Chapter 122
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 122
He scanned the room once more.
Melju stood before him, the monster dog at her side. But they weren't alone. Honestly, the other monsters were unexpected. He hadn't anticipated that Melju would already start gathering her own Demon King's army.
The initiative was impressive, but…
"Who are these bas… guys?"
"Mmhmm, they are my Demon King's army!" Melju replied to Patrick's question. Her voice was bright, yet it trembled slightly, a fact she seemed aware of herself.
"...Though they are a bit lacking."
They were by no means monsters that belonged in the Primordial Core. A group of what could only be described as small fry huddled around Melju.
In terms of rank, they were barely C-rank. No, perhaps even lower.
They were the kind of cannon fodder that would get slaughtered by a C-rank subjugation squad.
Seeing Swallow's dumbfounded look and Patrick's troubled expression, a complex mix of emotions crossed Melju's face.
It seemed she had hoped for at least a little praise, something like, "Well, you certainly tried!"
"...What should we do, Boss?"
As Patrick whispered quietly, Swallow contemplated for a brief moment before slowly approaching Melju.
"Lord Swallow."
"Melju."
A gentle smile welcomed her. At Swallow's reaction, Melju's face lit up. Even the monsters cowering behind her seemed to relax upon seeing his smile.
With that same gentle expression, Swallow spoke.
"Go dump them all outside."
*
"Did you get rid of them all?"
"Mmhmm…"
Melju returned only after chasing every last one of the small fry out of Graphenia's forest.
Her voice was completely drained of energy. It wasn't that she'd grown attached to them—she had calmly accepted the deaths of her previous subordinates at the Demon King Castle, after all. Rather, she was disheartened at being scolded by Swallow and Patrick.
"Sigh."
With Melju standing before them, Swallow and Patrick exchanged glances.
'Boss, you're the one who should be scolding her at times like this.'
'She'll only get more depressed if I do it now. Patrick, you comfort her and explain things.'
A silent conversation passed between them. As always, the loser was pre-determined.
With his customary sigh, Patrick's clanking sabatons cautiously approached Melju.
"Well, you see…"
Where on earth should he even begin?
More importantly, hadn't she literally brought a golem back from Knecht with Swallow? She should have some idea of the standard of monsters expected in the Primordial Core by now. He had never imagined she would bring back monsters of that caliber. That was why he was so flustered.
After agonizing for a long moment, Patrick spoke to Melju in a gentle, quiet tone.
"No matter how messy this place is, how it sometimes doesn't feel like a dungeon, how you might wonder what we're even doing here, and how the guy who calls himself the Boss seems to have zero intention of managing the dungeon—and watching all that might make you question, 'Why am I even here?'—regardless of all that, this is still a Great Evil Cave."
"Are you picking a fight with me right now? Huh?"
"A Demon King's army is an indirect reflection of the Demon King's prestige. Since you belong to our Primordial Core, Miss Melju, your army reflects on our dungeon's image. Bringing in monsters of that caliber is a problem."
"Mmhmm… I am sorry."
Her voice shrank even further. Twiddling her index fingers, Melju spoke up cautiously.
"Still, I am weak, am I not? That is why I thought it would be best to hastily assemble a Demon King's army that could be of immediate help. Only then could we defend Room 4 when the humans arrive."
"..."
"I tried my best to find good monsters, but there weren't any. I had no choice but to scrape together what I could and plan to train them, strengthen them with buff magic, and give them better gear to raise their level."
"Training them isn't a bad idea, but…"
Demon Kings were a class of monsters that managed dungeons in the most systematic way. Since they possessed a fortress far sturdier than other dungeons—the 'Demon King Castle'—they had a broader, more macro-level perspective on dungeon management.
'I've heard that Demon Kings gather promising young prospects and train them to build up their ranks.'
