Rupegia

Chapter 161: Filler Dungeon Chapter – Part 2

We now find ourselves on a kind of LSD trip. We're on a large, circular, wooden platform, surrounded by huge flowers as far as the eye can see, but they all have a vaguely humanoid-like shape. Then we're attacked by a mildly dizzying sensation as the world around us seems to spin, caused by the flowers slowly going up and down while circling around the platform like the horses of a carousel.

But wait, there's more. The ceiling is a pure light blue that briefly fools me into thinking that it's a sky, and the illumination is weird, coming from directly above us, so the unusual shadows such lighting creates make everything look odd. Normally the sun is always at an angle, so the shadows extend a bit out of our bodies, but the illumination here is perfectly straight down, so it looks like we're in a game with shitty shaders.

There are other adventurers here, too, but this is a lobby, so there are a few fellowships of eclectically armed and armored people of varied races who stop in their tracks because our intimidating ensemble is blocking their path. Then I see a fellowship get enveloped by the rapidly growing leaf of a huge flower that covers their group like a blanket, but then it suddenly tightens and shrinks until the leaf disappears, and a new one grows in its place.

The smell of flowery perfume is thick in the air, and Alissa immediately notices something magical in it, then Ciel's [Diagnosis] gets triggered.

Our resident angel nurse reads the prompt that appears before her eyes, "'Light Euphoria' caused by the pollen of the Allice plant. The effect attracts animals to eat the plant and its fruit, then the seeds are spread after the animal expels them."

"You mean, shits the seeds?" Hana clarifies as I motion for us to move aside to let the fellowships leave.

Ciel frowns in displeasure but nods. "Y-yes, I just wanted to avoid using those words."

"But… it already creates pollen, so why… does this plant use seeds?" Lina questions very confusedly. Spores are the main way that fungi spread underground, so she's conflating pollen with spores.

And I come in to rectify her faulty knowledge, "Pollen is like semen; it needs to find another flower to 'fertilize' it, which then produces fruits or pods with seeds. Also, a seed is a stronger vessel than spores, allowing them to survive in a more competitive and dynamic environment like a forest. But perhaps the seeds of this Allice flower also require nutrients present in the feces to thrive. We do make fertilizer by using manure, after all."

"Ewww…" my little girl groans loudly with a deep frown, thoroughly disgusted by two parts of my explanation.

"Well, that seems like a lot of unnecessary knowledge," Alissa remarks with a conflicted frown, making me smile wryly.

"Let's quickly move on," Yunia dryly requests, and the girls turn to the Companion that will be our guide. It seems that the girls' depravity doesn't extend to smelling a random plant's semen.

And the helpful elf Companion calmly explains, "The monster was spotted in the four-petal area. The flower that'll take us there is over that way."

We promptly move in the direction she's pointing to, which leads to a sunflower with four huge petals, a thick shaft for a "chest" that splits from the middle down, creating two "legs," and two other shafts for "arms" that end in smaller sunflowers which actually have a normal number of petals. Then we stop before it.

The man-sized sunflower completely freezes, stopping its subtle movements and slow circling while the other flowers simply go around it. Then one of the leaves of the sunflower suddenly extends towards us, creating a shadow over our whole group, and then the edges start to slowly fall down like a blanket, but the leaf never touches our heads.

It falls so slowly that we could easily run out from under it, but we just wait, and after four long seconds, the edges touch the floor, cutting off all light.

Suddenly, the leaf is pulled away like a magician swiftly pulling off a napkin for a trick, and we find ourselves in a different location. We're now at the center of a clearing, surrounded by mini-High Trees, but actual mini, as in, barely above our eye-level, only as high as they have to be to block our view of our surroundings.

And the actual purpose of the trees is to discourage us from wandering away from the gray brick path before us, which looks awfully similar to an imperial road. Though this road seems to snake aimlessly to block us from seeing that far ahead, which is exactly what imperial engineers aim to avoid by making things as straight and open as possible.

Behind us, there's the same huge sunflower that we approached to get here, and this one is full-on dancing by happily swinging its hips and stalk arms. Alissa even hears a very faint sound in the distance that could be music, and there's no euphoric perfume or any other psychedelic pollen in the air to make us believe that we're tripping.

But we don't have much time to observe the odd environment, for the first monster slowly walks towards us. It's a Flower Dancer, and it's basically a green, naked, male (and well-endowed) elf with the head of a flower. It moves as if it's ballet dancing, but the moment it sees us, its feet grow dagger-length blades while its hands grow a shortsword-length pair.

The petals of the flower that we took to get here tell the recommended size of the fellowship, so this area is "balanced" for a four-person party, which makes us heavily over-prepared.

But Aoi wants to rampage on her own, so these monsters might be enough to give her a workout, though they still won't pose her any real danger.

My big blue dragon immediately barrels forward, then eats the chest of the Dancer whole with just one bite.

"Hmm… this one tastes of King's Bouquet!" the monster connoisseur happily exclaims. That flavor is the same as basil.

Then Alissa collects the weird, white, daisy-like flower head, which drips clear, greenish sap. "So pretty…" she hums and sniffs the mild flowery aroma.

