My plan had been pretty clever, if I said so myself. To sneak into the dungeon without Seren finding out, all I’d had to do was hide in someone’s pack—and Gordy had been the perfect man for the job.
“Y-You wanna do what now, Mayor?” Gordy had said when I told him about my plan.
“Sneak into your pack. There’s something I really want to test out in the dungeon, so I have to go.”
“But what if Captain Seren finds out?”
“If she does, I’ll take full responsibility. I’ll make sure she doesn’t blame you for anything.”
I’d managed to convince him, which let me slip into the party without raising any alarm bells. And it had all been going wonderfully until we actually were inside the dungeon.
“Is it just me, or is that pack making noise?” Seren said. “I swear I hear...breathing or something.”
Oh no, has she found out already?!
Apparently, something about Gordy’s pack had caught her attention. He tried to play it off, and for a moment, I thought we were in the clear. Then...
“Gotcha,” Seren said.
Out of nowhere, Seren grabbed me through the bag and started digging her fingers into my sides—my one weak point.
“Eep! H-Hey, stop that! Ah ha ha! Bwa ha ha ha!”
I doubled over inside the bag, helpless as Seren relentlessly tickled me into submission.
“That tickles, Seren! Knock it off! Ah ha ha!”
“That’s weird. Food doesn’t usually complain when you squeeze it!” she said.
“Fine, fine! I give up! Just stop! Ah ha ha! Stop already!”
“Then come out. Now.”
With no way out and no breath left in me, I crawled out of the bag.
“Ugh, I thought I was going to laugh myself to death!”
“Mayor?!”
Everyone stared at me, wide-eyed.
“Didn’t I tell you it was too dangerous?!” Seren demanded, glaring at me.
“Ah ha ha...” I laughed nervously.
“You can’t chuckle your way out of this one.”
Yikes, she’s scary...
Still, it was too late to do anything about it now. I’d made it this far, enough to do what I’d come to do.
Then Marco, the villager with Danger Detection, gasped ahead of us.
“Hey, something’s coming from deeper inside!” he shouted.
When we turned to look into the depths of the dungeon, we saw a huge shadow sprinting toward us.
“Graaaawr!”
“It’s a bloodwolf!”
The massive lupine monster barreling toward us was easily three meters long. Foam dripped from its sharp fangs, as if it hadn’t eaten in days and had just found its first meal. A single one of its teeth was as large as my forearm. One bite and I’d be done for.
“Leave it to me!” Philia shouted, springing into action. She lifted her bow as she moved forward to protect me.
“Mayor, get back now!” someone else shouted, and the rest of the party pushed me toward the rear.
Wait—now’s my chance! If I pull this off, Seren will have to reconsider!
Before Philia could shoot her arrow, I created an earthen wall in front of the charging wolf.
“Aroooo?!” The wolf yelped as it slammed face-first into the wall.
All right, it worked! Facility Construction was a success!
Immediately moving on to Facility Customization, I transformed the wall into a five-meter-tall golem and made it throw a punch at the stunned wolf. The wolf lunged in retaliation, but what was it going to do to a golem that had no nerves and felt no pain?
Still controlling the golem, I tackled the monster and pinned it beneath the construct’s massive frame. The golem locked the bloodwolf’s torso into a crushing hold with both arms.
“Rawwrr?!” The wolf thrashed wildly, but it couldn’t shake the weight of the giant golem.
“What in the world is happening right now?”
“Philia, finish it!” I shouted.
“R-Right!”
She shot off a flurry of arrows, each piercing the bloodwolf in the middle of its forehead. The light left its eyes, and the fight was over.
“I knew you wouldn’t miss,” I said.
“That’s not the point! What just happened?!” Philia asked.
“Yeah, did you make that wall?” Seren demanded.
They both rushed over at the same time.
“I used Territory Takeover to claim the dungeon,” I said, unable to stop a bit of boastfulness from creeping into my voice. “That means I can create and modify facilities here, like I just did with the golem.”
Territory Takeover
>>Allows you to forcibly annex land governed by others into your village territory. Effective only within a fifty-meter radius of the village mayor’s location.
The catch was that I had to be physically present to activate it, which was exactly why I’d gone to so much trouble to get to the dungeon.
“How did you control the golem, Lord Luke?”
“I’ve been practicing. Remember the other day when I built a golem out of stone walls and made it move? That gave me the idea.”
Golems operated by pilots inside the suit hadn’t worked out, but remotely controlled ones like this were pretty effective in combat.
“Well, what do you think, Seren? Not bad for someone you thought should stay behind, right?”
I made the golem walk up beside me and strike a victory pose to drive my point home. Moving the golem around didn’t cost any Village Points. Repairs did, but they were cheap.
“I-I admit it’s impressive, but still...”
Seren was usually so overprotective, but even she couldn’t come up with an argument right away.
