## Chapter 153 – Kobolds and the Underground Labyrinth
We navigated the pitch-black darkness relying solely on Winnia’s light magic. The light was practically at LED levels, making it feel like daytime. As expected, the magic of this other world had points in common with modern Earth’s science.
Since it wasn’t dark at all, there was no tension or anything.
I descended the stairs rather bored.
“Ah, right.”
As I was walking, stuck to Elise’s back, I remembered Winnia mentioning she’d raided a treasure room once. With nothing else to do, I decided to ask her about it.
“Winnia, tell me about when you went into the treasure room.”
“No.”
The refusal was an immediate, cool reply.
“Come on, I’m bored. Just tell me once.”
“Shut up, Darkie.”
“Ah.”
Why was she so prickly? Had I done something to upset her again? I still didn’t understand Winnia’s moods very well. Claudia spoke up.
“Why don’t you tell us? I’m curious too. Katt would like it if you told us.”
“Don’t annoy me, Sis. And don’t touch my shoulder. Don’t move your hand lower. Don’t touch my chest. Nipple…! I said don’t touch!”
“Hehe, feisty. It feels like just yesterday you were whining, calling me ‘Sis’.”
“Wh-What!”
They started fighting again. I shouldn’t have brought it up. And Claudia was already sexually harassing even Winnia. This is why strength is important. Elise, wearing a strange expression at the bizarre scene, turned to look at me.
“Don’t mind them. It’s a common occurrence.”
“Understood. More importantly, I’m starting to sense an evil presence. Please be careful.”
“What? An evil presence?”
Starting to sense an evil presence… the phrasing was grammatically incomprehensible. Elise’s way of thinking was just as strange as the Three Stooges Robbery Gang.
“Listen closely. Can’t you hear the evil sound coming from the other side of the darkness?”
“…I can’t hear anything at all?”
“Actually, neither can I.”
“????”
“Hehe. Just kidding.”
Rarely, Elise gave a faint smile, wearing a triumphant expression. For a moment, my mind couldn’t keep up with my perception. What on earth was going on?
“Wasn’t it funny?”
When there was no reaction, the faint smile disappeared, replaced by a slight gloom.
No way! I, of all people, didn’t catch a woman’s joke!
The Joke-Catching Fairy, Kim Katt, is weeping!!!
“No! It was hilarious! I’ll just go pick up my stomach for a second!”
“What does that mean?”
I tried to salvage the situation by throwing out a joke of my own, but our jokes didn’t connect at all. Our fundamental ways of thinking were just too different. It was as if only Elise and I had been cut out of the world and frozen in place.
“…It’s a joke.”
“I do not know what it means, but if I understood, I imagine it would be quite amusing. It is most regrettable that I do not.”
“…”
The atmosphere became very awkward. After that, we descended the stairs in complete silence. In the silence, we went quite deep. But at this moment, we could finally say that we had achieved something.
We found something suspicious.
“Hmm? What’s that?”
Claudia, drawing her curved sword, pointed the tip towards the front. What was there wasn’t an artificially made passage, but a roughly dug hole.
A hole in the middle of the earthen wall.
A hole just about my height.
“It seems to be a passage expanded by kobolds… but it is a little large.”
“I agree? It would have been more natural if they’d made it a little smaller. Are there other things besides kobolds? Did they raise livestock too?”
It was a little big for kobolds to pass through, but anyway, judging by the way it was dug, it looked like a passage they used. Even if there was something else, it wouldn’t change the fact that it was a monster.
As Elise and I were constructively sharing our opinions, “Haa,” I heard Winnia sigh from behind.
“Darkie. Recite the types of kobolds.”
“Recite the types?”
“Is there something wrong with your hearing?”
She suddenly asked me that.
“Well… Kobold Worker, Kobold Warrior. And Kobold Queen? If there’s a queen, there’d be a princess and a prince too.”
“Right. You know them well. Then why is the hole so big?”
“Ah. That’s right. Now that you mention it. Is it because of the Kobold Warrior?”
“Correct.”
Kobold Warriors are higher-level entities than the commonly seen Kobold Workers, serving as soldier ants in charge of specialized combat. Their size is about that of Copson, they are fierce and violent, and their lack of fear makes them quite troublesome opponents.
Since their physique alone is about the size of a person, if they appear with a group of Workers, the difficulty of the battle skyrockets… I know this well because I almost died because of them once. Winnia continued.
“Then why would the kobolds make the path like that for the Warriors to use?”
“Um… Because the warrior needs to move quickly?”
“Darkie, you’re so smart. But what are you doing? Why aren’t you drawing your sword?”
Saying that, she pointed her staff towards the hole.
“ㅡBattle stations!!!!”
Startled, I shouted like I was having a seizure and drew my sword. That’s right. The existence of such a hole suggested that kobolds could crawl out at any time. Claudia guarded the rear. I stood diagonally in front of the entrance, and Elise shielded Winnia.
“If there’s a passage for warriors, there might be a core facility inside. Winnia, would it be alright to illuminate the inside?”
“Wait a moment.”
Elise can use a divine spell called Light Bolt. If she shot that flare-like thing, we could see how far the hole went.
“Claudia. Do you sense anything?”
When I asked, her ears perked up.
“No. I don’t hear any sounds of movement… wouldn’t it be okay to check the inside?”
Nodding at those words, Elise chanted a spell. “With the light, He shall come…” Pachik, divine energy gathered at the tips of the spiky, candy-like heads of her mace, the Morning Star. When she finished chanting, a ball of light about the size of a baseball was created.
“Light Bolt.”
