Here in Seltrozzo, a small northern kingdom, a conversation was underway between a boy and an old man. The boy was Yuuki Kagurazaka, grand master of the Free Guild, and the man was named Johann Rostia—Council mainstay, generous benefactor to the Guild, and prince of the Kingdom of Rostia.
As his last name suggested, he was the elder brother of Rostia's current king, but he was also one of the Five Elders who controlled the Council. He always held his confidential meetings here, in Seltrozzo, a small, rural nation perfect for avoiding the eyes of the Western Nations.
This was because Seltrozzo was home to a safe house run by the Selt
Foreign Information Bureau, the leading intelligence agency in all the Western Nations. The SFIB was established as a risk-management group, surveilling the lands outside human control and preparing for any upcoming monster threats. It had a group of talented agents, all of them ranked B or above, and its small number made it truly a team of elites. Any location under their protection would be impossible for foreign agents to infiltrate, and that was why Johann used this house for all of his most delicate meetings.
"Well, can I hear your report, then?"
"Right. It's pretty clear that the demon lord Rimuru's fully on to me. I went out of my way not to leave any evidence, using merchants from the East and so on, but regardless…"
"Then can't you talk your way out of any suspicion?"
"Yes, my own staff suggested the same thing, but there's no guarantee 'talking my way out of it' would keep me safe, you know? He is a demon lord, keep in mind. Rile him the wrong the way, and it'd be like stepping on a tiger's tail."
Yuuki didn't hide the fact that Rimuru was suspecting him. He had no reason to. After all, Johann—this Five Elders member—was essentially Yuuki's boss.
Boss was the right term, because this was strictly a business relationship between the two, one that existed because they both profited from it. The Council funded the Free Guild, and in exchange, the Guild carried out work for the Council. It was a simple, give-and-take sort of agreement—on the surface.
From the Guild's point of view, they couldn't survive without support like this from the world's nations, the funding and preferential access it received for its organization's work. The Guild had more influence now than back in its Society of Adventurers days, but in terms of power, it still wasn't above the Council. It was the behind-the-scenes support from Johann the Elder that helped Yuuki develop the Free Guild as much as he had these past few years; that was another reason Yuuki had to mind his manners around him.
"And you can't defeat this demon lord?"
"Are you kidding me? The way I see it, you could assemble a hundred A rankers, and it still wouldn't be possible."
"You'd go that far? Perhaps it's smarter not to make him our enemy, then.
But…"
Johann paused, his sharpened eyes glaring at Yuuki, before continuing.
"…it is the elders' opinion that the demon lord Rimuru is a hindrance.
And your missteps are the cause, Yuuki."
"Oh? What do you mean?"
"Your little conspiracy with the demon lord Clayman. If that had succeeded, we wouldn't have had to deal with those sniveling Eastern merchants to open trade routes with the Empire. Once we had secured that, all we'd have to is wait for Veldora to fade into oblivion a few centuries from now, and the Forest of Jura would no longer be a threat. In fact, demon lords like Carillon and Frey could've served as protective walls for us. And now look."
"Well, I don't see what I could've done, you know? You really can't plan for someone like him."
Johann was one of the people aware of the plans Yuuki's group was working on. They were applying their own spin to the games played among the demon lords, trying to work them to their own advantage. And the whole reason that was possible…
"Yes. Yes, you're right. You couldn't have done anything. We never could've imagined a monster like that in our way. But couldn't you have bested him?"
It was the young girl who entered the room now, silently closing the door behind her. Maribel Rozzo, the very person who'd formulated this whole plan. She slipped into an ornate chair, joining the other two.
"Oh… M-Maribel. And is the venerable Granville with you?"
"No, I've come by myself today. But I'd still like to hear the answer to that question."
Maribel turned to Yuuki, paying Johann little mind.
"…It's just not possible," he replied, as if captured by her gaze. "Rimuru alone would be a challenge, but he's got the Storm Dragon with him, too, you know? Forget it. There's nothing anyone can do about him."
"You saw Veldora?"
"Yeah. He was going around in human form, but he introduced himself as Veldora and everything." Yuuki meekly answered the question.