"If you put the flower on and strip, you can fool the monsters into thinking that you're one of them," the Companion guide calmly explains, looking at the dripping sap as if she wants to drink it.

"So this is how we get to fuck one?" Hana casually asks as she immediately wets her finger with the sap and licks it. She's surprised by the pleasant taste, which is similar to coconut water, just with a herby undertone.

"Exactly…" the Companion hums back, holding back a smirk.

"I'd rather not risk it," I immediately shoot them down as I produce a jar to collect the sap.

"I'm going ahead!" Aoi announces and starts trotting forward.

"Have fun!" I shout back and motion for the golems to follow her.

We grab the limbs of the monster that Aoi left behind and drain them of their sap, then have a refreshing drink before moving on.

While Aoi has her fun, we take a nice stroll through the pretty mini High Forest, collecting any more limbs left behind along the way. This forest even has super tiny flowers and other plants in the mini High Trees, just like the real ones, making it seem like we're walking through a cartoon land or a mini-golf course.

The music very gradually becomes audible, and we discern that it's a pleasant waltz, which is a rather western style of music and not that common in this eastern part of the continent. Wideberg and Sommerland have a thing for this kind of music, while elves prefer either folk or something upbeat for energetic dancing. Mainlanders are too diverse to focus on just one type of music, and their specialty is more theater plays than just the melodic arts.

But I'm more interested in unraveling the mysteries of this dungeon. The ceiling is low, so that reduces the effectiveness of scouting with my Hollys, but they do find out that the "forest" surrounding the stone path is actually huge, so there could be something out there.

Scouring the forest with a mass number of summons rubs me the wrong way, so I start paying attention to any details in search of a clue. But I find nothing noteworthy until Aoi reaches the first boss fight.

A singular suit of steel armor shaped like a beautiful, naked Latina human with curves to compete with Ciel stands at the center of an arena full of metal poles and curved metal walls. It's almost like a parkour/skateboard park, but for dancing.

And the sexy armor immediately uses the poles to swing around the park with mesmerizing skill, spinning and jumping from obstacle to obstacle so gracefully that Aoi is stunned for a moment.

But then a metal foot quickly approaches her face, so she turns away to not get an eye poked out. Then her helmet rings from the hit, and it's perfectly bearable for her, but the power and weight in that foot still leave a small dent, which would've caused a concussion for any normal adventurer.

Aoi lashes out with a snapping bite but grabs nothing but a mouthful of air. She immediately realizes that this won't be easy prey to catch and summons her ball of water to defend herself. She also doesn't want to anger Lina by taking free hits on her glorious armor, so she'll find a way to prevent this Martial Dancer from scoring any more attacks.

And as for me, I find it very curious how the music seems to be coming from somewhere within the arena. This is an elven dungeon, so why are we being assaulted by sommerlande and widebergian culture?

"I think this is more sommerlande than Wide-whatever," Hana suddenly remarks casually.

"Why?" I immediately question back.

"Widebergians are mostly like Romy, with those sexy, slanted eyes, and they aren't that curvy. Only sommerlande got an ass like that."

"A compelling argument," I happily hum.

"High elves and sommerlande have a lot of history," Yunia adds, and Lina nods in agreement.

Meanwhile, Aoi begins to adapt to the Martial Dancer's fighting style, which is fairly predictable since it moves to the rhythm of the waltz. My little dragon even manages to push the boss back with her ball of conjured water, though it does zero damage to the monster.

But the thing about fighting enemies that don't know how to use magic is that you can fuck with their bodies almost with impunity. And Aoi does just that.

She suddenly exerts her control over the water that now coats the boss' metal body and forces it to come towards her. The monster is too magically inept to interrupt her, and its only saving grace is that it's quite heavy, so it stumbles forward instead of coming flying, but that's all Aoi needs.

My huge little blue dragon lunges forward and slams her clawed hand against the Dancer's back, then puts all her weight onto it, bending it a little, but there's something solid inside the armor that gives it weight and prevents it from being crushed completely.

The Martial Dancer tries to lift itself up, but it's completely pinned down, and now Aoi is in the perfect position to finish it off.

She inhales deeply, puffing up her chest with pride and air, then releases her anger through her breath.

The Dancer struggles in a futile effort as the metal begins to glow with heat, but it doesn't melt.

"DIIIIIE!" Aoi roars, the first time she's spoken since her little rampage started.

But the armor still doesn't melt. She releases two more breaths, but all they do is make it glow with heat.

And then she starts to shout inside my soul space, which is a bit rude, but I forgive her. "THIS. THIS. THIS… THIS INSOLENT LITTLE PIECE OF RUSTED IRON SIMPLY. WON'T. DIE!"

Normally, we'd all work together to soothe our raging wife, but she's a dragon, and our kind all have an endless well of power inside them. And the key to accessing it is our anger.

"Good! Use your aggressive feelings, Aoi. Let the hate flow through you!" I encourage her through [Bind].

"For Wolfy!" Alissa inspires.

