‘No, this is a total luck-based trash game.’
The Monster Arena system had opened not long ago.
I’d been looking forward to it because it said a portion of the profits earned from the arena would be given as gems, but the results had been terrible.
“Tsk.”
The Monster Arena’s system was simple.
You bet gold on the challenger you thought would win.
If the candidate you bet on became the final victor, your profits increased according to the odds.
I had even set the rules of the arena myself, so there was no cheating in the process.
The problem wasn’t the rules, but the monsters’ behavior.
As if the matches were rigged, every challenger I picked and bet on died without putting up any kind of fight.
And since they were challengers with high odds of survival, my suspicions only grew stronger.
“Ha… This is weird. Something’s wrong.”
Maybe I was simply unlucky.
After all, not a single one of my bets had hit since the arena opened.
Especially on the first day of the arena’s opening.
I had bet on a silver-rank adventurer.
- Beiden: A former silver-rank adventurer with abundant experience in monster hunting. Hounded by debt, he ended up participating in this arena.
- Cale: A teenage boy who is the head of his household, barely scraping by through odd jobs.
The other challengers were either ordinary people who didn’t even know how to handle weapons properly, or young teenage boys.
Wouldn’t someone who had been an adventurer be far stronger than those guys?
So I had confidently bet my gold, and yet…
- The final victor is “Cale”!
The boy I thought would be the first to die survived until the end.
But the funny thing was that the goblins had oddly avoided attacking only Cale.
It was an absurd situation, to say the least.
And in the next match, and the match after that, it was the same.
All the promising contestants died, while the challengers who seemed least likely to survive lived and became the victors.
In the end, I had yet to see a single contestant I bet on win.
“So it’s not a simple game, huh?”
Although I was watching the matches through my smartphone screen, the world beyond it was undeniably real.
Perhaps I shouldn’t simply analyze the challengers’ career histories at face value.
At this point, my pride was starting to get wounded.
‘What the hell am I supposed to look at to win a bet?’
Were there even people making money off that place in the first place?
Carefully reading through the profiles of the challengers who would participate in the next match, I fell into thought once more.
As I stared for a long while…
An alarm rang.
- Congratulations! “Kazel von Rosenberg” has become the first human to voluntarily swear loyalty.
“Huh?”
What was that supposed to mean?
He voluntarily swore loyalty to the dungeon?
- As a reward, you can strengthen “Kazel von Rosenberg,” who has sworn loyalty.
Not only that, apparently I could even strengthen a human.
It was unexpected news, but it wasn’t bad for me.
‘Doesn’t this mean the number of cards I can use has increased?’
If there had been more capable people like Kazel von Rosenberg, perhaps the recent incident with the Seil Kingdom could have been handled more smoothly.
If I could strengthen and utilize not only monsters but people as well, it would be a great help in the future.
So I was quite satisfied with this reward.
But the next alarm that popped up in succession was completely out of nowhere.
- Baalcherit has visited Lee Ganghyeon’s dungeon.
Now what was this supposed to mean?
‘Baalcherit.’
That name was not one I could easily forget.
Baalcherit was the first 5-star monster who had appeared when I was drawing for lieutenants.
But Baalcherit had rejected my selection.
If she rejected me, why had she come to my dungeon?
Now wasn’t the time to be paying attention to the Monster Arena.
‘Something is definitely happening.’
I immediately closed the notification window and looked at the dungeon.
* * *
Riche.
That was the alias Baalcherit used to hide her identity.
Once, as one who had inherited the blood of the Vampire King, she had commanded countless subordinates and wielded great power.
But everything had disappeared in a surprise attack by the White Order.
The vampire dungeons belonging to her faction collapsed, and her subordinates died or scattered.
In an attempt to resolve the situation, she had incurred a massive debt to the Demon Realm Trading Company, but when she failed to repay it, she became a fugitive.
In the end, having lost everything, she wandered from place to place until she reached the Seil Kingdom.
If there was one hope, it was to find the owner of the voice that had once come to her.
And with the guess that the owner of that voice was surely in the Seil Kingdom, she had come all the way here.
“Do we really have to climb this place?”
Baalcherit asked Dambi and Rils in horror.
They were adventurers who had helped her when she was in trouble.
