Maruyama Kugane - The Invaders of the Large Tomb

The one who came into Eruya’s mind was a member of “Foresight”. The half-elf who had looked at Eruya with hate-filled eyes.

She was truly an annoying woman.

There was a small girl beside her in that party, but Eruya could understand that the small child couldn’t help but look at him with open hostility. It was common for women not to understand men’s desires, and especially for someone of her age, it would be understandable for her to have a certain disdain for sexual acts. But it was not acceptable for lower life forms to look at humans with such eyes.

Just the thought brought out the anger in Eruya’s face.

I want to beat that annoying face until it can’t resist anymore…

For elven slaves, they were broken with all kinds of methods before being delivered to the customer.

There was no way elf slaves would show much resistance.

On the other hand, if he targeted that half-elf, she would resist like a mad beast. For Eruya, it won’t be hard to break and conquer the beast, but he wouldn’t be unscathed and he didn’t have much confidence in his ability to subdue his prey alive. While he was imagining slapping Imiya around in his head, he didn’t notice that the elf who was leading the way had stopped.

“Who told you to stop? Keep walking.”

“Sob…! I h-heard a noise from there.”

“A noise?”

Eruya concentrated on hearing while frowning at the elf. The silence was almost deafening.

“…I don’t hear anything.”

Normally he would have beaten her, but elves had superior hearing than humans. Even if Eruya couldn’t hear anything, there was a good chance elves could hear something. To confirm, he asked the two beside him.

“What about you? Do you hear it?”

“Y-yes. I can hear it.”

“It-it’s like the sound of metal clanging against metal.”

“…Is that so.”

There was no way a metallic clanging sound occurred naturally. There must be someone making that noise. In other words, his first chance for battle since entering the tomb. He became excited at the thought.

“Let’s go towards the place where the sound’s coming from.”

“Y-yes.”

With the elf slave leading the way, he headed towards the place the sound was coming from. Soon, Eruya could hear the metallic sounds as well. It was accompanied by the sound of something hard striking some other hard material and the shouts of battle.

“Well, I guess it’s just the other workers. The tunnel didn’t seem to bend at any point, but I guess we’re going to run into another team.”

It was as if someone poured a bucket of cold water on his excitement. He sighed as if he had lost all motivation.

“Well, I guess it doesn’t matter. I can fight as their reinforcement.”

When Eruya reached where the sound was coming from, he had a strange feeling. It was abnormal for a battle. It was like—

His curiosity was answered when he turned the corner.

It was a fairly large room, big enough to have tens of people run around freely. Inside were ten lizardmen wearing magnificent armour. They all wore collars around the neck, each with a broken chain hanging off it.

They were swinging swords at each other. They struck with screeching shouts and exchanged blows filled with resolve. It was occurring everywhere in the room. Despite having an appearance of a fierce battle, Eruya could tell this was just practice.

He confirmed it since they stopped swinging their swords when Eruya’s party entered the room.

One of the others in the room was a hulking figure with a gigantic tower shield, wearing black full plate armour with decorations that looked as if it were covered in blood vessels. And the last person was— no, the last thing would be more accurate.

It was a gigantic beast covered in silver fur, with wisdom gleaming out of its eyes.

“You have finally arrived, intruder-dono.”

There were a lot of annoying monsters amongst the ones that could speak. Magical beasts tended to attack using physical strength, but the intelligent ones often used magic.

Eruya knew he was a genius swordsman, but he wasn’t so confident in magic. He strengthened his core and resolved his heart to counter magic.

“And you are?”

There was no need to ask. If it was waiting here, then it was something that would be defending the tomb. The only question was how strong it was.

From the appearance, it could be the tomb’s master. If he took down this beast, his would be the top contribution. It would mean his team would be the best out of all the worker teams. Since ‘Tenmu’

was pretty much Eruya by himself, it would mean that he was the best worker. Even luck was an important quality for a worker.

“This king was ordered to face you here. I was suppose to test out this and that… but you don’t seem to be much of an opponent.”

He felt disappointed and annoyed at the same time.

Disappointment at the fact that the beast was nothing but a watchdog and annoyance from the fact it was underestimating him.

“To think it would be like this even before we exchange blows… You.”

“Y-yes.”

The elf trembled when he called her with a low voice. Eruya felt satisfaction at the sight. That was the kind of attitude something should show towards him. Even though it had only been a few days, after spending some time with Momon, whom everyone looked up to, he had become more

generous.

“What is that monster?”

“I-I’m sorry, but it’s n-not a monster I know.”

“Tsk, useless.”

He struck the useless elf with the sheath of his sword. Eruya ignored the elf that was collapsed on the floor apologizing over and over again to study the beast.

Due to its size, facing it head-on appeared to be disadvantageous, but monsters were generally like that. And Eruya had killed numerous monsters without a problem. He felt foolish that he was scared even for a moment just because it was a beast he had never seen before. There was always need for caution, but being overly cautious and being scared was incompetence on its own.

“I’ll ask one more question. What makes you think you can win against me?”

“I can tell that you’re weak just from a glance…”

Eruya frowned and gripped his sword tightly.

“…Seems like your eyes are useless. Shall I carve them out for you?”

“You can certainly try. But my orders said it didn’t matter if I killed you here… So why don’t we start?”

That calm tone. It angered Eruya once again.

He wanted to swing his sword without saying anything, but running into the beast that did not seem worried at all would make him look like the weaker one. So he held back and scoffed at it.

“Then so shall it be, beast.”

“Then why are you just standing around like that? Do you not wish to prepare the elves over there?”

“No need. Speaking of which, don’t you want to prepare the lizards standing behind you?”

“Ah, it will be fine. They are only here to observe this king’s battle. Do not worry about them.”

“You’re brave to throw away your only chance of victory.”

“I am very grateful for your praise.”

Sarcasm didn’t work on it. Maybe it was intelligent enough to speak, but not that smart? While Eruya was thinking that, the beast twitched its whiskers and spoke.

“But I plan to kill you without any mercy, so I hope you fight with all your strength. As I said before, this is a test given to this one as well.”

“A test? A test for a watchdog?”

“Hmm~ It’s a test to see if I’ve improved as a warrior. Now, are you ready to start? I’ll leave the elves behind you alone and face only you for now.”

“As you wish.”

“This king’s name is Hamsuke! Go to the other world remembering the name of one who killed you!