"Your Highness, it’s natural to sll elf, there are elves among the enemy."
"Oh right, there are. ...Still, it seems a little strong, doesn’t it? Too thick to just be a lingering scent."
"They’re probably just past the wall. The scent must be drifting through the air. The enemy has definitely put up walls to buy ti, and once we get there, they’ll probably unload arrows on us."
"I guess... whatever. Doesn’t really matter either way. We just kill everything, and that’s that."
The penguin and Furcas went back to breaking through the walls, and Lune, crawling overhead through the cockatrices, aged about ten years. Lune also silently gave thanks that the enemy was a bird unit.
’When I tell Master about this later, I have to make sure to say it. That we survived because the enemy literally had bird brains.’
"Sniff, sniff, it’s getting stronger sohow..."
"The walls must be almost all cleared by now, Your Highness. Look, heave-ho. This open space right here is where we ran into the enemy’s ghoul unit. Now just past the next clearing there should be the enemy’s nasty fire pit trap... oh, there’s a wall first."
"Hey! We ca here to kill the enemy, not break through walls! Why couldn’t you just wipe them out in one shot, you idiot?!"
Lune left the penguin throwing a fit behind and crawled fast toward the destination. The cockatrices near the rear were puzzled by the rustling in the ceiling, but it didn’t seem like word of anything suspicious would reach the front in ti.
And Lune had already made it to the target point. Lune pointed at the floor ahead for the slis, and a sli opened up a wide hole: just the right size for Lune to drop through.
"Operation start."
Gurgle!
The slis began chewing vertically through the ground in a long cylindrical shape. No need for false walls; with stealth no longer a priority, the slis worked fast.
SCREEECH!!
The cockatrices at the rear, sensing sothing in the ceiling, scread and wheeled around. Lune stood on both feet in the corridor, gave them a little wave, then quickly aid the bow at the cockatrices with a grin.
"Sorry for killing you? Speaking on Master’s behalf..."
Lune’s expression went flat, and three wind arrows were nocked on the bow at once.
"You need to die so I can evolve to ★★★★ and have Master’s child."
FWAPAPAP! Lune’s wind arrows flew straight for the cockatrices’ eyes. Three arrows fired as one moved through the air like a fighter jet formation.
SCREEE!!
The rearmost cockatrice took the wind arrows right in the eye and went down. Even stacking three high-penetration wind arrows together, only one cockatrice got its eye blown out and dropped.
"Tch."
Lune clicked the tongue at the lack of a piercing shot but imdiately got back to producing more wind arrows. Before the slis finished their work, Lune had to personally bring down as many cockatrices as possible.
Fortunately, the cave wasn’t all that wide, and the cockatrices were moving single-file following the lead. No need to redirect aim.
Just shoot. And rapid fire was Lune’s specialty.
FWAPAPAP!!
SCREEEE!!
A cockatrice that had turned to charge at Lune took three arrows through the throat and slamd its head into the wall. Then, a mont later, from sowhere far off ca the sound of cracking bone, echoing like a distant cry.
"KILL THAT ELF---!!!"
"Caught."
Furcas had almost gotten them through clean, but apparently the penguin never fully let its guard down. Lune glanced up at the slis in the ceiling behind.
"...This might be a little tight."
FWAPAP!
Lune backpedaled, firing arrows at the charging cockatrices. They ran on two legs like ostriches, reading the trajectory of the incoming wind arrows and weaving their heads to dodge.
FWAPAPAP!
Lune fired a bigger volley so they couldn’t dodge. The lead cockatrice planted a foot and dropped as its ankle was punched through with a hole.
SCREEEE!!
The cockatrice right behind it leaped over the fallen one. Lune’s expression went rigid for a split second, and the hand drawing the bow went stiff along with it.
Thud, thud, thudthudthud!
The cockatrice wasn’t the problem. In the distance, a black mass running across the tops of the cockatrices’ heads was the problem.
"YOU ELF BITCH, YOU’RE DEAD---!!"
The penguin was sprinting through the dungeon in reverse, using the cockatrices’ heads as stepping stones. The speed was way beyond what Lune had expected; Lune’s eyes went wide and Lune scrambled back hard.
"Guys, faster!"
CRACKCRACKCRACK!
