Chapter 392 Iddy (12)
The buildings of this city usually have no ceilings or walls.
Maybe it was because there is no need to cover from snow, rain, wind, or the sun.
Maybe it’s because wood and mud are precious.
In any case, buildings with walls and ceilings are rare in this city.
If you think of it as a home, it is your personal s.p.a.ce.
It was nothing more than a low stone wall.
But it wasn’t that there weren’t a lot of buildings in the right style.
It was the highest tower in the center of the city where the mother bodies of the highest rank lived.
The same was true of the (relatively) luxurious residential area that was centered around the tower.
Finally, there was the gigantic theater located in the heart of the city.
Apparently, in this city, walls and ceilings are regarded as symbols of wealth.
“Croak, it’s a big theater.”
“Yeah.”
A play was in full swing in the theater.
Because it was such a large theater, anyone with an interest could come in and watch the play at will.
Anyway, their level of civilization was considerably high.
There is popular culture, and the infrastructure for it has gained a high enough level for theatre.
After looking around for a while, I found a place where the mother bodies were gathered.
It was confirmed that several mother bodies were watching the play with their green eyes twinkling in the front row, which is the best place to watch the play.
I also found the target.
I should start working.
“Croak. Captain, that sounds like the story of Captain.”
“Huh?”
As Iddy pointed, I looked up at the stage of the theater.
On the stage, several Dombas were fighting bravely against a Dombas disguised as a human being.
Red and black, sinister patterns of wings hung on the back of their enemy, a ferocious human.
From gigantic sizes to jagged, sharp shapes.
It was an exaggerated version of Talaria’s wings.
“Croak.”
“Don’t laugh.”
On the stage, you could see the Dombas defeating the human and comically depicting that human’s defeat.
They are missing the point of course.
They’re making up a story that doesn’t exist, fabricating it.
“Let’s go.”
I led Iddy, who wanted to see more, and headed towards the theater exit.
“Croak, this was the first play I’ve ever seen. It was fun.”
It’s not fun.
Forget about that scam play.
It’s time to slowly rise.
As I was thinking about it, smoke began to rise from inside the theater.
Okay, now it’s time for the smoke to start.
These Dombas have no eyes and have a poor sense of smell.
So, even though I put a pile of oil-soaked cloth in the corner of the theater, no one really noticed.
Heaps of cloth were easy to obtain.
Clothing, including cloth and leather, was the representative item that the Dombas traded with the outside world.
Clothing seemed to be a popular and precious luxury to these monsters, who appear to be unable to eat, drink, or even reproduce properly.
I was able to find a warehouse with a large amount of fabric, and it was easy to steal using the inventory.
There was some oil I had bought on the 6th floor to burn down the dungeon.
Bang!
While the Dombas were confused after recognizing the heat and smoke belatedly, they knocked down the exit of the theater.
The pillars of the building built entirely of stone were really easy to break.
It wasn’t a poorly crafted pillar, but if they had the power to break a stone, it could be broken down.
A large pillar blocked the exit.
“Croak. It’s not completely blocked.”
“It’s okay.”
This building is made of solid stone.
It does not catch fire
The only heat and smoke now was from the burning oiled cloth.
In the meantime, rather than blocking the exit.
It would have been better if there was a hole that was difficult for one person to pa.s.s through.
There will be more deaths from monsters trying to get out through that hole than deaths from monsters burning.
“Croak, as expected, Captain is mean. “
Iddy said.
She said it as if it were a compliment.
In fact, for the Lizardman, being mean was never a good thing.
Rather, it was used in a more negative sense than humans.
It doesn’t matter if I’m mean.
The results are coming now.
It’s enough to win!
Is it so wrong to use a cheese rush* for a rookie who was about to debut?
Did I win?!
“Even shameless. Croak. It’s so shameless and mean, I think I’m going to fall in love with it. Croak.”
Noisy.
I won’t fall for that.
The confusion was growing.
The mother bodies and actors who were in the innermost part of the theater were rolling their feet in the place where the heat was felt the most.
They shouted over and over, but there were no Dombas to clear the way for them.
Everyone wanted to leave as quickly as possible.
Also, they are too well socialized.
If they were the Dombas on the 7th floor, of course, they would have evacuated the mothers first.
