With the arrival of the next day, Ian’s strength enchantment was finished. Unlike the previous enchantments that strengthened individuals a set amount, this enchantment was dependant upon the individual’s strength, namely doubling their physical prowess. Thus, a normal adult goblin would still be far below a blink hobgoblin in strength.
With the completion of his strength enchantment, another intrusion impeded his focus.
Snorts and stomps echoed through his sphere of perception as ten Tri-horned Boars rushed towards his dungeon entrance. Considering they were all rushing at the same time, and much larger than the other monster hordes, at least individually, it seemed he would see his entrance shift for the first time.
As the boars neared the entrance, the black door expanded to allow all ten boars access at the same time. Once they were inside, it shrunk back down to the reasonable size of allowing a few sapients to enter at once.
The problem now was, while Yervin and the spider automata could handle themselves, the other goblins, even Mina, were liable to die to them. Ian considered ordering them back, it wasn’t exactly pleasing to see people die, but fighting a monster stronger than themselves would be a great experience.
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The boars, with two tusks from their mouths and a single horn from their forehead, burst upon the goblins. The three protrusions from the boar’s head were fused together into a single point. This tri-horn smashed into Mina’s sword, flinging her backwards across the room. The elimination of Mina from the frontlines allowed the other boars to rush into the room and gore both Izu and Narcy through their torsos.
Mina’s face scrunched together as she bolted back into the fray with a guttural roar. She sent deep slices into the neck area of the boar that killed Izu, severing its carotid artery. Blood gushed out of the beast’s neck as it flailed its tri-horn at her, however Mina dodged it nimbly. After a couple minutes of dodging the beast’s attempts to maim her, it started to slow down due to blood loss. Mina saw the opening, leaped on its head, and jammed her sword through its eye socket. The boar convulsed and fell to the ground, where it disappeared.
She wiped the sword on the surrounding ferns, where the blood eventually disappeared. Mina started to turn around to help Yervin, but a tri-horn pierced her from behind. Blood dripped out of her mouth as her body was flung against the wall.
While Mina was fighting the boar, Yervin was holding back three others. Being unused to fighting, his attacks did far less damage than a B- rank monster should have. Still, each punch to the head rattled the boars causing them to stumble back before righting themselves. One of Yervin’s kicks had been strong enough to break the front leg of a boar, which was now limping. Another boar that had been punched in the head one too many times was laying on the ground passed out. With the other two boars mildly out of commission, the third boar became his focus.
However, the boars were not completely inept. While being pummeled by Yervin, they managed to land a few hits in. After a punch to a boar’s head, Yervin left himself open, which allowed another boar to swing their tri-horn into him and fling him back a few feet. Even with a B- rank body, he was still smaller than the boars. Being flung a few feet had little effect on him, as he stood right back up and made sure to shift the third boar trying to flee further into the dungeon back to him. The boars were confused after the first forced teleportation, but simply snorted with irritation after the last few.
As Yervin faced off against the third boar, he saw a fifth boar enter the room from the direction of the boss room. Before he could chase after it, it speared Mina through the back and flung her into the wall.
He gritted his teeth and blinded the remaining boars with his flash skill. At the same time, he turned invisible. Yervin activated his sturdy body and stone skin skills, along with reinforcing his body with mana. He leapt into the air, gripped his hands together, and swung them down onto the head of the boar that killed Mina. A loud crunch resounded as the beast’s skull caved in, and blood spewed outward.
He turned to the other boars that were currently flailing and hitting themselves against the wall. With a scrunched brow and a thin smile, he repeated the same head crunching with the remaining three boars.
In a separate hallway, the spider automata set itself in preparation for the six boars running towards it. The first boar lowered its head and pointed its tri-horn towards the earthen spider. As soon as the tri-horn hit the spider automata, it shattered. The boar’s eyes widened slightly, but its momentum carried it into the spider. With a crack, the boar’s head caved in until all the remained of its head was a bloody paste.
What happened next, the spider automata was not prepared for. The remaining five boars leaped over the corpse of their brethren and in turn the spider automata. They thus rushed further into the dungeon. The spider automata turned around as quickly as it could to chase after them, but it was not fast enough and lost sight of them. It’s front leg reached after them and after a few seconds slowly sank back to the ground. With heavy steps, it turned back around and returned to its original spot.
The boars that rushed past the spider automata continued on and split up at the appropriate junctions. In the end, all five of them reached the boss room, but only four of them entered. The last was the first and only to proceed down the other hallway that split off from the boss room.
After they dispatched the boss, they thundered through the G rank floor. Even with Ian’s command to swarm the invading monsters, the boars crushed the creatures with their hooves and speared them with their tri-horn. Botan and Pugi, too, were not spared the fate of death by boar. Although the boars pummeled the creatures of the G rank floor, including the sub-bosses, they were not left without injury. These injuries resulted in one of the boars dying to the G rank boss, even though it was much weaker than them.
