"Gremory.... Sigh, Master’s gonna have a lot to say about this if he finds out."

Shaitan covered her face with her hand after witnessing the carnage Gremory had wrought. True to her word about fighting like a demon, Gremory’s combat style was exactly that.

Weak but high-HP monsters thrown out as meat shields, those shields forming a defensive line, and then Gremory dropping massive spells behind them.

This was the fighting style Gremory had always loved and the tactic she was best at, but it required the premise of sacrificing her wall of subordinates wholesale.

"Master would flip out if he knew."

"Actually, wouldn’t it be the opposite? If he knew what kind of monsters she’s using as walls, I think he’d be thrilled."

"Lune, you’re up?"

Lune, who’d blacked out inside Flauros’s dungeon, had apparently taken a quick wash and tidied up her clothes. Shaitan handed her a coat and asked.

"You’re saying Master would approve of Gremory’s brutality?"

"It’s not really brutality, more like efficiency. The jokamel species isn’t exactly one Master’s fond of either."

"Because he stuck it in Gremory once?"

"Pretty much. But why do you think Gremory went out of her way to resurrect them? It’s kind of like... cutting ties with the past, don’t you think?"

"...She sure does it in style. Can’t deny it’s effective, though."

Gremory’s tactic of sacrificing her old subordinates was bold and cruel—the kind of thing Shaitan herself could never bring herself to copy. Truly demonic, through and through.

"It’s similar to Halphas’s tactics. Except she doesn’t bother with the resurrection part."

"Meat shields.... I wonder how Master will take this. Anyway, let’s bring it up with him right now. Lune, once you cross through the portal and link up with the main force, fill him in on how Gremory tore apart the enemy’s vanguard."

"Got it. What about you, sis?"

"I need to focus on this side."

Shaitan pointed at Flauros, whose branches were shaking like leaves. Whatever had her so anxious, Flauros had pulled her main body out of the trunk and was fidgeting all over the place.

Glurrb.

"Don’t worry, Flauros. The Flame Panteras will handle things."

"Uh... which dungeon are we attacking from this end?"

"The 59th, Orias. All three dungeons are pulling uprisings against targets ranked above them. Master, Gremory, and Flauros are each commanding one front. I’m assisting on Flauros’s side."

"So basically you’re the one holding the baton here?"

"...Basically, yes."

Flauros had handed full authority over to Shaitan. Unlike the other two leaders who could move around freely, being a tentacle tree at her core meant she was great at defense but naturally weak on offense.

"Using Flauros for a siege is a tough sell. But thanks to Master’s mercy, the Flare Panteras and the flame beastman tribes are still alive and kicking, and they’ve built up into a force of their own. They refused the demon elixir’s effects, but they’ve gotten plenty strong regardless."

Shaitan pointed at the leopard beastmen lined up around Flauros. They were already lighting the flames on their heads, eager to hunt.

"Let’s begin, everyone. It’s time to repay Master’s mercy."

"As ordered!"

The former Flauros, Agni, led the leopard beastmen sprinting toward the dungeon’s entrance. Shaitan sent reinforcements behind them and monitored the battlefield.

Rok (63rd) vs. Hagenti (48th).

Gremory (56th) vs. Allocen (52nd).

Flauros (64th) vs. Orias (59th).

The rank gap on one front was pretty extreme, but Rok’s forces had already beaten the 38th-ranked Halphas. Those forces were now split three ways, sure, but even during the Halphas raid, the Legion of Wrath hadn’t gone all-out.

"Non-divine power units. ...You could call this a fight between monsters and monsters alone. Lune. One more favor on your way out."

"What is it?"

Lune, wrapped up snug in her black robe, stopped just as she was about to step through the portal.

"Please ask Master to hold onto Hagenti’s name for a while. Tell him not to convert it into a sub-dungeon, and to wait until I get there."

"That’s not hard, but... what are you thinking?"

"A name change."

Shaitan studied the Solomon 72 dungeon list—visible only to her—from top to bottom, then nodded.

"I’m planning to move Master’s rank. Way up."

***

[Rok, Hagenti Front.]

