I gave Tenko the gun she wished for and immediately taught her how to use it.
It seemed like she was very pleased with the gun when she tried to test fire it. She went on about how she wanted to use it in live combat right away.
So Succubus transferred us once again. This time, to the 68th floor. The D rank monsters looked like they weren’t enough for us so we headed for the Maelstrom that produced C rank monsters.
“What the heck, just how many floors are there?”
“All in all, a hundred and one.”
“Wha-!?”
It was beyond what I imagined.
I didn’t expect it to go over a hundred floors.
“That’s because [Beast] Demon Lord Marchosias is one of the great old Demon Lords and has reigned for nearly 300 years. What’s more, she’s also a very hard-working person. She also has around 1500 monsters, by the way.”
“That’s way more than what I imagined. I shiver at the thought of us clashing.”
It’s obvious but the forces I command at the moment were nothing compared to hers.
Marcho would probably beat me senseless without even sweating.
“Oto-san, don’t worry! I’m here after all. I’ll protect you!”
Tenko clung to my arms and raised an energetic voice.
She was saying so but 1500 was just too much even for her.
“Fufufu, what a good energetic child. As expected of an S rank monster, even after being told of such things. But rest a.s.sured, [Creation] Demon Lord Procell-sama, she doesn’t have any ill will towards you. Your training is, after all, her final main task.”
“Final?”
I caught notice of those words.
“Oh, you haven’t heard of it?”
The Succubus looked at me with shock all over her face.
“Nope, I haven’t heard anything.”
“Is that so… then, I don’t know if I should be the one to tell you. Apologies but it’s a secret.”
The Succubus quickly bowed her head.
I showed her that I understood but Tenko looked like she was unsatisfied with it.
Tell us, tell us, Tenko pestered.
The Succubus was smiling bitterly but then, it looked like she finally gave in a little.
“Just a little, okay?”
When she said those words, the voice of a girl that shouldn’t have been there was heard.
“There’s no need for that.”
The s.p.a.ce in front of me distorted and then, Marcho was there.
“Really now, it was a good thing I checked up on your group. Succubus, I can’t say I approve of talking as you wish about important and private matters.”
“I-I have no excuse, Marchosias-sama.”
“Well, it’s fine. It’s not like I forbade you talk about it. I’ll let it go in consideration of your general performance.”
The Succubus quietly lowered her head and Marcho smiled wryly.
“Can you also use transfer magic?”
“No, I can’t use high ranking magic like Succubus. I’m kind of a muscle-brained Demon Lord after all. It’s more of like using my authority as a Demon Lord. I can jump to any place I want as long as it’s within my Dungeon.”
That was a convenient ability.
I’ll take note of it for when I make my Dungeon in the future.
“But peeping is a distasteful hobby, you know.”
“I was worried so I checked. It was through Succubus, by the way. You better remember this but Demon Lords are able to share senses with up to a hundred monsters. I have done so with almost all the leaders of each floor.”
“Then, I have to be restrain myself from bad mouthing Marcho in front of Succubus.”
“Not just in front of her. You can never be sure where my eyes and ears are so be careful. Being in a Dungeon is like being inside the Demon Lord himself.”
Yeah, it’s most probably like that.
Sharing of senses…… It seemed like I better to try it out once with Tenko. Could we share all of our five senses? If we could, then……
“Oto-san, are you thinking of something weird?”
“Nope, nothing of the sort.”
Tenko was as sharp as ever but I somehow deceived her.
I then turned towards Marcho and she began talking to me.
“I’m telling you this since this is important information for you too. Succubus has already started talking about it but, you see, we Demon Lords have a life span.”
“Life span?”
“Yeah, a life span. Three hundred years to be exact. If that much time has pa.s.sed after one has become a Demon Lord, then that Demon Lord will cease to exist. By the way, I am 199 years old.”
I was breathless.
She looked so healthy and yet she didn’t even have a full year left.
“Hey, don’t make that face. I’ve already done all the things I wanted to do; I have no regrets. And I have raising you as my final task. Training junior Demon Lords up is, you see, tasked requested to Demon Lords near the end of their life span. Once in ten years, all in the same day, ten Demon Lords are born which also means there are children other than you. Perhaps it’s kindness that this task is a.s.signed to old Demon Lords because if a young one did it, then they will see the newly born Demon Lord as a rival and thus won’t be able to honestly teach them things.”
Her words about not regretting anything didn’t seem to be a lie.
Marcho’s face was refreshing.
And then, if the thing about there being ten of us being born at the same time was true, then there were nine others in the same batch as I am in.
“I understand the thing about our life span but if you’re going to die, what will then happen to the monsters you’ve left behind?”
I asked the question as I held Tenko’s hand.
I had been taught in the beginning that if my crystal was destroyed, my monsters as well as the Dungeon would vanish. Then what about when the Demon Lord himself disappears?
“Nothing will happen to them. The Demon Lord disappearing has no connection to the Dungeon and its monsters. They will continue to exist as long as the crystal does. Rather, the crystal will mimic the Demon Lord’s behavior when he was still alive and will haphazardly and unreservedly create monsters using DP. The crystal will continue to irresponsibly do so over and over again, so the new monsters would end up fighting with the monsters that were created before. Well, pre-existing monsters would also fight one another. No longer under anyone’s command, they will do whatever they wish. It’s utter chaos.”
