At that same moment, the deep-sea allies who had already eaten their fill were reviewing the plan together with their queen.

"We lure the enemy at Pond One, assist the elves at Pond Two, buy time for the fairies at Pond Three, support the Holy Knights at Pond Four, and then... lure the enemy to Pond Five. Correct?"

"Yes, Your Majesty. Perfectly correct!"

"You aren't getting confused anymore!"

The attendants encouraged her.

The chief attendant, who had served her since her days as a princess, stepped forward.

"It is time, Your Majesty."

"Ah!"

The Mermaid Queen placed a hand over her chest.

The thought of the battle about to unfold made her heart pound.

Mamool were savage and relentless.

These monsters pursued fleeing prey to the bitter end, and whether they lived or died, they never left their surroundings intact.

If they lived, they exterminated merfolk.

If they died, they polluted entire kingdoms.

Their very existence seemed to be a collection of malice directed toward all life.

She had managed to repel the mamool that attacked her kingdom using the legacy left behind by her father and mother.

But she had failed to prevent the kingdom itself from being devastated.

She could not allow this place to be taken as well.

Still, she wondered.

What is Ian thinking?

Wouldn't it be better to stop the mamool from entering the dungeon as much as possible?

Even someone unfamiliar with military strategy knew that important positions should never be surrendered to the enemy.

Every dungeon location Ian called a "room" or a "field" was a unique defensive fortress with its own environment.

Each one had value.

She could not understand why Ian intended to give all five rooms to the enemy.

Giving away your own home to invaders?

Yet the orders had been given.

She had to move.

"Warriors! The time has come to take revenge on the villains who destroyed our beautiful kingdom!"

"WAAAAAH!"

"Long live Her Majesty!"

The fishfolk warriors raised their fists.

The Mermaid Queen unfolded the map she had memorized through endless repetition and headed toward their destination.

The battlefield.

The Yalsi possessed mole-like feet and snail-like shells.

Their appetite was legendary.

Their flesh was translucent enough that their insides were visible, and more than half of their bodies consisted of digestive organs.

Individually, they were only about the size of hunting dogs.

But there were many of them.

They were a race that devoured endlessly and reproduced endlessly.

And within the Demon Realm, they ranked among the upper tiers of predators.

The more they ate, the more they reproduced.

And they developed resistance to the properties of whatever they had most recently consumed.

These two traits made them infamous predators.

Following the Demon King's orders, the Yalsi advanced into the Dark Forest.

As they moved forward, they consumed trees, beasts, and every living thing in their path.

Among what they consumed were mamool that blocked their advance.

The Yalsi were omnivores.

They did not discriminate between food sources.

While busily devouring monster remains and digging through the earth, they suddenly felt their bodies dropping.

Splash!

They retreated into their hard shells to absorb the impact.

But they landed in water, and the collision was minor.

Unbeknownst to them, they had fallen into the area Ian had designated as Pond One.

He had modified the field closest to the dungeon entrance and added a pond.

Everything else remained untouched, making it an ordinary thicket field except for the pond itself.

The Yalsi floated toward land inside their lightweight shells.

Then they resumed the purpose for which they existed.

To consume everything.

The overgrown bushes, taller than the Yalsi themselves, possessed a charm distinct from the dark trees of the Dark Forest.

The Yalsi devoured them enthusiastically.

Until the rightful owner of the territory came charging out in anger.

The wolf mamool would not tolerate intruders in its resting place.

Grrrrr!

The clash between the Yalsi and the wolf mamool caused casualties on both sides.

However, the wolves were vastly outnumbered.

The result was little more than the Yalsi stuffing wolf mamool into their stomachs.

Wheeeet!

Just before the Yalsi completely surrounded the wolves, a whistle sounded from somewhere.

"Fall back!"

The wolves immediately retreated like a receding tide.

The Yalsi, who had been salivating at the prospect of a feast, suddenly found their prey stolen away.

Mamool were creatures that never released their prey.

The ecology of the Demon Realm—where the strong dominated and the weak were devoured—had engraved the distinction between prey and non-prey into every monster's instincts.

Those wolves were unquestionably prey.

The Yalsi pursued them.

And while their attention remained fixed on the fleeing wolves, exposing their backs, fishfolk warriors struck from behind.

"SKREEEE!"

At the rear of the warrior formation, the Mermaid Queen proudly lifted her chin.

Good!

The timing was perfect.

There were two methods of travel inside the dungeon.

Land routes and waterways.

Land routes connected to land routes.

Waterways connected to waterways.

In other words, every pond was connected.

To the deep-sea races, who lived by the truth that all seas were one, there was nothing strange about that.

For anyone who remembered that the dungeon originally had not contained a single pond, it was extremely strange.

In any case.

At Pond One, they had two responsibilities.

First, strike the invading demons from behind.

Second—

The Mermaid Queen shouted:

"Retreat!"

"WAAAAAH!"

The fishfolk warriors responded bravely and dove into the pond.

