I hadn’t expected everyone to say that, or any of what followed.
“I heard minotaur meat is a delicacy!” someone said.
“Man, I’ve been getting so sick of orc!”
“Looks like we’re having steak tonight!”
Apparently, every one of them saw dinner instead of a terrifying monster.
“Mroooaaahhhh?” the minotaur rumbled, picking up on the strange energy. It immediately took an uneasy step backward—and then quickly snapped out of it and broke into a charge.
“HNNNNGHHH!”
The rumors about its speed were completely accurate.
“Go, golem!” I shouted, dispatching my construct. The moment they collided, however, the minotaur lowered its head and speared its horn right through the golem. It crumbled like wet sand.
“URRRRHHHH?!”
“Huh?! It destroyed it in one hit?!”
As it turned out, even my earth golems stood no chance against a minotaur.
“I’ll take care of it, Mayor!” Noel stepped forward and raised his giant shield.
“H-Hey, hang on! You can’t take that thing on alone!”
Craaaaaash!
The sound of the impact echoed around us. The minotaur pushed Noel back a few meters, but he not only stayed on his feet—he stopped the charging monster all by himself.
“Bwwaaoarggh?!”
“Damn, Noel. It’ll take a lot more than brute strength to beat you, that’s for sure!” Gordy said, clearly impressed.
The minotaur was stunned from the impact, so Philia shot a flurry of arrows at it while Seren followed up with a barrage of ice blades. Unable to handle the combo, the minotaur staggered, groaned, and collapsed onto the floor.
The experienced hunters didn’t waste a second.
“I wasn’t kidding!” one of them said. “Minotaur meat’s supposed to be delicious.”
“Just thinking about it has me drooling!”
“We just killed it, guys. Can you at least wait a second?”
They immediately began draining the blood from the corpse. As they worked, they explained that bleeding it early removes the meat’s gamy flavor and makes it taste better.
Afterward, they packed up the carcass. Since it was heavier than an orc, carrying it turned into a serious chore.
We ran into a few more minotaurs. At first, everyone cheered about the extra meat, but the more we collected, the harder it became to lug all the carcasses around.
“How do you guys handle this while hunting in the forest?” I asked.
“Usually, we split it up. Some continue hunting, and the others stay behind to dress the kill.”
“Got it.”
But that system didn’t work here. We had too few people to spare and needed to keep moving, so we had to haul everything as we went.
Even with Gordy’s ridiculous strength, carrying multiple minotaurs in a cramped dungeon was pushing it.
Just when I was wondering what to do, someone shouted, “Look over there! Stairs!”
Dungeons were often built in layers, and staircases were the standard way to reach the next level.
“Will we reach the next level if we go down?”
“What do you think, Luke? Should we head back? There’s no way we can carry all this meat down with us.”
“Good point... Oh, wait! I have an idea! We can just leave it here!”
“No way. We can’t just leave it lying around. What if a monster eats it?”
“It’ll be fine. Look.”
I summoned an earthen wall and shaped it into a structure on the spot.
Storehouse
>>A storage facility built from clay. Extends the shelf life of food and other supplies by preventing spoilage and pests.
The facility’s built-in enchantments allowed it to preserve any food we put in it.
“We can stash the minotaurs in here.”
I’d only been able to build the structure because I’d already used Territory Takeover to claim this part of the dungeon, of course.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Emergency detected. Emergency detected. Intruders detected. Dungeon is being invaded. Immediate response recommended.”
The alarm blaring through the dungeon’s lowest level finally woke the tiny girl. “Nngh, so loud...” she groaned, stretching groggily atop her plush cushion.
She looked human, save for the delicate wings fluttering from her back. They were transparent, like a dragonfly’s wings.
She scrunched her face, annoyed to have been woken from her nap.
“Hang on, did it say emergency? Huh?! There are intruders in my dungeon right now?! Whaaaat?!”
✦ ✦ ✦
“So if you built a house or an apartment here, you could live in the dungeon?” Seren asked irritably, frowning at the storehouse.
