The Black Serpent
Dark Elf Kingdom 106
“Definitely precise.”
The core forces I currently possessed fell into three broad categories: zombies, golems, and hippocampus. Their respective traits had been giving me a quiet headache. By absorbing the Destination, I had gained the ability to mass-produce items of decent quality, if not the absolute highest grade. The problem was finding anyone who could actually use them.
Zombies were undeniably powerful. The more they grew, the larger and stronger they became, yet their intelligence barely improved. They lacked finesse. They could manage armor and crude melee weapons bolted to their bodies, but anything requiring range was wasted on them. The issue grew worse the closer they approached deep-sea grade. Their enormous frames devoured resources while delivering abysmal efficiency. Since they already possessed regeneration, armor was practically pointless anyway.
The hippocampus needed no explanation. Their bodies had evolved for ghost arts; investing in anything else would have been foolish.
In the end, only Helper’s golems could fully benefit from factory-made military supplies. Yet they carried their own glaring flaw. Just as distant units had once been hacked by seaweed monsters, these golems lost all function the farther they strayed from their commander. They were purely defensive tools. Without a high-intelligence officer at their side, they became nothing but scrap metal. And I did not have many high-intelligence officers.
Before I was a Zombie Summoner, I was Korean. My people were born with the racial trait of breaking out in hives unless we extracted maximum efficiency from everything. In that sense, the dust-covered treasures sitting in my warehouse had been tormenting me for far too long.
Then I found them.
“I like this…”
Their physical abilities might fall short of zombies, but the dark elves possessed the perfect conditions. I had finally located a race worthy of wielding my prized possessions.
Tang—tang—
Dotamund handled the rifle I had issued him as though it had always been part of his body. He fired the moment any maze monster appeared. His shots were swift and precise.
“Ooh… Truly the Goddess’s Staff. I feel no holy power, yet it is a magnificent object beyond words…!”
Thus we arrived at the “Black Burrow.” It was the same Stage 4 location that dispensed native creatures when fed the appropriate amount of money. Dotamund stood before it and explained.
“This burrow leads to the Dark Elf Kingdom.”
“Here?”
I had assumed it was merely a monster spawn point, but it apparently also served as an exit from the maze. Perhaps this place had once been the event’s [exit].
“Convenient. I was curious anyway.”
Because of Deputy Director Park, I had missed one secret in Stage 4. I had never seen the black serpent that supposedly appeared when you inserted more than a thousand gold coins, and had moved on to Stage 5 without witnessing it.
“I can’t resist my curiosity.”
When I pulled out my pouch of gold coins, Dotamund cried out in alarm.
“My Lord Proxy! I can open the way. If you pour that many coins inside, the black beast will emerge!”
“That’s exactly what I want to see.”
“Pardon?”
“Stand back.”
“Ah… Understood.”
It was not mere curiosity. I already had every usable deep-sea specimen turned into zombies and following me. Deep-sea grade meant marine creatures. If the black serpent that appeared here proved worthwhile, I could obtain a massive land-based zombie.
“Of course, it still has to meet the criteria.”
Chrrrrk—
I poured the coins into the burrow. The sound of metal striking stone echoed repeatedly, followed by the heavy scraping of something enormous rising from below.
Druk—drurruk—
The rasp of scales against rock. Soon a black serpent with a maw three meters wide thrust its head out of the burrow. Its total length was enormous.
“Stage 4 users definitely couldn’t handle this.”
Yet by deep-sea standards, it ranked low. Its physical capabilities were insufficient. I spread my Domain and summoned one zombie—the master of the Dark Trench, a hundred meters tall.
Kugugu—
The colossal octopus’s weight crushed the ground, warping the terrain with a thunderous crash. I pointed calmly at the serpent.
“Pull it out.”
A tentacle shot forward and coiled around the serpent. The creature thrashed, trying to retreat into the burrow, but the size difference was overwhelming. Its entire body was dragged into the open in seconds.
Shhk—shhii—
The serpent writhed in a frenzy, yet the tentacles were too numerous. Once four of them wrapped around its body, it could no longer struggle.
Shh—
I observed it in silence. As a professional summoner of idiots, simply watching was enough for me to gauge its intelligence. The result was clear: idiot. It felt only primal fear, not strategic thought aimed at escape. It was nothing more than a giant wild animal.
“Rejected. Eat it.”
At my command, the tentacles began to squeeze. The black creature, already bound, offered no resistance before becoming a mountain of meat.
“We’ve come a long way. Let’s eat before we go.”
“Waaah. Nom nom!”
