The Price of Carelessness Is a Full-Body Tentacle Caress
With her dungeon crawl proceeding without a hitch, Kylia eventually reached the resting area marked in the intel she had gathered.
According to the rumors, this is supposed to be the only safe zone in the entire dungeon.
And indeed, it truly was a place worthy of being called a sanctuary.
The pooled spring water possessed properties that healed wounds and soothed exhaustion, and the demon waiting beside it was blessed with an exceedingly gentle, kind-hearted demeanor.
"A pleasure to meet you. My name is Catherine, and I manage this resting station."
"Aha. So you're that bound slave tied to this dungeon everyone's whispering about?"
"A... A slave?"
"Word has it your memory gets wiped clean every so often. You really are in a pitiful spot, aren't you? What terrible luck to get stuck serving such a vile dungeon master~"
"……Ahaha. I'm not entirely sure what you mean, but for now, please make yourself comfortable and rest."
Catherine brushed it off as though she couldn't comprehend, warmly offering her hospitality.
Leisurely sipping the spring water and nibbling on her provisions, Kylia glanced over the map she had drawn up so far, a cocky smirk spreading across her face.
"Let's see here... That's roughly the dungeon entrance mapped out. At this rate, breaking through all the way to the Dungeon Deep Layer won't be anything to sweat over~"
Perhaps because everything was going so effortlessly, she found herself overflowing with confidence. If things kept up like this, reaching the Core nestled in the absolute heart of the dungeon might not even be out of the question. As she basked in her own brilliance, Catherine slid up beside her to peer at the parchment.
"Did you perhaps venture down here to map the dungeon?"
"Well, yeah. Earning a living at swordpoint just isn't my style. Treasure hunting is all about cracking open the chest and making a clean getaway, right? Ah, come to think of it, you've been stuck in this dungeon for ages, haven't you? Then you must know the layout and where all the good chests are hidden pretty well."
"I deeply apologize, but I am not permitted to leave this spring... As such, I am afraid I have no useful advice to offer."
"Aww, that's right~ How insensitive of me to grill a dementia patient who can't keep her memories straight. My bad, just forget I said anything, heehee~"
"……Ahaha."
Catherine maintained her saintly smile, even as the corners of her mouth twitched with barely restrained fury.
After resting a while longer, Kylia leisurely packed her gear and prepared to step out of the shelter to resume her exploration.
"Well, I'll be taking my leave now. Thanks for the breather~"
"Ah, just a moment."
"Hm? Got something else to say?"
Kylia paused in her tracks as Catherine called out to her.
The succubus spoke with a weight in her voice far heavier than before, issuing a stern warning—passing along the very words she had subtly received from the dungeon master prior to taking her post.
"You would do well to proceed with extreme caution past this point. I do not know all the specifics, but the deeper into this dungeon you venture, the more treacherous the traps become."
"……Heh, well, that sounds fun~"
If the difficulty spiked beyond the resting station, it only made the challenge all the sweeter. Even so, considering her past experience, nothing down here could possibly exceed common sense. As far as she was concerned, it was an absolute certainty that this dungeon's traps would fall before her thieving prowess.
The only slight concern is that boss-tier golems start prowling around the deeper layers, but hey, if things get hairy, I can just turn tail and run~
She took care to avoid hallways wide enough for golems to patrol, steering clear of any chambers that smelled of a boss room. Along the way, she cracked open the occasional treasure chest to line her pockets with modest loot, and contrary to the demon girl's dire warning, the traps weren't nearly as hazardous as advertised.
Nothing to it, nothing at all~ Once I map everything down to the deep layer and sell it off to the guild, I'll be set for life~
Indeed, her journey was proceeding so swimmingly that careless arrogance completely took over her mind—until reality struck.
Swish!
"Wh-What?!"
Startled out of her wits by something bursting straight up from the flagstones, Kylia gasped, but by then, the thing had already wound around her limbs and bound her tight. When she finally caught a clear look at her assailant, her eyes widened in horror. It was a mass of thick, writhing tentacles—more than large enough to engulf a grown woman whole.
"D-Damn it, there are tentacles in this dungeon...?!"
There hadn't been a single mention of such horrors in the intel she had painstakingly gathered. Had the dungeon's evolution outpaced the surface rumors? No, regardless of the cause, running into tentacle beasts was an extraordinarily lethal crisis. Normally, when tentacle monsters captured prey, their primary objective was cannibalistic consumption—either crunching their victims to bits or melting them down with digestive fluids.
