The ogre started to walk forward before a scream that sent shivers down the spines of every other ogre emerged from their lips. It was not a scream of high or low pitch, but one that spoke of true fear.

They fell to the ground writhing in pain as their screams continued to echo throughout the floor. The closest ogres rushed to their fallen comrade and a few with weaker stomachs vomited against the wall. One of the smarter ogres immediately began using his axe to cut the fallen ogre’s leg off below the knee.

The normal green skin turned black and white before festering and rotting away. Rotting flesh slopped of the ogre’s foot exposing white bone. The rot was quickly making its way up the fallen ogre’s leg. Other axe wielding ogres started to help remove the ogre’s leg, but they were too late. Halfway through cutting off the leg, the fallen ogre already having passed out, the rot had spread to the thigh.

Knowing that they couldn’t do anything to prevent it from spreading to their comrade’s torso, they continued to chop the leg off below the knee hoping it would decrease the spread. Sadly, the leg removal did nothing to slow the rot spread.

Another ogre had went to retrieve the chief and was returning with him as the last of the rotten flesh fell off of the ogre’s skeleton. The chief could only frown at the unusual sight. Something like that shouldn’t be in a newborn dungeon. The darkness and smell of death and decay were even putting him on edge. He had dismissed the reports as the frontliners being scared of an unknown dungeon, but it seemed he had made too quick of a decision.

As Magrok was immersed in his thoughts, the skeleton of the fallen ogre leaped up with the fallen ogre’s sword in hand and beheaded the closest ogre with a single horizontal strike, the look of surprise still showing on the beheaded ogre’s face. In a second, Magrok had crossed the distance and crushed the ogre skeleton against the wall with his fist. Dammit, he should have expected something like that.

“What happened?” he asked the surviving ogres.

“Ik stepped on that plant and then he released the worst scream I’ve ever heard,” pointed the ogre who started to chop Ik’s leg off first.

Magrok stepped closer to the crushed plant and took a big sniff before gagging and puking a little into his mouth, “You mean the plant that smells like a high concentration of the death and decay that permeates the whole floor?”

“Uh, yes?”

An open hand appeared in front of subordinate ogre causing him to quiver in fear. “I want to slap you, but that would mean I needed to slap everyone on this floor. You are all idiots! There’s no way you can’t smell this floor, so determine where the smell is coming from and avoid it for god’s sake!” Magrok lowered his hand while he shook his head side to side. “Okay, let’s get a move on, but be careful. There’s sure to be something just as bad coming up.”

Ian was as dumbfounded as the ogres. That hadn’t happened with the wolves and there wasn’t anything in the death saffron’s description about that. Still, it was a net positive, now he had an ogre skeleton he could create. Now, if there was a way to weaponize the death saffron without having his own creatures have their rotten flesh slop off. ...Hmm, it didn’t rot the skeleton, so skeletal undead might do. Most people weren’t a fan of undead however, so he’d need to make a larger dungeon to quell the potential hatred of his dungeon. He’d leave the death saffron where it was and hope actual adventurers were smarter than the ogres.

The frontline ogres continued forward, while Magrok ordered some of the mages to enter the floor and begin examining it. Once they reached the first corner, five ogres plummeted into a pit of spikes that seemed to suddenly appear into existence. One spike speared an ogre through the lower jaw and into the brain, another went through an ear and out the other, a third went through the top of an ogre’s head and tore off the lower jaw of their now dead body. A fourth had no spikes pierce their head, but instead had one pierce their heart. They died shortly after as blood dripped out of their mouth. The fifth ogre had no vital organs pierced, but as the other ogres were trying to get her out of the pit, she started to have convulsions and black foam started coming out of her mouth. Eventually she went limp and died.

Ian crossed his invisible hobgoblin arms and muttered, “Not bad.” It seemed the pitfalls would be more effective than he thought. Still not EX rank effective, but for these ogres that didn’t have the best reaction speed, it was a pleasant surprise.

Magrok ordered a few of the mages to examine the pit, while a few others examined the death plant. A final mage was cooing over another plant while muttering ‘I’m going to make so many magic potions’.

Once the mages returned from examining the pit, Magrok asked, “So? Why did the pit suddenly appear?”

The two mages looked at each other and their chief before answering, “We have no idea. Before and after it appeared, we detected no magic whatsoever. The only magic we detected was upon the pit appearing. Even then it was so small, it was barely perceivable. The most likely assumption was that it was somehow teleported right under their feet, but we have no evidence for that. However, even though we can’t sense anything it’s obviously magical in origin. The rest of the dungeon has a lot of magic traps and this darkness is obviously magical in nature even though none of us can detect it with our mana perception.”