However, the Dombas on the 8th floor gave priority to living.
Individuals become wiser, but as a group they become duller.
“Go and come back.”
Multiple mothers were isolated in the panic.
Could there be better targets for this surprise attack?
“Croak. Are you okay?”
Iddy was worried.
Unfortunately, Iddy couldn’t get close to the heat.
It was a limitation of amphibians.
“It’s fine. I’m better than they are.”
It has already been confirmed through experiments how vulnerable the Dombas are to heat.
On the 6th floor, it was the opposite.
The skeleton soldiers were better than me,
I was about to die while trying to burn the entire dungeon.
“Croak, as expected, Captain seems a bit crazy.”
I screamed and hid among the chaos.
Hiding in the crowd, I slowly approached the mother bodies.
If all those mother bodies’ eyes were on me,
Then all of my limbs would probably be stiffened and I would be immediately subdued.
However,
“Kyaak!”
A sword was stabbed in the chest of a mother body who had been buried in the crowd.
Unfortunately, no one cared about the death.
I reentered the crowd
There was a mother body who bravely tried to put out the fire.
Dombas basically lacked the concept of extinguishment.
It was not a race that needed water, and it was not a sandy or earthy environment.
For them, fire was just something to avoid.
But that mother body was trying hard to put out even the slightest bit of flames, wielding its clothes.
I smashed its knee with a low kick and pushed it into the flames.
There was a mother body pushing another Dombas.
It didn’t seem to care that the Dombas were crammed back and forth.
I kicked the mother body’s hamstring.
Its legs were broken, and I grabbed the head of the mother body who had come down to its chest and twisted it.
It was so easy.
Dombas distinguish objects by hearing.
They have neither sight nor smell.
They are literally blind in this enclosed s.p.a.ce, distracted by screams.
The exit of the theater was noisy.
Looks like a rescue team came from outside.
The Dombas are running the city’s security forces.
There is also a border guard belonging to the entry office, so it was natural that there are soldiers for security.
And there were mother bodies among those soldiers.
Because the mother bodies themelves are powerful weapons.
Even among the soldiers who rushed to the front of the theater, the mother body could have been mixed in.
I had to quickly organize the remaining mother bodies in the theater and take care of the outside as well.
I hurriedly moved on.
* * *
“Found it! This way!”
We escaped the soldiers pursuing us and returned to our hideout.
As soon as I returned to the hideout, I found a wriggling Dombas.
The original owner of this house.
It is also our informant.
It was obviously tied to a pole, wriggling to see if the bindings were loose and trying to escape out of the house.
I’m sorry.
If we had arrived ten minutes late, it might have escaped.
The Dombas, who found me and Iddy, sighed.
“These… bad guys. Humans like you shouldn’t even be allowed to enter the city…! You crazy-eyeless b.a.s.t.a.r.ds!”
I hadn’t seen its face for half a day, and its mouth got rough.
I want to treat you kindly.
By the way, why are you using ‘crazy-eyeless b.a.s.t.a.r.d’ as a swear word?
They don’t have eyes.
My eyes are fine.
“Wicked b.a.s.t.a.r.ds! You!”
The Dombas groaned.
This Dombas is a guy I’m personally grateful for.
It taught me a lot.
About the position of the mothers.
About the number of soldiers.
Locations of major buildings, including theaters.
Locations of clothing warehouses.
The map.
It even showed how vulnerable to fire Dombas’ bodies are.
Anyone could tell that I was gathering information for the purpose of harming his people, but this poor monster confided everything before torture.
I suddenly had a thought.
The monsters on the 7th floor were primitive and savage.
But they wouldn’t have given me this information.
It was pitiful.
The ropes on its limbs were released.
“Ugh…!”
The Dombas trembled with a gust of wind as the ropes that had been fastened to its bones were released.
After a brief refreshment, the pain will come.
Before that, I stabbed the Dombas in the temple.
I clasped my fingers with magical power.
My fingers went in and out of his temple like an awl.
That ended the Dombas’ life.
The physical abilities of the Dombas were also incomparably weaker than those on the 7th floor.
As soon as I killed the Dombas, I heard footsteps outside.
I stopped breathing.
All you have to do is to not make a sound.
They have no eyes, and no sense of smell.
