To Miss Leonora who was standing right in front of the throne and gazing at him, the No Life King spoke to her magnanimously. This was the first time that Miss Leonora looked nervous.
『Indeed, the one before you is the one who governs many retainers, the king of the undead. Even in the face of a Demon King, I have no intention of kneeling.』
『It seems that you know what I am. I originally planned on just beating you down, but I’ve changed my mind. You can just quit being a dungeon master, and serve I who will one day inherit the throne.』
『I said that I would not kneel. Do not push your luck, little missy.』
Despite speaking quietly, the tension between the two reached its climax.
『Then I’ll make you submit by force!』
『Come. Adding the daughter of a demon king to my retainers would also be amusing!』
The air of tension that had continually built up was ripped apart when the two fired their magic, and a fierce battle began.
◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆
The battle was fierce to the exterme.
When the No Life King shot darkness bullets, Miss Leonora dodged them, and when Miss Leonora let out flames to occupy him, the No Life King used his summoned zombies and skeletons as a shield. High level undead like dullahans and spectres were also summoned and surrounded Miss Leonora, but with mana wrapped around her hands, dense enough that it was visible, she mowed them down without hesitation.
It looked like Miss Leonora had the upper hand, but as the battle dragged on, that situation changed. The No Life King and his retainers weren’t living so they didn’t get tired, but even if Leonora was a demon, she was still alive, meaning that she had a limit to her stamina and a long fight was something she ought to avoid.
When there was a gap in her concentration because she was out of breath, one of the dullahan’s arms that had been cut off grabbed her ankle. Because of the unexpected hand, Miss Leonora lost her balance and fell diagonally. The No Life King who excelled at coordinating with his retainers did not overlook this opening, and fired the largest darkness bullet thus far at Miss Leonora.
Because she was on the ground, Miss Leonora couldn’t avoid it, and being hit dead on she was sent flying for almost 10 metres before hitting the ground.
『Gu… Uu…』
『It seems that this is as far as you go.』
Perhaps to confirm his victory, the No Life King leisurely walked towards Miss Leonora, who was lying face down in agony.
『Gotcha!』
However, perhaps her laying down was an act, because the moment the No Life King entered her range, Miss Leonora raised her body and created a flame at her hand.
『Hmph, cease your futile… What!?』
Although he was in her range, he probably could have dealt with any number of spells created in desperation. However, Miss Leonora exploded the flame magic that fired from her hand on purpose. The out-of-control flame burnt even her own right arm.
She jumped towards the No Life King who was frozen from the shock, and with her fist still wrapped in flame, she hit him.
『Take this!』
『I-, Impossi… ble…』
Unable to react to the unexpected attack, the No Life King suffered a direct hit to his chest. The high-pitched sound of his bones breaking rang out, and on top of that, the flames that clad Miss Leonora’s arms lit up the robe he was wearing.
The No Life King fell backwards, but Miss Leonora who had staked everything on that one punch collapsed forward as well. Laying on the ground, she somehow managed to succeed in putting on the fire on her arm.
『Hur-… -!』
It seemed that pain shot through her because she stifled a scream as she got up. Even speaking conservatively, with wounds all over and a heavily burnt right arm, you’d be right in saying that she was battered, but even so, she was dignified and beautiful.
Miss Leonora walked towards the No Life King burning on the ground, and looked down on him. The undead around her had also crumbled because of their lord’s defeat.
『To think that you burned yourself to defeat me. You’re a mad girl.』
『As if I did this because I wanted to. I planned on making you submit without destroying you, but I didn’t have that leisure. You can feel proud for having driven me this far, O king of the undead.』
『Haughty to the end, you are… Well… that’s fine… …n… ri… sa… …apo… gies…』
The No Life King eventually crumbled away, and only his crown fell to the ground, but that too eventually became dust.
Miss Leonora quietly overlooked it.
The next moment, the sound of applause rang out through the throne room.
Jashin Average – 16
Chapter 16 – Filing for Reparations
Hearing the sound of applause ring throughout the throne room, Miss Leonora snapped around, turning her gaze towards the source────towards the throne. On the throne that the No Life King had been sitting on earlier was an eerie patchwork doll.
Well, it’s a doll made by me though, since I had the time.
I tried making it with Tena as the model, but for some reason I’ve always been bad at sewing, so it didn’t come out the way I wanted. I tried getting Tena to have a little look to see what she thought of it, but I seriously made her cry. Was it that big of a shock that a doll like that was based on her, or was it simply because she was afraid of it? I still don’t know.
I thought about throwing it away… or rather, I did throw it away, and countless times too, but it’d return before I knew it. Mn, seems like it’s cursed. It’s because it took me an hour to make it, so I accidentally enchanted it.
I used teleport to place it on the throne, but to be honest there isn’t much meaning to the doll. I apparently earned the girl’s resentment sometime somewhere, so I wanted to try talking to her, but it was scary to meet her directly, so I decided to talk to her through the dungeon core using its voice reception system. But in that case she probably wouldn’t know where to face when talking, so I left something random as both a target for speaking, and as my representative.