Magrok began grinding his teeth, he seemed he had underestimated this dungeon. Sadly a pitfall, no matter how deadly, wasn’t enough to convince the rest of his tribe to retreat.

“Those that can leap around the corner do so. Otherwise, the mages will levitate you across. Understand?!”

“Yes!” shouted the other ogres.

Once on the other side of the pit, the frontline ogres began to march forward into the dungeon. At the third corner, the frontmost ogre disappeared. The others raised their weapons in surprise and began to frantically look around. They shouted their comrade’s name, but received no response. Slowly, they inched forward. Once the second ogre disappeared after a few steps, they immediately jumped backwards their eyes shaking. One ran back to the chief.

Magrok returned with the tribes only space mage. He made sure the mage stayed a certain distance away from where the ogres disappeared. “Anything?”

The mage sighed and shook his head side to side.

“Damn, we’ll have to run some tests then. ...You. Go get some apples from the tree we passed.”

“Yes!” yelped the ogre as he sprinted to the tree.

He returned with a bag full of apples which the mage began to teleport into the area where the ogres disappeared. A couple of apples later and one finally reappeared. It seemed the teleport trap was the same size as the previous pitfall trap.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

“So we know the size,” growled Magrok, “but how many could you teleport across?”

“Twenty ogres max and then I’d have to rest for a significant amount of time. I have a large pool but terrible regeneration.”

Magrok scrunched up his nose, “Let’s go the other way first and see if it’s any easier.” Of course, Magrok didn’t have very high hopes. Still, his subordinates nodded in assent.

Making their way through the other path led to the death of eight more ogres from two pitfalls and another one from a teleport trap. However, this teleport trap was different.

“We can see a door, Chief!” shouted the frontliners.

He approached and stroked his beard at the stone door around the corner, “Okay, we’ll teleport past the teleport trap here. At least it’s something more than the blank hallway from before.”

The space mage nodded and began teleporting ogres across after confirming that this trap was the same size as the previous teleport trap. The first few ogres pushed and pulled on the door, but it didn’t budge. After they looked to the chief for instruction, he just sighed, “Continue forward, but let your instincts lead you. That will probably lead you to the greatest chance of survival.”

As the frontliners moved forward, they noticed there was a room right across from the stone door that they had missed in their haste to open the door. “Hey, chief, there’s another room here and there’s no door.”

“Are you sure it’s a room and not just more hallways?”

“Yes, even with the darkness it seems to expand more than the hallways.”

“Right, send a couple in to investigate.”

Two of the ogres stalked into the room, but a few steps into the room they fell over dead. The other frontliners stood frozen in shock as their eyes followed the blue water elemental as it lazily floated back into the room.

Seeing their shock, Magrok shouted, “What?! What happened?! Stop standing there like idiots and answer me!”

The first ogre to come out of his stupor answered while trembling, “They-They were killed by a-a low rank water elemental.”

“...What? Come again?”

“It-it just flew through both their heads in less than a second and-and then lazily floated back into the room!” his voice becoming more terrified as he went on.

Magrok just stared as the remaining finest of his warriors not in his inner circle stood there shaking in fear. It seemed seeing such a weak creature kill their equal was their breaking point. He took a deep breath and spoke the words he did not wish to speak, “Warriors!” the frontliners stood taller and turned to attention, “Ogres fight to become stronger! Ogres train to become stronger! All because we are better than other races! However, even we know when we are outmatched. Sending you deeper into this dungeon is assured death, but it is something I must do. The rest of the tribe will not believe that this dungeon is too dangerous with you still alive, so you must die. Now! Die! For glory and the war god!”

“For glory and the war god!” they shouted with all their heart.

The remaining frontliners, eighteen in total, continued onwards. The ogre in front exploded into blood and viscera, but the others continued forward only flinching slightly while avoiding the pieces of blood covered earth that were scattered where she stepped. As they walked through the hallway, seven more ogres exploded in the same way. They reached a divergent path, one way leading to a dead end, so they went the other way.

Ten ogres entered the hallway as two stone walls, one in front and one behind slammed shut. They prepared their weapons, bit their lips, and tears formed in their eyes as they prepared for death. Beams of light appeared from the walls and began crisscrossing the hallway, the ten ogres were chopped to pieces barely able to tell what had happened.

