novelLibra Elune (2)
| ← Ch.158 | Ch.160 → |
Yong-ho asked right away, "Scathach was 'life' and Baphomet was 'death', right? Is the power of the 12 Spirits of the House of Mammon like that? Isn't it something like 'concept', not attributes such as earth, fire, or wind?"
Scathach clapped her hands to hear it and said, "How discerning you are! You're right. Most of us 12 Spirits are using 'concepts' as our power, which can be said to be the result of the intellectual activity of the lives with their own will and emotions."
"Then, what about Gusion?"
He asked it instinctively, but the more he thought about Gusion, the more curious he was because he could not think of any "concept" that suited Gusion.
She waved her hands and said, "Ask him directly. My sweetheart has the power suitable for him perfectly. Ah, it's not something like 'cuteness'. I almost gave you a correct answer!"
"Well, I don't think he isn't even close to 'cuteness'..."
"Uh? Why? You will never know how cute he is when we are alone. So much so that I want to tell others how cute he is."
She said, blushing, but he tried not to imagine his being cute to her.
He felt goosebumps at the thought that Gusion was acting cute to her when they were together.
"What is Elune's power?"
He didn't mention it just to change the topic. Checking it out was important to him because he was planning to start attacking the third floor of the Labyrinth of Greed today.
"Well, it's the power that suits Elune the most. But at the same time, it is also a very ambiguous force. Depending on who has her power, the strength and weakness of her power will be very different. But I believe you can use her power as well as anybody else."
It seemed that she didn't want to answer his question fully.
After he got out of the blue liquid, Yong-ho summoned Skull and the dragon soldiers. He also ordered Lucia to call Eligos and Ophelia.
About 30 minutes later Yong-ho was done preparing for the attack and left the Garden of Life. He headed for the Labyrinth of Greed on the 3rd floor, the realm of Elune.
***
Dragon Fear, it was one of the several powers that the descendants of the great Dragon Lord that inherited the vein of fantasy fully.
It was an overwhelming power.
Its existence itself caused others instinctive fear.
Reborn as a Dragon Bone Knight, Skull could exert power similar to Dragon Fear. It was a powerful force that could not even be compared with the fear of death that the ordinary undead induced to the living. So much so that a road was opened the moment Skull stepped forward. Wendigos, the dungeon monsters that resembled a monkey, who were in charge of controlling the entrance to the 3rd floor, couldn't even dare to approach Skull's party. The only thing they could do was to scream in anger while shuddering.
Bucephalas, which was carrying Skull on its back, moved on ostensibly as if he was boasting.
Since Bucephalus had been promoted to "Nightmare Vanguard" after the bloody battle with the Death Knight, his showy marching was quite a view.
Looking back once, Bucephalas snorted hard. It seemed meaningless to others, but Salami took it differently. Shaking its head as if it was upset, Salami kept signaling to Yong-ho with its eyes. Yong-ho understood Salami's feelings. That was why he gently got off Salami's back and waved his hand. He looked at Eligos, who was gleaming with a strong desire to win, promoted by Skull's pompous behavior then gave him a brief order.
"Kill them."
There were hundreds of Wendigos. But it didn't take long for all of them to collapse.
***
"It looks like the third floor is a gambling hall, " said Ophelia, looking around.
Since the battle was not over yet, she was still in combat mode, and her voice was more excited than usual because of that.
After getting rid of hundreds of Wendigos in the room at the entrance, Yong-ho continued to move inside. Just like the other floors of the Labyrinth of Greed, the third floor was also full of dungeon monsters piled up over a thousand years, so the battle never ceased.
Yong-ho stepped back and watched in order to get the dungeon spirits' evolution EXP. He then looked around like Ophelia. He asked Ophelia puzzlingly, "Did you say this is a gambling place?"
The third floor was more like "indoor" rather than the first or second floor. The first entrance room's ceiling was so high and spacious that Salami could even fly there, but it wasn't after that. There was a series of corridors, so he felt like he entered a large dungeon.
Currently, the place where Yong-ho and his party stopped was a space that could be called a gathering place. There was a towering path in the middle of the square-shaped room, and a wide staircase was connected to the floor about 1 meter low. Since the stairs were connected to the whole road, it could be said that the central passage was made of stones stacked in a pyramid shape on the flat ground.
Although there were several long grooves in the stone ground, that was it. So, he felt like it was a square rather than a gambling hall.
