Chapter 410: Fireworks for the Legion
Rastujad’s ability to control corpses was, strictly speaking, limited to ghouls.
However, after the conquest of the Barony of Virgo, with the active frontline now confined to the Sagittarius front, the two undead officers had periodically farmed the sub-dungeons and learned new techniques.
In Rastujad’s case, he had learned to handle a variety of ghouls.
Skeleton, slime, Andras, flame lion. He had mastered the dark magic to "ghoulify" the monsters from all four types of sub-dungeons in our dungeon.
Compared to the 35 corpses he could control when ghoulifying humans, the efficiency dropped sharply the further a monster was from being human. Still, he could temporarily resurrect a small number of monsters as ghouls.
The reason I’d dared to tackle basement 2 with such a skeleton crew was precisely because I trusted Rastujad’s dark magic.
Squelch, squelch, squelch.
The ghoul slimes began devouring the slimes. When the slimes saw a fellow slime oozing bodily fluids charging at them, they happily started cannibalizing, but they quickly realized something was wrong and began to recoil.
Crunch.
While the slimes were busy tearing each other’s bodies apart, the ghoul slime twisted its head and bit out only the slime’s core. Even as half its own body was devoured, the ghoul slime kept biting out only the cores, the magic stones, from inside the slimes and spitting them onto the floor.
Squeeee.
The ghoul slime, its body half-eaten, let out a death shriek and expired. Its core had already been extracted; the corpse had only been moving thanks to the mana from dark magic. It had never been a living creature to begin with.
It was nothing more than a corpse puppet under the control of Rastujad, the dark mage who commanded ghouls.
That corpse puppet was gone now. Eaten by a slime.
But slime corpses were scattered everywhere.
[Refill.]
Rastujad extended his staff and poured his mana into the slime whose core had just been extracted. The slime was quickly ghoulified under Rastujad’s control; slime oozed from within as it flipped itself inside out and wriggled off in search of new prey.
"You, collect from here and here. And you, collect from here. Let me be clear: under no circumstances are you to eat the magic stones."
Shaitan used hastily summoned slime dragons to gather the magic stones. She had taken over the role Lime used to fill, dedicated to collecting magic stones, which made things far easier for the three of us fighting up front.
I would slam or strike the slimes to neutralize their movements, and Lune would snipe their cores. Then Rastujad would lead his ghoul slimes to devour them all or take control of them as new minions.
The only things being consumed were our stamina, and Lune and Rastujad’s magic power. But we had more than enough means to compensate.
"Light of Ras Power!"
I activated my tattoos with a battle cry. I accelerated my blood flow, but instead of using it offensively, I directed it toward boosting my entire body’s vitality. The orc’s rapid recovery multiplied severalfold, and the fatigue in my body steadily began to fade.
"Master, I’m going to top off my mana real quick."
Lune pulled a small candy from her pouch. She chewed on a slime jelly, made from solidified magic fluid, and recovered her mana.
[Sacrifice Turn Undead.]
Rastujad touched a slime with his staff, accompanied by a long incantation.
A purple mist billowed up from the slime’s body, and it dissolved away as though doused in acid. The mist was absorbed into Rastujad. Walking the path of the lich as a ghoul should, Rastujad had used a corpse as a sacrifice to obtain mana.
"...I need to recharge my sugar levels too."
Shaitan also fished a magic fluid hard candy from her pouch and popped it into her mouth. Between collecting magic stones, mapping, and managing slime dragons that were still inexperienced, she was having a considerable headache.
"Phew."
All the slimes in the area had been cleared out. Thinking we’d made good progress, I checked the map Shaitan had been recording.
"How far have we come?"
"If we compare it to the first floor, we’re at the point where the summoning facility would be."
"So we’ve reached the dead center of the dungeon, then. ...But it feels like we’ve been going pretty much in a straight line?"
"Yes. Most likely, it’ll end if we just keep going straight. Slime species tend to prefer straight corridors and wide caverns for nesting rather than complex layouts."
As expected of Baal’s former dungeon. Fitting for a slime who had reportedly ascended to the level of King-God-General-Emperor Slime, the structure of the dungeon he’d left behind was quintessentially slime-like.
"So you’re saying if we cover the same distance forward, the enemy’s portal will be right in front of us."
All sorts of devious strategies flooded my mind. The area ahead was probably swarming with slime dragons or comparable slimes.