"Damn, this guy’s a tough nut. How do you just sit there and not move a muscle while we build fortifications?"

I’d already thought something was off when the portal flipped and not a single attack came through. But it was seriously weird that we were openly using ghouls to build a bunker at the entrance and still getting zero pushback.

"If this is the case, it’s one of two things."

"Which are?"

"Hagenti’s either a hopeless coward, or he’s in a situation where he can’t spare any troops."

I doubted he was dumb enough to just sit there thinking he could smash our bunker in one shot, so common sense pointed more toward the latter.

"One lone minotaur at the entrance? If he was planning to attack our dungeon, he should’ve had dozens more. Somebody else got here before us."

"You mean... adventurers? Or maybe somebody else lost a Seizure Battle against him?"

"Could be."

Just like how Halphas slapped me with a Seizure Battle the second I cleared Vapula’s dungeon, the timing might have lined up by sheer coincidence. Which basically meant Hagenti had been through some kind of fight—big or small—that kept him from sending troops our way.

"Luna. What do you think? Any signs of combat? I’m not seeing anything on my end."

"Me neither. There aren’t even footprints. Are we sure this is actually Hagenti’s dungeon?"

"Portals don’t lie. If Solomon’s system pointed us here, this is Hagenti’s dungeon."

So why was nobody home? To find that answer, we’d have to push through the pitch-black darkness ahead. For all we knew, Hagenti could be sitting just beyond it.

"The problem is this forking path."

Dead ends or traps. No matter how nasty the layout was, the portal was always connected to the deepest point—where the summoning facility sat—by a single route.

"Forget it. Let’s fire a shot."

I walked up behind Luna and rubbed her belly. Luna let out a dry laugh and took a deep breath.

"Luna Cannon!"

A laser in the shape of a stigmata fired from Luna’s lower belly. The moonlight cutting through the darkness lit up the left corridor for a split second.

"Whoa, that’s a whole wall of traps."

There was no floor. Instead, razor-sharp spikes jutted out like stepping stones, positioned to skewer anyone who set foot there.

"Dungeons usually have traps like that, sure. But did he actually set these up expecting someone to fall for them?"

"It’s insanely dark in here. Unless you’ve got night vision, you’re getting nailed for sure."

Luna was right—Hagenti’s dungeon was absurdly dark. The luminescent stones you’d normally find in any dungeon were so scarce it was almost suspicious.

"And did you hear that? The Luna Cannon hit a wall. That path’s a dead end."

"So we go right?"

"Not yet. Fire one down the right side too."

I turned Luna to the right and gave her belly a tap. Luna let out another dry laugh and braced her core.

Whooooom--!

Silver light laced with divine power lit up the right path. Luckily, the right side was clear and open.

"This is seriously pissing me off."

The stalactites I’d caught a brief glimpse of on the right-side ceiling made my blood boil.

"Is this guy a freakin’ trap master?! Even a little kid wouldn’t build a map this janky!!"

"Keep it down. He set his dungeon up like this to mess with our heads."

"Right. Phew. Getting mad about stuff like this means I lose. Damn it, Hagenti’s gotta be sitting way in the back watching us squirm. Laughing about it too, like ’Try getting past the traps I made!’ Like hell that’s how this goes."

Traps set up with the intention to kill were best enjoyed when you rendered them completely useless. And I happened to be a guy who’d already mastered that approach.

"Lime! Starting the job right now!"

Glub.

Lime, who’d been clinging to my back, stepped up to the fork in the path. And from behind the Cookie Elves standing four abreast, a mass of shadows wriggled forward and lined up next to Lime.

Ten Slime Dragons.

On top of the original Unit 5, I’d forced their numbers up through monster synthesis. The OG slimes that had been around since the magic stone summoning gacha days—the ones who’d helped lay the foundation of our dungeon—had all evolved into Slime Dragons at this point. Kind of emotional, honestly.

"Let’s show Hagenti what our legion’s made of. Lime, you want left or right?"

I left the direction call to my crew boss. Lime stood still for a second, then raised her hand and gave Luna’s chest a big shake.

"Eek?! What the heck are you doing?!"

Glub.

