~ Chapter 48: A difficult question ~

[Illsyore's point of view]

 “Are we there yet?” I asked a bit bored.

That was the sixth time I asked in the past hour. Nanya was already glaring at me, and Shanteya let out a sigh. Ayuseya only showed me a smile of pity.

We were currently a few kilometers away from Petro Town. We were heading towards the Mehalom Ancient Dungeon. The path was clear, and we had been running constantly through the woods to avoid the road because we were using more than 800 points in agility and didn’t want to have random strangers witness our power, yet. At one point, I did try to run while carrying Shanteya in my arms, since I was faster than her, but Ayuseya ended up falling behind. The draconian Princess had the agility, but she didn’t have the reaction needed for one with her stats. She had much to learn about her current abilities, but so did I.

Thinking about it, I had yet to start training using my abilities. So far, we led a normal life, in a matter of speaking. There were no tough challenges, hard battles, or enemies to defeat in the near future, making the need to actually train a bit pointless. My boost was offering these women more than they could handle already. We could probably take down Dankyun with relative ease right now, but I honestly didn’t want to push my luck with it.

All the evil little Supreme enemies could stay there in their evil dens and let me have my fun!

I certainly wasn’t in the mood for any terrain altering battles, my topmost priority was getting to the dungeon, beating the hell out of it, saving who we had to save, then go to the capital and plunder their libraries. It was a good, simple, and modest plan.

“Are we there yet?” I asked again.

Nanya groaned and then shouted back at me “NO!”

I had the weird feeling that I was becoming annoying.

Nah, must be my imagination! I thought and shrugged.

Of course, I was annoying, I was bored out of my mind!

About an hour and a half later, we finally reached to entrance of the famous dungeon. As Nanya instructed me before, I made sure to pull back my Dungeon Territory, since I didn’t want to destroy the core so easily like it happened with the one from before.

“We’re finally here… UGH!” Nanya groaned exasperated.

“I didn’t think Illsy could be worse than a child.” giggled Ayuseya.

“He’s a brat…” mumbled Nanya.

“I was just bored!” I defended myself.

Shanteya only let out a sigh and stepped closer to the entrance, which was quite fancy if I had to say so myself.

Instead of a cave, we were met with a six meters tall stone archway covered with carved letters. Unfortunately, the writing was in another language I had no idea how to read or speak. Behind the archway were two statues, one of a human and the other of a Minotaur. The two were facing each other and looked ready to fight. The artwork was impressive, but it wasn’t extremely detailed. After that, we were faced with a pair of huge metal doors covered in various illustration of human men being slain by imps, Minotaurs, and all sort of other monsters. It was a real welcoming gift.

“Impressive.” said Shanteya.

“Meh, I can do better.” I commented.

“Suuure you can.” Nanya narrowed her eyes at me in disbelief.

“Either way, this does look dangerous…” remarked Ayuseya with a bit of worry in the tone of her voice.

“Just keep your Magic Armor up and let me lead the party.” said Nanya, but I was already pushing the doors open.

“Are you coming?” I asked them.

“Ugh… this is going to be a long day.” grumbled Nanya shaking her head.

Once inside we were met with the ever so famous… cave.

“You have got to be kidding me…” I said as I narrowed my eyes at the rock walls.

“For such an impressive entrance, the first floor feels a bit… lacking.” said Ayuseya.

“Actually, this is normal. Only Illsy here is the difference.” pointed out Nanya.

“I don’t see the point in making a cave…” I shrugged.

Stepping inside, we prepared ourselves for the first encounter, whatever it was…

“Kiii!” the giant rat screeched at us.

I lifted my hand up and released a low powered laser beam. It was the kind that I wouldn’t even flinch against, but in case of the low-level rat, it went straight through it. Actually, it was a bit ridiculous how much of an instant kill it was. The best way to imagine this would be to see a big barbarian with a two-handed axe in each hand attacking a defenseless little bunny.

“Maybe a slap would have sufficed?” I asked myself with a raised eyebrow.

“A slap? Even a flick to the snout would be overpowered!” puffed Nanya. “Since the monsters are so weak, we can use them to train Ayuseya.” she suggested after a moment of thinking.

“I apologize for the trouble.” the draconian princess said with an elegant and small bow of her head.

“No worries! Nyahaha!” Nanya laughed and patted her on the back.

“By the way, do we have to worry about any sort of loot drops?” I asked them.

“Not at this level. We could, however, skin and declaw the beasts we kill if they aren’t of the summoned type. It will only earn us a couple of silverettes, but it’s better than nothing.” Nanya shrugged.

