After my speech, we began the allocation of the fields as well as accepting loans for high-quality seeds. I entrusted such tasks to the Dwarf Smiths and High Elves.
There were those who fought over which fields they would receive, but that much was within our expectations. They were looking out for themselves, so I couldn’t really blame them.
That said, I warned them that should they get too unruly, their little riot would be suppressed by the dwarves and elves. We followed this warning with a demonstration of my monsters’ strength.
◇
I left the task to the Dwarf Smiths and High Elves, and went back to the lord’s estate.
There, Ciel and I talked about the defense of the dungeon.
“Ciel, how many weapons do you have stored?”
“Let’s see. For the Avalon-Ritters, all the ones I had were destroyed in that last fight. I had to leave most of them in Rorono-sama’s workshop for repairs, but I still have a few that aren’t total wrecks. If we swap around the parts, I think we can have two fully-functioning Avalon-Ritters.”
Avalon-Ritters.
They were golems made out of a legendary metal called orichalcum.
It wasn’t just their bodies that made them special though. Their golem cores were of the highest quality because it was made by none other than Rorono, the world’s greatest dwarf. And to one up even that, she developed a system called [Twin Drive Golem Cores] which allowed two golem cores to synchronize with each other so that the output power would increase exponentially.
Under normal conditions, Avalon-Ritters could be compared to above-average A rank monsters. However, once they make their golem cores operate at maximum capacity—a mode we referred to as [Burst Drive]—the Avalon-Ritters were comparable to even S rank monsters albeit for only a short time.
With these in mind, it could be said that the Avalon-Ritters were no longer golems and were a category all on their own.
Nowadays, our basic strategy when attacking an enemy dungeon was to let Ciel charge ahead into the center of the enemy formation. Once there, she would then unleash the many Avalon-Ritters she had stored and cause chaos.
We used this strategy even in the fight against the Demon Lord I dethroned from being one of the strongest. The strategy was effective there, but it came at the cost of the Avalon-Ritters suffering heavy damage. Which wasn’t a surprise considering it was one of the three strongest Demon Lords we were fighting. If we had made one mistake, defeat was very possible.
“Okay, go figure out which parts to swap in and out as fast as you can, please.”
“Pyui ‘kay, leave it to me.”
“How about the Mithril Golems and Silver Golems? How many do we have?”
Much like their name might suggest, Mithril Golems were golems made out of mithril. They were roughly on par with B rank monsters.
On the other hand, Silver Golems were made out of Silver and were comparable to C rank monsters. Silver Golems and those below it in terms of quality could be made by the Dwarf Smiths, so even in this world, we could produce as many of them as we needed.
However, while being comparable to C rank monsters wasn’t bad, it wasn’t good either. Even if we had many of them, a victory against other Demon Lords was still far from certain. Equipping the Silver Golems with powerful weapons might make up for that though.
“Right after the last fight ended, I’ve replenished my stock of them. Unlike with Avalon-Ritters, we have a lot of spare Mithril and Silver Golems. I have 112 Mithril Golems and 220 Silver Golems. As for the weapons, I have about 10 of every ED model guns that are in circulation. For the normal models though, I have more than a hundred. For magic bullets, I have around 2,000 all in all; and for regular ammo, around 20,000.”
“That’s not a lot. Alright, I’ll make five more Dwarf Smiths and make them focus on making weapons and ammos. Please guide them as well.”
“You’re overworking this slime, you know… but yeah, I’ll do it!”
“Sorry, Ciel, but as it stands, you’re the only one knowledgeable enough to train the new recruits.”
“I know, I know. My, being too talented has its own share of problems, doesn’t it?”
She said so with a smug face and then hopped into my lap.
In response, I patted her head.
For someone who absorbed knowledge from all sorts of monsters and humans, she sure was childish.
“We might not have enough units for now… but let’s just do what we can. Let’s go.”
“Let’s! Off to build a brutal dungeon!”
The surface level of this dungeon would be the city, while the so-called dungeon proper would disintegrate anyone who dared to take a single step inside.
Yes, much like in Avalon.
In an ideal world, I wouldn’t have to set any defenses, but alas, reality forces me to. Unless we put up a serious defense, there would inevitably come a day my crystal would get broken and lose the dungeon.
“By the way, my Demon Lord, what are you going to name this city? I mean, it’s your city now, so changing its name to reflect that sounds reasonable to me.”
“Yeah, you’re right. I’ll try to come up with something good.”
It might be a temporary base, but it was still my city.
◇
I summoned my [Demon Lord Book] and added a whole dungeon floor.
As a consequence to this, the crystal room moved next to the new floor.
A Demon Lord’s dungeon was comprised of dungeon floors. And in each dungeon floor, there were three dungeon rooms.
The first floor of my dungeon was made up of two [Plains] room that were as vast as possible and one very lush [Forest] room.
Adding that one floor needed a lot of DP, but fortunately, I had a lot saved up.
In theory, a Demon Lord could add as many floors as their DP allowed, but since the DP cost increased each time a floor was added, it would eventually become too expensive. In a sense, the raw strength of a Demon Lord could be assumed based on how deep their dungeon was.
“Even the dungeon proper is shaping up to be like Avalon.”
For the first room of the dungeon proper, I installed a [Stone Corridor].
Dungeon rooms had predetermined minimum and maximum values to be observed, but other than that, Demon Lords were free to make dungeon rooms whatever size or shape they wanted.
