The Demon Queen's Royal Consort-Chapter 105 - Dungeon - XIII

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"It smells like rotten fish with spoiled garlic!" Dorian wrinkled his nose in disgust as he adjusted his position.

"Worse than that. It's like swamp sludge mixed with troll sweat," Seraphine muttered, covering her nose with her free hand.

"You're all complaining too much," Aeloria said, trying to sound imposing, but the tremor in his voice betrayed his own discomfort. "I've been in worse places."

"Yeah, like inside a garbage dump or a pit of shit!" Dália mumbled nasally while pinching her nose.

In the rear, I chuckled softly as I adjusted the gravity around the carcass.

"If we survive this, I swear I'll never complain about military rations again," I added.

"Agreed," said Seraphine.

"Are you sure this will work?"

"Shhh... You're making too much noise. At this rate, we'll be discovered before we can act!" Aeloria scolded us.

I'd like to say the plan wasn't total insanity, but even I, on my best days, would never have dreamed up something like this.

The plan was simple, disgusting, and dangerously risky.

After observing the grasshoppers discarding centipede carcasses over the cliff, we realized—well, Aeloria realized—that there was a hidden invasion route, a path the monsters used to infiltrate the third mountain.

That's when 'Project Centipede' took shape. With my help floating around the perimeter of the third mountain, we found a large crevice in its side.

Inside that crevice was a mountain of centipede corpses piled up like a massive trash heap.

Every day at some point, a wave of centipedes would climb the third mountain, trying to invade its interior, only to be brutally slaughtered by the grasshoppers.

After a few hours of battle between the aberrations, the grasshoppers followed a simple cleanup routine. Once the number of centipede carcasses reached a certain threshold, one of the two would drag the bodies and toss them from the mountain's summit.

Honestly, we didn't understand why they went through so much trouble.

'Why not just push all the carcasses down the big crevice in the middle of the mountain?'

Dália theorized it might be some kind of intimidation tactic between species, as if the grasshoppers were sending a message. In the end, we just accepted reality.

And here we were, having infiltrated the crevice after nearly freezing to death in the night's cold, floating toward the entrance in the mountain's side. After that, we put our plan into action.

Using the hollowed-out shell of a dead centipede, we squeezed inside, wielding the bladed arms recovered from the previous battle as hidden weapons. The carcass had been gutted as much as possible to fit everyone, leaving only the outer structure intact.

Everything from that point onward was disgusting.

With me manipulating gravity, the centipede's body appeared to have real weight, avoiding suspicion.

Dorian and Seraphine occupied the "front nodules," positioned like the monster's foreclaws. Dorian held a bladed arm in one hand and his sword in the other, ready for a surprise strike.

Seraphine, meanwhile, gripped her spear in one hand and another bladed arm in the other, muscles tense beneath her armor.

Right behind them, Dália controlled four additional bladed arms with water tentacles, ready to attack the moment Dorian and Seraphine made their move. Aeloria stood beside her, his ice magic prepared to freeze the monster if it tried to scream for help or escape.

I was in the rear, maintaining the illusion of weight while also being ready to alter gravity at the critical moment—whether to pin the grasshopper in place or to facilitate our escape.

Our centipede was placed near the front of the trash pile, requiring only a few disposal rounds before it would be our turn. The stench was unbearable, the space cramped, and the risk of discovery imminent.

Soon, dawn broke. The apathetic heat of the sun shone on the freezing mountain walls, heralding the start of cleanup. Inside the fetid shell, we all tensed, our breaths synchronizing, our heartbeats steadying, our internal energy coiled to explode at the slightest provocation.

Minutes dragged like days, but after three torturous hours of waiting, we heard footsteps approaching the massive pile of centipede carcasses.

For the first time—with the exception of Dorian and me—our group got a close look at the grasshopper's features. It was hideous, standing nearly four meters tall, with two humanoid legs covered in moss-green chitin. Six bladed arms swayed like scythes wielded by the god of death, and its head resembled a war helmet, with two rigid antennae pointing upward.

"CRUNCH..." The sound of carcasses being dragged.

The cleanup began. Each of the grasshopper's bladed arms impaled one of the dozens of dead centipedes, hauling them away to be tossed from the mountain's summit.

The five of us exchanged horrified looks as realization struck.

"Damn it! They stab through the carapace to drag the corpses!" Dorian whispered.

"If one of those stabs hits us, we'll be split in half," Seraphine added.

"Shh... We strike the moment it gets close, before it pierces our centipede's chitin," Aeloria ordered.

Everyone nodded in silent agreement.

The grasshopper returned from its first disposal round. Following the routine, it approached the pile of corpses again, and each of its arms stabbed through a centipede's chitin.

With four arms occupied carrying rotting remains of other creatures, its body moved swiftly toward us. Tension mounted, but everyone waited for the right moment.

