The ceiling was collapsing. Beyond just dirt and sand pouring down like dust, fist-sized rocks were sharpening into points and falling to the ground.

"GROOAR!"

The minotaurs hurriedly swung their weapons up to deflect the falling stones. Some of the boulders rolling down were even bigger than the minotaurs’ heads. Hagenti raised his corpse-shield to block a boulder falling toward the top of his head.

And the enemy didn’t miss that opening.

Thwip thwip!

Holes punched through Hagenti’s thigh. The muscle was too thick for them to leave deep wounds, but the wind arrows the cookie elves shot were like heated needles, lodging in his thigh and creating holes.

If even Hagenti was in that state, the other minotaurs weren’t doing much better.

PSSHHT!

A minotaur with wind holes punched all over his body sprayed fountains of blood in every direction and toppled backward. One minotaur lifted up a dead comrade to protect himself and stay alive, but the cookie elves uncannily threaded wind arrows through the existing holes and sniped the minotaur behind the shield.

As if that weren’t enough, the rocks falling from the ceiling gradually became sharper rock fragments, then took the form of sharp stalactites, raining down on the minotaurs.

THUNK!

"GROAARR!"

A minotaur with a stalactite stuck in his shoulder roared in agony. His eyes turned bright red and he started raging, charging forward like a bull that had broken free.

"Concentrated fire!"

The moment the elf queen’s order came down, the cookie elves shot arrows at the entire body of the charging minotaur. As 40 arrows planted themselves into the minotaur one after another, the enraged bull-headed giant rolled his eyes back and pitched forward.

And the collapsing ceiling came down on everything below it, not bothering to distinguish between the dead and the living.

Crunch, crunch.

"DAMN IT!"

Hagenti let out a roar at his subordinates getting turned into bloody pulp and lowered his stance.

"Hold your shields at an angle! Fall back!"

Holding his shield at an angle to block both the front and above at the same time, Hagenti retreated in a duck walk. The minotaurs, the moment the retreat order came down, tried to dash back across the line as fast as they could.

But they had already taken a lot of wounds. The elves had relentlessly targeted the minotaurs’ lower bodies, and they all had leg wounds and couldn’t run quickly.

"Damn it, hurry up and cross over! You’re not pigs, why are you so slow?!"

Hagenti pushed his subordinates. When a subordinate dragging one leg as he crawled blocked his path, Hagenti grabbed the subordinate’s horn and twisted.

"Move!"

"Grooar?!"

Apparently never imagining in his wildest dreams that his master would discard him, the minotaur fell backward with a face full of shock. Hagenti snorted and pushed forward.

"You bastards! I’ll resurrect you even if you die!"

"!!"

The minotaur trembled with betrayal but swallowed his bitterness. If he let out a curse in the heat of the moment, the petty Hagenti might not bring him back.

"Grooar..."

The minotaur shed bloody tears as he was crushed under stalactites. As Hagenti pushed past his subordinates and ran forward, he saw the line in front of him. More than half the minotaurs had crossed the line and were panting.

"Just a little more..."

Pheww.

His left heel felt strange. It stung like it had been grazed by hot fire. At first he thought it was just from a stalactite, but something had flown in and pierced through Hagenti’s heel.

"Hee hee."

The high elf in the orc’s arms stuck her tongue out at Hagenti and waved her bow. The first shot from the high elf, who hadn’t fired her bow once until now, had pierced Hagenti’s Achilles tendon precisely.

THUD!

Hagenti dropped to his left knee. Not by choice. He’d lost so much strength that he was forced down.

"Y-you...!"

But Hagenti still had one good foot. Without one leg it would look unsightly, but he could just hop along on the other one. Hagenti planted his arms on the ground and pushed forward.

"Just have to cross the line..."

Squelch.

This time the sensation in his right sole felt off. He’d definitely stepped on the ground, but it didn’t feel like ground.

Plop.

Something dropped onto Hagenti’s head. When he looked up, on the ceiling were red slimes with their mouths gaping open, spitting out their fluids.

"Th-those...!"

