[The Penguin's Slow March]
"We're here!" The Penguin arrived at the end of the passage with a leisurely gait. Behind her, the Cockatrices followed in her footsteps, showing no signs of complaint despite the slow pace. If there was any creature in Halpas's legion currently feeling dissatisfied, it was likely Furcas, who was struggling to keep up right beside her.
"Princess... aren't we moving a bit too slowly?"
Even if the Corpse Horse was in a strange state, the distance was short enough that he could have traversed it in an instant if he ran at full speed. Having walked it at a pace several times slower than that, the Pale Rider couldn't help but feel frustrated. But the Penguin had her own reasons.
"What? So what if it's slow? I couldn't have gone fast anyway since I had to check for traps."
"As it turns out, there wasn't a single trap."
"As it turns out, yes. But what if there had been even one? What if you were running fast and got caught in a tripwire? They said they built a hell-pit in thirty minutes, didn't they? Don't you think there'd be at least one trap in all that time?"
The Penguin's point was valid. The enemy showed such bizarre speed in trap-making that it seemed like their specialty. It even felt like they had a dedicated team for it.
"And tell me, don't you feel things moving above and below us right now?"
"Below, I can understand... but above?"
"Exactly."
Thud! The Penguin lifted her foot and slammed it hard against the floor. A distinct, stifled gasp of pain echoed from beneath. The Penguin shrugged her shoulders and clicked her beak pointedly.
"Stab that spot above us with your scythe. Hmm... right there."
The Penguin opened her beak toward the ceiling. A small jet of liquid shot from her mouth, sniping the ceiling, and Furcas immediately swung his scythe at the targeted spot.
Squelch!!
A substance that looked like slime body fluid began to drip down the scythe like blood. Furcas felt a chill down his spine, realizing he hadn't noticed it at all.
"Th-this is..."
"They've clearly been crawling around above and below, watching us the whole time. You said it yourself, didn't you? That flames erupted from a floor trap when you entered the second cavity. Doesn't that mean they've done something to the floor? Though doing something to the ceiling as well is definitely overkill."
Tap-tap! A faint vibration was felt through Furcas's soles. Just as the Penguin said, something was definitely scurrying away below. Furcas was horrified by the Penguin's keen senses.
"How did you...?"
"It's a hunch. I don't know what it is, so I can't touch it easily... but so what? Even if they come out, it's just a slime or a goblin. If they pop out again, just kill them. That's the end of it."
Click, click! The Cockatrices clacked their beaks in agreement. No matter what enemy appeared, all they had to do was peck them with their beaks or grab them with their talons. Eating creatures like Sandworms that crawled through the dirt was a Cockatrice's specialty.
"More importantly, what's going on? I don't smell any humans right now. All I smell are slimes, beasts, and Orc sweat."
The Penguin sniffed loudly and kicked Furcas's knee. Because she had kicked the Corpse Horse—not his true body—his frame slumped slightly, and Furcas endured the pain while his jawbone rattled.
"The enemies were definitely humans..."
"Really? *Sniff, sniff.* I don't smell any living humans, just monsters. The damp smell is like a slime, and the hot one... I don't know. Ugh, why is it so hot here? I'm going to get steamed to death."
The Penguin opened her beak again and fanned the air inside with her hand.
"Let's conquer this quickly, break through the entrance, and go outside to rest. If we stay here, we'll be cooked... wait, what?"
The path was blocked. The Penguin stared ahead for a long time before snapping her head toward Furcas. She waved her arms up and down, expressing her fury.
"You! Explain what's going on!"
Where the Penguin pointed, a wall stood. According to the map Furcas had provided, it should have been a clear path, but a perfectly formed wall stood there like a dead end.
"It was an open path originally!!"
"So you're saying the enemy just built a wall? Are you kidding me? There's no way a wall this clean could be made in six hours!"
The Penguin kicked the wall, throwing a tantrum. Logically, the probability of a wall enclosing the entire passage being made so neatly in such a short time, as if cut by a knife, was close to zero.
"Then what is it? Does the dungeon change every time someone enters through a portal? Is this a different place than before? Did you lie about the place behind us, too? Like, maybe you didn't find another passage?"
"N-no! But the dungeon has changed! There must be a passage beyond this! The enemy must have built the wall because they feared our raid!"
"Really? Then prove it. Dig through the wall with your scythe, or find a mechanism blocking it."
The Penguin crossed her arms and stepped back. Furcas raised his scythe high to prove his memory wasn't wrong.
"Graaaah!!"
Furcas slammed his scythe into the wall with a battle cry. The scythe dug deep into the cave wall like a pickaxe, and Furcas rejoiced at the sensation in his hands, pointing at the wall.
"It's a hole! This is just a wall!"
"Hmm... really?"
The Penguin carefully placed one hand over the spot where the scythe was embedded. Drip. A transparent liquid began to flow from the Penguin's hand, running down the scythe. Furcas's teeth chattered as the scythe handle suddenly turned ice-cold. Even though he was a Skeleton and couldn't feel the cold, the liquid was so frigid it chilled his very bones.
Tap, drip.
"Oh my, you're right. My bad."
The Penguin apologized immediately after hearing the sound of the droplets falling from the scythe to the ground. Furcas felt a sense of injustice, but his anger was directed not at the Penguin, but at Andras and that damn Orc.
'It's understandable that the Princess would misunderstand. If there's a problem, it's that Orc and Andras who made her misunderstand.'
It was despicable that they had built such a thick wall just to screw him over. If the scythe had been even slightly shorter, he probably would have thought it was a real wall and never noticed. Furcas burned with motivation and gripped his scythe tightly.
