Moonlight Snack and the Earth Dragon's Venom
I threw away the mooneye.
Three days had passed since I entered the gate.
A lot of progress had been made in that time.
Let me start with my own level.
With 27 levels under my belt, MP now stood at 300.
That meant I could summon three more armed skeletons.
Right now I had 18 skeletons in total.
Nine skeleton shield bearers and nine skeleton spearmen.
And regarding my relationship with the Sky Hunter.
On the very first day, she had looked genuinely shocked by my appearance.
Yet whenever an opening presented itself, she would come looking for me.
To be honest, it got on my nerves sometimes.
But she never arrived empty-handed.
Always chicken, pizza, burgers.
Coke, Fanta, cider.
Candies, gummies, snacks.
Strawberry milk, chocolate milk, banana milk.
Those were simply too tempting to refuse.
In the end, the Sky Hunter had become my pillow, filling the empty spot left by Yeongwon.
So here I was now, lying with my head on her lap.
Unlike the cool, airy Yeongwon, her warmth was something else entirely.
“It’s truly amazing… I never expected the inside of the goblin cave to be this vast…”
“Ah~”
A snack slipped into my mouth with a satisfying crunch.
“Mmm~ You’re right. It really never ends.”
We sat eating snacks while watching the monitor set up nearby.
The screen showed live footage from the cameras installed on the skeletons’ eye sockets.
“This open area is so huge… This must be the main square of the goblin city.”
“Really?”
“Yes. According to my prediction… once the square is cleared, the boss will definitely appear.”
“For real?”
“It’s only natural. This square is where the goblins live. They’ve already sent out soldiers to defend it, but the enemy somehow managed to break in all the way to the city.”
“So stronger ones will start showing up soon, huh.”
“High probability.”
The skeletons were slaughtering the approaching goblins in perfect, mechanical repetition.
The shield bearers swung their shields and bashed the goblins to death.
The spearmen jabbed and slashed with their spears, finishing the job.
Watching the exact same scene over and over grew boring.
I reached out and started poking the Sky Hunter’s belly button.
“Kyaa!”
“Hehehe.”
“Geez, you look like an uncle every now and then, doofus.”
“Hmm… Is that so?”
It was rude to call a twenty-five-year-old young man an uncle.
But when I thought about it, I had no choice.
I had grown up from a young age bouncing around factories and fighting with the uncles there.
She didn’t run or get angry at my roughhousing.
Probably because she had lived among people who always handled her with caution.
Instead, she seemed to enjoy it more the softer I became with her.
So, without realizing it, my teasing only got more mischievous.
My hand that was poking her belly button became a snake ready to strike, sliding toward the opposite side of the valley.
“Kyaaa!”
“Nyack!”
The Sky Hunter slowly leaned back.
Her red face clashed perfectly with her blue hair.
The legs she had been politely keeping closed slowly began to part.
Hey, wait a second.
My hand, which had been enthusiastically playing around, suddenly grew damp.
Was it raining? No, the valley.
Emergency! If it starts raining while we’re fooling around in the valley, we had to get out fast.
One wrong move and we could be swept away by the sudden flood.
A trace of disappointment crossed the Sky Hunter’s face.
“You little—!!”
I had been about to smack her with the water balloon.
But the Sky Hunter’s water balloon was small and precious.
I lowered my raised hand and blew gently on my navel.
“Huaaat…”
“……”
It wasn’t the reaction I had expected at all.
I really needed to stop messing with the Sky Hunter.
For a moment, an awkward silence filled the air.
-BANG!
I felt one of my skeletons disappear.
Whoosh! I turned my head to look at the monitor.
“What’s that?”
At my words, the Sky Hunter straightened her messy appearance and sat up.
“Uh…?”
On the screen, something that looked like an unknown worm appeared.
“A worm? A tadpole before it turns into a frog?”
Upon closer inspection, it had short arms and legs.
“Oh my god, it’s a young Earth Dragon!”
“A worm? You mean that?”
“Not a worm—a georyong! Earth Dragon! Earth + Dragon! In English, it’s Earth Dragon!”
“Ah, not ‘georyong-i’ but ‘georyong’…”
The scattered skeletons that had been slaughtering goblins started gathering again.
“One of my skeletons got taken out earlier.”
“In the last scene I saw, the skeletons were scattered and killing goblins… It must have ambushed the lone one.”
“Hmm… Is that guy strong?”
The skeleton soldiers formed up in formation.
The shield bearers blocked the front line, while the spearmen thrust their spear tips forward beyond the line.
The young Earth Dragon couldn’t simply charge in.
It was a suffocating standoff.
In truth, the cave had very little oxygen, so breathing would be a real struggle.
“Looking closely… it’s a juvenile.
And it has wounds on its body.”
“You’re calling that a juvenile? How big could it possibly get?”
“The Earth Dragons from the Great Victoria Desert in Australia are so huge you could think of them as moving Lotte Tower.”
“That’s a juvenile, all right.”
Clink, clink.
The skeletons slowly advanced.
The Earth Dragon opened its mouth wide and lunged.
But that mouth couldn’t swallow anything.
Puuk! Puuk! Puuk! Puuk! Puuk!
The long spears of the skeleton spearmen pierced straight into the Earth Dragon’s palate, creating holes.
————!!!
The Earth Dragon roared in pain and retreated.
The skeletons didn’t miss the opening.
The shield bearers quickly widened the gap.
Then the spearmen charged through that gap.
Puuk! Puuk! Puuk!
They thrust hard with their spears, then backed away behind the shield bearers.
Whoosh! The shield bearers closed the gap again.
“Wow… You guys really fight well.”