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Ian’s heart twinged. Even if they were doing their jobs as dungeon monsters, it wasn’t pleasant to see them dying. Especially since Mina and Yervin had it out for the boars that succeeded in their kills.
Even with his internal conflict over his dungeon monsters dying for him, well….more specially the sapient ones, Ian was a bit giddy with excitement to see how the boars would deal with the G+ rank floor. It wasn’t meant for non-sapients, and while that hadn’t worked in his favor with the puzzle doors, hopefully a whole floor puzzle would be different.
The boars rushed into the floor and stampeded through the empty rooms, avoiding the golems in the center. When they reached the door to the boss room, it did not open. This didn’t stop their stampede as they continued running through the floor until every boar had explored every nook and cranny of the floor. As soon as they did, their eyes cleared up and they looked around with a snort.
The three boars started exploring the room and sniffing around. They came upon the cicada golem sitting in the center. They eyed it until the largest of the three snorted and jammed his tri-horn through the golem.
Immediately, screeching echoed through the room, causing all three of the boars to jolt and jump a few centimeters in the air. They all shooks their heads at the pain the scream caused, which lead to the cicada golem being thrown and shattered against the wall. The cicada no longer screamed, but the traps one of the boars was stepping on continued its wailing.
Finally, the boars could no longer deal with the noise and rushed back to the previous floor. In their flight, they did not take notice of the fact that a large number of monsters were headed in their direction and the fact that the previously empty rooms were no longer empty.
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Upon returning to the G rank floor, they battled with the remaining monsters that swarmed them until only biota and monsters that couldn’t move remained. As they explored the floor, the boars settled down to sleep and munch on the ferns, mushrooms, and golden apples.
Ian contemplated the boar’s journey through the G+ rank floor. He was glad that the boars weren’t just given a free pass through the floor, but that brought up his next problem. If he didn’t have the spider automata and Yervin, monsters of this strength were going to do exactly what they were currently doing: eat and sleep while he could do nothing. Of course, they were going to do that even if there wasn’t an intelligence puzzle blocking their path based on how the Chequin acted. Still, if he could get an unintelligent monster to want to proceed further into this dungeon, then he needed a way for them to bypass his floors dedicated to sapients.
He chuckled to himself. First he was mad that they bypassed his puzzle doors and now he was mad that they couldn’t bypass his puzzle floor.
Well, any plans for monster bypass would have to be for when he had more floors, some solid sapient clientele, and probably another entrance for the monsters. Based on prior experience, monsters weren’t going to walk through a town to enter his dungeon. At least the non-intelligent ones weren’t.
Now, the boars were a good source of DP, still no comparison to creating Yervin though, and released mana, so they needed to die. He had noticed the spider automata try to run after the boars, so why not give it a chance to kill the escaped prey.
After he ordered the spider automata to kill the boars on the G rank floor, it stood taller and scuttled towards the transfer formation.
Two of the boars were sleeping, while another was munching on fallen apples in the spider room. As it was picking up another golden apple, the spider automata rushed into the room. The boar stared at the spider shaped piece of earth rushing at it, as its jaw went slack. With a slack jaw, the golden apple in its mouth fell out onto the ground. Its body caught up with the sight in front of its eyes, and it let out a squeal of fear and attempted to run towards the boss room. However, it was too late.
One of the spider automata’s legs stabbed through the hip area of the boar. The boars front legs ran as fast as they could, but no progress was made. In fact, it was going backwards. The spider automata was pulling the bar towards it. Once it was close enough, the spider’s other legs stabbed into the other side of the boar. The spider automata continued this process as it slowly crawled onto the back of the boar by puncturing it. When the spider automata had enough of its weight on the boar, the boar’s legs and pelvis shattered and collapsed to the ground. The boar let out a weak whimper. The spider continued crawling forward until it reached the chest area. As the chest area of the boar collapsed, it let out a final squeal of pain as it died.
With the boar dead, the spider moved to kill the remaining two boars. However, it stopped in its tracks. The room was empty. The spider automata’s legs shook a little as its slowly walked back to its place on the G- rank floor.
Ian had noticed that two boars spring awake after the squeal from the third boar, and considering the speed of the spider on the G- rank floor, it wouldn’t be able to catch them. Thus, he was left with the hobgoblin that took out four of the boars.
“Yervin, there are two boars coming back up to the floor you’re on. Make sure to kill them, okay.”
Yervin cocked an eyebrow upwards, but gave a small smile and muttered, “Of course.”
The two boars fled from the spider automata without any regard to the creatures in their way. Once they sprinted out of the boss room, a bright flash of light blinded them causing them to miss a step and roll on the ground.
Yervin blinked towards the closest boar. With his skills applied, he grabbed its tri-horn and pulled. Pieces of skin and flesh pulled off with the bone causing the boar to squeal in pain. However, its squeal was distorted from the lack of any tusks.
