Chapter 3

Day 24 of Year 2

In the blink of an eye, it was morning and I was laying in bed with Niku as my pillow. Geez. Alcohol is scary. Good thing I prepared a Golem Alarm Clock just in case something like this happened.

I cast {Healing} on my head. Ahhh, much better. Man am I glad I passed out in no time. If not for that, Haku might’ve forced me to drink until I died of alcohol poisoning. The last thing I remember is her screaming “Oh Beer! Oh mighty and joyous Beer!” while chugging beer from a huge mug, so yeah.

In either case, I fixed my bedhead with my fingers and poked Niku’s squishy cheek. She let out a tiny groan and woke up immediately. Yawning, I took Niku and we left the room, both of us rubbing our sleepy eyes. We met up with Rokuko on the way to our meeting place, the conference room.

“Morning, Keima. I see you woke up in time.”

“Heya, Rokuko. I’m just glad I set up that alarm... Haaah. I hope I never have to waste the blessings of this fantasy world and be woken up early like that again. Alarm clocks have no place here... And why’re you looking so cheery, anyway?”

“Wha? I mean, we just had that party. How could I not be pumped up?” said Rokuko, looking as bright and full of energy as ever. Going through a drinking party like that and actually feeling energized takes a special kind of skill, I think. It just tired me out.

We reached the conference room and found Ichika already there, waiting for us. She had woken up earlier than anyone else, it seemed, and judging by the broad grin on her face she had gotten plenty energized from the party. Wait a second...! Niku looks like she’s feeling great too. Am I the weird one here?!

“Didn’t know you were such a hard worker, Ichika. I kinda expected you to camp out in the kitchen until the last moment.”

“Dude, you can’t call yourself a pro adventurer if you aren’t on time when ya need to be. Like, ever heard of timed quests? This is just common sense.”

“Huh... Guess I’ll quit being an adventurer. I only joined the Guild so I could have an excuse for going in and out of town anyway.”

“...You’re kinda a B-Rank now, so um, you’re just gonna have to deal with it a little. ’Kay?”

Last came Haku. She was exactly on time, not a second early or late. Judging by the skip in her step, she was more than excited for the upcoming Dungeon Battle. Which made sense given that she and Rokuko would be getting physically, literally, closer whether we won or lost. This is actually a proxy war between Haku and some other senior Cores, so I’m glad she’s enthusiastic, at least.

“Oh my, Keima, do you intend to lose?”

“Nah, I’m gonna try to win.”

“Then you should have no issue with my excitement. We senior Cores will not be participating in this Dungeon Battle, beyond giving advice. Do try not to lose.”

“Ehhh, well, we’ll see how it goes.”

“My sweet Rokuko, fear not. I’ll take care of the situation if you lose.”

“I appreciate the thought, but Keima won’t lose! No way!”

We used Haku’s {Teleport} to move directly to the [Ivory Beach’s] Core Room. Inside was the Dummy Core resting safely on its stand, and a warp gate to the [Cave of Greed]. We immediately entered the Master Room through the Dummy Core. Once there, I started off by casually summoning ten or so Gargoyles with {Summon Gargoyle} and sending them to the key points we had worked out beforehand. Man, it sure sucks that summoned monsters will leave if the summoner gets knocked out. Now I have to stay here and not fight on the frontlines. Dang.

While I was at it, I checked the gimmicks we had set up for today to make sure everything would run smoothly. I started polishing some sections off and before long, it was time for the Dungeon Battle.

“Okay, everyone, it’s time. Have you all finished your Dungeon Battle preparations?” An unfamiliar voice suddenly echoed throughout the Master Room. The voice had a tone that was friendly, yet tinged with a sort of authority that made defying the speaker seem out of the question. One of the walls became a monitor that displayed footage of a black-haired, golden-eyed man with dark sooty skin and a blue priest’s robe. Half of his face, mostly the area around his eyes, was covered by a mask. Hm... I guess this is Father. He looks a lot younger than I thought.

“The Demon King Team is fully prepared, my Father.”

“No problems with the Dragon King Team, Father.”

“Human Empire Team reporting. We’re quite ready, Father.”

The three senior Cores all spoke with respectful tones. Seeing Haku bow her head just drove home how big of a deal this Father was.

“Okay then, let the battle begiiiiiin... in a second. Is there anything you all want to say, junior Cores?”

“This is Core 666 speaking. Core 695, don’t forget that this is a duel between you and I.”

“Hold up! Er, this is Core 650. Just gotta go ahead and say I’m gonna win this one. Even if you two teamed up, we have three Cores on our team! How could we lose?!”

“...Um, Core 695 here. I don’t really have anything to say. Let’s just go ahead and start so I can win.” Daaamn, Rokuko. When’d you get so spunky?

“Hahaha! Let’s start, then. Five seconds. Four, three, two, one... Triple Threat Dungeon Battle, begin!” The moment Father finished speaking, two warp gates appeared in the room we had selected before the battle. Within the room was a veritable army of Golems, some of which were carrying boxes on their backs. Within those boxes was our reconnaissance force.

Within seconds, a horde of giant snakes about as thick as a muscular forearm rushed out of one gate. It kinda looked like a scene from a horror movie. That gate probably led to the Dragon King’s dungeon.

Through the other gate came rattling skeletons... or should I say Skeletons. It definitely looked like a scene from a horror movie. I could imagine that the they were part of the Demon King Team.

I launched instructions at Niku while having the Golem platoon fight off the snakes and Skeletons.

“Alright, let’s get straight to the point. Activate the flooding.”

“Understood. Opening the first floodgate.” Niku fiddled with her monitor.

Don don don don... boom! The floodgate connected the dungeon floor to the ocean. A huge wave of ocean water flooded straight into the floor containing the gate room... our bottom-most floor. Indeed, the floodgate that we had just opened connected to our bottom floor.

In truth, I had designed the dungeon layout to exploit the flooding gimmick to its maximum potential. Imagine a tower, basically. One with an entrance on the bottom floor, that you conquered by climbing upwards. What would happen if you flooded the dungeon from the top to the bottom? Well, the water would flow downwards, obviously. That was just how water worked.

Our underground dungeon was mimicking that style. Its entrance was on the bottom floor and its Core was on the first floor, which was the opposite of what you’d expect from a dungeon. Though since you had to start at the bottom to reach the first floor, the Core was technically in the deepest part of the dungeon just like any normal dungeon.

“Goodness, your ideas never fail to surprise me, Keima.”

“Hahaha. This way we don’t just flood the dungeon, we use the flow of water to push them back.” Simple flooding wouldn’t impact monsters that didn’t need to breathe, such as Golems. However, an intense flow of water would stop just about any monster in its tracks. And it could be used as a weapon. See that roaring flood of water on the monitor? Yeah, if that hit me, I’d be squashed like a friggin’ bug.

Judging from the map, ninety percent of the bottom floor was already under water. I had fiddled with the hallways to specifically maximize the force of water crashing into the gate room. Just think about what the end of a gutter looks like.

I waited for the right timing, then opened the door to the gate room. The flood of water roared inside and like a raging tsunami, slammed into the snakes, Skeletons, and even our own Golems, washing all the monsters away.

# Dragon King Team’s Perspective

“Hahaha! Let’s start, then. Five seconds. Four, three, two, one... Triple Threat Dungeon Battle, begin!” The moment Father finished speaking, two warp gates appeared in the room they had selected before the battle. Core 650 (giant snake), Core 651 (giant frog), and Core 652 (giant slug) immediately began their attack.

“Okaaay! Go and fight, Bite Snakes!”

“Croak croak. Good thing we left the attacking force to you, 650.”

“Snakes are the fastest out of all of us, sooo.” The moment the gates appeared, the snakes rushed though them. To be more precise, the gates appeared inside of the room they had preemptively packed full of snakes. Their plan was to get a head start while simultaneously blocking any invasion efforts from their opponents.

“This is it! The monster rush strategy that Dungeon Core Number 5 taught us! Power through numbers!”

“Geheheh, look at how many monsters we summoned! You can do so much more when you’ve got tons of DP.”

“No way can we lose with thiiis many monsters!” Core 650 directed the overflowing snakes into the enemy dungeons and immediately got to work fighting the monsters waiting within the enemy gate rooms. The Human Empire Team had sent Golems and the Demon King Team had sent Skeletons. They could assume that those monsters would form the bulk of their enemy’s armies. Which was good, since they had more Bite Snakes than the enemy had monsters, and Bite Snakes were faster than either Skeletons or Golems. Or at least, that’s how it looked to Core 650 and his pals.

“Aaahahaha! My cute snakes are the strongest monsters in the world!” They wrapped around the Skeletons and crushed their bones, while others bit the clay Golems to pieces. However, the enemy monsters didn’t take that sitting down. They fought back by punching snakes to death, crushing them underfoot, or slicing away with weapons. The Bite Snakes were stronger in a one-on-one, and there were more snakes than enemy monsters. But they were still experiencing casualties.

That said, the enemies were suffering even more casualties, so it probably didn’t matter. After all, they had more DP at hand than ever before. The initial battle was going so well for Core 650 that he and the others didn’t think too hard about the fact that the enemy teams had the exact same amount of DP. Core 5 himself didn’t say anything, figuring that if things were going well, they just had to keep up the momentum.

That’s when it happened.

The door in the Human Empire Team’s room burst open and a huge torrent of water flooded in. The raging flood smashed into the fighting Bite Snakes, not to mention their own Golems, and... flowed straight through the Dragon King Team’s gate. They had been protecting their gate room with a horde of monsters, but the flood of water just crashed through them and flowed down the dungeon halls with the snakes along for the ride.

“Wh-Wh-What the heck?! I-It’s not stopping! Wh-What should I do?!”

“What...?! Grr, that Core 89 and her cowardly tricks! She even flooded her allies!”

“Do you know what’s happening here, Dungeon Core Number 5?!” asked Core 651 (giant frog), looking to Core 5 for help.

“This is a water attack! A strategy built around using a flood of water to wash your enemies away! You’ve gotta stop the flow somehow!”

“S-Somehow?! We don’t know what to do!”

“Calm down, Core 650! Your snakes can swim in water, so use them to kill the monsters that flowed into the dungeon! Core 651, Core 652, withdraw all the water you can where possible and dump it outside of the dungeon! Water without enemies is just normal water, so it can be withdrawn! Water attacks generally use built up stores of water, so it’ll end if we can outlast it! Even if she has a second round planned, we can buy time while she’s building up water again!” The junior Cores obeyed Core 5’s orders and got to work. They had to deal with the raging flow of water and the enemies, enemies, enemies.

The Golems that had been carrying boxes—most of them were corpses now—got carried by the flow of water and slammed into walls, along with plenty of snakes. Once the boxes broke, enemy icons burst onto the map in huge numbers.

“Wh-Whoa, what the heck is happening?! Fish?! Wha?! Fish?!”

“Calm down! This is your time to shine, Core 651! Eat the fish with your frogs! We can’t withdraw the water with enemies inside of it! Grrr, what a bastard Core 89 is, what a BASTAAARD! GAAAAAH! If this were my battle, I’d turn this fuckin’ water to steam with my Dragon fire!” If this were indeed Core 5’s dungeon, he would line up with his Dragons and turn both the water and the enemies within to steam using their fire breath. But as this was a battle between junior Cores, they were restricted to the trifling amount of 500,000 DP (trifling to Core 5, anyway.) That wasn’t enough to summon even a single good Dragon. Could you even call it a battle, then? The best you could do with 500,000 DP was line up a couple of Lesser Dragons.

“Dungeon Core Number 5! Th-There’s too much wateeeer! We’re not putting a dent into it!”

“Whatever, just keep at it! Our dungeon’ll get flooded if you don’t get rid of that water!” Core 652 desperately followed Core 5’s instructions and withdrew water to dump it outside. But regardless, the floor was already mostly flooded. The water reached the second floor, and the flood was still filled with fish, Skeletons, and Golems. Withdrawing all of that water would be... more than a little difficult.

# Demon King Team’s Perspective

“Hahaha! Let’s start, then. Five seconds. Four, three, two, one... Triple Threat Dungeon Battle, begin!” The moment Father finished speaking, two warp gates appeared in the room they had selected before the battle. Snakes rushed in through one gate immediately. The other gate remained ominously silent. The Skeletons could take care of the snakes.

