Volume 2 - CH 8.1

Translator: DarkHeartedAlchemist, Editor: Krizzeir

Chapter 8: Let’s Witness the Fight Between a parent and Child, Part 1

「Welcome back, dear husband.」

「Yeah, I have returned.」

After a three week break in the main base, Aur had finally returned to his Dungeon o the New Continent, and the first thing he saw was Sakuya kneeling on the floor with her head bowed down.

He was away for much more time then he had initially intended, and thought that it would be better not to mention that most of that time was spent on playing around with girls.

「Please, Master, don’t be concerned about my Mistress. She’s been faithfully awaiting your return.」

「Hmph, just what I would expect from you. Your loyalty is truly commendable.」

Following the example of his sister Hoseli, Hoderi also kneeled down to welcome him back.

「Welcome back, Lord Aur. I trust that your journey back here was uneventful.」

「I was, thank you very much. I trust that there was no trouble while I was away?」

Mari came to greet him shortly after. She returned home on several occasions, but she was essentially spending most of her time in this Dungeon together with Sofia.

「What’s wrong, sweetie? Aren’t you going to greet daddy back?」

Mari giggled and looked back at the door she just went through. Apparently Sofia was hiding there.

「What, you’re that embarrassed? There’s no need to be shy, you can come here just fine.」

Mary took her to Aur’s side, and Sofia glanced at him with a solemn look.

「Sofia…」

「Papa…」

She interrupted him mid-sentence, and created the walls that surrounded him from every direction. At the same time, a magic circle appeared under his feet. By the time he realized that, it was already too late, but he still tried to get rid of one of the walls to get out of there.

「I HATE YOU!」

Together with Sofia’s words, he felt that his body was falling. It was a strange feeling of floating created due to the metastasis. In the blink of an eye, he was transported back to the entrance of the forest.

「That Sofia…」

Maybe it was careless of him, but Aur didn’t know whether to be mad at her or admire her.

「Aur, you all right?!」

Mari must’ve sent her a message right away, because Yunis appeared right next to him.

「Yeah, I’m fine. I’m just glad that she didn’t send me to a pool of lava or some other place like that.」

「She must’ve had a reason to do that, she’d never do something like that under normal circumstances.

「I sure as hell hope so.」

Why would she suddenly resort to such violence?

He had no idea, but it would be nice if he got to know the reason.

「She told me she hates me, so I don’t know what will happen now.」

「Oho, sounds like she really is in a bad mood. What did you do to make her this mad?」

Yunis send him a wry smile.

「That’s what I’d like to know.」

Aur touched one of the trees and try to interfere with them with his magic. However, just as he expected, they were quickly returning to their original form.

「Looks like she totally owned you this time.」

「Now this is unusual.」

He did not predict such a situation at all. And it was no laughing matter, since Sofia was the Dungeon itself. Right now, she had more authority over it than Aur did.

「This is going to be a good opportunity to teach her some discipline. Let’s go.」

「YEAH!」

「Umu.」

In response to Aur’s words, Hoderi and Hoseli replied in enthusiastic voices, much to Yunis’ surprise.

「Now how did you got here?」

At the moment the circle activated, we jumped in to help.」

「It is my duty to protect both my Mistress and Master Aur.」

Yunis had some objections to that statement, but she decided to let them go. And that skill of theirs to hide their presence still made her quite uneasy.

「Well then, now that we have the needless pleasantries out of the way…」

Aur looked around the deep forest and said…

「Let’s go capture my naughty daughter’s dungeon!」

「Somehow, this makes me happy, you know?」

While they were going through the forest path, Yunis suddenly said such a thing.

「There was a time when you explored a Dungeon with Wikia and Faro, right?」

「Now that you mention it, there really was such a thing.」

But that was so long ago. Back then he disguised himself as a travelling magician and entered his own dungeon to evaluate it in practice from an adventurer’s standpoint and to test the mettle of adventurers themselves.

「I just thought that I wanted to do something like that with you too.」

「Well, now you have the perfect occasion.」

「Yeah, and that’s what makes me so glad.」

She was smiling now, but she was also send to invade his Dungeon at one point in the past.

「Since we’re doing serious exploration now, I’m going to do my best.」

She swung her sword around and psyched herself up.

Before Aur could notice, the sword was already back in its sheath, and the trees around them were cut up into million pieces.

「Can we proceed like this?」

「Yeah, yeah.」

It would seem that the durability of the Dungeon’s walls did not decrease since that time he was here with Mari. Rather, it increased due to Sofia’s governing. But it didn’t matter when faced with Yunis, who slashed at the obstacles on their way with speed and unparalleled precision.

And speaking of getting serious, did she really need to dispatch them in such a flashy, theatrical way?

As they were going down the way she cut out for them, Aur talked to Hoderi. His left arm was eaten by Orochi, and the sleeve of his shirt now fluttered in the wind.

