Volume 4 Chapter 116 The Grand Plan of Bait and Decoys
Edited by: Kanaa-senpai
A single room in the Love Hotel¹-my “motel” away from home.
In a cluttered corner of the massive hangar that housed our airship, a makeshift workshop had taken shape.
The air was thick and heavy, smelling of grease and cold, cut steel.
Sitting dead center was a… boat? Well, something like it.
Its sleek, elongated hull was encased in seamless armor plating, revealing nothing of its interior.
It was far smaller than the airship-compact enough that squeezed-in seating for two or three seemed like the absolute limit.
”She’s a high-speed interceptor,” Beckus said, puffing out his chest.
Beside him, Nokiroul crossed his arms and nodded in smug agreement.
”She won’t fly, but this custom beauty can skim across a sea of lava like it’s glass.”
”We figured we’d run into something like this eventually,” said Nokiroul.
”Yeah, we’ve been chipping away at her for a while now!” Beckus added.
I pressed a palm to my forehead, feeling a headache brewing.
They’d built this entire thing right under my nose.
”You guys… when did you even find the time?”
”Right around when the 6th Floor talk started,” Nokiroul replied.
”The second I heard ‘lava,’ I knew we’d need a specialized kit,” said Beckus.
They must have burned through a staggering amount of resources, but neither looked even remotely guilty.
If anything, they looked like they were waiting for a gold star.
Certainly, I could expect this to be useful on this floor.
A dedicated transport for the magma seas was a game-changer.
(But still…) “How exactly do we use her?” I asked, looking back at the craft.
The overhead lights warped and stretched across the dull sheen of its armored skin.
The 6th Floor Guardian-a turtle the size of a tectonic plate.
Against that kind of mass and armor, what could a boat this small actually achieve? “We use it to get in close and carve him up, de-arimasu!” Kéa said.
Her eyes lit up as she clenched her fists.
Of course that was her solution.
(But it isn’t that simple. Not against that monster. Even if we closed the gap, we lacked the raw power to crack that shell.)
”Not quite, lass,” Beckus said with a wicked, boyish grin.
* * *
”-And that’s the play!” Nokiroul flicked the blueprints.
Rough lines traced the perimeter of the lava sea, with handwritten arrows converging on the central mass of the Guardian.
I stared at the plans in silence.
It was crazy. It was reckless.
(But it just might work.)
”If that’s the mission, then consider it done, de-arimasu!” Kéa said, already vibrating with excitement.
Korukona, however, looked ready to bolt.
Her black cat ears were pinned flat against her head, and her tail flicked with naked anxiety.
”Umm… isn’t that, like, incredibly dangerous?”
”Deadly,” Beckus said airily.
”Don’t say it so casually!” Korukona barked.
She had a point.
This mission was putting both of them directly in the line of fire.
”Can’t the Sailor Brownies handle the piloting?” I asked.
”No go,” Beckus replied, shrugging his shoulders.
”This thing draws directly from the pilot’s mana pool. The fairies don’t have the lungs for it; the engine would stall out halfway there.” Nokiroul nodded. “Besides, she’s a beast to handle. The acceleration and turns are brutal. I’ve dampened the G-force as much as I can, but there are moments where it’ll still try to tear your guts out. Anyone but these two would get thrown off-or worse.”
He was right.
Among my companions, Kéa and Korukona were the peak of physical capability.
I turned to Korukona, but I couldn’t bring myself to order her into this.
”Korukona, if you’re not up for it-“
”If Korukona’s too scared, I’ll just go by myself, de-arimasu!” Kéa interrupted.
She threw a pointed, provocative look at the cat-girl.
”I’ll just have to take all the credit and look good for Milord all by myself, de-arimasu!”
”Hey!” Korukona’s ears shot up. Her tail stopped dead. “I-I can do it too!” Hook, line, and sinker.
Kéa’s prodding had done the trick.
”I can do it! Just watch me!” said Korukona.
”That’s the spirit, de-arimasu!” Kéa replied.
I let out a long sigh.
(Once those two make up their minds, there’s no stopping them.) “Fine. It’s in your hands. But don’t be heroes. If things go south, you abort immediately. Understood?”
”Loud and clear, de-arimasu!” Kéa shouted.
”Got it!” Korukona said.
Their responses were firm.
Korukona gave a sharp nod, a new light of resolve burning in her eyes.
We began the final checks.
* * *
The small Lava-skiff² began to howl as the mana-drive spun up, sending a deep vibration through the hull.
As the motel’s massive shutters cranked open, a wall of heat slammed into us-a scorching, dry wind that felt like it was trying to peel the skin off my face.
Outside, the world was nothing but a churning, red-hot sea of molten rock.
”Be careful out there,” I shouted.
”We will, de-arimasu!” Kéa yelled.