Maribel expected nothing less from him. "Right. The demon lord Rimuru is the key to sealing Veldora away. If we let that evil dragon free, he'll spread ruin across the whole world. Grandfather told me himself."
"Indeed," Johann said. "Your grandfather personally witnessed the darkest days of that dragon's rampage. He's always quick to remind me of why our god is so fearful of him."
"Yes, and now Rimuru has tamed him. Meddling with them is dangerous…but if we want my Rozzo family to prosper, we need to crush the rise of Tempest."
"What a headache this is. Yuuki, couldn't you defeat Rimuru if you truly put your mind to it?"
Johann was now repeating himself. Combined with Maribel, they had now asked the same question three times. Didn't Yuuki have what it takes to beat Rimuru? But this time, Yuuki had a different answer.
"We're talking about someone not even Hinata could beat, you know? It's gonna be really hard for me to win if I fight him. My chances could go way up under the right conditions, but…"
What it sounded like he meant was: If it was just the demon lord Rimuru by himself, maybe they could make it happen.
"…So what's your next move?" Maribel asked.
"My general strategy will be to avoid direct confrontation with Rimuru. Even if I did beat him, I just don't see it earning us much. We'd have to pay far too much of a price for it."
Yuuki went on to discuss their future plans, including Kagali's upcoming ruins expedition. As Maribel had ordered, he was leaking out the info he gained from Clayman, and Maribel and Johann were now acting on it.
Maribel thought for a moment.
Eliminating Rimuru, or at least rendering him harmless, was something she wanted to achieve at any cost. The greatest wish of the Rozzo family would have to go unfulfilled otherwise. Maybe it'd be easier to seize the world if they worked with the demon lord, but Maribel had already deemed that a poor choice.
The problem was their differences in thinking. With this world as well, Maribel intended to take it from a single, gold-based standard currency to a paper-based economy spearheaded by each individual country. She wouldn't eliminate the current money system; she'd just implement new currencies in each nation. It didn't have to be paper either; silver or copper or whatever was fine, too. Basically, if she could build a world where currency markets went up or down depending on the power of all nations involved, then perfect.
That's how foreign exchange worked, and it'd be the Council—and the will of the Five Elders—that set it up. That was the one absolute must to victory here—they needed to be the people deciding the value of things. Against the weaker nations, they'd even levy punishing taxes or conscript their populations into military service in the name of monster hunting. It was a perfectly legal way to subjugate one nation under the rule of a stronger one.
All the conditions were in place. There were no outstanding issues to deal with. Maribel's plan to economically rule over the nations in the Council of the West was proceeding along fine—even Granville was happy with it. They had spent the past few years completing the groundwork for it. And now, with the rise of Rimuru and his nation of monsters, it was all going haywire.
Maybe things weren't in crisis mode yet, but Maribel could see what was
in store. The demon lord Rimuru would likely offer the Western Nations their defensive support, in a bid to win their trust. With all that military power in the backdrop, he'd have them open up an economic relationship, to a certain extent, using Blumund, a small kingdom, as a foothold into the West. He'd run all the logistics, give his people the joy of working, and guarantee their safety.
I wish he wouldn't mess with me, Maribel thought. Other large nations, like Dwargon and Thalion, were already complete, permanent packages— she may not have liked them, but she could accept them. But right now, Tempest was riding straight into Maribel and her companions' home turf. If they expressed a desire to join the Council of the West, it'd be like torching their personal hunting grounds. A declaration of war.
She refused to accept that. She was sure that she and the demon lord Rimuru were incompatible with each other at the core. There could only be just one ruler—a single, overwhelming force. You had to be the one calling the shots, or else you were never promised a sure victory. And as long as the Rozzo family was attempting to rule all of humanity, Rimuru would always be an obstacle. Even if they could work in harmony at first, it was clear to her that they'd grow apart over their respective interests.
That was why Maribel saw the demon lord Rimuru as such a threat.
It was easy to say she'd eliminate Rimuru, but actually doing it was much harder.
She had participated in the Founder's Festival, so she could have a chance to observe him. It took some convincing with Granville, but he gave his okay after she promised not to do anything to Rimuru. The visit convinced her that she was right all along. Tempest was just too attractive of a city, brimming with desires, and in time it'd become the cutting edge of trends, building a new age for the whole world. The more they opened up and forged deeper relations with other nations, the more valuable it'd become—and before long, the Rozzos would no longer be able to make unilateral decisions.