“Creatures of bone. Go forth and crush my enemies.” Core 666 stated her orders and watched on to see what would happen. The flow of snakes from the Dragon King Team was too overwhelming to reach their gate, but it was just a matter of time. Golems awaited at the other end of the Human Empire Team’s gate.

During the battle, several snakes found themselves capable of advancing further into Core 666’s dungeon, but they chose instead to fight the skeletons every time. She could assume that Core 650 had thoughtlessly bought a horde of monsters with no deeper plan than overwhelming her with the power of numbers. Regardless of the fact that the advance force’s primary goal should have been advancing deeper into the dungeon to gather information.

...On the other hand, the Human Empire Team was not attacking. It should have been safe to assume that they were planning something. As she looked forward to finding out what that plan was, a flood of water burst through the Human Empire Team’s gate. It was a massive flood of immense proportions. Golems and Snakes flowed right into her dungeon. They smashed through her army of Skeletons and continued onwards, being carried deep into her dungeon by the flow of water. “Haha, now this is something. Core 695! You are a suitable rival for me!” Core 666 laughed in amusement as her dungeon was invaded by a flood of water. She would respond to a serious attack by being serious as well. First, she needed to use {Summon Skeleton} to restore the Skeletons she had lost. Core 666’s lips curved upwards joyously as she began the chant.

# Keima’s Perspective

Okay. Our army (of fish and Golems) was riding the waves of the flood deep into the enemy dungeons. The Dragon King Team had plenty of snakes and frogs. I wonder if they’ll have slugs too. Salt would probably work on them, but maybe not under water. I’ll worry about that when they show up, though.

The Demon King Team seemed to just have Skeletons. Uhhh... I guess those are demon-type? Salt would probably work on them, in another sense, but again... water... Eh, nevermind. Salt won’t do anything.

“Keima, we’ve mapped out the whole first floor of both dungeons. They both connected their floors with downward stairs, so the flood’s mapping out the second floors as we speak.”

“Nice, keep it up. We’re gonna ride this wave for as long as we can.” And once we can’t anymore, we’ll send out our Golem and Sahuagin platoons. No breaks on this dungeon conquering train.

“I had my doubts when you discussed this plan with me, but I see that flooding is a quite powerful strategy... What are the chances we win just like this?”

“Pretty low, Haku. There’s a lot of flaws with flooding. You can see how it’s barely affecting the Skeletons.” Even within entirely flooded rooms, the Demon King Team’s skeletons were walking around casually. I also saw two knights clad in pitch black armor. They looked nice and sinister, like you’d expect members of a Demon Army to look; the water didn’t seem to bother them in the least.

However, the Demon King Team wasn’t doing anything to block the water. At this rate, their dungeon really would be underwater before long. Hm... Maybe that’s all part of their plan? We can’t send in another wave if their dungeon’s still flooded. Our fish will be able to fight more effectively underwater, but maybe they have a plan to turn that advantage on its head.

“Let’s stop the water for a bit. Invite the enemies inside, then crush them again.”

“Okaaay. I’ll be ready to open the door whenever you need me to, Keima.” Once the flow of water stopped and everything calmed down, I sent forth platoons of Golems to investigate. The Gargoyles were still in reserve.

...Oh man, the fish exploring the Demon King’s dungeon just found a Boss Room on the second floor. Looks like the boss is a giant skeleton fish. They must have summoned it after seeing our flooding strategy. That’s pretty good. And we can’t get a drop of water deeper into their dungeon until we beat the boss.

On the other hand, we reached the third floor of the Dragon King Team’s dungeon. They must have been doing their best to get rid of the water, as the flood was shrinking bit by bit. I could imagine that they were withdrawing the bits of the water that didn’t contain our troops. Okaaay, I wonder how many floors their dungeons have?

...I looked at the Golems advancing through the enemy dungeons. Thanks to our now completed map, I directed them down the shortest path to the stairs, but they naturally didn’t just let that happen. The Dragon King Team sent forth an army of frogs that pushed through the drowned snake corpses. They swung their massive tongues like blunt weapons, crushing our Golems. Tongue blackjacks, huh?

The Demon King Team, frustratingly enough, didn’t send forth their Skeletons and instead merely had their two armored monsters crush our Golems effortlessly. They swung their swords around and mowed down anything in their way. Yeah, our weaponless Clay Golems can’t even touch them.

“I kinda expected as much from the Demon King Team, but I’m surprised the Dragon King Team is putting up this much of a fight...”

“Keima. The Dragon King Team does have Core 5 on their side, remember? He may have more muscles than brains, but that just means he’s built for fighting. It’s only logical that those receiving his instructions will know how to put up a fight.”

“I-I know that, Haku. Sorry for having hopes and dreams.” The Dragon King Team’s guards blocked our fish and Clay Golems from going any further. I could imagine that there were traps waiting for us beyond their troops anyway.

Putting them aside, I figured it would be best to try and send forth sharks to try and take down the Demon King Team’s boss.

“Ichika, are the sharks ready? I want to get a feel for how strong the boss is first, so send out three sharks to fight him. Take ’em straight to the boss room.”

“Right on! C’mon sharks, let’s do this thaaang!” Three small sharks charged through the Demon King Team’s gate. Their dungeon had become entirely flooded, so not only could they move with ease, but the enemy monsters were sluggish as well. The armored knights sliced two of them down, but the third managed to slip past them in the process. I briefly wondered if that was our first real loss of DP, so to speak, but then remembered that some of the magic stones within the Golems had been destroyed. Though a decent chunk of the enemy skeletons had been destroyed too.

“Anyway, Ichika, I’m leaving that bone fish mid-boss to you.”

“You got it, man! My shark’s gonna munch him to pieces!”

The enemy made its own move. One of the armored knights entered the Dragon King’s dungeon. Aaand he started slaughtering the snakes and frogs. Welp. These guys are strong as hell. They must have dumped a lot of DP on them.

“Keima, they’ve gotten through our defenses.” Our gate room had ended up light on guards since we sent most of the Golems into the enemy dungeons. Skeletons and snakes were entering our dungeon. Alright, time to lure them in.

“...Okay. Unleash the first stock.”

“Okaaay. I’m opening the door to the first stockroooom.” A thick, viscous liquid poured out of the room.

“...Oh my, Keima. Is this what I think it is? Tentacle Slime bodily fluids?”

“Yep.”

“And these hallways are sloped, aren’t they?”

“Yep.”

Tentacle Slimes excreted a fluid that assisted their body in making them immune to physical attacks. The fluids were thick and slimy. Slimy meant slippery. And that made it good for improving your bloodflow, but let’s not talk about that right now. Instead, imagine what would happen if you poured it down a slope. That was exactly what was happening to the platoons of snakes and skellies.

# Dragon King Team’s Perspective

A black knight that had charged into the dungeon was slaughtering their snakes and frogs.

“Gaaaah! Who the hell is this armored guuuuy?! What the hell did Core 666 summon?!”

“Relax, Core 650. Judging by how it was fine underwater, it must be a Living Armor of some kind. And it looks like someone’s controlling it directly. Surround it and crush it with numbers!”

“Like this, Dungeon Core Number 5?!”

Unfortunately, the snakes and frogs were just too weak. A single swing of the armor’s sword would chop a snake in half and mince a frog’s tongue, leaving them dead or incapable of fighting further. There were even some monsters that simply got stepped on and crushed to death beneath the weight of the armor. It was only after the junior Cores followed Core 5’s advice and attacked it from all directions that they got a few hits in. The snakes managed to bite its legs.

But the black armor must have been made from something special, as neither the Bite Snakes’ fangs nor the Big Frogs’ tongues seemed capable of dealing any damage to it.

“Sheesh, he’s like a Soldier of God or something. The best our monsters can do is slow him down.” Core 5 murmured to himself. There was strength in numbers, but at a certain point, the raw strength of an individual could overwhelm that principle, which was exactly what was happening before their eyes.

“Dungeon Core Number 5, the flood’s calmed down now, soooo, should I send out my monsters?”

“Yeah. Core 652, control the snakes that are invading the other dungeons. We need to prepare monsters that can fight in the water. Hey! Can you summon Sea Snakes?!”

“Y-Yeees! I’ll summon them right now! Right noooow!” Core 650 summoned snakes capable of swimming underwater. They were water monsters that couldn’t survive on land, but that was perfect for their situation. They sent several of those into the Demon King Team’s dungeon.

Core 5 got the feeling that Sea Snakes were only capable of living in salt water, but that couldn’t be true. He decided not to think about it too hard.

“Core 651, you focus on the invasion force too. 652, handle the Human Empire Team while Core 651 handles the Demon King Team. Core 650, keep up focusing on defense. Ngh...Not enough heads around here. Why don’t you three have subordinates?” The entire dungeon was being run by the three Cores themselves. Given that it was a three-way battle, having one person on defense and two on attack was the absolute bare minimum of administrators. Initially, they planned on summoning subordinates and using them, but...

“I mean, we never expected them to eat each other!”

Indeed. They had spent their precious limited DP on various support monsters. But since they summoned various monsters—a snake, a frog, and a slug—they had eaten each other. They had summoned low-intelligence monsters to save DP, figuring that they would be good servants after a little training, but they had begun eating each other the moment they were left alone. Nothing remained but chewed on corpses.

“It’s ’cause you cheaped out, idiots! You should’ve summoned smarter monsters, with restraint! Gaaah, and thanks to that we don’t have enough DP right now!” Naturally, even Core 5 could barely believe them. Such was the result of casually watching from afar, figuring that three Cores fighting together would be enough for an easy win.

“Alriiight, first room of the Human Empire Team’s dungeon conquered! Keep it up!”

“Croak, the Demon King Team’s black armor is getting in my waaay... Core 652, it’s all on you nooow.” Core 652, the slug, was controlling the Bite Snakes in the Human Empire Team’s dungeon. They came close to attacking the skeletons, but the enemy of your enemy is your friend. There was an unspoken ceasefire between them in the enemy dungeon. They advanced deeper inside together.

“Alright, alriiight! Climb up that slooope!” They started climbing the slope, but suddenly slimy liquid came flowing down. There was no room for escape, so the snakes and skellies got wrapped up in the same flood. The skellies got pushed back, but the snakes clung to the slope and thus remained mostly in place. They interpreted that as getting a leg up over the Demon King Team and tried advancing further... but.

“Guuuh! Wh-What the heck is going ooon?! Ngggh, aaaah!”

“What’s happening, Core 652? Keep us updated!”

“The snakes, they can’t mooooove! They’re too slimyyy!” The snakes, covered in a slimy and slippery mess, slid down the slope as they wriggled futilely. They built up speed until bam! They slammed into the Skeletons which had been standing up.

“Th-This is juuust... What do we dooo?!” The slimy liquid covered the slope’s surface. There was no way for the snakes to avoid getting covered with it. Even if they charged the slope, they would just decelerate and ultimately slide back now. Core 652 lamented that he only had snakes on his side when slugs might have been able to climb up the slope just fine.

“Aaaah! The bones are getting in the waaaay! Ngggh, they’re stepping on the snaaaakes!”

“Swap that around and use the bones as ground! Wrap around their legs, Core 652!”

“O-Okaaaay!” Under Core 5’s instructions, he wrapped the Bite Snakes around the Skeletons’ legs, but that just served to weight them down and send them both down the slope.

“It’s not workiiing! We keep slippiiing!”

“You whaaat?! You’re sleeping! Swap places with me, Core 652! Snakes can normally move across the top of water, y’know! No way should a little bit of slippery ground stop them! You just suck!”

“F-Fineee, swap with me! Wait, aaaah! The black armooooor!” Core 652 panicked after being faced with the black armor slaughtering their troops, but in contrast, Core 650 was completely calm.

“Alriiight, here we go! I mean, if the floor’s no good, just go across the walls! They’re plenty rocky for us snakes!” Core 650 controlled the snakes and had them climb onto the walls. They avoided the sticky floor. There was nothing else in their way. Or so they thought, until a second flood of water came crashing down the hall.

