Chapter 456: Death of Lustrilis

Arios began to burn in the flames. United as one through the petals, he tried every method at his disposal to shake off the fire clinging to his body.

He regenerated bark, swung trunks, grew branches to clad himself in thorny armor, and drove roots into the ground trying to seize the leopard beastfolk.

[It's over for us.]

Calofor gave up in despair and stopped regenerating roots. The bark, charred by the flames, no longer grew back.

[We've been abandoned.]

[That's not true!]

Rioas screamed with all the soul he had left. They hadn't been abandoned; they were soldiers ordered to win for the legion.

[Lady Astaroth left because she has absolute faith that we will win!]

[Fool. We're already done for.]

[Done for? That can't be! Even if we die, the Legion Commander will bring us back!]

Siora was certain. While he and his sibling had been running their own dungeon, Astaroth had welcomed them into the legion with exceptional treatment.

He had to repay the grace of being reborn as an incubus, transcending the limitations of his birth. Otherwise, the o...

Wait. Who am I?

Raios's mind began to grow confused. Was he a lizardman? An incubus? An elf? Memories blurred and recollections tangled. He couldn't tell if he was an incubus who had violated a dark elf, or a dark elf who had been violated by an incubus.

SHRIEEEEK...

The legion's incubi burned away one by one. Their faces caught fire, blazing bright, and charred until not a single trace of their features remained.

[I am, I am!!]

Ariso understood. He was the legion. He was the Lust Legion. A faithful servant of his master Astaroth, a monster made stronger to defeat the enemy.

[Regenerate the body!! We must win! We will win!]

Ariso rallied the incubi. When the bark burned, he forced it to regenerate. Where the cambion faces had burned away, new faces identical to his own began sprouting from the petals.

[Let's overcome this together! We become one!]

[For what purpose?]

[For the Legion Commander!]

[I keep telling you, the Legion Commander abandoned us.]

Rocalfo's petal had withered, twisted, and shriveled. His face was already crushed, shrunken to about a quarter the size of the other petals.

[We've lost.]

[We can win! If we don't give up and keep fighting, we can win!!]

[The Legion Commander isn't part of that "we."]

Risoa was at a loss for words. Every soldier and prisoner of the legion had gathered as one along with the seal, but the Legion Commander was not here. She wasn't on basement level 1. She wasn't on the surface or basement level 2 either.

The Legion Commander, Astaroth's presence had vanished. She had disappeared from the dungeon. As the dungeon's sole monster and a creature that had reached 5-star, he could sense it instinctively.

Astaroth had left the dungeon entirely. Not hiding somewhere inside; she had simply gone outside.

[That can't be! She must have slipped out temporarily to deceive the humans! We need to kill every invader before she returns to the dungeon!!]

The withered petal began to sprout anew. On the front of the petal, Roisa's face began to grow. Even on the spots where bark had burned away to expose the raw chunks of flesh, his face began to emerge.

[Lady Astaroth! Believe in us! Believe in the legion! We shall slay them all so you have a dungeon to return to!]

He pressed his front legs forward. One entity the enemy had stolen from them. If they could reclaim that entity, they would become truly one again, a true legion, and fight the enemy.

Crackle, crackle.

The divine power shield resting atop the petals seared the faces on every petal beneath it. As if they'd plunged their faces into molten metal from a furnace, the petals began to shrivel rapidly.

[Not yet, not yet!!]

Osria's face began sprouting across the petals like bumps. When a face burned away under the divine power, another took its place, and each time a new face regenerated, the bark around it began to regrow as well.

The body was regenerating, but the monster was gradually being consumed by copies of one person's face. Even places where there had been no faces before now grew the same twisted visage.

[Extend the trunks. The legion will be victorious. We will win and receive her grace. We are the legion...]

Ah.

What legion was it again?

Crackle.

In the heart of the flames, every orifice on the monster's body sprouted the same face. The agony of its entire body burning multiplied with every new face, but to him, that pain was nothing.

In the final moment.

[Little brother....]

As consciousness burned and faded in the flames, only one name rose in the dying monster's mind.