Slither, squelch!
A piercing sense of dread seized her as the slick tentacles slipped beneath the hems of her clothes, slithering across every inch of her skin. Kylia panicked, convinced they were preparing to dissolve and devour her flesh, but realizing she hadn't yet been digested, she desperately clawed back her composure.
Calm down, keep it together! It's still just probing its prey. There's plenty of time to break free...!
Drip, squirt.
A viscous, sticky mucus secreted from the tentacle tips, slathering across her bare skin. It lacked the burning sting of acid, yet the more of it coated her body, the more hypersensitive her nerves became. Worst of all, an unbearable, throbbing heat was beginning to spread through her core.
"Kh, ahh...! Th-This bastard, its touch is way too...!"
The invaders wormed beneath her garments to knead her soft flesh, rolling over the buds of her modest breasts before sliding lower, parting her most intimate folds to greedily lap up the sweet juices leaking from between her thighs. She wasn't being eaten alive, but every single movement sent shivers down her spine, chilling her to the bone with visceral terror and perverse stimulation.
Enduring the electric sensations by biting her lip until it bled, Kylia managed to flick open a pouch on her utility belt, activating a small device before hurling it beneath the monster's central mass.
Bang!
A tear-gas pellet detonated with a sharp pop. As dense, pungent fumes engulfed the creature, the blinding spice and searing irritation sent the tentacles into violent convulsions, violently throwing Kylia across the stone floor.
"Haa, hah... I did it. I'm out...!"
Terrified that another ambush might follow, Kylia scrambled to her feet and sprinted down the corridor. But in her frantic haste, she failed to check her footing, and her boot came down hard on a pressure plate. Thick, billowing clouds of gas erupted from vents along the walls, choking the air around her.
"Cough, hack...! Dammit, poison gas...?!"
It was the incurable aphrodisiac toxin mentioned in her reports—the one impervious to standard antivenoms. Fortunately, it wasn't fatal, but it drastically eroded physical stamina and focus. Within moments, Kylia felt her entire body flushing crimson with overwhelming lust.
"Haa, ah...♥ Dammit, my body... it's throbbing...!"
Allowing a single surprise attack had triggered a vicious domino effect, dragging her condition down into the gutter. Her skin burned, her thoughts grew hopelessly hazy, and above all, the slimy mucus smeared across her trembling limbs provoked an unbearable, itching ache.
"Kh, this is totally cheating. Planting live monsters instead of mechanical traps...!"
Mechanical traps could be detected beforehand with keen eyes, but living creatures—especially invertebrates like tentacle beasts—could burst from any crack in the masonry without a hint of warning. Realizing she had been thoroughly outplayed, Kylia stared down the pitch-black corridor ahead, paralyzed by hesitation.
A single careless mistake had crippled her fighting strength. If she pushed any deeper in this state, something truly irreversible might happen. No matter how arrogant she normally was, Kylia was an opportunist who avoided uncalculated risks at all costs. Delving further into this nightmare was the last thing she wanted.
I've mapped out plenty of the route up to this point. Retreating should be a breeze.
Yes, calling it quits here was the smart play. Resolving to turn back along the path she had come, Kylia pivoted—only to freeze dead in her tracks as a chorus of heavy clanking echoed from the opposite end of the hall.
A massive contingent of golems was marching in her direction.
With practically nonexistent combat capability, facing a horde of armored golems was nothing short of suicidal.
"Damn it, I've got no choice...!"
Unable to retrace her steps, Kylia had no option but to veer off into an unmapped side branch of the dungeon. Past this threshold lay entirely uncharted territory.
Even so, she desperately tried to memorize landmarks and sketch notations on her parchment, but every time she attempted to loop back toward the entrance, patrolling golems appeared out of nowhere to cut off her retreat, relentlessly herding her into a corner. And with every frantic detour, hidden snares triggered one after another, steadily wearing down her battered body.
Boom!
"Guh! Wh-What now?!"
A sudden shockwave erupted from the floorboards, tearing the remnants of her clothes to ragged shreds. Within seconds, Kylia was left practically stark naked, wandering the cold dungeon halls with her blushing skin completely exposed.
"Fuck! Aren't explosive traps supposed to blow off limbs?! What kind of sick trap only strips someone's clothes?! I've never heard of anything so ridiculous in my life...!"