The chef zombies were summoned. They immediately began carving the meat and preparing a meal. Various dishes would be made. The finest cuts were set aside for storage while the surplus was fed to the deep-sea specimens. This was precisely why I refused to increase their numbers. Their enormous bodies demanded exorbitant upkeep; I could not afford to summon them recklessly.
Dotamund stared in shock at the scene.
“Eh…? You’re eating the Black Gatekeeper…?”
“You eat too, guide.”
Dotamund had been noticeably withdrawn ever since his time in the prison. He had likely been tortured. That fragile mental state would only hinder my plans. So I had deliberately subjected him to a powerful shock treatment. Of course, satisfying hunger, satisfying curiosity, and recruiting a new giant zombie took priority. The fourth reason was simply to shock him.
It seemed to have worked.
“Lord Proxy… the Goddess’s power…!”
“Yes. This is the Goddess’s true power. A genuine miracle that the lost cannot see.”
“Aah…”
Now that he had become a proper zealot, he would no longer wilt. The mental reconstruction was complete.
We enjoyed a brief, peaceful meal.
“Now that we’ve eaten, let’s get moving.”
When Dotamund inserted the specially crafted currency into the burrow, the path to the Obsidian World Tree opened. It was not the real World Tree. The entire region was simply filled with trees bearing black leaves, hence the name.
“Please follow me. Just keep walking straight.”
“Got it.”
The world that appeared matched Dotamund’s description: an endless black forest. Both conifers and broadleaf trees were pitch black. Every living thing on the ground, save the sky itself, was cloaked in darkness.
“Looks like a cursed land. Or perhaps it’s perfectly optimized for dark elves? Their camouflage would work wonders here.”
Dotamund led me to a barn on the outskirts of a village near the royal capital. He needed to contact the upper echelons of his faction. His faction, however, had fallen even further than I had expected. Most of them had already been expelled from the capital, and those who remained were under constant surveillance.
“This is… a complete mess.”
The fact that his faction was losing was not the real problem. I had half-expected that. With only two hundred great warriors in the entire kingdom being offered as sacrifices, their decline was inevitable. The real issue was the existence of factions at all.
The Goddess’s gift came paired with a priest. When the next user appeared, the priest was supposed to convey the Goddess’s will and deliver the gift. A priest was omniscient regarding the power they oversaw. Helper might not have known about the seaweed monsters inside the Destination, but the moment he learned of them, he eliminated them completely. Even without perfect foresight, once a problem was recognized, a flawless response was possible.
Yet look at these people. The dark elves had split into two warring factions. I had assumed Dotamund was special because he was a protagonist candidate, but many others had also escaped the priest’s influence. In other words, the priest here was no longer functioning.
“Dotamund.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“If this is a kingdom, where is the king?”
“There is no king. Therefore the noble faction and the Goddess cult have been sharing governance.”
Strange, wasn’t it? Even without royalty, they still called themselves a “kingdom” and left the throne empty. It was as though the king had simply vanished from an otherwise functioning realm.
“I see the picture now.”
Which meant my next task was to “find the king.” The missing king was probably the Goddess’s priest, and he was very likely imprisoned by that Prophet fellow.
“This might actually be convenient.”
If the priest had been completely corrupted, I might have been forced to wage war. That would have killed many dark elves. From my perspective—someone who wanted living elves—war was not an ideal solution.
Creak—
The barn door swung open roughly. A tall dark elf strode inside, irritably brushing dust from his suit.
“Lord Dotamund! You’re safe. But what is this about the Goddess’s proxy all of a sudden?”
Dotamund respectfully pointed at me. The dark elf pushed up his single monocle and glared.
“Huh? You? Claiming to be the Goddess’s proxy…”
He stopped mid-sentence. Dotamund had raised the Goddess’s Staff and aimed it at his forehead.
Dotamund spoke in a low warning.
“Count Alao… choose your next words carefully.”
“W-what is that? Where did you pick up that strange stick…”
Tang—
Dotamund swung the barrel toward a pile of junk in the corner and fired. A deafening roar erupted as the objects burst into flames.
“There won’t be a next time.”
“Uh…”
Realizing the situation, the count bowed deeply.
“W-welcome. I am Almo, servant of the Goddess. It is an infinite honor to meet you, Lord Proxy.”
I had thought he was just an annoying suit, but he turned out to be a dark elf with decent instincts. Seeing Count Alio’s reaction, Dotamund made a suggestion.
“Lord Proxy, before we meet the leadership, may I hold a brief… educational session—no, a meeting first?”
“Do it.”
I decided to move to a nearby lodging and rest until the “meeting” concluded. There would be no major difficulties. After all, Dotamund now carried a high-performance modern means of communication in his hands.