CHAPTER 73: ANDRAS’S DUNGEON

I subdued two Andras, a male-female pair. The Andras I’d already killed couldn’t be helped, and at least these two seemed to be higher-tier types with very small wings on their backs.

’They’re 2-star scrubs.’

Traces of evolution. The bird-head humans had clearly evolved into bird-head winged humans, and that symbol of evolution was proof of a dungeon.

"Master."

Eila, who’d been surveying the village’s condition, approached with a horrified expression. And behind Eila was the stud hunter who knew this village’s location.

"They’re... all dead."

"Figured as much."

The hunter village where seasoned folks gathered was the unusual one. Most slash-and-burn villagers were people hiding from war and taxes.

"Seems like you want to say something."

"Yes. ...I’d like to make graves for them."

"The humans?"

I scanned the human corpses with my eyes. The damage to the bodies was severe enough to be hard to put into words. Their expressions were uniformly twisted and agonized.

"..."

It was the opposite. They hadn’t eaten the corpses—the Andras had pecked at the bellies of living humans to tear out and eat their intestines. Naturally, it would’ve been pain that could only end in shock death.

"...Damn."

If they were bastards who attacked my dungeon, that’d be one thing, but seeing completely unrelated people die like this hit different.

’Honestly, I just want to leave them and take only the goods.’

The village had quite a few decent tools. I wanted to just grab those and the two Andras, but Eila and the other stud hunters’ expressions weren’t great.

’Guess I’ll think of it as paying for the goods.’

"Gather them in one place. I’ll dig the ground."

"Thank you, Master."

The four humans moved quickly to collect the corpses in the square. I started digging a pit again with the only shovel in the village.

"Master, what should I do?"

"Find rope or tree stems and tie those things up tight."

"Yes."

Lune immediately left to start looking for appropriate restraints. She tied the Andras’s arms and legs with rope found in something like the village’s communal storage, binding them perfectly for carrying.

"Lune."

"Yes."

"Where’d you learn to tie like that?"

"It’s how we capture prisoners in the elf village! When an intruder enters the forest, we first capture them as prisoners, then tie them like this until we escort them to the Elders."

"Hmm..."

Those elf Elders are definitely perverts who satisfy their filthy desires among themselves in secret. Otherwise, why would female prisoners be tied precisely in turtle shell bondage, or male prisoners be tied to make their junk stand out?

Unless Lune was exceptionally weird, the elves’ sexual culture itself could fairly be called the crystallization of twisted perverted desires created by all kinds of urges building up in a closed situation.

’Unless Lune and Luna are the weird ones.’

If I ever get the chance to raid the elf village someday, I definitely need to bring those Elders and make them turn a water mill or something. Through body enhancement, I created a hole to bury 20 people.

"Done."

"Yes..."

The hunters’ expressions were quite bad. The sight of fellow humans eaten by monsters made them think various thoughts.

’Though their comrades got eaten by my subordinates.’

Now that their backs are warm and bellies full, are they starting to care about this kind of thing? Just as I was about to scold them sharply, the stud hunters dropped the bodies into the pit without hesitation, letting them slide down.

"What, you guys don’t even express mourning or anything?"

"Because they’re dead people. We were just thinking that if we hadn’t fully pledged our loyalty to Master, this would’ve been us."

"Is that so."

Seems they felt more relief at their own survival than grief over fellow humans’ deaths. I felt oddly embarrassed by their nonchalant attitude.

"Mm..."

Eila was frowning as she rolled corpses into the ground. She seemed bothered by something, and I carefully approached and asked.

"Does this bother you too?"

"No. Since we can’t cremate them, we should at least bury them in the ground. I’d like to make individual graves for each person, but..."

"Can’t do that. Takes too much time."

"Yes. We can’t just stay here forever."

Eila placed the last corpse in the pit. They all lay diagonally with their backs against the pit’s slope. Their expressions were still twisted as if resentful and agonized.

"...Ah, damn it."

I felt uncomfortable for no reason, so I went inside and brushed their faces with my hand. My fingers, wet with the blood of monsters and humans, closed their eyelids, and soon the 20 corpses had their eyes closed as if crying red tears.

"Tsk, of all things to be attacked by those monsters."

"What were you originally planning to do?"

"Same thing. Capture them all, and if they become our dungeon’s slaves they live, if they refuse to become slaves, I raise my fists."

The plan to expand the village went up in smoke. I shoveled dirt to cover the top of the pit. With all kinds of buffs stacked on, it took less than 30 minutes to completely bury that pit.

"Then let’s gather the goods and leave. They’re ownerless items anyway."

"Mm..."

Eila seemed bothered by something again.

"What?"

"No. I was just thinking we should at least pray before leaving."

"Pray?"

"Since it feels wrong to just take things, we’d pray to the Goddess and honor the departed souls."

I doubt scavengers pray to the Goddess when looting items from battlefield corpses, but still, for the mental management of the four humans, I put my hands together in prayer.

"May you rest in peace. Amen. Rest comfortably in the afterlife. May you be born into a slightly easier life next time."

Not as an orc. I swallowed those last words and bowed. The other humans—even Lune—flinched in surprise.

"What, why?"

"No. Master. That... you didn’t pray to the Goddess, did you?"

"Why would I pray to a goddess I’ve never even seen?"

"Hup."

The hunters covered their mouths. And Eila nodded with a heavy expression.

"...Master, since you’re from the Demon King’s army, I understand. The Goddess is one who embraces the human alliance. I didn’t realize the object of prayer could be different. I apologize."

"No, it’s not that big a deal. Do humans believe in the Goddess?"

"Yes. Elves believe too. The Goddess Church."

"Didn’t know that."