Only now realizing that the culprits behind the collapsing ceiling were slimes, Hagenti swung his arms to grab them. But the enraged bull had already lost his judgment.

Slip.

The sole of his foot, coated with the slime’s viscous goo, was incredibly slippery. Hagenti flailed both arms and pitched forward.

"Whoaaaa!"

WHAM!

A massive several-meter body kissed the ground. Hagenti, having slammed his face directly into the ground, broke his nose, but he started crawling toward the line he could see.

"The line, I have to cross the line..."

"Hagenti. You foolish cow-head."

In that moment, an unbearably hateful voice came drifting softly from behind.

"Just like you crossed the line, I crossed it too."

Rumble rumble rumble.

The ceiling beyond the line the orc had drawn started shaking. Hagenti realized he’d been deceived. The work had been done on the ceiling much further out than the line drawn on the ground.

"You trash!"

Hagenti raged and crawled along the floor on his belly. His magnificent golden armor scraped against the ground, the gold plating starting to peel off the iron beneath. Hagenti scattered gold dust on the ground as he crossed the line.

"Y-you bastards! Catch me! Catch me!"

Hagenti reached out toward the minotaurs. The subordinates at the rear had turned and fled the moment the ceiling started collapsing and weren’t even injured.

"..."

But the minotaur subordinates were hesitating, sending complicated looks his way. The ceiling was collapsing, and they knew they had to save Hagenti, their dungeon master, but his earlier behavior made them reluctant.

"You’re scared of being abandoned, aren’t you. Watching him discard his subordinates and struggle to save only himself."

"Shut up! You bastards, hurry up and grab me! That’s an order! Otherwise how am I going to revive the ones who already died?!"

At Hagenti’s shouting, a few subordinates ran toward him with twisted expressions. But another line appeared in front of them.

Thwip thwip thwip.

"Cross that line and we shoot. Pitiful minotaurs. I cannot help but be appalled by the disgraceful behavior of your master."

The orc raised his voice, sneering at Hagenti.

"I will become your new master! Don’t cross that line! Cast off the hand of your old master! I’ll accept you as new members of our legion!"

"D-don’t be fooled! Don’t fall for it! I raised you! Didn’t I raise you bastards from 2-star to 4-star?!"

"Minotaurs! Even if you must die, don’t die a dog’s death! This is my final offer, and my final mercy!"

A pause.

At the orc’s declaration, the minotaurs began to step backward one by one. Hagenti raked the ground with his fingernails, crawling forward. His arm just barely crossed the line the orc had drawn.

"Krhaaaa!"

A rain of arrows poured down on his back. Stalactites fell. The boulders the orc threw arced down and struck his horns.

"S-save me...! I’m your master...!"

Hagenti reached his arm forward even as his vision blurred.

"Please..."

Rumble rumble.

The entire ceiling came crashing down. Hagenti’s vision went black as boulders blocked his sight.

"To these perverts..."

Hagenti, lost.

==

The purpose of conquering a dungeon is different for everyone.

Adventurers with strong exploratory drives stake their lives on the honor of clearing the dungeon itself, while adventurers with strong material drives stake their lives on the rewards that come from clearing the dungeon.

A seizure battle adds one more thing to those two.

It satisfies the desire for conquest by making another’s dungeon your own, stimulates the desire for honor by climbing to a higher position, and lets you indulge in the desire for ascension by becoming stronger than before.

In that sense, nothing’s more thrilling than making a dungeon higher than your own into yours. From the moment a seizure battle is called, the one staging the uprising should approach the enemy dungeon with the mindset that it’s already as good as theirs.

[Since this dungeon’s gonna be mine anyway, what’s wrong with doing whatever I want before the ownership transfer?]

There’s no losing a seizure battle.

Whether you take the name and turn the dungeon into an abandoned cave where a massacre took place, or use Solomon’s magic to make it part of our dungeon as a sub-dungeon that produces magic stones forever, or even make it a multi-dungeon, you fight to win and make the dungeon your own.

Since you’re making someone else’s operation your own, remodeling is necessary. Every dungeon master pursues a different management style, and the dungeon structure varies wildly depending on that.

’So who’s going to complain if I start renovating now?’