“Should we bother?” I asked raising an eyebrow.

“Nah!” she shook her head and waved it off “After we reach the lower floors, the Minotaurs will give us good loot with their weapons and armors. If there are any skeleton walkers, we can take their armors as well. In general, that’s the junk I sold before, but I heard there are some adventurers that look for various herbs that grow only on certain dungeon floors. Tuberculus was one of the types that scrubbed a wall clean of moss before continuing.”

“Sounds like a lot of fun…” I said sarcastically.

“Yeah… So do you want to do the same?” she asked me.

I quickly shook my head, denying the thought of doing something as time consuming as that. I simply didn’t have either the will or the patience to do it, but this gave me some ideas about what to try in the future. If I could grow stuff like that deep within the corridors of my dungeon, then I could teach some alchemy lessons as well, maybe I could even hire someone to do both that and help me grow the ingredients needed for class.

We let Ayuseya do the killing, while Nanya ordered the rules of how she needed to move. I just admired the moss on the walls and the swaying of cute round bottoms in front of me.

About one hour and a half later, we finally met our first Minotaur. He didn’t wear any gear, so we kicked his furry behind into a wall and continued with our exploration. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that we literally strolled through, flicking and slapping annoying monsters away from us. Very few managed to reach me. Ayuseya was good at keeping the aggro on her, but one strike was enough to permanently silence any monster there.

After we reached the 35th floor, we encountered our first trap. There was a rope going from one tiny hole in the wall to the other. I squinted my eyes at it and then burned it with my laser. When it snapped, a boulder attached to a metal chain was released from the ceiling in front of us. It swung down with menacing force, but it was stopped with ease by Nanya’s fist.

“Pathetic…” I mumbled.

We continued on with our exploration, but so far there were no signs of the previous adventurers. Since this wasn’t the typical rush-to-the-core type of quest, we had to find and search all the rooms at each floor. We went lower only AFTER our search was over, but so far, no luck. I was seriously starting to think that the adventurers may have died and already got swallowed by the Dungeon.

This, however, changed when we reached the 54th floor.

“Look! Over there!” shouted Nanya as she pointed towards the other side of a room filled with spikes and angry imps.

“I see him!” I said and rushed over.

“BUGA!” shouted an imp as it tried to attack me.

The poor little thing was brutally stepped on like an insect and squashed under my foot. Nanya slapped into the ground all those attacking her, while Shanteya and Ayuseya cut them with their weapons. When I reached the other side of the room, I managed to get quite a bit of aggro on myself, and three big imps placed themselves between me and the human warrior.

“Fine! You asked for it!” I said and then rushed to the first one.

The world around me slowed down to an incredible degree. I saw everything in slow motion, but I was moving much faster than the human eye could see. It was thanks to my enhanced body that I was capable of something like this. A single slap was enough to finish off these three, and the others behind me were killed when I turned around and released a laser beam at them.

In less than a minute, all the imps in the room had been exterminated.

“There were a lot of them!” said Ayuseya surprised as she wiped the blood off of her sword.

“It was most likely a trap room.” I pointed out.

“Indeed, but I don’t see any summoning circles.” said Shanteya.

“These are bred.” pointed out Nanya.

“I always wondered how Dungeons bred them?” I said absentmindedly as I looked down at the dead corpses.

“They bind females of other species and allow the imps to mate with them. Usually a human woman would produce around 20 or 30 imps per year.” Nanya explained.

“That doesn’t sound right.” I said narrowed my eyes at her.

“Unfortunately, that’s the truth.” she sighed and shook her head. “At least for imps.”

“Minotaurs and other species simply breed among themselves but only if the Dungeon can sustain the summon period for their gestation and nobody kills them. Imps and Goblins are the only exception.” Shanteya added.

“Great…” I said and then looked back at the warrior in front of me.

The man had been dead for a few days now, but the Dungeon had yet to consume him. I knew for certain that if it did, the body would vanish, leaving behind only the gear. There were also all of these imps around, who didn’t try to cook or eat him in any way. This could have happened only if the Dungeon ordered them not to do so.

But why would it? I asked myself as I got up.

“He’s been killed by blunt force to the back of the head.” said Nanya.

“Was he murdered?” I asked.

“No, I suspect the imps did it. They entered this place, the party was overwhelmed and one of them attacked him when they managed to shatter his Magic Armor.” the demoness explained as she started searching his pockets for a mission missive or something like that.