”Yeah!” Korukona replied.
They waved through the reinforced canopy.
Kéa flashed a confident, toothy grin, while Korukona bit her lip for a split second before giving me a determined nod.
Korukona was at the helm.
Being from a fishing village, she had a natural instinct for the water-or in this case, the magma.
She’d mastered the controls in record time, wrestling the craft through high-speed drifts during the test runs without breaking a sweat.
Kéa was there for support, but once they reached the objective, she’d be the primary muscle.
Her sheer tenacity and combat prowess would be Korukona’s shield.
The vibration reached a crescendo.
The hull lifted slightly, and then, with a violent burst of speed, the craft shot forward.
It sliced across the lava, a streak of silver vanishing into the red haze.
A secondary shockwave of heat lashed back at us as they disappeared.
Despite their energy, my chest felt like lead.
(Sending my women into the jaws of death never gets easier, even when it’s the only way forward.)
There were moments when I wondered if we really had to do this.
But I knew the truth now.
Sphica, the Elf Matriarch, had explained the Dungeon Overflow³.
If left unchecked, these places eventually vomit their monsters into the world, consuming everything.
A year of neglect brings the pests; ten years brings the nightmares.
There was a whole continent-the Demon Realm-that had already been swallowed because no one could clear the dungeons.
We couldn’t let that happen here.
If we conquered it, we controlled it.
And since the knowledge of “Hero Summoning” was lost to the world, I was the only one left with the tools to do the job.
My “Love Hotel” was the only true safe harbor in this hell.
”I cannot say for certain when the overflow will come,” Sphica had told me quietly.
”Perhaps a century. Perhaps a millennium.” It might not happen in my lifetime, but for the sake of the children we’d have-and their children-I had to finish this.
And the girls knew it too.
That’s why they volunteered.
I couldn’t afford to be the one dragging my feet.
”Alright,” I said.
”Let’s move.”
”Master…”
”Suzuki Taro, please… be careful.” The voices made me pause.
Lifia, her short blonde hair windswept, and Tifi, her chestnut hair pulled back, were watching me with eyes full of poorly hidden dread.
I walked over and pulled them both into a tight embrace.
They were stiff for a second, then melted into me, clinging to my coat.
”I’ll be back before you know it,” I said.
(No “ifs” or “maybes.” Just a promise.) “…Okay,” Lifia whispered.
”We’ll be waiting,” Tifi added.
I felt their fingers linger on my sleeves as I pulled away, but they let go.
With my wives watching my back, I boarded the airship.
We cleared the hangar and soared over the burning wastes.
In the center of the lava sea sat the Guardian-a mountain-sized dragon-turtle.
We’d started calling it the Rock-Shelled Dragon⁴.
It spotted us instantly.
Its massive head swiveled toward us, and the organic turrets lining its shell locked on with terrifying precision.
”Full speed! Evasive patterns!” The sky exploded.
Red-hot boulders shrieked through the air, trailing plumes of fire.
It wasn’t just a barrage; it was a calculated slaughter.
Direct-fire slugs, lobbed mortars, and precision shots designed to intercept our path.
The deck bucked as we banked hard.
A stomach-churning climb was followed by a gut-wrenching dive.
People were screaming, white-knuckling the railings as the airship groaned under the stress.
”Prep the Magic Cannon!” I roared.
The Sailor Brownies moved with mechanical precision despite the chaos.
The cannon began to hum, drinking greedily from my mana pool.
”Fire!” A lance of blinding light tore through the air, slamming into the Rock-Shelled Dragon’s flank.
A thunderous boom followed as the explosion blossomed against its shell.
When the smoke cleared, the beast was still there.
A few turrets had been sheared off, but the main body was untouched.
(That’s fine. We just needed to be the loudest thing in the room. We had to keep its eyes glued to us so it wouldn’t notice the flea crawling toward its belly.) The Dragon doubled down.
The density of the fire increased.
Direct shots, indirect arcs, and interceptor rounds began to hem us in.
The “safe” patches of sky were disappearing.
”Hard port! Hard port!”
”I’m on it!”
The ship groaned as we pulled a tight turn.
A boulder whistled past the prow, the heat from it singeing the air.
”How much longer?!” Yomi shrieked.
Between her barrier magic and fueling the Brownies, she was hitting a wall.
”My mana’s bottoming out too!” Sphica added.
I checked the tactical display.
The small skiff was a tiny blip, darting between the shadows of floating volcanic rock.
(Almost there. Just a few more seconds.) A shell grazed the hull, the impact vibrating through my very bones.
The monster was learning.
Its shots were getting closer, predicting our drifts.
(We’re at our limit.) I checked the blip.
It was in the blind spot.
”Disengage! Retreat!” We threw the rudder over, pushing the engines to the breaking point.
