“So we are being dispatched?” the longsword guy asked.
“Precisely. We have determined several tribes that are moving toward key cities that need to be stopped. These towns all possess a unique stone platform that allows you to teleport, but unless you drop your blood inside it won’t activate,” the queen said.
“How do you expect us to reach those towns before they are attacked?” someone asked.
At that exact moment several lights fluctuated on the table.
“We had our spies use sleeping drugs and extract blood from all of you and run to all the sites that are known,” she said.
Everyone frowned at this but considering she was thinking about her nation it was obvious they would take measures to do such things even if we got pissed off.
“We are sorry for what we did, but we needed it urgently so it was done on the day you were summoned while you were still unconscious. Sleeping drugs were administered to lengthen the time you stayed asleep so we could ensure we got the blood,” she explained.
“Enough about that. There are seven parties between us all, considering the number of tribes each party will go to one location?” I asked.
The king frowned hearing me talk, but the queen didn’t even blink.
“Exactly. Obviously, we have our own armies there, but each party’s specialization was taken into account so we know which party is best to fight which tribe,” she replied.
“Understood,” I said.
“Any more questions?” she asked.
No one asked, and after a moment she nodded.
“Okay, now starting with our hero Richard, your party shall help lead the offensive on this one. This is a tribe of ogres, they number around 200, and you will be leading our elites. Ogres are powerhouses and use brute strength and are from two to three meters tall. Their leader is a low ranking demon commander and a unique variant of ogres called a red ogre. He will be hard to fight, but the 500 elites will be there to help,” the king said.
“So pretty boy’s name was Richard, could have sworn it would be something like Azriel or Michel after some archangel or something,” I thought.
“Sir Nickelous will lead his group against this group,” the queen said looking toward the sword guy. She pointed toward the small imps with tridents. “These are imps, and the lowest class devil race. They are about two times stronger than a common male human, but they move in swarms from a few hundred to a few thousand. Their leader is a lesser devil,” she said. In between the group of imp pieces, a larger human sized one appeared, but it was still scrawny, though he wore something that looked like bone armor.
“This lesser demon is cunning and a coward, but he is at least at a commander's strength level, his stats should be no more than 100 in any stat,” she said.
“Understood, it will make a good first blood for my blade!” he said, and a fierce light flashed past his eye.
“Now, Sir Ace, you shall fight this group, it consists of the low ranking demon tribe of goblins. This particular tribe is called the Dire Wolf Tribe due to their skill at taming the wolf that follows them. They use them as mounts and specialize in hit and run tactics, but they number in the upper hundreds which is why we are sending you there,” the king said.
“So set a trap for them? I can do that, I have already read up on basic dungeon traps, and just need to build the layouts now,” I said.
The other parties were given the other weaker groups.
“Good. Now then, there is a two-week period before any of these groups reach the towns. You will need to go to, so you will have that amount of time to train, and kill them or push them back,” the queen said.
“How do we get there exactly?” I asked.
“Just touch the light. It will teleport each of you to the place you touch. If you wish to return here, you must put mana into the platform, but it needs to be charged with a lot of mana for the teleportation spell so as soon as you get there, you should already start charging it or you want be able to return so soon,” the queen said.
“Understood,” I said.
“Good, so Mr. Richard, please touch this one.” She pointed to one light near the center close to the first one.
He moved around the table until he was closer to it and touched the location of the light. The next moment his body was covered in light before he broke into particles of light and was absorbed.
“Now can his party please follow,” the queen said.
The few that were in his group made a worried expression, but touched the location one by one.
When they were finally gone, the queen looked at me.
“Mr. Ace, this is the location you shall go to. It isn’t as large a town, but it should offer a good location for you as the area is rocky limiting their movement. It will be easy to set up traps,” she said.
I nodded and looked at Misaki who nodded.
I walked over and touched the light. A large suction force held me in place as mana covered my body before a light blinded me.
After a moment of feeling as if I was being tossed around, my vision cleared up.
What appeared, was a forest filled mountainous zone. I stood on a huge stone with a five meter wide plateau that had a circle loaded with runes on the top and seven pillars also covered with them.
It began to glow as light particles appeared and gathered before forming Misaki.
Right in front of us was a stairway down into a road. Down the road we could see a stone wall about seven meters tall.
“So, this is where we will be staying for the next few weeks,” she said.
“It's a good location for sure, the demon tribes will definitely not have an easy time around here,” I said.
“Hey, do you believe that the demons started to war or was it the other races?” Misaki asked.
“Don’t know, could be either, if the war is really over 1000 years old, then that knowledge would already be lost unless someone used magic to leave a recording or something,” I replied.
“Guess so,” Misaki said.
“Let's head to the town and get working, I need to start building the traps and building a decent enough dungeon to kill a large number,” I said.