Once I talk to her, my existence will be revealed, but well, even in the worst case scenario, from what I can tell from the battle, if I prepare a number of No Life King level monsters, I should be able to manage somehow.
『What the hell are you?』
『I’m the dungeon master of this dungeon. The doll is just something to represent me, so there’s no point in attacking it. If you want it, I’ll give it to you after our talk is done.』
『You think anyone would want such an ugly doll?』
Well, that’s right I guess. I’d be extremely happy if somebody took this cursed doll away though. Even if I give it away, there’s a high chance that it’ll come back though.
『But still, the dungeon master, you say? The No Life King from just now wasn’t the lord of this place?』
『That was the 10th floor mid-boss.』
『I see. So the lord that the undead king obeys is you, huh? That bastard. Even though he was spouting great lines about not kneeling to even the demon king, to think that he was a dog in the end.』
A dog, huh. Besides leaving the defence of the 10th floor to him────it might have been a ‘her’ though────I more or less left him alone, so even now I’m not sure if we had something like a master-servant relationship.
『Well, that doesn’t matter anymore. More importantly… in other words, the arrogant bastard that I’m after is you, then.』
Miss Leonora glared at the doll. Even though she was all beaten up from her deathmatch with the No Life King, that dreadful gaze of hers projected on the screen made me shiver… Not. She probably intended on glaring at me through the doll, but the camera for the dungeon core isn’t in the doll but looking at her from an angle instead, so it didn’t really feel like I was being glared at.
『I want to know what you’re angry about.』
&n
bsp; 『Hmph, asking the obvious! I’ve come here to give the death penalty to the fool who calls themselves the Evil God!』
『Evil God…?』
『? Why is that what you’re getting confused about? It’s rumoured amongst the people in town that the Evil God lives in this dungeon, you know!』
The heck?
『You’re the first person I’ve spoken to as a dungeon master. I have no memory of calling myself something like the Evil God.』
『What…?』
Even if I did have the chance to give my name, I have absolutely zero intention of calling myself the Evil God. But still, I’m kind of worried about the rumour in Riemel. Why is it being spread that I’m the Evil God? But if there wasn’t something to start it off, I don’t think such a rumour would appear though.
『You didn’t give your name?』
『Nope.』
『I-, I see…』
When I cleanly denied it, Miss Leonora started to have a cold sweat. Becoming fidgety and restless, her gaze began wandering here and there.
『In other words… it was a stubborn misunderstanding?』
When I pointed that out, she reacted with a start, and her unrest intensified. Almost like a small child frightened by their parent’s scolding.
『Umm… I… you could say that there’s not no chance that that’s what happened, or rather…』
『The No Life King that I spent 1,000,000 mana points on.』
『Gu-… That’s…』
I didn’t tell a lie. I can create three each day, so it’s not really a big deal though.
『Reparations.』
I don’t really mind, but her reactions are interesting, so I’ll try pressuring her a little. Miss Leonora groaned with a sour expression at my words.
『I-, It can’t be helped… I’ll make it up to you, but, what should I do?』
『Work as the 10th floor mid-boss in his stead.』
『Wha-!? Are you telling me to submit to you!?』
Ah, crap. Did I get a little carried away? Just now her face turned red and showed her indignation.
『A temporary hire. It’s fine even if we aren’t master and servant.』
『But…』
It seems that Miss Leonora is extremely picky about master and servant relationships. I said that earlier as half a joke and want to take back my words, but if I say ‘Just kidding.’ at this point, she’d get angry, huh.
『…Got it.』
Mn?
『The No Life King’s job. I’ll do it in his place.』
Geh-, if you really did that I’d be troubled, you know?
『However! I have no intention of working under somebody whose face I’ve never seen! I’ll only agree after meeting you directly and making a judgement! This is something I’ll absolutely not budge on!』
In other words, she wants to have an interview with me? A ploy for a sneak attack…? Doesn’t seem so. She seems bad at that sort of cunning. Well, once she meets me she’ll probably get let down and lose her intention of obeying me. I’m level 1 after all.
『Got it. In that case──』
I’ll head down now, or so I wanted to say, but she cut me off and declared with a determined expression.
『Alright, in that case I’ll immediately head down to the lowest floor. Wait there for a little!』
H-, hey… Unaffected by me trying to stop her in a fluster, Miss Leonora made way into the path behind the throne. It seems that she’s the type of person who becomes really hard to talk to once she’s decided on something.
No matter how strong she might be, even by the quickest estimates it’ll probably take her 2 days to get down to the 31st floor. On top of that, the 11th to 20th floors are puzzle-solving floors that you can’t brute force your way through, so if she gets stuck on one, it’ll take forever. Do I have to keep waiting for her all that time?
Having said that though, going by how she looks, she doesn’t seem like she’ll listen to a thing I say at this point. It can’t be helped. I’ll have her continue until she feels satisfied, and once she gives up I’ll give her an invitation.
◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆
Miss Leonora had managed the splendid accomplishment of reaching as far as the 10th floor in a day, but as expected, from the 11th floor onwards, she fell into a slump of 1 floor per day.