“Right? It feels like watching a well-trained army.”
Blood was flowing from the Earth Dragon’s body.
KIIIIEEEEEEEK!!!
At that moment, the goblins that had been fleeing suddenly turned around.
Some were trying to staunch the wound with their hands.
Some were blocking the path right in front of the skeleton soldiers.
Some were licking up the spilled blood and drinking it.
The most shocking sight was the ones trying to mate inside the chaos.
“What are those idiots doing…?”
“Oh my god…”
Somehow, the sudden 19+ scene made the Sky Hunter’s face turn red again.
“Whoa, it’s a mess. Up, down, side to side—complete chaos.”
“My lord… please don’t describe it so graphically.”
“Why are they acting like that all of a sudden? The ones who were running away because they thought they were going to die…”
“Ah…!”
Seeing my confusion, the Sky Hunter quietly exclaimed as if she had just understood.
“I think this Earth Dragon is the boss of this dungeon.”
“But the boss is an Earth Dragon—why did the goblins settle here?”
“Earth Dragons are surprisingly smart, even among dragons.
They probably got injured somewhere, dug a cave to hide, and started coexisting with monsters that would protect them.”
“Goblins? Goblins are stupid, right? If I were a goblin, I would have hunted and eaten the Earth Dragon.”
“Exactly because they’re stupid. Judging by the situation now, there must be something in the Earth Dragon’s abilities that triggers their mating instinct.”
“So that’s why the goblins are going crazy in numbers…”
“Even though it’s the lowest rank among dragon species, dragons are dragons.
Other dragon species use their own bones to create dragon soldiers and protect their nests.
But this young Earth Dragon doesn’t have that kind of power.”
“Hmm… Now it makes sense why the cave is so deep.”
“Right? It’s far too deep for a goblin cave… It must be the nest of a young Earth Dragon.”
After the Earth Dragon retreated into the goblin group, the skeletons began cleaning up the closest enemies.
The fight with the Earth Dragon had temporarily ended.
Instead, the slaughter of the goblins resumed.
The goblins’ eyes changed.
They were now eyes full of resolve to die.
————!!!
The Earth Dragon cried without making a sound.
From that Earth Dragon’s mouth, the goblins jumped in.
But the Earth Dragon spat them out unchanged.
“No taste?”
“…… No. I feel a deep bond with them…”
“A bond between a worm and goblins…? Come on.”
DING!
“Yar~”
Level up.
Level 28.
MP recovered again.
I summoned two shield-bearing skeletons and one spearman.
I pushed them into the hole.
Now I had ten shield-bearing skeletons and ten spearmen completed.
——————!!!
KIIIIEEEEK!!!
————!!!
KIIIIEEEET!
The Earth Dragon and the goblins shouted.
I couldn’t understand what they were saying.
They seemed to be talking.
The goblins’ movements stopped.
“What’s going on…”
The atmosphere grew gloomy.
The goblins simply stood still, having stopped resisting.
“That’s it…!”
But the Sky Hunter seemed to know something.
“BREATH!!! EVADE!!!
Whatever the Earth Dragon was spitting gathered in its mouth.
“Uh… Can we dodge?”
The skeleton soldiers must have decided they couldn’t dodge.
The shield bearers gathered their shields into a half-circle.
KWAAAAAAA—!
From the Earth Dragon’s mouth, something shot out.
But it wasn’t aimed at the skeleton soldiers.
KWUUUUUURRRRRRR!
It breathed toward the cave.
Instantly, the cave collapsed.
The screen went completely black.
“Oh my god, the cave collapsed…”
“Yeah. Shall we die together?”
The Sky Hunter and I left the tent and headed toward the cave entrance.
The spot looked like a crater from a meteor strike.
Scrunch.
The three skeletons that had just been summoned and sent into the cave dug themselves out from the ground.
“Dig a little more.”
Gololol…
The skeletons began digging.
The ones that had been fighting the Earth Dragon hadn’t died.
In this state, there was nothing we could do.
I headed back to the tent with the Sky Hunter.
“Should we eat?”
“Are you worried…?”
“Skeletons don’t die even if they suffocate.”
“Th-That’s right, right?”
“If we wait, they’ll dig themselves out.
Let’s eat first.
What’s the menu for tonight?”
“Ah…”
The Sky Hunter stopped moving.
“What if I order delivery?”
“Huh? I said I’d make it myself today.”
“But…”
The Sky Hunter pulled out a plastic bag from the fridge filled with brightly wrapped food.
“Mooneye… I was going to grill them, but…”
“Ah… Okay… Should I order chicken?”
“Uwoop…! Sorry… I’ll do it… I’ll go out and bring the chicken back!”
The Sky Hunter tossed the plastic bag into the fridge and slammed the door shut.
Then she hurriedly left the tent and ran toward the gate exit.
“Hehe… She really has a delicate stomach.”
Click. I clicked my tongue in regret.
They say mooneye is delicious when grilled.
But right now, no matter how much I wanted, I couldn’t bring myself to eat one.
“Ome… The bright marinade makes it look exactly like the Earth Dragon that was bleeding.”
I looked at the mooneye discarded in the fridge.
An odd feeling washed over me.
For a change of mood, I flopped down and picked up my smartphone.
“…… What if I fish with an Earth Dragon as bait.”
Following the flow of my thoughts… I watched a fishing video.
A short while later, the Sky Hunter returned with packaged chicken.
Chicken packed by the Sky Hunter tasted far better than delivery.
After filling our stomachs, we took a short nap.
When we woke up, we stepped outside.
“Oh!”
Twenty skeletons were waiting for me.
Alongside them, the Earth Dragon in the pit twitched.