The headless knight followed the girl, with Shuutarou in a princess carry. With each step came the heavy metal clang of its sabbatons on the stone floor. They passed through the door and into a hallway. It was very wide, as expected from a castle this size, with a luxurious carpet as far as Shuutarou could see and candles in sconces on the walls.
I read about Dullahan. He’s the Kiren Graveyard boss, Shuutarou thought, pretending to be dead.
He concluded that escaping from this girl—who commanded even boss monsters—in this enormous monster-infested castle was not in the cards.
Resistance is futile. I’ll have to do what she says.
Shuutarou pressed his lips together, his heart sinking.
He was right about Dullahan being the area boss of Kiren Graveyard, which was located far to the north of Allistras. It was an Undead monster only a party with an average level of 30 could defeat.
Besides the standard Fire, Water, Earth, Wind, Lightning, Light, and Darkness attributes, there were also Plant, Ice, Holy, and Undead. Undead types were difficult to kill, since only Fire- and Holy-attribute weapons or attacks worked on them.
Boss monsters halved damage from players of a level lower than them, which was why most players kept their distance.
There were classes in the game that enabled players to control monsters—those were summoners, tamers, and shamans—but even after a month of playing, none of the beta players managed to control a boss monster. Shuutarou knew this from avidly reading everything he could find about the game while he’d been waiting to play it. This white-haired girl was really special.
If she was something like a summoner, she must have had extremely high MAG—magic power—to be able to control Dullahan, but at the same time, she’d thrown that giant ax at him, so her STR—strength—must have been high, too. Which pointed to her being a very high-level monster herself.
Since he couldn’t run away from her, the best Shuutarou could do was heed her orders and hope to avoid getting killed.
“Elroad, it’s me,” said the girl.
“Enter. I had Theodore come as well.”
The heavy door in front of them opened with a creak, and they went into a room lined with shelves upon shelves of books. The red carpet led through the room, up several steps, to a throne on a podium.
This room, too, was enormous.
Wow… That’s more books than at my school library!
Shuutarou hadn’t seen much of the world, so he was easily impressed.
A black-haired knight was standing with his back to them in the middle of the room. He turned his head to peer at Shuutarou with piercing golden eyes. His hair looked tough like wires, and a deep scar ran across one of his eyes. He had the appearance of maybe a twenty-eight-year-old. His silver armor was beautifully engraved.
The knight had an aura of power much like the girl’s, and a greatsword was on his back, which made a chill run down Shuutarou’s spine.
“Welcome. Please come this way,” said the butler, who’d been sitting on the throne, as he got to his feet.
He was strikingly handsome, maybe twenty years old, with alabaster-white skin, blue hair, and red eyes. Unlike the knight and the girl, he didn’t have an intimidating aura. Shuutarou’s tense expression relaxed a little, but not for long. Dullahan passed the butler and deposited Shuutarou right on the throne.
“Huh?”
Its job done, Dullahan walked off toward the door. Shuutarou remained where he’d been put down, confused.
“He passed the test?” asked the black-haired knight.
“Unfortunately,” the girl replied.
“Well, then.”
The knight crossed his arms. The room fell silent for a few moments until the butler turned to Shuutarou.
“I gather you don’t understand what’s going on, and I don’t blame you—we don’t fully grasp the situation yet, either.”
“R-right…”
“Perhaps we should start by explaining who we are.”
The butler’s unceasing smile unnerved Shuutarou, who didn’t say anything in response. The butler interpreted his silence as agreement. After the knight nodded lightly, the butler continued:
“I am the First Evil Overlord, Elroad, of Ross Maora Castle.”
Shuutarou frowned, wondering if he’d misheard. None of this sounded good. Still, he felt the tension leave his body, and he readjusted himself in his seat, listening attentively.
“This is Vampy, the Second Evil Overlord. The dark-haired gentleman over there is Theodore, the Fifth Evil Overlord. There are three more Evil Overlords, but I haven’t asked them to join us on this occasion. I hope you will forgive me—”
“Hold on! You said you’re Evil Overlords?”
Shuutarou mustered every ounce of courage he had to interrupt Elroad for clarification. Fortunately, nobody threw an ax at him or summoned monsters this time.
“? The title of Evil Overlord indicates the leader of a wicked race…and the three of us here are rulers of our respective races. Therefore, we are all Evil Overlords,” Elroad said, not quite understanding what Shuutarou was confused about.
Vampy and Theodore listened to their exchange in silence.
“What I mean is, if you’re Evil Overlords, why’d you put me on your throne?”
Evil or not, these three were royalty of a kind; plus, the two men were older than Shuutarou. He should be the one with the lowest status among them.
“Simple. You are our master, and as such, this throne belongs to you.”
Shuutarou frowned again, wondering if there really was something wrong with his hearing. He poked his fingers into his ears, but they were perfectly clear.
“As for how we arrived at this conclusion, the only way into the castle leads through the Gates of Death, which haven’t yet been opened. Nonetheless, you have suddenly appeared here, coinciding with the opening of a rift in the sky. Hence, we presume you have arrived through that rift,” Elroad explained with easy eloquence, a smile never leaving his face as if he only had one available expression.
What he said about a rift in the sky rang a bell for Shuutarou—he remembered the small moon he saw when he regained consciousness after passing out for the first time. Perhaps it wasn’t a moon after all, but a hole, opened up by his Create Dungeon skill? The Gates of Death must have referred to the big gate he saw earlier outside the castle.
“We’ve found you to be immune to our unique skills, magic, and physical attacks. Rather than suppose that you possess a special ability allowing you to avoid taking damage even from skills above level one hundred by falling unconscious, another explanation seems far more likely—that we, like the headless knight who carried you here, are your subordinates.”
A beta tester would swoon with delight at all this precious information, but Shuutarou’s capacity for absorbing new info had already been exhausted. Feeling uneasy, he opened his menu and navigated to skill descriptions to check what it said about Create Dungeon again.
Create Dungeon: Creates a dungeon under the present location. Small chance of obtaining treasure upon activation.
This is just a guess, but…what if this castle was located under that tree where I used the skill? And my skill treated it as an extension of the dungeon it generated, or maybe it treated it as a treasure, assigning me ownership of it…?
It was a possibility. A possibility that made the timid Shuutarou turn pale.
“From this moment on, we swear to protect you and fight in your name. We recognize you as our master.”
The three Evil Overlords knelt on one knee, just like the generic monsters did when the white-haired girl entered that creepy room where Shuutarou woke up.