Day 1, the 11th floor quiz floor.
A floor where you’d be given 10 questions with 3 choices each, and progressed by getting them correct. If you made a mistake, you’d be forcefully sent to the beginning of the floor and forced to redo it all.
『Aahh, even though I finally got as far as 8 questions!?』
『Unfortunate. You’re returning to the start.』
『YOU―――!!!』
Day 2, the 12th floor moving ground floor.
When you stepped on a panel with an arrow, you’d automatically be moved that way, and flying was forbidden. Unless you carefully planned out where you’d get on, you wouldn’t be able to progress like you wanted. On a game screen where you could look down from above, it was a puzzle that you’d immediately be able to figure out with just a little thinking, but it might be quite difficult once it’s all spread out in front of you.
『Arghhhh, even though I could see the stairs right in front of me…-!』
『Slow and steady wins the race.』
Day 3, the 13th floor rotating floor.
It’s a gimmick where the floor rotates everywhere. All of the rooms were circular and the exits were all equally spaced apart, so once you got spun around, you wouldn’t know which way to go. And while you were there, if you span too much…
『…I, I veel zick.』
『As a fellow warrior[samurai], I’ll shut my eyes and ears to this.』
Ah-, when was it that I said that I wasn’t a samurai again? As you’d expect it was really too pitiful, so I teleported in a cup of water for her.
Day 4―――
『Isn’t it about time to give up?』
『D-, Don’t joke with me. I-, I can still go on…』
So she said, but however you looked at it, she had lost quite a bit of spirit compared to before. Even looking on as a bystander, you could tell that her spirit was about to break.
By the way, because Miss Leonora assumed that it would be a shallow dungeon, she came in almost completely empty handed, and of course she didn’t have a single ration with her. I found that I couldn’t just watch her challenge the quizzes while her stomach growled, so I sent in bread and soup. On the first day, Miss Leonora was stubborn and wouldn’t eat the food, but once the second day came, perhaps because she couldn’t bear the hunger, she reluctantly ate.
『T-, To begin with, what’s with this!? This mountain of tricks!』
『Anti-musclehead measures.』
『Who are you calling a musclehead! You, once I get to the lowest floor you’re going to get a good punch!』
『I wonder if I should stop sending food.』
『Wha-!? S-, Starvation tactics are for cowards!』
I don’t want to hear that from somebody who didn’t bring any provisions. To begin with, there’s no other dungeon that provides reception as good as 3 meals a day, so I’d like her to be a little thankful.
『By the way, there’s something I’d like to ask, but, how just many floors does this dungeon have?』
Ah-, has she finally realised? Honestly, I think she should have asked this to begin with though. Knowing how many floors there are would provide a hint on how to conquer the dungeon so I can’t really make it public, but if it’s just her then I guess it’s fine. From our conversations so far, I can tell that she isn’t the sort to spread this around after all.
『31 floors.』
『Thir…-!?』
Miss Leonora paled, speechless. Despite having advanced through the dungeon while enduring hardships, she still hadn’t even reached the halfway point, so I guess it’s natural. Having said that, even if the 21st to
30th floor exist, they still aren’t finished yet, so the hardest part of the dungeon are the middle floors that she’s on right now, but I don’t think I’ll tell her.
『Giving up?』
『Gu-… Certainly at this rate, I can’t help but agree that it’ll be difficult to reach the bottom floor, but… if I don’t make it to the lowest floor, I won’t be able to see you, right?』
『When I spoke to you on the 10th floor, I had planned to head to where you were.』
『What!? Then, my three days of toil were…』
『It’s what you reap for deciding not to listen.』
Being poked where it hurt, Miss Leonora fell into silence.
『I get it. It’s frustrating, but I’ll give up on getting there.』
Seeing her say that with a reluctant expression, I patted my chest in relief. It looked like conquering the 11th floor and down had amassed quite alot of resentment, so if she made it to the bottom floor by her own strength I’d probably get beat up, so I was secretly trembling with fear. She probably isn’t shameless enough that she’d beat me even after giving up and then being invited here.
From the very beginning, I didn’t intend on having her act as the midboss, but having talked to her for these three days, I know that she’s a pleasant person, and I’d be happy if we could build a friendly relationship.
『Got it. I’ll prepare a teleportation circle for you so get on it.』
At first I had planned on inviting her into the residential area, but just in case by some chance negotiations got violent, I decided to meet her somewhere else. Well, judging by her personality, I don’t think that’ll happen though.
The 30th floor boss room is just the room right now with no boss in it yet, so it’s just right.
By the way, I’ve already deployed the 20th floor boss. I summoned a living armour made of orihalcon and tried enchanting it with divine protection while I was at it, but it turned into something brutal.
I was thinking of placing on the 30th floor a dragon that’s so common to fantasy worlds, but since I was doing it anyway, I might as well make it the strongest one, I thought, so I’m saving up mana in the dungeon core right now.
Evil God Average 【First Half – Book of Evil】 Page 10