「I don’t care much about that. I lost it because I wasn’t strong enough.」

Aur offered to heal it up for him but he refused. If it got regenerated, he said, he’d be unable to operate it as fast as he originally did, so he decided to just leave it as it was.

「The defense of this Dungeon is not very good, we should be able to proceed without any issues.」

「Is that so?」

「I imagine this is because the main purpose of this Dungeon here was infiltration, not invasion.」

Normally the Dungeon would serve as a base for subjugating enemies and burning down villages, but this time there was no need for them to do that, therefore the defensive capacity was kept at minimum.

But in spite of that, Aur was surprised that there wasn’t all that many attempts at invasion so far.

There was that one time with Tatsuki, and then with Yamata no Orochi… and that was basically it.

Putting his hand on a tree, Aur created a shining surface on top of it.

「Looks like we can’t accumulate energy either.」

「Want me to check things up from the sky?」

As they were going forward, the path became more difficult to traverse for the human beings, but wind passed freely through the trees.

「No, stay here with us. Since we can’t summon demons or familiars, it would be best to stick together.」

「Agreed.」

Hoderi nodded at Aur’s words.

「Master is right. The owner of this Dungeon might be a very intelligent person, but this forest is much more than it initially seems to be. You can practically smell the danger in the air.」

「You certainly can.」

And Hoseli supplemented her brother’s words.

「You mean these things?」

Numerous stone mortars were falling from the sky in their direction. Even if they were simple rocks, even one hit to the head was enough to kill a normal human being. In a way, those projectiles were much more effective than arrows.

But…

Aur’s cube automatically expanded and deflected everything.

Yunis dodged every one of them with minimal movements.

Even with one hand, Hoderi slashed them to the side with his sword, and his sister shot them down with the stones that she herself threw while she stood with her feet planted firmly into the ground.

To them, this was no obstacle at all.

「And of course there are small demons.」

Hoderi pointed in front of them with his sword.

「Small demon.」

To Aur it looked like a humanoid creature with an inhumanely ugly face. Just like…

「Isn’t that just a goblin?」

「The color is different.」

Contrary to Aur’s familiars, these ones were not green, but red. They also wore clothing similar to that of the natives of this continent.

「Individually they are not very strong, but they can be a pain once they gang up on you or set a trap, so do be careful.」

「Just like goblins!」

The ones behind them were over a foot tall, so Aur began to analyze the differences between them and ordinary goblins simply out of habit.

「Whatever the case may be, we know how to handle such a threat.」

Aur walked confidently towards the small creatures.

Feeling his intimidating aura, some of them tried to flee, only to crash into a wall that suddenly rose behind them. They did not understand how it got there and blocked their retreat, so they scattered around in a futile attempt to run for their lives. Aur only reacted by twisting his lips into a wicked smile.

They were heading straight towards the pitfalls he himself had dug.

All of them fell onto the stone spikes and died instantly.

It was always a funny sight to see how not only goblins, but also creatures much larger than them were impaled on the spikes in the pitfalls and yet they tried to set themselves free, despite knowing that it was to no avail.

It always ended in failure, just like now. He had no interest in them, so he just walked right past them.

「Aren’t you going to run away?」

He asked the remaining ones. They wanted to, but their path was blocked. So their only remaining option for them was to run past Aur.

………………………..

Their corpses soon disappeared under the leafy carpet.

As expected, some that fell into the pitfalls still tried to crawl out of them, using the bodies of others as a stepping stones. There was no sense of unity between them anymore, only the desperate struggle for survival, even at the cost of the lives of their brethren. And for those that managed to climb up, a cruel surprise was waiting. Try as hard as they could, they were unable to grab the edge of the pitfall with their fingers, as if there was an invisible wall there that prevented them from escaping.

Since that option failed, they tried to dig their way back up, but the soil was so hard that it wouldn’t even budge an inch no matter how hard they clawed at it.

They were still unable to understand that it was Aur’s labyrinth itself that prevented them from escaping.

「Foolish creatures.」

Aur spoke while looking down on them.

「I won’t even try to convince you to swear your loyalty to me, as it seem s to be too much for your tiny heads.」

They tried to throw things at him, but whatever they managed to find and throw just stopped on an invisible wall.

「So just cover in fear before me!」

Then he opened his hand and closed it, as if he was grabbing something.

And the earth in the pitfalls moved, crushing the creatures that were trapped inside.

「You don’t have to understand my name, you don’t have to remember my face, but as long as there’ll be blood, you will continue to fear me for all eternity!」

They could only cover in fear before him, just like he told them to do.

「All right, let’s go.」

Satisfied with the outcome, Aur ordered his group to proceed.

The lucky goblins who were spared ran away and disappeared into the depths of the forest while they wailed and screamed.