Chapter 292
Rookie Hunting Hunting
I informed the guild about dealing with the two rookie hunters were deep in the dungeon.
Once I handed over the skewered guild cards they had on them as proof, they expressed their gratitude.
By the way, as for their [Collections], I had Meat turn into Succubus Wanko1 and charm them, causing them to tell us everything.
I didn’t know about it when we actually assaulted them, but, obviously, they had G-Rank Cards skewered as well. Three full skewers of them.
… Rather, what was up with the guy keeping body parts for his collection? Stuff like ears, fingers, stuff that stuck out like that. I incinerated them all.
“… Looking at the oldest cards they had, it seemed they traveled through the Holy Kingdom and Daido before coming to the Raverio Empire. They also appear to have killed quite a few people. However, it seems as though none of them were the children of aristocrats that will raise issue with us, so that is one worry out of the way, thankfully.”
So that’s what the guild was worried about…? Or is it that there not being any dead aristocrats is good?
It appeared as though it was fine to simply say that they couldn’t confirm any aristocrats’ deaths.
Something like she’d have to do extra work if there were actually any dead aristocrats, I guess.
It looks like I’ll even be getting a reward… well, guess I’ll accept it.
As an adventurer, I’ll have to split it with my cooperators—Maidence and Shikina.
＊
Well, that’s why I now have a pair of rookie hunters.
I’d told the guild that they died in the dungeon, but I obviously kept them alive.
“So Kehma, how are you going to kill them? You’re not going to let them live right?”
“Obviously. They targeted my body pillow, they’ll have to pay with their lives.”
“So will we put them in the human farm that got made a while back?”
Come to think of it, we had one of those, huh. I think I left it to Rei to manage…? I wonder if they’re still alive? We don’t need them anymore with the village and all, huh?
“I’ll have them be dungeon testers.”
“Testers?”
“To keep it brief, I’ll have them simulate boss battles and use them to experiment my traps on.”
The only people that have made it deep enough into the dungeon for the boss room so far was the black wolf Rin and the saintess. Outside of the first four floors meant for rookies, our dungeon is still very lacking in actual testing.
That included the haniwa golem, the iron haniwa golem, and the most recent golem dragon boss I’d built with traps installed in it.
Although I’d been putting them to the test against Meat and Ichika as a temporary measure, I end up having the bosses hold back. I mean, there’s a chance they’d die if I didn’t.
I’m also testing them with golems I don’t need anymore… but really, having them fight against actual humans would be for the best.
In addition to those, I’ve never even tried using the passage that has a hidden glass wall2 that breaks into an oil pond. Would it actually be effective?
I finally have C-Rank adventurers to try everything out on, so let’s make use of them.
“I’ll even be able to have Meat and Neru practice with the possession.”
The dungeon’s ultimate weapon, Succubus Wanko3. I hadn’t tested it out due to how excessive it would be, but I don’t mind giving it a go on these death row criminals of ours.
At any rate, I’d like them to keep testing all these things out without being afraid. If that’s possible with memory manipulation through charm, there’s nothing I won’t throw against them.
Even in the worst case scenario and they attack, given their strength, Meat could easily deal with them.
I’d already had her go out to confiscate that girl’s collection and her effectiveness was self-evident.
I also had her take their money and items, so I’ll turn that all into dungeon treasure after I look through it.
I’ll even be able to figure out how far I can push them to dying before [Healing] stops bringing them back.
I’ll get myself as much experience out of the two of them as possible.
＊
While gradually raising the hurdle each time, I had them go against the golem dragon and haniwas, test the traps, and fight against the golems an goblins en masse while I was at it.
It was pretty grotesque, but I was able to get plenty of training in recovery magic. I came to find out that even if their arms broke, it’d be fine as long as it was still attached. It ate through a lot of magical power, but I could even regrow fingers.
They weren’t able to move regrown appendages too well after that though, so I suppose rehabilitation would be necessary. But even that problem went away by using charm to implant the concept that it was properly regrown into their minds.
Like seriously. The allpurposeness of charm is nearly at [Create Golem]’s level.
Since I wasn’t able to regrow an entire arm, I put a clay golem on the man to act as his prosthetic left arm.
He himself was convinced it was his actual arm because of the charm, so while it did creak a bit, he was able to use it properly. In truth, it was actually pretty scary.
This one was a clay golem, but imagine how crazily effective it would’ve been if I’d used orichalcum to make the prosthetic? I wouldn’t do it, though.
Well, I had them go through this and that… and while I’d planned on having them go through being half-killed, healed, and having their memories erased as many times as they had Guild Cards on those skewers, it looked like I was going to overcome the limits of recovery magic before that.
Now then, I wonder how much longer they’ll last~… oh.
Well, the woman just took the golem dragon’s breathFire Trap head on.
Woah, talk about crispy. Is it because she was already covered in oil? Still though, there’s only bone left. She’s definitely dead… I’d be freaked out if I could make her live through that.
Must have tweaked the output incorrectly… she was getting a bit rattled in the head after having her memory erased so often though, so oh well.
[Uwaaaaah! No, no, I don’t want to diiiiiie! Geho—wh, wha… my arm… hiiiii, a golem’s arm!? Where’s my aaaaarm!?]
Guess he hit his limit too.
I had the golem dragon behead him.
I got the DP income from them dying. I’d defeated them over and over, so it was just a single digit’s worth.
He got cremated after that so he only had bones left too, but… yeah.
“Even if you’re dead, I still have a few uses for you two.”
And so I took their bones.
I’d been seeing a lot of grotesque stuff with me practicing recovery magic on them, so that’s probably why I didn’t feel so grossed out by their bones this time. Yeah, that’s got to be it.
＊
“Hyah! Eat this!”
“Uoh—!”
A few days later, in the Golen adventurer guild’s training plaza.
In the plaza were two skeletons serving to act as training partners for rookies.
They were equipped with foam armor. Yeah. I’d turned Gesunoh and Kiwami’s skeletons into golems. I used iron to supplement the bones from Gesunoh’s missing left arm.
They were now being treated as temporary guild staff to act as anti-skeleton practice.
The veterans seeing skeletons having duels against people with foam weapons scoffed at it, but it was valuable tactical training for the rookies.
Our dungeon had a stable number of goblins in it, so there were many rookies coming here to acquire experience in actual combat. Thanks to that, these skeletons had quickly become popular.
I don’t know who named them, but I hear they’re calling them [Pooji] and [Rodah]. I don’t know what the names mean or which has which name, but maybe they’re fallback names like Pochi, Tama, and John Doe?
I talked to Receptionist-san, who was overseeing the training.
“How are the two doing?”
“Oh, Kehma-san. You’ve found weird things yet again… Slave skeletons?”
“Yeah, I found them pretty far into the dungeon. The fact that it’s similar to what the Beddhism scriptures says happens to criminals is merely a coincidence.”
As I said, becoming an enslaved skeleton that would labor day and night without pay had become one of the highest punishments in the Beddhism scripture. Like ‘oooh, how scary’.
“They work well together, too. They sometimes perform keen attacks, keeping the tension high. If I gave them a rank as adventurers, I would have to say D-Rank, perhaps even C-Rank.”
“I see, it looks like they are useful.”
“Oh yes, they have been very useful for training… However, those movements, surely they aren’t those rookie hunters? But I just get this feeling…”
As expected of Receptionist-san. As keen as ever.
I watched for a bit longer, but the skeletons just punched and beat rookie opponents.
Well, whatever. Having people that killed rookies instead serve to work for their sake from here on is probably for the best.
They could at least work until their bones are ground down to dust.