Dungeon's Final Boss: Banished by My Boss, the Goddess, to Earth—So I'll Continue My Past Life - 30-31

Chapter 30: The Goddess’ Fury

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Goddess Piroane was feeling irritated.

She had planned a ‘parade,’ hoping to humiliate Shenhari, but the resistance from the locals was too strong, preventing the monsters from leaving the dungeon as she had intended.

Why are these people resisting so much?

“This parade is an event for dungeon monsters! It has nothing to do with you guys!”

Piroane never once considered what the monsters would do once they got outside. There was no need to. After all, she was a goddess—one who stood among the divine.

“Ugh! They’re so bad at reading the room!”

She couldn’t understand why things had turned out this way.

“So annoying, so annoying, so annoying, so annoying, SO ANNOYING!”

At this point, there was no helping it. She hadn’t wanted to spend any more resources on such a hastily built dungeon, but there was no other choice. No matter what, she had to make Shenhari cry.

“Black Minotaur!”

Ever since she had banished Dorajirou, this one had become her highest-cost unit. So, she would deploy it. She had originally sealed it away as punishment for letting the 100-Year Dungeon get destroyed, but desperate times called for desperate measures.

Which reminds me… Ugh, damn you, Dorajirou. How infuriating.

She had heard rumors that using reincarnated souls to create monsters resulted in low-cost, high-performance creatures. So, she tried it out. At first, it performed exactly as advertised. It was a rare specimen, so she had given it the name Gobujirou. Eventually, it evolved into a dragon, earning the name Dorajirou. But then, as the dungeon she had assigned it to as the final boss dragged on, its cost kept increasing. By the end, Dorajirou alone accounted for half of the entire dungeon’s resources.

Seriously? How does that even happen?

She had thought about intervening, but everything seemed to be working fine, so she let it slide. Dungeon costs weren’t a big deal anyway. The energy generated by dungeons was dozens, hundreds, even thousands of times greater than the resources used to maintain them. Some even argued that cost management was irrelevant. Still, when she had first been entrusted with dungeon creation, she had heard something that stuck with her:

“Running a dungeon on low cost is the mark of a cool god.”

And Piroane wanted to be a cool goddess. She had achieved the Hundred-Year Dungeon. She had become exactly the cool goddess she aspired to be…. Or so she had thought.

Then that smug little junior of hers had asked to see the Hundred-Year Dungeon’s cost reports while acting all respectful in a pretentious manner. And she had been foolish enough to agree.

“Whoa, this final boss hardly does anything! And yet, it’s eating up half the dungeon’s budget? What a waste!~ As expected of Piroane-sama, I guess even this kind of handicap is nothing for you, huh?”

She was blatantly mocking her. And the moment she banished Dorajirou, the Hundred-Year Dungeon collapsed almost immediately.

That idiot Black Minotaur!

It had claimed it could handle things just as easily as the lazy Dorajirou, only to fail spectacularly!

Ugh, this is so infuriating!

“If you lose, I’m erasing you, Black Minotaur!”

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The goddess’s wrath brought forth the Black Minotaur. However, that anger was not only directed at the natives present here but also at the Black Minotaur itself. That dungeon had been of great importance to the goddess. The fury she harbored toward the one who had caused its downfall—toward the Black Minotaur—had been so immense that the Black Minotaur had been thrown into the punishment chamber for some time.

A space filled with nothing but suffering. It was terrifying. The Black Minotaur never wanted to go back to that place again. And then, there was that accursed dragon. That worthless beast had never even left the inner chambers of the dungeon, yet it strutted around as if it were the master of the place. It was nothing more than a creature that had been lucky for a hundred years.

No—that wasn’t all. When it left the dungeon, it had somehow managed to steal power from the Black Minotaur.

Damn you.

The Black Minotaur didn’t know what had become of that wretch after it was cast out of the dungeon. Most likely, it had died somewhere like the pathetic creature it was. And if not—the Black Minotaur would kill it himself! Fueled by the fire of vengeance, the Black Minotaur moved from the depths of the dungeon toward the outside. Since the dungeon had just been created, the path to the surface was short. He arrived almost immediately.

And there, standing before him, were the foolish natives resisting in vain. The imbeciles who dared to interfere with the goddess’s will…. Even though all they had to do was take the magic stones from the dungeon and leave.

“DO NOT INTERFERE!”

With a thunderous roar, the Black Minotaur swung its axe down. Several of those forming a shield wall in front of him were sent flying.

“Black Minotaur!”

“That’s an S-rank monster!”

“You mean the one that killed three S-rank Awakened in Country C?”

“No way…”

“Run!”

“Retreat! Fall back!”

The foolish natives scrambled in panic. It was an exhilarating sight. But it wasn’t enough.

The Black Minotaur wasn’t satisfied. The Black Minotaur wanted to feel even better. The Black Minotaur wanted to trample them more. The Black Minotaur wanted to see them in even more despair.

More. More. More… Wallow in misery!

“Uwaah!”

“Damn it!”

“Run!”

“Gyaaah!”

“I won’t let you!”

What?

The Black Minotaur was stunned. Its attack had been stopped? One of these weaklings—one of these pathetic natives—had blocked the Black Minotaur’s attack?

Was it that shield? It was something unbefitting of their strength. In that moment, a memory flashed through the Black Minotaur’s mind—of a battle-axe it could no longer wield.

Unbefitting of their strength…? No. That damn wretch did something again! 