***

"Stubborn piece of crap won't die. Hey, hurry up and croak already."

We hurled kindling at Lustrilis's body as it blazed like a campfire.

The kindling was nothing more than broken wooden weapons, fixtures from inside the dungeon, and stockings we'd worn as inner armor that had torn beyond use.

Even after throwing in all of that, Lustrilis showed no sign of crumbling to ash anytime soon.

"Master, it sprouted again. This time on the shin."

"That face is seriously starting to creep me out."

The face of Orias, the incubus who had died at my hands countless times, had spread across Lustrilis's entire body like a virus. It was like watching mushrooms sprout from a massive tree they'd taken as a host. It gave me chills.

"Lune. My mouth is itching to say it, you know?"

"Same here."

We looked at each other and nodded. Every soldier still gripping their weapons and glaring at Lustrilis also nodded, following my lead.

"...I'll be the one to say it."

Please, let this be the end.

"Is it dead?"

Click. Everyone tightened their grip on their weapons. We were more tense than ever. And I carefully opened my mouth.

"One, two, three, ...eighteen."

I counted all the way to eighteen and Lustrilis still hadn't moved an inch. Every one of us let out a sigh of relief.

"Thank god. Honestly, we waited way longer than eighteen seconds, so if it came back to life now, that'd be total garbage."

"Right? I seriously thought the chunks of meat inside were gonna burst out and turn into another monster."

"Yeah, well. The dying-and-coming-back-to-life pattern usually..."

Click. We raised the weapons we'd been about to lower. We remembered how Halphas's severed head had come back and gone on a rampage.

"...Sixty-nine. Honestly, we're way past a minute now, so if it revived at this point, that'd be absolute garbage."

Hissss. Maybe it had just taken a long time to burn because the body was so massive. Lustrilis's body slowly began to collapse.

The bark across its entire body had burned away, and the chunks of meat inside sizzled, bubbling and melting down. I expected it to char to a crisp like coals, but it seemed to be vanishing without leaving any form behind at all.

"Any second now, something should happen...."

Since what we'd brought down wasn't a Legion Commander, since it wasn't a dungeon master, there was only one way to confirm whether it was truly dead.

"Level... level...."

I refreshed my system window again and again, checking my profile. Even in someone else's dungeon, I could check my own stats, and having taken down a level 92, I held onto a sliver of hope.

'Please, level up!'

A number that held truly enormous significance for me. As the legion had grown stronger, as we had beaten the Lust Legion and claimed the seal, the time had come for me to be reborn as something far more powerful.

"...Master!!"

Lune suddenly cried out. The expressions on Lune and the other elves changed.

"From beyond the passageway!"

"...!"

The worst possible timing. From the maze, the passageway descending from the first floor, the sound of human voices was getting closer and closer.

"Damn...!"

I had the seal. The moment it looked like we'd run into the humans, our top priority was to turn tail and run immediately. We'd rescued enough dark elves, and fighting the humans wasn't just a risk; it was tantamount to waging war against the Marquisate.

"We just... have to run? Just like that?"

What if the humans swooped in and landed the last hit? My vision went hazy at the thought of abandoning Lustrilis, the boss we'd risked our lives to beat. No matter how I thought about it, I couldn't swallow the frustration.

"After everything we did to win, leaving it behind...."

"Let's block the passageway with our forces!"

Meri grabbed Holy Sword Virgo and charged toward the passageway. I caught Meri and shook my head.

"If you're thinking of using the Virginium Shield, don't. Your power needs to stay hidden. ...Damn, and it's not just you we need to hide."

Orcs. Elves. Slimes. Andras. Harpies. Dullahans. Unicorns. Ghouls. Flare Pantera. Minotaurs.

Every unit we'd deployed to subjugate the Lust Legion was a soldier synonymous with our legion. No matter how well we tried to hide behind a fig leaf against the Marquisate, if the situation here was discovered, it felt like war would break out immediately.

"Even if a new type of enemy showed up in an incubus dungeon, they'd find that suspicious...."

[Master, can you hear me?]

A purple succubus's face appeared in the system window. Wearing a soft smile, Shaitan nodded toward me.

