It's Dangerous Outside the Dungeon, Master

* * *

“Why is Rita doing such troublesome things?”

It was Serica’s question.

She had been dropping by my dungeon lately as if commuting, saying that what Elias was doing in my dungeon was interesting, and even though the result was already out today, she still hadn’t returned.

Probably because she doesn’t want to go back to her family.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that male human. If you wanted to make him pay, couldn’t you just cut off his limbs and throw him to the beasts?”

And then she asked that question.

It’s certainly different from human sensibilities.

Serica’s eyes were tinged with somewhat indifferent curiosity as she spoke while spinning around in a swivel chair.

She’s curious, but it doesn’t matter whether she knows or not.

When I grabbed the chair to stop it, she looked up at me somewhat discontentedly, but soon started to focus with shining eyes as I began to speak.

“Don’t say such harsh things, Serica. It’s good to be yourself, but too harsh words don’t look pretty.”

“Ah, really? So this is harsh talk…”

“Yes. That’s right… The reason for punishing humans in such a way.”

After thinking for a moment, I felt I should start by correcting what she misunderstood.

“First of all, that’s not punishment, but a test.”

“A test?”

“Yes. It’s a process to see if he’s useful to me.”

“Why? What do you use humans for?”

Serica asks, tilting her head sideways with a ‘huh?’.

Following her movement, her golden hair flows down and becomes disheveled.

I grab a comb and caress that beautiful golden hair that naturally draws one’s gaze. She slightly closed her eyes, seeming to enjoy it.

“Many dungeons use humans, Serica. You’ve seen mercenaries too, right?”

“Yeah. There are many in the Marquis family too.”

“Did you know that more than half of them were actually human?”

“What? Really?”

Serica turns to look at me with her eyes wide open.

Her round, wide eyes are cute. If one hates vampires, many might dislike her red eyes, but.

I tap her forehead lightly to turn her back into place, and undo the tie in her disheveled hair.

I intended to try a different style instead of the one she always does.

“Yes.”

“I really didn’t know. They were human? Why did they become demons? Humans always talk about humanity and stuff. Saying they don’t want to become monsters.”

“You’ve heard such things?”

“After seeing my bonsai in the dungeon, especially the thin males and females said that!”

They were probably mages or intellectuals.

Ordinary mercenaries or adventurers might have a sense of duty, but they don’t tend to worry much about things like humanity, morals, or philosophy. Where would there be room for scholarship when life is busy?

“Everyone likes different things, don’t they? Just like you can’t resist sweets, but I like tea.”

As she nods at my words, I bring my hands to the back of her hair on both sides, and magic naturally moves those hairs to grasp each other.

The final hairstyle created is braided hair intertwined with each other.

Using those that have become like thin cords made one by one, I remade her twin tails.

Not high like usual, but low. It’s still cute, but it’s a style that looks a bit more gentle.

“Ah, is that so? Then, they don’t dislike becoming demons.”

“They do dislike it, but they like what they can achieve by becoming demons even more. Like money, or the opposite sex.”

“The opposite sex? Why do they like the opposite sex?”

Her last question was one that made even me hesitate.

To explain this to her, I would need mental preparation too. Although I know she’s actually just an adult, still…

“That… I’ll explain later.”

“Eh…”

“Anyway, it’s true that I tormented that human, but it wasn’t just for punishment.”

“What do you want to use him for?”

The tone that sounds almost naive, and the very natural treatment of humans as objects by saying ‘use’.

“To take over the human kingdom.”

While feeling sad about myself getting used to that gap, I concluded the conversation.

“Oh…! To become a human princess too?”

“You’re not wrong.”

“That sounds exciting! Rita is super pretty and cool so she could be both a human and demon princess!”

“Thank you, Serica.”

“Hehe.”

Thinking that innocence and good and evil are indeed different things.

‘It was quite fun for a change.’

What I recall is the moment of contract with Elias.

* * *

“What I felt most was… powerlessness.”

At Elias’s confession, Libertas, who had been looking down at the book in her hand without taking a listening attitude, nodded.

“Thoughts you had been postponing must have rushed in.”

He felt a chill for a moment at the Dungeon Lord’s words. Because she had precisely pointed out the thoughts he had recalled in the dungeon.

“I was utterly weak. Just a good-for-nothing who relied only on his looks and power to approach others… the kind of person I usually despised.”

He too had known throughout his life that he had no talent, and that he was utterly weak.

However, until now there had always been substitutes for all those things.

Substitutes of wealth, power, and sometimes looks.

Though his succession rank might be low, he was still the son of a marquis family, a knight, and handsome.

“But all of that was of no use when faced with a true threat.”

However, when he had to stand alone, when isolated in the dungeon.

All of that became meaningless.

He had to face his weakness that he had only known intellectually.

He had to distinguish more clearly between what he could and couldn’t do, what he should and shouldn’t do, and focus only on preserving his life by taking just some of those.

Like a civilized person thrown into the wild, he had to whittle himself down like that.

“What did you gain from that experience?”

After the brief confession that question followed.

Finally, Libertas’s eyes turned to him.