Yervin grabbed the tri-horn with the pointed end downwards. He blinked upwards and let the force of gravity bring him back down. He raised the tri-horn above his head and slammed it through the skull of the fallen boar as he reached the floor.
The other boar was trying to flee, but was stumbling forward after being partially blinded. Yervin shifted the beast in front of him and sent a full powered kick upwards into the creatures ribs. A loud crack emanated from the creatures ribs and fountain of blood erupted from the creatures mouth. The boar fell to the ground as blood fell from its mouth with every breath. Yervin blinked once again to the ceiling, which he pushed himself off of directly above the creatures head. His feet slammed into the boar’s head, crushing it instantly.
All Yervin said as he went back to the town to talk with the other goblins was, “Done.”
Ian told Yervin thanks, and went back to his goblin floor.
Every day on the dot for the last three days, a horde of creatures invaded his dungeon. First rabbits, then foxes, and now boars. He looked at his goblin floor. It was not getting done before whatever was sending the monster rushes decided to do it on their own. ….Did it even matter that it wouldn’t be done? Probably not, but not finishing something he originally decided to make to combat this threat before the threat presented itself bugged him.
Ian moved back and forth across his stand before loudly sighing. He’d just make the floor. If it came to it and through his efforts, he still ended up destroyed then that would be it. If he died as a dungeon with all the things he had going his way, then he could only hope souls weren’t destroyed when dungeon cores were destroyed.
With his mind mostly off of the imminent threat that haunted his dungeon, he still had a few ideas stirring, Ian moved his focus back to the goblin floor. He didn’t intend for this to be a single rank floor like the rest….although, he hadn’t exactly been following through on that promise. This floor would be more similar to normal dungeon floors with a wider variety of monster ranks. He did, however, use ‘similar’ loosely. Floors with enhanced blink hobgoblins wouldn’t be very normal.
First, he went back through the floor and added water features: ponds, small waterfalls, and drips. In two of the rooms away from the goblin living space, he placed two large ponds in the center. In a third room, he filled the entire room with water.
The third room was an experiment that didn’t turn out well. The depth of the water was approximately one foot at the deepest, and every inch further he went the mana cost increased exponentially. It seemed without the underground lake terrain, he could only create so much water. Additionally, he slanted the corridors so the depth of the water slowly increased towards the room.
With overall floor aesthetics done, well, the non-magical aesthetics, he moved back to finish the goblins living quarters. In addition to the personal rooms and the entrance hall, the five circular rooms to the right were what Ian considered the goblin living space. The two rooms furthest from the entrance would be the communal bedrooms. He created rough cloth bedding with thin blankets spread throughout the room.
For lights, he created barriers around each bedspread that prevented magical light from passing through, but everything else was visible. Basically, the barrier was invisible and let normal light pass through, but not light created by magic. ….Although, based on what Tidon said, normal light was made of mana. Wouldn’t it technically be magic light then? Ian supposed there had to be a difference, but he didn’t know what it was.
He pondered his actions so far. The creation of his dungeon was important, but he hadn't even attempted to experiment on how the gods made mana creations permanent. His immersion in dungeon creation seemed to be overpowering his love of magic.
It made sense, he learned magic to dive into dungeons and examine them. Over time magic became more than a means to dive into and examine dungeons, but all the new information about dungeons seemed to have put it on the back burner.
Ian shook away his contemplations. So what if he hadn’t been exploring magic very much? He had only been a dungeon for a little over a year, and only eight to nine days beyond simple preparation. The study of magic and everything else could come when no progress was being made into his dungeon. As far as he knew, as long as dungeons did their job, they couldn’t die. Although, that begged the question of why only one dungeon he had reached the core room of had been exceptionally old.
With some idle thoughts still lingering, Ian started to finish the future goblin’s communal quarters. Each bedspread got a ball of light that could be turned on and off. Overall, the rooms received a dimmer version of his ivy lights for non-bedspread areas.
Pleased, Ian internally smiled at the barrier idea, but something nagged him at the back of his mind. He gave the future goblins lights, so what was the problem? ….Goblin lights. Crap. His vision shifted to the other town he created, which had a day-night cycle going, but no lights they could turn on at night.
The goblins were playing fire,water, earth in the courtyard of Mina’s and Izu’s house. Ian coughed to get their attention and spoke up.
“It has come to my attention that none of you have lights in your houses to see at night. Of course, you all have the night vision skill, but considering the fact that it has raised in level, it’s not perfect sight.”
The five goblins looked interested in Ian’s proposal, but Yervin had a large smirk on his face. If Ian had cheeks, they’d be red right now.
“I’ll add a light to each room, and a formation that will allow you to control the light levels.”
“Thank you!” the five goblins shouted. However, all Ian could think about was the smirk on Yervin’s face that had grown even larger. He definitely deserved that.