If the enemy grew stronger by eating things, then nobody should get eaten.

And even if someone was consumed, an ally with different attributes could attack afterward.

That was Ian's strategy.

And for it to work, the timetable had to be exact.

"...?!"

The Yalsi were confused.

But the prey they had been chasing was never the fishfolk.

Several of their number, caught off guard by the ambush and stabbed through their soft sides, were reduced to lumps of flesh.

Their remains immediately disappeared into the stomachs of nearby Yalsi.

The bloated creatures opened their mouths wide enough to touch the ground and produced new offspring.

Their depleted numbers recovered instantly.

Many of the Yalsi had spent the journey to the dungeon stuffing themselves full.

Not only did their losses recover—their population doubled.

The newly born, starving Yalsi opened their mouths and began chewing through the ground itself.

But then an older, wiser Yalsi emitted a high-pitched signal.

There was prey far superior to dirt.

The creatures crawled after the retreating wolves.

Meanwhile, the merfolk arrived at Pond Two.

A forest field.

A pond hidden deep within dense woods.

Twang! Twang! Twang!

The Yalsi chasing the wolves were greeted by a rain of arrows from elves hidden throughout the forest.

Several Yalsi immediately ended up inside the stomachs of their own kin.

The elves fled together with the wolves.

Excited by the increase in available prey, the Yalsi charged after them.

Fishfolk warriors burst from the pond and attacked their rear once more.

The Yalsi emptied their swollen stomachs to replenish their numbers.

This time, however, the newly produced offspring amounted to only half of what they had created before.

The wolves and elves fled toward the field containing Pond Three.

Like the previous area, it was another forest field.

When they reached a large tree, the two groups split in opposite directions.

Most of the Yalsi continued pursuing the wolves through sheer momentum.

They had already tasted these wolf mamool.

They were delicious.

More importantly, they were weaker.

A smaller group chased the elves.

Passing up a delicacy unavailable in the Demon Realm was difficult.

As the wolves ran past the pond, some Yalsi halted.

These were survivors who remembered having fallen for the same trick twice.

But most of the Yalsi were newly born creatures with no such experience.

They passed by innocently.

Then spears suddenly erupted from nowhere and pierced their sides.

The experienced Yalsi consumed the dead and continued forward.

They had learned another lesson.

After attacking once, those cowardly creatures always ran away.

The Mermaid Queen watched the monsters descend upon the wolves and gestured.

"Charge!"

The fishfolk warriors who had pretended to retreat through the pond erupted from hiding once more.

After striking the Yalsi from behind and fleeing again, the monsters' numbers fell to two-thirds of their original force.

The Yalsi reproduced again.

But—

"Everyone, drop them!"

"Hyaaaah!"

Even the Yalsi could not maintain their numbers after being hit by bombs dropped from above by fairies.

The newly produced offspring melted away in the explosions.

"Wooow, they exploded!"

"Momi is smart!"

The fairies cheered.

Then someone reached out and grabbed them.

"Less talking, more moving!"

Louise, clad in light leather armor, and the archery unit pulled the fairies aboard the wolves.

Experienced wolf riders, they expertly calmed the fleeing beasts and kept them focused on running.

It wasn't difficult.

After all, leading the pack was Contacca in his form.

The Yalsi no longer had the luxury of considering any option other than chasing their prey.

If they stood still, something attacked them from somewhere.

Prey?

No.

Their instincts informed them.

The relationship had reversed.

They were the prey now.

Perhaps, if they wanted to survive, they would have to make a decision.

The desperate measure reserved only for the most dangerous enemies.

Their empty stomachs began to throb.

Meanwhile, at Pond Four, Malveric and the Holy Knights who had accompanied him from the Vatican waited in silence.

After Ian had summoned Malveric, many things had happened within the Vatican.

"We too are sinners, are we not?"

Voices of reflection arose from within the Holy Knights.

And alongside them came another sentiment.

"When those two ask for help, how can we refuse?"

The result was simple.

Everyone except the minimum force required to protect the Vatican set out for the holy war.

To protect God's representative.

And the Hero.

Malveric lowered the hands he had clasped in prayer.

He smelled the stench of mamool.

"They're coming."

He drew his sword.

It's working.

Ian finally looked away from the bronze mirror.

The allies' execution of the operation was excellent.

If they maintained more than ninety percent of their combat strength until the final battlefield, this defense would end in victory.

He still needed to watch the last battle, but...

The dungeon itself was one enormous trap.

The enemy knew nothing about the terrain.

So he lured them into an environment only his allies understood.

Inside the dungeon, guerrilla warfare could be conducted at any time.

While playing the game, Ian had quickly realized that Dungeon Defense could not be cleared simply by filling rooms with monsters.

In short, it required real-time strategy.

This is manageable.

If he could make them memorize about thirty-six patterns, he felt comfortable leaving the dungeon in their hands.

Which left only one thing.

"Keith."

"Yes."

"We're going to kill the Demon King."