Yes… Yes. Everything's going the way the demon lord Rimuru wants it…
The mere thought made Maribel want to fly into a rage. She resisted the urge as she pondered how to respond.
Defeating him was out of the question. Even if they succeeded, they had no idea how Veldora would respond. Letting a monster capable of wiping out a force of twenty thousand elites single-handedly go around unfettered was the height of folly.
So that left rendering him harmless—either through coercion or persuasion.
If they opted for coercion, Duke Meusé's failures offered some important lessons. Maribel had perfectly set the table, hoping to indebt Rimuru in a way that followed every rule. Instead, Rimuru followed the rules to take revenge. The duke was a fool for misreading the opportunity, but what really deserved praise was the personal connections Rimuru enjoyed.
Yes. If there's a snake in the grass, you'd have to be a fool to prod at it…
And now the demon lord wanted to join the Council. It was easy to oppose that.
Maribel had cornered the market for grain, in anticipation of upcoming wars. Now, thanks to Farmus's civil war, the marketplace was having to turn to private stores to keep their shelves full.
Maybe we should disguise people as night bandits and have them torch the villages around the big cities. That way…
They could keep raising the prices of staple foods, as well as restrict the amount of bread that entered the market. With the smaller nations, just a little bit of tightening could lead to major food distress. When people lacked food, they got angry, and that anger was directed at the people who started the war. There was nothing easier than riling up the unintelligent masses, and pinning all the blame on Rimuru would be a straightforward task.
And then—voilà. The representatives from those smaller nations would oppose Rimuru's Council bid. It'd be perfectly simple for Maribel to engineer.
But…
No… No. It used to be a given that you couldn't magically transport food, but I guess that demon lord's made it happen. Judging by the sheer variety on offer in their dinner banquets, I think it's safe to assume that. And given his connections to people as big as King Gazel and Elmesia of
Thalion, accepting him would probably lead to fewer problems…
Engineering food shortages in the smaller nations could just give Rimuru
a chance to provide them with support. If they scoffed at that plan and tried to coerce him out of it, they'd just be repeating Duke Meusé's error. As Maribel concluded, trying something that already failed once could very easily come back to bite them.
She wasn't self-absorbed enough to think she could carry everything out flawlessly. All she needed to do was proceed slowly, methodically, and carefully. With that in mind, winning Rimuru over to her side seemed more doable.
If we want to sway him, we should try meeting with him and offering a chance to join a united front. If I'm willing to compromise a little—No, I can't do that. No need to be timid. I'm Maribel the Greedy. Whether he's a demon lord or not, I swear I can rule over him!
There's no other option, she thought.
The unique skill Avarice could freely control its target, ruling over their desires and making them do their bidding. Just as she had done with Yuuki, Maribel could easily bring him under her rule, with him none the wiser.
She had not one, but two ways of doing this.
The first was to overwrite the target's desires with Maribel's own, making them into a cooperative partner with the same goals. This approach had a weakness—she needed to be within conversational distance of the target to trigger it. Plus, like a slow-acting poison, it took a certain amount of time to take full effect. If she didn't want to arouse the target's suspicion, she'd have to make several contacts with them to make it seem more natural —and since the conversation would need a reason to take place, there was only so much desire she could inject at once. It required a major time commitment.
The second approach, meanwhile, went much faster—it involved using Avarice to force the target to accept her rule. A quick injection of greed could even destroy the target's self-awareness, turning them into a living puppet.
This, of course, was much more dangerous. Depending on the size of the target's desire, this approach could also take some time—and even if it only took a few seconds, that'd be more than enough for someone as powerful as the demon lord Rimuru to kill Maribel. Taking this tactic required very careful preparation, which was why Maribel immediately gave up on it against Granville.
Those were the two ways Avarice could take over a person. And given the way that it worked on people's primordial desires, there wasn't a soul in this world that could resist it. The main drawback was its dependency on time, not to mention the size of the target's desire.
