A city where the sun had set and darkness was beginning to settle.
Atop the ramparts, the guards huddled together, waiting only for morning to come.
The man leaning on his spear as he stifled a yawn out of boredom—Tony—was no different.
“There aren’t even any monsters anyway. Can’t we just get some rest?”
Grumbling, Tony gazed out at the darkened wilderness.
The city where he served as a guard was small in scale. Even so, despite being a small city, its fortress was sturdy.
Situated on the outskirts of the Kaln Empire and bordering the Mountains of Silence, it had a well-established defensive system.
But unlike its solid fortress, nothing had threatened the city for years.
There were hardly even wild animals, let alone monsters.
Tony yawned in boredom.
At this rate, he felt as if he would fall sound asleep.
‘If I get caught again, I’m really done for.’
Hadn’t he been caught dozing off during his shift just yesterday?
He had only been let off because it was his first time being caught; if it happened again, he might actually be disciplined.
Tony twisted his body this way and that to wake himself up.
‘This won’t do. I’d better go wash my face with cold water.’
Then he spoke to his colleague Bill beside him.
“Hey, Bill. Cover for me for a bit. I’m going to wash my face.”
Once he splashed some cold water on his face, surely he’d come to his senses.
He asked Bill for a moment’s indulgence, but there was no response.
“Bill?”
When there was no answer, Tony asked again.
As he tapped him on the shoulder, Bill flinched and turned his head.
“Uh… huh?”
“What’s going on? Why are you spacing out like that?”
When Tony spoke again, Bill pointed beyond the ramparts.
“N-no… I thought there was something over there….”
Tony turned his head in the direction Bill was pointing.
But there was nothing there.
Aside from the sound of the wind flowing through the darkness, all was quiet.
“What? There’s nothing there. Were you nodding off?”
It seemed the fellow was tired too.
Thinking nothing of it, Tony lost interest.
“What a letdown.”
Tony laughed hollowly and gripped the spear behind his back. Then he patted Bill on the shoulder once.
“I’m going to wash up first, so you should go wash your face later too. Don’t fall asleep.”
Tony said this to Bill and descended the stairs of the wall.
A short while later, Tony’s steps felt much lighter after finishing his business.
“Whew, that’s refreshing.”
Sure enough, splashing himself with cold water made the sleepiness vanish at once.
If he could just hold out a few more hours, he would be able to enjoy sleep as sweet as honey.
Tony started walking again.
He planned to go back quickly and tell Bill to wash his face too.
He climbed the stairs of the wall again and returned to his original post.
When he came back, Bill was asleep with his head shoved against the wall.
“Well, looks like he finally collapsed.”
Tony clicked his tongue as he looked at Bill sleeping in that uncomfortable posture.
“Hey, Bill! Wake up!”
Just as he shook his shoulder to wake him, the bright red that smeared his fingertips made his heart seem to stop.
“Aaaagh!”
Tony screamed and fell backward.
“W-what is this…?”
Blood was flowing from Bill’s eyes, ears, and mouth.
A moment later, blood gushed from his body.
“B-Bill! Damn it, what happened? Bill!”
Having grasped the situation, Tony shook Bill, but it was no use.
No matter how hard he shook him, there was no answer.
In despair, he placed a hand against Bill’s neck.
“…No.”
He could feel no pulse.
He was already dead.
What on earth had happened while he had been away for just a moment?
Tony tightened his grip on the spear in his hand.
Now that he thought about it, the situation felt far too strange.
It was quiet atop the wall.
“……”
At that moment, a woman’s scream rang out from the direction of the city behind him.
“Aaah! Help me!”
The instant he heard the scream, Tony quickly turned around.
There was no doubt something had happened.
When Tony looked down from the wall, a terrible tragedy unfolded before him.
“What in the world… is happening…?”
The entire city was becoming a scene of chaos.
Buildings were engulfed in flames that had suddenly erupted, and people were screaming as they fled like mad.
Among them, monsters moved like arrows, pouncing on people and tearing into them with their teeth.
“Monsters! Aaaagh!”
Screams of terror, the sound of flesh being ripped away, even the crack of breaking bones.
Overwhelmed by fear, Tony could not move from where he stood.
“……!”
But soon he pulled himself together and moved along the wall.
‘Why is it so quiet?’
He understood the source of the sense of wrongness he had felt.
The city was in pandemonium, yet the place where Tony was remained deathly quiet.
Under normal circumstances, the captain of the guard would have been shouting and gathering the soldiers.
“……”
And Tony’s premonition was not wrong.
Because a low growl sounded from behind him.
Consumed by fear, Tony slowly turned his body. And he came face to face with a massive monster.
“……”
No words came out.
It had a grotesque form, with the body of a serpent joined to the upper body of a human.
Tony felt as if his breath had stopped.
From the monster’s hideous mouth, a red tongue flickered out and licked Tony’s face.
It felt unreal, but what unfolded before his eyes was undeniably reality.
Only then did he realize what the monster was holding in its hand.
‘The captain…!’
Blood was pouring from the captain of the guard’s body.
Even now, the whole city was being dyed red.
‘N-no.’
Barely coming to his senses, Tony thrust the spear in his hand with all his strength.
But it was no use.
The spearhead struck the monster’s scales and instead snapped.
Now there was nothing he could do.
“P-please spare me….”
Tony pleaded desperately, but the monster wore a hideous smile as it wrapped his body with its enormous tail.
“Ghk!”
Tony struggled as he suffocated.
The pain of his neck being crushed left him unable even to scream.
He thrashed his legs and resisted, but the monster’s strength was so overwhelming that it was useless.
Soon, Tony’s head drooped limply.
“Guh….”
As his eyes lost focus, tears flowed down his cheeks.
The monster lifted the dying Tony and slowly opened its mouth.