“These things?” I asked surprised picking up the body of a dead imp.

“We are at floor 54, Master. If it was the me from the time before I became yours, I can assure you that this little fellow would have been strong enough to kill me.” Shanteya told me with a soft smile, but I found it hard to believe.

Either I was so strong I couldn’t see the difference or these guys were weaker than even she could tell. I was honestly betting on the latter because I didn’t see anything so far that would make me use even 2% of my power. Then again, if the first statement was true, I could understand now why Dankyun sort of strolled around my dungeon like that, but most importantly, why everyone was so shocked by my easy dungeon floor.

To them, it would have been a nightmare worthy of lower floors, not the first one. I was the only dungeon who didn’t follow the basic rules, who instead of luring the adventurers in, I blasted them in the face with challenge after challenge.

This makes me wonder about how powerful a 100 floor dungeon would be if I were to build it with my current knowledge? Should I also lure them in and slowly destroy or drain their powers? I think I’ll actually make one just for giggles, but my first priority when it comes to building something serious is an Academy… as soon as I understand the ins and outs of this world. Everyone can construct a building and say its a school, but actually nurturing young minds on a certain path, that’s something not many can do, and I want to do that! I thought to myself, but while I was lost in thought, the women walked ahead of me.

“Huh?” I blinked surprised when I saw them gone. “Hey! Wait for me!” I cried after them.

On the 58th floor, we found a prison where another victim of this Dungeon was being kept. She was a muscular brunette woman in her mid thirties. Her body was covered in scars and stripped naked. Nanya looked at her wounds, but even I could tell why she died. It was a sword impaled into her heart. The few imps around that we found weren’t killed by us.

“Her own party must have done this…” Shanteya said.

“Why would you say that?” I asked furrowing my brow.

“When imps make a woman their breeding tool, they use a small needle to pierce the brain and cut her consciousness off. Basically, her body remains active, they can force feed her, but she won’t struggle or try to escape while they have their way with her. In general, all adventurers must and will kill anyone they find in this state.” explained Nanya.

“What? These imps can do something like that?” I asked surprised.

Looking at the little bastards, I was starting to believe they weren’t that stupid after all.

“Yes, but… lately various nobles took up this practice to ensure certain slaves procured through the black market don’t fight back.” Shanteya added.

Hearing this, even Nanya was surprised.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“Basically, they hire my former guild to kidnap certain peasant girls they fancied for their bodies and then request this operation to be done on them. The girls are offered to their new masters in a vegetable state and then they do what they please with them. Some are used for carnal pleasures, others as experiments for mages or alchemists. The worst I saw was a man using them to grow flesh eating worms. The victims died being eaten from the inside out…” the former assassin explained.

“But I thought a slave’s collar pretty much made them unable to disobey their master.” Nanya asked a bit confused.

“True, but a slave that has this operation done to them is nothing more than a living puppet. They don’t scream or cry when they are being hit…” Shanteya explained and lowered her gaze.

This was something she saw with her own eyes. Maybe it was a way the Guild Master managed to keep his assassins loyal? He showed them an alternative ‘use’ for them.

“That’s despicable!” retorted Ayuseya.

Until now, the draconian remained quiet, but hearing something like that, she couldn’t hold in her anger. It was an atrocious act even from my point of view, however, there was nothing we could do at the moment.

Let’s see… list of priorities: get a nekatar as a pet, research the political affairs of the world and find a suitable location for my academy, get Shanteya and Ayuseya in my bed for sexy time, loot a library, fix Ayuseya’s political situation, destroy Shanteya’s former guild, and last but not least… get rid of the Darkness inside of me. I thought as I noted down more or less everything I had in mind.

Technically, the ‘building the academy’ part wasn’t that hard. I could build it with the snap of my fingers, but it wasn’t materials or power that I lacked, it was a good location, preferably something with a beach because swimsuits. The other important thing I lacked was information and a political ally who would send me students rather than armies ready to kill me. There was also the small factor of being able to fight off against Supremes. As I was right now, I still had a long way to go, but this journey was offering me all the things I previously lacked, especially a much-needed bonding time with my three women.

We didn’t stay in that room for too long, but before we left, Ayuseya set it on fire with a small fireball. Witnessing the attack, I was starting to guess that maybe she was able to cast any fire type spell without incantation.

Maybe a trait of her True Dragon side? But nothing showed up on my status list about it… I thought while I walked beside her.

At the entrance to the next floor, we found another member of the previous party. Well, what was left of him anyway. A pack of six hungry Dayuks were feasting upon his remains and crunching his bones in their powerful jaws.