Given that an opened portal wouldn’t reverse direction for three days, watching the treacherous thieves who’d come through the portal dissolve inside the slime dragons would make for quite the show.
’Or I could just throw the slimes into the enemy’s portal.’
It was also possible to lure the slimes into the enemy dungeon to wreak havoc, ensuring none of them escaped outside our dungeon.
’But I can’t give up the EXP and magic stones.’
The thousand mid-grade magic stones we’d obtained when we cleared basement 1 had been a huge boost in expanding our dungeon and legion’s power. If we successfully conquered basement 2, those resources would surely become the foundation for our domination of the world.
Rumble, rumble, rumble, rumble.
Vibrations began resonating throughout the entire dungeon. I raised my halberd once more.
"Seems like we’re definitely heading in the right direction."
We had dispatched a horde of slimes and Big Slimes. So naturally, the next wave would be 3-star: slime dragons. Beyond the corridor, slime dragons began revealing themselves one by one.
Glorp, glorp.
"...Aren’t there a few too many, Master?"
"Relax. Once they start crawling along the floor, we just pick them off from belo..."
Glorp, glorp, glorp.
In the darkness, the red-glowing eyes of the slime dragons stacked up in layers. The red-eyed creatures piled on top of one another as if determined to plug the entire corridor.
"Sheesh, they must think they’re the gatekeepers of basement 2 or something. Why are they barricading the cave on their own like that?"
"34... 41... 47 slime dragons in total."
Shaitan quickly counted the slime dragons blocking our path. I leveled the Seax Mark 3 forward and drew on the power of my tattoos.
"That’s the same as 47 mid-grade magic stones. Let’s go. Halphas has been asking for more 3-star crows anyway. Now then...."
Squirm, squirm, squirm.
The slime dragons’ heads were spherical. Between the gaps in those spheres, new slime dragons shoved their heads through. More slime dragons crawled out from below, one by one, and began building yet another layer.
"...Ugh, shit. Never seen this kind of gimmick before."
"52, 64... Master, their numbers have roughly doubled. The problem is that even more are still..."
[Lord of the legion, I have an idea.]
Rastujad piled up a wall of ghoul slimes at the front. It was woefully insufficient compared to the enemy’s mass, but the ghoul slimes had their jaws wide open, ready to devour the slime dragons despite the gap in rank.
[The ghouls will buy us time. So in the meantime.]
A blue light gleamed in Rastujad’s eyes.
[...How about we pull back briefly, until reinforcements arrive that can sweep all of those away in one go?]
"Rastujad, this is not a retreat."
I slung the Seax Mark 3 onto my back and hoisted two slime dragons, their bellies packed full of low-grade magic stones, onto my shoulders.
"The magic-stone-hauling slime dragons are stuffed to bursting anyway. If we collect any more, we’ll obviously be dropping them all over the place."
This was not an excuse.
When your inventory is full from farming, of course you have to go back to the warehouse and settle up.
"...Run!!"
I spun around and sprinted toward the dungeon exit. Rastujad scattered mana across the ghoul wall and followed behind me. Shaitan was cradled in Lune’s arms like a princess.
CRASHHHHH!!
The ghoul slime wall burst apart mercilessly. Behind it, slime dragons filled the entire width of the corridor as they advanced, slime dribbling from their mouths, crawling toward us.
It was like, well, a massive member filling every inch of a woman’s canal as it pushed forward. Tears welled up involuntarily at the thought of how my own anxiety had led me to spread out all my troops and officers.
"LUNAAAAA!!!"
If only I had Luna’s cannon, I could have wiped them all out....
’But wouldn’t that purify the magic stones too?’
What EXP would Luna, a 5-star level 90, even gain from killing 3-star slime dragons? On top of that, blasting them away with divine power would definitely damage some of the magic stones.
"Sh, shit...!"
This was absolutely not a retreat. I repeated it to myself several times as I dashed out of the dungeon and scrambled up the slope.
"Everyone, are you okay?!"
"I’m fine!"
[My lord, for now, let us head up...]
Shaaaaaah.
The waterfall flowing right in front of the cave entrance cascaded down with nothing but the peaceful sound of splashing water. The sound was so tranquil that I swallowed hard.
Three, two, one.
"...Praise the system."
It was unmistakably the entrance we’d just escaped through, but thankfully, the wall of slime dragon flesh did not emerge from the dungeon.
***
[At that moment, Ras Vegas.]
"Ohhh, Sir Cosplay. Your sense of artistry has truly reached a level that even I cannot match. Are you a god?"