Ophelia explained, "It seems to be a traditional slime stadium. Those stairs look like seats, and there are slimes racing along the grooves on the ground. Originally, things like partitions should be stretched along the grooves, but they seem to have been broken with the passage of time. I can see quite a bit of debris around. Probably they might have bet money over there and got the dividend."
She seemed to have a point. Recalling the racetrack he went with his father, he imagined the slimes crawling hard along the rails one after another. They didn't move vigorously, but they looked pretty cute, he thought.
"I found some traces in the room where we first entered, things like dice and gambling chips.
Probably they might have gambled at several small tables in that room, just like they did in my tavern."
"Uh? Wasn't the second floor the gateway to the Labyrinth of Greed? Gambling room right next to the door?"
"Well, they could express their confidence like that because this is no other than the Labyrinth of Greed. And in my opinion, it seems that the third floor is a space to support the entire load. I mean 'magical load' rather than a physical one. That's why the room or passage is narrower than the first or second floor, and the ceiling is low."
"In other words, it's a multi-purpose room, right?"
"Yes, I think there is a good chance that a real luxury gambling house was built on a deeper floor."
At that very moment, thunder crashed. It was the sound of Skull hitting the head of the one-eyed giant standing at the exit with a battle hammer. The head of the giant, nearly six meters tall, literally shattered into pieces.
Instead of watching Salami and Eligos, who were fighting hard, Yong-ho kept asking Ophelia.
"By the way, is a gambling room an essential dungeon facility?"
He asked because the gambling room here was about the size of a racetrack. So, he did not understand quickly because she mentioned that a high-end gambling place was probably on a deeper floor.
She knitted her brows a bit and replied, "I told you about it once before, but it is a useful space in many ways. As one of the 12 Spirits of the House of Mammon, I would like to strongly recommend that you install it in the Mammon House, too. How about a bar there? Just as you're faithful to your desire, the dungeon spirits are also faithful to their own desires. They need a playing area where they can satisfy their desires."
"Hmm."
Actually, she was right. Unlike young Yuria or Baduk just content with something to eat, Orcs might have various desires. Although the Free City was available as a place to satisfy their desires, it was so far away from the House of Mammon. Obviously they couldn't go that far after their work was over.
Although the ratio of undead spirits like skeletons was overwhelmingly high at the House of Mammon, general dungeon spirits also increased a lot in the process of Yong-ho absorbing Free City and the House of Randolt. As the owner of the dungeon, Yong-ho could not help but consider the welfare of the dungeon spirits.
"What about other masters? I mean the masters of larger dungeons."
Since the masters of dungeons in the southern area, especially the dungeons of those masters affiliated with Yong-ho, were weak, their dungeons were not big.
What he wanted to refer to was the dungeons outside the southern area and the dungeons of powerful masters at that.
Ophelia smiled brightly and said, "There are many good cases where they build huge estates outside their dungeons."
"You mean something like a village, right?"
"Yes. Besides, the role of an estate is not just a place to satisfy their desires. It serves as a driving force that can help them control a much larger number of dungeon spirits than a normal dungeon. Aside from the Labyrinth of Greed, it is difficult for thousands or tens of thousands of spirits to live in a typical dungeon."
"You bet."
Right now, the Free City was playing a similar role. It was necessary for Yong-ho to secure a space where a large number of people could stay in order to command thousands of soldiers.
Actually he asked the question casually, so he stopped delving into it further. It would not be too late for him to devise about building an estate after occupying the third floor.
While Yong-ho and Ophelia were exchanging opinions, almost all of the dungeon monsters in the slime stadium were wiped out. He looked back at Catalina, who was guarding him as his escort knight rather than fighting directly because she was smiling at him strangely.
Noticing his gaze, she replied quickly, "Well, I feel the gambling place here looks good because Elune, not anybody else, is in charge."
Libra Elune, to quote Scathach's words, she was one of the 12 Spirits who was sincere and methodical.
Yong-ho also naturally nodded. Her images that he remembered in his memories were far from gambling. She was strict, serious, and stern in everything.
Like Catalina said, however, he thought she was a good fit as the manager of the gambling place.
"Does it mean she ensures fairness in the gambling place?"
Anybody could trust Elune, and she would not give short weight and short measure anyway.
Catalina nodded quickly, saying that it was exactly what she thought.
But Ophelia was different. She said with a wicked smile, "Well, what I say may sound impertinent, but her presence in the gambling place may be a sophisticated strategy for true deception. After all, a gambling house is a place where the gambling house, not the clients, wins."
This was the statement by the former hostess of the tavern, who used to run the largest gambling house in the Free City.
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