Kaijin Fighter: So I Have to Make Monsters, So What?-Chapter 1369: Change of Venue

[Boss!]

[Master Dante!]

[Hmm? Ah.]

As Dante floated in the air, [Apostasy] drawn and [Stigma] wrapped around him, he found himself being approached by his other two [Demon Knights].

Delictum and Gumba looked surprisingly unharmed, despite the machinations of the enemy lord, suggesting that they were now more powerful than they had anticipated or that their planned opponents were far too weak.

Regardless of his observations, though, there was a war going on, and he had an enemy lord to slay.

[Wait...Master Dante, are you wearing Slavina as if she were a regalia? How is that possible?] Delictum asked with obvious curiosity, a clear contradiction to his usual role as the embodiment of [Ignorance].

[Wait, can we do that too?] Gumba followed up. [Because I think I’d look good with those peacock feathers I swallowed a couple weeks back.]

[Yes, it will be possible to teach you and the others this new trick,] Dante assured his loyal servants. [But before we do that, can you two confirm something for me?]

[Huh?]

[What is it, my lord?]

Before elaborating any further, Dante first gestured to the rest of the cavern.

[Those two strange little dolls and the enemy zakos are both creations of the opposing lord,] Dante began. [Tell me, do you notice something odd?]

[Uh...]

The two [Demon Knights] stared at what Dante was directing them towards for a solid three minutes or so before they both shrugged their shoulders, unclear at what they were supposed to be noticing.

That stated, Delictum still threw out a guess.

[They’re...not fighting our zako and subordinates as fiercely as ours?]

[Close,] Dante praised Delictum. [But what I wanted to point out is that they appear to be protecting the pitiful mortal rebel warriors.]

[What?]

[Seriously?]

[Yes,] Dante nodded. [Those strange dolls could’ve easily swooped down and taken out dozens of our kin, but instead, they are focusing on the falling debris. As for the zakos below, look.]

Following Dante’s direction, Delictum and Gumba watched as an enemy zako made of stone had suddenly thrown itself into harm’s way just as one of Gumba’s subordinates was about to smash in the skull of a rebel warrior.

The zako ended up perishing in that instant, but it gave the rebel warriors an opportunity to retaliate.

[Huh?]

[Why wouldn’t that zako just let the human die? That way it could go and take out Bloat instead?] Gumba asked, disregarding the fact that one of his own men just kicked the bucket.

[If I had to guess, this enemy Lord of ours is a bit of a bleeding heart,] Dante postulated. [Someone who actually cares about the lives of these pitiful slaves.]

[Really? Gross,] Gumba spat.

[How disturbing,] Delictum agreed.

[Indeed...perhaps that’s why he has been limiting himself to such simple means of combat. He’s been holding back to prevent hurting these foolish rebels in the process,] Dante added.

[Then should we ruin that idea of his and go on a rampage below?] Gumba asked. [I wouldn’t mind ignoring that dancing freak and crush some softer skulls.]

[Nah, there are plenty of warriors down there that seem to have the ability to injure us and then some,] Delictum pointed out. [One wrong move and we’re history, dumbass. It’s cleaner if we can just secure a hostage from one of the residential caverns.]

[Now look who’s being a dumbass,] Gumba chided. [None of the residential caverns are open. The rebels closed them all up!]

[Oh... you’re right,] Delictum admitted as he looked around and noticed that the only open caverns left were those belonging to the imprisoned, the smelter room, and the dead.

[It’s like that bastard planned ahead.]

[Yes, that does appear to be the case...] Dante trailed off as a realization dawned upon him.

The moment the enemy lord activated that smoke screen and turned into multiple copies, he had not gone in for an attack. Instead, he had decided to run away.

Why?

From what Dante had seen so far, this other lord didn’t require the usage of things such as [Malevolent Gold] or use living aether beasts to make his kaijin. Instead, it appeared as if he was able to use literally anything and everything that he could get his hands on to create kaijin and zakos alike.

