The halberd cut through the air with a sharp whistle, its edge glinting faintly in the torchlight before striking true. A wet crack echoed through the chamber as someone’s head rolled across the stone floor, leaving a dark trail behind. The body remained standing for a brief, unnatural moment before collapsing with a heavy thud.
“Ambush!”
“What!?”
The remaining three demonic humanoids reacted instantly, but they were not fast enough. The halberd that had decapitated one of them was already flying forward, slamming into the chest of another. The blade sank deep with a sickening sound, tearing through bone and muscle before bursting out of his back. The force of the throw drove him into the wall, where the weapon embedded itself.
Rusty did not stop. He drew his mace and charged one of the two remaining red-skinned opponents. Both had managed to unsheathe their weapons, but it was already too late.
An arrow flew toward him, but he raised his shield and blocked it easily as he advanced. The other demonic humanoid wielded a spear and thrust forward while using some kind of skill. The shaft glowed with dark red energy as it collided with Rusty’s shield.
The enemy’s muscles tensed, yet instead of halting Rusty’s charge, the spearshaft began to bend. With a powerful push, the wood snapped. Splinters shot in all directions. Some struck Rusty’s armor, others hit the wielder’s face, giving Rusty just enough time to swing his mace.
A sharp crack echoed as the heavy weapon connected with the demon’s head. Blood splattered everywhere. The impact crushed half of the man’s skull and sent him crashing to the ground in a lifeless heap. His body twitched once, then went still.
Rusty did not pause. The last enemy, the archer, had already leapt backward, creating distance while reaching for another arrow. He fired rapidly, but the enchanted steel of Rusty’s body did not even scratch.
“What are you? There were no reports of creatures like this here!”
Rusty tilted his head, then bolted forward as he realized the man was searching for an escape. The archer managed to gain enough distance and circled wide before making a break for the tunnel they had come through.
“…I know that I shouldn’t, but…”
Rusty slowed and then stopped. He could easily catch up and kill the fleeing enemy, which would make the quest much simpler. Instead, he chose to let the man escape. If the survivor returned with reinforcements, the number of enemies would increase, and so would the mission’s difficulty rating. It was a risk, but a calculated one. He wanted to ensure he earned enough talismans for his next evolution.
“Now then… these three. Why is their blood blue?”
He stood among the corpses of the fallen demonic humanoids. Aburdon was not with him, so he could not confirm whether they were the same kind of being he once was. It was the first time he had seen humanoids like these, and their blood was different from the others.
Rusty crouched beside the nearest corpse, his hollow gaze fixed on the pooling liquid. The blood shimmered faintly in the torchlight, its deep blue hue almost luminescent against the gray stone.
“Strange…”
He extended a finger and dipped it into the liquid. The moment it made contact, he felt it, a faint pulse of magical energy. It was certainly mana, and when he used his mana sense, he could see more radiating from the other pools of blood.
“Aburdon did say that demons are naturally attuned to magic, but these guys didn’t use any magic at all.”
The group he faced was around D-rank, but their stats were below his. Perhaps because of his surprise attack, he had managed an easy victory. If these creatures had been able to cast spells, he would have been in far more trouble. His body was highly resistant to most forms of physical attack, but magic was a different matter.
Lightning elemental mana was his bane, as it could travel through his body and damage his core instantly. While he had used enchantments to raise his resistance, he was far from immune. Nor was he resistant to other forms of magic.
Fire was also a problem, as it could heat his body and even cause it to melt. The properties of metal changed with temperature, and his guides had warned him not to face spellcasters directly and to avoid their attacks at all costs.
“Hm… maybe I should have let that demon run away.”
Now he regretted letting one of them escape in order to lure in more enemies. If they returned with a proper spellcaster or several of them, things could become troublesome very quickly.
He rose slowly, wiping the blue blood from his finger onto the stone floor. The faint glow faded as it left his touch, and soon another strange phenomenon occurred. The blood began to evaporate, or more precisely, it was absorbed by the dungeon that had summoned him. This was nothing new to him, but it was happening much faster here than in the dungeons he had previously explored.
