse’, as you call it.”

One of the adventurers who had teleported back from the ocean just before the attack (Sanders, he thought her name was) raised a hand. “The vurlocks summoned the thing.”

Zygrash frowned. “What kind of summoning? Was it opening a rift to another plane, like with demons? Or calling it from somewhere here on Earth?”

“Calling it, I believe. We were doing our normal culling of the vurlock numbers, to keep them from swarming the beaches at the time, but we noticed them performing some kind of ceremony.”

Bethany cut in, “We believe there’s a broken dungeon off-shore, causing vurlocks to spawn at unnatural rates, like you see with the goblins to the north. If we don’t send groups to kill them every week or so, then they get out of control, and start trying to raid the beaches in a wave.”

Sanders nodded. “Right. We were on our normal cull, when we noticed some of the vurlock shamans start conducting a ritual by a crude altar. This was still near the start of the cull, so we weren’t able to fight our way through in time to stop it.

“There was a pulse of power, and a shockwave that knocked us about. Raquel, our druid, has the [Danger Sense] skill. She told us use our recall tokens immediately, so we did, bringing us back here. The next thing we knew, the Dragon came up out of the water, and you know what happened after that.”

Zygrash nodded. “Yes, paying attention to someone with [Danger Sense] is always a good idea. And I agree, that sounds like a calling ritual, rather than a summoning.”

Miguel took a breath. “So, is that better or worse than a summoning?”

“Worse in the short run, but better for the long term, I believe. It means that the dragon was already here, possibly in hibernation while your planet was not connected to the system. This means there may be other creatures with similar abilities who could be lurking in places around the world. And your adventurers simply aren’t equipped to handle them, not yet.”

She quickly held up a hand, “I do not mean to disparage any of you, or what you’ve accomplished so far, but, as you know, the difference between a high Tier 1 creature and a low Tier 2 one is staggering. The difference between high Tier 2 and low Tier 3, and then high Tier 3 and low Tier 4, is just as large. You simply have not had the time to grow to a level where you can handle such threats.

“On the sunny side, there are only a few creatures that can stay in hibernation through all the hundreds of thousands of years this dragon must have been here. So, the chances of there being too many of these creatures around is very small. I would say less than ten, certainly.”

Miguel nodded. “And, so we know, how is this better than if they summoned the dragon?”

“Because being able to summon creatures like dragons is not something that is commonly taught by the System. Which means that either a bunch of, well, primitive vurlocks had managed to figure out the advanced ritual magics necessary to summon a creature three tiers above them in strength, whether from elsewhere in the galaxy or from a watery plane of existence, or they had outside help, influencing them. Help that could not have come from your world, such as it is now.”

“So, the difference between something that had been here all along waking up, and someone or something actively meddling, got it. If it is a creature waking up, that is bad, but there’s only so many places these things could be sleeping, and only a few possible creatures they could be, which limits the number of threats. But if it is someone on the outside meddling, that means they likely have plans, and those plans don’t care whether a dragon wrecks a city of millions of people.”

The Ambassador nodded. “Basically, yes.”

“Well, that’s definitely worse.”

The druid, Senora Espina, said, “So, going back to the Demon and his new pet dragon, what do you think is going to happen there?”

Bethany frowned. “I mean, it is true that he has a new, more powerful minion to command. However, given how Lord Kuronoth runs the Dungeon, I doubt that we’ll see the Dragon as a floor boss anytime soon. As the Ambassador said, that creature is far too strong for any of the local adventurers to handle. Unless some poor idiot decides not to sign the contracts, I doubt he’ll set that thing on anyone, until people have gotten a lot stronger.”

Sanders nodded once. “Yeah, the Dragon is too powerful for a straight fight. But there have been some encounters in the dungeon so far that you don’t have to fight your way through. The shrine on the Ironwood Swamp floor, for instance, allows you to train with the monks there. You can even learn techniques from that ninja sprite.”

Espina’s eyes went wide. “Ooh, do you think that maybe we can learn some water magic from a water dragon? Or maybe there will be something for druids or other classes that can shapeshift, that will let us turn into a dragon!”

Miguel chuckled, shaking his head. “Well, I would suggest you try and manage your expectations a bit, Señora Espina. The dragon is a baby, after all. So, we don’t know how much they will actually know. Yes, the System gives us a lot of knowledge when we get our abilities and skills, but that isn’t the same as hands-on knowledge or having actual practical experience. Especially when it comes to combat.”

Zygrash smiled, her tail swishing slightly. “I must say, spending time with you humans is always interesting. Your long time without the System gives you all such interesting views on the System itself, and how to use it.” When everyone turned to look at her, she said, “People in the rest of the galaxy tend to rely more heavily on their System skills and abilities. They grew up with them, and so did everyone they’ve met, so they don’t question things, and why they are the way they are.

“But you humans? You only look at your System skills and abilities as extensions of what you can already do. Normally, someone without the Chef profession, or at the very least the Cooking skill, wouldn’t even dream of fixing dinner for a group of Ambassadors and their aides, unless it was some kind of simple dish. But one of my staff members made a delicious dinner for the office, and the only thing that separated it from the work of someone with the Cooking skill is that it didn’t provide some of the buffs that food made with the Cooking skill can give you. And it was an old family recipe!”

Miguel nodded. “Well, for us, this is all still new. We may lose some of that, once we get more used to the system. The benefits of having a dish give you stat bonuses isn’t something to overlook, especially for adventurers, after all, but we all have things we just… know how to do, because we’ve been doing it our whole lives. I can say from personal experience that I am nowhere near as good a shot with my bow as someone who has trained for years, even if they are the same level as me, with the same skills.”

Dr. Valentine nodded. “And that is part of why the Demon is so dangerous. He’s taking that ability, and applying it to everything his new abilities are giving him. And I’m concerned about where that will lead, in the end.”

Zygrash nodded. “Yes. But, for now, we can only watch, and hope for the best.”