The slis felt the danger instinctively and started gnawing at the ceiling on overdrive. Lune fired arrows wildly to slow the enemy’s charge as much as possible.
FWAPAPAP!
A cockatrice went down bleeding like it had been skewered. The one right next to it had a gaping hole blown through a wing it was trying to spread and toppled sideways. One already flopping on the ground got its neck snapped under the feet of the cockatrice behind it.
"You dare trick and attack from the rear?!"
"Hmph."
Lune drew the bow and aid directly at the charging penguin. If the enemy commander went down by Lune’s hand, what kind of reward would Master give? Lune took a short breath and squeezed out every last drop of mana.
FWEEEE---!!
The wind arrow Lune fired cut through the air faster than anything before it. It skimd over the tops of the cockatrices and locked onto its target: the penguin. A wide target at that, and the penguin made for a very big bullseye.
"WERIA---AAH!!"
And the penguin didn’t dodge at all. It read the wind arrow’s path, raised a flipper high, and brought it down in a chop.
THWUCK!!
The penguin knocked two of the wind arrows into the ground, and the one that survived punched clean through the penguin’s side. With a rush of wind, a hollow hole opened in the penguin’s flank.
"Huh?"
Lune blinked. Like a hole poked in a down comforter, no blood, no flesh scattered. For sothing supposed to be the commander of the cockatrice unit, the penguin seed absurdly weak.
No.
"That’s... not flesh?"
"It’s a disguise, you dummy!"
The penguin’s beak split wide open. Sothing dark glead inside, and in that one glance Lune took in the black silhouette, and nearly fell over backwards in shock.
"SCREEEEEE!"
With a bizarre screech, the penguin thrust a leg out toward Lune. Using the cockatrices as a running start, the flying kick launched at Lune looked fast and powerful enough to snap Lune’s waist clean in two.
If that lands, it’s over. Lune swallowed hard.
"Pfft."
A laugh burst out of Lune on its own, and at the exact sa mont, the faintest tremor ran through the ceiling.
Click.
Lune clapped, and at that exact instant the ceiling ca crashing down.
"What the—"
"That’s what a wall is, dummy."
Lune waved at the penguin through the gap in the falling dirt.
"Looks just like you, doesn’t it?"
"YOU---!!!"
CRASH.
The ceiling collapsed. A partition well over a ter thick ford across the corridor, and Lune jumped back three quick steps.
BOOM!!
The wall Lune was looking at shook for a mont from sothing massive slamming into it. But no hole appeared. No breach.
"...Almost died there."
Lune pressed a hand to a chest and let out a long breath. If the slis had been even one second late bringing the ceiling down, Lune might’ve taken that kick and spent the rest of life unable to have children.
"...That’s not happening!"
Lune made a personal vow and quickly issued orders to the slis.
"Phase two, start! Keep eating through the ceiling in a ’∩’ shape and keep going!"
Gurgle, gurgle.
The slis followed the order and continued tunneling through the ceiling in a connected path. Lune ran along the corridor with a big grin.
"Mission complete!!"
There seed to be a hysterical screaming coming from the other side of the wall, but Lune cheerfully ignored it.
"...Oh."
But there was sothing that couldn’t be ignored.
"Another woman... dang."
Should I not say anything? But Lune decided: for Master’s sake, leaving out sothing discovered on the job wasn’t an option.
If the report went in, sothing good would definitely co of it. Lune thought of Master breaking into a huge smile at the news, and brushed the dirt off.
"Hehehe!"
Lune dashed out of the straight-shot corridor and ran through the dungeon, guided by the Flare Panteras racing along below.
***
Thud, thudthud!
The penguin ripped off Furcas’s right arm and started beating Furcas over the head with it.
"I was RIGHT! If you hadn’t been flapping your mouth next to , I would’ve killed that elf! What is WRONG with you?!"
Thud, thudthud.
The black arm the penguin was swinging kept slamming into Furcas’s skull over and over. Not actually painful, but it hurt in a whole different way.
"S-sorry..."
It wasn’t exactly that the penguin hadn’t listened to Furcas; the problem was that Furcas had been completely tunnel-visioned on one thing.
Revenge.
