"I watched a documentary about cows once. The cows being dragged off to the slaughterhouse had these huge, soulful eyes. That’s what came to mind."

"And that’s why you spared the Minotaurs?"

"...Well, yeah. They’re pitiful, aren’t they? Stuck with a lousy master, worked like dogs. Figured I should give them a chance."

After the dungeon raid.

Shaitan, who’d reported victory on the Flauros-Orias front, had crossed over to Hagenti’s dungeon as soon as I returned word of my own victory. Now she was standing there looking troubled at the seventeen Minotaurs I’d spared.

"Are you planning to recruit these ones too?"

"The willing ones, sure."

"...The Minotaurs themselves are fine, I suppose. They average around 3.7 stars, so they’re a solid combat asset. Loyalty is another matter, though."

The Minotaurs knelt and waited for Shaitan and me to finish talking.

"Where did the elves go? Are they resting?"

"You could call it that. They went to collect the spoils."

I’d asked Lune and Luna to head deep into Hagenti’s dungeon and gather the valuables. With Lime leading the slime dragons behind them, even the lowest-grade magic stone tucked away in the deepest corner wouldn’t escape their search.

’Better to comb the place ourselves than rely on the prisoners to find anything.’

Pity for being stuck under a master like Hagenti was one thing, but managing and classifying prisoners had to be done thoroughly. The Minotaurs were captives we’d taken in this Seizure Battle.

"Minotaurs. I’m giving you three choices."

I held up three fingers.

"One. You leave this place. I’ll send you off with a few magic stones, and you go find a new home for yourselves."

It was the same exile offer I’d given the virgin elves.

"Two. You surrender to our legion. The Legion of Wrath always welcomes new talent. Especially when that talent comes packing the kind of physique you all have."

An average rating of 3.7 stars, training that pushed well past level 60 on average, combat power that could go toe-to-toe with the cookie elves one-on-one, and at a rough glance, every one of them was packing what looked like a thirty-centimeter ruler between their legs.

"Personally, I’d love to have you all. Of course, there’s one condition every demon has to meet to join our legion."

"What condition?"

"Mounting humans."

The Minotaurs’ faces stiffened. But this was basic etiquette every demon had to meet to join our legion.

’Think of it like the exam.’

"Our legion doesn’t discriminate by species. Just like orcs go with elves, sometimes humans go with harpies. Same goes for you. If you’re all males... a Minotaur could end up with a giant birdwoman. Though basically, you’ll be paired with human women."

"Ugh..."

Sure enough, several of the Minotaurs, no, most of them, scrunched their faces in disgust.

"A relationship that transcends prejudice and species bias. That’s the ideal I envision for our legion. ...Though the Rastopia I’m chasing isn’t just platonic, it’s mixed with eros too.... Ah, hell. What am I even saying to a bunch of cattle?"

Well-endowed, top-tier warriors. The Minotaurs were a perfect match for the Harpy Aellos stationed in Halphas’s dungeon. Similar body sizes, and the dimensions down there happened to line up too, so the Harpy Aellos would definitely be thrilled.

"Surrender to the legion, or disappear from here. Make your choice right now."

"What’s the third option?"

"Keeping your dignity intact?"

I patted the head of Hagenti, who I was sitting astride, with my palm.

"The Hagenti’s dungeon you knew is finished as of today. If anyone wants it, speak up. I’ll lay you down right next to Hagenti. There’s something I want to test out."

Most demons didn’t taste all that different from the beasts they were based on.

Sure, Minotaurs had human bodies from the neck down, but at the lower 1-2 star ranks, couldn’t they take on the form of pure beasts? Killing a bull-headed humanoid felt wrong, but butchering an honest-to-god head of cattle for beef? That didn’t prick my conscience at all.

"Choose. I’ll give you ten minutes."

I gave them time to think. And I used the brief lull to continue my conversation with Shaitan.

"Shaitan. You yield this one."

"Not this time. I say this both as your possession giving frank counsel, and as the strategist responsible for charting our legion’s course."

"No. Are you really going to oppose my will?"

"Just this once, please hear me out."

For everything else, the only person who could exchange opinions with me freely on dungeon operations and overall legion management was Shaitan, who served as our strategist. When my views and Shaitan’s diverged, there wasn’t anyone particularly suited to mediate.

"Hagenti’s dungeon becomes a sub-dungeon."

"Take the name. Become Hagenti."

The spoils of the Seizure Battle.