Those strange doll twins were made from a corpse and sculpted porcelain, while the kaijin that were acting as his enemy’s [Taboo] and [Regalia] appeared to be made of the elements themselves.

And lo and behold, as Delictum had pointed out, the only caverns that hadn’t been cut off from the main one were the smelting room, the prison cave, and the corpse cavern.

In other words, places that a Kaijin Lord like his opponent could use as a source of materials

[How vexing...how truly vexing! Bahaha!] Dante laughed in a manner that seemed rather out of character. [I can’t believe we had been had in such a manner.]

[Huh? What’s vexing, boss?]

[I have the viciously strong suspicion that our fated foe is about to introduce even more players into this war of ours,] Dante answered, his voice sounding more like a chorus than a singular voice at this time. [In which case, it now makes perfect sense why he wasted time saving these foolish rebels. It was to simply distract us all. Bahaha!]

In Dante’s mind, the value of human life had reached a level that treated it not even as an ant, but as a piece of paper.

He could not comprehend the possibility that his foe had performed such an altruistic task for no reason other than to momentarily confuse him and his kaijin long enough to go and achieve his real task of creating more kaijin to fight with.

But that led to the question of what kind of kaijin was his foe going to make?

Was it going to be one made from the rotting flesh and broken bones from those sorrowful corpses that were resting at the bottom of a dark, damp cavern?

Was he going to snuff the life out of the cocooned prisoners and use their significantly more empowered bodies to make a new kaijin instead?

Or was he going to steal away his precious [Malevolent Gold] and use it against him in a moment of lovely irony?

Then again...why should he be worried about such a possibility when he could go ahead and do it himself first?

[Gumba. Delictum. Would you both be a dear and grab the latest batch of cores from the smelting room and the most potent ones we have from storage?]

[Of course, boss.]

[Wait, why?]

[Because I just had the most... marvelous idea,] Dante chuckled as a strange black goo began pooling in his hand once more.

...Oh boy...

Immediately after Zhen Liu had juked the missile, he had no chance to see how the kaijin fared with dealing with the fallout.

Making matters worst, he only had partial information at the moment.

’Sit rep! How goes the debris defense?!’

[Going great, Caretaker!]

[We’re at fifteen a piece!]

[Nepherage, how are the others faring?]

[Their mortal hosts are still breathing but Lythero might have a mental breakdown once this battle is over due to his broken swords.]

[I’ll fix that when the time is right!]

Feeling mostly reassured that the situation was more or less under control, Zhen Liu proceeded to fly towards the smelting room as fast as he could, as stealthily as he could.

His target: the Voyager-1 Probe.

His goal: To turn it into the most powerful and technologically advanced kaijin on this planet.

While he was initially hesitant about turning a significant piece of his past life’s shared history into a monstrous warriors, he eventually got over it by using two pieces of justification.

First, the probe had technically already served its purpose of finding alien life in the greater galaxy. While it has the weird luck of landing somewhere that used spirituality as opposed to science, it was better than nothing.

Second, what he was about to do was technically giving the wrecked machine a chance to have a new life. It was at least several magnitudes better than being used as an eternal fuel source.

Regardless, Zhen Liu was also certain that just like Hurricroak and Frosttusk, the Voyager probe will have its own unfinished business that it didn’t want to address until later and he had to plan for—

[INCOMING FEATHERS!]

’OF COURSE!’

Before Zhen Liu could arrive to his destination, he was forced to about face and release a burst of flames to incinerate an incoming barrage of feather arrows.

Cackling above him was the owl-like [Demon Knight] known as Delictum.

[You know, I think this is the first time we met,] Delictum began to say while channeling [Chaos] throughout his arms, [but you feel really familiar. Kind of like that weird curator bastard.]

Moments later, his arms began to resemble giant spitting bird heads.

[I’ve wanted to rip his eyes out the moment I saw him!]