Chapter 66
Shibgan Love Dog : Aboralis sure talks a lot.
Shibgan Love Dog : If that guy ever came to my dungeon, they'd be dead.
Shibgan Love Dog : How dare they try to hit on our Newbie?
ㄴDIP : I have no idea what part of that was supposed to be flirting.
ㄴDIP : But judging by the way they talk, they know Newbie can go outside.
ㄴDIP : They don't seem to know that Newbie helped Sechaham yet, though.
ㄴGolem King : Just like DIP, who happily ran his mouth without knowing there were still two intruders alive in the Core Room.
ㄴGolem King : That's exactly how you look, hehe.
ㄴDIP : Why are you picking a fight with me first?
ㄴGolem King : Can't I pick a fight? lol
ㄴDIP : Where do you live?
ㄴGolem King : Replicant Automata, yep. Come in if you're mad.
ㄴGolem King : I'll show you a super-fast golem punch that can theoretically hit 500 times per minute, yep.
ㄴDIP : I'll summon a Death Knight right away, grab your leg,
ㄴDIP : hit you with a single-leg tackle, pound you into the ground, and turn you into a pile of scrap metal.
Cowhead : Aboralis VS Aboralis
ㄴCowhead : Fuck, watching the battle footage is making my heart swell with pride.
ㄴSkeleton Bones : The insanely intricate mind games were a work of art, lol.
ㄴMagic Hero : I extracted the combat data, yay...
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The response to this live coverage was positive too.
I recorded a lot of footage just in case, and I'm glad I did.
Blessed Ones could enter the dungeons of other veterans, after all.
It seems the footage of this doppelganger battle will be quite useful.
"Feels good."
The mod bro told me.
If I helped other dungeons as an intermediary,
maybe a hopeful future awaited the Dungeon Masters too.
As I said before,
Dungeon Gallery was my entire social circle.
They were as precious as the heart of a dungeon sealed away in its Core Room.
So.
I set my goal anew.
Let's make a terrifying dungeon that even a Blessed One wouldn't dare think of entering.
And help my friends.
I currently had 300,000 points on hand.
Now that I had passed level 100, I could buy five-star artifacts.
In gacha-game terms, I could now directly purchase characters that normally required paying real money to obtain. Every one of them had absurdly good performance.
To begin with, all traps had this tag attached.
【Escape Scroll Nullification】
Until now, I had stolen intruders' possessions with the hall monitor, merchant, and so on.
But I didn't need to do that anymore.
If an escape scroll was used in an area where a five-star trap had been activated,
the escape scroll would simply become a meaningless scrap of torn paper.
Of course, if an intruder used it in the elevator, it would activate normally.
But plenty of people would be dealt with before they figured that out.
There was no bigger scam than this.
The veterans said performance really started to rise at five stars.
The anomalies had been overpowered from the start, so I hadn't expected much.
But they showed me the tiers themselves, saying that even the truly broken ones had another level of brokenness.
Still, maybe that was why.
From five stars onward, traps and minions seemed to be bundled together as a set.
In areas with five-star traps, there was a school-like gimmick that only the 'designated minion' could use. Even taking that into account, it seemed pretty good.
Anomaly minions weren't all good, anyway.
Even in AOS games, there were trash characters and god-tier characters, and items weren't all equally good either.
Anyway.
The new trap and minion I was adding were.
【Haunted Mansion Generator(★5)】
【Price : 175,000P】
【Tags : anomaly, immortal, one-time use, escape scroll nullification】
【……】
【……】
【The Mirror That Must Not Exist(★5)】
【Price : 70,000P】
【Tags : anomaly, immortal, activation, non-upgradable】
【……】
【……】
They weren't bad.
They were a little expensive, but considering their performance, it was more than worth it.
Personally, I hoped they would become Dreamland's ultimate weapon after the school.
I decided to place them in Zone 3.
It was to counter Blessed Ones with the Trap Nullification trait.
Huh?
What about the Goblin Cave and the merchant?
Of course I wasn't planning to abandon them. I was going to move them to Zone 4.
I grabbed my hard hat and shovel.
They didn't really serve much purpose, but putting them on always lifted my mood a little whenever I did construction work.
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I had already mastered the dungeon expansion feature.
I had learned from Nabu, a star instructor, so I could proudly say I was fully proficient now.
Since I was seriously short on points,
I planned to split Zone 3 in half and create Zone 4 for now.
