As Maria and company reached the mountain once more today, a lurking figure slowly continued following them from afar. Her sharp, draconic eyes glaring their every movement. They were not exactly menacing, but she seemed to be inspecting them as if she was obsessed with them… when they finally landed in the mountain, she quickly hid beneath a rock and then looked at them once more.
"Where is my brother and his friends going now?" She wondered.
She slowly lurked around, using her magic to hide her presence wonderfully, even from Maria…
"To a dungeon?" She wondered, seeing them slowly descend through a large hole.
As she followed them silently by reducing her size into a smaller form, she suddenly realized something.
From within the dungeon, something powerful was resting…
"Wait…! This dungeon is…?"
After arriving at the mountain, we swiftly moved through the cave we have used before and then reached the hole going down. The fall from here was sure deadly for most people, but we were going to bring them down using Lucifer, and my shadow magic.
"Alright you guys, prepare yourselves!"
I quickly called them to prepare, as I expanded my shadows and let them all inside. I guess Lucifer didn't even need to help in that regard. When I had everyone inside my shadows, we descended quickly down to the cave I had discovered, and we were greeted by the beautiful lake where Gero came from.
"I guess now that we are here… You guys can come out." I said.
The dwarves quickly walked out of my shadows, followed by an enormous Undead Salamander. The moment they noticed Gero, they stopped walking and then slowly looked back at the enormous beast.
The dwarves quickly began to panic.
"Hey! Come on, you saw him yesterday! He's my Undead monster I caught here." I sighed. "His name is Gero, make sure to treat him nicely."
"Geroro…" Gero groaned, looking at everybody with his big and frog-like eyes.
"I-I guess that with such a strong monster, we can be well protected."
"It is amazing what Necromancers can do…"
Helga looked at me with a slightly tired-looking expression.
"Maria, do you really have to bring him?" She sighed.
"Eh? Is there something wrong with him? Of course I have to bring him! He wants to level up! I also got a bunch more of Undead with me… I'll bring them all out as well, I heard this dungeon is dangerous so the more the merrier, right?" I asked, bringing out countless of skeletons, zombies, and undead giant spiders. There were also those giant bugs we fought when Agatha turned into a demon, and other lizard-like monsters from the dungeon previous to that.
"There are even bugs and is that a lizard?!"
"A giant dinosaur thing…"
"These are… how many?!"
"Over… two hundred? I only brought fifty out." I said while looking at everyone. "I have the rest of my undead friends back home protecting my place. I could only bring a small battalion with me."
"I-It is more than enough…" Helga said.
I quickly assembled all my Undead in front of me, I had only brought generic ones, with all the OP ones back home protecting my place and the people there. So Gero was the strongest amongst them all, therefore, I gave him the title of Undead General for this Battalion.
"Alright! From now on, Gero is your Undead General, guys, obey his orders!" I said, the Undead gave out all sorts of terrifying groans, as they seemed to agree.
"Alright, let's get going then!" I said, as I lead the way into the dungeon's entrance.
The marching monsters behind us and some in front seemed to have put the dwarves in a bit of a stretch. I didn't really wanted to make them more uncomfortable, but this was something that needed to be done! This was a dangerous dungeon after all.
At the end, they still calmed down and simply decided to ignore the Undead with us. Ultimately, we finally reached the dungeon's first floor, which looked not exactly as we had expected it to look like.
Inside of the dungeon there was an enormous and expansive grassland. There were even mountains around the background, a shining sun atop the sky, and even some trees spread here and there. To the distance, perhaps half a kilometer away from here, there was a small mound of earth in the grasslands, with a cave-like entrance leading somewhere down.
"I-Is this really a dungeon? It is not like anything we have ever visited before!" Said Emeraldine.
"Wow… Aren't dungeons way smaller and packed?" Wondered Partner.
"They're supposed to be like that, yeah." I said while rubbing my chin. "But this place… Well, we have only explored a single dungeon in our entire lives, so maybe there are other types."
"Hmmm… I had almost forgotten, but yeah, Dungeons come in all shapes and sizes. Some are more temple or ruin-like in appearance, some are like these, small, pocket worlds, and then there are mixed versions of both." Lucifer said. "Usually those with this appearance are stronger and are said to be "projections of the world"… or something like that."
"Huh, in the caves there are some Biome Dungeons, as we call them." Helga added. "But they're not near as big as this… And are these plants? There's a surprisingly big variety of herbs growing in this dungeon… it is something very rare, if we can find a way to farm this land and produce crops from here, we could solve a lot of issues with food in our country…" Helga quickly began to wonder such things.
"Wait, something's coming!" Partner pointed out, as several figures quickly emerged almost out of thin air from within the vast grasslands expanding right before our sight.
They were gigantic… moles?