Leaf grabbed a hand axe.
"Shut up and do as I say, you damn cowards. You don't know a thing. In the world of adventurers, once you get looked down on, it's over. You clear a dungeon but then another party shows up and you tuck your tail and run? Ha. I'd rather bury you bastards myself than watch you live like that."
"You son of a bitch…!"
One-eye grabbed a spear. It was a critical moment. Their companions, apparently unable to watch the fight escalate any further, began restraining the two of them. Leaf thrashed around, yelling for them to let him go. It took five or six people rushing in before the situation was finally brought under control.
"Hey, hey, what's the point of fighting each other?!"
"Wouldn't it be just great if those bastards showed up right now while we're at it."
"Danep, hold it in. Huh? What good does fighting do us?"
On the surface, it looked like an internal dispute had broken out.
I was on edge.
'Damn it, a bunch of Level 3 and Level 2 nobodies…'
Secretly, I was hoping the infighting would escalate. Here was the plan: the news that a twenty-five-person party was coming would terrify them into fleeing. They were adventurers in name, but plunderers at heart—there was no way they'd let those carrying gold slip by quietly.
That was when I, the Demon Lord, would serve as bait. There was a bounty on my head. "When the adventurer party is distracted by me, you all run"—that was the bluster I'd feed them. That was the strategy for surviving in peace… but the mental states of those two as displayed on the Status Window were nothing at all like their outward behavior.
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Name: Leaf
Race: Human Affiliation: Jalsen Village
Alignment: Neutral (-15)
Level: 3 Renown: 2
Class: Lumberjack (B), Farmer (D), Adventurer (F)
Leadership: 15 Might: 30 Intelligence: 4
Politics: 2 Charm: 6 Skill: 21
Affinity: 21
Current Mindset: 'Damn, there's no way I can beat twenty-five of them. I need to run, but if I bump into those guys on the way, I'm screwed. Split the party into three….'
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Name: Danef
Race: Human Affiliation: Jalsen Village
Alignment: Neutral (-10)
Level: 2 Renown: 1
Class: Farmer (C), Adventurer (F)
Leadership: 10 Might: 22 Intelligence: 6
Politics: 4 Charm: 11 Skill: 5
Affinity: 20
Current Mindset: 'It's unfortunate, but someone has to be sacrificed.'
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……It was astonishing. The two of them were planning with more composure than anyone else.
There were exactly three paths leading from the dungeon entrance to the Demon Lord's chamber. They believed the enemy was approaching from one of those three routes. Even if they ran, bad luck could put them face-to-face with an enemy squad. They would certainly be wiped out.
Then let's split the party into three.
Divide the fifteen into groups of five, and each group would use a different passage to escape the dungeon. One group would run into the enemy. The other two groups could 'definitely' survive. Leaf and One-Eye had devised, in the blink of an eye, the method that would save the most people as safely as possible in this situation.
The two of them orchestrated this entire situation without exchanging a single word, communicating only through glances. If the Status Window hadn't displayed their psychological states, I probably would have been completely fooled too. I let out a silent sigh.
'Why the hell are the NPCs in this tutorial so damn smart!'
If this were an actual game, these would have been low-level adventurers who'd die in a single clubbing from a monster. But was this place really that different from reality? They possessed life experience that stats alone could never convey. They were guileless and naive enough to fall for my acting, cruel enough to fire arrows without hesitation, and composed enough to calmly calculate their odds in a crisis. They displayed such a diverse range of traits that calling them artificial intelligence felt like a stretch.
'Damn it, my foot is throbbing for no reason.'
Pain radiated from my right foot. Could I really survive this place?
I shook my head. The opponents were only slightly smarter than I'd expected. There was nothing hopeless yet. No, if anything, having the fifteen-person squad split apart was actually a good thing. A blessing in disguise, you might say.
Leaf and One-Eye had already stopped fighting. As though a brilliant idea had just struck them, Leaf proposed dividing the fifteen into groups of five. At first, people murmured amongst themselves at the logic that someone would have to be sacrificed. But once it became clear that Leaf's plan was the best option, they nodded in agreement.
"Besides, I don't ever want to travel with a coward like that again."
Leaf shot a mocking sneer toward One-Eye. One-Eye bristled, but the others around him quickly restrained him, so things didn't escalate further. In the midst of all this, alliances among the group naturally began to form.