"Princess. Please wait. I will dig through it with my scythe and open the path."
"Why bother? Move. Since there's a hole, it'll be over soon."
Furcas quickly pulled out his scythe. The Penguin shoved her hand into the hole Furcas had made, and with her other hand, she opened her beak and began to mutter something.
Whoosh——!!
A massive torrent of water began to pour from the Penguin's hand embedded in the hole. Even though dirt fragments splashed onto her clothes along with the water, the Penguin continued to discharge the water without a care.
"Has it soaked through enough...?"
The Penguin checked the top and bottom before pulling her hand out. From the ceiling to the floor of the passage, the wall was soaked with the water the Penguin had spewed.
"Hup."
The Penguin struck the wall with both hands. The wall froze in an instant, and the Penguin took three steps back, pointing at the ice wall.
"Cut it so we can pass. Make it an arch so it doesn't collapse. Got it?"
"Yes. Please wait a moment."
Furcas lifted his scythe and cut the frozen wall neatly. He cut a wide enough space for the Penguin and the Cockatrices to pass through easily. Slice, slice!Furcas swung his scythe skillfully to create an arched door. The thickness of the door was well over a meter, but now, if they pushed or destroyed it, the door to the next location would be revealed.
"Hiyah!"
The Penguin waddled over and kicked the ice wall. Because she hit it too low, the wall slid and fell toward the Penguin's head, and she quickly caught the wall with her hands, stepping back and throwing it to the ground.
"Ugh, annoying. Nothing goes right from the start..."
The Penguin was left speechless by the wooden wall that appeared just three steps ahead. Feeling uneasy, the Penguin stepped on the door that had fallen to the floor, climbed up, and threw a punch at the wooden wall.
Kwang—!!
...Beyond the shattered wooden planks, a cave wall appeared once again.
"Oops, I forgot to dismantle the false walls."
I had forgotten to remove the false walls I'd set up to implement the dungeon gimmick. "I was in such a rush that I forgot to tell the slimes to eat the planks."
The bulkhead blocking gimmick. Since I couldn't do it like in a sci-fi movie, I replaced the gimmick by using slimes to collapse the ceiling. Fortunately, the slimes had mastered Lime's construction methods, and while they couldn't make them as thin as Lime, they could create bulkheads about a meter thick. And I had set up false walls with wooden planks so that even if the ceiling collapsed, it wouldn't overflow by hitting the false walls.
"If they know there are wooden planks, they'll keep trying to break through."
If temporary wooden planks suddenly appeared in a wall, the enemy would surely be flustered. And they might realize it was a crude method of creating a wall on the spot and become enraged. I had meant to remove the false walls, but I'd forgotten for a moment while rushing to deploy the slimes elsewhere.
"What should I do? Should I burn them all now? I think I could just light a small ember underneath."
In the small space between the bulkheads, even if oxygen was low, it would burn quickly. Or I could scorch them to put the enemy on alert. I asked Shaitan for her opinion.
"...That's a bit of a shame."
There were seven false walls in total. It would take time for them to break through all of them. "It's the same on this side, though. What happened to the Cockatrice unit?"
"Really? Then we must handle this perfectly. Send the slimes. You don't need to make it pretty, just block their retreat."
"Yes!"
Ryun leaped up and slipped into the hole in the ceiling. Among the troops currently underground, only Ryun had the physique to move through the holes, and she crawled through the ceiling ventilation shafts with the slimes. 'Ryun has sharp hearing, so she'll be able to judge whether the enemy is coming or not.' It was a fairly dangerous operation, but Ryun had shown confidence, saying she would go herself to carry out the mission. Although one slime had poked its head out and been stabbed to death by a scythe, they wouldn't be caught if they crawled mainly through areas where there were no enemies.
"I hope the retreat is blocked well."
To kill all of the enemy's Cockatrice unit, I boldly abandoned the advantage of the straight passage. Instead, I modified the first basement floor on the spot.
"It's a pity that the Cockatrices were the ones to walk into the death trap. I thought I could bury about 500 of them."
"Right? I shouldn't be too greedy. Good, Shaitan. If anything happens up there, contact me immediately."
I leaped down into the middle of the Orcs digging the ground in the second interception room. It was about 4 meters deep, and the Orcs were moving the piles of dirt they'd dug up to the front. Whether they were living Orcs or Orcs resurrected by the power of the magic stones, they were all working hard, shovels in hand.
"This place will be a Cockatrice graveyard. So prepare well. We're going to roast them with fire."
Let the Cockatrices play as they look. My mouth watered at the thought of roasting chicken for the first time in a while. "Listen up! When this battle is over, it's one chicken per person—no, one Cockatrice per person!"
...If they're too big to eat one per person, they can just eat one per squad.
* * *
"Hum, hum, hum-"
Ryun crawled quickly across the floor, bypassing the slimes. To carry out the plan to bury the enemy using the dungeon laws Pahuu had discovered, Ryun crawled very carefully through the ventilation shaft in the ceiling that led to the straight passage.
"......."
A dead slime was visible ahead. The slimes crawling in front of Ryun trembled in panic, but Ryun reached out and calmed them down.
"We have to get revenge, right?"
Kkeureureuk. The slimes stepped over their comrade's corpse and moved toward their destination. Ryun also crawled slowly through the ventilation shaft so as not to be detected by the Cockatrices.
"*Sniff, sniff*, do you smell something fragrant?"
Twitch. The Penguin's voice reached Ryun's ears, even though she had already passed nearly half of the Cockatrice unit.
"This... is the smell of an Elf...?"
Ryun's heart sank.