With a scream from Futaba-san, I am relinquished from sleep.
âMnahâ W-what happened Futaba-sanâ
Still half asleep, I make the attempt to get up while rubbing my eyes.
âItâs terrible Kotarou-kun! Thereâs a monster in this fairy square! Also, first name please!â
âEehh! Monster!? Where!â
Thatâs one hell of an emergency alright. Fairy squares are our only safe location. And if it came to be that some monsters could invade this space, weâd have to start setting up watch.
âLook, itâs over there! That black Skeleton!â
âUaah, youâre right! What is that, a new type of Skeleton!?â
It had the figure of a child, with bones giving off a dark, metallic sheen, a jet-black Skeleton. At one corner of the square, it was single-mindedly swinging around a spear like a Knight focused on training.
âAh, sorry Mei-chan, thatâs one of mine, itâs a Mud Dollâ
âEh, it is?â
My head wasnât working right just after waking up. Obviously, that over there is the Vile Mud Doll I made last night.
For now, Iâll go ahead and explain.
âHuh, so thatâs how it isâ
âYeah, I was thinking it could work as a bit of support for youâ
âThankyou, Kotarou-kunâ
The perfect smile she shoots back rivals any bishoujo. Man, dungeon-diets sure are impressive.
âSo, whatâd you name her?â
âEh, name?â
âYou didnât?â
âNope?â
Name, a name huh. Should be useful to have one I guess. If Mei-chan wants to give it orders, calling it by name would make it easier.\nâGot it, letâs go with Remâ
Itâs a mud doll, Golem, so Rem. Looks like a Skeleton though.[1]
Basic naming done and over with, I will now start calling this nice and loyal mud doll Rem. When I mentally commanded come back, she stopped her training as if hearing me by telepathy, and began heading this way with a rattle of her bones.
Standing in front of us, her back, or rather, spine was straight, standing at attention, holding the spear in a perfect vertical. If I gave her some armor, sheâd look just like one of those antique knight displays.
âShe has great mannersâ
âYup, she sure isnât like those soul-less Skeletons and Zombies you find all overâ
Speaking of which, itâs not like I told her to stand at attention, so this pattern of action must mean that sheâs got at least some form of ego. Thereâs also the possibility that she comes preprogrammed with a certain level of independent activity.
âFrom now on, your name will be Remâ
âNice to meet you, Rem-chanâ
âGagaâ
Replying with a click of her jaws, Rem nodded no show understanding by rigidly lowering her skull.
And like that, we got ourselves a new and improved Rem as a new team member(?), and began once more our venture into the dungeon.
ââ Yup, she fights pretty wellâ
Weâre still in the same old Zombie area, and the genre of monsters appearing show no signs of change. Stone passages and the occasional tunnel. And there were some graveyard forests in varying sizes as well.
The first thing I confirmed was Remâs solo fighting ability. Whether itâs Skeleton or Zombie, if itâs a 1v1, she can win without much trouble.
Skeletons are dumb and never paying much attention, so if I give her the correct image on how to attack, sheâll go for it without an ounce of hesitation, bashing her spear into its bones. Once the Skeleton falls down, sheâll finish it off by breaking its skull with the butt of the weapon.
Zombies are a bit tougher than Skeletons. Thereâs ones that flinch when stabbed and ones that donât. Most of the smaller, Goma Zombies are the flinching type, so with a few more stabs after the first one, itâs dead. As for the ones that donât flinch, theyâd just bite onto her, and sheâd wrestle them down in most cases.
That being said, Remâs body is only a collection of bones. Even if Zombies gnaw into her with their rotten teeth, sheâll only get minor scratches. Rem doesnât feel pain, and thereâs nothing like any damage feedback to me either.
So even when they bite, Rem uses her sub weapon, the Gomaâs knife (originally mine) to stab and kill. After enough times with the knife, the Zombieâll stop moving. Whether itâs after losing a good portion of its meat, or after shedding too much of its decayed blood, I donât know the exact conditions for how Zombies die, but thatâs how Remâs been killing them. The only tough part would be that, unlike non-dead humans, theyâll keep moving right up until death.
âI think itâs better to keep Rem-chan beside you, she seems more suited for defendingâ
The great thing about Rem is that she wonât melt in Rotten Bog. Thinking back on Blackhair Bind, my curses may be made to be non-interfering, or maybe they have nullification effects built in.
Anyway, as for Rem, who I can technically place smack dab in the middle of the bog, she is best suited to be my bodyguard.
Rem is holding my old spear and knife, which leaves me unarmedâ would be a bad idea so I equipped that sheath-less knife I kept in my bag. I hung it at my waist with a cloth around it. That and, though it may be considered the most basic level of armament in the whole dungeon, but itâs better than nothing so why not, Iâm carrying one of those wooden clubs used by Skeletons.\nIt would seem like my weapons went down a rank, but thinking of our individual roles, this kind of gear distribution is actually more optimal.
âI really thought sheâd help you out at front you know⌠Sorry, I couldnât make her strong enough to go into the frontlines.â
âAhaha, donât worry. I just thought if I accidentally hit Rem-chan, she could breakâ
Could break, more like, will definitely break. Just as Mei-chan has been destroying all those mob Skeletons, Rem would be in shambles no doubt.