Monsters being free of command is nothing but an ominous premonition.
“The monsters that have no intelligence are especially bad. The monsters that has some will probably establish order with their fellow thinking monsters but should the monsters that can’t think have the greater numbers, then it’s all for naught.”
A Dungeon no longer having a Demon Lord is probably a very difficult place to live in for all its monsters.
“Well, after I’m gone, my [Monsters of the Covenant] will be entrusted to someone else. The monsters are going to be free. They can establish a new order in the Dungeon, rage as much as they want, or even go outside. Until the crystal is broken, all they have to do is live to the fullest.”
“What happens to the monsters that went outside?”
“Many of those children are subdued by humans. And sometimes, that act is connected to the end of the Dungeon. The humans will turn serious and a full-blown Dungeon subjugation will begin. Humans have great numbers as well as beings called Heroes, beings on the same level as a Demon Lord. If the humans got serious, no one will be able to win against them, especially a Dungeon that doesn’t have Demon Lord.”
It was the natural conclusion.
The monsters that went outside and hurt the humans would incur their wrath. And then, the humans also probably knew the fact that those monsters would be wiped off as well if the crystal was broken. One should always try to cut evil at its roots.
In the absence of a Demon Lord, the Dungeon’s defenses would considerably go down, and in the end, the crystal would be broken and the Dungeon and its monsters would be no more.
“By the way, do you remember that I told you about teaching you better hunting grounds than using the Maelstroms?”
“Of course.”
In fact, I was quite looking forward to it.
Maelstrom would create monsters only once each day. On top of that, I was only permitted to hunt the monsters from two D rank Maelstroms and from one C rank Maelstroms.
It was for the sake of increasing our levels as well as the DP I possessed that I wished for a splendid hunting ground.
“It’s what I just taught you. A Dungeon that longer has a Demon Lord and has fallen to chaos. You can freely hunt the monsters there. After I’m gone, you may do the same in this Dungeon.”
I shook my head.
As expected, even when I’m told that I could do anything I want with the monsters in here, I would hesitate.
I don’t mind doing so with the monsters that don’t have any intelligence like the Garm but for those that do, like the Succubus, I can’t say the same.
And then, the person in question opened her mouth.
“Marchosias-sama, we won’t allow that. Even after you’re gone, we will still continue our primary purpose and isn’t it the protection of this [Demonic Beast Castle]? We will continue doing protecting the Dungeon that the great Demon Lord Marchosias-sama has built while punishing any misbehaving children! We won’t bring disgrace to you nor let anybody do so.”
There was pa.s.sion in her words.
I was a little envious and wished I had subordinates like her.
“Is that so? Is that… Geez, you children are wasted on me.”
Marcho displayed a smile.
Her popularity, which she had surely gained on her own, made the succubus say such things.
“I’m blessed to have subordinates like them but not everyone is as fortunate. The [Crimson Cavern] I’m planning to show you is a Dungeon where the all the monsters that possessed intelligence have either died or abandoned it. All that’s left are the mindless monsters rampaging to their heart’s content. The only reason it hasn’t been destroyed yet is because it’s far enough away from the human settlements.”
[Crimson Cavern].
Hearing that name reminded me of [Flame].
Could it perhaps be that the [Flame] medal I received was from the Demon Lord that used to rule in that Dungeon?
“I certainly won’t mind hunting those mindless monsters.”
It would surely be tough if the enemy was a monster that possessed intelligence and reason like the Succubus but when they’re mindless monsters like that, I wouldn’t need to hesitate.
“You better not go unprepared. There may not be any high ranking monsters that the Demon Lord himself has created anymore but still, among the monsters the crystal is continually creating, C rank monsters are all over the place.”
“Then, it seems I’ll somehow manage.”
The monsters as high as two ranks lower of the ones that had been created in synthesis before could be bought using DP.
And unless one has the ability of the [Creation] medal, they could create only up to A rank monsters. So that means that the crystals could create monsters only up to the C rank.
However, Marcho groaned.
“But Tenko’s incompatible with that place. Her specialty’s using Flame attacks but the almost all the monsters over there have high Flame resistance and many are physically durable. If none of you can use water magic then you need to dish out an overwhelmingly powerful attack without any Flame attribute in it but at your levels, that’s pretty difficult.”
“What, there’s that kind of thing, huh? You don’t have to worry though, we don’t have any shortage on the attack department. Tenko, show Marcho the power of the weapon I made a while ago.”
“Yay! ♪”
Tenko readied the weapon.
It was the weapon I had just made a little while back using [Creation]. It was a weapon according to my interpretation of Tenko’s request that she wanted a close-range weapon with a big bang.
Its form was of a shotgun’s.
The Remilton M870p
Length: 1060mm
Weight: 3.6Kg
Caliber: 12 gauge
Magazine size: 5+1 rounds
The strongest gun for close-range battles.
Note: For the magazine size, the +1 means that the sixth one is in the gun’s barrel.