I'd harbored a faint hope that they might just leave me behind with my injured right foot slowing their march, but it seemed they had no intention of giving up the bounty on my head. When I checked through the Status Window, I discovered that there was a staggering 10,000 Gold bounty on me for capture alive. Damn it, I had no idea why someone like me warranted such a sum.
"You sons of bitches, die already! It's the only way we survive."
"You're the ones who should drop dead."
The adventurers snickered as they parted ways. They followed their respective group leaders and scattered into different passages. I ended up dragged along with One-Eye's group. One-Eye's squad had been assigned the passage that led fastest to the entrance, simply because they'd been stuck with me, the deadweight. As a burly adventurer hoisted me onto his back and carried me along, I silently stared at the <Monster Hiring Window>.
"……."
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[Unit Name] [HP] [ATK] [DEF] [Hiring Cost]
-Slime 2 2 2 70 Gold
-Low-grade Fairy 4 3 2 160 Gold
-Goblin 4 4 4 250 Gold
-Low-grade Golem 7 5 5 400 Gold
[Gold on hand: 511 Gold]
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I hesitated for a moment. If I hired monsters like this, it would truly come down to either the adventurers dying or me dying — a choice between two evils. Failure meant death. There was no other strategy. Wouldn't it be better to win the sympathy of these simple men and survive that way? Wasn't there a best-case scenario where neither they nor I had to die?
No.
I coldly selected the Low-grade Golem. It was the strongest card I could pick with the money I had. It was easily twice as strong as One-eye, the toughest monster in this lineup. Shortly after, a hologram popped up asking, "Would you like to hire the Low-grade Golem?"
'Hire.'
"You have hired the Low-grade Golem!"
"Would you like to summon the Low-grade Golem?"
They had attacked me first. I was not merciful enough to forgive that. Of course, in reality, I had been a foolish human. I spent all day addicted to games and considered myself trash. But this was not reality. It was the world of a game — the world of Dungeon Attack.
I was the sovereign of Dungeon Attack.
Though I had become Demon Lord Dantalion rather than the Hero Lolita, I was without question the one and only hero who had conquered the Great Demon Lord's Castle and stacked the highest stats in history. In reality, I had been trash. But being trash even inside a game — I had never once tolerated that. That was my pride as a 'player.'
'The sovereign does not spare those who stand against him!'
They had merely acted according to the game's scenario. That much could be used as an excuse. But wasn't I the same? Striking down those despicable humans who had invaded the dungeon according to the settings given to 'Demon Lord Dantalion' — wasn't that also part of the game's scenario?
"No way they'd come toward us, right?"
"Tch, are we really going to be that unlucky?"
"If by some chance we run into one, listen here. Let's just hand over all the gold. No matter how precious money is, it can't be more important than our lives. If we even hand over the Demon Lord, they'll probably spare us."
They hadn't prepared a single thing for combat. To be thinking about surrender before a fight even broke out — there was no better opportunity than this. I bit down as hard as I could on the ear of the man carrying me. In an instant, his ear was torn clean off.
"Aaaargh!"
The man screamed. At the same time, my body was thrown free. Without even a chance to use any kind of landing technique, I tumbled across the ground. My head rattled from the impact, as though I'd been struck hard by a fist. I could hear the adventurers in a panic.
"Jack? What the — what happened?"
"Gah, graaargh! That bastard, that bastard bit my ear…!"
While they still hadn't fully grasped the situation, I screamed like I was tearing my throat out.
"Low-grade golem—summon!"
The cave was flooded with violet light. In an instant, a geometric pattern was drawn on the floor. Light poured from it. A mild tremor shook the ground, and then, along with the light, something enormous squeezed through the pattern. It was a forearm made of brown rock. The stone hand gripped the earth, and the golem burst out as if clawing its way up from a pit of hell.
— Kuuuuhhhh!
The golem roared. It was celebrating its escape from that stuffy underground. The monster's emotions were transmitted directly to me. It was yearning for a battlefield worthy of its debut. It was shouting that, on my command, it would gladly tear those insignificant humans apart.
This is a monster!
Is this the Demon Lord's power?
Heat bubbled through my entire body. A voice in the corner of my head warned me to regain my composure. But I ignored it. Now was the time to give in to the excitement. I shouted at the golem's back.
"Crush them! Smash them to bits!"
