Misaki suppressed a lump of panic in her throat. She felt really unprepared, and had been hoping to have a couple more days before he entered her halls. The speed at which he was moving through her first floor was distressing, to say the least. While his four companions were decidedly less impressive, each being around half his level, the rogue easily found and disabled all the traps with impressive rapidity. Hopefully, the traps on later floors would slow him down.

Seeing him move through her floor so quickly, she sent for Phyllis. She was back in her house in Bordertown, so she used her dungeon ability to tell the nearest maid she wanted Phyllis. Phyllis seemed to catch on to her urgency, and immediately made her way into the tunnel that connected her house with the dungeon proper. While Misaki watched the party making its way through her dungeon. They had reached the first-floor boss in the time it took Phyllis to reach the tunnel.

The party was so overleveled for the floor, that the fight was practically over before it started. They didn’t bother using skills or spells. With sheer brute force, they defeated the party of five demons that served as the floor boss in under a minute. They didn’t even stop to rest in her second floor, and immediately made for one of the puzzles that needed to be solved in order to reach the floor boss.

The puzzle proved easy for them, and the traps and monsters not even a hindrance. There was nothing she could do on the floor to even slow them down, all she could do was helplessly watch them plow through her floors. That rogue had completely solved the puzzle, and answered all three riddles correctly in record speed. Glancing at Phyllis in the tunnel, she felt she was moving far too slow. Still, she took the fact that they were taking the time to play with her puzzles as a sign that they might slow them down.

She was immensely proud of the work of a puzzle she had done with her fifth floor, and was willing to bet that it would slow them down. Since they were all holy types she doubted they would take the time to socialize with her demons, and thereby learn the hints she had given to the residents. She used the thought of that floor being a bottleneck to their progress to help ease the panic and fear she was feeling at these overleveled adventurers diving into her dungeon.

By the time Phyllis finally reached her still standing in her garden, the Archpaladin and his companions were entering her third floor. Having just beaten her second-floor boss. The boss was a Lesser Dragon Girl. Who normally gave adventurers a fair amount of trouble, but against this party she had been unable to last more than a minute.

“You are looking a bit pale, are you alright?” asked Phyllis. She simply latched on to Phyllis and held tight for a few moments before she answered. “No, I’m not alright,” said Misaki.

“Care to tell me what is wrong?” asked Phyllis a fair amount of concern evident in her voice. Misaki didn’t answer, at least not with words. Instead, she buried her face in her mate’s chest and waved her hand. An image of what she was seeing was projected into midair in her garden. In the image the Archpaladin and his buddies could be seen fighting off low-level harpy demons as they made their way across the narrow rock paths over the chasm that dominated the third floor. While many parties had difficulty dealing with aerial attackers on narrow walking paths, this group was barely affected. Their high level giving them the balance and focus needed to fight them off without risk of losing their footing.

“I see. Don’t worry, they are still on your third floor. You have time, and you have some great traps that will buy a little more,” said Phyllis as she began trying to comfort Misaki. Misaki spoke into her chest, her voice muffled a bit by cloth and flesh. “You think my fifth-floor puzzles will stop them?” asked Misaki.

“I’m sure it would. I had some trouble with it, and that was before you improved the puzzles. I did have those hints you left hidden in the jungle, though,” said Phyllis.

“Yeah, well after your run I removed those, and never put them back,” muttered Misaki into Phyllis’s chest. Phyllis stroked her hair, and said, “Probably a good thing with these guys, and the demonesses in your safe zone are technically hint enough.”

“Yeah, it sucks that I have to give hints, but at least the rules are lax enough to allow me to give them through monsters,” said Misaki before falling silent.

Phyllis didn’t say anything and merely watched the adventurers. Then she noticed one clever harpy coming down on them from a blind spot, and she remembered her own close calls on the floor. Her stats meant they couldn’t harm her, but they could have knocked her feet out from under her if they had caught her by surprise. She watched as the archer guarding the rear, distracted by another harpy didn’t notice the demon coming up behind him. The demon slammed into him from behind hard, and then she took off back into the air. The man stumbled from the force and failed to recover his balance. He plunged into the chasm below, and while she had no doubt that he would be fine, well mostly, from the fall the traps would be a different story.

She knew that Misaki could be rather devious when it comes to traps, and had seen a few that were quite scary. His high stats and agility would have allowed him to minimize the effects from the fall, and while she didn’t think he would have any trouble with the basic traps like the classic pitfall or rockfall traps, she knew there were a few dangerous ones down there. Including a magical stun bolt trap that she had helped design. She had remembered that little incident where she had been careless and gotten hit with a stun bolt. The demon having fun with her that had followed was still something she tried not to think about, but it was a good example of how scary paralysis could be. Coupled with a monster spawning trap, and even high-level adventurers could be in trouble.