“In other words, as long as we have Lord Luke, we can create entire settlements in the dungeon! This could revolutionize the entire dungeon diving industry!” Philia said, overwhelmed.
It was true. By building safe zones within dungeons, we could make exploring them a lot easier.
I explained that there were already other dungeons where something similar had been achieved.
“From what I’ve read, they had to haul in an insane amount of resources,” I said. “Just think about all the traps and monsters, not to mention the total lack of infrastructure. It couldn’t have been easy.”
“But with you here, we just walk in and poof! It’s done!”
“That’s our mayor!”
Everyone stared at me like a myth that had come to life.
All I did was make a storehouse...
Anyway, now that we’d unloaded the minotaur meat, we could head down to the next floor without the extra weight burdening us. The stairs eventually led to the same path we’d crossed at the beginning of the dungeon, so we probably would’ve ended up here sooner or later.
After a while, the staircase brought us to a chamber.
“The atmosphere’s different here,” Seren said quietly as we emerged.
“I agree. This place seems man-made,” Philia said.
They were both right. Unlike the jagged rock of the natural caves we’d passed through earlier, this chamber was smoother, like a stone ruin. The walls and floor looked like they’d been made with care, as if part of some larger, ancient, underground structure.
We didn’t make it very far before it became obvious this floor was way more complex than the last. There were tons of branching paths and twisting passages. It was practically a maze.
“I’m pretty sure it’s this way...” Kamul muttered.
Still, we continued following Kamul’s instincts. To his credit, we barely got turned around at all.
Naturally, we ran into traps and monsters. There were numerous minotaurs like before, but we also started seeing bloodbats—which were huge, vampiric bats—and sabersnakes, with their huge, bladelike fangs.
While none of them was that tough individually, the bloodbats were a nuisance because they swarmed in groups and attacked from above, making our frontliners basically useless.
“Damn it, these things are a nightmare!”
“They’re calling in more of those things! They’re multiplying!”
“Argh! Get off! Let go of me, you little freak!”
Once one latched on, they didn’t let go easily. If too many piled on at once, they could actually drain you dry.
“Everyone, inside, now!” I shouted, creating a small house on the spot.
“Got it!”
Everyone scrambled inside. It was a tight fit with this many people, but it was adequate for a temporary shelter. We could hear the bats gnawing at the outside walls, but at least for now, we were safe.
“Huh. I see... You can use these for emergency shelters too,” Seren said.
“You saved us! Sophia, would you?” Philia asked.
“Of course.”
Sophia, one of the elven warriors and our party’s healer, began healing the injured with magic.
“We can’t strike back from inside, though,” Gordy grumbled.
“I can handle it,” Seren said, moving toward the window. She calmly gathered magic in her hands, and the moment she opened the shutter, a blast of powerful Ice magic roared out. The bats dropped like flies, shredded by the ice blades.
Once she was done casting the spell, she shut the window.
“Not bad. We can strike from cover!” Philia said, clearly impressed. She stepped up and began her own incantation next.
Together, Seren and Philia unleashed wave after wave of ranged attacks until they’d wiped out the rest of the bats.
When we stepped out of the house, the air was quiet once again.
Then I noticed a red dot, indicating an enemy, on my map.
Huh? There’s one left?
Since I’d claimed the area, I could use my map here and see any nearby enemies as red dots.
I turned to look in that direction and saw a small figure flit deeper into the dungeon. When I switched my focus back to the map, I saw the creature had already left its range. I couldn’t track it now.
“Huh?” I muttered.
“What is it, Luke?”
“I thought it was just another bat, but now I’m wondering if it was something else.”
This one was colorful, unlike the dull bloodbats, and looked more like a butterfly than a bat.
✦ ✦ ✦
“What the hell?! Who the hell just built a house in my dungeon like they own the place?! Who are these people?! And why the hell are they clearing my floors so fast?! This is not okay!!!”