“[Fireball]” I said and sent the devastating attack towards them.

The Dayuks were killed in the blast instantly. They didn’t even had the chance to dodge or yelp in pain. The remains of their bodies were spread all around us in a gory mess of guts, blood, and singed flesh. It was simply disgusting, but worse of all… I sort of blocked the entrance to the next level.

Simply put, I caused a tiny winy little cave-in.

“Good job.” said Nanya sarcastically and then sighed.

“Oopsie?” I showed them a wry smile.

“No worries, the Dungeon will fix it in a short while, we just have to wait until then.” the demoness shrugged and then pointed to a nearby room. “Let’s make camp over there.”

“What a weak Dungeon…” I grumbled to myself as I followed them.

The camp in itself was made out of four chairs, a small fire, and some meat on a stick to fry. On the ceiling, on top of the fire, Nanya placed a small crystal that absorbed all the smoke. It was the first time seeing something like this, but thinking about it, maybe it was a necessary tool for exploring a dungeon. After all, the floors were something like closed off caves, the smoke had to go somewhere, otherwise, it would kill the adventurers. A torch or two wasn’t that bad, but when you were using them, you were constantly on the move, while with a fire, you would need to sit still. Then again, in this dungeon, I didn’t see a single torch. It had either completely dark floors or barely lit ones with fluorescent crystals. Since we all could use spells, we mostly used globes of light instead of actual torches. Well, Nanya and Shanteya did, I just stood there looking pretty.

Still, no matter how long we waited, the Dungeon didn’t clear up the path. It was getting annoying and strange. Even Nanya and Shanteya thought so.

“It’s been over an hour…” I said as I looked at the fire.

“Indeed, strange…” Nanya narrowed her eyes at the entrance.

“Even the bodies of the adventurers weren’t absorbed. Maybe the Dungeon Core is dead?” Shanteya asked.

“No, I confirmed it when we entered. The Dungeon Core is alive and has a level of 94, so we shouldn’t be that far from the end.” replied Nanya.

“Speaking of which, did you find out what they were here for and how many of them they were?” I asked her, but the demoness shook her head in reply.

“So that part is still a mystery…” said Shanteya.

“Yes.”

“Good! Let’s blast our way through then!” I declared with a smirk.

Nanya shrugged.

“Indeed, no point in wasting any more time here.” Ayuseya confirmed.

“Besides, a level 94? Isn’t this one weaker than the other one?” I asked.

“That one wasn’t an Ancient one, it was a Normal one and barely a level 102. In terms of strength, this one is at least 4 or 5 times stronger.” Nanya explained.

“Really?” I blinked surprised.

“Maybe, it’s just a guess. Until you fight them with your Dungeon Territory, you can’t really tell.” the demoness shrugged and put out the fire by splashing it with some summoned water from her Inner Mind.

The way to reach the next floor was simple, I just had to punch the floor. Easy, but before I got the chance to do it, I was stopped by the women.

“Huh? What?” I asked blinking surprised.

“Sigh, let me do it or you’ll crush the whole thing on top of us.” Nanya said.

“Oh, come on!” I complained.

The demoness punched the floor, but not where I wanted to, she did so near the exit. A big hole formed, and we jumped through. A couple of imps were squashed by boulders and it appeared as though the monsters were already starting to dig their way out because a bunch was gathered there. They snarled and raised their weapons at us, ready to attack. Shanteya went first and cut down five Minotaurs, Ayuseya slashed in half ten imps, and Nanya literally stole all of my kills. I was left just standing there with my guard up and chasing the monsters around so I could get a kill or two, which didn’t happen, obviously. And yes, I forgot the little fact that I could shoot lasers from my palms…

“Oh, come on!” I complained.

“There, there, Illsy! You’ll get your chance someday.” Nanya told me with a sympathetic look in her eyes.

This little devil staged the whole thing! I complained in my mind.

“Look!” Shanteya shouted, catching our attention.

“We’ll talk about this later… in bed.” I told Nanya.

“Can’t wait for it, sweetie!” she winked at me.

What the el’doraw found was a wounded adventurer. He had his left arm cut and left foot broken. A big horn was stabbed in his side and a Minotaur was laying dead not far from him. He didn’t have much time left to live, but it was rather strange that the monsters here didn’t finish him off. To simply leave him like this to die wasn’t something a typical Dungeon would do.

“Ugh…” the man groaned and then said something in Kalish.