She wasn’t sure she wanted to watch what would undoubtedly follow if he walked into that trap. Of course, it wasn’t the only dangerous trap that had been added down there of late. There was another trap down in the labyrinths that would destroy equipment. It released a gas that would corrode any metal in the area of effect, and most adventurers used metal equipment. While the trap wasn’t fatal on its own, its detrimental effects on equipment could lead to an adventurer finding themselves in real trouble.

She refocused on the party, and saw the archer having checked the immediate area was wisely staying put. While the other group was trying to figure out how to reach their archer in a manner that didn’t involve falling. She figured it was pretty safe to say that they would be a bit delayed in conquering the floor. So she turned her attention back to Misaki who was still attached to her, but the girl felt much more relaxed. Her grip wasn’t as tight, and some color had returned to her skin. It seems that simple physical contact was enough to help her relax.

“Looks like they got separated,” said Phyllis.

“That’s nice,” responded Misaki after shifting a bit so that her voice wasn’t being muffled by flesh and cloth. She was still using her boobs as a pillow though. It felt comfortable, and if she ignored the floating image she could pretend that they were on a relaxing date in the garden. Not that she really could as she was also concerned about this particular dive into the dungeon. It had gone unsaid but the penalties for failing a Grand level divine quest could be pretty severe, and she was worried that this party might be able to penetrate the defenses and reach Milith.

The Archpaladin was the only real threat here, as his buddies were much weaker. If she wasn’t pregnant she might have tried fighting him, but she was far enough along that the extra weight would hamper her in battle. Not only that, but she was pretty sure if she did go fight him that Dewari would start pestering her, and calling her stupid for doing that. The only reason she hadn’t panicked yet was that she felt she still had time to come up with a solution.

Turning her focus back on the image, she saw that the archer guy had apparently gotten impatient waiting for his teammates to find him and went exploring. So far he had managed to avoid a few basic traps, but none of them were truly dangerous to him anyway. Thanks to her bond with Misaki, Phyllis had a supernatural sense of where the traps in the dungeon were so she had no problems noting how close he came to triggering a few of these traps.

As for his teammates, they had found their way down into the labyrinth that filled the chasm that dominated the floor. However, it seems they had gotten a little lost, as they were going entirely the wrong way. They needed to be going the exact opposite direction to reach their teammate. It was nice to see them going the wrong way, especially since it meant they had a little more time to prepare.

“Looks like our friends are a little lost, and the one is being stupid. Do you think you can get started on your next set of floors?” asked Phyllis.

“I’d love to make them, but I’m still short on a few of the resources I need. I just need a couple of days to get them, however,” said Misaki.

“I know you like making your floors in batches, but can’t you at least get started?” asked Phyllis being more specific.

“I guess, but growing new floors hurts, and rather just get it all done at once,” said Misaki. She paused for a moment, and let Phyllis think on it a moment. “Adding to a floor hurts too. They’re basically growing pains, and they can get rather distracting. It hurts more to do it all at once, but it is over quicker.”

“That does explain a few things about dungeons, and why they don’t grow as quickly as theory says they can. Unfortunately, I don’t think we have the luxury to wait those few days,” replied Phyllis. 

“No, I don’t think we do either, but it feels wrong to rush out a few new floors,” said Misaki. Phyllis didn’t have anything to say, so she looked back to the floating view of the Archpaladin’s dive. She had looked up just in time to see the Archer run into the paralysis trap she had helped design. A cleverly concealed pressure plate sunk beneath his foot, and by habit, he jumped back. In this case however, that proved to put him right in the line of fire of a stun bolt. If he hadn’t noticed and kept walking, he would have been hit by the other bolt, but if he had stayed still neither would have hit him.

The bolt struck the poor man in the chest, and every muscle in his body locked up. Then two rock walls slid up into the ceiling releasing a couple dozen demons into the corridor. It was mostly a mix of Lesser Lamia, and Arachnid breeds. One of the Lamias wrapped herself around him, and bit him. Both demon breeds had a paralytic bite, but being lust demons their venom also contained a rather potent aphrodisiac. As she bit him, her hands wandered to the fittings of his armor. Being a high-level archer, he had gotten his hands on some exotic leather. Specifically, it was wyvern leather. His leather armor was also covered with wyvern scales, and enchanted making it a costly but highly effective and most importantly light armor. However as good as the stuff was in this situation it was useless.