[I've finally established a direct connection. Congratulations on the victory.]

"Yeah. We won, but the situation is pretty bad right now. And I can't just throw the incubi out as expendable decoys."

I relayed the situation as quickly and concisely as I could.

[What about collapsing the ceiling to seal the entrance?]

"Already working on it. But they're a knight order. They'll break through in no time."

A simple standoff wouldn't cut it. We had to retreat without being detected by the enemy.

[Master, if you don't retreat now, they'll spot you. Let's start pulling back the soldiers who are least likely to raise suspicion.]

"Tch. ...No choice, I guess."

If I could just capture Astaroth, who should be somewhere beyond the maze, it would all be over. The regret made my feet refuse to move.

"...Taking the seal counts as our victory. So now..."

[Notice: No enemy forces remain within the dungeon!]

"...?"

For an instant, rainbow light shimmered before my eyes. At the same time, vitality began to fill my body little by little. It wasn't a phenomenon I was experiencing alone.

"Level... up?"

Sensing myself growing stronger, I checked my own status.

Rok Grimfang Shek, ★★★★☆, Lv. 90.

My level had gone up. The level that hadn't budged no matter how many succubi I'd cut down had finally hit 90. Thoughts of evolution crossed my mind, but the level-up itself pointed to another fact.

"That bastard finally croaked!!"

Experience was coming in. Because we'd brought the enemy down. Because the enemy was dead. The flames on Lustrilis's body still hadn't died out, but within those flames, not a shred of life could be felt.

"Wait, hold on. Shaitan, isn't this worth taking a gamble on?"

[...It's a race against time.]

There wasn't even time to deliberate.

"Lime! Block the passageway for now! Bring down the ceiling, go wild!!"

"What if the humans die?"

"Blame Astaroth!"

"On it."

I quickly ordered Lime to seal the passageway.

Lime and the Slamia immediately began collapsing the ceiling of the opposite passageway, starting from the entrance. It was a stopgap, and even a mana-infused sword could break through it easily, but it had to be done.

No enemies left meant the humans would clear the maze that much faster.

"Full retreat! Elves, humans, dullahans, and unicorns pull out first! Don't give them any excuse!"

I evacuated the species unique to the Legion of Wrath first, along with special individuals like Guinevere and Galahad. At the rear, I left units that wouldn't raise alarms even if spotted, like harpies and minotaurs.

"Halphas! Sorry, but can you do that thing!"

"He, here?!"

"Please!!"

"...Ah, shit! Nobody look!! Got it?!!?!"

Halphas winced and flew up above Lustrilis. Then, scrunching her face as hard as she could, she shoved her hand into her own mouth. The penguin hood she'd put back on after the battle covered her head.

"Mmph..."

Halphas held her breath for a moment, then:

"BLEEEERGH!!!"

With an enormous heave, she unleashed a cascade of ice-cold water. Steam billowed from the corpse of Lustrilis, dead but still burning.

"Everyone else, retreat! Lune, take Asmodine and wait at the portal entrance!"

I sprinted toward Lustrilis. The lingering flames and steam engulfed my entire body. From above, the ice-cold torrent Halphas was spewing drenched my shoulders.

"I'm farming before I go!"

Lustrilis.

It had been synthesized, yes, but it was still a 5-star entity.

Even if it was a waste of time, even at the risk of being discovered by the enemy, it was worth searching for.

There was only one thing to find. A sphere smaller than a fist, buried inside a corpse still the size of a house despite its form having collapsed.

A highest grade magic stone.

If I left it here and ran, it would undoubtedly fall into the humans' hands.

"I'm not getting robbed of something we killed!!"

I leaped into the petals of Lustrilis, still burning amid the steam bath of fire and water.

"Dammit, I should've gone easier on the fire!!"

I plunged my hands into the charred chunks of meat. It was so hot I felt like I'd get burns the instant I touched it, but the pain was something I could endure.

"Highest grade!!"

Driven by the conviction that I'd sooner go to war with the Marquisate than let the humans take it, I wedged my body into the wreckage of Lustrilis.

Crackle.

Embers lingering within the charred flesh swept over my face.