Chapter 7
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 7
Ordinarily, this was the time he would be sleeping lazily in his room.
The less he moved, the better. If something needed doing, he put it off. The only tasks he forced himself to handle were those that would become twice the trouble if left alone. Although Swallow thoroughly practiced this life philosophy, this particular task fell under the category of “things that absolutely must be done.”
After fending off a human invasion, quickly assessing the damage and reorganizing to prepare for another attack was the most basic rule of dungeon management.
Normally, Rene, who took it upon herself to attend to his every need, would handle this. But for some reason, she was exceptionally late today.
He had gone to find Patrick, intending to dump the work on him, but all he got was a lecture full of complaints. After beating a hasty retreat, Swallow thought it over. With humans potentially invading again at any moment, delaying the patrol any further would cause the situation to spiral out of control.
I refuse to let things get any more annoying.
He wanted to finish it in an instant and get back to his rest, but unfortunately, the Primordial Core was vast, even for his polymorphed body.
He would probably have to take as many steps as there were stalagmites on the cave floor to finish the patrol. Yet, he couldn't walk around in his original form. Although the Primordial Core was exceptionally large for a cave, Swallow was so needlessly massive that he couldn't move freely even here.
If he wandered around in his true form, he might cause an unprecedented disaster—destroying his own dungeon with his own hands.
'Damn it.'
I should have learned some summoning magic. Repeating the same old regret, Swallow walked at a leisurely pace. After about ten minutes of walking away from the heart of the Primordial Core, he reached a three-way fork.
Since Patrick and Rene could take care of themselves, there was no need to visit their rooms. Hesitating for a moment, Swallow chose a path and continued on. After walking for a long time down the path on the far right, a familiar stench hit his nose.
One of the three paths, the ‘Right Path’.
Stopping in the middle of the passage, he cleared away the waste covering the wall, revealing a hidden space. It was a small, secret place, discoverable only by those in the know, thanks to the stench that twisted one's senses. Inside was the creature known as the 116 Black Tentacles.
The creature, burned so badly that its original form was unrecognizable, was tightly clutching its throbbing core as if refusing to let go. Part of the core was grotesquely distorted, either from rotting or melting. To someone who didn't know the details of the battle, it would look like nothing more than a squishy, foul-smelling lump.
"Hmm."
It was a pitiful sight, but there was nothing he could do to help right now. Swallow walked away in silence.
The next room he arrived at had its entrance blocked by a tangle of wooden vines.
It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say the room had been devoured by green. It was completely covered in damaged stems and branches. Dark red, dried bloodstains could be seen here and there among the fallen giant plants, but the severed and scorched stems far outnumbered those traces.
With no place to step, he had to tread on the plants. A sticky, unpleasant reddish-brown liquid oozed from the withered flowers that had been severed from their stems.
This was the domain of the master of Room 5, the man-eating plant ‘Anthropophago’.
A massive, man-eating plant that brought the word ‘primitive’ to mind, slaughtering humans with saw-blade-like teeth on the edges of its petals. It had no leaves, and the thorns on its stem dug into the ground to support its body— What else was there?
His train of thought cut off. Swallow habitually scratched the back of his head. The only other thing he could remember was that Anthropophago's mother body existed beneath the stone floor of this dungeon.
If his memory served, as long as the mother body and nutrients remained, the plants would regenerate on their own even if they died. Since they were quite convenient from his perspective, he had turned Room 5 completely over to Anthropophago.
As Swallow stepped onto a high-reaching stem, the cross-sections of the severed stalks caught his eye. Some were burned and broken, while others were cleanly sliced by sharp blades. It must have been a chaotic battle. Swords and magic must have flown everywhere. Finishing his brief observation, Swallow kicked a short, severed stem.
Thud!
With a heavy sound, the stem landed far away. At the same time, a subtle vibration echoed from beneath the thick floor. It was the sound of the hidden mother body reacting.
"Fortunately, the mother body is alive."
If the mother body was alive, this place would restore itself without any intervention. In that case, there was no need to worry about this room anymore.
Having made his decision, Swallow glanced at the passage leading to the next room, Room 4. He didn’t even need to look to get a rough idea of the situation. They were definitely wiped out. Since Room 5 had ended up like this, there was no way any monsters had survived in the other rooms.
"I guess we really do need to reinforce the dungeon's defenses..."
“Boss, I think we need to completely overhaul Rooms 1 through 5.”
“I’m not saying the monsters up to Room 5 are weak, but shouldn’t we consider the level of the humans coming to our dungeon?”
Patrick’s words suddenly came to mind. Come to think of it, hadn't this been an issue for a long time?
—Most of the subjugation squads that set foot in the Primordial Core lose their lives to Rene of the Red Path.
While this meant Rene was incredibly strong, it also meant that most subjugation squads passed through smoothly right up to the Red Path.
Though, of course, he had no way of knowing if their journey was actually smooth or not.
"I guess I'll have to talk to Patrick about this."
Having reached a rough conclusion, Swallow cracked his neck from side to side. Only after hearing a few pops did he mutter, yawning repeatedly as if refreshed.
Ah, this is getting annoying. Should I go back and rest?
Working for the first time in a while was making his body stiff. Wasn't this enough hard work? Although he had only looked around Room 5, he felt he had worked hard enough to admire himself. Besides, there's no need to look at the rest anyway.
Yes, let's do the rest later. He didn't know if "later" would be tomorrow or next year, but for now, he would rest today. Of course, if Rene ended up doing the work while he was putting it off, well, there was nothing he could do about that.
"Indeed. Patrick will surely understand."
Then today's patrol ends here.
Just as he thought that and was about to return to his room, something flashed from the opposite direction.