ㅡPatsutsut!
The fired sphere illuminated the darkness of the hole and flew in with fierce momentum. At first glance, there didn’t seem to be any beings illuminated by the light. The sphere, flying a little further, lost its light and disappeared.
“Hmm, that’s strange? It’s a path for Warriors, but it’s empty. Did other adventurers swarm in as a group?”
Winnia expressed her doubts. It seemed strange that the kobolds that should have appeared hadn’t.
“Then let’s go in for now.”
I carefully took a step forward, pointing the tip of my sword forward, and slowly advanced. The three women followed behind me. A hole that was just right for my height. I moved through it.
Plunging into a dark hole… I started to feel a guilty thought. It was truly the height of lewdness. Right now, I was violating these kobolds’ dungeon (hole).
Thinking that way, I felt very unpleasant… to the point where I wanted to get out of here immediately. For some reason, I suddenly had a paranoid delusion that a large amount of moisture would flow out from the walls, no, not that, from the earthen walls, and eventually submerge everything.
Oh… Ooh! No!
I’m a sperm…! There’s too much water, too much water!
“No more! Stop it now!”
I clutched my head.
“Um? Saint, what is wrong?”
“Ah, it’s okay. Katt is sometimes like that. Katt, are you alright?”
“Ah, yeah… I had a brief delusion.”
I took a moment to catch my breath.
The hole wasn’t very long.
Before long, we reached the egg, no, the end of it. A strange thought wouldn’t leave my head. It seemed to be a side effect of having excessive sex. Should I restrain myself a little?
“…A plaza? Is it?”
When we came out of the hole, a very large plaza appeared. We went down the slope. An underground plaza? It didn’t look like the kobolds had made it. That’s because there were countless kobold corpses lying around.
“Did they have a battle here?”
“Looks like it. I can hear faint sounds. Sounds of fighting, I think.”
Claudia, listening closely, said. Following Claudia’s guidance, we approached the other side of the plaza. As we got closer, a passage leading somewhere appeared. By this point, I could hear the sounds too.
The sounds only grew louder as we approached.
A beam of light poured out from the passage.
ㅡClang! Clang!
ㅡWaaaaaa!
ㅡKusaak!
What unfolded before our eyes was a battlefield.
Adventurers with all sorts of weapons were literally at war with swarming kobolds. It was such an overwhelming sight. The number of adventurers seemed to be at least two squads, and the number of kobolds seemed to be three or four times that.
“They keep coming endlessly!”
“We just need to break through here! Hang in there!”
The shouts of the adventurers could be heard. Of course, it wasn’t the kobolds who were winning, but the humans. Because the space was so large, the kobolds couldn’t use their unique tactics, so they were no match for the armed and gathered adventurers.
ㅡKyururussaak!!
The Kobold Warriors, howling grotesquely, swung their forearms and battered the adventurers in front of them. “Haha!” But it was a useless blow against the iron shields. Puk! When he stabbed the warrior’s abdomen with his sword, he fell to the ground.
“They’re fighting like crazy? Shouldn’t we help out?”
“Is there any need, Darkie. They’ve already taken this place. Judging by the kobolds’ frenzy, there must be a queen’s room nearby. It would be better to bypass them and look for it. It’s connected like an ant nest, so we’ll have our chance too.”
Winnia, the most experienced among us, analyzed the situation and said. Seeing the fighting made my blood boil, but it was true that there didn’t seem to be anything to pick up here. A battle between groups doesn’t end quickly either.
“Then are you thinking of going somewhere else?”
“Earlier, I saw that there was another passage besides this one. We’ll go there.”
So we bypassed the battlefield and looked for another path. Winnia, who had experience raiding kobold lairs, would take charge of finding the way. Under Winnia’s command, we fearlessly advanced through the dungeon.
It’s convenient to have someone with experience after all.
If that’s the case, she should have taken command from the beginning. Geez.
“This is…”
In the middle of all that, we discovered a huge tombstone embedded in an unexpected location. Elise, carefully examining the surroundings, approached the tombstone.
“Saint, look. Evidence of heresy.”
A familiar symbol was drawn on the tombstone.
“I’ve seen it so many times now that I could draw it without looking.”
“Do not say such blasphemous things. I know you are joking, but you must never do such a thing. These kinds of symbols can curse you or taint you with evil just by tracing them.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll never do it.”
Kim Katt, the ultimate scaredy-cat, would never do anything that would give him nightmares. Elise pulled out her mace and pondered. The gesture made it seem like she was wondering how to destroy the tombstone.
Do you know about the Cultural Revolution?
“Elise. Even so, wouldn’t destroying this be too much?”
“To see such an evil tombstone and not be able to destroy it fills me with bone-chilling rage. Anyway, I’ve confirmed it with my own eyes, so the mission is half complete… but I think I still need material evidence. I’m wondering how to do that.”
“Well, there will be an opportunity.”
ㅡThump thump.
I kicked the base of the tombstone.
It didn’t budge, and it seemed impossible to move it with human strength.
“What is this symbol?”
Winnia expressed her doubts. Claudia had already seen it twice, but Winnia didn’t know. I briefly explained what had happened to her. Losing interest quickly while listening to the explanation was so Winnia-like.
Then she shouldn’t have asked…
“Wait. I hear a sound… It’s coming this way. Quickly.”
Claudia said.
There was no one who didn’t know that it meant battle.
Holding up our respective weapons, we gathered in a favorable position. As we were on guard in tension, the sound got closer.
ㅡKyuussaaaat!!!
Soon, the cries of the kobolds burst out.
The excited guys were running towards us.
