Dungeon Builder's Harem Book 01 Ch. 23

Chapter Twenty-Three

Halia looked more than a little skeptical when we returned her armor to her the next day.

"What is this?" she demanded. "Are you going to take me to some arena and make me fight for your amusement?"

"Why would I do that?" I asked, staring at her in shock. "Do you think I'm into blood sports or something?"

"Then why are you arming me?"

"Because I'm setting you free," I said. "We're taking you to Astovin and releasing you."

Her brow furrowed. "Just like that, you're letting me go? After you went through the effort of capturing me? Your plan was to hold me for a few days and then..." She stared at me suspiciously. "What are you up to?"

"Keeping you locked up is never going to prove that I don't want to hurt you or others. So I need to prove it. I need to demonstrate that I can be trusted. What better way to do that than to let you go? So, get dressed, we're leaving soon."

I was wearing different clothes from my obvious wizard robes. Just a pair of wool pants and a hemp shirt. The same sort of garb I saw the local farmers wearing. No armor. No weapons. Lana and Garnet were both wrapped up in dresses and cloaks to try and hide them. Garnet was easier. We undid her pigtails and her horns were hardly noticeable peeking out of her red hair. Her wings were folded up beneath her clothing.

She hadn't been happy. "It's too much clothing, big bro," she had said. "How are they supposed to fall in love with my beauty and then become insanely jealous when they realize only you get to touch me?"

Halia donned her armor. When she was ready, I opened the door for her. I wore her blessed sword on my waist. She stared at that, eyeing it with hunger. I shook my head. If she tried to grab it, Lana and Garnet would make short work of her.

"Usiku, you have command," I told her. "Keep my monster girls safe."

"And the Void Crystal?" she asked, amusement on her lips.

"That is a tad important, isn't it?" I asked, smiling.

"Just a tiny bit." She smiled at me and then kissed me with passion on the lips.

I groaned into it, wanting to just do things with her. My cock was aching, but I broke it and forced myself to do the responsible stuff. I had to win Halia to my cause. If I could get her at least focusing her attention, and those of other adventurers, on attacking the bad dungeon builders, then at least I could buy myself some breathing room to figure things out.

So I didn't have to be the cause of any more deaths than I had to be.

We escorted Halia through the dungeon. She walked in front of us. She kept glancing over her shoulder at us, her braid swinging down her back. She wore her bikini breastplate and steel panties. The metal enticingly molded to her rump. She was a gorgeous woman. Fit and strong, but curvy and feminine in all the right ways.

Shame she thought I was an evil monster that had to die.

We moved through the traps, all disabled. Then into the labyrinth. My monster girls appeared from their posts. They all beamed at me in delight. None of them seemed to mind the endless waiting in their own sections.

"Good luck, Lord Leo," said Sviesos, the first will o' wisp I'd made. She leaned against the wall, her large breasts rising and falling. I loved the way her body glowed, the various hues of incandescent gas that made her form swirling about her in ever-changing patterns of delight.

"Be safe, Lord Leo," a wildhound said. Marwo darted up to me and hugged me. She licked my cheek, rubbing her petite body on mine. "Come back."

"I will," I said. "We're just buying supplies and returning Halia to her people."

"Sure," Halia muttered. She didn't believe me.

Well, actions spoke louder than words. It was time to prove that.

We fetched our donkey and its cart. I kept it in a side cave that was part of my domain but separate from the dungeon proper. The donkey had a small pasture to graze and seemed healthy, even if his coat was a little shaggy and wild. We hooked him up and guided him down the trail towards the village.

The walk was pleasant. Halia trooped before us, looking around like she expected the attack to come at any moment. She kept glancing at me, her eyes falling on my sword. I knew she was contemplating stealing it.

"She's going to betray us to the village," Lana said as we entered the farmland.

"Probably," I said.

Several of the farms looked abandoned, their fields overrun with weeds. That was different. At other farms, there were people holding crossbows in sight. They watched us with suspicious eyes until they noticed Halia.

Then they waved at her.

"You're popular," I said.

"My father was a famous adventurer," she said. "He slew several dungeon builders, including Argian the White, a foul user of light magic who had vaporized several villages before he was stopped."

I gaped at that. "Why would he vaporize them?"

She looked back at me. "Because he could."

My stomach sank. What was it about dungeon builders that led them to do the things they did? Mthunzi attacked me to get stronger. He wanted to have a second glyph and to harness my Void Crystal. Why?

Because he was afraid?

Dungeon builders had enemies that attacked us from all sides. The adventurers who thought we were evil and the others like us who wanted our crystals. Fuegin had come to talk to me, but he felt strong. Like he was way above me and had nothing to fear from me.

But others...

They stared down a path that led them to make some bad decisions. Those that cost lives. It was almost like a trap. To get stronger to survive, they had to do evil acts. And that proved they were evil, driving the adventurers to try even harder to kill them. That forced the dungeon builder to do more dark deeds. They corrupted them.

"Argian the White..." I muttered. "Did the villages defy him?"

"Does that make him justified?" Halia asked with a sneer.

