39. The Gardener (7)
39. The Gardener (7)
"S... save me! Kuaaack!!"
Peok!!
All the adventurers who were not elite-grade were killed, save for one person.
Because I had only been able to overwhelm them by carefully matching conditions—if they had been in a normal state, they could have aimed for a reversal at any moment.
I did well, but a large part of it was thanks to Serica giving her all.
Not that I'd say she did well, exactly.
If this Dungeon Lord had done her job properly in the first place, I wouldn't have even needed to come here.
"Surrender, I said surrender...!"
"I am sorry it has come to this. I do not have the leeway for that."
"You damn— kuk!"
Prisoners are always taken only while recognizing the limits of what one can accommodate. That is, as long as it doesn't harm your faction's reputation or cause.
And I was not one who professed humanity or righteousness.
A villain, perhaps, would be a different story.
That ordinary, low-grade sort of villain who would plunge the world into misery for the sake of my own survival.
'I don't really like using these kinds of methods.'
But even so, the option of persuading the remaining three elite adventurers one by one and letting them live was completely absent. I didn't even have the time to speak softly to them here and now.
Soon, the human army was going to come charging in, so where would I find the time to persuade each one or arrange the conditions?
Putting on mana handcuffs and waiting for the mana suppression to complete also took time, and a 'provisional contract' could be executed immediately but couldn't be carried out without voluntary intent.
"Hoo."
So I had no choice but to use savage methods alongside it.
"If you do not surrender to me now and enter into a contract, I will have no choice but to take your lives."
"Why would I...!"
Peo-eok!!
That was Lincia the archer, who immediately rebelled and yanked at the chains of the mana restraints.
Her head flew off in an instant. The body that remained below the neck collapsed and twitched, which was a rather grotesque sight.
Having more archers is always better, but it might be fortunate that they don't necessarily have to be alive.
I forcibly diverted my thoughts and did what had to be done.
"How regrettable."
I personally closed Lincia's open eyes as her head rolled over, then placed it back on the decapitated body.
To apply pressure, crushing the head underfoot might have been fine, but there was no need to be cruel beyond necessity.
Sreureureung...!
"S, surrender! I'll surrender! I'll contract with you, right?! So, so... Lady!"
After that, when the executioner Axe wiped the axe blade clean with his bare hand and the sound echoed eerily, Alexis immediately declared his intent to surrender.
I felt like frowning, but I coolly suppressed it.
... I hadn't expected them to surrender so easily. And I shouldn't have. This was something...
"And you?"
Nod.
Jin-kyung also nodded more impassively than I expected. With an expressionless face that gave away nothing of what he was thinking.
Well. Fine.
They likely planned to surrender first and then look for an opportunity, but since I had no intention of letting them act freely even if they were under a 'provisional contract', it didn't matter much.
There was no way I would just leave them alone.
Just like with Leonis and the others before, as long as I didn't know the conditions that could restrain them from the heart.
The idea was simply to do a quick sorting before binding them with a real contract, and to use the contract as a means to restrain their bodies.
"Wait a moment! We already made a contract. Weren't you going to leave us our self-defense capabilities?"
"What reason do I have to trust you?"
"B, but..."
As expected.
Right after the provisional contract, as soon as I ordered them to put on mana restraints and bind their bodies, the backlash immediately erupted.
I noticed Jin-kyung's expression darken momentarily, but I said nothing and focused my attention on Alexis.
"Do not worry. You foul-smelling male. If I were going to kill you, there would be no need for this complicated mess, would there?"
"Ugh... kuk. Understood."
"Do nothing, and wait."
There was no problem at all with recovering the other 'spoils of war', meaning the adventurers' corpses.
This was because there was one unfortunate but lucky miscalculation within this dungeon.
Serica's garden.
Since 'human bodies' overflowed there, I simply had to properly strip their equipment, dress the bodies in it, lay them out as they were in pieces, and lightly burn or melt them. The adventurers' deaths would then become a result of Serica's actions.
The faces of the elite adventurers were too famous, making it difficult to disguise them, but I resolved that by placing the equipment they favored into their hands and then crushing or tearing apart their faces and upper bodies.
"Take good care of it."
"Do not worry. Master..."
The one to complete that alibi was the last remaining adventurer. I chose the one among them who had the most handsome and striking face.
Since he would remain well in people's memories.
I implanted one of the already recovered Cerebrum Skulls into him, and that was it, as long as he testified just as I told him to. Saying that 'the Dungeon Lord who was here self-destructed in a last desperate struggle'.
