Dungeon Annihilation 2 - 38

Morning Guys! Here is the last chapter of book 2! Other than some editing, touch-ups, and some fight scenes, book 2 is officially done! WOOO.

Regan/Earle

“Only thirty-four died. Pitiful.” I shook my head as the first victors of the Greed boss fight helped their wounded and collected their dead. With how many people they had in their group, they would be taking their dead with them instead of leaving them to the dungeon as was normally the case.

“The death count would be lower had you not interfered,” Set commented from next to me.

“Interfered?” I repeated turning sharp eyes on her. “Do you have a problem with me changing my dungeon?” I was surprised with how anger she had made me. What little light that was in the room dimmed even further.

“No, master.” She quickly bowed her head and backed away. “It is your dungeon. You can do whatever you want.”

“Set. Why do I feel like you’ve grown soft on the mortals as of late?”

“Soft, master?” she looked up at me with a genuinely confused expression.

“You have been rather verbal about not killing,” I remarked placing my hand on her cheek. “First the thing about the countess, now this. I don’t know if I can trust you to act correctly in the future.” My hand moved down to her neck. With her neck being smaller than a child’s wrist, it would take very little effort to break it.

“That was never my intention,” Set said with the same level tone as always. “I am ever trying to understand master’s plans. For the countess, as I stated, I thought you were using her for an experiment in breeding. As for now, I was merely stating a fact that deaths were higher with your assistance to the boss.”

I tightened my grip as I stared into her eyes. I could detect no lie in her words, not that I was an expert on that sort of thing. I fundamentally didn’t trust anyone. Still, I would hate to kill her and my suspicions be proved wrong. She was very useful after all. I released her after another minute of thought.

“I will be keeping an eye on you. If this time was truly a slip of the tongue, then next time I will take it out of your mouth.”

“Yes, master. Forgive me.”

I turned back to the screen as the adventurers moved up to the next set of floors. The workshop of Envy was essentially non-hostile. As long as the adventurers didn’t provoke the oni, they would leave them alone in return. Trade was allowed with the oni’s more crude weapons. They would take mana in payment. Now that adventurers had reached the workshop, I expected the competition to reach a new level as they competed over each other’s mana score.

The raid group used the token to begin sending people back to the first floor. They had suffered loses after all. They wouldn’t be up to exploring the floor for a while. I swiped the screen away and started to move away. I had other projects to work on.

“Master.” I paused and glanced back at Set. She was still watching a screen. “I know you told me not to care if mortals die, but the countess might die here in a few seconds.”

“What are you talking about?” I demanded shifting my mind’s eye to where the countess was. Her and Ezal were surrounded by one of the parties that had made up the raid group. The token holder was bleeding out on the floor next to the pedestal from a knife wound to the back.

“Lord Neil sends his regards!” A stereotypical thing to say from a hired thug. I almost lost all interest at that moment.

“Don’t you think there’s been enough death for today!?” Louella demanded angerly.

“This raid may have made us rich for a while, but Lord Neil promised us enough gold to make us rich for years.”

Louella balled her hands into fist as sparks started to jump off them. Ezal also began forming a fireball in her hands. The assassins weren’t having that though, and two of them launched arrows. One slamming into Louella’s shoulder, while other nicked Ezal’s side due to her dodging.

“Master,” Set called, and I looked at her. “What do you want to do?”

“Kill them. She is mine. When it is time for her to die, I will be the one to do it,” I ordered, and Set vanished from the spot.

I tuned into the magic she began to use on the group. The leader stepped forward and stabbed Louella through the chest only for her to burst into spiders. They grew rapidly until they were size of small children. They tore the man limb from limb causing his brain to overload his heart and he collapsed.

Similar scenes played out with the two archers. They thought the other suddenly betrayed the party and twisted to fire and arrow. The two projectiles streaked through the air taking their targets directly in the eye and priecing through the back of the head.

The one mage in the group had a bit more resistance, but it only lasted for a few seconds. Long enough for him to see his leader fall over with blood pouring from every hole on his head, and the two archers to shot each other. His panic allowed the magic to take effect and black fire began eating at his body. He poured his man into stopping the flame unaware that he was actually feeding it the entire time. His burnt husk dropped to the ground.