No matter which approach she took, Maribel couldn't take over a target unless they had a certain amount of desire inside them. The larger that desire, the firmer the grip Maribel could have over them. But what if the desire wasn't big enough? Given that Avarice controlled people's desires, if there wasn't much to work with, the skill couldn't influence them enough to be successful. She could prod that desire, inflating it enough so she could take hold, but again, that took time and opened her up to suspicion.
That was why she couldn't take over the mind of Hinata the Saint. Maybe she could if they met more often, but Hinata would've questioned her motives if she kept popping in for no reason. Maribel couldn't risk that much danger, so she gave up on the effort. On the other hand, she held regular secret meetings with Yuuki through Johann the Elder. Seizing his mind was easy.
Now her main question was Rimuru.
I saw him up close, but he didn't seem to have much desire despite all his outrageous behavior. It's not fair…
At the dinner banquet, she had a direct view of Rimuru. With that insight, she felt what might be just barely enough to rule over his desires. With a desire that small, she could take it over quickly with just a few sessions, but it wouldn't give her much overall influence on his behavior. Of course, once she got that foothold, the rest would come falling down after it, she figured.
If worse came to worst, she could use her final option. If that worked, the demon lord would be Maribel's to use as she pleased—and since Rimuru had tamed Veldora, the Storm Dragon would essentially be hers to control as well. A dragon even the supreme being Lubelius feared. An attractive prize, to be certain.
Best to keep up my observations for now. Then I can consider my options and come up with the safest approach to subdue him!
Her mind made up, it was time to concoct a strategy.
Yuuki advised against direct confrontation with Rimuru. That's why the demon lord Kazalim, under the guise of Kagali, would be guiding him through the ruins. Those ruins had their dangers, but apparently Kagali had no intention of putting Rimuru in harm's way inside them. She could use that as part of her game plan.
"Let's send him a letter. We can invite Rimuru to the Council and see how he reacts."
"You think the demon lord would agree to it?"
"No worries there. Joining the Council of the West is one of his burning desires."
"How curious."
"Well, Rimuru wants to work hand in hand with humans. He wants to prove that the monsters under him are harmless as long as we stick to his rules."
Yuuki's explanation made sense to Maribel, as dumb as it sounded to her. Being bound by rules meant losing your freedom. Doing away with your demon lord military force? Staying on the same tier as the human race? It seemed supremely stupid to her.
"So why don't we make that dream come true? Then I can inject him with my poison," said Maribel.
"Ooh, scary. Isn't Yuuki Kagurazaka just as strong as Hinata the Saint? If he and Rimuru fought for real, he has good prospects to win, I think. But now that you have him, you want a demon lord as well?"
"Yuuki's ambition is too strong. He doesn't even realize I'm controlling him. He thinks he's making these negotiations out of his own free will."
As Maribel explained right in front of Yuuki himself, this was a happy thing for him. Her rule over him meant that he wouldn't be pushed down by any excessive greed. Yuuki ignored it all, not responding to it—that was how perfect her domination was of him.
"…And I'm sure the demon lord Rimuru is like a child before you,
Maribel. And you'll have full control of him?"
"What do you mean?"
"Well, I'm just worried that your rule could be broken, somehow."
She flashed a cold look at the flustered Johann. "There's no need to worry about that. Once I cloud someone's desires, they'll never return to normal. Not unless you overwrite the desires I implant in them."
Maribel was greed personified, enough so to cultivate the unique skill Avarice within her. There was nobody in the world who could desire something more. She was fully convinced of that, and it made her laugh off Johann's concern.
"Y-yes, I imagine not. I trust in you on that, Maribel."
Johann the Elder tried not to invite Maribel's wrath upon him. She was the de facto number two after Granville, and not even an elder was safe around her. If he got on her bad side, she might try to control his mind next. He had made a blood oath with Granville to avoid that, but once Maribel took over, he didn't think he could rely on that oath too much. Thus, he never dared to lift a finger against her.
"Everything we say in here is a secret, all right?"
"Of course, Maribel. I'm not in any hurry to die."
"Smart decision. Now, Johann, I want you to send a letter to Rimuru, leader of Tempest, for me. I'll write it out for you right now, so make sure it reaches him before the next Council meeting, please."