[Hagenti: the name and ownership of the 48th-ranked dungeon.]

I’d conquered countless dungeons up to this point, even Halphas’s dungeon, and I’d never gone with this option from the three post-Seizure Battle naming choices. But now Shaitan and I were butting heads on which of the two directions to take.

"Make it a sub-dungeon and we can eat all the beef we want when cattle pop out!"

"How long are you planning to stay at the 63rd rank...?! As a Legion Commander, it’s time you climbed up to a higher rank!"

"No way! I’m grilling beef three meals a day! Morning steak! If we just butcher three cows from the sub-dungeon every time, ahh, brisket so tender it melts in your mouth!"

"If actual Minotaurs come out instead of cattle, you won’t eat them because the humanoid form creeps you out!"

Keeping our voices low so the Minotaurs couldn’t hear, Shaitan and I started bickering like a couple of children.

"I’m sick of lion meat too! Let’s eat beef!"

"You need to switch ranks!"

"...My voice was louder than I thought. Let’s make sure those guys can’t hear us."

"Yes. That would be better. Master, if I may presume...."

Shaitan opened a system window. I opened mine too.

"May I challenge you to a keyboard battle, Master?"

"Bring it."

***

The system was, by default, exclusive to the dungeon owner.

If anyone else could use the system without being a dungeon owner, it would only be the seven daughters of the Demon King, who’d been granted system-use authority via a seal placed on their lower abdomens to assist Legion Commanders.

"How interesting."

And here, someone who was neither a dungeon owner nor a daughter of the Demon King, but who could still meddle in another’s system, was secretly peeking into Rok’s system.

"Looks like sending Shaitan was the right call."

"Whew, what was...?"

The black-haired youth, who had been swinging his sword through empty air, asked the question to the black-haired woman who resembled him, Estu.

"The successor we picked and our most beloved daughter. The chemistry is just spot-on."

"You picked him and you love her most. I love them all equally."

"Then why did someone like that allow Lucifer to suffer the way she did? Heh heh."

"...Better to make her a concubine than let her get gang-raped somewhere out there. So tell me, what was sent so well?"

"They’re fighting right now."

"What?"

The youth scrambled over to Estu’s side, alarmed. The screen they were both watching expanded considerably, and a single orc and a single succubus were exchanging long-form messages.

[...Just because you make it a sub-dungeon doesn’t guarantee cattle will come out. Far more likely, you’d get Minotaurs, the bull-headed humanoids. In the end, you’d only be able to farm magic stones and experience, and the beef you want, Master, wouldn’t be obtainable.]

[If we need a higher dungeon rank, we don’t have to go for Hagenti specifically. There are other 40s-tier dungeons we could target. How many dungeons does Solomon have? Seventy-two. Every dungeon from the 38th-ranked Halphas, which we’ve already conquered, all the way down to the 48th-ranked Hagenti is within striking distance. We can just conquer the 47th-ranked dungeon and take that name instead.]

[The 47th is Vual, Master. Vual.]

[...Then we’ll go with the 46th.]

"I named them myself, but yeah, Bifrons sounds better than Vual."

"Just in terms of the way it rolls off the tongue. Anyway, she argues well. There’s no real need to stick with 48th rank."

The youth and Estu typed their thoughts at the bottom of the screen.

[How will you make use of Hagenti’s name?]

[They’re all going to get crushed eventually anyway. Is there really a reason to claim a higher-ranked one’s name right this second?]

[Because it raises serious red flags when a 63rd-ranked dungeon owner keeps staging coups against owners in the 40s tier.]

[Explain.]

[If you divide Solomon’s 72 dungeons into nine ranks, the Andras dungeon falls into the bottom 8th rank. If an 8th-rank dungeon suddenly picks fights with 5th- or 4th-rank dungeons, what would the dungeon owners think?]

[This guy’s lost his mind. Free win. Send a reasonable force and crush the fool who doesn’t know his place.]

[Naturally. But what if they thought this instead? A 63rd-ranked dungeon is challenging me? Why? Could this guy have a powerful backer? Ah, that’s it! The 63rd is a dungeon under a legion’s protection!]

"Shaitan’s quick on the uptake."

"Pulling a coup within the single digits is one thing, but jumping over twenty rungs to issue a challenge is genuinely suspicious."

Their opinions tilted toward Shaitan’s side. Rok also nodded along.