# Keima’s Perspective

Wow. The snakes managed to stick to the walls. I didn’t expect that. Despite making such a huge slope and making sure to get the fluids on the walls too, my [Slime Slope] was conquered with unexpected ease. The problem probably lied within the bumpy walls making the fluid less effective. Well, it blocked the Skeletons, so let’s say it was ultimately successful.

“Oh my, oh my. Do you truly not mind washing away all the slime you worked so hard to gather?”

“That slope was just meant to buy time. The moment they got past it, the fluids stopped meaning anything. Besides, I still have about three rooms full of the stuff.” Like pressing a reset button, I opened the floodgates and washed everything away. Flash flooding was still plenty effective. Though it made me feel like I was flushing a toilet.

Oh, and I’m gonna boost the difficulty of the Slime Slope by having the Gargoyles cast attack magic from above. There are some parts of our dungeon with nothing but a thin rope bridge with no guard rails... Wait, won’t snakes beat that pretty easily too? They can move across wooden branches without a care in the world, so. Well. Whatever. I have plenty of ways to deal with snakes.

“So, is the Demon King Team’s second armor still not moving?”

“Seems so. It’s just smacking snakes and Golems around in their gate room. It’s kinda making me nervous.”

“And the boss skele-fish?”

“I’m totally chasing after it with the shark, but he’s a real nasty bugger! Gonna take a bit longer!” The first two floors of the Demon King Team’s dungeon were almost entirely under water. The traps they had set throughout the hallways were rendered useless by the water, so it really felt like our team was crushing them, but according to Haku, we should never let our guard down around Core 6. Uh... Does that mean there’s a good chance we might beat the Dragon King Team without really trying? Oh dang, we’re already at their fifth floor? That’s fast. Don’t they have a boss or something? Our Sahuagin platoon is getting bored.

“Master. The enemy has reached our second floor.” I checked my monitor after hearing Niku’s report. The washed-away snakes and skellies were climbing the slope once again. This time, I let them advance without washing them away. In truth, we were capable of launching a flood whenever we wanted, but by spacing them apart we gave off the impression that we needed time to store water. The further up they get, the more often I’ll flood them. That way, we’ll hit more monsters with each wave. And the water will go all the way down, too. Heh.

“Alright, I think it’s time to spend a little DP.”

“Oh my. And what manner of bullying do you have planned for them, Keima?”

“You’ll see in a second.” I spent DP to summon a certain monster.

# Demon King Team’s Perspective

“Oh? No flood this time?” Core 666 spoke, her voice tinged with surprise. She was continuing her advance with the skeletons from {Summon Skeleton}, but progress was slow.

On the other hand, in the Dragon King Team’s dungeon, her Black Iron Living Armor had just finished slicing a three-meter tall giant frog with astoundingly hard skin in half. Though only the surface of the skin was hard, and it was only about as hard as iron, so her Living Armor—under the control of her Dungeon Master—easily managed to slice it apart. She wouldn’t have spent as much DP on it as she did if a measly frog would be able to block its path.

The frog’s movements were slowed due to being underwater, but it felt like it might have been the dungeon’s boss. But either way, advancing through the Dragon King Team’s dungeon was best left to the Human Empire Team until further notice. Core 666’s Master was having fun controlling the Living Armor, so there shouldn’t be any harm in letting him play around on his own. What truly mattered was the Human Empire Team’s dungeon. Core 666’s lips curved into a grin as she imagined what might await her.

Past the slope was a small room. There were no multiple paths. The dungeon seemed to be following a singular path, which made exploration unnecessary. Its design was likely optimized for controlling floods and maximizing their efficacy. The fewer places to escape the rushing water, the better for them.

There were Gargoyles in the small room. They shot out balls of fire and water, hitting the Skeletons.

“Oh, there’s quite a lot of them. This might be a little too much for Skeletons to handle... but we have the numerical advantage.” Core 666 controlled her Skeletons such that five surrounded each Gargoyle. They had bone bodies and bone weapons, but they could still disturb the Gargoyles’ mana with blunt attacks. Given enough time, the Gargoyles would fall even without a particularly decisive blow.

However...

A few Bite Snakes began attacking the Skeletons.

“My, my. Have they gone senile?” If an obstacle arose, one merely needed to eliminate it. Her Skeletons swung their blades and decapitated the snakes. But then, she saw some of the Skeletons moving onwards and kicking the other snakes, despite having received no orders to do so.

“...Ohoh. Now this is clever.” The rogue Skeletons did not have the green dot of an ally on her map. In this triple threat Dungeon Battle, all enemies were marked as red. In other words, these red Skeletons belonged to the enemy. Additionally, the Dragon King Team’s snakes were marked as red.

...In other words, the Skeletons attacking the snakes would look like they belonged to the Demon King Team from the Dragon King Team’s perspective. It was possible that the Bite Snakes that attacked her Skeletons belonged to the Human Empire Team as well. Or perhaps they had only summoned Skeletons, and the fooled snakes of the Dragon King Team had attacked out of revenge... That was the more likely possibility. Reason being, when tricking the enemy, there was no need to give more hints then necessary. Core 666 would have done the same thing.

...It was quite late for this, but Core 666 finally noticed that thinking “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” had been quite naive of her.

“Hahaha, they mixed poison within our midst! Excellent, truly excellent! Very well then! I shall crush these stone statues underfoot, and then proceed to massacre the snakes!” She should have done that from the start. An enemy remains an enemy no matter the circumstances. There was no need for her to cooperate with a useless faux-ally. Ahhh, goodness, what a joyous battle this is. Core 666 grinned from the bottom of her heart.

...Core 6 watched on, silently. He had not spoken once since the Dungeon Battle began. Even during the construction of the dungeon, he had left everything to Core 666 and her Master. However, Core 6 did not trust Core 666’s Master whatsoever.

Her Master had originally been a swordsman raised within a human farm. Who would trust livestock with anything? At best, one might have faith that they will provide a worthwhile amount of DP. In any case, he had been on the execution block to provide a burst of DP, when somehow he became Core 666’s Master, and began attending her as a “servant.” The human had managed to survive up until this point without ever displeasing Core 666, though reportedly she had found it necessary to scold and “discipline” him at points.

Core 6’s motives for participating in this Dungeon Battle were simple: he was testing Core 666’s master.

If he could be used, that was fine. A wise man uses his available resources to their fullest. If he could not be used, there was no debate as to what would be done. The human would be eliminated, so that Core 666 might learn and grow.

Core 6 watched the battle unfold, silently.

# Keima’s Perspective

“Heya, Keima. Do you mind if I ask you a question? There aren’t any aquatic Dungeon Cores right now. Why is that, you ask? Well, because they wouldn’t be able to attend the party. Keima, do you know how a Mermaid Core or something of the sort could attend a land party?” Out of nowhere, Father contacted me. Uh, kinda busy here, dude.

“...You could hold the party at a beach, or you could build a pool nearby. Worst comes to worst, you could place a bucket filled with water on a cart and pull them around.”

“Those are good ideas. Anything else?”

“Well, you could give them the human transformation skill right from the start. I’ve heard about mermaids having that kind of power. Oh, and like, can’t you just give them whatever skill lets monsters swim through the air?”

“I knew you’d have some bright ideas, Keima. Thanks for the help.” Mr. Judge, please don’t discuss personal matters while the battle is ongoing.

“Keima, I’m surprised you could just casually reply to Father like that.”

“I mean, he’s your old man, right? I’m just trying to think about him on that kind of level.” Whether he’s a god or not, he’s Rokuko’s dad. Nothing to worry about. If I let myself start worrying, there’ll be no end to it.

“O-Old man...? Keima, might I suggest that you show more respect for our Father?”

“Mmm? I don’t mind, anyone can call me whatever they like. Keima, feel free to call me dad, or even stepdad if you want. That’s what Lyon called me.” Wait, can he hear everything we say? He’s just butting into our conversation, holy crap. And who the heck is Lyon? Ichika skipped over and whispered into my ear. Ahhh... The first Emperor of the Laverio Empire. Or in other words, Haku’s old Master. He’s been made into a unit of currency now, right. One copper for one Lyon.

“Let us not speak about him, Father. He was a past mistake of mine, nothing more.”

“If you say so.”

Their conversation felt oddly like that between a real father and daughter. Kind of interesting that her ex-boyfriend was the first emp— Oh shit, Haku’s glaring at me. Nothing, nothing. Never mind.

Anyway, putting that aside. I ordered the Skeletons I had just bought to attack the snakes. The Dragon King Team fell right for the bait and attacked the Demon King Team’s Skeletons. What a bunch of suckers. But the Demon King Team took things a step further. They started to completely massacre the Dragon King Team’s snakes. Judging from how they only started after finishing off the Gargoyles, they had probably concluded from our little trick that the Dragon King Team was merely a nuisance to them.

The snakes dispersed and fled like spiders, separating the two groups. Weeell, the dungeon still basically just has one path through it, given the whole flooding gimmick. The only side paths are the hallways leading to the lower floodgates. Dead ends, basically.

Either way, despite their failure to kill all of the snakes, the two enemy parties still remained split up. Which was good for us. I didn’t have to deal with them working together to beat us anymore.

“Oh right, gotta summon new Gargoyles.” I repeatedly chanted the full incantation for {Summon Gargoyle}. It was a pain, but Haku was watching. I sent the summoned Gargoyles toward the next bottleneck.

...Oh, the next floor’s the completely submerged area. It was a floor where you had to climb stairs to advance, then climb down the other side submerged in water. Think of it like a drain trap—the thing that stop bugs from crawling up through a drain. The nature of dungeons prevented us from making an unbeatable dungeon, so I had to put periodic air pockets that prevented the way down from being literally submerged, but... Honestly, the requirements there were pretty vague. Like, snakes needed those air pockets, but Skeletons sure didn’t.

“Anyway, I’ll send the Gargoyles to the air pockets. It’d make sense to hit ’em with electric magic like {Spark} while they’re soaking wet, but well... I don’t think that’s an option here.”

“Hm? Why not, Keima? That sounds like a good idea to me.”

“...I don’t think electricity will do much to literal skeletons.”

“Ahhhh...” Muscular dudes would die on the spot, but reanimated bones? Dunno. I glanced at Haku.

“If you have a question, please state it directly. As {Spark} is a Light elemental spell, it is quite effective against Skeletons.”

“Oh, is that how it works?”

“I’m not sure what you’re asking.”

Anywaaay, I get the feeling the Skeletons will just ignore the air pockets entirely. Might get some snakes, though. If the Skeletons ignore the pockets too much, we could try shooting the water with {Spark}... Though the electricity would disperse to the point of uselessness, probably.

Enough about defense, though. How’re things going on the offensive?

“Ichika, Niku. How’s the attack going?”

“Totally just took down the bone fish thing with my shark, dude. The boss door opened so I’m sending the sardines through to check out the third floor.”

“The black armor continues to dominate the Dragon King Team’s dungeon. We are merely exploring and guiding them forward as the Demon King Team takes care of the rest. Ah, and slugs have joined their defensive efforts. They are clinging to the ceiling. Should I put them on the monitor?” Okay, let’s not look inside the Dragon King Team’s dungeon anymore. But anyway, sounds like things are going pretty well. The main thing we need to worry about is our allies in the dungeons attacking us. Might sound hypocritical for me to say this, but working together to conquer the dungeons will help things go a lot more smoothly. I might not even have to use some of the tricks I prepared. Not that I have any problems with that. Nothing better than winning with some trump cards still up your sleeve.

Since our own invasions were going so well, I decided to resume the flooding a bit and add water to their dungeons before they reached our completely submerged area.

“Okay, open the floodgates and leave ’em open for a bit. We want their dungeons completely flooded.”

“Okaaay. The third floodgate should hit most of them right now. I’ll open it up.” Water flooded out and raced towards the Skeletons and snakes.

“...Oh?”

“Ah, Keima! They’re not getting washed away!” The snakes sure got knocked back. But the Skeletons stood in place, leaning against a wall. They had formed a line and pressed against the wall to avoid the flow of water as much as possible. The Skeleton in front took the brunt of it, allowing those behind him to hold their ground. This is how you deal with flash floods when in a group. They sure figured this strategy out fast. Did Core 6 lend a hand, or was it Core 666 that thought this up? Maybe it was her Master.

“Keep up the flooding. Looks like they can’t move doing that, so I’m gonna throw some junk at them.”