That cunning, worthless dragon! It had plotted to disgrace the Black Minotaur! And this native woman! She had no right to stir up such useless memories!

“DON’T MESS WITH ME!”

“Kyah!”

The Black Minotaur struck the shield once more, sending the woman flying along with it. Yes, she was nothing but this weak, pathetic being.

There was no way things were progressing in the same way as back then. But still—she had made the Black Minotaur recall things it wanted to forget.

And for that—

“DIE!”

He swung his axe downward.

Dash!

But the strike never landed. Someone had gotten in the way.

“WHO DARES!?”

The Black Minotaur roared, but the figure before it did not even flinch. And in that shadow, the Black Minotaur saw him.

No… It couldn’t be… No, of course.

That wretched being had not disappeared. That cursed creature—

It had survived once again.

“DRAGONNNNNNNNNNNNNN!!!”

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Chapter 31: The Difference Between Final Bosses

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I made it in time. Relieved that I had managed to stand in front of Mimimi just in time, I quickly assessed the situation around me.

Many awakened ones had fallen. There were a lot of seriously injured. A few had even lost their lives. That said, the number of casualties was small. The likely reason was that the monsters had been more focused on escaping rather than attacking. Regardless, saving lives came first. I began healing the fallen awakened ones.

“J-Jiro-san?”

“You did well.”

“Y-Yes. Yes… Uuuh…”

Now that the tension had lifted, Mimimi began shedding large tears, her sobs echoing softly. As she cried, the other fallen awakened ones also began to regain consciousness.

“Please evacuate from here along with them. Outside, Samejima-san should be arriving soon to take care of things.”

“What about you, Jiro-san?”

“I…”

Beyond the axe I gripped tightly, Black Minotaurus was pushing against it with all his might, his muscles tensed. Holding my ground firmly, I turned away from his heavy breathing and smiled at Mimimi.

“He seems to have something to discuss with me, so I’ll be keeping him company. After that, I’ll take care of this dungeon.”

“But… It’s an S-rank monster…”

“It’s not a problem. I’m also S-rank.”

“Still… Alright, I understand.”

Mimimi had started to say something but swallowed her words and quickly took action.

“Jiro-san!”

“Yes?”

“You have to come back, okay?”

“I know. Let’s go out for a drink again.”

“Yes!”

After watching Mimimi and the other awakened ones leave, I turned back to face Black Minotaurus. There were no other monsters nearby, but I could sense more approaching from deeper inside. I placed golems in that direction to take care of them.

“Good grief, what’s the goddess getting so worked up about?”

It was obvious that she was completely ignoring the dungeon’s capacity when summoning these monsters. During a parade, the cost restrictions were temporarily lifted, but she was clearly overextending herself to create more monsters. The proof of that was the presence of Black Minotaurus here. The history of dungeons on Earth was only about twenty years old. There were probably only a handful of dungeons in the world that could normally accommodate a monster of his level.

“Wait… Could it be…?”

Black Minotaurus is here. Does that mean…

『Could it be… You lost that dungeon?』

『Guh… RAAAAAAAARGH!』

When I switched to the universal language and asked, Black Minotaurus flew into a rage, pulling back his axe.

『You damn worthless dragon! You did something to it! Because of you, the dungeon—!』

『I didn’t do anything to it. It simply ceased to exist.』

『What?』

『The buffs I had distributed to the dungeon monsters, the placement of my summoned golems, the additional traps—everything that was tied to my magic was lost.』

『W-what?』

『After I was gone, you took over the innermost chamber, didn’t you? So, what exactly were you doing while you were there?』

『Lies!』

Black Minotaurus roared in denial and charged at me. I intercepted his attack with a barrier. Even as his strikes were repelled, he continued swinging his axe wildly.

『You resented being banished! You must have done something to sabotage that dungeon! Otherwise—!』

『You sure say whatever you please. But…』

Annoyed by both his relentless assault and baseless accusations, I grabbed his sweeping axe and drove a kick into his gut.

『GUAH!』

『You’re not the only one with things to say, you know.』

I casually discarded the axe, now crushed in my grip, and walked toward Black Minotaurus, who had been sent flying into the wall.

『You were stationed in that dungeon for about fifty years, weren’t you?』

During that time, I had guided numerous challengers into his chamber. To keep him from getting bored. To let him fight. To help him grow stronger. I buffed him, gave him weapons, carefully adjusted the difficulty so that his opponents were never at their full strength, yet never weak enough to retreat either.

Perhaps the battles themselves were few. But the experience gained from fighting the strongest who dared challenge the dungeon’s deepest reaches was far from insignificant. And yet…

『Is this all the strength you’ve managed to attain?』

Had he never once evolved? Had he never gained any new abilities? Was he simply content with the strength he already had?

『Utterly disgraceful.』

『H-hii…!』

『In that case, I’ll be taking back all the experience I let you accumulate.』

Letting him hoard experience points without growth was the pinnacle of wastefulness. If I reduced his experience, his cost would drop, and the goddess would be pleased.

『W-wait, wait, wait!』

『I have nothing more to say to you.』

I transformed my right arm into a second head, a dragon’s maw, and swallowed him whole in a single bite. My fangs ground him down mercilessly, stripping away all the experience he had been hoarding.

“Now then…”

The battle between my golems and the monsters raged on. I spread buffs among them and commanded them to advance.

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T/N: Changing Black Minotaur from ‘it’ to ‘him’ from now on.