Louella and Ezal were obviously horrified by the scene that just took place. I formed my Earle version before Set and I appeared as if from around the bend. I paused and looked at Set. “If I ordered you to kill them, would you?”

“Instantly,” Set replied without a pause.

“Very good. Come.” We walked over to the two women. I bent down and started to heal Louella. The wound had almost pierced all the way forcing me to push the arrow through completely. They were coated with poison as well. Whoever wanted her dead had tried really hard. “Are you alright?”

“Earle?” she looked between Set, me and the dead bodies as if not sure what was going on, “What are… you doing… here?”

“Just meeting with some of the locals. I heard a commotion and came to check it out.”

“Locals? Where am I?”

“Looks like the poison is affecting her short term memory. Hold on, this will hurt,” I said before my placed my hand on the arrow and pushed. She screamed from the new pain and tears sprang into her eyes. Placing my palm on the open wound, I used water magic to pulled the tainted blood from her injury.

The pain and loss of blood was too much for her and she fainted.”

“How is the other one?” I asked turning to check on Set. She had the bodyguard laid on the ground. She was also unconscious.

“Fine. She was only grazed.”

“Alright. Let’s get these two back to their friends.”

~~

“I owe you a debt,” Louella stated, bowing almost ninety degrees.

“It was the obvious thing to do,” I replied placing my hand on her shoulder.

“I would be surprised if this was the work of Duke Neil,” marquis Valamar said, “his son on the other hand.” He gave a shrug and sighed.

“Got to love the spoiled nobility,” I remarked with a snort.

“What should we do?” Louella asked, though I could tell from her tone exactly what she wanted to do.

“I will send someone to get some answers. For now, just watch your back in case there is more than one set up.” Marquis Valamar got up and left with the others. Before long it was just me and Louella in her office.

“Do you think you could handle this for me?” Louella asked with a grin that almost gave her fangs.

“I was being to wonder if you’d never ask.”

After that, Louella led me to her other office and we… hashed out the details on her bed. Once the woman was thoroughly exhausted I made my way back to the dungeon. The necromancers should be arriving at Jade Wind any minute now, and I wanted to be in a place that I could focus. It would be the furthest core I’ve ever placed after all. Nearly three or four times that of the core I placed in the north.

I had barely reappeared in my aura, when I felt a connection that was soon overloaded with mana. If I was a mortal, I was sure I would have been knocked unconscious from intense energy, there was just so much of it. Wrestling with the energy flow, I brought it down to controllable levels by dividing it between my three sub-cores.

With that under control, I sent my mind to the source. The first thing that I saw was that I was at the top of a tower that had to be close to a kilometer in height. Something about the tower felt off though, like it wasn’t supposed to be a tower or was on the wrong plane. The way parts of it were shaped made me think that we were on the front nose of a ship rather than the top of a tower.

After that, I managed to take in a city surrounding the tower. It reminded me of a pseudo modern Japanese town, with parts being made from wood in the style of the culture back on Earth. The closer to the tower one got, the more modern it looked. I could barely make out people walking through the streets, given they appeared to be unphased, I assumed none had noticed the core being placed.

“My lord!”

Turning, I found Julie, Wrakras and the others standing in a circle around the new core that was pulsing as it rapidly absorbed the dense mana around it. Unlike the mana from processes, this mana was similar to the background ambient mana, meaning it would have the same value as the core moved through the tiers.

“Julie. I see everything went better than planned.”

“Yes! The gnomes are so overconfident in their city that we were able to place your core directly on their head.”

“Excellent! Well done!”

I cloaked the area around the top of the tower so that it would look like nothing was here. With that done, I formed my avatar and stepped to the edge. In the distance, there was only ocean as far as the eye could see. I took a deep breath, enjoying the sea breeze. Turning, I found a virtual wall of storm clouds that reminded one of a hurricane.

“My lord. Welcome to Jade Wind!”

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