Terrain modification naturally consumed points too, but it wasn't terribly expensive—about 5,000P.
Of course, this would weaken the Goblin Cave.
But I thought adding the mansion would provide enough return to make up for it.
I could expand it again once I had more points.
I split the zone in an instant.
I brought the merchant to Zone 4 and laid it down there.
"Ehk."
The reason I wasn't using Malangi here was simple.
While fighting the Blessed One this time, Malangi had also.
It had eaten the trash she left behind and ranked up.
Considering its rank had gone up even though it hadn't eaten much,
maybe Malangi's growth wasn't actually determined by how much it ate.
Maybe it was heavily influenced by the Dungeon Master's level.
Perhaps it had eaten too much during the dwarf wave and its experience bar had stopped exactly at the cap.
【Anomaly Slime(★5)】
【Tags : anomaly, immortal, harmless, flight, size reduction, ???】
【Quickly cleans up the trash inside the dungeon. Follows the dungeon master's orders.】
Anyway, whenever an anomaly touched Malangi, the affected part softened and melted before being absorbed into Malangi.
I assumed it was probably because of the ??? tag.
I could use this to remove useless anomalies later and free up slots.
I wondered if Malangi might awaken someday,
but I had no useless minions at the moment, and this wasn't the time to experiment.
Anyway.
After moving the merchant, I brought out the Strange Goblin Cave Generator and installed it somewhere new.
And in the empty Zone 3,
I placed the Haunted Mansion Generator and The Mirror That Must Not Exist.
If I installed one more elevator, the construction would be complete.
I used up the points neatly.
All that remained was to wait for intruders.
A Blessed One.
Would one come in again?
Honestly, I thought all that was left to do in Fireforge was browse the gallery. Phew.
Had I somehow become a superstar among the Blessed Ones?
Well, they could come in as many times as they wanted.
Once they came in, there was no way they could avoid this Newbie's iron mace.
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│Passage│
│Elevator│
│ │
│ │
│Maze│
│ │
│ │
│ │
──────────
│Sch│
│ │
│ │
│ool│
──────────
│Man│
│sion│
──────────
│Cav│
│e │
──────────
│Core Room│
──────────
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Two months passed after that, but no Blessed One entered.
It seemed the veterans' prediction had hit the mark.
Orange★ : I guess they finally got spooked by how nasty Dreamland is and decided not to pay attention to it anymore.
ㄴI Have No Minions : It's a dungeon where you can't get any rewards besides mana stones, lol.
ㄴI Have No Minions : Maybe it'll be fine if we don't attract attention and keep quiet for a while??
Was I scared for nothing?
The time I'd spent worrying and staying tense suddenly felt a little foolish.
Shibgan Love Dog : Newbieee!
ㄴNewbie : Why are you calling me?
ㄴShibgan Love Dog : What did you install this time??
ㄴShibgan Love Dog : You haven't said anything about the dungeon since the Blessed One came in, so we were worried ㅠㅠ
ㄴCowhead : Seriously, you asked us to recommend something, damn it.
ㄴCowhead : Why haven't you mentioned Dreamland since then?
ㄴCowhead : Stand up straight, Newbie.
ㄴSkeleton Bones : This is kind of pissing me off, yep.
ㄴSkeleton Bones : What is this expectation bait??
Ah.
Come to think of it, I hadn't said anything about the dungeon expansion.
ㄴNewbie : Sorry, when I get absorbed in something, my mind sometimes flies off to Andromeda...
ㄴNewbie : I bought these, hehe.
ㄴKingjjang Evil Spirit : Now that you've got some experience, you don't ask the gallery anymore...
ㄴKingjjang Evil Spirit : I'm hurt, you know...
ㄴNewbie : No, I saw the five-star artifacts and my dopamine went through the roof, so that's why ㅠㅠ
ㄴNewbie : I'll ask next time...
ㄴMagic Hero : B-but when I look at the trap and minion descriptions...
ㄴMagic Hero : They're definitely worth a dopamine explosion... lol...
ㄴThe World Is Cold : Escape Scroll Nullification, my ass lolololololol
ㄴI Have No Minions : You've brought in something terrifying again this time...
ㄴWhaleWhaleYeah : RIP in advance to the next intruder.
ㄴSquinty-Eyed Character : Why are the five-star artifacts so good??
ㄴSquinty-Eyed Character : There are so many tempting ones besides the traps and minions you bought, lol.