The Goddess Church, huh.

"If she raises gacha rates, I’ll believe."

"Pardon?"

"I’m part of the Great Success Church."

If believing in the Goddess could raise the probability even 1%, I’d bow to the Goddess three times a day in all four directions.

"Then let’s take these guys and head back."

"Head back?"

"Yeah. Just getting these guys is a huge achievement."

Know thy enemy and know thyself. I lifted the Andras onto both sides of my waist.

"Hehe, the name itself is so blatant... Kheehee."

Andras.

One of Solomon’s 72 demons. I definitely remember it refers to the 63rd ranked demon. And if I extract information from these Andras, there’s a high probability I’ll get the information I want to confirm.

’Andras’s Dungeon.’

Just as Forneus had one, Andras’s Dungeon must have opened somewhere near here too.

’Raiding someone else’s dungeon is sweeter than plundering slash-and-burn villages.’

Plus, I’ll also raid the dungeon’s owner, that supposed beauty, tentatively named [Andras].

"Ehehe."

"Ah, that’s Master’s laugh when he’s thinking about a new woman."

"..."

Wait, how did she know?

Lune was grinning at me, but that smile gave me chills.

"Master, let’s hurry back and eat dinner!"

"Y-yeah."

I grabbed the two Andras, while the stud hunters and Eila gathered clothes and various tools.

"What about those?"

A stud hunter pointed to the Andras sprawled on the ground with their heads stuck down. Though bird heads were inside, the outside was unmistakably naked men and women.

"Mm..."

There was still some blood stickily smeared on my hands. I put the two Andras down on the ground.

"Should at least leave a warning sign."

So that if a scout from Andras’s Dungeon sees it someday, they’ll definitely report to the dungeon’s owner, I wrote an appropriate message on the Andras corpses.

"Very Master-like."

"Right?"

"So when will you eat me?"

"You’re still low level."

Lune’s level only went up by 1 from this reconnaissance.

[Subordinate Evolution: Evolve Lune (★★☆☆☆)]

[Expected Result: High Elf (★★★☆☆)]

[Evolution Condition: Reach Lv 35 (23 / 35)]

There was still a long way to level 35 for evolving to 3-stars.

"So be patient. Got it?"

"Hnng..."

Lune just smacked her lips while looking at my lower half. Then Eila, who was beside her, approached me and asked with a flushed face.

"M-Master. What about my evolution...?"

"You can’t evolve anymore."

"What? Is it because I’m human?!"

"No, you can’t evolve, but you can be reborn."

According to Solomon’s system and my grace, for Eila who was reborn as a member of the dungeon, only one path of growth remained.

"When we get back, I’ll put it inside you one more time."

"...Thank you."

6-star Lune and 6-star Eila. I welcomed the two Andras as ’prisoners’ of our dungeon to prepare for the invasion of Andras’s Dungeon, the place that would become a stepping stone for Lune and Eila’s growth.

***

After returning to the dungeon, I first stuffed each Andras into the prisoner cell. They still hadn’t regained consciousness. And after a lot of consideration, I decided to mess with the female-type Andras.

’Just gotta close my eyes!’

If I just didn’t look at the head, the pelvis itself was a killer female body. Thanks to Lune restraining her in turtle shell bondage, the body parts stood out perfectly, and that was enough to stimulate my new sadistic tendencies.

Flap flap.

The palm-sized wings on the Andras’s back fluttered. Realizing she was slowly regaining consciousness, I immediately touched those wings.

[Andras: ★★☆]

Level: 31 / 35

Species: Andras

Age: 20 years

Gender: Female

Rank: Normal (N)

Birth: Andras’s Dungeon

Affiliation: Andras’s Dungeon

Occupation: Adult Andras

As expected. Just as I thought.

As expected, the Andras’s wings were an erogenous zone, and thanks to restraining her as a prisoner, I could also check the Andras’s detailed information.

And also as expected, the Andras was a minion of [Andras’s Dungeon].

’She made a species named after herself.’

A demon called Andras probably created new monsters based on her own name. Forneus was a pervert who only left beautiful species in the core, and I’d seen the species that were mercilessly torn apart in that process.

’Fucking bitch.’

Forneus called me specifically to watch with my own eyes whenever she eliminated and devoured them one by one. Under the pretext of calling the chieftain, eliminating them in front of me while calling them ugly monsters was definitely meant to mock and torment me.

’That’s why I need to get stronger too.’

As an individual, as a dungeon owner, and as the grand chieftain who’ll someday lead the Grimfang tribe.

"So you need to help me out a bit."

I grabbed the rope restraining the Andras and lifted her. Thanks to Lune tying the rope tight, the Andras’s restraints didn’t come loose as I brought her outside the cell.

’Outside the cell, escape probability goes up, but it’s fine.’

"Master, what about dinner?"

Lune, Eila, and the others including my daughters were gathered eating dinner. The steaming stew was made by boiling slime dragon fluid for a long time in a deep pot looted from the village.

"Ugh."

Though Lune and Eila tried making it with whatever ingredients they had, could that really be called food? I was troubled in many ways.

"Dad, you’re not planning to make us eat this while you eat that, are you?"

Meri pointed to the Andras in my hand. I felt guilty for no reason and couldn’t answer. It felt a bit awkward to say in front of them that I’d eat the Andras separately for effective information gathering.

Gurgle.

Lime ladled stew into a bowl and handed it to me. As someone who needed Lime’s help, I had no choice but to accept the stew bowl.

Slurp.

"Is it good?!"

"...It has a very unique taste."

On this day, I realized for the first time why she kept begging to eat dinner together, to have a company dinner even if just the two of us.

Today’s lesson.

Let’s never deliberately boil jelly to eat.