“O-Okay.” I took an empty [Mana Potion (Barrel)], put a Gargoyle inside of it, and then dumped it on the waves such that it slammed right into the Skeletons. The barrel and several of the Skeletons burst to pieces, leaving the Gargoyle free to follow up with some blows of its own. That proved to be too much for the Skeleton platoon, which broke rank and got washed away.

Since the Gargoyle got washed all the way to the Dragon King Team’s dungeon along with the Skeletons, I decided to have it begin exploring. The lesson here is to be careful about giant logs when caught in a flash flood. Hm... I wonder if they’ll find a way to counter the Gargoyle barrel plan. I’ll think of some other strategy, just in case.

# Demon King Team’s Perspective

Flooding was more troublesome than expected. Although they found a way to withstand it temporarily, their efforts had been thwarted. By the time the flooding stopped, their dungeon’s third floor had been flooded and they had to summon another boss fish. They learned from their enemy and selected one fish from a school of fish as their boss. That should buy them some time.

...Good grief. I’m about to run out of the DP I saved for today. Core 666 let out a sigh. In any case, she summoned more monsters with {Summon Skeleton} and sent them charging into the Human Empire Team’s dungeon. Lining up several Skeletons into a centipede formation seemed like it would function as a way to move forward during the flooding, with proper precautions. In other words, Core 666 had found another way to use Skeletons. And nothing could make her happier.

“I knew it. Core 695 is the greatest rival I could ask for...” Core 666 made her Skeletons advance and soon discovered a small room atop a set of stairs. Ahead was another set of stairs, only flooded and going downwards. There didn’t seem to be other paths forward. Which meant this floor was already submerged.

Core 666 didn’t hesitate to send her Skeletons forward. They were disposable, after all.

The cramped hallway felt like it was underneath an entire ocean. There was barely any light and seaweed was growing everywhere. It swayed back and forth, making the poor visibility even worse. She made a Skeleton look up, and far above them was another small room, glowing like the moon in the sky.

“This is quite the stylish floor.” But naturally, it was part of a dungeon. Naturally, there were traps. A Skeleton that had been sticking its hand out to navigate the staircase suddenly found its hand cut off.

“Hm...? Did they do something? No... there’s something already here.” To double check, she made the Skeleton step forward and swing its arm (bone). Immediately, the arm was sliced.

“...Hm. Can you tell what this is, Grandfather?” Core 6 looked at the monitor after Core 666 asked him for help. It was hard to see, but that posed Core 6 no issue. He saw the thread easily—the thin, firm thread made of orichalcum.

“Impressive. This is a thread made of orichalcum. I’ve never seen the metal stretched so thin before.”

“Orichalcum! That’s right, Grandfather, I remember Core 695 wearing a ring of orichalcum at the gathering.”

“I see. They must have a skilled dwarven blacksmith on their side... If the opportunity arises, I shall show you a full orichalcum ingot. They are beautiful.”

“Aha, I can’t wait. It’s a promise, okay?” A thread, though. It was impossible to just up and cut orichalcum thread. No matter how thin it was, orichalcum required the special techniques of the dwarves to be broken. Which meant they had no way of removing the thread.

Further investigation revealed that there were two hallways, one directly forward and one side path. Up ahead, the two paths connected. The thread was laced around the hallway like a wild spiderweb. Behind the web was a room that seemed to contain air. A breathing point irrelevant to their Skeletons. But if one tried to race through in search of air... They’d be sliced into neat little pieces.

“...I see what they’re going for.” Core 666 imagined what would happen if the flooding were to be combined with the web. The thread was so sharp that it could slice bones from a touch. If one were to be pushed by a flood into the threads, they would be torn apart into the shape of the web. The very thought of it was brutal. Spectacular.

“How would my Magic Blade fare, Grandfather?”

“You would be wise not to try it. My own Magic Blade could endure, given its Indestructible trait, but even then cutting orichalcum is no easy feat.”

“Oh...? Even your Magic Blade, Grandfather?” Core 666 gave a fearless grin as she continued to cast {Summon Skeleton}.

# Keima’s Perspective

I flooded the submerged area. Though for obvious reasons, that just meant flowing in new water from an above floor. The new water hit the water in the drain traps, pushing it downwards. The centipede strat didn’t seem to work as well underwater, as the Skeletons just floated back and ended up sliced into strips by the orichalcum wires. Bwahahaha! These wires are great, aren’t they?! I brought them with me!

“Orichalcum thread... I am quite impressed that you managed to craft the metal into thread that thin.”

“Let’s just say my town has a pretty good blacksmith.” That’s how I was passing it off. Obviously, I’m the one who actually made them. I had brought the four coins Rokuko had rolled from the 1,000 DP gacha back to town and turned them into super thin wires, similar to how one might make glass fiber. Like, the stuff you make by letting it kinda drip down, or something. I saw it on TV.

It took more mana to get going, but it was way easier to mold orichalcum than iron with {Create Golem}. I had full control, hell yeah. I was kinda worried I made it too thick at first, but then I cut my fingers just trying to pick it up. The stuff was so dangerous even an Iron Golem would get sliced to pieces trying to handle it, despite the thread being thinner than a strand of hair. Orichalcum is some dangerous stuff, sheesh. The one-meter long wires were so strong that a Golem would need to grip both ends and pull with all its might just to barely bend them. (I had cheaped out somewhat and put iron casings on the end, for grip and to help stick them to the walls.)

“I might have to ask him to make such wires for myself.”

“Please make any such requests through me. It’ll be easier for everyone that way. If you try and ask the blacksmith yourself, he’ll claim he can’t make them until you leave.”

“Really now? I suppose skilled workers would prefer not to draw any crowds. I’ll make sure to send my requests through you, Keima.” The orichalcum ring is kind of backing up my story here, so I’m not too worried. Though it’s way harder to make these wires than it is to make a ring.

“Hey, Keima. This submerged floor is, like, the middle of our dungeon, right?”

“Yeah, pretty much.”

“Then we definitely don’t want to let them get past here. How are the enemy dungeons holding up?”

“I’ll check up on the squad in the Dragon King Team’s dungeon first. Niku?” Niku nodded.

“...We have reached the seventh floor of the Dragon King Team’s dungeon. We believe that it contains a Boss Room despite its odd number. Not one containing a mid-boss, either, but the last boss.” Ultimately, the dungeon was a simple labyrinth without any proper gimmicks. They had placed anti-human traps seemingly at random, which had no effect against our fish. The armor that the Demon King Team’s Living Armor was wearing protected it completely. The best traps they had were the spear traps, but the armor completely deflected them.

I really hadn’t expected the dungeon to be so simple. The only trick they had left was the dungeon boss, but judging by how pumped up the black armor looked swinging its sword around, I got the feeling we wouldn’t have to do anything ourselves. We might just end up drawing the black armor’s ire. If he wants to solo this dungeon, he can feel free.

“How about the Demon King Team’s dungeon?”

“Mmm, looks like there’s another Boss Room on the fifth floor. Prolly gonna be another weak-sauce mid-boss.” In the other dungeon, there was the skeleton of a giant wolf guarding the way forward. Unlike the bone fish on the second and third floor, this was probably a boss monster they had prepared before the battle began. It fit right into the existing dungeon and hadn’t been summoned on the spot to counter the flooding. Speaking of which, the flooding was slowing it down, but it still seemed pretty strong.

Though thinking about it, the actual traps in the dungeon were pretty simple stuff. Leg-high ropes, pitfalls, arrow traps activated by walking into a wire, and so on. Nothing too clever. Maybe blocking the flooding by exploiting the nature of a Boss Room was just an uncharacteristically good play by them? Were they a one trick pony? Either way, it felt like they had barely spent any DP up until this point. I had no idea what else the dungeon could have in store. Can’t let my guard down. I’m guessing the Dungeon Boss is gonna be a monster a lot stronger than those black armors.

“Ah! Keima! The black armor that was in the Demon King Team’s gate room is entering our dungeon!” Welp. Guess they’re getting serious now. I took a look and saw the black armor walking through our dungeon, surrounded by Skeletons. It seemed to be using the Skeletons as a shield for any potential traps.

“Let’s try hitting them with a flood. Open the first floodgate.”

While we were at it, I prepared a Gargoyle barrel. Time to see if they’ve thought up a counter for these. And see that I did.

The barrel crashed against several Skeletons, and the black armor sliced apart the Gargoyle after it popped out. Backup Skeletons rushed forward immediately, likely summoned through {Summon Skeleton}. They had been summoning new monsters ever since the battle at the start, and really, it made me appreciate just how crazy strong summoning skills were. You can get a bunch of pawns for nothing but a little mana, y’know?

I followed their example and used {Summon Gargoyle} non-stop. One Gargoyle barrel might not do much, but how about five? Ten? Well, they probably still won’t do much, but still. I’m counting on you, my Gargoyle friends. And uh... It kinda feels like you all might get pissed at me for sending you to die, so uh, don’t come back even if you survive! Man, now that I think about it, {Summon Skeleton} would make me feel a lot less like an asshole. Skeletons are dead from the start, after all. Wait! I forgot about how pissed the spirits of the dead can get. That’s the most amateur mistake I could have made, Christ. Never underestimate the spirits of the dead. Never.

“What should we do? Just leave the floodgates open?”

“Nah, brief bursts are better than a constant flow. Being hit head-on with the flood of water causes the most damage. Also... Send out the [Giant Ball]. Now seems to be the best time to use it.”

“It’s finally time! Okay! Crush them, [Giant Ball]!” Rokuko happily fiddled with her monitor and unlocked the room (in the ceiling) with the [Giant Ball] sealed inside. And thus, the [Giant Ball]... a massive iron sphere fell onto the sloped dungeon floor. It was the exact kind of ball that appeared in a certain movie about a certain adventurer. Obeying the mathematical formula of “gravity + slope + ball = roll,” the [Giant Ball] began to slowly roll down the slope. It looked like a huge bowling ball. The pins? Our enemies.

As an aside, I had built the Giant Ball to be just barely smaller than the hallway. It was unavoidable outside of a room. Even if they sliced it in half, weight and inertia would keep it together!

The [Giant Ball] started off moving slow, but it gradually sped up. By the time it contacted the black armor, it was moving so fast that anything hit by it would probably reincarnate into another world. But don’t worry. As I said, there was a little space between the walls and the ball. Your corpse won’t stop the ball from moving. You may die in peace, knowing that those behind you will soon follow. Just like those snakes that got turned into red paste!

As a second aside, Haku suggested this trap. She said it’d be a waste of our sloped hallways to not have some giant rolling balls. And she’s got a point. This thing looks a lot more deadly than a flood of water.

“Ahaha. Behold the union between my trap ideas and Rokuko’s dungeon design... Splendid, is it not?”

“S-Sure is, hah.”

“Crush theeem! [Giant Ball]! Show them how strong Haku and I aaare!” And so, moving at immense speeds, the iron ball finally made contact with the Skeleton platoon led by the black armor.

It all happened in an instant. Skeletons, crushed. Bones everywhere. And... The ball, stopped in place, with a crimson Magic Blade stabbed through it.

The black armor had stopped the rolling ball by stabbing it with its burning hot sword. It then swung its Magic Blade several times, sending red lines searing through the iron ball, which proceeded to melt it.

“...Uh?” I couldn’t help but hang my mouth open in surprise. I mean, that was a pretty huge ball, y’know? Just think about how much inertia it had. Think about heavy it was! The idea of stopping it with a single sword is pretty insane. And just how hot would that sword have to be to melt the whole iron ball?

“No way, I thought we had them... I can’t believe Haku’s [Giant Ball] got melted!”

“A flawless counter. Well, you win some and you lose some... But oh my. Rokuko, is that not Core 666’s Magic Blade?”

“Wow, it is. I remember that sword... Wait, is she invading our dungeon herself?!”

“Woah, what? I totally thought that was just some kind of Living Armor.” Aren’t Living Armors supposed to be empty on the inside? Wait... Maybe this is something like the Wearable Golems I’m wearing. I’ve heard that Core 666 is a real battle maniac. It makes total sense that she’d come after us herself. Especially since Dungeon Cores don’t need to breathe. Being submerged under water won’t bother her at all. Hmm... Maybe this Living Armor is her true form?