They simply perceive objects around them with their superhuman hearing.
The Dombas soldiers, who had been looking around for a long time, eventually returned without finding us.
Didn’t they think that instead of running away along the road, I would go into a house and hide?
“Croak.”
Iddy was close by.
We were close.
Iddy doesn’t look too uncomfortable
It was.
It was definitely something to be concerned about.
The gap was.
This gap was to my advantage.
Probably because my limbs are shorter.
Weapons are also shorter.
It was quite a dangerous gap for Iddy who has long limbs and uses a spear.
It is a position that I would never have given up if I were Iddy.
“Croak, it was a tiring day.”
As Iddy said, I was busy all day.
However, it was in a day that I could achieve all this.
[Number of mother bodies remaining: 17/36]
Killed nineteen mothers in one day.
They didn’t seem to even realize that our goal was not indiscriminate terrorism, but the a.s.sa.s.sination of the mother bodies.
Rather, the Dombas tried to find us by densely mixing the mother body among the soldiers.
Along with that, we also escaped against the soldiers with one or two mothers.
I wanted them to continue to misunderstand that using the mother bodies would be enough to deal with us.
Iddy was tired, but she looked happy.
Iddy knew that fighting fair and just like a warrior was a virtue.
But Iddy enthusiastically joined my plan without any complaints.
“Hey.”
I suddenly wondered.
Actually, I’ve been curious about it for a long time.
I just thought of asking.
“Croak?”
“Why do you like me?”
“Are you curious about that?”
Iddy chuckled and laughed.
“I like you because you’re handsome. Croak.”
“Bulls.h.i.t.”
Lizardmen and humans are so different in appearance, so to like them because they are handsome.
It was nonsense.
Iddy insisted it was real, but I ignored it.
“The handsome one is the biggest, but there are other reasons as well. Captain isn’t afraid of me. You’ve been like that since the first time I saw you. You were weaker than me back then, but still, you weren’t afraid of me.”
That is bulls.h.i.t again
I was stronger back then too.
“For us Lizardmen, strength is a virtue. But in the eyes of my people, I am not a strong warrior, but an abomination and was feared.”
Iddy looked me in the eye and said.
“They saw me as a monster that they couldn’t handle because I was too strong. After wandering around the tribe, I got used to those kinds of eyes at some point. Being treated as a monster. Everyone was like that. But Captain was different.”
When I first met Iddy on the 5th floor.
I remember the conversation we had back then.
When I praised her for being a strong warrior, seeing Iddy who was remarkably pleased, I thought that she was a very simple Lizardman.
“Croak, of course, Captain was only looking at me as an enemy to kill. Even that was comforting to me. Croak. It’s something I said, but it’s strange. Do you understand?”
I understood.
I could sympathize a little bit.
Maybe it’s because I’ve had a similar experience.
The second day of the dialogue meeting was war.
At the time, I was stuck on the 6th floor, and I did not interfere with the complicated commotion in the community.
Because I didn’t have time or s.p.a.ce for that.
It was they themselves who decided.
I do not know.
Why did they make that choice despite seeing my strength in the first meeting?
Did they think that they had grown up and caught up with me?
Did they think that I was isolated on the 6th floor and stagnated?
Or did they just think that they could win with a difference in numbers?
I was not taken aback by their misunderstanding.
I wasn’t even angry.
Rather, it seemed a little refreshing.
To use my power against a human, not a skeleton.
Just like a person who ate only rice every day, finally eating noodles and feeling like it was a special meal.
It just felt so refreshing and enjoyable.
When I came to my senses,
The people who stood by and watched the war from afar.
It was time to meet their eyes.
After meeting those eyes, I was like, ‘Oh, smashing the head doesn’t make the skulls fragment, but the brain explodes?’ As I was ecstatic, I thought that something was wrong with this.
From then on, I felt that gaze.
I thought that it wasn’t that I made any mistakes or wrongdoings, but that I had changed in a strange and terrifying way.
Am I wrong?
Could it be that I am going the wrong way?
I thought so.
But I could only see one way.
I couldn’t see any other way than the one I’m walking on to survive and to be strong.
“Croak, the eyes of others are always dangerous to an isolated person.”
Iddy replied.
What did I say?
Ah, yes, I must have muttered my heart out again.
