Dungeon Counter-Raid!

Morning.

While I was fooling around with Liricia at the manor in the forest, an enemy dungeon attacked us, so we decided to strike back by invading and clearing it instead.

I ran through the inside of the enemy dungeon. The floor and walls were a dark bluish color. The corridors were wide.

Maybe because it was an undead dungeon, the air felt a little cold.

Behind me, Liricia spread her white wings with a soft whump and followed while peering around through her finger “binoculars.”

We dashed through the empty dungeon and went down the stairs without encountering a single enemy.

When we reached the lowest floor, I let out a sharp shout to focus myself.

Just from that, somewhere nearby I heard the clattering sound of metal rolling.

I asked Liricia,

“Where’s the enemy core!?”

“Dark Magic Detection—Aura Detect… This way, Master!”

Liricia spread her pure white wings, flew into the air, and pointed the way ahead.

Thanks to the huge amounts of Holy Wave energy I had been pouring into her every night, in her angel form she could now levitate and even fly.

If there was a pitfall trap, she would grab me from behind and fly us right over it.

We smoothly made our way through the dungeon.

As for the poison-gas traps, I just shouted, “Haaah!” and blew the gas away with fighting spirit.

On top of that, it seemed to be populated only by undead, so we hardly saw any enemies at all.

The few that were there were all in the middle of fading away.

Eventually, we reached the large chamber just before the room that housed the dungeon core.

Beyond it was a doorway-less passage, and I could see a blue sphere sitting in the room at the back.

However, there was a huge undead in the chamber in front.

It was a gigantic dragon zombie, easily ten meters long.

Its white scales were peeling off in places, and I could see its internal organs around its belly.

It opened its half-rotten jaws and let out a roar.

“Screeeech!”

“Master! It’s an A-rank Queen Dragon Zombie!”

Liricia shouted, still looking through her finger binoculars.

“Queen?”

I had fought A-rank dragon zombies before, but I had never heard of anything called a Queen.

Liricia thrust both hands forward and chanted.

“Yes! It looks like it lays eggs! —Heavenly White Feather Cannon!”

Countless white feathers danced out and sketched a cylinder of light.

With a thunderous boom, the great cannon of light fired, but the dragon zombie spread its wings, leapt into the air, and dodged it.

The shell hit the dungeon wall and exploded.

“Oh! It’s faster than I expected! I’ll go—haaah!”

I filled my sword with Holy Wave energy and rushed in to slash.

Maybe rattled by the surge of Holy Wave energy, it froze for just an instant.

“Justice Slash!”

Slaaash!

I aimed for its neck, but it dodged, and my blade carved into its massive torso instead.

However, even though it was undead, the Holy Wave energy hardly seemed to work.

The dragon zombie twisted its body around and swung its decaying tail back and forth.

I braced myself, thinking it was an attack, but instead three round orbs shot from the dragon’s lower belly toward the walls and floor.

They were eggs.

The shells cracked, and three more rotten baby dragon zombies lunged at us.

“It multiplies!? What a pain!”

I slashed away the baby dragon zombies as they came flying in.

But when I tried to step in further, the dragon zombie laid more eggs.

“Screeeech!”

“Tch! I can’t get close to the main body!”

Then Liricia shouted from behind me.

“Feather Machinegun!”

Her white feathers turned into countless bullets and tore through the eggs and hatchlings.

In an instant, the path opened up.

I immediately dashed straight for the massive body in the back of the chamber!

“This ends now! —Holy Strike!”

I thrust with my sword, loaded with Holy Wave energy, in a powerful stab.

Thooom!

A huge hole punched all the way through the dragon zombie’s torso.

Along the line of the thrust, the dungeon core visible through the hole was destroyed at the same time.

With a metallic crash, the core shattered.

Then the dragon toppled over. Maybe it was my imagination, but its clouded eyes looked wet with tears.

“Gyuuaaa…”

The dragon zombie crashed to the floor and stopped moving.

Liricia gently flew over to my side.

“It was really tough for an undead, wasn’t it…?”

“I wonder why. Does being treated like a dungeon master change things?”

“I don’t know… But for you to defeat an enemy that your Holy Wave energy hardly works on—you’re amazing as always, Master!”

Being praised by Liricia, I looked over the dragon again.

A sudden question occurred to me, so I pulled out my Kou Phone sub-device and called.

“Hey, Kou.”

“What is it, Maaaster~?”

“There was a dragon zombie that didn’t get blown away even by my Holy Wave energy. Do you want it as material?”

“I waaant it~.”

“Got it.”

I brought the sub-device close and had it suck up the dragon zombie and baby dragon zombie corpses—though they had already been dead to begin with.

Then I headed over to the dungeon core in the back.

I pressed the sub-device against the blue sphere, turned it white, and then extracted the core.

There were three palm-sized gemstones shaped like large hexagons.

“Dungeon takeover compleeete~!”

“That means your rank went up again, Kou.”

“Yeees~! It’s all thanks to you, Master!”

“Also, where are this dungeon’s treasures?”

“Ah, since I took it over, I already moved everything over here.”

“Got it. So we’ve done everything we can here?”

“Yeees~ great wooork~.”

After I ended the call, I spoke to Liricia.

“Looks like we’re done. Let’s head back.”

“Yes, Master!”

Her silver hair swayed as she clung to my arm.

Then we retraced the path we had come.

We returned to Kou’s dungeon.

The elf girl Teti brightened up and ran over to us, her golden hair bouncing richly.

“Welcome back! Sir Alec, Miss Liricia!”

“Yeah, we’re back.”

“We have returned… Master was truly amazing out there.”

“As expected from the man who saved me! I totally respect you!”

It really wasn’t that big a deal, so I just shrugged.

“Well, the enemy was undead, after all. Liricia’s support was great too.”

“Thank you very much, Master!”

Liricia, pleased by the praise, touched her flushed pink cheeks and smiled.

After that, I handed over the dungeon cores we had collected for Kou.

Three large gemstones.

The surface of the white sphere lit up in delight.

“Yaaay! I’ve finally reached Tier 5~!”

“Huh? Didn’t that make six cores in total?”

“Tier 6 and above have all sorts of annoying requirements. That’s still a long way off~. —Though I could get there right away if I paid real money.”

“Sounds like the whole dungeon scene runs on some completely different system. Rough world.”

“Totally~. It’s like heavy spending is mandatory or something?”

“So it costs money. Are you okay for now?”

“I’m fiiiine~. The last batch of soldiers someone poured tens of thousands into all got wiped out, so from now on I’m going full free-to-play!”

The sphere flashed with a little beep, as if reflecting its firm resolve.

I tilted my head and gave a vague nod.

“Uh-huh, I see. I don’t really get it, but do your best.”

“Okaaay~.”

While we were having that conversation I only half understood, the dungeon corridor connected to the outer hall vanished.

It looked like the danger had completely passed.

Looking at the two beautiful girls beside me, I spoke.

“All right. After breakfast, we’ll open the shop. Then we head to the bookstore.”

“Yes! I’ll get everything ready right away!”

“Okaaay, leave it to me!”

Liricia’s silver hair swayed as she headed back to the manor, and Teti nodded enthusiastically with her whole slender body.

—Still, would a bookstore really just happen to sell a convenient map?

I had my doubts, but since it was Liricia’s idea, I decided to trust it, rolled my shoulders, and slowly made my way back to the manor.