Ian was pleased he could see some of his other traps perform. He did chide himself for his lack of size variation on his teleport traps, but that problem would only appear when an army with several high rank space mages entered his dungeon. Still, having a more fitting boss would mitigate that problem. The problem with that was mana. He’d need to see if there were any DP purchases that would help him out.

The other traps had performed as planned, but he was surprised at the impact the strength changed water elementals had. He would have thought sudden teleportation from something undetectable would be more fearsome, but apparently he didn’t understand ogre social norms enough.

Magrok watched as the frontliners proceeded further into the dungeon. As they left his vision he turned towards the space mage and uttered, “Let’s go.”

Returning to the rest of his tribe, Magrok convinced them that proceeding further into the dungeon was suicide. They were not happy, but they agreed as the frontliners hadn’t returned and were presumed dead.

The rest of the tribe moved back up through the floors until they entered the spider room on the G rank floor. Once the entire tribe was in the room, the room filled with beams of light which penetrated the heads of all the ogres except for the chief. Each ogre collapsed like a puppet’s strings that had been cut and began to be absorbed by the dungeon.

Magrok’s eyes shook and his lips quivered as a hobgoblin appeared before him. The black hobgoblin had blood pouring out of its nose and eyes, but it just stared at him and then brought its fists up in front of itself.

A sonic boom echoed as Magrok launched himself forward, his right fist pointed directly at the hobgoblin’s head. Ian casually swatted Magrok’s fist aside with the back of his left hand and threw a leaping uppercut into Magrok’s chin. His head rattled, which left enough time for Ian to counterattack, but he simply stood there and waited for Magrok to attack. Magrok’s lips split into a growl as he threw punch after punch towards Ian. Each punch was batted away easily and returned with a punch that bruised Magrok’s body or shook his brain.

After around a minute of faster than sound punches echoing throughout the room, Magrok’s simple pattern shifted to one of a master. His punch hit Ian dead on sending the mangled hobgoblin body flying across the room. Pieces of flesh flew off including an arm and a leg. The broken body with bones piercing the skin lay on the ground.

Magrok’s grin faded as the broken body repaired itself. Bones shifted back into place, while limbs and flesh regrew. When his vocal chords and tongue were regenerated Ian muttered to himself, but still loud enough for Magrok to hear, “I wish this body could support endurance too.”

The ogre chief’s mind clicked into place. He was somehow fighting the dungeon consciousness. A consciousness that had made that terror of a floor and killed all of his tribe. A being that was a user of untold magics...and it was fighting him in a fist fight. He shouldn’t have tried to trick a hobgoblin he thought was just doing its leader’s bidding. He tired himself for no reason.

However, Magrok soon calmed down. Why was he worried? Those beams could have easily killed him. He was going to die anyway, so he might as well enjoy his last fight. He shut his eyes and took a deep breath. When he opened them he smiled at the hobgoblin in front of him, but the hobgoblin didn't smile back. Instead, it started to attack.

Ian seemed to teleport into the stomach area of the ogre chief. While floating he sent a right straight into the ogre’s abdomen. His punch deformed the ogres stomach and sent him flying back across the room. Appearing behind the flying ogre, he sent a roundhouse kick into his back and sent Magrok flying back the other direction.

Magrok slammed into the wall and fell face first onto the ground. He quivered as he spat out blood while trying to get up with clenched fists. The dungeon consciousness was leisurely walking towards him. The ogre chief’s body erupted into flames, scorching anything that was left in the room and slowly melting the hobgoblin. Once he stood up, his punches toward the hobgoblin created pillars of fire that melted the skin off of the hobgoblin leaving only the skeleton and burnt flecks of meat. However, it wasn’t enough. The regeneration of the hobgoblin surpassed what his flames could melt. Flesh burnt and flaked off but just as quickly regrew.

Using every technique at his disposal and his fire mana infused body he went after the dungeon consciousness with punches, kicks, feints, and the hottest fire he could imagine that even he started to melt. After a feint with his right hand, his open palmed left hand struck towards the dungeon consciousness while shooting beams of fire. Five holes appeared in Ian’s body, but unfazed he grabbed Magrok’s finger, pulled him forward, and used his left bone hand to sheer off the ogre’s left arm. The ogre chief continued fighting with all his might even missing his left arm, but it was not enough. Magrok kneeled and gasped for breath as the flames licking the room slowly disappeared. He stared at the hobgoblin and waited for the death blow.

Ian stared at the ogre chief and said, “It was better fight than I expected.” and caved his head in with a right hook.