This sounded like the perfect engine for giving our labyrinth some nature-based spice. Let’s put those dragons in the deeper floors once Milim picks them up. These element-infused dragons, by the way, were stronger than offshoots like the Sky Dragon, maybe a Special A in terms of ranking—not a match for Charybdis, but still packing a big punch. I hadn’t really thought about it, but I supposed one of those rarer offshoots would be a good, even match for six paladins. Upgrade that to an element-infused one, and you’d need a whole Crusader platoon to stand a chance, apparently… But hey, this is my dungeon, and I get to decide what goes in there.
With spirits, the five elemental attributes work like this: Earth is strong against sky, sky against wind, wind against water, water against fire, and fire against earth. This, however, didn’t apply to dragons. Battle experience was more important than elemental attributes—in essence, older dragons were stronger than younger ones.
As a result, I decided to order the elemental floors like so:
Floor 99: Fiery Hellscape
The final challenge, encased in raging flames. Fire-resistant equipment is a must. What could be waiting beyond…?!
Floor 98: Icy Grave
Keep moving or die instantly. Will your cold-resistant equipment be able to save you from this?
Floor 97: Electric Skies
Lightning rains down from above. Only luck can decide whether you’ll survive or get singed!
Floor 96: Raging Earth
A punishing quake sorely tests anyone who makes it this far down. Behold the blind rage of the dragon!
These four element-themed floors would serve as the last challenge before the final boss, Veldora himself. It was perfect. I saw absolutely no way anyone could beat it.
“Not bad, Rimuru!”
“Heh-heh-heh… Placing those half-breeds ahead of me, eh? I imagine you’re trying to put adventurers off their guard with those also-rans before encountering my full might!”
“Aw, why does Veldora get the coolest part? You oughtta put me in as that final boss thing from time to time!”
All three seemed to like the concept. Good to see—but we still needed to get those dragons worked out for it. Flattering Milim ought to ensure she’ll get the job done.
“You’ve already got a vital role in this, Milim. If it wasn’t for you, this final set of traps never would’ve existed.”
“!”
“He’s right, Milim!” exclaimed Ramiris, probably picking up on my intention. “I really hope you can get some strong, mean-looking dragons for us!”
“No problem, guys!”
She looked motivated enough. That was good. If I had the dragons, I had the traps I wanted—and the way Milim described it, the dragons would do all the interior decoration work for me.
Not long after, Milim set off to capture the dragons, the latest members of Ramiris’s rapidly expanding band of underlings.
A few days after Milim’s sudden visit, I had the traps set up across all the floors. The only thing left to do was wait for Milim to come back with those dragons.
“Man. Beretta and Treyni, you guys did a hell of a job.”
“Oh, no,” Beretta said, taking a step back and being modest as usual. “This is all for you and Lady Ramiris.”
“Exactly,” said a beaming Treyni. “It is a joy to work for the sake of my master.”
Ramiris herself was sitting on Treyni’s shoulder, and Treyni looked ready to carry out nearly any order she gave her.
That wrapped up the bulk of the work—
“By the way, Sir Rimuru, I still have these with me…”
—but then Beretta took out a Unique-class weapon and armor set.
“Those?”
“I received them from a golem in the service of Clayman. I was unable to give them to you earlier, but I thought, perhaps, they would make good loot for a treasure chest or two…”
Oh, right. Clayman’s greatest masterpiece, or whatever it was? Viola, I think was the name. Beretta stripped all the weapons from it, and he meant to present them to me, but I turned them down. He wanted to pay me off with that stuff so they could move here, after all, and I wasn’t up for that.
“Weren’t you going to offer that stuff to Ramiris?”
“Ha-ha!” Ramiris said, butting in. “There’s no way I could use it right, and I don’t really care about it anyway. I think it’s a pretty fancy piece of weaponry, but that’s about it—not much else you can do with it. So I talked to Beretta to see if we could make better use of it!”
“Are you sure about this? Because it’d be worth a lot if you sold it.”
“It’s fine, it’s fine! All part of my job! And I’m gonna make a ton of money before long, so why quibble over the little stuff? Besides, we finally have somewhere to live!”
So the weapon and armor were mine—and thus, I decided to put them to work for me.
It was time to put the treasure chests in place and see how the labyrinth was shaping up.
From Floor 1 on down, we checked our work. That topmost floor was kind of a demo of things to come. I made it so even beginners could proceed without too much hassle; the chamber and its hallways were broad, wide, and hard to get lost in.
Still, eight hundred feet to a side was big. I worried that people would spend all afternoon mapping out every nook and cranny, only to be rewarded with nothing. That might cause people to start dissing the maze, but with all the weak monsters prowling around, I figured there’d be enough excitement for everyone—the magic crystals and other useful stuff they dropped would make it worth novice adventurers’ time.
I intended to buy this loot from those adventurers. There wasn’t a Free Guild post in