“Sure,” she replied and we went down the teleporting stone to head to the town.
“Halt! Who goes there?” a voice called from the walls.
“My name is Ace Cross, we came from the capital on order from the queen. We are part of the summoned heroes that came to aid in getting rid of the advancing demons heading this way,” I said.
“Oh! Come right in sir hero!” the man said and turned. “OPEN QUICK!” he shouted.
Soon, the iron gates slowly rose and we were able to cross through before it closed. We found a humble town with the main roads paved with gravel and some stone houses with the rest being log cabins.
“Great heroes, it is good you came, we have been encountering numerous scout parties of the Dire Wolf Tribe,” an older guard said.
“We know. The main force is around two weeks from here,” I said and kept looking around a bit before looking at the man in question. He was dressed in plate armor.
“I need the help of all the carpenters and blacksmiths, can you call them and if possible is there a place we can spend our time?” I asked.
“Yes, since we had heard the heroes were summoned to every village, town, and city, we built a house for the heroes to stay. I shall lead you there while my men call the men you requested,” he said.
We followed him to one of the few two story houses and entered. It was furnished with pelts on the ground and filled with all kinds of pots and pans for us to use, and the furniture was all wooden.
“The carpentry work here is rather high class,” I said.
“Yes, we have a large supply of wood. And with that, a number of our youths work as carpenters. Our merchants sell the goods in the bigger cities and even the capital,” he said.
“Good, I will be needing good carpenters more than blacksmiths so this works
for me,” I said.
“What exactly do you need them for?” he asked.
“My class isn’t hero, it is dungeon maker. I make dungeons to kill monsters and not spawn them. This is why I was sent here because the tribe in question is large of number, so I must thin them down before they reach the walls so that the dispatched men coming this way will be able to handle them easily,” I said.
His face showed shock, but he nodded smiling.
“Yes. Yes. This will help greatly, having such hero killing a large number of demons. We will support you as best as possible,” he said.
“Good, now where are the men?” I asked.
Knock! Knock!
Hearing the knocks, the guard captain opened and with a young guardsman walked in a strong man with lots of soot from a furnace and a hammer at his side. Oh right, I forgot to mention he was one meter tall with a large beard. Yep, a dwarf through and through. Next to him was a middle aged man wearing leather clothes and an apron with lots of tools on his tool belt and in the pockets of his apron.
“Sir, I brought the head smith and carpenter,” the young guard said.
“Good, you are dismissed,” the captain said.
“Oi Gerald, why ya call us ta this place?” the dwarf asked.
“This is Ace Cross, he is part of the summoned heroes group and he was assigned here to help deal with the Dire Wolf Tribe heading this way,” the captain said.
The dwarf looked at me and scoffed.
“Looks a bit squishy to me,” the dwarf said.
“I wonder, is that a blacksmith saying because my smith master, Grunt Drift, said the same thing,” I said.
“Oh, you know old Grunt,” the dwarf said. “So what ya need Greenhorn?”
“Don’t mind him, he is like this, but he means well,” the carpenter said.
“I prefer it like this, I hate people that like to butter up others since it’s too fake. As for what I need, I need help building the layout and traps I need to use in my dungeon.” I said pulling out blueprints on parchment and spreading it for them to see. “This is a straight section of corridor. This is an L turn. I need one for left and right. A T section, and finally an X section. Then, I need a single dead end room and a corner room. As for traps I need a floor spike trap, pressure plates that launch the targets toward other traps. Another one is like this, a wall trap that rises and a wall trap that closes both sides of the corridor crushing whoever is inside, and one for the rooms to lower the ceiling on them,” I said.
Everyone just looked at me as if I was speaking gibberish.
Then the dwarf walked up and began to look through everything.
He then split the pile in to traps, rooms, and corridors.
“Johnson, get yer men to do the rooms an corridors while I get my boys to make the parts fer the traps. Brat, yer gonna need to help construct these though, we will probably only be able to make the parts for these,” the dwarf said.
“I expected as much. At least we have two weeks to make these and set up the dungeon so even if we have time, we don’t. If it takes too much resource you can talk with the royal family or if you want, when we survive this, the prey caught in the traps in the dungeon I will give you equal compensation for the work in loot gathered,” I said.
The dwarf’s eyes shone hearing that.
“Hehe, yer a rather reasonable fellow. Last time I met a hero some 80 years ago, he was some stuck-up prick,” the dwarf said and walked over and stuck his hand out. “Glad ta work with ya kid.”
I grabbed it and shook.
“Likewise,” I said and looked up. “Now let's get to work,” I said.
“What can I do?” Misaki asked.
“You’re quick on your feet so why not scout the region with some of the hunters and learn the lay of the land. I have plans for traps that we can put in the woods for both hunting and catching any scouts they have,” I said.
She nodded.
