The remaining Minotaurs stopped fighting against Jin"s monsters and both sides respected the ceasefire and an understanding was reached after a fortress wide announcement was given. The losses were quite insignificant on Jin"s side as compared to Moloch"s but it was still eating up a fairly substantial amount of Jin"s wallet.
The system calculated that it would roughly need 2000 dungeon dollars for the loss of zombies and the werejackals. There were also some injuries incurred by a number of other monsters, including all of Mr Derpy"s wounds. All those were included in the recovery costs calculated by the system.
Jin once asked Yun why Milk couldn"t just heal them such that they would incur fewer recovery expenses and the system stated that even if Milk was able to heal them, she would need to use quality catalysts as healing materials and they cost money. Unfortunately, Milk had to agree with the system on this one and acknowledge that healing monsters were slightly different from healing humans since her healing magic was catered for humans.
"Heh, but humans are monsters in the eyes of other species." Jin rolled his eyes at the ridiculous reasoning the system gave and guessed it all came down to more money that the system could leech from Jin.
Meanwhile, Moloch and Jin gathered all the monsters around the throne room and they explained the current situation to the remaining Minotaurs, whom immediately a.s.sured their lord that they would still lay down their life for Moloch even if he were to be captured by Jin.
"Wow, they are surprisingly loyal to you even after what you put them through." Jin casually said and Moloch scoffed at him.
"What do you mean?! The costumes were of SUPERIOR quality! Look at how poor I am, what do you think caused this?!" Moloch"s man puppet posed angrily with his arms folded.
"Erm...technically, you forced your own ideas upon them. Now it makes me wonder if you would really be a good fortress lord." Jin suddenly had his reservations and Moloch panicked a little. However, his underlings suddenly came forward to Jin and helped their lord out.
"Our Lord might be eccentric regarding the costumes part but he really did go to great lengths to help us!" One of the remaining Fanatic Minotaurs shouted.
"I too have to admit that Lord Moloch did whatever he could to aid us. Minotaurs in the Dungeon World are considered as mere muscle heads with no magic abilities. We can"t breathe flames like dragons and we cannot grow any larger like giants. Our movements are not exactly the most agile no matter how much we train, meaning we can barely keep up with a high level a.s.sa.s.sin, much less beat one. Hence, most dungeon fortresses only put us as front liners and nothing more. Lord Moloch took us in when n.o.body wanted us." Sebastias pitched in her own opinion regarding Moloch.
"Having a heart of gold doesn"t exactly mean that he is competent in administration… but oh well, at least he had a conscience and a desire to carve out a place of his own." Jin thought to himself and somehow he felt that Yun was laughing at him.
"What"s the matter, Yun?" Jin asked in his thoughts.
"Nothing much." Yun did not bother to explain herself.
"So, shall we get started?" Lord Moloch kneeled in front of Jin as if he was waiting for an imminent execution. Only then, Jin took out his phone and knocked the phone against Moloch"s head. There was no killing needed since the monster was willing to be captured on its own accord and the phone absorbed the essence of Lord Moloch immediately.
As expected, the entire fortress shook as if it was crying over the loss of its owner and from the throne room, the gigantic minotaur stone statue looked at Jin before it shot out a fairly large metallic ball at the throne chair, causing it to be destroyed.
Jin immediately summoned Moloch out along with his man puppet and Moloch commanded the man puppet to hold him up so that he could initiate the dungeon core process. At the same time, Jin summoned every single monster he had in his possession. He did not worry about the potential loss of monsters in this incoming guardian fight. The rewards offered by the system were far greater than any mission he had ever done before, making it a worthy investment.
**********
Completion of the mission will allow the User to earn the following:
Increase in current Store Rank.
License to build a store in the Dungeon Town Fortress.
Dungeon Town Fortress to be established as a "Defend the Fort" Emergency Raid Instance.
Ability to transfer customers to Dungeon Town Fortress in case of Monster Raids.
A Sum of 100,000 Dungeon Dollars
More details will be available upon completion.
**********
If what Moloch said was true and the results of the guardian fight was a measure of the resources they would be getting, Jin definitely would go all in.
"I"m ready," Jin said to Moloch and everyone behind them was nervous about what was going to take place. The man puppet brought the demon Minotaur plus.h.i.+e closer to the core and the plus.h.i.+e moved its hand to activate it.
A bright light shone from the core and a loud booming screech came from above. A tremendously menacing behemoth magically appeared from the ceiling and decided to crash itself into the crowd in front of the throne.
Jin saw what was coming and unhesitatingly unsummoned every monster as fast as he could, preventing the behemoth from destroying his "army" of monsters.
Unfortunately, the minotaurs that were not captured by Jin were completely obliterated and the impact from the crash sent almost everyone flying into the walls of the s.p.a.cious throne room.
Even the solid stone walls of the throne room were barely standing from the attack of the behemoth. It roared once more and the smoke that accompanied the crash was dispelled almost instantly.
It was then Jin was able to witness the looks and ferocity of the dungeon core guardian. It"s beautiful black stone skin. Its fangs that surprisingly complemented its bull head created a fantasy monster from Jin"s darkest nightmares. Its legs, both front and hind, had spikes attached, ready to be shot out at a moment"s notice to counter any attacks aimed at its legs.
Its defining feature though, was its metal like hair mane started from his head and grew all the way down its back. It looked like the bundle of steel hair had a will of its own as it pierced a dying Minotaur"s head, leaving nothing behind.
Jin had not felt such abyssal fear coming out from his heart ever.
"Holy cow…"
.
.