“Anything else?” (Juna)
“Not for me...” said Tris, clearly still overwhelmed by the info dump.
“I do, why is the dungeon so knowledgeable? I mean, what the heck is that... Dienay was it?” (Daler)
“DNA, DesoxyriboNucleic Acid, It’s an acronym.” Juna said smiling wryly1Huh, after reading the definition, I feel like I used it wrongly in the past. Oh well ¯\_(ツ)_/¯, then with an apologetic smile, “And I can’t answer that one, sorry. Well unless you understand everything with a ‘don’t look at the appearances only’, which I highly doubt.” (Juna)
“Yup, I only understood ‘the dungeon is more than it seems’ which is obvious. Well that's a shame.” (Daler)
“Well, no more question for now, we have arrived!”
Juna suddenly stopped in front of a wide place in the main corridor, which in a normal stereotypical living dungeon (AN: in this world) would be a boss fight.
“Huh? But there’s no one right?” (Daler)
Suddenly they heard a “No, you’re wrong! There’s me and an other guy I don’t know where! Show up already!” and an angry woman appeared at the center of the room. “And no I’m not the dungeon monster! Now shut up and let me kill him!”
“... Huh? Isn’t that Artemis2I tried to find a goddess that matched what I had in mind but I couldn’t, so I said “Oh well” and picked a random goddess name, the first one I thought of. That means Artemis is not what the Greeks said she was.?”
“Yes, she manifested in here. Also, did I mention the walls were one-way sound-proof? The thing is they aren’t mana-proof so maybe you want to retract your aura, like right now or she’ll try to hunt you. Well the dungeon will prevent her from killing you but still.”
“Aura retraction? Only for those who picked Artemis’ system right?” asked the guild master.
“Yup, that means you and Tris. By the way she’ll snap very shortly so hurry up.”
The two of them decided to hurry up and retracted their aura the best they could, when suddenly they felt they didn’t have to as no aura was leaking anymore. They were quite surprised until Juna said,
“The dungeon decided to help you, so now it is [him] that are retracting it. Now be quiet, watch and learn.”
“““““...”””””
In the meantime, an other powerful Entity appeared in the room. It was an other living being, but he was not of a very common race. It wasn’t even a very-well known race by the population, given how rare they were.
It was a hermaphrodite dragon (shortened as hermadragon).
Contrary to common dragons, they were very few in numbers, but they compensated by being much more powerful than even the most powerful recorded gobin emperors, a W-rank individual (that may still be living to this date).
When the group first saw the hermadragon, they at first thought “why is a literal God weary of a dragon‽” but then, they realized that it was not a dragon, but a true hermadragon. The guild master, after realizing this, broke into a cold sweat and stepped back a few steps clumsily, and started to pale into a very unhealthy-looking pure white.
Juna, after realizing this, sighed, and started to cast a calming spell on him again.
“DorretEntspiSifditaiikii-Sifnei Ratroaa sog-Tidbotaiiziiziiziiziimii.”
“... Why is there a hermadragon in here‽‽” shouted the guild master, noticeably calmer (he wasn’t looking like a specter anymore).
“Huh? What’s that?” asked Laura in confusion, hearing this term for the first time.
“It’s a monster capable of obliterating a gobin Emperor and its army all at once! How did that dungeon made one submit to him‽” still shouted the guild master, still not completely calm even with the strong calming spell still being in effect.
“Heeeh, seriously? It doesn’t feel that strong though?” asked innocently Laura. “Isn’t that just a regular dragon?”
That managed to confuse the guild master out of his state of shock and made him calm down (with the obvious help of the still active spell).
“No, the regular dragons always have only one scale color, while this one has multiple. Look closer.”
“Oh, thanks Laura. He calmed down. And to answer you,” Juna turned toward the guild master, “he didn’t made him submit but spawned him. Like me.”
“... I... I see. ...Wow that’s a very powerful spell you just used.”
“I know, I didn’t want to use it but you were about to die, something I’d like to avoid for obvious reasons, if you see what I mean.” said Juna with a dry grin.
“... I wasn’t saying anything bad you know...” the guild master said, looking away uncomfortably.
During that time, the two opponents were staring at each other, Artemis looking angry and the hermadragon quite relaxed but still on his guards.
“So you are the one who is blocking me from killing that abomination, huh?”
“I don’t know who you are talking about. The only one I blocked you from seeing is my master, a perfectly good and functional dungeon core who, by the way, already know your Name. So you won’t kill him no matter what. The only difference is whether you will still be recognized by the Governor as a Super Entity.”3Did I mention I was very interested in electronics/computing? That’s a reference to that, and it’s likely not the last one :p
If you are interested, the governor in a computer (as I understand it) is what makes all the different threads (/processes/programs) run while being limited to only a fixed number of CPU, which can only run one thread at a time. Hence it makes each threads run a bit each time, then switch to another one, and in quick succession, which gives the illusion of all threads running in parallel (as if there was an infinite number of CPU). And the Super Entity is a Linux’s Super User. (Yeah my universe run on Linux, not Windows :p)
“Last warning. Move. Aside.”
“I’m sorry, I’m afraid I can’t let you do that.”
“Then you leave me no choice but to kill you. Your race’s population will drop to –”
“Oh, don’t worry, I was born outside of your scanning zones by the dungeon. And even then I won’t die.” the hermadragon said amused. “By the way, I should introduce myself already. I am Anemis. It’s quite a coincidence our names are that close, actually. I didn’t expect you to be my opponent.”
“Shut up!” Artemis roared and she suddenly attacked.
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