Without waiting for a response, Maribel began writing the letter. The sight of her scribbling away on the fancy, expensive paper struck terror in Johann's heart. It was the kind of terror you'd feel if a girl like Maribel, hardly even ten, treated bossing people around like it was her God-given right. She had the air of a ruler, and not one of the Five Elders was a match for her.
"All right, Maribel. You can leave that to me."
He left the room quietly with Yuuki, not wanting to bother her.
Even after Yuuki and Johann left, Maribel continued to weigh her options. She had all the time in the world. She would draw up plans, lay out the framework, and see this through. She had more than enough pawns at her disposal. And once again…
This'll be fun. This'll be so much fun.
…Maribel, the girl who trusted not a soul in the world, got lost in her own reverie.
The man fell to the ground, a flood of red, bloodlike particles shooting out in front of him. His eyes had burst open in surprise; he probably never saw it coming.
"Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! You left yourself open, you fool!"
Milim's excited voice thundered across the hall as the man's five remaining companions grew tense and nervous. They banded together, keeping a wary eye on their surroundings—but they could do nothing.
"Blowing wind, grow into a tornado and slice into my enemies! Time to rage—Tornado Blade!!"
Bunching up like that was a mistake, and I all but sneered as my Tornado Blade slashed into them. This was kind of a ranged version of Windcutter, one that cost a lot of magicules but caused slashing damage to multiple enemies within a given space. This made it great for battles against groups of foes.
Milim had acted first, sneaking up on one person as he went ahead to check for traps. After killing him, she quickly shot out of the area to avoid getting caught in my magic. The group had no idea what happened; the moment they huddled up for safety, Milim was out of the way, and they were cut to ribbons by my Windcutter.
"Look out, it's Scarlet! Be careful!"
"Shit! That magic got Marja and Nadja. And Gene's not breathing either?!"
"Damn you! All of you!!"
The surviving enemies, beginning to appreciate their situation, started ranting at us. By enemies, of course, I meant the labyrinth challengers.
We were dealing with a group of adventurers this time, by the looks of it, and a pretty well-balanced one at that. But our party had the power and experience to outclass them. That first surprise attack took out the enemy's main search specialist, and before they even knew we were near, my opening magic landed the first strike. Even before we noticed them, we had an invisibility magic deployed, allowing us to discover the enemy first. This magic was canceled once we began to attack, but by then, our foes had already lost one or two people—the magic attacker and healer in the back row, to boot. That decided the battle right there.
Now that they could see us, the enraged front-row adventurers were making a beeline for us.
"Kwah-ha-ha-ha-ha! Tough luck!!"
"Ohhhhh-hoh-hoh-hoh! You're not getting past us!"
Veldora and Ramiris were certainly enjoying themselves as they withstood their charge. By now, I had nothing left to do—just take up a supporting role and make sure those two had enough space to move in.
I used my Analysis magic to examine the fighters running toward us. Above them, I could see bright-red bars that were less than half full.
"They got less than half of their HP left. You guys can take care of them yourselves, right?"
There was no self-aggrandizing there.
Yes, the red bars above the fighters' heads showed their remaining stamina. That was what I configured my personal Analysis magic to display; I tried to set it up like a video game for instant comprehension. If other people used the same magic, they'd probably see something different— regardless, it was pretty convenient for me. The familiar readouts let me quickly confirm the situation and give out the most suitable instructions to my team.
By this point, we were pretty much guaranteed to win. A front-row set of fighters with no rear support was no match for Veldora and Ramiris. With no one buffing or magically healing them, we'd continually whittle down their stamina until it was over. A more careful party would've kept a barrier over them at all times…but not this one, apparently.
It didn't take long for my two companions to prove me right, smiling insidiously as they slashed the remaining three adventurers into a bloody mess. It was an easy win.
Using Milim's surprise attacks and my magic to dispatch the scouts and back row first was proving to be a sure-win tactic for us. Of course, we'd been kind of overfishing the pond, so to speak, so our efficiency was starting to suffer. It wasn't perfect yet, but more and more parties were learning how to counter us. These challengers weren't fools, after all, and they were clearly making a dedicated effort each day. I was glad to see that, but we needed new strategies to deal with them.