The obsession with pushing forward fast had been constantly out of sync with the penguin’s instinct to slow down and check the surroundings. If Furcas had had just a little more composure, the presence of an elf moving through the ceiling toward the rear would’ve been caught right away.
"If I had just kept my nose out of it a little..."
"I get the situation, I completely understand it! But why didn’t you trust my gut?!"
Thud, thudthud.
The penguin threw the black arm onto the ground and stomped it furiously, but the arm just kicked up a little dust without so much as flinching. The penguin was just blowing off steam, and that made Furcas feel even worse.
"I’m so DONE! I’m going to destroy everything in this dungeon, Andras, all of it! What even IS this?! Why is an elf acting as soone’s lackey in a dungeon?!"
"Well... given that there are orcs here, could the elf have been... violated by an orc?"
"...Just don’t talk today. I’m going with my gut from here on."
"...."
Furcas dropped Furcas’s own head in embarrassnt. Even to Furcas, what just ca out of Furcas’s own mouth sounded ridiculous. An elf being violated by an orc and then becoming its subordinate: what kind of nonsense was that? The penguin pushed a flipper into the gap in the collapsed wall and muttered.
"Even if Father, Lord Halphas, wants Andras badly enough to pull a deaning stunt like this, that doesn’t an we as subordinates should be thinking along those lines too."
Crack, crackle!
The water the penguin let out began to freeze the wall solid. Furcas raised the scythe and stepped forward, but the penguin held Furcas back.
"Can’t break through this one. We have to go head-on."
"What? Can’t we just do what we did before?"
"This isn’t a thin wall like before. It’s this thick."
The penguin stretched both flippers out wide, showing the distance sensed through its own mana.
"So it’s extrely thick?"
"Yes! The corridor itself collapsed, I think. We’re trapped right now. ...Looks like they want us to co at them head-on. That’s why they sealed off the retreat."
The penguin shook its flippers off and opened its beak.
"Let’s just kill everything except Andras. Yeah. No way I’m letting this slide."
The penguin fanned inside its beak and huffed.
"Gotta cool down a little first... Ugh, why is it so hot in here? ...Gonna need to take this thing off. Ugh."
Sothing began to stir and push its way out from between the penguin’s beak. It was, unmistakably, a human hand.
***
"Master!"
"Lune!"
I pulled Lune into a tight hug, dirt and all. Lune had pulled off the mission perfectly, linked up with the Flare Panteras, and made it back safely to the final intercept room through the underground tunnels.
"The entrance you ca through, you sealed it off?"
"Yes! The slis collapsed the ceiling on the way out. They brought down parts of the underground tunnel in between too. Nobody’s sneaking in from below anymore."
"Good. Sa goes for whatever fourth wave might show up. Heh, now all we have to do is et them head-on. Lune, hungry? Want so of this?"
I handed Lune a large egg, roasted to a deep golden brown. Steam was still rising off it; the thing was about the size of Lune’s chest.
"What is this?"
"Roasted egg."
"...Whose egg?"
"Harpy and Andras egg."
Once the ranch had stabilized, edible eggs started coming in regularly, and I’d grabbed a few and pushed them down into the hellfire blazing below. After a few rounds of trial and error, I’d pulled off sothing you’d only expect to find at a hot spring: a proper stone-baked egg.
"One of these should be more than enough for a full al. Sha there’s nothing to dip it in."
"What do you an there’s nothing? You could just slather so of that on it."
"Cute idea, but we don’t play around with food."
I grabbed Lune’s ear and kneaded it as a little punishnt. It had to be just firm enough to feel slightly uncomfortable: that was the point where, for Lune, the sensation crossed over from pleasure into sothing more like solid pressure.
"Let’s see... Level 68? Impressive. How many did you get?"
"At least three, I think. ...Oh, Master, better news than that!"
Lune stood on tiptoes and whispered sothing in my ear. Hearing it, I couldn’t help but swallow hard.
"There’s a human woman inside? ...Is she hot?"
"Yes. Super."
Not only had Lune nailed the mission, Lune had brought back the best intel of the day.
"So Lune, anything you want as a reward?"
"Can I put so of that on this roasted egg and eat it?"
"...."
In the end, I used sex magic to add a little. The fact that Lune genuinely enjoyed it and ate it happily made the whole thing feel sohow even weirder.
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