My Dungeon Daddy System: Raising Monsters and Waifus Underground-Chapter 81 – Grika’s Big Gun

The elevator ride down to Floor 3 was less a commute and more a descent into the belly of a mechanical beast.

As the iron cage rattled past the Spa level, the humidity and scent of eucalyptus vanished, replaced instantly by a wall of dry, scorching heat. The air tasted of ozone, burning oil, and the copper tang of magic being forced into shapes it didn’t want to take.

Reed stepped out into the Iron Works.

It was loud. The ambient thrum of the magma channels provided a heavy bass line to the high-pitched screech of grinders and the rhythmic thud-thud-thud of the automated stamping presses.

He adjusted his cuffs. The [Thermal Equilibrium] buff was doing its job; the oppressive heat that usually made him sweat through his shirt within minutes felt like a pleasant spring breeze. He felt cool, centered, and ready to commit deforestation.

"Team check," Reed called out, his voice cutting through the industrial noise.

Waiting for him by the main workbench were his two vanguards.

Seraphine stood near a weapon rack, inspecting a spear that glowed with a dull, angry orange light. It wasn’t her usual weapon, it was upgraded. The tip wasn’t steel; it was a shard of obsidian encasing a core of liquid magma.

"The balance is forward-heavy," Seraphine critiqued, spinning the weapon effortlessly in one hand. The air hissed as the superheated tip sliced through it. "But the thermal output is acceptable. It should sear the flesh before the plant realizes it has been cut."

"Just don’t drop it," Reed warned. "That’s a prototype Magma Lance 2.0. If the containment field breaks, you’ll be standing in a puddle of lava."

"I am fireproof, My Lord," Seraphine smirked, snapping the spear onto her back mag-lock. "Mostly."

To her left sat Terra.

The Golem wasn’t holding a weapon. She was the weapon. She was sitting on a reinforced stool, holding her own left hand up to a massive, spinning grinding wheel.

SCREEEEEEEE.

Sparks showered the floor as Terra sharpened her stone knuckles against the diamond-grit wheel. She ground the blunt granite into jagged, razor-sharp edges.

"What about your hammer?" Reed asked.

"WEEDS NEED TO HE PULLED." She pulled up her hand. "SHARP ROCKS," Terra rumbled, inspecting her handiwork. She blew the dust off her fist. "FOR CUTTING SALAD."

"Good logic," Reed nodded.

He walked past them, deeper into the workshop where a chaotic pile of blueprints, copper wire, and empty caffeine potion bottles marked the domain of the Head Engineer.

"Grika?" Reed called out.

"UNDER HERE!"

A voice shouted from beneath a massive, canvas-draped object in the center of the room. There was a flash of violet light, a sound like a welding torch gargling gravel, and then silence.

Grika slid out from under the tarp on a mechanic’s creeper.

She looked feral. Her goggles were opaque with soot, her green skin was smeared with grease, and her orange hair was standing up in static-charged spikes. But her grin was wide enough to split her face.

She wasn’t panicking. She wasn’t the scared goblin who had clung to his leg when the Dryad appeared. She was in the Zone. She was vibrating with the specific, terrifying frequency of an engineer who has just realized that the laws of physics are merely suggestions.

"Boss!" Grika kicked the creeper away and hopped to her feet. She wiped her hands on her overalls, transferring the grease to her hips. "You’re here! You’re early! Perfect! The coolant hasn’t even settled yet!"

"Is it ready?" Reed asked, eyeing the covered shape.

"Ready?" Grika laughed, a manic sound that echoed off the metal ceiling. "Boss, ’ready’ implies safety protocols and testing phases. This isn’t ready. This is angry."

She walked over to the tarp, grabbing the corner.

"Problem: The Garden has [Kinetic Absorption]. You hit it, it eats the impact and heals."

She yanked the tarp down.

"Solution: We don’t hit it. We unmake it."

Revealed on the rack was a monstrosity of brass, black iron, and exposed mana tubing.

It wasn’t a sword. It wasn’t a gun.

It was an Exo-Harness. A heavy, backpack-mounted engine core glowed with a contained violet vortex, connected by thick, armored hoses to two massive, industrial gauntlets.

Attached to each gauntlet wasn’t a fist, but a three-foot-long chainsaw blade. The teeth weren’t steel; they were obsidian shards, coated in a shimmering, viscous purple oil.

"Behold," Grika whispered reverently. "The Void-Reaper Mk 1. Or, as you requested, The Weed Whacker."

Reed stared at it. It looked heavy. It looked dangerous. It looked like something a Space Marine would use to file his nails.

"Walk me through it," Reed said, stepping closer.

"The engine draws directly from your Void Aura," Grika explained, her hands fluttering over the machine. "It acts as a capacitor. It pumps Void-infused oil over the blades, superheating them to three thousand degrees while simultaneously applying a localized entropy field."

She looked at him, her yellow eyes gleaming.

"It doesn’t just cut, Boss. It cauterizes the mana veins. It tells the universe that the plant doesn’t exist anymore at the point of contact. No signal to regenerate. Just ash."

"Let’s put it on," Reed said.

Grika scrambled up the back of the rack to unlock the harness.

"Back in to it," she ordered. "Arms up."