Of course, they only looked like adventurers on the outside; in reality, they were monsters. In particular, although Dambi had other blood mixed in, she was a vampire like herself, so Baalcherit could trust her.
But the place before them now was the Silent Mountain Range.
If they crossed this place, the Demon Realm would appear, but that wasn’t the problem.
The Demon Realm Trading Company must surely have deployed troops all over the mountain range to capture her, who owed them a debt.
“Don’t worry, Miss Riche. Our master’s dungeon is here.”
When Rils said that, Dambi also nodded.
The Demon Realm Trading Company bothered her, but when Dambi, a fellow vampire, nodded, only then did Baalcherit take a step forward.
“Urgh… Fine. Let us climb for now.”
Originally, she had intended to go to the royal capital first, but Baalcherit also had no real plan, so for the time being she needed a place to stay.
In that situation, she had thought to stay for a few days at the dungeon where Dambi and Rils lived.
‘It may be inferior to this one’s dungeon, but it cannot be helped.’
Baalcherit had once been the master of a magnificent dungeon.
However, when the management rights of her dungeon passed to the trading company, she became penniless.
For now, she urgently needed a place to stay, so even if it was an insignificant dungeon, she was in no position to be picky.
“Kku-eo?”
All she currently had was a stew slime.
Holding the stew slime in her arms, she followed Dambi and Rils up the mountain range.
Even if the trading company’s lackeys appeared, Baalcherit had the power to deal with them.
How long had they climbed?
A vast forest spread out before them.
And from within the forest, she sensed a presence.
“……!”
“Kku-eo-eo?”
Could it be people sent by the trading company?
While Baalcherit held the stew slime tightly and went on guard…
“Krrt, you’ve come.”
A goblin sprang out.
The problem was that it wasn’t just one.
Behind the goblin that first popped out, countless goblins revealed themselves.
Most of all, the equipment they wore was extraordinary.
‘Those are goblins?’
The goblins Baalcherit knew were low-level monsters who wore shabby rags and carried rusted weapons.
But the goblins before her eyes were different.
They wore armor made of high-quality leather and carried finely crafted weapons.
“Has something happened? It seems the number of scouts has increased more than usual.”
Dambi said as she looked at the goblins.
It did feel as though the number of scouts had increased excessively compared to usual.
“Krrk, we’re catching one monster! This is the chief manager’s order! Krt. But who’s that one?”
The goblin at the front pointed at Baalcherit and asked.
“Ah, we’re late with the introductions. This is Miss Riche. She has nowhere to go, so we came to ask permission for her to stay here for the time being.”
“I see.”
At Rils’s answer, the goblins nodded. Then, as if they had lost interest, they went back into the forest and maintained their battle-ready posture.
“Huh, impressive…!”
Baalcherit was amazed by the goblins’ disciplined bearing.
Just by looking at the goblins’ numbers and equipment, it was clear this was a fairly decent dungeon.
In addition, she thought of it as a goblin dungeon.
She didn’t know how Dambi and Rils had ended up living in a goblin dungeon, but she was quite surprised by the goblins’ combat strength.
At that level, it meant the dungeon’s master paid considerable attention to defense.
They had to be someone more meticulous than her past self.
“I-Is that so!”
At this point, she grew slightly curious.
Just what monster were they trying to catch?
Whoever it was, they must be in a similar situation to herself, being chased by the trading company.
‘That fellow is quite pitiful as well.’
Baalcherit felt a sense of kinship with the unknown other party.
* * *
After passing the goblin scouting party, they finally arrived at the dungeon entrance.
“Hm? Is this truly a dungeon? This one cannot feel any energy from it at all.”
Because Baalcherit had lived for many long years, she prided herself on knowing a great deal about dungeons.
Dungeons emitted a dark and gloomy energy. Though the degree varied, this was the first time she had seen a dungeon that showed no energy whatsoever like this.
It was so quiet and peaceful that it looked like an ordinary cave.
“Surprisingly, this is the place. Miss Riche. Please follow us carefully.”
Baalcherit found herself surprised several times today.
An ability to hide a dungeon’s energy, of all things.
Baalcherit followed Dambi and Rils and stepped into the dungeon.