Renovate the dungeon, then take the dungeon. The order’s just slightly different.

’Shaitan said to put off dealing with Hagenti’s name for a bit.’

I had a rough idea of what she was thinking, and in that sense I had even more reason to overhaul Hagenti’s dungeon.

’Hagenti’s dungeon will become a dungeon belonging to the Legion of Wrath.’

That was a future that should naturally come to pass from the moment I declared the seizure battle against Hagenti’s dungeon, an inevitable and irreversible thing.

’So it’s right for me to change the place I’ll be using.’

If you don’t like the structure of your house, you can renovate it, but what difference does raising the ceiling make? So nobody’s going to complain if I bring down the ceiling a bit before occupying the dungeon.

’Took forever to set up the trap, thank goodness it didn’t get noticed.’

To buy time, I’d performed some unconventional acts while satisfying my urges. Hagenti seemed so distracted by my actions that he’d forgotten about the existence of the subordinates I’d brought along besides the elves.

’You should’ve caught on the moment I started carving up the dungeon with slimes.’

The moment I set up my formation in Hagenti’s dungeon, which would soon be mine, I’d started construction. Naturally, the construction foreman for the renovation work was Lime and 10 slime dragons.

’If renovation isn’t enough, we just go for full redevelopment.’

Sorry to those who lived there before, but it’s fate. Under the system Solomon set up, every dungeon master has to endure this destiny.

’The weak get eaten.’

I’m stronger than Hagenti.

Our legion is stronger than Hagenti’s faction.

Following the demonic principle of survival of the fittest, I decided to devour everything about Hagenti’s dungeon. Hagenti’s dungeon itself, all the wealth in Hagenti’s dungeon, and Hagenti’s dungeon management style too.

"You set up traps that drop stalactites from the ceiling when someone steps on the gold? You bastard. I hate guys who pull dirty tricks like traps the most."

I didn’t really like traps. After watching the traps I’d painstakingly set up get dismantled way too easily by the current Ras Village hunters and Luna, I preferred to take down enemies with strength and strategy rather than traps.

"But traps aren’t always bad. Going through one myself, nothing pisses off the victim more than a trap, you know? Learned something from you, Hagenti."

Wind arrows flying toward the ceiling. A massive vibration shaking the whole dungeon. Minotaurs crossing the kindly drawn guideline.

Despite all the warnings, Hagenti had crossed the line. He’d advanced using his subordinates’ corpses as a body bunker, daring to lust after my women and the legion’s women.

’He deserves to die.’

So I brought down the ceiling to kill him. And that wasn’t enough, so I went looking for confirmation. I found Hagenti buried in the dirt and stomped on the bridge of his sticking-out nose.

"Ugggh!"

Hagenti twisted his whole body trying to get up. But buried under massive amounts of debris, with me standing on the bridge of his nose, he couldn’t even open his mouth properly.

"Hagenti. Feeling cheated? You lost to an orc who was banging an elf in the middle of battle, didn’t even notice your own dungeon getting trapped against you, and got the ceiling brought down on you. Feeling sour?"

Hagenti let his feelings show through bloodshot eyes. If you could kill someone with a glare alone, Hagenti would’ve torn me apart a hundred times over.

’Same goes for me.’

The moment he said he’d put Lune and Luna under him, Hagenti was off my list. The one-chance offer I extend to other dungeon masters, the recruitment opportunity to join our legion, was not available to him.

"If you’re sour about it, you should’ve won. Hagenti, I’ll tell you one last thing before I kill you."

I aimed the face of my hammer at Hagenti’s bloodshot eyes.

"This dungeon’s mine now. I can do whatever I want with it."

Since when? Since the moment I opened the portal to come and conquer Hagenti’s dungeon.

"But there’s something more important than that."

I set down the hammer for a moment and pulled the two elves on either side of me into a hug. Hagenti’s nostrils flared and he snorted, and after stomping my foot one more time, I lifted the hammer.

"How dare you covet what’s mine?"

I swung the hammer with all my strength.

[Notice: You have captured the 48th-ranked Hagenti’s Dungeon.]