"Your fire can burn anything, Aoi! ANYTHIIING!" Hana clamors.

"Pure oxygen buns hotter!" Roxanne advises.

"You can do it!" Ciel cheers.

"Remember that heat causes atoms to vibrate, and with enough heat, the vibration becomes stronger than their bonds, breaking them down and allowing the atoms to 'slide' away, which is how metal melts and becomes liquid," Lina gives a long-winded explanation.

"Make us proud," Yunia demands.

"GIIIH!" Gify roars cutely.

The usually calm and gentle dragon starts to feel something she's never felt before: raw, unbridled, RAGE! She even draws on my own memories of using [Chaos Breath], and then something "clicks" inside her head.

She stops her flames, revealing the red-hot Martial Dancer under her, still futilely struggling. Then Aoi puffs up her chest again, this time filling it with the essence of a dragon: might.

Then she unleashes blue flames upon the monster, and she feels her claws get wet with molten metal, yet it doesn't burn her. We cheer and coo in awe at the pretty flames, momentarily confusing the Companions before they remember that we have telepathic communication.

After a mere five seconds, her claws sink down into the monster's chest, then it stops its struggle completely.

It's dead, Aoi.

My little blue dragon closes her mouth and stares with pride at her claw-diwork or, rather, breath-diwork. The back and upper half of the boss have melted down, its head now unrecognizable, while the rest of the body is glowing white with heat.

Aoi's anger quickly cools down, faster than the molten metal, but she isn't satisfied yet. She wants more.

The brick road after the boss splits into two. The left one is marked by a large (but not man-sized) sunflower growing right in the middle of it, while the right one is marked by a bucket helmet that's stuck to the road, also right in the middle of it.

The right path is the one with the "harder difficulty," so Aoi takes that while we shall take the left.

We quickly reach the boss' arena to recover its body before the dungeon can reabsorb it and put a new one in its place.

My first aim is to find the source of this waltz music, and we discover that it's coming from a metal pole, which I promptly open up with Patrono like a hot knife through butter.

Inside it, we discover a curious sight. There are two gems stuck inside the pole, the first of which plays the music and is connected to the other through a thin strip of golden paint, a standard "circuit" to guide mana from one enchanted gem to the other. The second gem is actually just a source of mana, a very weak one compared to Chimera mana storage. But the most curious thing is that this gem is enveloped in a metal cage, which has a ring with the perfect width for a finger.

So I put a tentacle into it and pull. The storage gem slides out easily, as it was merely slotted into the pole as if it was some kind of key.

Unfortunately, neither gem is made of actual matter. They're both mana solidifications, so I can't take them back as loot. Curiously, the rest of the forest is made of actual matter, so I could take a sapling of these mini High Trees and recreate our own mini High Forest back at home.

"Gih," Gify volunteers.

And I agree, "We have spare rooms, so you can do whatever you want as long as you don't make more work for the maids."

"Gih!" she reassures me, then disappears with a *pop*.

We encounter stronger and more numerous Flower Dancers, while Aoi encounters Reckless Dancers, a smaller and weaker version of the Martial Dancer that behaves true to their name.

Our path is more popular with adventurers, so we pass by two fellowships resting in the forest. Aoi also encounters a fellowship struggling to fight a Reckless Dancer, so she keeps watch over them for a moment to ensure that none of them die while also hiding herself to not frighten them.

They eventually win without her having to intervene, and when she shows herself, the young male werecat mage shrieks like a little girl.

"Calm yourself. I'm your Lord and Queen, Aoi Ryder," she asserts, her powerful double-voice intimidating the mage into silence.

"F-f-forgiveness, my Lo-… my Queen!" the Rabanare human man shield-bearer shouts and falls to his knees.

"No offense taken. I know how fearsome I look," she calmly replies, her ego still a bit inflated after what she did to the previous boss.

"You look tired," Ted states as she floats towards the fellowship. The two doll golems are using their featureless battle bodies, so they look like armored children, which might get them mistaken for dwarves or halflings.

"Accept this gift," Suzy follows up and pulls out a set of HP and stamina potions.

"And be careful when progressing further," Jarn stoically advises.

"Farewell!" Aoi shouts and trots forward, her heavy steps causing small tremors.

And the golems immediately follow, leaving the stunned fellowship behind.

Aoi meets the next boss first, and it's now a bigger suit of armor in the shape of a naked dragonkin man surrounded by stone sledgehammers while Mongolian throat singing resounds across the arena.

This one is also another heavy-hitter, but he's not "Speed"-focused, so Aoi can deal with it a lot more easily.

On our side, our boss is a naked elf woman with a rose head, and the sound of a soothing harp, along with female whispering, plays across the grassy arena. Her back is turned to us, but that's a trap, for the real boss is a flytrap hidden under the woman. It's a skippable boss since it only attacks if attacked first, but it guards a treasure chest, so fellowships almost always fight it.

I, on the other hand, have a different idea.

"I'll get naked and put on a flower head, then I'll fuck it," I confidently state.

But Alissa immediately shoots me down, "No. You're too important to do such a risky thing. Hana can do it, instead."

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