[Welcome to the Multiverse Dungeon!]
The voice boomed inside their heads... cold, commanding, and so heavy it felt like it pressed directly on their souls.
Every head turned upward.
There, high above, wreathed in darkness, sat a man upon a throne suspended in midair.
The oppressive aura and black shadows swirling around him left little doubt... this was no benevolent figure.
Shinobu Kocho's hand went to her blade, Mitsuri Kanroji following suit.
Jade Chan shifted into a fighting stance, while Viper just shoved her hands in her pockets, eyes narrowing.
"Evil demon?!" Shinobu's voice was sharp and certain. She didn't know what this man was, but the unnatural darkness screamed of some sinister technique.
[I am the master of this Multiverse Dungeon.]
He let the words hang in the air. Explaining the details in a drawn-out speech would be dull — besides, in here, he had other ways to make his point.
With a wave of his hand, the darkness shifted. The world itself bent to his will.
The ground didn't shake, but the space seemed to breathe, as if the city had just changed without anyone moving a step.
The six women froze as a foreign sensation poured into their minds, a stream of alien knowledge, threading itself into their thoughts.
"Ugh—!" Mitsuri winced, clutching her head.
Within moments, each of them understood the basics of the dungeon. And before them, a curtain of light appeared, text burning across it in stark clarity.
Just reading the words seared them into their very souls, as if the rules themselves branded their minds.
[Rules of the Multiverse Dungeon]
1. Anyone who clears all dungeon levels will be granted one wish — any wish.
2. Intimate acts between adventurers are forbidden. What counts as "intimate" is determined by the dungeon. Punishment: erasure at the root.
3. Cheating of any kind is forbidden. What counts as cheating is determined by the dungeon. Punishment: erasure at the root.
4. Questioning rule changes is forbidden. The Dungeon Master alone decides the rules. Punishment: from deduction of magic stones to root erasure.
5. All adventurers must attempt to conquer the dungeon. Refusal will result in root erasure.
6. Hostility toward the Dungeon Master is forbidden. Hostility will be judged personally by the Dungeon Master.
These were only temporary rules he'd decided on for now.
But even so, once set, they became law inside the dungeon written into its very framework, enforced absolutely.
In here, he could do anything.
"…What is this supposed to mean?"
The six women stood there, dazed from the sudden rush of knowledge, their expressions caught between confusion and unease.
There were still some who couldn't bring themselves to accept the bizarre information now lodged in their minds.
Rei Miyamoto, for one.
They weren't dead but they'd been pulled to another world, branded as "adventurers" without their consent. No matter how she looked at it, the situation was unsettling.
"Could this be some kind of spell?" Viper muttered, thinking back to the strange magic of the Snake Talisman she'd once seen.
"Would demon arts even be capable of this…?" Shinobu Kocho and Mitsuri Kanroji tried to make sense of it through their own frame of reference.
Then Rei suddenly wrinkled her nose. "Ugh… what's that smell?!"
Saeko Busujima's eyes narrowed, and she drew a slow breath before holding it.
A heavy, fishy stench was rolling across the square.
"What a pathetic bunch of adventurers… only my art has true beauty. Now...die!"
The voice was full of arrogance.
A wet, slithering sound followed, and then it happened, countless sharp-toothed fish, slick with mucus, erupted from the ground in a writhing, snapping torrent, all rushing straight for Yami.
"Ah."
He didn't even look surprised. The faint curve of his lips as he sat on his throne said everything...he'd been expecting this.
As the Dungeon Master, he already knew the exact number of people he'd summoned from other worlds. Seven.
And the one who had just emerged from the water jar to launch this ambush… was one of them.
"Careful!" Mitsuri called, shoving Shinobu back.
From the side of the square, a tall jar lay toppled over, and crawling out from its mouth was a figure part human, part fish.
Its bulging eyes locked onto Yami in the sky before it lunged, spewing its summoned swarm upward.
"It's an Upper Rank demon! Definitely a demon!" Shinobu hissed, spotting the creature's vertical eye — the kanji for "Upper Rank" etched there, and beneath it, the number "Five."
Upper Rank Five. Gyokko.
He'd been hiding all along, silently eavesdropping… until now, when he'd unleashed his Blood Demon Art — Ten Thousand Slithering Fishes.
[Friendly reminder: the dungeon's rules are absolute.]
Faced with the oncoming tide of teeth and scales, Yami remained perfectly relaxed, one elbow propped on the arm of his throne, his chin resting on his hand.
Because here, in his domain, the rules weren't just words they were reality.
Everyone froze as the swarm of slimy, sharp-toothed fish suddenly halted mid-air not even a meter from their targets and then, without warning, crumbled into drifting ash.
"…My art…?"
Gyokko's eyes widened in confusion. His Blood Demon Art hadn't just failed... it had been erased.
But before he could even process it, a suffocating sense of death crashed over him. His muscles tensed on instinct, his head snapping upward.
The sky had turned blood-red, clouds swirling into a spiral above him.
Thunder growled.
In the next heartbeat, a column of black lightning tore through the heavens, slamming down directly on his head.
BOOM!!!
The explosion drowned the square in light, the darkness of the bolt so deep it swallowed all other color before bursting outward in a blinding flash.
When the glare faded and their vision cleared, Shinobu, Mitsuri, Rei, Saeko, Jade, and Viper could only stare.
The spot where Gyokko had stood was empty. Not even dust remained.
In the silence that followed, the words burned into their minds replayed themselves, cold and absolute:
[Rule Six: No adventurer may show hostility toward the Dungeon Master. Such hostility will be judged personally by the Dungeon Master.]
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