This long-term approach allowed them to employ methods like education and training. Monsters raised from a young age also possessed far greater loyalty. It seemed Melju had intended to raise her forces in a similar fashion, but…
"I understand your reasoning, Miss Melju, but this isn't a dungeon with the luxury of training monsters one by one before sending them to the battlefield. And you must also consider the level of the humans who come here. To raise those monsters to that standard, just how long do you plan on training them?"
"U-Uh, right. I see."
"But there's no need to be so discouraged. Cheer up, Miss Melju. Anyone can make a mistake once."
Patrick placed a hand on Melju's shoulder to encourage her, squatting down to meet her eye level. His bones creaked as he grinned.
With his eyes flashing, Patrick whispered in a quiet voice.
"...Of course, a second time won't be tolerated."
"Hieek!"
—How is that comforting her?
Watching the scene, Swallow swept a hand over his forehead in frustration. Sometimes, he wondered if Patrick was in his right mind.
Then again, I'm no better, so I've got no room to talk, he muttered to himself before asking Melju, "Melju, how did you bring those guys here in the first place?"
"Ah, you are asking how I gathered the monsters."
As if to demonstrate, Melju pulled out her staff and extended it forward with both hands.
Holding the staff at an angle, she channeled mana into it. A wave of energy rippled outward into the surroundings.
"Like this."
"Ah, that's it. The thing Demon Kings use to summon nearby monsters."
"Mmhmm, it is the great magic that only a Demon King can use, the 〈Power of the Devil〉."
〈Power of the Devil〉.
While it had no effect on beings like Swallow and Patrick, any monster of a lower rank than Melju would feel its energy. On the surface, it looked like a simple wave of mana, but the energy itself carried a command of absolute obedience.
"So you gathered them with this."
"Indeed. Most Demon Kings gather monsters using this 〈Power of the Devil〉."
"What is the range of the wave?"
Flinching slightly at Patrick's question, Melju replied in a shrinking voice.
"In my case… I believe it is about three kilometers in radius."
"A three-kilometer radius… I see."
"I-I am not in the best condition right now, so it might be slightly less than that…!"
"Well, that explains it."
Having grasped the situation, Patrick nodded.
Three kilometers was a considerably short distance. The wave likely wouldn't even reach the edge of Graphenia's forest. And since there was no response from within the forest, Melju must have ventured further out to cast the 〈Power of the Devil〉 repeatedly.
With the Primordial Core located here, no strong monsters would dare live so close to Graphenia's forest.
Naturally, no matter how hard Melju tried, no powerful monsters would appear.
Furthermore…
"...The magic you are using, Miss Melju, the wave seems a bit weak."
"W-Well… this is my first time using it. Since I inherited my father's Demon King's army as it was, I never had a reason to use it."
Only then did Melju confess. In short, she had been diligently trying to gather monsters near the Primordial Core—where there were barely any monsters to begin with—using a spell she had never even cast before.
Under such circumstances, even if there were strong monsters nearby, they wouldn't have responded. Only small fry like the ones from earlier would gather.
"This is troublesome. Is there no other way?"
"If not this, the only other way is to search on foot."
That, too, was practically impossible. The issue of filling Rooms 1 and 2 with monsters was urgent. They didn't have the luxury of focusing on Room 4, which was already occupied by 2 Ounce, let alone Melju's Demon King's army.
"Hold on."
While Patrick was nursing a headache, Swallow chimed in.
Swallow absolutely refused to search on foot. And given the current political climate, Patrick didn't want to send Swallow outside either.
Still, they had to help. Melju was a comrade defending the dungeon, after all. This wasn't just for her sake; it was for the sake of the dungeon itself. But the only method was to use the 〈Power of the Devil〉…
In that case…
"We just need to make the 〈Power of the Devil〉 stronger, right?"
Swallow turned and headed toward his room.
Walking sluggishly, he arrived at his quarters in a few minutes. He took a few steps down a narrow, dark side path on the right wall…
A space smelling of metallic rust welcomed the three of them.