“Come on miss, I will call some men for you to take out and show you the land,” the captain said and left with Misaki while I left with the two craftsmen.
Chapter 5
“Pull!” I shouted, and with the help of several carpenters we pull up a four meter high wall. There were ropes on the other side and when it began to tip the other side pulled until it was perfectly centered.
Then some men came in with metal hammers and began to hammer them in on the bottom boards connecting it to the ground structure below.
“How do you plan on getting the top part in?” Johnson, the lead carpenter, asked.
“The top will be built beam by beam. You made that structure I showed you a basic blueprint of right?” I asked.
“Yeah, we had some of the boys build six and are moving it over,” he said.
“Good and the rope?” I asked.
He pointed behind him and I tilted my head to look behind him and saw a horse drawn carriage filled with it.
“Good, the tool that goes on the structure is already built correct?” I asked, and he nodded. “Perfect. This pulley system will make construction a bit faster and allow us to lift heavy loads up.”
“Can a little wheel do that much difference?” he asked.
“Trust me, when I say that more than half of the construction in my world exists because of this system. I am not joking. I come from a technological world different from this magical one so things like tools have been heavily improved,” I said.
He shrugged it off hearing me say that and turned to see the men bringing the structures.
One by one they were placed. The supports, which were long wooden beams attached in an X shape was placed first, then the main body was placed in the middle with four beams at an angle holding it up. There were fewer chances it could tip over like that. The structure was over the size of the corridor I was building and after a rope had been passed through the pulley at the top, he tied it around the needed beams. Also, yes, someone climbed up, but the carpenters were also lumberjacks and they climbed up trees to cut the top which is too thin before cutting the base so they already had skill at doing it.
“Hey kid, the tree branch braided net is ready,” someone called.
“Great have someone stretch them hanging along the wall on the outer side then stretch it tight and hammer some nails to hold them tight,” I said.
“Kid, what is the plan exactly?” Johnson asked hearing my instructions.
“This is the most basic kind of corridor I can make without draining resources from town. Once the braided branch net is firmly placed along the floor and walls, I will have them board up the back and then see if I can’t get some dirt and water mixture and cover the walls. If the walls are smoothed out, but still left a bit rough the corridor at the end will look like a really wide mine shaft and allow for a lot of possibilities to trick the goblins. I read that they search for such places as homes,” I said.
“Oh I see, goblins are simple minded so a simple thing like this truly will trick them, but the size of the dungeon to attract the entire force inside would be huge right?” he asked.
“At the moment I am having the hunters make a map of as much of this mountain range as possible. Also, I am getting alchemists to make bombs, we will be blocking off as many passages to this village through valleys and mountains. There is one specific cave that with the widest passage that crosses the largest mountain, and they will be forced to pass through that if they want to get such a large force through,” I said.
“And by then you will already have your dungeon in place to thin the herd,” Johnson finished and I nodded.
“Well thought, but this is the wilderness we are talking about. How many passages do you think you can actually close before they arrive and not be warned about it?” Johnson asked.
“Well, I obviously will be timing the blockades, not like I will give them the time to unblock them. Goblins aren’t so bright, even if they can tame monsters for mounts. If I leave a few passages I can slowly split them up and have them run in circles. If I
know the geography of this region, and have my dungeon confront smaller groups then I have a higher chance to kill a higher number,” I replied.
Seeing how my plan was rather good, Johnson spurred his men on.
At this time, Misaki entered the village from the east gate, there were two gates, east and south.
“Shinigumi-san, did you look into what I needed?” I asked as she approached.
“Mn! We did a preliminary search of a 50 km radius of the town. I got my hands on a map of the area, but there aren't many details besides the actual paths and a few of the more dangerous areas where some monsters live. The area is relatively safe,” she said. She pulled off her leather bag and pulled out a parchment.
I opened it after she handed it over and was rather glad at what I saw.
While the map was rough, it marked each separate mountain within a 50 km range, and had a detailed layout of the roads and all caves that the road was part of.
The east gate led to a route heading into the mountains while the south gate led toward flatter lands where farm villages were located.
I noticed several smaller roads leading to some villages within the mountains. More than half were mining or hunting villages, and most of them had two or three roads coming toward the town and heading deeper in meaning they could be targeted.
“These villages within the mountains ca—”
“Already spoke with the captain about sending men to evacuate them except for a few villages near the town which are needed for supplying food, wood and metal to this town,” Misaki said cutting me off.
Looking at the map, I saw the several dots that showed each village.
“If you're wondering, the villages will work as outposts for the army, when they get here next week more than half the forces will go to these towns as a buffer against the goblins,” Misaki said.
I nodded, but frowned more.
“I'm more worried about how the army men treat the villagers. Unlike modern day where everything is monitored this was the medieval era and it could be considered a lawless era in far off places,” I said.
Book of the Dungeon Maker Page 5