Reed stepped into the frame. The harness was heavy, settling onto his shoulders with the weight of a knight’s armor. He slid his arms into the gauntlets. They locked into place with a heavy, pneumatic hiss-clack.

He felt the connection instantly.

The machine wasn’t dead weight. It was hungry. He felt the engine on his back tap into the Void Shard in his chest. It was a parasitic drain, like a leech latching onto a vein, but thanks to the [Thermal Equilibrium] buff from the spa, the drain felt manageable. Cool, even.

"Hold still," Grika murmured.

She was in front of him now, standing on a crate to reach his chest. She began tightening the leather straps that secured the harness to his torso.

This wasn’t the frantic, panicked clinging of the other day. This was deliberate.

Grika’s hands were strong and precise. She yanked a strap across his sternum, pulling him forward slightly. Her knuckles grazed his chest. She checked the seals on the gauntlets, running her grease-stained fingers along the copper piping that ran up his arms.

"Input intake is stable," Grika whispered, her voice dropping. She looked up at him through her smudged goggles. "You’re running cool, Boss. Usually, a core this size would cook the user’s kidneys."

"I had a good soak," Reed said, looking down at her.

"Good," Grika said. She reached for the final buckle at his waist. She didn’t rush. She pulled the strap tight, her body pressing against the metal of the gauntlets. She looked at the weapon, then at him, with a look of pure, unadulterated adoration.

To Grika, Reed wasn’t just a leader. He was the Battery. He was the source of the impossible energy she loved to manipulate. Seeing him wearing her creation, powering it with his soul, was clearly doing things to her goblin brain.

"You look..." Grika bit her lip, her eyes dilating. "You look like you could break the world, Boss."

"Just the garden, Grika," Reed said. "Just the garden."

"Right," she breathed. She slapped the engine casing on his chest. "Ignition is mental. Just... want it to start."

Reed focused. He pushed a pulse of Void Mana into the harness.

THRUMMM.

The backpack engine roared to life. It wasn’t the sound of combustion; it was the sound of a tear in reality. A low, screaming whine filled the workshop.

The chains on the gauntlets didn’t spin yet. They began to glow. A deep, baleful violet light flooded the room, casting long shadows.

"Test it," Grika commanded, pointing to a thick slab of the captured Void Vine from the previous breach, currently clamped in a vice.

Reed raised his right arm. The gauntlet felt surprisingly light, the magical servos assisting his movement.

He willed the chain to spin.

VRRR-SCREEEEEEEE!

The sound was deafening. The obsidian teeth blurred into a purple halo of destruction.

Reed swung.

He didn’t feel resistance. He didn’t feel the thunk of an axe hitting wood.

The chainsaw passed through the thick vine like a hot knife through butter.

There was no sawdust. There was only grey ash drifting in the air. The vine didn’t writhe. It didn’t bleed sap. The cut ends were instantly cauterized, sealed by a black, glassy scar.

[SYSTEM ALERT]

[Weapon Equipped: THE WEED WHACKER (Epic)]

[Damage Type: Void / Fire / Entropy]

[Effect: Anti-Regeneration. Targets neutralized at the molecular level.]

Reed let the engine idle. The scream dropped to a menacing growl.

"It works," Reed said, the vibration of the engine traveling up his arms and into his teeth. It felt powerful. It felt intoxicating.

"Of course it works," Grika hopped down from the crate, grabbing her own satchel of explosives. "I built it."

Seraphine walked over, eyeing the gauntlets with professional respect. "A brutal weapon, My Lord. Lacks finesse. But effective."

"We aren’t going for finesse," Reed said. "We’re going for extermination."

He turned to the team.

Reed in his black velvet coat, now armored with industrial magitech chainsaws.

Seraphine in her tactical scale-lingerie, wielding a lance of magma.

Terra, basically a walking siege engine with sharpened fists.

Grika, heavily armed with explosives and a grin that promised property damage.

"Listen up," Reed said, his voice amplified by the [Overlord] resonance in the suit. "We are going down to Floor 4. This is a Legacy Floor. It’s been growing wild for two hundred years. It hates us. It wants to eat us."

He looked at them seriously.

"We have no Healer. Luma is upstairs making sure we don’t go bankrupt. Kaelen is... unavailable. If you get cut, you bleed. If you get poisoned, you suffer. Do not let them touch you. Terra, you are the shield. Seraphine, you are the spear. Grika, you break the hard targets and separate."

"And you, Boss?" Grika asked, reloading her rivet gun.

Reed revved the chainsaws. Violet flames licked along the blades.

"I’m the gardener."

He turned toward the back of the workshop.

The wall of thorns blocking the breach had grown since the initial attack. It was thick, pulsing, and smelling of sickly-sweet rot.

Reed walked up to it.

"Elara," he thought. "Keep the radar up. If you sense the Matriarch, scream. Don’t forget you are more than an anchor, you can freeze them."

I am watching, the ghost whispered, though she shivered slightly at the proximity to the Void Engine. The roots are deep, Reed. Be careful.

Reed raised both gauntlets.

[RAID GROUP: FORMED]

[Objective: BREACH]

"Open the door," Reed commanded.

He plunged the twin chainsaws into the wall of thorns.

SCREEEEEEEEEEEEE!

The world turned purple, and the smell of burning sugar filled the air as they carved their way into hell.