"It is the treasure vault!" Melju exclaimed, her voice filled with excitement the moment she smelled the metallic scent. This space, the ultimate goal of any human subjugation team, was off-limits to anyone but the dungeon boss. Yet, here she was, being guided inside.
Melju channeled mana into a magic lamp she felt nearby, and a bright light immediately flared to life. As if in a chain reaction, lamps attached to the walls all over the room lit up one after another.
A staggering amount of wealth, piled high, glittered brilliantly before her eyes.
"...Oh."
The sight left her instantly spellbound. The riches piled up like mountains made the expression "untold wealth" feel utterly inadequate.
…Melju's Demon King Castle had a treasure vault as well. The fortune gathered by her father, the previous Demon King, was by no means small. She still remembered the look of sheer shock on a rookie's face when the army's accountant had taken them to the vault for training.
That was Melju's benchmark for "a lot of wealth."
But the treasure laid out before her now was, without a doubt, over a thousand times more than what she remembered from her own castle. No, ten thousand times? It was so overwhelmingly vast that a simple estimate was impossible.
'No wonder he could casually hand over 300 ounces as travel expenses.'
Recalling the travel funds she still kept safely in her bosom, Melju took a few steps toward a mountain of gold coins, as if drawn in by the light.
The treasure vault was a mess. Items were piled up haphazardly, making the entire space look cluttered. Countless treasures were buried between the mountains of gold. She felt that if one of them collapsed, she'd be crushed to death.
"Where did you get all these riches and treasures?"
"The weapons and accessories were all taken from the humans who came here… and the gold coins were obtained from the kingdom, I think?" Swallow replied with a nonchalant expression.
"The kingdom?"
"Yeah. A while back, I looted the national treasury of a place called the Astupena Kingdom, or something like that."
"...You looted… the national treasury."
Looking closely, she saw an exceptional number of Astupena holy gold coins among the piles. It now made sense why some had been mixed in with the money she received last time.
After a moment of tangled thoughts, Melju's expression suddenly relaxed. The scale of it all was so completely different from her own reality that it was easier to just give up trying to comprehend it.
"Pick whatever you need from here," Swallow said, letting out a long yawn.
The 〈Power of the Devil〉 was ultimately magic. If her proficiency was lacking, they just had to raise the level of the magic itself. Since they couldn't do that through practice right now, they would make up for the deficiency by borrowing the power of magic tools.
"I don't know how to tell magic tools apart. Figure it out yourselves."
After quickly washing his hands of the matter, Swallow buried his face in a pile of gold coins to rest. Patrick and Melju cautiously climbed one of the golden mountains to search.
"This is troubling."
They had barely searched for a few minutes, but it was truly a problem.
Melju muttered, scanning the items piled in her hands.
There were too many.
She had no idea what to use. Every single one was a top-tier magic tool.
Legendary artifacts she had only read about in books, items thought to have vanished from history, were scattered everywhere like common stones. At this point, rather than being surprised, she was simply exhausted. The sheer absurdity of it all made even the most remarkable magic tools seem trivial.
After rummaging around for a while, a bead bumped against her foot and rolled down. Picking it up, she saw it was an essence of mana called the 'Symbol of Sin'.
Was this the legendary magic tool that caused mana amplification just by being held—the treasure of Obscuritas, the 'Successor of Evil' and the Demon King who succeeded Yubar?
A bead known in mythology to be one of only seven in the world. And one of them was right here.
She had heard that in the past, an all-out war had broken out between Demon Kings over a single one of Obscuritas's beads. Yet here one was, rolling around in a mountain of gold as if it were a common marble.
"...Ugh."
She forced herself to clear her mind again.
Even so, it took Melju over an hour to select all the magic tools she needed.
After finishing their selection, they immediately headed toward the dungeon entrance to test how much stronger the 〈Power of the Devil〉 had become.
Once outside, her selections in hand, Melju raised her head with a look of determination.