I am aware that I mutter to myself.
Sometimes my mouth is moving alone, so I realize later that if I want something, I’m just muttering my thoughts.
What did I say to Iddy?
I do not know.
“You said that the eyes of people you’ve met before follow you. Croak.”
.
.
.
It was silent.
By the time the silence lasted as long as my average sleep duration, Iddy spoke again.
“Thank you, Captain.”
It was out of the blue.
“What?”
“Croak, I’ve always been alone. My memories of the past are erased, but maybe I was alone even when I didn’t remember. So I’m happy now. So thank you.”
I thought quietly.
Although Iddy didn’t remember.
I thought that there must have been someone by Iddy’s side.
If it’s for Iddy, who is laughing at her embarra.s.sing words.
Even if she doesn’t remember.
There must have been someone, I thought there was.
* * *
I looked at the tower that stood tall over the city.
When I first saw it, I thought it was a fairly high tower, but the view of the tower I see now has a very different atmosphere.
Probably because everything in the city has collapsed except for the tower.
“Croak, croak, the city has collapsed. It’s awful, Captain.”
That’s my strength too.
When I do things, I do it very well.
“Croak, are there now four remaining mother bodies left?”
“Five.”
[Number of mother bodies remaining: 5/36]
All the remaining mother bodies were on that tower.
Five.
In the worst case, I thought that more than ten mothers could gather in one place and fight.
Five was a very good result.
“Croak, what now?”
“What now, what? You have to do it with your body.”
Including the limbs and tails of me and Iddy, there were nine in total.
There are five mothers to deal with.
It is a fight by sealing 5/9 of the limbs and tail.
It was incredibly difficult
s.h.i.t, I’m the one who picked the h.e.l.l difficulty, and I have to do something about it.
What can i do
As I was about to run towards the tower, a portal suddenly opened.
[The Day of Dialogue has begun. Please enter.]
[Time remaining until forced entry: 23:59:59]
Uh, was today the day of the dialogue agreement?
I knew there wasn’t much time left.
When I checked the message window, Kim Min-hyuk’s messages were pushed behind a lot.
No wonder.
I was able to clear the 8th floor by attacking the tower within 24 hours and partic.i.p.ating in the conversation, and I was able to easily go to the conversation and clear the 8th floor.
There was no problem because the stage time was stopped while partic.i.p.ating in the conversation.
“Croak, I think you must go.”
I had to go.
On the day of the dialogue agreement, there is a forced entry function.
Over time, everyone would come back if they were called in.
No wonder.
[Lee Ho-jae, 8th floor: Hey, are you busy?]
[Kim Min-hyuk, 16th floor: Brother! Why are you contacting me now!]
My t.i.tle was changed to Brother.
[Lee Ho-jae, 8th floor: Why.]
[Kim Min-hyuk, 16th floor: Hurry up! it’s really over when you come. Right now, we’re evenly matched, so if you come, they will immediately surrender.]
It seemed that it would be better to go quickly.
Unlike last time, Kim Min-hyuk and Park Jung-ah did a good job, so I thought it would be less troublesome.
If you try to attack that tower, and 24 hours have pa.s.sed and you are forced to enter, you will lose steam.
I looked to the side and saw Iddy gurgling and fiddling with her tail.
Her tail is so long that it comes up to the chest of that giant.
“Let’s go together.”
“Croak.”
Iddy widened her eyes.
“Didn’t you say it was a place of harmony where humans gather. If you take a monster like me, everyone will be afraid.”
She was worrying about everything
I could tell with a smile.
“It’s okay, actually, it still is.”
I thought that adding one monster would make two monsters, but there would be no difference.
Iddy groaned.
It was a lively Croak quite different from the dull Croak before.
“If Captain is okay, I’m okay.”
I climbed onto the portal with Iddy.
The portal was activated, and a bright light flashed from the dark underground city that had fallen into ruins.
[The G.o.d of Adventure is moved to tears.]
[The G.o.d of Dedication is happy.]
[The G.o.d of Light is bored.]
[The G.o.d of Duel looks at you with displeased eyes.]
[The G.o.d of the Sky watches over you.]
[The G.o.d of Slowness… … .]
Note:
*) Cheese Rush, a Starcraft strategy term.