"Absolutely not!" The words came out harsh. "I'm just trying to understand. He tried to control them, right? To have an area of the world where he didn't have to worry about adventurers. He thought he had to use force to bully everyone. And he went way, way too far."

Halia shook her head. "You make it sound like he wasn't a monster. An evil thing that just delighted in cruelty and suffering."

"Because he was just a person," I said. "Like you. Like me. Or Garnet."

"She's a succubus," Halia said, sneering.

"Rude!" Garnet hissed. "I'm a cute, adorable, and sexy succubus forced to wear this baggy, ugly dress by my uncaring brother."

"She's a person," I said, giving my succubus a hard look. "She just can be a brat sometimes."

"Yep!" She grinned at me. "That's why you love me, big bro."

Lana laughed, a rich and delightful sound.

Halia just marched ahead, bristling.

"When we get back to your village, I'm going to return your sword," I told her. "We're just here to buy some food. Not to hurt your people."

"She is totally going to betray us," Garnet said. She glanced at me, worry on her face.

"No, she's not," I said. "She's a good person."

"She's a mean person." Garnet then muttered, "Not recognizing that I'm cute and adorable."

The village came into view, a collection of buildings, smoke rising from several chimneys. The villagers were moving about. There were more men with crossbows around the perimeter. They were worried. This other dungeon builder had been causing problems.

Asshole.

"Lord Leo!" Cysgo sent to me. My newest monster girl sounded agitated. "They're coming for the village. The oozes and satyrs."

"Shit," I muttered. I had positioned Cysgo between the village and the enemy dungeon. She was hidden in bushes, my eyes. "From which direction will they attack the village?"

"South. They are moving along the river. There's a dozen of them."

"Halia," I said, unbuckling the sword belt from around my waist.

She whirled around. "What now?"

I tossed her the magical weapon. She caught it by the scabbard, looking more than a little stunned. She pulled out the weapon and saw the blade. Something crossed her face, a powerful and profound emotion.

"Come on," I said, spotting the river that ran by the village. "They're coming fast."

"What?" she asked, her eyes hardening.

"The enemy." I pointed at the river. "They're coming from that way." Then I sent, "How close are they?"

"Close," Cysgo answered. "They'll be on the village soon."

"Lana, Garnet, get ready," I said and charged towards the river, breaking into a run. I glanced behind me and saw Halia, gripping her scabbard, running after us.

This was a chance to show her that we weren't all bad. I couldn't believe this other guy was raiding a defenseless village. That was fucked up. From the way Halia made it sound, he was kidnapping women, too.

I didn't want to think about what he was doing with them.

As we ran down the path, there was a group of women doing laundry by the river. They were using the water to wash their clothes, soapsuds floating away on the current from where they worked with skirts tied up around their knees. They scrubbed garments on washboards and dunked them in the river before shaking them out.

Beyond them, the water rippled. And then out of the water oozed a gelatinous woman. All blue, she lunged at the nearest washerwoman. Large breasts heaved before the ooze. Her darker-blue hair had a plastic look about it, like the hair on an action figure. Sculpted to resemble it, but not made of individual strands.

The woman screamed and threw her wet laundry at the ooze. It struck the monster girl's breasts and slid down her body. Her hair rippled, then grew into tentacles that lunged at the woman and grabbed her before she could dart away.

On the shore, the men with crossbows watching over them cursed. They fumbled to aim. One got off a shot that struck an ooze. The bolt embedded in her breast but then it just oozed out of her. She didn't even seem to mind. She just sent her hair-tentacles at another fleeing woman.

Out of the woods behind the men charged the satyr monster girls. They were another group of busty women who had pale skin and steel-gray hair with curling horns out of them. Their feet looked hoofed, but the rest of them was all women. Several of them had what I thought were cocks but quickly realized were dildos thrusting from their crotches.

The lead satyr slammed her horn into the back of a guy working his crossbow. He fell to the ground and spasmed. The others turned, struggling to aim weapons before they were charged and gored. In the water, the women screamed as the tentacles seized them.

"No!" I shouted, running as fast I could.

Lightning cracked behind me. I heard Lana's wings flapping. She had burst out of her clothing. Then the hum of Halia's blessed sword, the enchanted blade eager for the fight. Anger rippled through me.

This was why I was attacked. Because the other dungeon builders thought they could do whatever they wanted. This man who sent these monster girls was from my world. He probably thought there were no rules here for him to follow. That he could do whatever he wanted.

And now he was stealing women? Pig!

"STOP!" I roared as I neared the river on the opposite side.

The oozes ignored me. The satyrs chased off the defenders. The men fled back to the village, some stumbling after being gored. Others lay on the ground bleeding out. I gathered my magic, the words for the spell forming on my lips.

"Spark of lightning, crackle of electricity, let the wrath of Lord Enlil explode!"

The crackle of lightning shot from me and struck the first monster girl. Her gelatinous body couldn't withstand the fury of my spell. Lightning sizzled over her flesh. She melted like a marshmallow in the microwave and spread out across the river. The woman she held burst free and splashed through the water to safety.

"Get them!" I shouted and chose my next target.