Volume 2, 7 - Dungeon Restart

Volume 2, Chapter 7 – Dungeon Restart

Ever since the revelation the other day, we began constructing the town around the temple again as a matter of urgent priority, and I was busy maintaining the dungeon that I had left alone for a while.

Ever since that day that I became the Evil God, not a single person has come to invade the dungeon with the temple built on top. It’s not like I deactivated anything, so in that respect the dungeon was still ready for people at this very moment, but since I may as well, I decided that I would perform maintenance on various things just in case.

Now then, with that as the preface, although this may be a little sudden, I’d like to change to the event that I’ve been waiting for.

Indeed. It’s time for the much awaited dragon summoning.

Dragon──the symbol of the strongest being that stands at the top of the fantasy world. Sometimes as the strongest enemy, sometimes as the most reliable ally, sometimes as the god that rules the world – though the position may change, the dragon is written as the strongest.

A majestic body and sharp fangs. Tough scales and claws that can tear apart any matter of being. And finally, great wings fitting of the ruler of the skies. With just one breath, they can blow apart a great army, and are sometimes able to make free use of even powerful magic. The strongest monster, the dragon, is such a being.

You can roughly split them into the lizard-like western dragons, and the snake-like eastern dragons, but it really has to be a western dragon, I think. I think there are all sorts of dragon fans, so there might be people who disagree, but at the very least, right now I’m the one doing the summoning so I’ll choose the way I like.

*imouto*

Or so I was faintly thinking, as I performed the preparations for the dragon summoning.

It’s a dragon after all, so I’m sure it’ll definitely be huge.

It might be a little dangerous to summon it in the office where the dungeon core is. The truth is I made that kind of mistake during the summoning for the 20th floor’s orichalcum Living Armour, and I have bitter memories of having the room half-destroyed. I won’t make the same mistake again.

Instead of the immobile main core, I held the portable subcore and teleported to the 30th floor boss room to summon the dragon. Even if I summon it somewhere else I’ll have to teleport it here anyway, so it saves time just to summon it here to begin with.

*imouto*

The room has been the same ever since the day that I met with Leonora here. The throne is human-sized and unsuited to the dragon I’m going to summon, but I’ll think about changing the room after the summoning to match it.

“Dungeon Create.”

I muttered so with the subcore in my hand, and a window appeared.

I chose the “summon” entry from it, and from various monster categories, I picked “dragon type”. And when I did, a list with various pictures of dragons and their parameters appeared. Fire dragons and water dragons and earth dragons and wind dragons – I felt like grinning just by looking at the lineup, but I worked hard to keep cool.

Since I’m going to summon one anyway, I’ll go with the strongest. Since the day I became a divine, my mana’s just been piling up without any chance to use it, so I can pick whatever dragon I want. It was possible to sort the list by the amount of mana used, so I looked at the one with the biggest value… How cool. He looks strong. I’ll go with him.

“Summon Dragon.”

It’s not like I needed to say that, but it just came out of my mouth.

When I began summoning, a gargantuan magic circle of 20m diameter appeared in front of me. When the magic circle flickered, an enormous amount of magic gathered above it, and space seemed to warp. And then, something giant began to show itself from that warp.

That giant being let out a roar before my expectant eyes.

“PIKYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!”

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Why did this happen.

There’s no better way to word my feelings. I just stood there dumbfounded, gazing at the tragedy before me.

A majestic body and sharp fangs. Tough scales and claws that can tear apart any matter of being. And finally, great wings fitting of the ruler of the skies. A dragon with all of these things was cowering in a corner of the room, hiding its face against the wall. Literally the Japanese phrase, ‘covering your head and leaving your bottom exposed’.

Black Dragon Vardneel.

500,000,000 mana points; an amount that surpasses just plain harassment, and is at a level where you just lose interest in summoning him to begin with. The most powerful and wicked dragon that had materialised in exchange for that ridiculous amount of mana let out a screech the moment he appeared on the magic circle, and as good as dashed away from me like a startled hare.

Mn, it’s not as though I didn’t have some faint idea that this would happen.

Lately I’ve only been talking to humans and demons, as well as divines who it didn’t work on at all so I totally forgot about its existence, but the description for the Evil God Aura skill certainly did say “has enough power to send a dragon running frantically”.

I acknowledge this. I acknowledge this, but it really is cruel.

Even though I’ve been looking forward to this… always looking forward to this…

I was even uncharacteristically excited while daydreaming about what would happen once the strongest dragon had my divine protection. But looking at him, it seems completely impossible that he’d accept me from the heart. And in fact, just taking a step forward from where I was standing had him tremble with a start, and frantically press himself further up the wall to escape.

Ah-, he’s finally showing his belly.

Don’t want. I don’t want the strongest dragon’s submission pose. I’m begging you, so don’t destroy my yearning towards dragons any further.

No matter how I thought about it, staying here wouldn’t better the situation at all, so in disappointment I left the room.

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Instead of returning to the office, I just teleported to the temple on the 5th surface floor.

There are plenty of things that I needed to do besides the dragon summoning, but I’m feeling really discouraged.

Laying down on the canopy bed in my room, I hugged my pillow and buried my face in it.

“Anri-sama?”

Hearing a lisping voice call out to me, I… had a look without looking that way. Apparently Lili had been in my room reading a book. She’s sharing a room with Tena, but lately Tena’s been busy and can’t look after her, so Lili’s been spending a lot of time in my room. I didn’t notice she was here, so I showed her something a little uncool.

I got up and was about to turn to Lili and reply, when I hesitated because I had no idea what to say.

Perhaps she noticed because Lili closed the book she had been reading, and then trotted up to me from the table.

“Anri-sama, what’s wrong? Are you sad?”

Apparently she realised my depressed atmosphere.

She asked me that while patting my head, so my eyes grew a little hot.

“It’s fine, there was just something a little sad.”

I soothed Lili, and patted her chestnut hair back. Lili narrowed her eyes comfortably.

I was finding Lili’s actions lovely, when I suddenly noticed that she still had her collar, and unconsciously frowned.

She hasn’t been blessed with my divine protection the same way Tena has, so she’s still a human. That’s fine in and of itself, but the problem is that she’s still a slave. When I became a divine, Tena joined the Apostle Race as well and was freed from her slave status. I considered that the same thing might happen if I gave Lili my divine protection as well, but there’s the possibility that apostles are immortal, so I was hesitant to change her at her current age.

If I can learn to use my 『Authorities』 decently, then I think I’ll be able to release her from being a slave without changing her from a human, but it’s impossible at the moment.

I removed my eyes from her collar, and spoke to her after changing gears.

“Are you studying, Lili?”

“Yeah, I was reading the book.”

“Good girl. I’ll read it out to you.”

“Really!?”

It would probably be better as study for her to read a book herself, but just a little bit as thanks for cheering me up should be okay.

Finding it charming that Lili’s eyes were glittering in excitement, I nodded in reply. It feels that my heart that had splintered from that shocking event was now being healed.

“What kind of book were you reading?”

“This.”

Lili held out the book that she had been reading.

I looked at the title of the book.

『The Girl and the Dragon』

No more.