The corners of its mouth split all the way back behind its ears, revealing hundreds of teeth.
Tony watched the sight with vacant eyes.
He could offer no resistance.
Even though he knew he would soon be thrown into that mouth.
“Ah….”
Along with the sensation of his neck being crushed, Tony vanished into the monster’s maw.
The monster looked down at the city with a smile.
The city that had been filled with people’s screams had, at some point, fallen silent.
The city was enveloped in the silence of death.
Only the flames danced and soared high into the sky.
“Lady Arkanea, it is nearly time for us to depart.”
Beside the monster—no, beside Arkanea, the master of the Lamia Dungeon—her adjutant Stia approached.
“Yes. Let us go.”
Arkanea rose, wearing a cruel smile.
This massacre was no more than a prelude before the full-scale attack.
Her true destination lay elsewhere.
The Arc Lich’s dungeon.
Taking her subordinates with her, Arkanea slowly disappeared into the darkness.
All that remained behind were corpses and ashes.
And so the small, peaceful city vanished into a nightmare.
Forever.
* * *
Deep in the dark night, the forest lay submerged in pitch-black darkness.
The sky was thick with clouds, hiding even the starlight.
Only the moonlight that occasionally shone through the clouds barely illuminated the forest.
Within the darkness covering the woods, Arkanea’s eyes flashed.
Eyes that shone coldly and fiercely, like those of a snake.
The moonlight faintly reflected in those pupils as she surveyed her surroundings.
The sound of Arkanea and her subordinates moving, brushing past fallen leaves and stirring branches, cut through the darkness.
The ancient trees around them cast eerie shadows.
The trees swaying in the wind looked almost as if they were dancing.
When Arkanea flicked out her tongue, it glowed red even in the dark.
“Hmm.”
She inhaled the scent of the forest deeply and murmured.
The smell of damp, gloomy earth. The smell of rotting leaves.
And amid it, a thick hostility could be felt.
“I can feel it. The aura of an enemy.”
At Arkanea’s words, Adjutant Stia’s eyes narrowed, and she immediately kicked off the ground and shot forward.
Stia’s body glided smoothly across the dirt.
Breaking without mercy the branches that got in her way, Stia continued ahead.
Then she raised her tail and struck a tree.
“Guh!”
As the tree fell, the being behind it also coughed up blood.
“Lady Arkanea, it is a goblin.”
The being that had fallen along with the tree was a goblin.
Looking at the fallen goblin, Arkanea smiled.
“Oh, so it is just as the merchant company said.”
Then she shoved the goblin into her mouth.
Before coming here, she had already heard the general situation.
She had been told in advance that there was a band of goblins around the Arc Lich, which allowed her to respond.
“Still, how impressive.”
As soon as the goblin died from Stia’s attack, the hostile aura that had been present around them vanished.
As if it had never existed from the beginning.
The forest fell silent once more.
The merchant company had said they were a wandering band of goblins, but to her eyes, that was not the case.
Just looking at the goblins’ equipment, they were not simply a wandering group. And seeing how they concealed their traces, they were clearly a thoroughly trained group under someone’s control.
“You must be careful. According to the information the merchant company gave us, besides the Arc Lich, there is also a succubus.”
At Stia’s words, Arkanea snorted.
If one were to examine them closely, succubi and lamias had many similarities.
Though it was not on the level of a succubus’s charm, lamias could also use skills similar to charm.
Thanks to that, the lamia race also possessed traits that resisted charm.
Unless a Succubus Queen appeared, a mere succubus would not be able to stop her legion.
No—even if a Succubus Queen did appear, the current Arkanea had become a 5-star.
It was power she had forcibly drawn out with the merchant company’s help, but she was confident she had more than enough chance of victory even against other 5-star beings.
If anything, would her opponent not collapse first from Arkanea’s poison?
Arkanea gestured and led her subordinates onward.
A short while later, one of the lamias in the lead suddenly dropped into the ground.
“Tch. Truly troublesome creatures.”
There were stakes driven into the bottom of the pit, and the lamia that had just fallen was killed instantly.
It was a trap the goblins had dug earlier.
A subordinate had died, but no one paid it any mind.
After all, their numbers were many, and if they were the sort to waver at this much, they would never have begun this in the first place.
Arkanea led her subordinates toward the Arc Lich’s dungeon.
Soon, the sight of a cave came into view.
“Certainly… in terms of location, that should be the place.”
However, Stia answered as if hesitant.
According to the map the merchant company had given them, that cave was indeed the Arc Lich’s dungeon.
Even so, the reason she was not certain was because she could not sense the distinct aura usually felt from a dungeon.
If not for what the merchant company had said, she would have simply thought it a cave and passed it by.
“He truly is impressive.”
Arkanea was impressed.
Perhaps it was because of traits like that that the merchant company had been keeping the Arc Lich in check.
Otherwise, the merchant company would not have openly supported her and arranged a war between dungeons.
At a glance, it might look as though she was following along like the merchant company’s puppet. But she did not care.
If anything, she was grateful to the merchant company for helping her personally dispose of the Arc Lich.
Arkanea shook herself free of her thoughts.
Now it was time to bring this to an end.
“Stia.”
“Yes, Lady Arkanea.”
Stia immediately bowed her head and awaited her command.
“I like this dungeon. It is close to the kingdom, so there is plenty of prey, and above all, it is close to the Demon Realm, so the air is different.”
There had once been a time when Arkanea envied dungeons located close to the Demon Realm.
It had surely been when she attended a social gathering.
Remembering that, Stia nodded.
“Do not worry. Tonight, this dungeon will become yours, Lady Arkanea.”
At Stia’s words, Arkanea gave a wicked smile.
“Now, let us enter.”
She intended to bestow death upon everyone in this place.