And so, I decided to make this stone corridor’s width and ceiling be at the lowest possible value of only 4 meters, while its length was at the maximum possible value of 2 kilometers. Moreover, on closer inspection, one would find that instead of a level terrain, the stone corridor actually sloped ever so slightly.
Once I finished the settings of the new dungeon room from the crystal room, we visited it.
“If we have this room, we gotta have these guys too.”
Ciel said so and then took out some Mithril Golems.
Due to their large size, just two of them already blocked the way in the corridor.
And in their hands were something that resembled Browning M2 heavy machineguns, which were fiendish weapons that could spit out over a thousand 12.7 mm bullets within a minute, each one travelling at over three times the speed of sound.
That being said, Browning M2 heavy machineguns weren’t what the golems were carrying. No, these were improved versions made by Rorono.
She had dubbed it the EDH-02S Titan.
Through the use of alchemy, other magics, and her technological wisdom, she was able to at least double the performance of the M2.
Not only that, by allowing the golems to connect their cores to the gun and thus making it possible to pour their magic power directly into it, the golems could easily fire bullets that were powered by both science and magic.
In exchange though, it became even harder to carry and use it. Never mind the humans who found it hard to carry just the M2, the Mithril Golems, whose raw strength rivaled even the brawniest of B rank monsters, could barely use the Titans. Not that rapid movement was an actual issue.
“The trajectory predictions seem to be just right.”
“More than just right! This entire room, from start to finish, is a killzone!”
The Titan’s effective range was a little bit short of 2 kilometers. However, because the room was slightly inclined, the horizontal distance between the two ends of the dungeon room was actually lower than 2 kilometers. That meant that the bullets could still reach the other end without the need to shorten the distance that enemies would have to travel.
Moreover, because the total attack power in this world was also the combination of the attacker’s attack power and their weapon’s, even the Mithril Golems who were approximately only at B rank could take down A rank monsters as long as they used the Titans. Hell, even S rank monsters would get torn apart if they get hit by too many bullets.
But that power meant nothing if enemies didn’t get hit. My first solution was to limit the space they could move in, hence the dungeon room’s width and height of only 4 meters. I also made sure the room was absent of anything that could be used as cover. And then, I stationed as many Mithril Golems that could fit, which was 2.
In summary, an enemy that entered this place would have to brave a storm of fatal bullets in order to reach the exit two kilometers away.
Ciel then travelled to the other end of the dungeon room. Along the way, she placed all sorts of things.
“My Demon Lord, I’ve set up the poison gas and mines!”
“Great! Thanks!”
From time to time, an enemy impervious to physical attacks would show up. Such enemies, more often than not, were weak to poison and fire.
So, after an enemy has reached certain distance from the entrance, poison gas—made from the poisonous plants grown by Aura—would be released. A few more distance from that, there were napalm mines that were enchanted with [Incinerate].
Of course, there were monsters that were invulnerable to all of the above. A great example to this were spirit-type monsters. Against such monsters and those who were simply too strong, this rooms had nothing to offer and would have to dealt with on following rooms instead. But given that this room had already stopped most ordinary monsters, that was more than fine.
“I gotta say, this room has great value.”
“Well, considering that it’s the B rank golems and the Titans that make the room work, I’d say it’s more like Rorono-sama is beyond amazing.”
“I won’t argue that.”
Rorono was the cornerstone of Avalon. That was no exaggeration. If anything, it was an understatement.
For without her, Avalon could have fallen long ago.
“Alright, I think that’s enough for the opener. Let’s go make the remaining two rooms.”
An ordinary Demon Lord would be crushed by this dungeon room alone.
However, it was inevitable for there to be some Demon Lords to be able to get past this. In a sense, this dungeon room’s main purpose was to measure an enemy Demon Lord’s caliber; the rest was up to the other rooms.
…in [Wars] though, defending wasn’t enough; one must attack too in order to break the other’s crystal.
The primary reason—perhaps even the only reason—to build a good defense was so that we could concentrate on attacking.
In our case, the Dwarf Smiths, the High Elves, and the golems should be able to hold on long enough for the trump cards in my [Storage] to break the enemy crystal.
“But my Demon Lord, aren’t you in too much of a hurry? Is a fight coming soon?”
“There’s no evidence to suggest so, but my instincts tell me that there is. I don’t know how, but this sixth sense of mine has never been wrong.”
“Hmm, yeah, your sixth sense has always been phenomenal. …but a fight isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It can even be a blessing. I mean, the more we kill in this dungeon, the quicker we get stronger, right? And the quicker we get stronger, the quicker we might be able to get home.”
It was because I preferred joy and happiness that I built this kind of city as a dungeon, but from a strictly efficiency perspective, the thrill of battle and the fear of death were the stronger, more impactful emotions.
…if I was a fool who waged [War] constantly, then perhaps my conscience could endure that much unnecessary killing.
“Whether the fight comes tomorrow or next year, we better be prepared. I say we both get ready for a fight AND increase the population of the city.”
Since the beginning, I was always the kind of guy to set something aside for a rainy day.
…the emotions of the people who have found new hope should start flowing in tomorrow. If so, I can test that out.
According to [Desire] Demon Lord Eligor, there existed a link between a Demon Lord’s crystals. I already tried to make use of it yesterday, but before I made any significant progress, some kind of thick wall stopped me.
With enough power though, it might be possible to force my way through. For that reason, I decided to try again once I’m full from the population’s emotions.
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