"Heh heh, the god is someone else. I am merely his proxy and his hands. More importantly, would you care to see this?"
The union boss of the Ras Vegas Human Cultural Rehabilitation Union, Cosplay, held up a garment he had newly created, his eyes gleaming.
"An entirely new set of armor, crafted based on his sketches!"
"C, could this be...?!"
"Indeed. The exterior is white, made from harpy feathers, but flip it inside out and the lining is black, made from Andras feathers. It maintains the same defensive capability as conventional Andras armor while preserving the alluringly soft texture and color unique to harpy feathers!"
"Ohhh!! Are you a genius?! To bring something like this to life!"
"...What are you two doing fussing over a single shirt?"
Harpuia, a dragonewt who had suddenly been made into a fitting model, sighed involuntarily at Gray and Cosplay waving the shirt around in front of her and showing it off. It was no different from an ordinary shirt, yet the two were so delighted they were practically dancing with it.
"Lady Harpuia, do you not understand? The reason harpy-feather clothing has never been used on the battlefield until now!"
"Because of the lack of defense, right?"
"But now things are different! With Andras thread lining the interior, the defense has been reinforced! Yes, it is now possible to go into battle wearing a dress shirt!"
"And what possible significance could that have?"
""It matters!""
The two men shouted in unison.
"The image of a woman fighting in a dress shirt and skirt instead of armor... just imagining it is electrifying!"
"Sir Cosplay, what if we put bikini armor on top?! If we add bikini armor shaped like a brassiere, wouldn’t it create a wonderfully sinful thrill?"
"You are... truly remarkable. Now I see why he kept you alive."
"Sigh."
Harpuia let out a deep sigh and hung her head. Since becoming a dragonewt, she now had fully human hands and feet, but there weren’t many battlefields where she could actually use them.
"Beats being a mannequin in a place like this... hm?"
Harpuia’s wings shot upright at the vibrations rumbling through the ground. Taking flight on wings far sharper than before, she tilted her head at the familiar silhouette entering through Ras Vegas’s south gate.
"Hases...?"
A short while later.
A small group bearing the wings of dragons and harpies spread their wings and took off toward the south.
***
"The closest people are from Ras Vegas."
"Damn. It’ll take a while for Hases to run all the way to Raspica, won’t it?"
"...The portals from Ras Vegas to Raspica and Avalon are separate from the dungeon’s portals. The travel time may be shorter than expected."
"...Hases is smart, so I’m sure it used the portal to get across. More importantly, let’s think about how to deal with those things."
The horde of slime dragons that had probably packed the entire cave from the entrance onward.
As if they had 47 heads between them, each slime dragon had its maw gaping open, filling the entire cave.
"Isn’t there some clever way to handle this...."
A method to slaughter every last one of them without losing any EXP or magic stones....
"Rastujad. Can you do something like this, by any chance?"
I proposed one possibility to Rastujad. The idea was to adapt his corpse-controlling magic with two additional spells, making the enemies self-destruct.
[It is possible, but I would be severely short on mana.]
"Yeah? Then the answer’s simple."
[P, please wait a moment. What I mean is, the speed at which mana is consumed would outpace the speed at which I can extract it from corpses...]
"We’ve got magic fluid."
Rastujad’s body went rigid. I flashed him a thumbs-up.
"They say art is an explosion, don’t they? If it’s for the fireworks show, you’ll have to put in the work, yeah? This is all for the sake of the legion. So...."
Shlick.
I pulled out my manhood. Lune and Shaitan pried open Slime Dragon Unit 11’s mouth and had it clamp down on me. All I had to do was finish inside the slime dragon, and the magic stones packed inside would mix with the semen and slime to become magic fluid.
"We’ve got ghoul slimes coming out our ears. Just keep chugging magic fluid and go at it infinitely. There’s no cooldown on this, right?"
[N, no, there isn’t, but....]
"Then we’re good. Let’s go start the fireworks."
And so, Operation: Corpse Party.
"We blow everything up with infinite corpse explosions. Sound good?"
Glug, gluglug.
At my command, Rastujad had no choice but to kneel and gulp down the magic fluid the slime dragon had regurgitated. There was also the option of feeding it magic stones and having me finish directly in its mouth, but....
"Even for me, finishing in a ghoul’s mouth is a bit much."
If it were at least a banshee or something with an appealing figure, maybe. But going at it with a ghoul more grotesque than a mummy was beyond even my limits.