ㄴSealed Conqueror : This is true horror, yep.
ㄴSealed Philosopher : I'm looking forward to the next live coverage...
Around the time I was leaking the unfamiliar concept of 'TRPG' as bait to the veterans with nothing to do,
an intruder entered after a long while.
【The wave begins.】
【An intruder enters.】
【Confirmed intruders: 15 total.】
【15 humans.】
Naturally, I assumed they were Blessed Ones.
That's what I thought, but.
Why humans all of a sudden instead of dwarves?
It was so out of left field that I was a little confused.
"By the way…… look at those damn bastards thinking exactly the same way."
They weren't Yuben 2.0, were they?
This time, they brought two fighters and a group of slaves.
"Seriously, I lose respect every time I see this."
As someone who had been human before becoming a Dungeon Master, this was truly an embarrassing moment.
What the hell did these bastards think human lives were worth?
They were making it painfully obvious that they didn't want to go in.
And yet they intended to use those people as sacrifices to uncover the anomalies.
Newbie : The time has come to show off the power of a level 105 Dungeon Master, yep.
ㄴNewbie: But who the hell are these guys??
ㄴShibgan Love Dog : This is the perfect time for Shibgan expert Sarang Holmes to step in!
ㄴShibgan Love Dog : As for who those soldiers are...
ㄴAnt Queen : Why are you suddenly acting like such a clown??
ㄴAnt Queen : They're just soldiers from the North Kingdom, lol.
ㄴShibgan Love Dog : Do you really want to die ^^?
ㄴShibgan Love Dog : Newbie, ignore that disgusting ant bastard and listen only to me ㅠㅠ
ㄴShibgan Love Dog : Anyway, to explain!
ㄴShibgan Love Dog : They're North Kingdom soldiers, but more precisely, they're soldiers from Count Wolfhaufen's domain!
ㄴShibgan Love Dog : The wolf emblem on that shield is Wolfhaufen's symbol.
ㄴShibgan Love Dog : Fortunately, there aren't any knights... and no one appears to be particularly high-ranking!
ㄴShibgan Love Dog : They should be easy for Newbie to subdue!
ㄴNewbie : Thanks!
ㄴShibgan Love Dog : If you're grateful, you have to meet me and give me a kiss (serious).
ㄴNewbie : Hehe... but if they came in prepared like that, did a lord send them again?
ㄴShibgan Love Dog : Who knows?
ㄴShibgan Love Dog : It's a little hard to figure out right now...
ㄴShibgan Love Dog : They probably know about what happened to the dwarves too...
ㄴShibgan Love Dog : Personally, I'm pretty curious about why they came in.
Well, whatever.
Maybe I should loosen up a little after so long.
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I dusted off my hands.
The fight ended with my victory.
Leveling up really was the truth.
I had played with the soldiers as if they were children.
As far as I could tell, two ordinary soldiers were now, how should I put it...
They were goblins to me.
But.
Although I'd won the fight easily, my expression ultimately wasn't very bright.
The passage was filled with corpses.
Not a single intruder had survived.
Even the slaves I personally wanted to spare were all dead.
I hadn't killed them.
I had no reason to, and in the first place, I had questions to ask them.
Why had humans from the North Kingdom gone out of their way to enter Dreamland in Fireforge?
There was no way to ask a corpse that question.
Magic Hero : It's a magic bomb...
A magic bomb.
The moment the soldiers realized they were defeated.
The pinnacle of magitech, pulled out with the resolve to die together.
The bomb exploded with a bang.
Everyone, including me, was caught in the blast.
It must have been a suicidal last resort for the soldiers,
but fortunately, I hadn't suffered injuries as severe as theirs.
I had wounds here and there, but they were rapidly regenerating.
I was lucky.
It was fortunate that the soldier had made a mistake.
I had almost pointlessly lost the Drake Heart Sechaham gave me.
My blood still ran cold.
It happened when I let my guard down, thinking everything was over.
From now on, I needed to stay focused until the very end.
By the way.
I heard something from the soldiers that I couldn't ignore.
"They definitely called me a calamity…… that's what they said."
They were different from the intruders who had come solely after mana stones until now.
The moment they saw me, they burned with boundless hostility.
-So you're the Dungeon Master who will become the calamity of the North Kingdom.
-Die, die, cough up the mana stone here, and die!
What on earth is going on?