She had grossly underestimated the place just because the entrance had been paved with standard fare. Past the resting station, the mechanisms were twisted, combining perverted magic with lethal timing. Her textbook thief knowledge was utterly useless here. To make matters worse, prolonged exposure to the sweet aphrodisiac gas had scrambled her senses, making even basic tactical judgment nearly impossible.
This is bad... If this keeps up, I'm genuinely done for...
What had started as a casual cash grab had morphed into a desperate fight for survival. Panic clawing at her throat, she stumbled forward until she found herself in a deserted chamber with a single wooden chest resting dead center.
A common dungeon treasure chest. Under normal circumstances, she would have probed it for mechanisms before picking the lock, but as she drew near, a deeply unnerving sound met her ears.
Squirm, slither...
The unmistakable sound of something living writhing behind the wood.
"……Yeah, I'd better not touch that."
Giving in to petty greed in a predicament like this was a surefire way to court disaster. Shaking her head, Kylia turned to slip out of the room, only for heavy mechanical footfalls to rattle the corridor right outside.
A golem was on patrol—and the deafening rhythm of its march meant it was heading straight toward this very doorway.
"Why now of all times...?!"
Cruelly enough, this room was a dead end with flat stone walls and zero cover—except for the solitary chest sitting in the middle. If she stayed out in the open, she would be cornered in a confined space. In her weakened, hyper-sensitized state, outrunning them was out of the question; she would be crushed without mercy.
Her only remaining gamble was to hide inside that ominous chest.
"Damn it, whatever happens, happens...!"
Before the patrol stepped through the archway, Kylia threw open the lid and dove inside, pulling the heavy cover shut. Holding her breath, she waited in agonizing silence for the clanking steps outside to fade into the distance—completely oblivious to the fact that another predator was already waiting for her in the dark.
Wriggle, slither.
"M-Mmph?!"
Choking down her scream behind clamped hands, Kylia gasped as slick coils wrapped around her bare waist and thighs. Even as the tendrils constricted around her feverish skin, she dared not make a sound, praying with every fiber of her being that the sentries outside would move along.
After what felt like an eternity, the mechanical footsteps finally vanished down the corridor.
Letting out a ragged breath, Kylia pushed up on the lid to climb out, but by then, the creature dwelling within the chest had coiled completely around her defenseless body. It was a cluster of tentacles just like the ones before—exceptionally adept at restraining a squirming maiden and stripping away every shred of dignity.
"Ah, aahn, st-stop...♥ D-Don't touch me thereee...♥"
"Oh, ooh, aah~♥ St-Stop, don't suck there, don't suck itttt~♥"
Her body, already pushed to the brink of arousal and dripping copiously with sweet nectar, was an irresistible feast for tentacles that fed on bodily fluids. Caught helpless in the creature's tight embrace, Kylia could only weep and writhe, succumbing to the prolonged, lewd stimulation that melted her mind to mush.
"Kheheheh. Walked right into the trap like a charm, didn't she?"
She seemed pretty proud of her trap-disarming skills, but tough luck. I'm monitoring the entire dungeon layout in real-time on my scrying screens, directing every golem unit with pinpoint precision. Funneling her into dead ends and herding her straight into our traps was child's play.
Watching her get molested and thoroughly broken on the display screen sent a pleasant warmth stirring in my groin.
"Every time I watch tentacle scenes like this, I can't help feeling a little envious of those tentacles. Ahh~ Isn't there any way I could turn into a tentacle and ravage intruders myself?"
"How about learning transformation magic, is what I suggest."
"Oh, that's a brilliant idea. I'll definitely have to pick that up once I find some spare time."
Learning a diverse repertoire of spells would open up endless possibilities for designing new traps and sadistic play. As I mapped out future perversions in my head, the screen showed the rogue finally tumbling free from the chest.
"It appears the tentacles have finished feeding and released their prey, it is so."
"Well, they aren't the gluttonous variety to begin with."
Those specific breeds are great because they just fondle the prey until they've had a light snack, then let them go. Now then, the target has been thoroughly softened up, which means it's time to move on to the main event.
"Yuria, herd her toward the chamber I pointed out earlier."
"Master? Do you intend to enter the dungeon in person?"
"Humiliation after a total defeat is delicious, sure, but sometimes I feel like spicing things up with a little hands-on variety~"
Conveniently enough, our little thief has virtually zero combat capability. Stepping onto the stage as the final adversary and breaking her with a proper Battle Fuck... Now wouldn't that be a delightfully fresh experience?