Eyes emitting a purple, eerie power were embedded in a seemingly fragile, pure white face.

Elias trembled as he looked at that beautiful face and eyes.

He quickly realized that the gaze of hers he had faced until now had only been fabricated.

But that gaze.

When he faced those true eyes containing a hint of curiosity and interest, and cruelty and coldness.

“It’s funny. You’re looking at me as if facing a king, aren’t you?”

Elias couldn’t help but straighten his posture from sitting and kneel on both knees.

He raised his eyes that had been looking down to examine Libertas’s gaze, and after reading ‘permission’ in those eyes.

He opened his trembling mouth and spoke his opinion.

“You… are not like a king. Rather, if anything, a master.”

“Oh?”

A smile appears on Libertas’s lips.

If Elias had seen that smile, he would have trembled once more. Because that smile would have made him certain of his insight.

It was the smile of a ruler who recognized the value of an object to be possessed.

“What’s the difference?”

“…A king reigns. But a master possesses. There’s a difference there. A king can exist without cherishing, but a master cherishes their possessions. That… isn’t necessarily the way to treat people, and there may be differences in weight between possessions.”

“I see your insight is excellent.”

Though she didn’t show it in her expression or gestures, Libertas was quite impressed.

Putting aside the difference between king and master, it was an insight that clearly pinpointed her desire for possession.

‘No matter how I look at it, it seems he’s more suited to be an administrator or diplomat rather than a knight.’

She thought to the extent that the knight before her eyes seemed to have chosen the wrong career path.

“Therefore… O Dungeon Lady who wishes to be the master of all things. Please possess me too. I do not want to perish in a place like this. I… want to rise. I want to stand at the highest point and raise my sword.”

However, the path that the man before her eyes still desires is the path of a knight.

It wasn’t anything new.

It often happens that the path where a person truly has talent and the path they desire differ.

And because of that, she was able to possess him.

“What you want is to climb stairs while wearing a sword.”

“Those words are not wrong.”

Alexis and Elias were similar yet different.

Either way, they ultimately want to express their ego, but in Alexis’s case, he focuses on the desire to take itself, while Elias craves everything he achieves while revealing his presence.

The former is the path of a tyrant, the latter is the path of a great general.

That doesn’t mean the former would dominate the latter. How many times in history have great generals raised their swords against tyrants or shadow rulers, or turned their gun muzzles around?

“Then.”

Elias couldn’t come to his senses seeing something pure white revealed before his eyes.

Though he didn’t know why he hadn’t noticed until now, Libertas was barefoot.

“Let’s see how far you can go for what you want.”

“What should I… do?”

Libertas puts down her book and slowly raises her leg onto the chair.

Elias seemed to exhaust all his patience just by not looking at that sight, following the slowly rising foot with his gaze, but in fact, even if he had raised his head, he wouldn’t have been able to see the sight he wanted to see.

Because the moment he dared to try to look at her figure, Evangeline would have gouged out his eyes.

“For your life and your glory, can you pull your father down from his position and kill him if necessary? Can you blindfold your mother, cut off the necks of your relatives and present them to my court?”

“…!”

At Libertas’s words ordering impiety in a still gentle and soft tone, Elias tries to raise his head for a moment but buries it again.

Ignoring such signs from him, her words continued.

“…And can you offer everything of yours?”

The wait, and the hesitation…

Was not long.

[Survive and seize it. That’s the only way for you to survive. After I die, even if you take your siblings’ things, what could I say?]

What flashes through his mind at that moment are his father’s words.

Wasn’t betrayal everyday life for nobles in the first place?

[All I can give you is one village with a mine. Do the rest on your own.]

[It can’t be helped… I’m sorry your mother has no power.]

Moreover, the young him had already been betrayed once by his parents.

The betrayal of ‘deprivation of succession rights’ and ‘minimization of inheritance rights’.

It was merely awakening him to the reality of what he had taken for granted, but for him who had already rationalized it internally, the truth was not important.

“…I will do so! I will offer everything of mine to my master to live, to rise high!!”

“I see…”

Libertas’s eyes narrowed as she saw through the conflict raging in his inner mind and the continuous series of self-rationalizations.

At that moment, Elias’s use had already been determined.

“If that is so, I shall bestow upon you the glory of the human world. The first step will be the ‘talent’ that will be prepaid to you.”

The contract summoned with a ‘whoosh’ sound already had her and Elias’s names written on it, and below that, special provisions were engraved.

“The price for the first is the body of one of your elder sisters.”

“…Yes…!”

The moment the Dungeon Lord’s dagger is pointed at the west following the south of the kingdom.

“Then I shall take that ‘lust’ you dared to harbor for me as a down payment.”

Libertas smiled playfully.

She had no intention at all of settling the grudge she originally had because of this contract.

“…What?”

-The contract has been established. O candidate for Demon King.

As Elias raised his head questioning Libertas’s incomprehensible words, the Demon King’s hand disappeared, and simultaneously as Libertas smiled.

Elias’s body was enveloped in light.

The light of ‘monsterization’.

“What is thiiis-!!!”

The voice that flowed out of that light a moment later was much higher than what he usually made.