…As I thought about this, the final survivor disappeared into a flurry of light particles. The battle was over—another sight I was getting used to.
"We did it! These punks were no challenge at all!!"
"Heh-heh-heh… You're right! We're invincible, the strongest there is!"
"Kwah-ha-ha-ha-ha! All these little ants! They leave me a tad unsatisfied, but…"
My companions were getting thoroughly carried away now.
…What were we doing, you ask? Well, researching new battle techniques against the labyrinth's challengers, of course. We were eager to learn, so we'd been putting in a lot of hours down here.
...…
...
…
I mean, you heard of Team Green Fury, right? We were able to beat them last time, but we can't rest on our laurels. They got called back to their "home country" or whatever, and they may never come back—but maybe they just had some trouble procuring new equipment. We didn't know if they'd pay a return visit sometime, and we wanted to be ready to fend them off if it happened.
Thus, even after Green Fury was behind us, we kept diving into the labyrinth, sliding into a familiar pattern of fighting off challengers. It kept the labyrinth lively, too.
A few days after our pitched battle with Green Fury, Masayuki's party made it past Floor 40.
Masayuki really was born under a lucky star. Apparently, acquiring the entire Ogre Series of equipment was pretty simple for them. It was only natural, then, that they stomped all over the tempest serpent. Now their focus was conquering Floor 50.
The news of Masayuki breaching the forties energized the rest of the challengers. That was just what we hoped for, and now the more talented parties were aiming for Floor 40 as well.
Our experiments with releasing some videos of the boss battle gave us a huge response, too. The recording of Masayuki's team fighting the tempest serpent, as shown on our projector, created buzz all over town; people wanted us to play it again and again.
As Mjöllmile and I saw it, this was a business opportunity. In a TV-free world like this one, battle footage from the labyrinth was as good as entertainment got. We may need to edit out some of the gorier content—but then again, maybe there'd be demand for the uncut version, for the right price. We could work on that. Of course, there'd also be broadcasting rights, likeness rights, all those other little details…but I could let Mjöllmile work on that for me.
In fact, I bet Masayuki's smile could sell a lot of different products. The endorsement contracts alone might make him rich. He'd be happy; Mjöllmile would be happy; we'd all be happy. It'd be a trial-and-error process, but I'd like to see how that worked out.
And video content wasn't restricted to the footage recorded by magical items. In fact, we had a lot more saved up. Raphael was reading a massive amount of data from the labyrinth and running Analyze and Assess on it made it possible to replay entire fights in visual form. We used that, for example, to create highlight reels for challengers—and this, too, was a huge hit when we broadcast it. It really riled up the more attention hungry of the challengers; one of them reportedly claimed his video footage helped him find a girlfriend.
Even people who didn't really take the Dungeon seriously were starting to get into it, thanks to our shows. And I understood it. Maybe it was a little self-serving, but if it whipped up enthusiasm, then great. But it was our job to give them a dose of reality, too. Tough love was in order here—we couldn't let them get soft—and so we continued to hop inside our avatars and torment the challengers.
Nowadays, people were calling us the Dungeon Dominators, fearing and respecting us. Our appearance had dramatically changed as well.
The ghost I controlled now had a Fear Aura, a bluish-white, flame-like shimmer that burned around its body. I liked it; it really added to the atmosphere. Veldora's skeleton, meanwhile, had all of its bones refurbished —after seeing Ramiris change her armor out, he started whining about his own upgrades. "A golden skull would suit me well," he said when I asked. Eesh.
I thought about ignoring him, but considering my project for Diablo, I figured Veldora may as well join my experimentation with temporary bodies. I could, for example, replace his skeleton with a framework made of whatever metal I wanted to test out. Pure gold has durability issues, so I decided to go with the strongest material I had, although it was still in the experimental stage. It happened to be golden in color, too, so it worked well.
This material is known as orichalc, a special alloy made by adding gold to magisteel and refining it with a denser dose of magicules than usual.
Focusing on the "everlasting" element of gold and other precious metals, I was hoping to add that element to magisteel as well. The results were a grand success—this orichalc was better than magisteel in all aspects, not just strength. It was crazy. The only problem was that I couldn't produce much of it—gold itself is both rare and unavailable for mass production—but hey, Veldora asked nicely, so I prepared an orichalc skeleton for him.