“Besides, this dungeon’s officially part of the village now. And since I’m the mayor, I should be allowed to explore it freely, right?”
“I agree with Lord Luke. Boys his age tend to be full of curiosity. If you don’t let him explore, you’ll end up pushing him away,” Philia said.
Although her explanation was a bit patronizing, it wasn’t like I could argue. I probably seemed like a kid to her since elves’ lifespans measured in centuries.
“Argh, fine! But I’ll be furious if anything happens to you! You have to stay in the center of our formation! Noel, you’re on guard duty. Protect Luke with everything you’ve got!” Seren said.
“Of course! I’m on it.”
And just like that, I’d officially gotten permission to join the dungeon exploration.
Of course, I’d omitted one tiny little detail: I hadn’t been able to claim the entire dungeon, because Territory Takeover only affected the fifty-meter radius around the village mayor’s current location. That rule applied even in dungeons, which meant I’d only added the entrance of the dungeon to the village’s territory.
I’d have to extend the village’s claim deeper into the dungeon by using Territory Takeover as we explored.
So we resumed our dungeon dive. After making our way down the first gentle slope, the path forked.
“A split path right off the bat, huh?” I said.
“I don’t sense anything dangerous from either direction at the moment,” Marco said, relying on the instincts his Danger Detection Gift gave him.
When I looked at Kamul, I noticed he seemed especially rattled.
“What’s wrong, Kamul?” I asked gently.
“Um, well...” He hesitated. “I-I’m not sure why, but I think we should take the path on the right. It’ll be tough going, and the left feels easy, but it’s the wrong way...”
“Okay. That’s...not very clear,” I said. “Still, if this is your Gift talking, we should listen.”
It was the first fork in the cave, after all. We’d end up exploring both paths eventually.
“All right, let’s try the right path first.”
We only made it a short distance forward before Marco suddenly shouted.
“Something’s wrong! Be careful! I’ve got a bad feeling about this!”
We all froze, suddenly alert. Marco’s “bad feelings” weren’t just hunches—they were warnings.
Is it a monster?
I looked around, but there were no signs of movement around us.
“I-It’s the ground. About five meters ahead...” Kamul said.
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t think it’ll end well if you step there...” He pointed.
I followed his gaze but saw nothing but an ordinary stone floor.
“It’s best not to take any chances,” Seren said.
“Yeah, we should steer clear of it just in case,” Philia added.
“I’ll send the golem,” I said.
I created a golem by modifying an earthen wall and sent it to walk over to the place Kamul had pointed out. The moment it reached it—
Craaash!
—the floor buckled open underneath it and swallowed the golem up to its head.
“It was a pitfall trap,” I said.
It looked pretty deep too. The golem stood five meters tall, but its head was barely poking over the edge of the hole.
“That was amazing, Kamul. I didn’t sense anything strange about it, but you still nailed it,” Marco said.
“It was just a lucky guess, I think...” he replied, flustered.
Now there was no doubt about it: His Dungeon Exploration Gift was the real deal.
While Marco’s Danger Detection provided him with a more general sense of when we were in jeopardy, Kamul’s Gift allowed him to pinpoint exactly where the traps were lying.
We continued moving, making good progress through the dungeon. Each time we encountered a pitfall trap, Kamul identified it, and I dispatched a golem to trigger or disable it. Thanks to our tag-team effort, we were tearing through the place.
It would’ve been a total nightmare without Kamul. For example, the most recent pitfalls had spikes and pools of poison at the bottom. The golem was fine, but a human wouldn’t have gotten away unscathed.
There were other nasty traps, like stalactites that fell from the ceiling or hidden chambers that opened to release swarms of monsters.
“Dungeons are deadly because of these traps, unlike in the forest. If one goes off in the middle of a fight, it could wipe us out. We need to disable them first or we’re at a disadvantage,” Philia muttered.
“This route’s been tough from the start. Maybe we should’ve gone left after all,” Seren said with a sigh.
“Ugh...” Kamul groaned, flinching at her comment.
“It’s not your fault, Kamul!” I said, jumping to defend him before he got too depressed. He was already on edge, after all. “I’m the one who chose this path!”
We arrived at another fork. This one, however, went in three different directions: left, right, and straight.
“Th-The middle one...I think...”
“Okay, let’s continue going straight.”
Even though Kamul sounded uncertain as usual, we trusted his suggestion.
And then we heard a loud, bellowing roar ahead.
“MWROOOAGHHHHH!”
“Wh-What the hell was that?!”
An enormous creature—even bigger than the orc king we’d fought—stepped into view in front of us. It had the horned head of a bull but stood upright like a man.
I’d heard of monsters like this. They made their homes in dungeons and could gore a man with a single charge. They were an absolute nightmare.
“A minotaur...” I murmured.
“Beef!” everyone else shouted.
Wait, what?!