“Good grief, why must all those of the Demon King faction be so obsessed with battle?” Haku shook her head, rubbing her temples. I guess it’s pretty common for Demon King faction Cores to be like this. Maybe they’re often their own Dungeon Bosses. Well, anyway... I’ll use this opportunity to send my Sahuagin into the Demon King Team’s dungeon.

“Ichika, now’s our chance. The black armor isn’t guarding their dungeon anymore. Take the Sahuagin and mess that bone wolf up.”

“You got it, dude.”

“Need any reinforcements, Niku?”

“Not right now. But if you have spare Gargoyles, I could use them.”

“Alright. I’ll summon some for you.” I cast {Summon Gargoyle} and sent some of them to the floodgate room on our bottom floor.

...It’s a bit late to say this, but I could move the Gargoyles to any floor I wanted by using secret paths. Secret in the sense that I just had them move through the ocean outside of our dungeon. Each floor had a floodgate room that looked like a spaceship’s airlock, so I could move monsters to any floor I wanted. Secretly, too, if I withdrew the water first and didn’t launch a flood. The enemy couldn’t exploit this since I could shut the floodgates tightly. Basically, there was one proper path, and they were gonna have to use it instead.

“Ouch, looks like the black armor’s reached our middle floors, the submerged area.”

“Grrr, I guess we can’t hit Core 666 with another [Giant Ball] now.”

“I do have a second one set up in the upper floors. I think I’ll send that one with a flood so they can’t melt it.” That combination might end up so strong that Core 666 just dies on the spot, but that would be her fault for fighting on the frontlines despite being a Dungeon Core.

“...It won’t be my fault if Core 666 theoretically dies here, right?”

“It will be considered a tragic Dungeon Battle accident and nothing more. Feel absolutely free to murder her.” Haku gave me her seal of approval. Guess I’ll take this pretty seriously then.

“Keep on flooding the middle floors with water. Let the orichalcum wires cut’m to pieces.”

“Okaaay.”

“Oh, and be sure to utilize the counter-current too. That’ll stop them from bunkering up.”

“Oh, I’ll make sure to open floodgates on both sides, then.” We could still flood the middle floors with water from the lower floors. We’d pour so much water in that it’d develop a counter current, and while the enemy gets tossed around by the raging flow, the orichalcum wires will tear them apart.

# Demon King Team’s Perspective

“That iron ball was quite, ahem, frightening.” A rolling iron ball with immense momentum. Core 666 had let her guard down due to expecting nothing but water, and thus it took longer than necessary for her to react. The ball had been on the verge of crushing her to death, but at the last moment she successfully stopped it. Shudders ran down her spine. This is it. Yes, this is what I want.

“Aaah... How splendidly fun!” She broke out into a smile. The thrill of narrowly avoiding death. There was nothing Core 666 wanted more than this. Peace and calm was nothing more than a poison that dulled the senses.

“What a lovely battle this is. Wits, traps, and devious schemes! So this is your power, Core 695. Are you enjoying this as much as I am, I wonder?” Core 666 wanted to share this ecstatic glee with her archenemy, her greatest friend. She had wanted to do so for a very long time.

But that wish had never been granted. At least, not until now. Reason being, Core 666 was such a skilled strategist that no Core of the 600 batch could compare to her. And naturally, even Core 666 felt some degree of distance towards the Cores of the 500 batch and earlier. She felt nothing but simple hostility for Cores older and more powerful than her. If they were older and weaker, then she felt nothing but disgust, as her batch was the youngest of them all. None of them were fit to become her archenemy. Her friend.

But Core 695 is of the same batch. Perhaps she could become the archenemy of her dreams, one that shared her glee for battle. One that shared this aching thirst. This sensation that might be called love. The aching, unbearable feeling of wanting more and more.

Core 666, more than anything else, loved this glee that filled the empty pot of greed within her. If she had an archenemy that felt the same way... Well, she struggled to put this into words, but... It would surely feel so incomparably perfect that she would want to crush and destroy her.

“Aidy, I beat the Dragon King Team’s boss. The Core’s right behind it.” Suddenly, her Master contacted her and gave a flat report. The voice was that of a young man, one that called Core 666 “Aidy,” and the report was one of a successful conquest.

“Very well, destroy it. How was their dungeon?”

“Nothing special. Boring.” There had been a final boss, a giant slug made of steel. But... the ocean water the Human Empire Team was flooding their dungeon with rusted its body, and the salt absorbed its internal bodily liquids such that it melted and became immobile.

“The Steel Slug rusted and melted. Ended up more like a piece of trash than a boss. The Human Empire Team’s plan got them too good. That’s that.”

“I see.” They had apparently left their final trump card to that useless slug Core. Embarrassing, really.

“Will you follow after me once you’ve destroyed their Dummy Core?”

“Yeah. And... done. It’s destroyed.” As if to back up her Master’s report, Father contacted them.

“Okaaay, the Dragon King Team loses! Too bad, Core 5. I’m pulling out your attack forces.”

“GRAAAAAH! We failed in everythiiiiing!”

“We’re sorry, Dungeon Core Number 5!”

She heard the pathetic bugs crying out in fear and sorrow. With that, there were no more nuisances getting her way.

“I can finally focus on having fun with Core 695.” Core 666 advanced further through the Human Empire Team’s dungeon. And, surprisingly for one bound in heavy Living Armor, her steps were light.

# Keima’s Perspective

The Dragon King Team actually managed to lose without doing anything notable in particular. The word “good” went through my head. The Dragon King Team had been dominated by the flooding from start to finish, and the black armor had easily slaughtered all their troops. They deserved their loss. In triple threat battles, the first step was to eliminate one of your opponents to begin a simpler one-on-one. If everyone starts on equal footing, the first to be eliminated will be the weakest participant. Simple as that.

“But y’know, why’d that steel slug thing have tank treads and a cannon on its back...? It was like an actual tank. Might have been dangerous if not for the ocean water.” It would have been an enemy that combined speed with devastating attack power. A fair fight with it probably would have taken a long time to finish.

“Ichika, how goes the invasion of the Demon King Team’s dungeon? Did you beat the mid-boss?”

“Almost. The Sahuagins just got there and are wrecking shit.” Within the flooded Boss Room, our platoon of Sahuagins and the shark were dunking on the bone wolf. The Sahuagin Rider swimming around on the Marlin in particular was doing lots of damage. Judging by the cracks in the wolf’s bones, Ichika was right. It would be double-dead in no time.

“Looks like the other black armor guy is invading our dungeon too, instead of going on the defensive. Sheesh.”

“I guess they’re going all out. Let’s drop a [Giant Ball] on this one too.”

“Good idea. Let’s use all of the ones we have while he’s still on the bottom floor. We’ll throw in some flooding while we’re at it. Withdraw all the water you can on the first floor to dump it outside.” The Dragon King Team’s gate had been sucking up all the water, but since it was closed now, all the water was just building up. Though, to be fair, that was how I originally intended this flooded dungeon to work.

“What’s going on with Core 666’s black armor?”

“She pulled back midway through the middle floors. Looks like she wants to join forces with the other black armor before advancing.”

“...I dunno if I should be afraid of that, or be glad for the chance to take them both down at once. What do you think, Rokuko?”

“Honestly, I think they’ll be more of a pain together than anything. Especially since Core 666 has {Summon Skeleton}.” Shouldn’t Core 666 be a little tired from spamming that skill so much? I guess I can’t talk, though, since I’ve been spamming the hell out of {Summon Gargoyle}.

So, we tried hitting the second black armor with another [Giant Ball], but this time he just grabbed onto it and held it back. His feet sank into the ground, giving off the impression that he was pushing with all his might. The [Giant Ball] even broke in the process. Not gonna be able to reuse that one. But it looks like it hurt the black armor pretty bad, so it must have done a lot of damage.

“Eh, well, putting aside the lack of Skeletons this time, Core 666 definitely warned him about the ball. He did seem on guard, after all. But pulling the same trick twice will trick them into letting their guards down. Once they reach the upper floors, then we’ll send the balls rolling with a flood.”

“Well, by that point they’ll have met up. I’m sure they’ll be able to handle it together.”

“So we just gotta take one of them out in the submerged middle floors, right?” If possible, that’s the idea.

Looks like they’re both in the submerged area now. They’ve already found the orichalcum wires. They probably won’t walk right into them.

“Rokuko, send out Gargoyles, and the octopus too. Try and take at least one of them down.”

“Okaaaay, here I go!”

# Demon King Team’s Perspective

“Shall we go, then?”

“Yeah.” They advanced further into the flooded area, moving slowly with their Skeletons taking the lead, such that they could react in time if a wave came roaring down. They were proceeding through a straightforward hallway with practically only one way to go, though they soon came across a crossroads. The most direct path had orichalcum thread laced around, forming right angles that interlocked about four times.

It was hard to see past them, but up the stairs behind the threads were several Gargoyles. They could cast spells despite being underwater. One might think it clever to send non-living monsters underwater since they didn’t need to breathe, but the water diluted their spells to the point of ineffectiveness. Whether they tried to shoot fire or water, the existing water surrounding them got in the way. By process of elimination, the best they could likely do was throw stones. That would do some damage to the Skeletons, but nothing to the Living Armors made from black iron.

“Let’s ignore them and proceed.”

“Alright, I’ll take the lead.” The Living Armor under the control of Core 666’s Master stepped forward. It made loud stomps as it walked. They took a right at the first crossroads, and came upon a dead end—though there was a room with air above if they needed it.

One long detour around the first orichalcum hallway later, they reached the place where the Gargoyles from before were. That they had to take such a detour to avoid a trapped hallway a few steps long was frustrating, though they knew it was necessary. The Gargoyles had retreated further back and were launching stones at them. It was more of an annoyance than anything.

And then, suddenly, a monster came swimming toward them.

“...An octopus?”

“My my, I wonder what this is. I’ve never seen a monster like this. Grandfather, do you happen to know?”

“Hrm... I feel that they are merely called octopuses. I can hardly recall anything about them.” Core 6 wasn’t particularly well-informed about monsters. There was no need for him to worry about each and every weak monster in the world. Naturally, he didn’t remember their special traits either. Which is why he was a little surprised to see the monster suddenly shoot out ink and cloud the armor’s vision with black.

“Gracious... We can hardly see now.”

“Look out for attacks. Stay on guard.” The crunching of their feet hitting stone remained as loud as ever. Their vision cleared in a matter of seconds. The octopus was nowhere to be seen.

“I wonder what they hoped to accomplish with that?”

“Who knows. But whatever, let’s keep going.”

“Ah! No, stop!” Ignoring the Gargoyles throwing stones from the left, Core 666’s master commanded his Living Armor to move forward. And then...

Plop. One of its legs got cut off.

“...What?!” Despite being underwater, the weight of its armor made it fall forward, leading to it getting sliced to bits. The Living Armor was no longer living. Core 666 could hear her Master groan beside her in the Master Room.

“They got me...! Aidy, what just happened?!”

“A revolving floor, it seems. They truly did trick us.” She checked the map and saw that they indeed had been rotated ninety degrees. The Gargoyles that had been attacking them from the left ran away as soon as the Living Armor ended up diced. There were no wires between them. It was too late. Core 666 regretted not making doubly sure that Skeletons were in the lead at all times. She could summon as many of them as she wanted while she still had mana.

“Core 666. Calm down and proceed with an eye on your map.”

“Yes, Grandfather. And Master... Be ready for your punishment later.” Core 666 started to walk forward, but all of a sudden the dungeon started to shake. A flood was coming.

“Ngh! Skeletons!” They all lined up vertically to counter the flood of water. Moments later, an intense flood hit them. The flooding was especially troublesome since there was no way of knowing when it would occur.

“Wait, Aidy! Not there!”

“Ah! No...!” The revolving floor turned. She had forgotten about it. It was already difficult for the Living Armor to hold its ground, so once it was in the brunt of the flow, its heavy body floated up. The Skeletons too got washed away and sliced to pieces. The chunks of the other Living Armor’s corpse floated off.

Wires were racing toward her.

