Spiteful Dungeon Core Number 89?

Hey, Shun here!

Have you ever experienced winning against a trash talking enemy? How does it feel? I bet you felt absolutely euphoric when you and your team managed to pull off a come from behind win.

Comeback is real, just stay calm, composed, and focused when playing and you'll be able to do things that will even surprise you yourself.

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(Shun's POV)

Good thing I managed to prepare that secret weapon of ours in time… It was quite the challenge to create but it paid itself off with this win massively.

I have to say, that wall of flame was really impressive, to say the least, but it also had its flaws. If it was just a few centimeters tall, there would definitely be a conversation about whether Haku and her retainers could pull off a win against us.

『How's it, Shun!? Do we pass as pilots of these weird things? What do you call it, again? Du-rones?』

『It's drones, Rokuko. Anyway, I bet you were the one who crashed that one drone and it was actually Zenko who managed to control one to pass by the [Flame Wall].』 Yep, you heard it right. Rokuko, the one who's boasting right now, didn't actually pull off the win for us but Zenko, the fox girl.

Rokuko's inflated ego aside, I did manage to create drones in this world using [Create Golem]. The process was similar to how I normally create [Construction Golems].

Actually, the main challenge in creating these drones was the balancing part. I was quite hard to keep the drone balanced at first since I have no prior experience in creating these things. I just made these based off of mental images.

The materials I used to create this [Stealth Drone Golem] was the empty mana potions and barrels that I stowed away at a specified corner of our dungeon's Core Room. I was actually quite surprised that things went well during the creation of this one, except for that time when I had to do many trial and errors because I couldn't get the balancing right.

Anyway, to make the long story short, we didn't have to actually beat Chloe like we did the Red and Blue Minotaurs. Thanks to the drones being clear, they were very hard to see, especially in the middle of a bunch of roaring flames!

I bet Zenko and Rokuko had a pretty hard time piloting those things while passing through a literal wall of flame. Either way, Zenko successfully made the touchdown. We had won, end of story.

『Good job, Zenko. I knew you could do it.』

『U-Uwah! T-Thank you, master…』 No need to be that embarrassed, Zenko. You should be proud of what you accomplished. Successfully piloting a drone after only a few hours of practice is no easy feat.

『You two as well, Rokuko, Ikumei, good job! We will be throwing a party after all of this is over!』

『Yeah! Party!』

『Umm… Thank you, master.』

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"It was my complete and utter defeat." Following the battle, Haku visited our [Ordinary Cave] once again. Chloe was of course with her, wearing the same butler outfit as always.

Is it just me or am I gradually getting used to her crossdressing shenanigans? I hope not.

"I may have lost, but that was a battle with so much for me to learn from. You really broadened my horizon, Shun. Never would I have thought of using gray rats and rabbits, both as scouts and as warriors, would be that effective. The horned variants of those rabbits could also deal massive damage…"

Don't look at me with that gaze full of praise. I had known those of the rodentkind would serve as excellent scouts, but I honestly hadn't expected at all that they would be able to beat the boss on their own.

'It was your sister's idea idea that sparked the creation of that gruesome strategy, you know?' Would she be happy if I tell her that?

As an aside, I made the remaining rats scatter on the surroundings of our dungeon to act as our scouts. They already proved that they could be excellent scouts if utilized correctly, after all.

As for the rabbits, I told them that they could live in the surrounding areas of our dungeon. They're cute and fluffy so I bet they will be popular with the girls and young children if they behave.

"I truly did not anticipate being unable to find even a single one of your Dummy Cores. Where did you end up hiding your Dungeon Core? Would you be kind enough to tell me?"

"Sure sure. With pleasure. IF you pay me an extra 200,000 DP."

"Oh my, that little? Very well. Please tell me. I won't be able to sleep peacefully at this rate." What the heck? I said that as a joke, you know? She's actually willing to pay me?

Guess it wouldn't hurt to tell her now. I will keep where I hid the Dummy Cores a secret for now, though.

"…I hid it on one of the rooms in the 2nd floor of the Upper Floors. You couldn't reach it the normal way since the passageway leading to it right now is hidden." I pointed upwards while saying so. The passageway I was talking about was the one I created when I first started to renovate our dungeon seriously. It was hidden by the vines and numerous tree branches, that's why they couldn't find it easily.

As expected, Haku was stunned to hear that. Thankfully, she didn't seem to be mad at all. Rather, it's the opposite. She seems to be sincerely impressed by it all.

"Would I be able to reach it if I managed to defeat your dungeon's little boss monster?"

"Nope. Not at all. To be honest, there was actually no passageway beyond the door once you defeated Tsuka. It's a dead end. We didn't manage to finish that part in time…"

"In other words, we were trying to defeat that rabbit for literally nothing in return? What a bold move. My lady, I'm very surprised by what this man is telling us right now."

