My Dungeon Life – Chapter 1493-1495

Chapter 1493

After the attack began, I brought up a screen that showed the entrance to our dungeon. I could see enemies flowing in. They were all women. The leaders appeared to be mostly other animalkin warriors. The lionesses weren’t leading on this. If I had to guess, they were sending in the lower-ranked girls first. There were five groups of five women, making twenty-five in all. This could be called a scouting party, although you could also call it a sacrifice. I was still surprised to see that true to his word, all of those sent were essentially harem.

Elaya had warned me that it was better off if I continued to play fair. His pride would keep King Roth from cheating. It was the same reason he had given us a week to prepare instead of a surprise attack, didn’t punish Celeste when she attacked him, and why he had agreed to the dungeon battle even though he could have won the war. He didn’t just want victory by any means. He wanted to be seen as the best and the greatest.

Therefore, all of the mobs I had created were women. Tamed monsters in the form of women were close enough to a harem that they got a pass. If King Roth had a problem with that, the fact he outnumbered my girls a hundred to one would just be bullying.

With the dungeons connected, I could feel King Roth’s dungeon. I didn’t know exactly how large it was or anything like that, but there was pressure, and I could feel that his dungeon was likely larger than my own by a great deal. Once again, had this been a normal dungeon battle, I wasn’t confident we’d have a chance. However, he was going to play fair, and I intended to do so until the moment we’d turn everything around.

“Celeste… go,” I ordered.

“On it!” Celeste shrank down to her small fairy size, and then disappeared in a flash, moving as quickly as she could.

“Shao, pick off girls one at a time. Don’t take risks. Only when someone is vulnerable.”

“Yes, Master!” Shao melted into the shadows.

“Everything is going according to plan,” Elaya announced. “They’ll be encountering the bandit surprise attack first.”

Every level was themed off of previous dungeons I had defeated. Every blessing attached to me was a lore, and that lore could be used to recreate aspects of defeated dungeons. For the first level, I had used the Bandit’s Respite. It was an open green space, and there were bandits everywhere. Of course, the bandits happened to all be female.

The stairway down was smack dab in the middle of their fort. That meant that for these girls to continue to the second story, they’d need to fight their way through a barricaded wall covered with archers, all while avoid bandit sneak attacks in the forest. For me with my Map, Portal, and Sense Life, this wouldn’t have been difficult, but for the first dungeon of anyone else’s dungeon, this would be outright cheating!

We had to buy as much time as we could.

Chapter 1494

“They’ve breached the fort.” Elaya announced, even though I could see it myself. “They’ll be heading down to the 2nd story soon. They’re also reinforcing. Another five teams have entered the dungeon.”

“Won’t they grow a bit suspicious if we don’t attack?” Miki asked.

“Non necessarily.” Elaya shrugged. “A strong defense could be considered a tactic. He’s launched his weakest girls to begin the battle. He’s already lost a couple, and we’ve also lost several mobs. He could send out his best, and they would trounce through our traps with ease. Of course, they would reach the end exhausted. It’s an endurance game. Will he run out of harem before he reaches the bottom floor? He’s betting his offense is greater than our defense. If we can hold out, the entire battle would turn on its head.”

“Well, we’re not depending on that anyway,” I responded. “This is just a delay and distraction.”

Shao had used as much shadow magic as she could to obscure Celeste. She wouldn’t show up on any Sense Life. Our real goal was for Celeste to sneak down to the lower boss room. She had perfect control of the wind. Not only could she make herself nearly impossible to spot, but whether it was smell or sound, she wouldn’t be detected. Likewise, her capacity to detect others was strong as well, in particular, she could find her mother, Astria.

While we continued the battle on this side, she’d sneak into the enemy dungeon and get all the way down to the bottom flow. She’d rescue her mother and then get the dungeon lore. She’d then bring the orb back here, and I would absorb it, exponentially increasing the power of my dungeon while effectively destroying his own.

Celeste was determined to do as I asked this time. After failing me once, she felt extremely bad about it. However, I trusted in her. I had to. This all depended on her.

