One of Us

Gargoyles soared through the sky, and every monster they passed bowed its head as if kneeling before its ruler.

Jack, clutched in one of their hands, screamed again and again. Every time he opened his mouth, gale-force winds poured in, torturing him terribly.

When he was set down at the dungeon entrance, he felt the relief of having survived a disaster.

But when he thought about how he had signed a Slave Contract with a Gargoyle and become a monster's slave, his feelings remained complicated.

His backpack held all kinds of items the Gargoyle had given him. After counting them, he found more than ten types, all things he had never seen before. There was even a weapon rarer than a Greatsword. It could only be called a massive haul.

Moreover, the other party had saved him and helped him take revenge. By all rights, that made him a great benefactor.

But being a monster's servant was a little hard to admit out loud.

Whenever Jack remembered killing his companions, his hands and feet trembled. He could no longer tell whether he was afraid or feeling something else.

Perhaps excitement?

Making it safely out of the dungeon was certainly worth celebrating, but how was he supposed to explain this to everyone else?

Especially Sackman. So many people had died; his fury was easy to imagine.

Jack, Jack... whether you lived or died depended entirely on your gift of gab. You'd better come up with a good excuse.

After the Gargoyle flew away, he lingered around the Portal at the entrance for a long, long time. Unable to think of a perfect explanation, he finally left the dungeon with a bitter expression.

The view returned to the Hero Gargoyle.

After seeing Jack off, he returned to where he belonged—the BOSS room.

His massive body had to bend down to pass through the Fortress Gate, but there was another way that did not require him to stoop.

"Cancel Mimicry."

At the command, the Gargoyle's body dissolved into specks of light, leaving behind a shriveled, swaying Living Dead.

It was Gong Qiying!

"It feels strange to change back."

He looked at his thin arms and legs, which seemed like they could snap in a gust of wind. The difference from the omnipotent power he had felt as the Hero Gargoyle was enormous.

So it had been him all along—the one who crippled the Black Market Dealers and signed a Slave Contract with Jack.

But why had he gone to so much trouble?

"I haven't tried it since unlocking transformation privileges. I need to find someone to have some fun with."

Gong Qiying also wanted to experience transforming into a Zinogre, but it was simply too expensive.

Still, killing the Black Market Dealers had not been a spur-of-the-moment decision. He had planned it long ago. He had observed this group for quite some time and learned their identities through their conversations.

Originally, he had only intended to use them for practice and had not planned to kill anyone. But when they plotted to get rid of Jack, Gong Qiying changed his mind. He wanted to kill these morally bankrupt people for good.

It was not because he had any friendship with Jack. He simply found it unpleasant—unpleasant to watch these people cast aside their ally after crossing the river.

But the Teleportation Crystals on adventurers seemed to be protected by some kind of restriction. As a monster, he could not even touch them, much less remove them.

Only other adventurers could touch and remove the crystals.

As for Jack, he had been calling the Black Market Dealers brothers. How could he possibly be a good person?

Signing a Slave Contract with him, showing him the map, ordering him to bring more people—those were all sudden whims of Gong Qiying's.

He wanted to cultivate "one of his own."

Because Slave Contracts involved the soul, even he could not sign more than three of them.

Jack did not need to do anything important. He only needed to lead the way.

As more and more people came to conquer Zane Dungeon, its maps would eventually be fully explored. Rather than let the adventurers create guides, he might as well cultivate one of his own first and reveal map information to Jack in advance.

Once adventurers had gained plenty of exploration experience in an area without becoming especially proficient, Jack could directly release a complete guide and establish prestige among the adventurers—something like "Dungeon Exploration Master."

The value of a map on the verge of being conquered had already dropped. It was better to squeeze out its last bit of value.

With him around, Gong Qiying could also keep tabs on every development among adventurers. For someone who could not freely leave the dungeon, information from the outside world was crucial.

If Gong Qiying had new maps, traps, or monster designs he wanted to test in the future, he could simply have Jack bring people over.

There had to be other uses as well, but this was merely a whim-driven experiment. He could think about the rest later.

"The dungeon automatically cleans up corpses. That's not bad."

He turned to look at the Black Market Dealers' bodies, but once he did, he could not look away.

"Gulp."

He swallowed involuntarily.

An instinctive urge drove Gong Qiying toward the corpses. He gathered the mangled chunks of flesh together, then took a deep breath.

White streams of light poured from the corpses and entered Gong Qiying's body. His shriveled skin immediately gained a healthy sheen!

Though he still looked like skin stretched over bones compared with a normal person, at least he finally looked somewhat hydrated. He was no longer a dried corpse.

"My strength increased a little?"

The Living Dead race could absorb the remaining life force from corpses to grow stronger. Many necromancers liked summoning Living Dead as cannon fodder.

It was said that one Legendary necromancer had raised a little Living Dead used as cannon fodder into a King Rank greater undead. No stronger Living Dead had ever been heard of since.

It was certainly good that his strength could increase, but—

"What use is that to me?"

Gong Qiying's expression turned strange. As a Dungeon Lord who hid behind the scenes, the odds of him fighting someone were even lower than a meteor striking a particular ant with pinpoint accuracy.

Besides, apart from today's unusual situation, what he needed was for adventurers to die and revive in his dungeon, dying and living, living and dying. If he started killing people just to increase his own strength—

That would be more trouble than it was worth.

If he could leave the dungeon someday, this ability might finally have a chance to be useful.

"Bzzzz—"

Just then, the Crystal Ball in his arms suddenly began to hum. Gong Qiying tossed it into the air, and the fist-sized Crystal Ball immediately grew larger and taller, displaying images of the adventurers.

He had set Si Telan's group as a special alert. Any changes would notify him.

Gong Qiying did not know why he cared so much about this group. There were plenty of teams stronger and more interesting than them.

Yet some vague feeling compelled him to pay attention to them.

One look at the Crystal Ball revealed that Si Telan's team had already been scattered.

Vierde and the surviving experts, Si Telan and the big Xiu En, Ai Li and Ka Rong—the entire team had been scattered by the tide of monsters. Split into three small groups, they ran about like headless flies in utter disarray.

Xiu En had lost an arm, and his combat strength had plummeted. If Si Telan had not been protecting him, he would have been torn apart by monsters long ago. The monsters chasing them were also among the strongest.

Ai Li and Ka Rong, who belonged to the team's second tier of strength, had already shaken off the monsters and rushed deep into the Swamp.

As for Vierde and the surviving experts—

They had triggered a teleportation trap!

"Waaahhh!"

Ignoring all elegance, Vierde screamed as he wildly swung his shortsword around. With a bang, it struck the rock wall, and flying fragments hit him in the forehead.

The pain brought him back to his senses.

"W-Where is this?"

His eyes suddenly widened because the scene before him was completely different from the Foul Swamp.

Towering trees, dense jungle, fresh humid air, chirping birds, and a town faintly visible among the distant forest—it was clearly the middle region of Zane Dungeon.

"Is this heaven?"

For a moment, he stared in a daze.

"Rustle, rustle—"

Just then, a disturbance suddenly came from the bushes behind him. Vierde's recently relaxed nerves tensed again!

What was in those bushes!?

"Pika pika."