Her finger easily found and undid the straps, and slid it off him. The arachnids spent the time it took the girl to undress him weaving webs around the exits. The process creating a tough barrier that would keep unwanted interruptions away. They were quite through about it, and created solid barriers, not unlike some of the decorations seen in other parts of the labyrinth. This meant coming across them would not be something suspicious, and given how tough demonic silk was many adventurers would seek another route. A few might decide to try and collect it given that it would sell for a high price, but without the proper equipment that would be a tough job.

Demonic silk was one of the toughest magical fabrics out there, and its strength was dependant on the demon that produced it. Lesser demons produced a lesser version of the stuff, but even the lesser version was valuable and useful. Especially given that it was far tougher than steel, and was remarkably resistant to cutting. Unlike normal spider silk, the demonic variant was actually resistant to fire. In fact, it inherited the innate demonic resistance that most demons had to magic. Which meant that even if his buddies did find him, it would take them a while to get through the barrier they made.

As soon as he was naked, one of the lamia gave him a kiss while a second went for the man’s dick. She placed the whole thing in her small mouth, her snake-like jaws allowing her to swallow it whole easily. Then she began to bob her head on it, and use her tongue. Her ministrations quickly getting a physical reaction from the man, as his equipment swelled under her touch. Other demons moving in using their hands and tongues to give him attention.

Phyllis looked away at that point. But she couldn’t help but keep sneaking peeks at the seen like a schoolgirl seeing something new. Trying to distract herself from the scene, she looked at the other image. Which showed the other members of the party were fighting some Arachnid demons. Given the level difference, they were making short work of them, and weren’t really taking any damage. However, they were still nowhere close to the poor archer who was now being gang-raped by a bunch of horny demons.

Looking back she could see his dick was now inserted into the pussy of an arachnid demon as she moved upon his rod. At the same moment the spider girl was playing with her small boobs, and her extra legs were spinning some silk. Which her sisters were using as part of some ropes they were anchoring to the ceiling. The entire scene was giving Phyllis some rather confusing signals, as part of her was turned on by it, but another part couldn’t help but be reminded of that one time she was raped thanks to a moment of carelessness.

Suddenly she felt Misaki sucking on her boob. She was rather surprised, and just let her suck for a few moments over the frilly dress she had been wearing. Then she said something, “What are you doing?”

“Trying to distract you from that,” said Misaki. As she began lifting the hem of the dress Phyllis was wearing.

“Huh, I don’t need distracting, and besides they’re just following their instincts,” replied Phyllis. Misaki gave her a look, and said, “Don’t tell me that! I know it makes you uncomfortable. I can sense your emotions through our bond.”

Phyllis felt rather sheepish having let that fact slip her mind, but she didn’t have long to think about it. Before she was naked on the grass, and with her pregnant lover. Whose distraction proved to be quite effective, as when she finally refocused on the Archpaladin, and his buddies adventure they had already found and rescued the poor man from the demons raping him. A few of the demons, however, were already missing, and their bodies weren’t on the tunnel floor. Phyllis couldn’t help but ask about that, as she was sure that Misaki knew what happened with them.

“They got what they wanted, and went off to one of the hidden nests on the floor. I suspect that in a few months I will have some strong new monsters to play with,” answered Misaki.

“Guess that answers the question, but the archer isn’t looking all that well,” said Phyllis.

“It’s mostly exhaustion, coupled with some lingering paralysis. He did take a few wounds. A couple of which should have been fatal, but as you can see they have a good healer,” said Misaki. Phyllis could indeed see the healer, and he was tending to the few visible lacerations that the archer had taken. She noticed the others having quite the discussion, which she couldn’t hear. Misaki thoughtfully relayed the gist of it, and as it turns out they were just talking about the archer’s bad luck. They actually didn’t think much of the incident, and saw it as the result of a moment's carelessness.

As it turned out, the group was a lot more cautious after that, and no other interesting events occurred until the fifth floor. Unlike most groups, after reaching the fifth floor they did not head for the nearest safe zone, nor did they go towards a puzzle. Instead, they headed straight for the fifth-floor castle. After dodging ballista bolts while making their way across narrow rock paths they stood upon the ledge in front of the castle gates. Phyllis had no idea why they had come here first, and she knew that even with her level brute-forcing through those gates would be impossible. Turns out brute force was what they were after. The Archpaladin pulled out a gem set in a silver ring with a strong magical aura. Phyllis recognized it instantly as a rare treasure. However, she couldn’t tell exactly what was special about it until he used it.

From the ring lanced a powerful magical beam that carved right through the gates, and forcefully opened the path. Next to her she saw Misaki wince, and knew that his forcing his way through her gate had hurt her. She didn’t like the fact that he had hurt Misaki, and her gaze soon rested on the Crystal Dome. The ritual it was designed for may just be the solution to their problems.