If she ended up getting caught by King Roth, we could also Portal down and all attack at once, side-blinding him. Elaya had revealed to me that what means they used to mess with Mapping didn’t apply to someone I was bonded to. In other words, I might not be able to portal or see anywhere around King Roth, but I could portal straight to Celeste. Well, even that had restrictions. I couldn’t portal to or detect Astria, even now, so they must have done something to restrain her. Plus, it was his dungeon, so if there was enough mana interference, even my blessing wouldn’t allow me to cut through that.

With luck, he didn’t know I could do such a thing, and wouldn’t prepare for it though. I never said it wasn’t dangerous, but it was still the best plan I could come up with. After all, if it failed, there was still my other plan. My eyes flickered to my own dungeon lore.

If Celeste failed to come back, we weren’t able to save her, and King Roth managed to make it to this room, I only had one last option. Other than trying to save Astria, it was the only other path I could come up with. I would use the same method as King Diorite and ignite the core with my soul. The explosion would destroy Chalm and incinerate the fairy spring. King Roth would never be immortal.

More than that, being as his dungeon was connected to mine, it would probably cause a cascade causing significant damage to him as well. If I had him in this room when I ignited it, then he’d likely die with the rest of us.

That was why I had sent everyone away from Chalm that I could. One way or another, King Roth would fail.

Chapter 1495

“They’ve reached the underwater level.” Elaya continued to announce as the girls all waited anxiously.

The first few levels were more physical obstructions than mental ones. As we had guessed, the first few waves contained very few of the catkin and none of the higher-ranked harem. Obstacles like forts and underwater paths were suitable for them. I was saving the ghosts for later on. This was the fifth level, and that meant it was a level with a boss on it. Putting that level underwater only enhanced the difficulty.

This wasn’t a boss room like with that monster in the Bandit’s Respite. This was more like the long corridors from Widow’s Dungeon. However, there was one key difference in this one. I watched as the girls carefully tested the water to make sure it was safe to enter.

“What is with this dungeon?” One of the girls hissed.

“Does it even have a cohesive lore?” Another complained.

“Enough!” The leader growled. “My lord said that the farther we make it, the better our reward. We can’t be stopped just at the 5th level. We need to get past this. There are fifteen of us!”

“We started with 25 though…”

“Once my lord conquers this dungeon, he will resurrect all of us and give us our just reward.”

“Are you sure? Are you sure he won’t just leave us… like the others?” One of the girls gulped, and the others gave uneasy looks.

“That sounds almost like blasphemy! Are you my lord’s harem, or a bunch of pathetic housewives!”

“We’ll go! We’ll go!” They responded defensively.

“Good, in that case, take these rings. They give the owner underwater breathing. They come from Jespain.”

“I hate underwater breathing. You always feel like you’re drowning!”

“Wear it, or be left behind… and who knows then what position you’ll have in the harem. You might not even have the right to wash my lord’s feet!”

The girls all nodded and put them on frantically. They didn’t grow gills or anything, but as they went underwater, they panicked for a moment as they tried to gulp in water, but then they relaxed and seemed to be able to breathe the water fine. I was very curious about the thing. I had heard there existed such breathable water. An enchantment that made it so you could do that in any water seemed kind of cool.

The girls all sank below the waves and started swimming to their next destination. They still kept their eyes out, but their movements were confident. They passed their first intersection, looking both ways carefully before swimming on. Just as the last girl was in the intersection, a form flew by and grabbed her. She was yanked away from the group and disappeared without a sound. She was dead, and none of the others had even realized it.

“V-vicious,” Miki spoke uneasily.

“Terrifying.” Terra nodded.

“It probably wouldn’t be interested in you. Besides, wouldn’t you just sink to the bottom?” Miki asked.

“Are you mocking me because I can’t swim?” Terra shot her an accusing look.

“Well, you can’t! And besides, a mermaid isn’t going to want to chew on your rocky body!”

“When I get my old body back, a mermaid would love to chew on it!”

“It’s still made of rock though.”

I ignored the girls arguing as I continued to watch it. Yes, I had a piece of the mermaid lore. It had been an extremely dangerous enemy. They were extremely fast swimmers, and extremely savage with their teeth and claws. Now, these girls were swimming through its territory. Everything was moving according to plan. I was just waiting until it stopped.