The airship dove into the Love Hotel’s hangar just as the shutters slammed shut.
The world went from a deafening roar to a sudden, ringing silence.
Everyone collapsed where they stood, gasping for air.
The decoy run was a success.
Now, it was up to them.
* * *
I watched the monitor.
The Rock-Shelled Dragon scanned the horizon for its missing prey, its massive head swaying.
Eventually, it lost interest and went back to its “meal.” It bit into the surrounding islands, crushing stone and slurping up lava with a sickening, wet crunch.
It was refueling for the next round.
”Now,” I whispered.
On the edge of the screen, the silver skiff emerged.
It skimmed the surface of the lava, hugging the side of a massive drifting boulder.
To the Dragon, it was a speck of dust.
Between the low profile and Nokiroul’s anti-magic coating, it was invisible.
The skiff rode the flow of the “food” right up to the beast’s gaping maw.
And then, along with a ton of molten rock, it was swallowed whole.
”You’re sure it won’t get chewed to pulp?” I asked.
”At that scale? He just gulps it down,” Beckus said.
”He doesn’t have the teeth for fine grinding. Besides, with that girl’s reflexes, she could dodge those jaws in her sleep.” (It was a Trojan Horse play. No matter how thick the armor, the inside is always soft.) They had let themselves be eaten to kill the god from the inside out.
Now, all we could do was wait.
The sound of someone swallowing hard echoed in the silence of the bridge.
* * *
A few minutes later, the lobby doors of the Love Hotel hissed open.
A wave of heat rolled in, and two familiar figures stepped through.
”Mission accomplished, de-arimasu!” Kéa shouted.
”I… I did it. I really did it!” Korukona said.
Kéa practically tackled me, followed by Korukona, who looked a little green around the gills but was beaming with pride.
I pulled them both into a hug, squeezing tight.
”You did well,” I said.
”Ehehe…” Kéa chirped.
”Can we… stay like this for a minute?” Korukona murmured.
I could feel their hearts racing against mine.
(Thank god they’re safe.) Because they’d made it inside and used their cards, the Love Hotel’s “Gate” was now anchored inside the Dragon’s stomach.
The front door was closed, but the back door was wide open.
The path to slaying the Guardian was finally clear.
—
Summary:
Taro’s engineering team unveils a lava-skiff designed to infiltrate the 6th Floor Guardian.
Kéa and Korukona volunteer for a dangerous mission to get swallowed by the Rock-Shelled Dragon.
The airship acts as a decoy, allowing the small craft to enter the monster’s stomach and establish a teleportation gate.
—
Trivia:
- The boat runs on the pilot’s mana, which is why fairies cannot use it.
- Inertia dampeners exist but aren’t perfect, risking physical injury from high-speed maneuvers.
- The Rock-Shelled Dragon is actually an Earth Dragon species.
- Dungeon Overflow is a long-term threat that explains why Taro must clear the floors even if it’s currently safe.
- The Love Hotel cards allow for teleportation gating, a key tactical exploit of Taro’s skill
—
Character Insight:
Korukona shows significant growth and courage, overcoming her fear of the lava and the monster when provoked by Kéa.
Kéa demonstrates her tactical awareness by using a ‘rivalry’ to motivate Korukona.
—
Lore And Worldbuilding Context:
The author notes for this chapter announce the light novel’s release date (6/25) and introduce the illustrator, Yukibuster Z.
—
Glossary:
Notes:
• Beckus – A skilled blacksmith and engineer with a boyish enthusiasm for mechanical inventions. An elderly Dwarf and world-class blacksmith capable of identifying magical ores.
• Nokiroul – A blacksmith and technician who works closely with Beckus on specialized equipment. An elderly Dwarf specializing in magic augmentation and decoration.
• Kéa – A high-energy combatant prone to suggesting direct physical attacks.
• Korukona – A cat-eared girl with amber eyes, hailing from a fishing village, possesses exceptional physical ability and ship-piloting aptitude. Brave yet vulnerable, she radiates honesty and gratitude. Taro rescued her from pirates and now plans to return her to her home, where her skills and spirit are deeply valued by her community.
• Brownie – A little sailor fairy.
• Sphica – Elven Matriarch, elder sister to Rozmiaque, sports long golden hair and blue eyes, appearing in her twenties. As a clairvoyant elder, she leads the party through the dungeon, wielding deep knowledge of dungeon lore and the world’s logic.
• Taro – A summoned Hero who utilizes a Love Hotel as a safe zone and mobile base.
• Lifia – A half-elf with short blonde hair and one of Taro’s wives.
• Tifi – A chestnut-haired woman and one of Taro’s wives.
• Yomi – A magic user capable of deploying barriers. A party member who utilizes precision light beam magic.
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Edited by Kanaa-senpai.
Thanks for reading.
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