As evidence for that, I even left the Cerebrum Skull with 'the largest body part of the self-destructed Lord', so even if the humans harbored suspicions, they would have no way to resolve those suspicions.
Because the evidence was genuine evidence, and the dead tell no tales.
So what remained was...
"Let's see. You've stopped the bleeding, I see."
"Kuuuup..."
The blonde twin-tailed elder vampire glaring at me with furious eyes, clutching the stump where I had torn off her wrist.
Only Serica's recovery remained.
The bandages wrapped around her wrist were still spreading with bloodstains, but at the unwrapped site, at least no additional bleeding was visible.
It looked like a scar would remain.
This state was one where regeneration was strangely slow for a Dungeon Lord.
My cheek, which had been cut by her convulsive attack, and the finger she bit during the contract had both regenerated immediately afterwards. If that was the case for me, then what about her, who should have far better physical specs than me?
Of course, there was a reason for that slow regeneration.
"If you listen well, I'll take the restraints off soon too."
"Why would I...!"
"Then do you want to die here?"
"..."
When I spoke with a smile, Serica stopped talking and silently cast her gaze downward.
It seemed the reason she had lost—through repeated overexertions—had returned to her, but her strength still hadn't recovered.
She didn't have a dungeon core, had completely exhausted her mana, and on top of that was even wearing mana restraints, so she had no means to regenerate even her hand, let alone her mana.
So if she wanted to live, she had no choice but to listen to me.
"Good girl."
Tak!
"Don't touch me."
"Alright. I will not."
Still, the way she slapped away my hand as I stroked her head showed her pride remained intact.
I didn't particularly need a positive reaction from her anyway.
What I was interested in was solely her family line, the reason why the Mammon Company's department head Grimm Du Rol had said nothing even under pressure.
Since I was sending her back alive, that family would have no choice but to give some form of compensation. And if I, who had received that compensation, came to harm in the near future, it would disgrace their family name.
Even if Serica came to antagonize me, she wouldn't be able to borrow her family's power, so as a mere illegitimate child of a demon realm noble, she would inevitably face restrictions on whatever she wanted to do against a surface Dungeon Lord.
In the end, I had no reason to curry her favor.
"You still need to get up, don't you? If you stay here, you'll die without making all this trouble I went through worthwhile. I have no intention of fighting additional battles just to save you."
"... Hmph."
Serica ignored the hand I offered and pushed herself up from the floor with her one intact hand.
Well, I didn't know about the illegitimate child part, but she certainly acted like someone with noble pride etched into her blood.
I became curious whether her parents were also like that. At least one of them must be a vampire.
"It would have been convenient if the core had been preserved. As it is, we'll have to take a carriage on the way back too. Let's go out for now."
When we stepped outside through the entrance of the cave that held the dungeon, I could see countless torches gradually approaching from the lower part of the mountain, which had darkened before I knew it.
It was something I already knew because I had sent scouts out in advance.
- Let's go quickly.
- Why aren't you killing those things? This is a good chance right now!
It wasn't wrong.
The mountain was shrouded in darkness. If I wanted to fight the humans, it was indeed a very good situation for a necromancer's dark magic to run rampant.
Seeing as they had likely burned all the corpses they directly encountered before coming up, to properly use my abilities, I could just start with an ambush.
But I had no intention of doing that.
- It is the same reason you've been hiding all this time. I have no intention of provoking them further. There is no need to let them know another Dungeon Lord is here either. You know this, so don't pretend you don't. Doesn't it make you look far too stupid?
-... Kuk!
I glanced sidelong at Serica as she clicked her tongue and turned her head away as if annoyed, and draped the 'Shadow' over our bodies.
She talked like that, but she wouldn't do something trollish like revealing our location to them.
That was just bait to test me, so that if I made the wrong choice, she could sneer and then tell me the correct answer. If I had tried to enter battle, she would probably have stopped me herself.
Well, her appearance was one thing, and since it just seemed like a child throwing a tantrum, I didn't dislike it that much. Cutting off her wrist was purely because I needed evidence, not an act I committed because I wanted to abuse her.
Come to think of it.
'The core.'
Where had the noble who stole it really gone?
There was a rumor that it was a noble, but who exactly and where they were from hadn't been revealed.
As if someone was deliberately hiding it.
"..."
I had a strange feeling.
Not an ominous one, but a feeling that if left alone, it would become quite troublesome.
Since my hunches had been quite accurate since coming to this world, it would be best to prepare in advance.