“Ngh, HAAAAAAH!” Screeech! She used her Magic Blade as a shield to protect herself from the orichalcum threads. Even when slammed against the orichalcum thread, her sword did not break. It endured. “Aha! I knew the Indestructible trait was powerful! It’s not breaking!” Core 666 laughed in excitement, having confirmed the strength of her own Magic Blade.

“Oh? You gave your blade that trait?”

“Indeed. It used quite a chunk of our allotted 500,000 DP, but it’s thanks to that!” Once she adjusted to the flood of water, she escaped into a side path... the path they were originally going down. That had been a pretty dangerous spot, but she managed to survive.

And so... Core 666 conquered the completely submerged area.

# Keima’s Perspective

I knew this would happen. I knew that at least Core 666’s armor would get through the floor. ’Cause I mean, when she started to float in the water toward the orichalcum thread, I actually said out loud: “Did I get her?!” Give me a break. That’s like asking for your evil plan to fail. I’ll have to be more careful next time.

“That was close, Keima. Don’t worry. You almost got her. Pat pat.”

“Why are you patting my head?”

“I mean, you seemed kinda pouty and upset, so.”

“Ah, nah, I’m just annoyed at myself for saying the one thing you should never ever say. Thanks for the concern. Also Haku’s watching, so please stop.” She was looking at me with a deadly cold gaze; I could practically feel through telepathy her thinking “Now then, how shall I slice him up for dinner?” I’ll be like a fish on a chopping board in front of her, hahaha!

“Oh, sorry, Haku! I really need to focus during Dungeon Battles, right.”

“Ahaha. It’s quite alright, my sweet lovely Rokuko. Shall I, ahem, ‘pat’ you as well once we return home?”

“Geez! Don’t tease me, Haku!” Uh, she’s definitely serious. But I’m not gonna say that out loud.

Anyway, back to the Dungeon Battle. The Demon King Team had one set of black Living Armor and several Skeletons in our dungeon. The latter had likely been summoned through {Summon Skeleton}. As for our attack on their dungeon...

“Hey, Ichika. I’m guessing you already beat the boss?”

“W-Well, totally, but... The door ain’t opening, dude. I got the fish guys looking around.”

“There are no enemy icons remaining in the room. I will help you explore.” Ichika and Niku responded, both of them sounding troubled. Seems like they’re in a bit of a pickle. Guess there’s no choice but to get back to exploring.

“Um, maybe there’s a hidden path to the next floor?”

“Yeah, or something like a door that only opens if we activate some trap somewhere. Don’t forget to check the ceilings... And the pitfalls.” We have hidden passageways in pitfalls back in our own dungeon, after all. I don’t wanna spill the beans in front of Haku, but if that’s where the correct path is, well, we gotta look.

“Ahaha. This reminds me of the Dungeon Battle we had somehow, Rokuko.”

“Bwuh? Ummm, well... I guess, Haku.”

“Might as well try leaving through the entrance and looking around... Put some Golems on that.”

“As you wish, Master!” Luckily, the enemy had not a single monster remaining. It was like they were inviting us to explore as much as we liked. Either they were confident we wouldn’t figure them out no matter how much we searched, or they were gathering their strength on a yet undiscovered floor. Or maybe something else? Man, I really hope I didn’t miss anything...

“What do you think, Rokuko?”

“Well, first of all, I think it’s weird that the door in the Boss Room didn’t open even though there’s no boss inside. I think the best thing for us to do might be to try and investigate the Boss Room. It might be a fake.” A fake, huh. That is true. Haku was hinting at this, but yeah, I did something like that too. Though it was just a puzzle door with nothing behind it. Could be that this is a Boss Room with nothing in it.

“Ichika, try destroying the Boss Room’s door with whatever you’ve got. It should be destructible without a boss.”

“Mm’kay. It’s a steel door so it might take a hella while, but I’ll give it a shot.” With my orders given, it was back to the defensive. I took a glance and saw that the black armor had just crossed the long bridge with Gargoyles launching magic from the other side. There was exactly one Skeleton remaining. It seemed to be more competent than the other Skeletons were. Her Master was probably controlling it.

“Niku, once you’re done exploring, come help with defense. Things could get real dangerous real fast. And... Rokuko. Send out the Tentacle Slime. We’ll settle things with Core 666 on these upper floors.”

“Already? And wait, why’d you emphasize the the like that?”

“’Cause I mean, he’s THE Tentacle Slime.”

“...That didn’t explain anything, okay?” He is basically a major boss in our dungeon, y’know.

“Okay, send out the [Giant Ball] with a flood of water. Hopefully that’ll be enough to settle this.”

“Opening the floodgates and sending down the [Giant Ball]. Yaaay, here comes the final blow! Die die diiie!” Yeah, this is never going to work. I better gather all my forces in the big room up on top.

We combined the ocean water with the iron ball such that the flaming hot Magic Blade couldn’t stop it. The flood pushed the [Giant Ball] on at even greater speeds than before, right toward Core 666. Even if she managed to stop the ball, it’d still be pushed from behind by the flood hard enough to wash her away. And even if she tried to melt the iron ball, the water would keep it too cold for that. I watched the monitor. Alright, let’s see how she blocks this.

Having heard the sounds of a flood, Core 666 and the Skeletons formed a line. But what greeted them was a massive iron ball. Core 666, seeing that, readied her Magic Blade like a bow and arrow. And then, she thrust it toward the charging ball.

“...{Crimson Road}.” I heard the end to a chant.

“What?! Whoa, seriously?!” A moment later, the ocean water and steel ball evaporated together. The Living Armor’s hands were glistening red with pure heat. Right, must have been a skill. Some kind of attack skill. Core 666 is, uh, pretty intense.

“Seriously? Is this real life...? Isn’t that a little unfair?” The rest of the water eventually caught up and cooled Core 666’s black armor. Her red hands returned to black steel.

“{Crimson Road}. A Fire elemental attack skill. Although held back by a one use per day limit and a guarantee to inflict fire damage against oneself, its immense firepower makes it a more than worthwhile attack. She must have used it as a last resort, knowing she had no other options.” According to Haku’s explanation, that was a trick she wouldn’t be pulling twice today. In which case we would win if we could hit her with another [Giant Ball] plus flood combo, but...

“Keima, we’re out of [Giant Balls].”

“...Seriously? Can’t we withdraw one we used before?”

“Melted, broken, kinda just disappeared. That’s all of them.” Crap, we should have made more of them! Unfortunately, I couldn’t directly buy giant iron balls with DP. Haku apparently had them in her Catalog under the trap section, but, well... We didn’t use traps much ourselves so we never unlocked it. I’m always making traps myself... Crap! Being a cheapskate is really biting me in the ass here!

“Haku, would it be against the rules for you to, um, buy one for us?”

“Sorry, Rokuko, but indeed it would. Perhaps during the preparation phase, but not the day of the actual battle. The goal of this battle is merely to encourage the growth of younger Cores, remember.”

Which meant we had to buy or make something from our existing items that could work as an iron ball... Maybe an Iron Golem? No, never mind, no way. An Iron Golem would just tumble around in the water and get sliced to bits. It wouldn’t build up enough momentum! Man, if only Haku weren’t here! I could just make one myself with {Create Golem}!

“Okay, let’s try to think about this another way. We made our enemy use up their trump card. That means we’re on equal terms here. Fifty-fifty. But actually, we still have some tricks and firepower left, so really, we have the advantage here!”

“Keima, we don’t know if that was her only trump card, so I think we’re still fifty-fifty here?” Rokuko corrected me.

“...Well, whatever. We’re ending this in the next room.” I said while gathering the entirety of our dungeon’s forces in a single room.

# Demon King Team’s Perspective

Core 666 advanced through the Human Empire Team’s dungeon. It hurt to have used {Crimson Road}, her trump card, but she didn’t regret it. It was that or let herself get hit by a massive iron ball.

Suddenly, she was contacted.

“Aidy, they got through the Boss Room.”

“I see. Regardless, I doubt they will be capable of finding the Dummy Core.”

“Yeah. They’re not gonna find it.” Core 666’s Master spoke with utter confidence—confidence that their Dummy Core would absolutely remain undiscovered.

“So, how is our dungeon holding up?”

“As expected, it’s no longer functioning. ’Cause I mean, the Core’s with you.” Indeed. The true hiding place of the Dummy Core was within Aidy’s black armor. It was the size of a basketball, but it fit perfectly into the stomach of the Living Armor’s black armor.

You should want to attack the enemy dungeon with your mightiest monster. But you should also want to protect your Dummy Core with your mightiest monster. In order to resolve this contradiction, Core 666 and her Master thought up a plan. A simple plan, as powerful as it was reckless—Make the Dummy Core into your mightiest monster.

They had been preparing this plan since long before the Dungeon Battle started. Which is why Aidy went out of her way to ask for the winning condition to be changed from “touch the Dummy Core” to “destroy the Dummy Core.” That way, she wouldn’t lose even if her enemy managed to slip a hand into her armor.

This Dungeon Battle was the perfect opportunity to test her idea. She had lazily built the dungeon itself five floors with 50,000 DP. She bought traps that would continue to work even once the dungeon stopped functioning, and most of her monsters came from {Summon Skeleton}. And to top it off, the final Boss Room was just for show. They had spent DP on two Boss Rooms to halt the flood, not to mention buying the bone fish, but they served their purpose quite well and bought plenty of time. The remainder of their DP was spent almost entirely on strengthening Core 666 herself.

“Ahaha. I doubt Core 695 will predict that the Dummy Core is with me.”

“Looks like they’re exploring outside our dungeon a bit. We’re just gonna let them keep wasting their time until this battle’s over.”

And so, Core 666 advanced further into the dungeon. She soon came across a room.

“Master, would you open this door for me?”

“Sure.” The Skeleton her Master controlled opened the door. Immediately, a transparent tentacle launched out and grabbed it.

“Wha?! Ngh, c’mon!” The Skeleton, having no weapons aside from one of its own bones shaped into a club due to being summoned through a skill, couldn’t damage the Tentacle Slime at all.

“Tch. I’m switching to another Skeleton.”

“Master. Although I can summon replacements with {Summon Skeleton}, my mana is limited outside of our dungeon. It will run out in no time. Please fight more carefully.”

“Hey, that was a price we had to pay.” They both knew that something would be waiting behind the door. Otherwise, there would be no point to the door. Hence why they had a Skeleton open it, and hence why he was entirely right—it was a price they had to pay.

But that changed nothing. Core 666 giggled to herself as she replaced her pawns with {Summon Skeleton}.

“Expect a greater punishment than before. Expect it, and look forward to it.”

“.........”

“Oh my. You choose not to respond?”

“Haaah... Fine.”

“That’s right, Master. Never forget that you are a mere puppet. My puppet.” She swung her inflamed Magic Blade, burning the Tentacle Slime’s tentacle. The sound of water evaporating sizzled through the air, and the slime pulled back its tentacle. Fire and magic were slimes’ primary weaknesses. Her Magic Blade was practically a slime killer.

“Still, it’s not often you see a slime like this. Is it their boss? What do you think, Grandfather?”

“Tentacle Slimes. Their immunity to physical damage can be troublesome at times... but I need not even say their weak points. One could suffice as a boss. That said, I believe they are quite expensive... Did they buy the boss before the Dungeon Battle was even proposed?”

“Oh my, that would be quite something if true. Was Core 695 looking forward to our duel that much?”

They entered the room and saw that, starting with Golems and Gargoyles, there were enough monsters inside to be considered an army. There were the Sahuagins that used to be in their dungeon, the octopus from before, a squid flying through the air, and all sorts of strange monsters. There was the Tentacle Slime as well. This is quite a lot of monsters, thought Core 666, genuinely impressed.

“They’ve prepared a warm welcome for us, it seems. I certainly won’t lack for a partner in this dance party.”

“Looks like you get to go all out.”

“Ahaha, how exciting...” Core 666 readied her flaming Magic Blade and charged into the horde of monsters.

# Keima’s Perspective

“The door in their Boss Room was a dummy, huh?” I was listening to Ichika’s report.

“Yup. We destroyed the heck out of it, but it was just a metal plate hiding a dirty wall.”

“Huh. Was there an ‘under construction’ sign there?”

“An under construction sign? What?”

“Uh, never mind. It’s an inside joke. Anyway... Guess we gotta look for the way forward.”