Just like with Ramiris, the bones could be made of anything as long as he hung on to his master core. The conversion was a total snap, and now he was a gold-colored skeleton fighter. The durability far outclassed his original bones; it was excellent, almost needlessly so. As he moved around in it, I kept a careful watch, seeing how much punishment it could take and whether any problems cropped up.
Milim, meanwhile, was now a celebrity—a terrorizing sight that people had named Scarlet. Her unbelievable speed made her look like a crimson shooting star, they said. Her battle style, abandoning everything except speed and relying on quickness and critical hits, had made her a legend…one spoken of in hushed, fearful tones.
Even Ramiris had changed a little. Like the proactive fighter she was, she had taken on a more eerie presence, a purple Death Aura shimmering around her heavy living knight's frame. One swing of her Death Axe overwhelmed her foes, and her unrelenting battle style made her well-known as a suit of armor who fought like a berserker. That knight might even be stronger than the real Ramiris… Actually, I take that back. Wouldn't want to damage her reputation.
So we had become famous in just a few days. The reaction from the challengers was just as great. They feared us, keeping a keen lookout for our presence. That made sense. We were stronger than some of the weaker bosses, and in terms of sheer malice, far above them.
As I mentioned, our main goal was to research fighting techniques in the labyrinth. This wasn't playtime for us—I can't emphasize this enough. Day in and day out, we gave our all to the research, and I was sure this persistent effort would come in handy for us someday.
And it did. Challengers would occasionally use rare extra skills against us—or even original magics that I presume they invented themselves. I learned a lot from that, and now that Raphael could obtain information directly from the labyrinth, everything anyone did in there could be examined in my research. Raphael ran Analyze and Assess on all of it, so the Dungeon was turning into a treasure trove of data for us.
Even better, just as our personal battle experience was reflected in our avatars, the things we learned in avatar form were retained in our original bodies. This was an unexpected side effect, and I was considering how we could use it on things like new types of training.
Our research was continuing on a daily basis, so I suppose it's only natural that we learned a lot.
One time—just one time, I promise—we got a little carried away and decided to try conquering our own labyrinth. The result: utter defeat.
With our current abilities, Bovix, boss of Floor 50, was like crashing into a brick wall. The frontal approach we preferred was useless against an overA opponent like him. The effectiveness of our surprise strikes would need to be evaluated, but more than that, Bovix was just too much for us. I was glad we could rely on him, but now we felt like we had to beat him.
So we decided to get serious about building up our characters. Again, strictly for research purposes. Research—and training for ourselves, too. Definitely not for fun. Make sure you don't get the wrong idea here.
...…
...
…
We watched as the fleeing challengers faded into the distance. "That was an easy one," I muttered. The other three nodded.
We were on Floor 38 or so of the labyrinth, and given how close we were to the tempest serpent, there were a lot of strong fighters around—people who could give us a tough fight if we didn't pay attention. For our current state, it was the perfect hunting ground.
Just as we were about to keep going, the Replication of myself I kept in my office for emergency purposes contacted me. What could that be? I thought as the message EMERGENCY VISITOR flashed before my eyes.
I guess playtime was over. Wait, no—we weren't playing. This was research. Very important stuff. I reminded myself of that as I returned to my office.
There I found Shuna and Rigurd waiting for me, as well as someone else—a woman I knew well. It was the ex–demon lord Frey, lounging in one of my chairs. I guess this was my emergency visitor.
Seeing me enter the room, Frey walked right past Veldora and rested her eyes upon Milim behind me. She gave her a friendly smile.
"Ah, Milim! So you were here, were you? By the way, have you finished up the assignment I gave you yet? I found my watchmen bound and unconscious on the ground, but you'll tell me what happened to them, won't you?"
The smile stayed on her face the whole time. This was more an interrogation than a friendly question, I felt. Frankly, it scared me. It wasn't even directed at me, and I still wanted to be anywhere but here. In fact, it was exactly like when my school friend came over to play after finishing his homework, only to have his mom find out he hadn't finished it at all, so she stormed over to drag him back by the ear. Ah, nostalgia.