[You’re right. But it can also serve as a deception. Our legion’s main base is the 63rd-ranked dungeon, my dungeon. Who would ever guess that out of 38, 56, 63, and 64, the 63rd is the headquarters? Multi-bases will keep increasing from here, and our enemies will find it harder and harder to locate the main base.]

"That’s true."

"Common sense says the highest rank, the 38th. If you think one layer deeper, then the 56th... maybe?"

This time, their opinions tilted toward Rok’s side.

[Fair enough. But Master, the existing 63rd-ranked dungeon already serves as a ’hub.’ Considering your aggressive style in Seizure Battles, wouldn’t it be safer to open portals from elsewhere and personally launch attacks, rather than opening portals from the main base where an enemy intrusion could prove fatal?]

[So I personally relocate to a forward base while you handle the supply lines? It’s true I’m not the type to sit in the back and delegate everything to my subordinates. You make a good point.]

"...Should we just summon them to the battlefield?"

"Don’t. They’re still raw. The battlefield where holy swords are flying around is dangerous. Maybe if they break into the top ten."

[Then you understand the importance of supply lines, the importance of food, even better, don’t you? A cow is a precious livestock animal, valuable from head to hoof, with nothing to throw away. Among the sub-dungeons our dungeon currently controls, is there one that produces food? Slime is what we eat as snacks and aphrodisiacs, so that’s separate, and the lion meat we got recently has too strong a gamey smell to serve as a staple.]

[I fully agree on the supply issue. The bigger our dungeon grows, the more food we’ll consume. Minotaurs might be fine for now, but if numbers keep climbing, food procurement will become a serious challenge. But Master, what if we used Magic Stone Summon for the existing monsters?]

"I don’t know whose daughter she is, but yikes, scary. She’s saying we should use the troops the Demon King’s Army sent as food? What do you think?"

"...The moment they were dispatched via Magic Stone Summon, it left my hands. How they’re used is the dungeon owner’s problem."

"Oh my, deflecting. So you’re saying it’s fine to use precious troops we labored to produce however we please?" 𝑓𝓇𝘦ℯ𝘸𝘦𝑏𝓃𝑜𝘷ℯ𝑙.𝑐𝑜𝓂

"Plenty of dungeon owners use them for purposes far worse than food. Why criticize over something this minor? People who work this hard for the Demon King’s Army deserve some leeway."

The disagreement between Rok and Shaitan escalated into an argument between the youth and Estu. Meanwhile, the back-and-forth between the two continued before suddenly stopping.

"What is it? Did something come up?"

"Where are those two right now?"

"The 48th-ranked Hagenti dungeon, so... hey!"

The youth, without warning, scattered mana toward the front. Estu shouted, but the youth’s [Clairvoyance] spell had already taken effect, and Rok and Shaitan came into view.

"If the other kids see this, they’ll say you play favorites."

"Let them. ...A high elf? The conversation stopped because of a high elf?"

Rok and Shaitan were verbally laying out their arguments, as if asking the high elf to decide whose opinion was right.

"Um.... My thought is...."

The youth and Estu had a feeling. The dispute between those two was about to be resolved by this high elf’s opinion.

"Why don’t you two stop fighting and have sex? Whoever wins in bed has the right answer."

"...Bwahahahaha!!"

The youth burst out laughing, clutching his stomach. He laughed so hard that even Estu felt embarrassed.

"Stop fighting and have sex.... Hahaha! Spot on, high elf! Yes, brilliant idea!"

The youth even clapped like a seal, his eyes sparkling.

"The Legion of Wrath, huh.... What’s the closest dungeon physically?"

"From where?"

"The 63rd."

"Astaroth."

"Oh ho. That child?"

The youth ran a finger across his lips, more delicate than a woman’s, and grinned.

"If we’re going to swap names anyway, wouldn’t the 29th-rank’s name be even better? Heh heh."

"...You’re trying to start a fight?"

"They have to overcome that level of adversity. Don’t worry. I’ll help out enough that the force ratio comes out to at least 3:7."

The youth scooped Estu up into his arms.

"It’s been a while since I shaved off some lifespan. Mind helping me make a Reincarnation Crystal?"

"...My, my. Thanks to someone, I’m finally getting a touch from someone so very important. The man who’s always making excuses about being busy, ahh?!"

"Quiet."

The youth’s body was wrapped in a black mist and began to change.

"Didn’t you hear what the high elf said? Stop fighting and do what?"

"...Have sex♥."

Estu wrapped her arms around the man’s neck and quietly closed her eyes.