Before I could even finish the sentence, the golem swung its arm. Its target was the nearest Cyclops. If I killed the only veteran among them, my worries would disappear. The Cyclops, startled, leaped sideways. Not a bad reaction speed. But it was foolish. If it had flattened itself against the ground, it might have dodged. The golem's thick stone fist smashed directly into the airborne Cyclops. With a short scream, the Cyclops was sent flying. It flew over three meters before its head happened to slam into a cave stalactite. The sound of bones shattering was audible.
— Kuurruuuaa!
The golem was pleased that it had fulfilled its first command. The quiet dungeon air was violently shaken. Before I could even think of the next command, the golem stomped on the man lying on the floor—the one whose ear I had ripped off. The human body was tougher than it looked. The man didn't get squashed; instead, he just kept letting out horrific screams. I could feel the golem's anger.
It was like the unpleasant feeling of stepping on an ant that won't die. The golem lifted its leg high and stomped down five or six times with great force. The screams stopped around the fourth kick. On the stone golem's foot was smeared with pale, milky brain matter. It was a sight that called for cursing, yet for some reason, my body was flushed with elation.
"Aaaargh!"
A hoarse scream echoed. I turned my gaze and saw one adventurer fleeing in terror. Facing an opponent they weren't even sure they could defeat together, one of his comrades had run away in cowardice.
"Shit! Don't run!"
"That son of a bitch tricked us! Goddammit, Danef!"
The remaining two fell into formation, forming a defensive stance. The golem sneered. That sneer was contagious, reaching even me. Their last-ditch effort was clumsily executed. Besides, one of the two was an archer. He had no shield, and his armor was pathetic.
"Target the weakest one first!"
My monster faithfully carried out the command. The golem struck the archer with a slow but heavy fist. The archer leapt aside on pure instinct. The fist grazed past him by a hair's breadth.
"Heh, dodged the—"
But he hadn't considered the fact that the golem had two arms. The moment the archer turned his head in smug triumph, the golem's left fist slammed into his face. The archer's features caved in grotesquely. He flopped backward onto the ground.
Now for the last one.
"Gyaaah, gyaaaah!"
The adventurer gripped his spear and charged at the golem. The blunt tip jabbed into the golem's elbow joint. Perhaps he believed that was a weak point. A hologram popped up — the golem's HP had dropped by 1. Fighting that hard from a place of sheer terror was genuinely praiseworthy. But that was all. Being nipped at by something as insignificant as an ant had enraged the golem to its core, and it began flailing both arms and both legs wildly. The adventurer dodged the fists desperately, but a kick caught him square and shattered his spine. As he lay groaning on the cave floor, the golem didn't hesitate to drive its fist down like a hammer.
"Hah, hah…"
My ragged breathing echoed through the cave. Beyond that, everything was silent. The golem stood motionless, awaiting its next command. The first battle I'd faced since falling into this world ended just like that — anticlimactically.
"Heh… hehaha."
How pathetic.
The golem was powerful. But it was slow. They would have been far better off targeting me instead of the golem. If they'd taken me hostage, the golem would have had no choice but to stop attacking. Such a simple fact, and yet the adventurers had forgotten it. Probably because the one-eyed veteran in the front had been killed so senselessly at the start, and they simply couldn't imagine a monster being summoned.
I stared at the golem and muttered.
"It's not… it's not over yet."
I had seen the capabilities of those F-rank adventurers. They were far too skilled to be dismissed as merely F-rank. I didn't know when I'd escape this godforsaken world, but stronger adventurers would definitely come raiding the dungeon going forward. E-rank, D-rank, and someday even A-rank adventurers would come knocking.
I had to fortify thoroughly. I needed to hire a monster army, install all manner of traps throughout the dungeon. That required money. A lot of money! I couldn't just let the initial funding of 1,000 gold be stolen away like that. I had to reclaim the funds the other teams had taken.
"Dungeon Map."
A holographic dungeon map materialized before my eyes. The semi-transparent display showed the adventurers as red dots. Among them was the one who had fled earlier. He was sprinting toward the dungeon entrance at full speed. I'd let that one go. I couldn't catch him anyway.
But there was no reason to let the others slip away too.
I searched the adventurers' corpses and collected every last gold coin. From now on, money was my lifeline. I felt a strangely exhilarated rush of emotion — though for some reason I felt no need to rein it in — and ordered the golem to carry me on its back. The golem hoisted me onto its shoulder with ease.
My view opened up. I ordered the golem to move toward the path the remaining adventurers were heading for. The golem's heavy footsteps reverberated faintly through the cave.