In an instant, Swallow tilted his head to the left. At the same time, something metallic brushed past his face. A sharp, air-tearing shriek pierced his ears a moment later.
It was too fast to see clearly, but it definitely had a sharp edge. In a situation where an ordinary creature would have died without even knowing what hit it, Swallow simply returned his head to its original position and stared at where the blade had flown from. A presence that had appeared as a mere dot in the darkness slowly took shape as it approached.
He narrowed his eyes, his hands still clasped behind his neck as he yawned. But from below his waist, black appendages slipped out and swayed like tails, their tips honed to a razor's edge.
"...Ah, Lord Swallow! I'm so sorry!"
"...It was you."
The one who soon revealed herself with a familiar voice was Rene.
"Ah... I have no excuse. I'm sorry. I thought another cunning human had invaded..."
"No, it's fine. I was just slightly surprised. By the way, you recognized me the moment you got close."
"Of course, Lord Swallow. Your tail is sticking out right now. It's the first time I've seen this. Even when you made mistakes in the past, your tail never slipped out..."
"...No, well. Ha. Haha."
Where Rene's finger pointed, the black tail sticking out behind Swallow was twitching busily. As Swallow tried to hide his cold sweat with a mechanical laugh and pull his tail back in, Rene watched with a subtle expression before speaking first.
"By the way, Lord Swallow, what were you doing here?"
"Since you weren't around, I did the patrol instead... We took quite a bit of damage this time, after all."
"Ah! I see. Thank you, Lord Swallow. I checked the path ahead on my way here, so you can rest now."
"Were they wiped out, then?"
"Don't pay it any mind. They were sinners who couldn't even stop lowly humans."
"No, I didn't mean anything by it. I was just curious," Swallow said with a faint smile. Rene smiled back, mimicking his expression.
"Right, so about that, Rene."
"Yes, Lord Swallow!"
—Why do you look like that right now?
At the same time, the sound of Swallow biting his lip could be heard.
If he hadn't, that thought would have slipped right out of his mouth. Having barely avoided a slip of the tongue, Swallow quickly racked his brain. What should I ask? How should I ask it? What would sound the most natural?
"Uh... so... your clothes... have changed?"
It was the best question he could come up with after agonizing over it.
Ah, I don't even know where to start.
I need Patrick, the master of straight-man retorts! Swallow screamed internally.
The Rene standing before him was not the Rene he knew. She had returned looking... strange.
First of all, it wasn't her usual maid uniform. She was wearing a fluttery, light pink dress of unknown origin, and the fabric was somehow semi-transparent. Although layers of frills kept it from being see-through, the fair skin revealed on her arms and shoulders, which were covered by only a single layer, was enough to make anyone anxious. Her headdress was gone, as if she had discarded it somewhere.
Since gifting her a few maid uniforms was the extent of what he had ever done for her, he knew he had no right to interfere whether she bought new clothes or did something else.
However, from the perspective of Swallow, the ‘dungeon's boss monster,’ checking the condition of Rene, the ‘dungeon's gatekeeper,’ this was no laughing matter.
First, the pockets on her dress were too small. She didn't even have a sash, and no matter how hard he looked, he couldn't find a single place to hide a weapon. For some reason, Rene also looked a bit taller, and he soon realized she had changed into strange high heels. If she jumped in those shoes, her ankles would shatter upon landing.
Even when he strained his eyes to look at the bracelet on her left wrist, he couldn't feel any mana. The same went for her necklace. They weren't magic tools.
Yes. This is not an outfit for battle. This was an objective fact, not a guess. Continuing his train of thought, Swallow deduced a second objective fact.
It seemed tailored to human aesthetic standards, but regardless...
"She dressed up."
—This was the extent of Swallow's review.
"You noticed! I'm so happy. I put some effort into it for the first time in a while. How is it, Lord Swallow? Does it suit me?"
As if completely oblivious to his troubled expression, Rene's voice was filled with shyness. The blush on her cheeks was exceptionally prominent. It wasn't just his imagination. Whatever powder she had applied, her already pale apricot skin looked even whiter. And just as he wondered where the faintly metallic scent was coming from, he noticed her lips were redder, too.
"How... is it?"
Swallow hesitated at Rene's anxious question. Judging by the context, he wanted to say no, but after seeing her clear, shining eyes, he couldn't bring himself to say it. Yet, the moment he imagined saying, "It suits you," an inexplicable anxiety crept in, warning him that she might continue to dress like this from now on.
"I-I guess something special happened?" he tentatively offered, selecting the safest response after running countless simulations in his head.
"Something special, yes."
The blushing girl lowered her head and squirmed shyly.
With that, the silence he had hoped to avoid enveloped them. All sorts of random thoughts flooded Swallow's mind. This isn't good. If I say, "I'm going to sleep," it would be like abandoning her. But I've already missed the right timing to point things out.
This was extremely troublesome. He had lost the initiative. Until Rene said something, he couldn't do anything...
"Lord Swallow."
Before he could organize his thoughts, Rene's lips parted. Startled, Swallow's shoulders flinched.
"Could you... spare some time... for me?"
Her trembling voice reached him. The atmosphere was such that he could do nothing but nod.
* * *
"This is my secret place. Now, it's a place only you and I know, Lord Swallow."
If we just add Patrick, won't it become a place everyone knows?
Entering the secret place that was on the verge of becoming public knowledge, Swallow cleared his throat.
The secret entrance appeared when he pushed back the magic lamp at the end of the Red Path. The thought of Rene diligently scraping away at the walls to make such a hideout made him chuckle, but the idea that there might be more than one of these sent a chill down his spine.