Nanya knelt beside him and spoke in the same tongue, while I could only watch and guess what they were talking about. The man’s eyes were serious, while the demoness’ words were calm. Taking a deep breath, he grabbed her by the armor and told her something, then his strength faded and was forced to lean back on the wall.

“This man is as good as dead.” said Shanteya.

“We could heal him… probably.” I told them and scratched the back of my head, wondering if we could use healing herbs or a crystal.

“Don’t, he’s not worth it.” Nanya said shaking her head.

“If you say so, but what did he say?” I asked curiously.

“Something unsettling…” the demoness looked back at him as if struggling with the decision of whether to tell me or not. “Apparently, black magic users are hiding deep inside this dungeon. Their party thought it was going to be a simple dungeon exploration to the core and back, but when they encountered the black mages… things changed. They were all at least Godlike Rank at least… His group had over 23 slaves with them, all meant to be used for… various things.” she explained.

“What? 23 slaves?” I asked surprised, but the fact that they encountered Godlike Rank adventurers wasn’t that much of a worry for me. Actually, I was sort of hoping for a bit of a challenge, but nothing exaggerated. In the end, I wanted to squash them like bugs.

“Yes…” Nanya nodded and looked back at me.

“10 of them were children…” mentioned Shanteya.

The demoness gave her a glare. It seemed like this was the detail she didn’t want to let me know about, however, upon hearing it, a strange anger awoke and rattled its dark chains inside my heart. Making slaves out of criminals as a way for them to repay the damage they caused was one thing, but making a child a slave was… disgusting.

Kneeling down besides the man. I showed him a smile.

“Shanteya, please translate for me. What happened to the children?” I spoke in a cold tone of voice.

The man replied and grinned.

“Six died… as food for monsters. They used them to divert them. The other four were captured by the black mages and probably had their souls plucked out of their bodies.” the el’doraw replied.

I sighed and closed my eyes. Red glowing veins appeared on my hands, slowly making their ways up my arms. Anger swirled in my heart. Fury was unleashed, and yet I still retained my calm on the outside. Of course, the others had no idea what was happening to me, at least not at this point. Within my body, my soul let out a bit of darkness.

No one asked me about the red veins either, but even I didn’t take notice of them.

“Six died as food for monsters, huh? Six children?” I showed him a calm smile.

“So what? They are slaves. You are here to save me, not a bunch of tools.” Shanteya translated.

I shook my head and looked at him with a calm gaze in my eyes.

“No… Not really.” I said and then shot one of my laser beams right in the middle of his forehead.

I killed him in cold blood and yet… I felt nothing about it. How could I when he viewed the lives of children as tools? When he enslaved children and used them like this, as food for monsters to save his own hide? The anger inside of me was controlled by an unsettling fury. It was like a demon pulled the strings of my heart and poked it with a hot iron stick from time to time.

“Unfortunately, we were unable to save him.” I said coldly.

“Sigh, I don’t care.” Nanya shook her head.

“Whatever Master wishes, I follow.” said Shanteya.

Hearing her, my heart felt a tinge of pain. Looking back at the el’doraw, I gently touched her left cheek, making her face turn bright red.

“The difference is you wish to follow me, and with one request, I am willing to release you. The contract is slave and master, but the bond between us is of friends or more…” I closed my eyes for a moment and then turned to look at my two wives. “Ladies, if I ever turn from this train of thought, please stop me.” I told them with a smile, but I refused to tell them why I feared I could change.

The truth laid deep inside of me: the Darkness.

“Don’t worry, Illsy, you won’t!” Nanya said with a smile of confidence.

“You will always have my support.” Ayuseya told me with her hand over her heart.

“Mine too, Master.” Shanteya said.

I showed them a soft smile and then walked out of the room. Before I left though, I looked back at the dead human.

Why don’t I feel anything about this? Why do I find it so normal to kill someone like him? I thought and then turned around.

Even when I remembered what I did to Dankyun, it seemed that it didn’t bothered me very much, if I were to say… I had a few limits, in a way of speaking. Up to a point, I would just beat the snot out of them. After that, I would kill them. If they were such evils that I couldn’t stand the sight of them, killing them was too little, and I wanted to torture them somehow, I wanted to see them suffer or know that they were in a living Hell… It was evil of me to think this way, but torture was worse than death in my opinion. For some, I saw death as an escape rather than a punishment. This applied to that scumbag Dankyun as well.

Then again, another question was raised inside my heart Could one who could kill so easily be allowed to teach the innocent children of this world?