"Now!" Dorian was the first to act.

I dispelled the carcass's gravity, and all the fake nodules detached, revealing us. The creature, stunned by the sudden ambush, couldn't react in time.

Dorian's sword lashed out in a quick strike but bounced off the monster's chitinous armor with a metallic 'clang'. Without hesitation, he pivoted and, with the bladed arm in his other hand, drove the sharp edge straight into the grasshopper's jugular. A spray of dark green fluid spurted out as the monster shuddered, its limbs convulsing in shock.

Seraphine gave it no time to recover.

Her spear and the bladed arm she wielded pierced the grasshopper's ribcage simultaneously, sinking deep between its natural armor plates. The monster tried to retreat, its legs vibrating as it mustered all its energy to escape the ambush—but it was too late.

Aeloria had already acted.

With a swift motion, half the grasshopper's body froze instantly, its hind legs trapped in a thick layer of ice. Before it could make a sound, a solid ice cube encased its head, muffling any scream.

Then Dália struck.

Her four bladed arms, controlled by water tentacles, moved with surgical precision:

Two of them ripped the grasshopper's unoccupied bladed arms clean off, severing them in one fluid motion.

The other two stabbed into the monster's exposed abdomen, driving deep and twisting to ensure no vital organ remained unharmed.

The grasshopper convulsed one last time—still alive—until Dorian's sword flashed through the air, glowing red-hot, and struck the joints of the monster's neck.

A single, clean cut decapitated the creature, which thrashed wildly even without its head. But before it could act further, it was buried alive in an ice coffin, dying within seconds.

"Phew... It worked!" I sighed in relief.

"Damn, but this smells like fermented shit," Dorian grumbled, yanking the bladed arm from the monster's jugular and splattering viscous fluid on the ground.

Seraphine wiped her spear on a nearby corpse, cursing under her breath.

"At least we didn't have to fight two at once."

Aeloria melted the ice around the grasshopper and looked at me.

"One down. One left. Glenn, hide the body under the corpses. Seraphine and Dorian, collect these bladed arms—they're too useful to waste."

Following Aeloria's orders—he had resumed his role as the group's lead strategist—I dragged the dead grasshopper's carcass and hid it beneath a pile of centipedes.

Dália retracted her water tentacles, the bladed arms still dripping monster sap.

"Let's reposition before the second one shows up."

While I hid the grasshopper's body, Dorian and Seraphine tampered with the scene, concealing the spilled blood beneath other centipede carcasses.

We quickly covered our tracks and returned to waiting inside the stinking, rotting centipede shell.

It took two hours for the second monstrous grasshopper to appear.

It emerged from the shadows, its steps slow and cautious. Unlike the first, this one seemed alert. Its compound eyes scanned the scattered corpses, searching for its missing partner. There was a palpable pause in the air, as if it sensed something was wrong.

It passed right by the fake carcass where we hid, leaving its back completely exposed for a perfect ambush.

This time, there was no signal, no exchanged words among the group. Just coordinated, lethal action.

Dorian, already knowing his sword wouldn't pierce the monster's natural armor, acted fast. Without hesitation, he grabbed one of the bladed arms Dália had torn from the first grasshopper and, in one fluid motion, drove the sharp edge into the monster's back, aiming straight for where its heart should be.

Seraphine moved in perfect sync. Two deep punctures tore through the grasshopper's back simultaneously—one from her spear, the other from a bladed arm—both targeting the same vital organ.

The grasshopper let out a sharp, metallic screech, but before the alarm could echo through the mountain, Aeloria stepped in.

Ice encased the monster's body in a deadly embrace, paralyzing its legs, while a frozen block sealed its mouth, stifling any sound.

Dália finished the job. Two water tentacles stabbed the monster's abdomen with bladed arms, twisting the blades inside. Another two crossed in a swift slash, beheading the grasshopper before it could even comprehend its death.

The body collapsed heavily to the ground, its head rolling a few meters away, its eyes glowing briefly before dimming forever.

Silence.

"Phew... What a letdown. I didn't even have to do anything this time," I sighed dramatically.

Dorian wiped the bladed arm on the corpse and grumbled,

"Don't complain, damn it. We could've been dead."

Seraphine gave the lifeless body a light kick. "Two to zero. I think we deserve a prize."

Dália retracted her tentacles, the bladed arms still dripping green fluid.

"The prize is not getting crushed by the next guardians."

Aeloria dissolved the ice with a gesture and looked ahead. "The third mountain is ours. But we don't know what comes next—let's keep a low profile."

"This time, we actually looked like a well-coordinated team," I said with an ironic smirk.

The group exchanged glances. Two guardians dead. No serious injuries.

The dungeon wasn't over yet.

But for now, they were alive.

And that was victory enough.