“Yupperooni. I definitely missed something or another, so I’m gonna start from floor one and work back down.”

“Nah, don’t bother.” I stopped Ichika. I had told Niku to check outside the dungeon entrance just to be safe, but the only thing that taught us was the fact that their dungeon was located within the Demon King territory. For a second I thought about what to do, and that second was all it took to come to a conclusion.

“It doesn’t really matter.”

“It doesn’t matter...? Um, what? We can’t win if we don’t conquer Core 666’s dungeon.”

“Think about it, Rokuko.” I plopped a hand on Rokuko’s shoulder. “The enemy’s Core is inside our dungeon right now, remember?”

“...Ah!” Indeed. The location of their Dummy Core was irrelevant. Even if, for example, they had stealthily hid it and brought it with them to the dungeon, it didn’t matter. If we beat Core 666, we would ultimately win the Dungeon Battle. Taking her down would be defeating the entirety of their invasion force, and in the event of her accidentally getting destroyed, we would win by default. Yep. Either Core 666’s totally confident in herself, or she’s a total idiot. Hopefully it’s the latter.

“And I mean, really, Core 666 is definitely carrying the Dummy Core.”

“...A mobile Dummy Core?” I didn’t know how she was carrying it. But judging from the Demon King Team’s dungeon, I couldn’t imagine any other possibility. It wasn’t making new traps, it wasn’t making new monsters, and to top things off, it wasn’t fixing broken doors or walls. In almost every sense of the word, it was a dead dungeon. So much so I was honestly a little worried that it would collapse in on itself if we weren’t careful.

“Yep. Let’s say that Core 666 herself is inside that black suit of armor, and let’s say that she’s about as tall as Niku. Wouldn’t a Dummy Core fit in the helmet?”

“I see.” A Dummy Core was the same size as a normal Dungeon Core, which meant it was as large as a basketball. Incidentally, Haku’s Core-self was apparently even larger than that, so it varied on an individual level. Though it did seem like the armor’s head was a bit too small to fit the Core. If we assumed that Core 666’s body was a bit bigger, it could still fit in the stomach area of the armor.

Maybe Core 666’s body was some kind of gas or liquid that filled the entire suit of armor. My running theory was that Core 666’s true body was a suit of armor, and that she was wearing a large black suit of Living Armor on top of herself. That seemed likely. Kind of like a certain superhero wearing a second suit of power armor on top of his first suit.

It wasn’t a bad idea. If we assume Core 666 is an unbeatable warrior that could turn the tides in any battle, that was the best strategy for her bar none. She’d definitely be invincible if she could use that ridiculous {Crimson Road} skill over and over with no risk and no cost. That’d make her like a level 99 character crushing new game plus.

But in reality, she was having a hard time with our army of monsters. I mean, she was going on an intense rampage and throwing everything she had at them, but it was slow going. Despite not showing any signs of exhaustion, she wasn’t quite strong enough to effortlessly slaughter our troops.

Actually, shouldn’t it be against the rules to take the Dummy Core out of the dungeon? I guess not, since Father’s not saying anything. I’ll just have to deal with this myself.

“I didn’t even know you could take a Core out of its dungeon area. Haku, there’s definitely some kind of problem with doing that, right? What’s the catch?”

“Good question, Rokuko! Indeed, there are problems with it, first of which being that a dungeon might collapse without a Core. You can see that the Demon King Team designed their dungeon to remain stable even after the removal of their Core. They have plenty of walls and small rooms, and there’s plenty of ground between each floor layer. All of these things make it easier for a Dungeon to remain standing even after its Core is destroyed. That said, a dungeon ceases to be a dungeon without a Core even if it remains standing. Returning the Core won’t bring it back to life, either. You have to start from square one.” So in short, removing a Core will generally cause a dungeon to collapse, and in all cases it will reset the dungeon territory back to nothing. It would cost the regular 5,000 DP to mark existing floors as dungeon floors again. That’s pretty rough.

Haku continued.

“Since it will cease being a dungeon, it will be unable to produce the traps and monsters you are so familiar with. Existing traps will generally cease to work, and although monsters don’t disappear on the spot, those born from [Monster Spawners] will indeed die instantly. Reason being, they are created such that they can only survive within a dungeon.” One food source for monsters was the mana that filled dungeons. It made sense that they would starve to death without that food. And in turn, there were cases of monsters surviving and forming feral communities if provided with the proper living conditions. Haku’s knowledge of such cases hinted at how she had experience destroying many, many other Cores.

“What about monsters summoned through spells?”

“Those feed on the mana of their summoner, so they have no relation to the dungeon. It would only matter if you summoned a monster belonging to the dungeon in question, I suppose.” Summoned monsters would disappear if their summoners did, and monsters created through “create” spells would live on normally, following the orders they were last given. Create spells were thus useful when considering the aftermath of a Dungeon Core being destroyed, but Haku never operated under the assumption that she would be destroyed. As an example, it would be like how the inn by our dungeon would remain standing even after my death. It was nice, but not much point unless I intended to pass it on to my descendants.

“Oh, so that’s what happens? I’m impressed, Core 89. That’s news to me.” Father suddenly butted into our conversation. Haku gave a natural smile.

“Oh my. I assumed this would be common knowledge for you.”

“Hey, I don’t spy on Cores all the time, you know? Especially not the dungeons of Cores that have died.”

“My my! Then I am honored to have been of use to you, Father.”

Uhhhh, I listened to Haku talk for a long time, but none of that really has anything to do with what’s happening. My main priority is destroying Core 666... I mean, uh, accidentally destroying Core 666... Wait, crap. Defeating her. I need to defeat her. Pretext is important. This is just going to be an unfortunate accident that happened in a Dungeon Battle that got too serious.

I double-checked what was going on. A quick look at the monitor and map showed that within the monster house-esque room I had prepared, only one enemy dot remained: the Living Armor’s. Its accompanying Skeletons had all died. The Tentacle Slime had turned each one to bone dust. No matter how skillfully they moved, Skeletons were ultimately just Skeletons, and they could do nothing to a monster immune to physical damage.

However, Core 666 had a flame Magic Blade. The Tentacle Slime took heavy damage from her as it whittled down the Skeletons, losing several tentacles in the process, and now it was covered in wounds.

“Alright, Mr. Tentacle Slime... Actually, that’s too long. Let’s shorten it to Mr. Tent. Mr. Tent, retreat for now. That black armor’s flame Magic Blade is too dangerous. Go to a safe place and recover.” Wait, crap. Does that count as a name? I glanced at the menu and saw that “Tent” was listed as a Named monster. Tee hee! Well, it’s a little late to worry about adding a few Named monsters here and there. Plus, I mean, he’s the star monster of this Dungeon Battle. He deserves this.

Mr. Tent retreated so that his squishy, wounded body could recover. The bodily juices that I had stored beforehand were very effective there. They just returned to his slime body and healed him better than a potion would.

Gargoyles kept on blasting magic, as if to fill the void left by Mr. Tent absconding. They cast wave after wave of {Stun Bolt}, forming a solid layer of energy that pelted the black armor along with rock arrows. But none of it did much! Her armor’s way too strong! This is bad. The hole left by Mr. Tent’s absence is a lot bigger than I thought.

I gave orders to the Sahuagin platoon. They soon grabbed massive, weighted steel chains. Not just one, but several. Dozens. They were chains I had just bought with DP. My plan was to throw them at Core 666 and see if they could weigh her down. She had us trumped in quality, but we had overwhelming quantity on our side. In which case, our only hope was exploiting our numbers to their fullest. Core 666’s flame Magic Blade could definitely cut through steel, but probably not that easily.

And so, our Sahuagin platoon threw the weighted chains at her. She cut through and knocked back several, but the infinite storm of chains was too much for her to fight back in full. The chains wrapped around her armor, locking her arms and legs together... ceasing her movement! Now we just gotta finish her off, or so I thought.

“Keima! She’s not done yet!” The black armor fell over, unable to move... And suddenly, a lovely little girl with striking red hair appeared next to it. A little girl who was obviously way too small to have fit in that armor. Needless to say, that was Core 666 morphed into human form.

“Core 666 separated from it!”

“Separated...? That’s a thing you can do?” She had hair as vividly crimson as blood, and eyes as startlingly red as fire. She wore a black dress with red and white frills that seemed to suggest she was far too dignified to wear armor in the first place. In short, her appearance screamed that she preferred the fire element.

Core 666 gestured, and her flaming Magic Blade—that suited her image perfectly—started extending straight out of her hand, as if it were growing out of her body. She then swung it down on the black armor to free it from its chains. Though she swung so hard that the full-plate helm of the armor got sliced clean off. There was nothing inside the helmet. And now, we could see inside the armor.

...Within the stomach area, there was a Dummy Core resting snugly. She had freed the armor, but in the process revealed the location of the Dummy Core. Yeah, I figured she brought it in with her. But it doesn’t look like Core 666 was wearing the armor herself. In which case, maybe her true self is that Magic Blade? It did look like it grew out of her hand, so... If she and the Magic Blade are one and the same, Core 666 is really just a sword when she’s not in human form? I turned to Haku to confirm.

“Haku. Are Magic Blades actually monsters? Like, item-type monsters.”

“Oh my, you didn’t know? About seventy percent of Magic Blades in the world are monsters.” Haku casually dropped an enormous twist on me. Magic Blades aren’t items, they’re monsters? Seventy percent of them, anyway. Dang. I mean, it makes sense that there’d be Living Weapons alongside Living Armors. I just didn’t expect them to be called Magic Blades... Oh, now that I think about it, my Magic Blades are just Golems.

“Now the game truly begins!” shouted Core 666 as she returned to her Magic Blade form, entrusting herself to the Living Armor as it made a mad dash to the end of the room. And it was just a normal big room, not a Boss Room. She charged right through it. And unfortunately... Beyond the room was just Mr. Tent’s Boss Room and our Core Room.

“Oh dear. She got through, Keima. Any last minute plans?”

“What are we gonna do, Keima? Our Tentacle Slime definitely can’t beat that flame Magic Blade.” asked Rokuko, sounding completely relaxed.

“Well... We just gotta avoid losing, right? We can just run away from her.” Indeed. The [Ivory Beach’s] Dummy Core was no longer in its Core Room.

Ammoknight. We had put the Core in its shell and had it flee through the dungeon. Right now, it had used our secret passageways to escape into one of the breathing rooms in our completely submerged area, where it was playing chess with a Gargoyle. The hell is he doing? And where’d he get a chess set?

Anyway, this was really surprising. I didn’t expect them to pull the same mobile Core trick I did. And now I knew that I could, as a last resort, abandon the dungeon and flee into the sea with the Core. We’d never lose then, unless something seriously major happened underwater. And if we never lost, we could just keep fighting until we won.

Relaxed, I watched Core 666 advance through our dungeon.

# Demon King Team’s Perspective

Past the big room was a Boss Room. Inside was the Tentacle Slime that had run away after Core 666 wounded it. Judging from how it looked, its wounds had not yet fully healed.

“Hmph. No mollusk can defeat me.” The Living Armor held Core 666’s true self, the flame Magic Blade. Core 666 was the Magic Blade which her swordsman Master wielded. Under normal circumstances, he would wield her directly, but as this was a Dungeon Battle, he was resigned to controlling the Living Armor from afar.

“Now then, time to eradicate this small fry... Oh?” And yet, the Tentacle Slime squished away from Core 666, showing no intention of fighting. She couldn’t help but metaphorically tilt her head. Why would a Dungeon Boss run away? That was practically asking an invader to proceed forward. And so she did, soon coming across a small room that seemed to be their Core Room. There it was, their Core Room... and yet, there was no Core. There was no mistaking that it was their Core Room. Reason being, the gate Father had opened was still there. The gates Father had opened for this Dungeon Battle all connected to the teams’ individual Core Rooms. Though the Demon King Team had already filled in the Core Room of their abandoned dungeon.

“...What could this mean?”

“Maybe they had the same idea we did?”

“Which would mean... Their Core is being carried by a monster. Is that what you are suggesting?”

“That’s the only thing that makes sense here.” Her Master gave her advice, and...