“Dungeon Heart, are you doing this? Can you summon me some help?”
“...”
There was no response from this core. The one he had served in the past had been loud and constantly issued orders whenever it noticed him doing something out of line. This one, on the other hand, seemed far less active, though it did attempt to communicate.
“T… thank.”
“Are you thanking me, Dungeon Heart? No need, but can you answer my question?”
“...”
“... Well?”
“Ok.”
After about fifteen seconds of silence, the dungeon finally answered with a single word that did not help him at all.
“Okay? What is that supposed to mean?”
Rusty felt his irritation growing at his new summoner, whom he could barely communicate with. He wanted to know what this core was capable of. He knew how to fight as a dungeon minion. Hiding behind large numbers of monsters to overwhelm strong adventurers or luring them into traps was something he had done before. If this dungeon cooperated, it might be possible to do the same here.
“Not going to answer?”
It did not respond, so Rusty finally decided to look around. If he was going to defend this place from demonic humanoids, he needed to understand the layout. Knowing where he could set ambushes was important, but he also needed to locate the core. From the conversation he had overheard earlier, it was clear that these humanoids were after his current employer.
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“They are different from humans. Those usually keep the cores intact to spawn more monsters to fight. Interesting.”
Rusty mumbled to himself and continued through the dungeon. First, he headed in the direction the red demon had taken, though he did not rush. Instead, he walked slowly, taking in his surroundings. As expected, this was some kind of underground temple dungeon, with long corridors connecting wider chambers, similar to the one where he had been created.
“I wonder, is it because of the type of monster I am?”
He knew about monster classifications, and a living armor like him could only be spawned in certain types of dungeons. They usually involved undead creatures or powerful spellcasters capable of animating objects such as suits of armor.
“Is this the end already?”
It took him only about half an hour to reach what seemed to be the dungeon’s entrance. Just like before, he could not go beyond it. An invisible barrier blocked his path.
In front of him stretched a long staircase leading upward, with a faint glow of light at the top. He could feel a draft coming from above, yet he detected no signs of life and heard no voices. The dungeon itself seemed rather small and strangely empty of monsters. As he turned to head back, he finally heard a faint rattling sound.
“Oh? Are you my reinforcements?”
Classification:
Lesser Demonic Skeleton L5 [ E+ ]
Type:
Undead
Description:
A type of undead skeleton most commonly encountered in corrupted temple dungeons or in areas saturated with residual mana from fallen demonic or arcane beings. This energy reanimates their remains and turns their bones crimson. They are highly aggressive when detecting intruders and tend to attack in groups.
“Only E-rank?”
Rusty felt a hint of disappointment as he observed the red skeleton carrying a buckler and a spear. It moved slowly and was accompanied by a small group. As expected, it did not attack him. As time passed and he moved deeper through the dungeon, more of them began to appear, as if the dungeon was slowly restoring its forces.
“No wonder those demonic humans made it through so easily. These skeletons would not stand a chance against D-rank beings.”
He made his way back to the shrine where he had first appeared, then took the other passage and continued his search for the dungeon core. The corridor sloped downward, and the air grew colder with each step. The torches burned dimly, their flames flickering with an unnatural hue that shifted between orange and a faint blue.
Rusty moved carefully, his armored footsteps producing muted echoes that bounced along the stone walls. Behind him, the faint rattling of bones continued as more red skeletons assembled. They did not follow him directly. Instead, they spread throughout the dungeon, as if guided by the will of the dungeon core.
“So… this is the core? It isn’t defended at all…”
To his surprise, it took him only ten minutes of walking to reach his new summoner. The chamber was large and empty, with nothing inside except a podium that held a floating orb. It was perfectly round, with something like an eye within it, and it turned to look at him the moment he arrived.
“No skeletons here, not even a boss monster to protect it. You seem like a very weak dungeon heart…”
He approached without hesitation. The one he had dealt with before had used its power to keep him away, but this one did nothing. He could destroy it at any moment with a single swing of his halberd, though that would end his summoning mission immediately.