âWeâll have to practice so they can handle the vanguard as a team some dayâ
The next time we get allies, weâll have to at least keep up on that front.
And with Rem now acting as my shield, we make our way through the dungeon. With Mei-chan wielding so much raw power, our progress is steady as can be. There are the Goars that often appear in the graveyard forests which she can make easy work of. Our first encounter with these monsters was in their largest numbers weâve seen to date, so the two or three coming out now are easy game.
And though theyâre pretty small, we can get cores from these Goars. I donât know how many weâll need for escaping, but gradually pilling up on them should help somewhat. Collecting materials now, and not when you need them, at which point the task becomes a chore, is gaming 101.
With the prime objective of core collection, we also collect the Goarsâ scales and skins to occasionally repair Rem. Making Rem sleep, I use Vile Mud Doll again. This is when Remâs black chaos, the bog, appears, swallowing up the new materials along with Rem, and spitting out a shiny new version of her.
Itâs a pretty simple procedure, so Iâm glad I can use her without concern. Even if it gets a bit rough, and her arm and leg bones get broken, Iâm confident I can use Goars and Skeletons and heal her up right away. Itâs just, if she gets completely destroyed, Iâd have to rebuild her from scratch so.
And itâs about time I stop feeling guilty about that lookout incident. Though I canât say with confidence I can hold off on doing that again in the futureâŚ
And as if receiving divine punishment for these vulgar thoughts, we ended up in quite a bind.
This happened as we were walking along a normal passage. Suddenly, a large horde of Zombies came from the front and back as if initiating a pincer attack.
âMei-chan, take the ones out front! Iâll make the bog behind us, me and Rem will hold them off hereâ
âYeah, Iâll kill them quick, and come over right away!â
It was a pretty harsh defensive battle. There were much more Zombies than I thought.
ââ Kuh, they filled up the bog dammitâ
Less than a minute after I manifested my Rotten Bog, it was chock full of Zombie corpses. The Zombies that would try and advance even after falling in were stabbed at and forced back by Rem and her trusty spear. With my weakass Skeletonâs club, I also pushed Zombies from the poolâs edge.
I was attacking with the tentacles at the same time, so something really dumb like letting my club slip, it falling into the bog, and proceeding to melt into nothing, also happened.
Though by the time I lost the club, Iâd already sunk a number of Zombies in the blood colored pool⌠but there was still a lot more to go.
I didnât have any space to step back and make another Rotten Bog. Mei-chan had been executing the Zombies out front at a rapid pace, but with her path made strewn in corpses, a new bog wouldnât do shit.
âKuh, enough alreadyâŚâ
There was around 10 more Zombies left. Not a number Rem could take on. And me going head to head with just one of them would lead to a swift game over. If it bit my neck, Itâd be completely hopeless. At worst, Iâd become one of their own like in those zombie flicks.
\nâAaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!â
The last Zombie, was already here.
Twelve in all. Eight defeated by tentacles. Two died stuck. One held off by Rem. One more, the last remaining one, I lacked a single way of stopping it.
My spear is with Rem, the club, I lost a moment ago, I didnât have one good weapon. My sub, the knife, that I was holding was so short, it wouldnât serve as a smidgen of defense against this raging Zombie. Also, I really doubted if I could score a miraculous critical hit on its vitals with my shaky-as-fuck hands.
Dead, Iâm sooo fucking deadâ
âDonât touch my Kotarou-kuunnNAAAAAAa!!â
Man thatâs a scary roar, is what I thought when the Zombieâs head burst.
An instant later, my slightly long bangs danced from the tremendous air pressure.
Ignoring the crumbling Zombie that was releasing decayed blood and brain entrails, I turned my head.
And there I saw Mei-chanâs left hand swung to the back for just an instant. A pose like sheâd just thrown something behind her without even looking. Incidentally, her right hand was using her axe as a shield against a Zombie. And before I noticed, her left hand had made it back to the axe-handle, whence forth she continued making mince-meat of the remaining Zombies.
Looking at the state of the Zombieâs head and considering Mei-chanâs hand movements, I guessed that she threw a stone behind her, achieving an splendid head shot at that.
âMei-chan, youâre⌠just epicâŚâ
I couldnât imagine calling her something so over-familiar as Mei-chan anymore. With that much god-level skill, Iâd much rather go with Mei-chan-san.[2]
Thanks to her, the Zombies on our tail end were all gone. I also finished off the half dead ones with my tentacles.
âHaa⌠HaahâŚÂ M-man, that was closeâŚâ
So we had that episode of danger in the Zombie area as well. Which just goes to show, you canât let down your guard anywhere in this dungeon.
Since something like this happened, Mei-chan started badgering me to carry Hirano-kunâs sword on me as a last means of defense⌠So for now, probably until we get something good again, Iâll be borrowing the sword.
So we switched up our gear, took care of the occasional Skeletons, Zombies, and Goars, and finally arrived at a clearing completely different from the other ones around here.
Hmmm, doesnât look like a boss room⌠but please, please just stay like that!
Â
[1] Rem will hereby be pronouned female⌠if Iâm not forced to make it male due to raws⌠In retrospect from this chapter, I feel a bit sorry. Also, in jap, L and R are kinda interchangeable.