Once inside, the dungeon’s interior was unbelievably clean.
Not only the floor, but even the walls were spotless, without a speck of dust.
As they advanced further, a three-way path appeared.
Without hesitation, Dambi immediately entered the center path.
‘The others must be where the traps are.’
Since this was her first time here, she said nothing and simply followed Dambi from behind.
And at the scene that unfolded before her eyes, Baalcherit was once again rendered speechless.
All sorts of goblins filled the wide hall.
Among them was even a Goblin Lord who appeared to be their leader.
“Could he be the master of the dungeon?”
A Goblin Lord was also a 5-star being.
Though she didn’t know his actual strength, his grade was the same as hers, so Baalcherit thought the Goblin Lord was the master of this dungeon.
Most of all, this place overflowed with goblin shamans and hobgoblins alongside the goblins.
All of them were diligently holding weapons and training.
But Dambi and Rils passed right by those goblins.
“?”
At the sight, Baalcherit moved forward with a puzzled expression.
After they passed the place where the goblins had been, a massive lake spread out in the next area.
“This is…”
Now she was so shocked that words would not come out properly.
A massive lake existing underground.
Nearby, ghouls and humans were hard at work with shovels and pickaxes in hand.
And the one supervising them was…
“Could it be that a Death Knight is the master of this place!”
A 5-star Death Knight was staring fixedly at the humans.
Yes, that one was surely the master of the dungeon.
Her mind was in chaos, but Baalcherit was certain of that.
She didn’t know why a Goblin Lord and a Death Knight coexisted here, but there must be some reason.
“Just… what kind of dungeon are you living in…?”
Baalcherit clicked her tongue automatically as she looked at the scene unfolding before her eyes.
Just from what she had seen so far, she could gauge how tremendous the dungeon’s scale and forces were.
With a dungeon of this level, wouldn’t the Demon Realm Trading Company bow its head first?
In the first place, there was no chance this dungeon would fall, but even if a dangerous situation came, she felt the trading company would rush forward to help.
“Huh…”
That was how absurd the dungeon before her was.
But Dambi silently headed toward the next area.
“……?”
Come to think of it, there was another passage on the opposite side.
This time, it was a section leading downward, and Rils opened her mouth.
“If you go down here, you’ll reach the second floor. The place we were just at was the first floor. Please be careful coming down.”
When they reached the bottom, a very different scene from before unfolded.
“Aaaaargh! I told you everything! Stop already!”
There, screams of pain rang out ceaselessly.
An ogre was torturing humans without a moment’s rest.
“Left, should we stop now?”
“No. Right. He said it. The manager. Keep torturing. This time, use water.”
“Good idea. Left. Water knows. The answer.”
It was even an ogre with two heads. And beside it, a water spirit was crying.
“Ppyuu! Ppyu!”
The ogre grabbed a human’s head and pressed it straight against the water spirit’s body.
At the excessively brutal sight, Baalcherit unwittingly squeezed her eyes shut.
What was the identity of this dungeon?
‘As if a Goblin Lord and a Death Knight weren’t enough…’
This was a dungeon made by gathering all kinds of monsters.
It was bewildering.
However, this time as well, Dambi walked forward without a word.
‘Surely not…’
Could there be even more after this?
Wanting to get away from this place, she hurriedly followed after them.
And at last, they reached the heart of the dungeon.
The center was extremely quiet.
The dungeon’s core had appeared, but on either side, unknown beings wearing robes were guarding it.
As she walked a little farther in, she saw humans locked in iron cages.
There were also three goblins there who were close to human in appearance.
As they kept walking, this time skeleton knights came into view.
The skeleton knights were standing still in place, waiting.
Beside them, a certain human was busily working while flipping through documents.
He looked frantic, but his expression held a sense of satisfaction.
And Dambi, who had been silent until now, finally opened her mouth.
“This is the office where the one who manages the dungeon resides.”
Just as Dambi said, it was an office, but the door was firmly shut.
Baalcherit looked at the office door and grew tense.
Judging by the scenes she had seen so far, she could not even imagine how powerful the master of this dungeon must be.
What kind of being could the master who ruled over two 5-star entities be?
A skeleton knight rapped on the office door.
A moment later, the firmly shut door opened.