Coincidentally, I had one good card.
"Leonis."
A promising young mage who held the position of the top disciple of a great master of a magic guild.
-... What is it.
"In the near future... yes. About a week from now would be good. Obtain an invitation to a party for me. I would prefer it to be a party where high-ranking nobles are present."
- A place like that requires a noble title. You'd need to be at least the child of a baron.
When I was first restructuring the dungeon, he had been cooperative, perhaps because he enjoyed that work, but now he showed no such attitude.
Well, it would have been more suspicious if he had remained cooperative.
"Is that so? Then, I suppose I will just have to obtain that as well."
- As if that's something you can just obtain as you please...! Haah. If I invite you myself, entry will be possible.
"How very fortunate. I am pleased that my retainer is capable and renowned."
-... I will make the preparations.
One way or another, he'd been handling the tasks I entrusted to him very well so far.
That was enough.
Indeed, when he readily gives me the answers I need like this, I can't help but be satisfied as his master.
... Would that be enough for a reward, I wonder?
"I will bring Sonia as well. Don't you want to see her healthy?"
- What a gracious thing that is. Now, I have work to do, so I would prefer you didn't contact me further today.
"Alright. I'm counting on you."
-... Do not worry about the work.
I was the one who ended the communication. It was also a communication that couldn't be ended at will on his side.
What mediated between his soul and the demon realm was me and my core. Part of the souls of the contractees was subordinated to me for his sake. However, that didn't mean the link between the demon realm and the contractee would be severed if I died.
It simply meant the influence of the demon realm would encroach upon the minds and bodies of the contractees.
The reason I had to interpose myself in the middle of this contract was to adjust the degree of that encroachment to a level the parties involved could resist, and my contractees also knew this.
An ordinary Dungeon Lord would probably not bother with any adjustment, simply release it, and not care whether the contractee became twisted... but, well.
Whether it's self-satisfaction or hypocrisy. I don't want to do that.
- 2 -
"You have arrived."
"Well done. Talhan."
When I descended the mountain hidden within the 'Shadow', Talhan was waiting, having procured five carriages and standing by.
Most of these carriages were loaded with the miscellaneous military supplies of Hysen that I had identified and embezzled over the past few days as the administrator, but one of them carried a different 'cargo'.
Over a dozen adventurers and ordinary people.
They were the ones who knew that Maria and her party had come to my dungeon, or had indirectly heard about it.
"You managed to catch them all, I see."
"Killing them inside the city is actually harder to deal with, because even the back alleys have people present."
"Were there any who weren't adventurers?"
"I've identified the personnel, so I told my juniors to deal with them quietly later."
By juniors, he meant the Cerebrum Skulls. Since Talhan was my first Cerebrum Skull, I decided to allow him to establish that much authority.
Because that was the way to make good use of him right now.
Thump!
"Good."
"... Uup!"
When I tossed the thoroughly bound and sealed elite adventurers next to them, some of the people recoiled in horror, likely thinking they were corpses.
As I watched my Skeletons climb up and sit in the spots that had become available in this way, a thought suddenly occurred to me and I voiced it.
"All of this was using the power of the Information Guild, was it not? They are truly useful."
"They will not sell information to a Dungeon Lord."
"If you reveal yourself as a Dungeon Lord, that would be the natural outcome. However, don't you think there's no need to buy it in the first place?"
"Then...?"
In the past, 200 years ago when newborn dungeons overflowed, cities were often isolated from one another, so heralds were a profession treated with great respect.
The Information Guild was a group formed by those who had performed herald duties, pooling their know-how, and in the present day, they were not treated as well as the heralds of that era, but at least they were not ignored, so it was said.
I was already aware of the usefulness of such an Information Guild.
Those who secretly and openly scraped together information to sell or provide to nations. If I had something like that under my command, I could not only obtain information as I pleased but also intervene in the manipulation process.
Yes. Under my command.
"I wonder if you know the phrase, 'full ownership'. It is a phrase I am rather fond of."
For now, I should leave Talhan here.
There was no need to have him keep moving elsewhere and diminish his influence within the Information Guild. He seemed to say he wanted to obtain a more 'human' body from me, but...
Well. I would give him a reward, but he was still far from obtaining what he wanted.
He didn't seem to dislike the current situation much either, in truth.
"... No."
"Good. Then, let us go."
To Talhan, who shook his head as if he didn't understand what I meant, I did not explain the detailed meaning and climbed into the carriage.
I heard some muttering from behind me, but I had no intention of saying anything about that degree of freedom.