DanMachi: How did my dungeon turn into a Soulslike game?

Isagi dodged the strike almost on instinct.

A leap back, a drop into a crouch, then he shoved off the ground and swung hard around to the woman's flank — clearing out of the space directly in front of her as fast as his body would move.

An instant later, her long leg swept across.

Boundless lightning burst outward, swallowing dozens of meters of ground in front of her.

The crackle and snap of it never let up. Serpents of thunder rolled and wove together, slamming into one another, tearing off explosions large and small.

Isagi knew this attack of the Empress's far too well.

Because down in the Dungeon, the moment you got anywhere near her, that kick was coming. Guaranteed.

It was her standard opener. So the Dungeon hadn't gotten anything wrong after all?

The real woman actually fought like that.

In that case, all he had to do was file it away—

"Transform."

She had made her move, so Isagi put on his first-tier armament, [Wolf's Devouring Feast].

Pitch-black plate flooded across the boy's body in a heartbeat, the sharp wolf's head rising above his shoulders. The [Moonlight Greatsword] still jutted from the armor's back.

"Oh?"

The Amazon Empress caught the sight from the corner of her eye, and her face went bright with a curious, almost childlike interest.

Then came the excitement.

Because the instant Isagi donned [Wolf's Devouring Feast], pure combat instinct told her something dangerous had just entered the field.

The boy really was strong. So she could push a little harder, couldn't she?

Her second strike came fast.

Before his "transformation" had even finished, that long leg was already lifting high again — this time coming down from above. Her small bare foot wore nothing but a golden ornament at the ankle and a tiny bell.

As it stomped down, the bell rang out, clear and sweet.

Then the current detonated again.

This time it erupted from beneath the Empress's foot, with her as the center, lightning spilling outward across a radius of at least several dozen meters.

Isagi knew this one too, which was exactly why he knew that backing up wouldn't get him clear of the blast zone in time. There was only one answer.

Jump. High.

Watching the golden pillars of light chase him up out of the ground, Isagi threw up Golden Prayer, condensing several defensive barriers in front of himself in rapid succession.

The next second, every one of them shattered.

All they bought him was a slight cut to the impact and the damage that came with it.

He'd already pulled the dewdrop vial from his belt, ready to take a few swallows the moment he was hurt and top his health back up.

That was his answer to all of this.

As long as he didn't die, it worked. But then something odd happened — the damage from the Empress's attack came in far, far below what he'd braced for.

Hm?

Was this version of her not yet in her strongest form?

Or was it…

This woman was going easy on him?!

What should have taken three swallows to refill was almost handled by one.

Isagi said nothing.

And then, through the thinning lightning, that stunning smiling face appeared right in front of his own.

She'd jumped.

One hand closed on him, and with the absurd momentum of her leap the two of them went plummeting off toward the distance.

This woman had to have some kind of racial gift for this!

Even midair, she locked both legs cleanly around his waist, holding him in a position that could not possibly have been more suggestive — and then she got her hands working.

ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA!!

A barrage.

Another barrage!

An endless barrage!!

At that range, with her fists moving that fast and thunder crashing down with every one of them, the only thing Isagi could do was swing back.

Just barely…

No — he felt the strain, but he could keep pace with her punches. Barely.

She was doing it on purpose. She wasn't using her full Strength, she was letting him keep up… no, she was toying with him!!

The Lady Empress's beautiful face was lit up with obvious, undisguised delight.

Of course it was.

It had probably been ages since she'd found anyone she could cut loose against like this.

The strong were always rare.

And rarer still was someone like this boy, whose raw physical durability could actually keep up with her.

[So much fun!!]

But against the Lady Empress's joy, all Isagi wanted to do was roll his eyes.

Because he could feel it now. She was leading him along, inch by inch, raising her own fist speed and power a fraction at a time, always riding right at the edge of what he could manage, matching him — like she meant to keep this going forever and ever.

Bad.

This was very bad!!

So.

Watching the Lady Empress get more and more high on it, Isagi made a decision.

He quit.

He simply went limp, stopped hitting back, and let her golden-lightning-wreathed fist come down until it nearly landed square on his skull.

"Hm?!"

Her slender, wheat-brown hand hung a hair's breadth from his eyes.

"What, that's all you've got?!"

The Lady Empress dropped her voice into something heavy and syrupy, a talent she'd clearly been born with, working him over with taunts.

Isagi wasn't buying a word of it. "Let me up," he said flatly.

"No!"

Like she was determined to win the argument, she shifted her entire center of gravity down instead — and all at once he felt something [Heavy] settle onto him. Not her weight. Strength. She was pressing down on him with real power, pinning him flat.

Ugh.

And there was nothing he could do about it, because sitting like that gave him no leverage to push from.

"You're not even tired!"

She'd worked out instantly that he wasn't actually finished.

The Lady Empress puffed her cheeks out in an adorable, dopey little sulk — that had to be another Amazon racial gift. The idiot gift. Or maybe the being-cute gift?

Then she ground her teeth and flipped from idiot to tsundere in a single beat, and from there straight into wide-eyed innocent little girl.

"Keep going keep going keep going keep going keep going keep going keep going!!!"

Now she was whining at him. Now she was throwing a full tantrum.

That got her nowhere fast, so she swapped faces again.

"Get up, come on, just a little longer and then we'll go home!"

Pitiful, fragile, practically about to squeeze out a few pearly tears.

Which also got her nowhere.

"Useless."

"Hmph!"

Cold and aloof and above it all, one more attempt at goading him — the kind of act that made a man want to put her in her place, hard.

And that got her nowhere either.

Isagi had already made up his mind: until the Lady Empress got off him, she was getting absolutely nothing out of him.

So the whole thing ground to a standstill.

The Lady Empress narrowed her eyes slightly. This might have been the first time she'd ever run into someone this stubborn.

And then—

All at once, Isagi watched her start to smile.

Like a sea of flowers opening at once, like stars crowding around the bright moon, like sunset clouds shot through with rainbow light. Beauty taken to its absolute limit — the kind of smile a man would carry with him for the rest of his life.

Terrifying. Beautiful women were absolutely terrifying.

But the truly terrifying part came next.

He heard the Lady Empress speak, soft and light.

"So you admit you lost?"

"In that case—"

Her hands came down and tore the armor off him, brute force, no finesse at all.

"?"

He looked at the chunk of [Wolf's Devouring Feast] she'd ripped free and tossed away, at his own bared chest — and at the slender fingers now brushing gently across it.

It hit him then, exactly what she intended to do.

"Time to dig in~"

"???"

Hold on, lady.

You're an actual Goblin?!

____

📢 WANT MORE CHAPTERS? HELP US HIT OUR MILESTONES!

💬 Reviews: Leave a review! For every 5 REVIEWS, 1 bonus chapter gets released. 💎 Power Stones: Hit 100 POWER STONES to unlock another bonus chapter! 🚀 P@treon: Want to read ahead? Join the P@treon (Walnut-chan) to get up to 40 chapters ahead and access 60+ stories!

🔥 New history: Mushoku tensei: Speed Run to kill Hitogami — posted on The_Mikudayo