Lime twisted Luna’s chest side to side, then pushed them together in the center. I didn’t really get what that was supposed to mean.

"If Lune were here she’d know right away. Tch, shame."

"Someone call for me?"

"Perfect timing. Lune, translate for me."

Lune showed up, saw Lime fondling Luna’s chest, and went blank for a second. But she quickly got serious and listened to what Lime was saying, then pointed in one direction.

"That way."

"...Lime’s a genius, I swear."

Our household slime might legit be some kind of prodigy.

***

Hagenti.

The owner of the 48th-ranked dungeon—a winged minotaur clad in golden armor—lounged on his gaudy throne and lazily opened his system window.

"These lunatics. They open the portal and don’t show their faces for three whole days."

When he first heard that the 63rd had challenged him to a Seizure Battle, Hagenti spewed every foul word in the book. Where does some bottom-feeder 63rd get off challenging him, a 48th?

But as the days dragged on, Hagenti’s arrogance slowly morphed into doubt and worry.

’Logically speaking, does picking a fight with me even make sense?’

He prided himself on being a perfectly ordinary demon, so he could only arrive at perfectly ordinary conclusions. Nothing else could explain the rationale behind what was essentially a suicide-run uprising.

Day one: "Are you kidding me? Is this one of those things where a legion sends its grunts out to pick fights above their weight class? That whole expeditionary force thing I’ve heard about?"

Day two: "Huh? They pick the fight and then duke it out with adventurers and heroes at the entrance? Then all I gotta do is sit back and backstab?"

Day three: "These idiots opened the wrong portal! They thought 58th was 48th! Yeah, that’s gotta be it!"

Day four, when the portal flipped and counterattack was possible: "Wait—are they trying to get me antsy so I walk into their dungeon and get eaten? Heh, nice try!"

And then day five.

The second the portal went bidirectional, the scout minotaur he’d left at the entrance got pounded into mush. The first guest was an orc in a black robe carrying a hammer, and the flood of enemies behind him made Hagenti pull every last troop to the rear.

"I knew it! The higher-ups sent them! Where’d they even find this many dark elves?!"

Forty-one dark elves entered the dungeon, all wearing matching outfits. Every one of them looked like a seasoned hunter, and Hagenti had no choice but to put his faith in the dungeon traps he’d so meticulously crafted.

"Whittle them down as much as possible, then fight!"

If his dungeon had 10 rooms, about 8 of them were nothing but traps. Even the corridors connecting the rooms were crammed with them.

Walk through a spike floor only to find a dead end.

Stroll down a corridor and catch a barbed spear dropping from between the stalactites.

Ghouls hiding underground grabbing the ankles of anyone walking overhead and smearing poison on them.

Rooms lined with hidden magic barriers that siphon mana from anyone who walks in.

His maze-like dungeon was an impregnable fortress that nobody had ever cracked. Every demon who’d ever tried an uprising against him had died without ever laying eyes on Hagenti’s face.

"You won’t be any different. ...Huh?"

Crunch, crunch.

Hagenti perked up at a strange sound coming through his system. He shared the vision of some monsters he’d hidden near the corridor for ambushes, and what unfolded before him was genuinely shocking.

"They’re... eating the walls?"

Crunch, crunch.

Ten red Slime Dragons were gnawing on the walls. The wall between the two forking paths. They were eating right through it.

The enemy forces were literally chewing their way through the fork.

"These, these absolute psychos! That’s not how this works!!!"

Hagenti shot up from his throne. And just then, from one of his trap rooms, a goblin and the black-robed orc locked eyes.

Grin.

The orc flashed a savage smile and mouthed something. Hagenti snatched up the golden double-bladed axe sitting beside his throne.

"That’s it!! I’m killing that bastard myself and taking every last one of those elf chicks! Whoever brings me that orc’s head gets five dark elves!!"

"""GRAAAAAHHH!!"""

The monsters packing the throne room erupted in a war cry at Hagenti’s shout.

"What’d you just say to him?"

"Oh. Just asked after Hagenti’s parents."

It was a string of ’yo mama’ jokes worthy of a Comedy Central Roast, too filthy to say out loud, so I’d used ventriloquism to deliver them.