"I as well, Chloe. I've always thought that there should be some kind of reward waiting for adventurers when they defeat the Dungeon Boss."

"What are you saying? This is a Dungeon Battle and not a dungeon that could welcome adventurers. Why would you place the main target of the battle in such an obvious location?"

"That… You do have a point there."

"Haaah… Your labyrinth was impressive as well, filled with tricks even I've never seen before. Even your pitfalls were cleverly inventive. Though I do wish to note a flaw in placing weight-based pitfalls on your first floor. I used minotaurs as my primary offensive might this time, but I also have armies based on weightless wraiths. I believe it would have been better to place those pitfalls on the second floor and with plans to adjust them according to which troops I sent out." Noted. Just so you know, it would have been fine for me even if those pitfalls never activated. She just never would have found the secret path in one of them.

"And also… ngh! Was that riddle you used with the [Gate of Wisdom] from your world?" As if she remembered something unpleasant, Haku grimaced while looking at me with a spiteful glare. The same could be said for Chloe.

"Uh-huh. It was honestly quite the tough challenge to get that thing ready. The language difference really narrowed down what I could use."

"Y-You know other riddles like that…? How… How sin… Well, either way, it was quite a clever trap. Now, may I please punch you in the face just once? I'll pay you an extra 500,000 DP if you could just stay still and let me punch you in the face."

"Hahaha, I refuse." She still looked pretty frustrated about getting tricked by those riddles. To save her from getting even more frustrated, let's not tell her that Rokuko managed to solve some of them in just 3 seconds flat.

Seeing that there was a brief mum in our conversation, Rokuko decided to join in.

"Oh yeah! Guess what, Sister! My name right now is Rokuko. This comes from the number 695 in Shun's language! 'Ro' is six, 'ku' is nine, and 'ko' is five!" It turns out that Rokuko didn't actually know what the name I gave her meant. It makes sense since I actually never explained it to her. Also, I am using a different world's language so the words are quite different.

After I told her what her name really meant, instead of becoming angry, it actually made her super happy. I thought she'd be ticked off that I just straight-up turned her number into a name, but that actually ended up being really important to her.

You know what? I don't get Dungeon Cores at all.

It seemed they even had special rules regarding their names, like attaching "Dungeon Core Number" before the number itself as a sign of respect or something like that. Don't they find it a mouthful to say Dungeon Core Number this and Dungeon Core Number that all the time?

"Oh my! That's wonderful! Aaah, what a splendid name… I'm quite jealous." Haku seems to be genuinely jealous… What the heck?

"Uh-huh! Please call me 'Rokuko' from now on, Sister!"

"Certainly, Rokuko. Haaah… That name truly is wonderful. My former master named me Haku just because my hair is white, you know? He truly was the worst master imaginable, without a speck of good taste within him."

Despite all the things that I said earlier, there were some words that coincidentally were the same in both Japanese and this world's language. For example, "Haku" could mean white in Japanese as well.

"…Haku, your name doesn't come from your number? 89?" Haku blinked in surprise after hearing me say that. What? You also didn't no that? I mean it's just normal since you're not from my world, but still…

"How would Haku come from 89? Wait… Is that how it works in your world's language?"

"There's a lot of different ways to interpret it… but yeah. Haku can mean both 'white' and '89' in my language." Haku closed her eyes briefly and put a hand on her head.

It looked like that revelation was giving her a lot to think about. Was it too much to take in?

After a minute or two, she opened her mouth again.

"…Rokuko. Would you please call me Haku from now on as well? That way, both of our names will come from the numbers of another world." Oh, I take back what I said. It looks like she was just thinking of how awesome it would be to have a similar name with her beloved younger sister. What a siscon.

"Okay, Haku!" She still seemed to be a little conflicted about something, but Haku nonetheless rubbed Rokuko's head while smiling a somewhat pained smile.

The bastard did a number on her, it seems. She wanted to abandon that name to avoid remembering bad memories… but her siscon side won.

"Ah, it seems we've gone quite off subject. There is still much I'd like to discuss with you, but I am unfortunately a fairly busy individual. I built an entire dungeon for this, which I now need to take care of. And although I am concerned about that last trick you pulled, it would be exceptionally boorish of me to pry that far into another dungeon's secrets, wouldn't it?" That last trick…? She must be talking about my secret weapon. I really wouldn't mind telling her at this point, but she may want to have some fun by trying to figure it out herself.

"Now then, Rokuko. It's about time for us to… exchange DP, isn't it?"

"Y-Yesh!" Haku took Rokuko's hand and gave her a gentle, pleased smile.

She paid us 550,000 DP in total. Despite talking about how busy she was, she really took her time with the DP exchange.

Do you like getting your index finger to get licked that much? Let's not ask her that. As long as she's enjoying herself, all is well that ends well.

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※~To be continued~※

Author's Remarks:

※ Finally finished this one. This got stuck in my phone for like 2 days. I hope you enjoyed the chapter!