“Does this mean… that I am the boss monster protecting it?”
He paused to think, and it did make sense. The room he had been summoned into was the final line of defense before the core would be exposed to adventurers. If he fell, they would gain access to it and destroy or claim it with ease. A few red skeletons still wandered the outer corridors, but they were far too weak to challenge anyone capable of defeating him.
“Hey, dungeon heart… can’t you do anything other than summon skeletons?”
“Else…”
After a few seconds, the core responded, but as before, its answer lacked clarity.
“Yes, like… maybe poison traps? Or a pitfall in one of the corridors?”
“Trap.”
“Do you know what a trap is?”
“No.”
“I see…”
Rusty paused. The core was not very bright; that much was clear, but perhaps there was still something he could do. In his past, he had seen the value of planning and communication. Maybe he could teach this thing a few tricks. But if it did not even understand what a trap was, how could he explain it?
“A trap is… something like this, just much bigger, so humanoids can fall in. Do you understand?”
To demonstrate, he began digging a hole with his halberd. The ground here was not stone, only packed dirt. He was not sure whether the core was too weak or simply too inexperienced to reinforce the area, but if he wanted to complete this task, he needed to ensure it survived long enough for him to gain the experience he needed.
“Trap…”
“Yes, see this hole. You can place sharp objects at the bottom so humanoids fall onto them, or just make it deep enough that they cannot climb out. Then I or the skeletons can strike them from above. Do you understand?”
“Trap…”
The dungeon started repeating the word while he tried to dig a deeper hole to demonstrate it.
“Oh, and let’s not forget to place something on top of it, like this cloth.”
Thanks to the temple setting, there were a few rags scattered around. With limited resources, he managed to assemble something resembling a pitfall trap. He even stepped into it after securing a rag over the top and covering it with dirt so it blended into the surroundings.
“Trap!”
“Oh? Something is happening.”
Without warning, the eye blinked and shone brightly, releasing a small pulse of mana. A faint rumble followed as the dungeon shifted. He could not be entirely sure, but it felt like something was changing beneath his feet.
He was standing inside the hole he had dug, where he had placed a few sharp stones at the bottom, and it was expanding. He quickly jumped out and watched as it grew larger. The dirt shifted as if alive, widening and deepening under an unseen force.
Within a minute, the makeshift trap he had created transformed into something far more refined. It was at least ten meters deep, lined with sharp iron spikes, and the top was soon concealed by a thin layer of stone and dirt. He tapped it lightly with his metallic finger and could tell it would easily give way under the weight of a grown man.
“You’re not so useless after all, dungeon core!”
“Use… less?”
“Oh… sorry, I didn’t mean it like that!”
Rusty panicked when the core responded.
“I meant you did a good job. Now place these in the tunnels where the demonic humanoids can fall into them. And make sure those undead skeletons do not walk over them.”
The eye within the core flickered, as if trying to process everything at once. A faint pulse answered him, weaker than before but more enthusiastic.
“Good… job…”
“Yes, good job!”
He gave it a thumbs up and was met with silence. Still, he could see mana shifting around the core as it worked, and he assumed it was placing the pitfall traps throughout the dungeon.
“Pitfall traps are nice, but can you make any poison?”
“Poison?”
“Yes, it’s usually purplish, and it makes humanoids weak. It can even kill them.”
“Poison…”
This time, the task did not seem so simple. He was not even sure if demonic humanoids would react to poison the same way regular humanoids did. From what he knew, they would not. Aburdon had said his kind possessed an innate resistance to ordinary poisons.
“Well… never mind. This should be good enough for a first defense. Now then, let’s go hunt some demonic humanoids.”
Rusty raised his halberd, but the eye only blinked at him, as if wondering what he was planning. Without waiting for a response, he turned and headed out of the chamber. Soon, he made his way toward the entrance, scanning the area. Just as he expected, several traps had already been placed, and he quickly picked out a few ideal spots for an ambush.
‘I hear footsteps… time for a hunt.’
With that, he slipped into the shadows, waiting and planning. The attackers were coming, and he would give them something they did not expect.