“Ha... ahaha! HAHAHAHA! Excellent, Core 695, just excellent! This is a plan I fostered for years, and you had the same one! The exact same one! We truly are alike, you and I!” Core 666 laughed in joyous amusement. “In any case, that their dungeon still operates is proof that their Dummy Core is still inside of it.”

“Yep. The question is where the heck the monster ran off to... We’re screwed there. We don’t have any pawns to send searching.” Her Master said they’re screwed, but his tone had no trace of defeat within it. In fact, he sounded just as pleased as Core 666, as if things were finally getting interesting to him.

“But we still have a way to win. We’re going in.” And thus, the Living Armor with Core 666 in hand and the Dummy Core inside jumped into the gate connecting to the [Cave of Greed].

# Keima’s Perspective

Okay, Core 666 got inside our Core Room. That’s fine. After all, they have to destroy our Dummy Core to win, and it’s nowhere near there. We can’t lose if they can’t find our Dummy Core... Or so I thought, moments before disaster.

“Huh?” Core 666 jumped through the gate. The hell is she doing?! She should know our Dummy Core is still in the dungeon, right?! Oh, wait! I get it! She’s trying to conquer the [Cave of Greed] instead!

“Judge! Is this allowed?! She’s leaving the Dungeon Battle!”

“Hm? I don’t remember ever saying you can’t take the Cores out of the dungeon, so what’s the problem? And weren’t you thinking of doing the same thing, Keima?” He’s fine with this. Oh shit. And he figured out I was gonna abandon our dungeon if things got dicey.

Even if they didn’t find our actual Core, they were definitely gonna mess our dungeon up. This demanded emergency measures. I opened the menu for the [Cave of Greed] and activated the monitor. I was just in time to see the Black Armor slowly standing up in the coliseum area. Ngh... I can see what’s happening, but I can’t control any monsters or place any traps. I’ll need to go through the gate to enter our dungeon, but the black armor’s right there. The best I can do right now is contact the monster girls.

To make matters worse, since I had planned to win through numbers, the monsters we had in the [Ivory Beach] were high in number but low in quality, not to mention most of them were sea creatures. Any reinforcements I sent would probably be cut down right at the gate, too.

...Guess I’ll just send Mr. Tent and some Gargoyles over. Maybe now’s the time to unchain the true power of my {Create Golem}...? Nah, not yet.

“Keima?! What should we do?!”

“The quickest way to end this would be to accept defeat, but...” I glanced at Haku. She was smiling brightly.

“...That’s a last resort. We’ll just have to take the battle to our real dungeon! I’ll contact them immediately.”

“Master! Can you hear me?” Suddenly, they contacted me first. Judging by the voice, it was Rei, who I had left in charge of the [Cave of Greed] while I was gone.

“Oh, is this Rei? Our enemy’s invaded the [Cave of Greed], take them down!”

“As you wish. Please leave this to me. I shall turn them back with the full extent of my power!” declared Rei, her voice dripping with confidence.

“Do you have a plan?”

“Yes! I shall fight her myself! Here I go!”

“Wha?!” I checked the monitor and saw Rei entering the coliseum. Uh... You know you have an attack stat of 0, right?!

# Demon King Team’s Perspective

The gate led to a coliseum.

“This appears to be a coliseum. Ahaha, I appreciate the aesthetics. I wonder if she predicted that I would come here?” Core 666 had jumped on her Master’s plan to abandon searching for a Dummy Core and just attack their enemy’s home base instead. Especially since this Dungeon Battle had originally been a duel between Core 666, Aidy, and Core 695, Rokuko. Some incompetent rabble had interfered, but now she finally had the opportunity to have a fun, fun battle to the death with Core 695. Perhaps her invasion would encourage Core 695 to send her favorite Dungeon Boss after her. Or perhaps Core 695 would come fight herself? Either way, Core 666 was excited.

She waited for a bit. Soon, someone passed trough the door to the coliseum.

“You shall go no further... I, Rei, will protect this dungeon!”

“A Named Vampire, I see. This could be fun... Now, let us dance!” Rei swung her right arm, whereupon several balls of fire appeared. In moments, they all at once launched towards Core 666... towards the black armor. Some shot straight forward, some curved, some went from below, but all of them moved in different paths to limit her movements. But the black armor avoided all of them by simply stepping forward. It then swung the flame Magic Blade down towards Rei... who jumped backwards to avoid it. Fire arced through where the Magic Blade had been, burning the air.

“A Magic Blade of fire, I see. I have just the thing for that.” This time, Rei thrust her left hand forward. Arrows of ice appeared one by one like ice pillars, each launching toward the armor the moment they were born. They all shot directly forward, but she created tens, hundreds of them in the span of a few seconds.

“Ahaha, a magic user, then? How interesting.” The armor swung its Magic Blade through the air. The fire burned the air and temporarily blocked the ice arrows. The black armor used that moment to dash to the side and avoid the rest of the arrows.

“You’re quite skilled.”

“And I suppose you’re not the weakest enemy I’ve ever faced... Oh, no interfering, now.” A Gargoyle went through the gate, but before it could do anything, it was sliced in half and crumbled to the floor. Core 666 had cut it in half in the span of a blink.

“Now, shall we continue? Not that it’s any mystery who will win this fight.” Things were going well for her. She hadn’t taken a single hit yet. Core 666 was just having fun.

Unpredictable fireballs and straightforward ice arrows. Rei combined the two spells to attack at once. Core 666 dodged all of it, slicing down anything that came even close to hitting her. And although she responded with attacks of her own, Rei flew through the air much like you would expect a vampire to, and whenever a strike nearly hit her she would briefly turn into mist to dodge the blow entirely. Give how the Magic Blade was engulfed in fire, it was probably doing mana damage even if it wasn’t doing physical damage, but Rei looked unfazed.

They both lacked the means to finish each other off. The only thing piling up for certain was the corpses of Gargoyles.

Suddenly, Rei rushed straight towards her opponent.

“You are a worthy opponent indeed... But can you survive this?” Rei lifted up both hands, and above her appeared a giant black ball. It was pure dark such that it absorbed all light passing through it. The mass of darkness seethed like a black sun and grew bit by bit. It was around ten meters in diameter. If launched, it would not be unavoidable, but it was sizable enough to be considered an area of effect attack.

“Ahaha... This is quite powerful magic. Or it would be, if it were real.” Core 666 had realized the truth. Thanks in part to how her Vampire opponent had not been chanting when casting her spells, and thanks in part to such a powerful magic skill not disturbing the flow of mana around her whatsoever. Combine that with the fact Rei seemed entirely undamaged, and...

“...I believe that Vampires are skilled in illusion magic, no? Hmmm?”

“...Ngh!” Rei faltered. Core 666 had never heard of a magic skill that produced a dark sun of this magnitude. In which case, it was likely the result of an illusion skill. Not to mention that despite being such a supposedly powerful attack, it did not radiate any pressure.

“Ahaha. I suppose the fire and ice were illusions as well?”

“Don’t be ridiculous! I-If you think this is an illusion, well, let it hit you! My magic will rip apart your black armor and adorn it with blood!”

“Will it now? Your threat is as empty as a child scarecrow’s.”

“You will regret your arrogance in the afterlife... {Stygian Sun}!” Rei launched the black sun. The ten-meters wide ball of darkness did actually look a little intimidating rushing towards her. But that was all. It had no heat, no smell, and she felt no danger.

Core 666 did not even move. She was utterly confident that the black sun was an illusion. When it finally engulfed her, all that happened was her vision went black. As expected, it did not damage her in the lea—Danger. She felt a spark of mana dripping with murderous intent. She jumped to the right on pure reflex.

Immediately after, time and space shattered. Through her darkened vision she could see a globe of destroyed reality sucking her armor in. It cracked and bent, screeching unholy sounds.

“What...?! It’s damaging my black armor this much?!” The Living Armor moved its destroyed body, causing chunks of its armor to fall off and reveal the gleaming Dummy Core within. To think that her opponent had merely been pretending to not know magic.

“...” She searched for stirs in the mana around her. Even without vision, she could dodge a spell if only she sensed it first. And when focused, she would not miss even the slightest stir of mana... But she would miss the arrow that sliced the air and pierced deep into her Dummy Core.

“What...?!” The Core cracked and ruptured. The cracks grew bigger and bigger until finally the Demon King Team’s Dummy Core shattered, growing dim.

“Oh, looks like that’s that. Congratulations, Human Empire Team! You win!” Father’s declaration sealed Core 666’s defeat.

# Keima’s Perspective

I looked at the monitor and saw that Rei and Core 666 were engaging in an intense battle. Somehow, Rei was freely using magic, flying through the air, and shrugging off blows with a smile. What the hell? When did Rei turn into such a fighter?

“Keima, not her. Look over there. At the edge.”

“Hm?” A closer look revealed another Rei in the stadium seating. Her eyes were shut and she was murmuring something with her arms thrust outwards. Uhhhh... What?

“She’s using her Vampire skills... illusion magic!”

“...Wait, so this cool and heroic Rei is just...?”

“An illusion!” Daaang. That sucks... Oh, it looks like she’s invisible if you try looking from within the coliseum.

Now that I was paying attention, I could see Neruneh and Kinue with her. They were shooting out {Fireballs} and {Ice Bolts}. Though they disappeared in the air, and only reappeared after colliding with Rei’s illusory fireballs and ice arrows. Huh, that’s a pretty clever combo. But won’t the jig be up in a second if one of the completely fake magic spells hits her?

“May I take a look as well?” Haku peered into the monitor. “My my, how interesting. These are quite skilled subordinates you have. Perhaps you have influenced them, as their Master?”

“Yep, I’ve done my best to teach them.” Also, I was sending Gargoyles out to help, but they were sliced to pieces in seconds each time. Man... It’s hard to deal with campers. I’ll leave her to Rei and just keep sending Gargoyles to keep her stuck to the gate. Too bad Mr. Tent won’t get his time to shine. But anyway, {Fireballs} and {Ice Bolts} are just too weak to hurt that black armor... Oh, wait. I’ve got it.

“Hey, Rei. Could you pretend to do some kind of huge area of effect attack, but in reality just block her vision?”

“Wha?! A pretend area of effect attack that actually blocks her vision, Master?”

“Yep. Like... Could you make a huge black ball that looks kinda like a fireball, and then call it a black sun?”

“I-I can do it! Shall I begin right away?”

“Yep. Make it look real cool, like an ultimate move. And Rokuko, place me in front of the gate.”

“Okay. Be careful, it’s dangerous out there.” Alright, time to get ready. I closed my eyes for a second, and opened them to see myself in front of the gate connecting to the [Cave of Greed]. I double checked where I was standing with the position of the gate. I guess this angle should be fine?

“If you think this is an illusion, well, let it hit you! My magic will rip apart your black armor and adorn it with blood! You will regret your arrogance in the afterlife... {Stygian Sun}!” Oh, looks like Rei’s already launched the distraction. Gotta match her timing. I hurriedly took a certain something out of my {Storage}. That something being one of the [Gravity Bombs] that Rin, the black wolf, gave me.

“Black Plate.” I said the activation keyword and the black ball started to rumble. Holy shit, just looking at this is scaring the crap out of me. I didn’t want to waste it, but using this was our safest option. So, I aimed at the gate leading to where Core 666 was, and...

“...Whup!” Threw it. I opened the menu and quickly checked the monitor. Everything was dark due to Rei’s attack, but I could hear sound. I heard a gut-wrenching, horrible screech when the black ball presumably hit the ground. Then, the sound of metal bending and cracking. Did she get sucked into the [Gravity Bomb’s] area of effect? The map said she was still alive. Guess it’s not as big of an explosion as I thought.

“Master, the enemy is greatly weakened! I can see a shiny ball within her armor!”

“Oh, really? I guess you can see inside that mess since you’re the one making it. Can you finish her off?”

“Your wish is my command...” Rei readied her bow gun. It was the Golem Bowgun I’d made. By using the act of ordering a Golem as a degree of separation, even Rei could inflict damage on another. The bowgun was designed especially for her and would launch arrows when ordered to pull the trigger. And so, Rei aimed into the dark dome and let loose.

“Oh, looks like that’s that. Congratulations, Human Empire Team! You win!” Father’s casual declaration confirmed that Rei had finished things off with one beautiful shot. M-Man, I sure am glad I have some skilled subordinates.