“Damn it, am I really going to fall here? I still have so many things I want to do.”
“I’m sorry, Your Highness—I might not be able to accompany you any further.”
Daisy gritted her teeth hard, her gaze filled with a touch of tragedy, but in the end, she helplessly hung her head, as if accepting her cruel fate.
“Demon King, why did we end up like this? It shouldn’t have turned out this way…”
“If only I could be a bit stronger. Why, why does it have to end like this? I’m so unwilling, but if it’s you, Demon King, you can surely do it, right? Please take my share of effort and seize victory!”
Beside her, Satahia collapsed backward as if exhausted, her beautiful ruby-like pupils still holding a trace of reluctance. Her slender fingertips reached toward the air, as if trying to touch something.
“It’s all my fault. I shouldn’t have done this. I’m sorry…”
A certain Demon King wiped away the tears from the corner of her eye, as if in self-blame.
Hearing this, Daisy and Satahia both showed regretless smiles—then the next second, they were each smacked on the head by spare chess pieces.
“Ouch…”
“Ouch…”
“You think I’d say that?” I smoothed the vein on my forehead and shouted intolerantly. “It’s just a Ludo piece getting sent back home— not some tragic drama, hey!”
Yes, what was unfolding before us wasn’t some bitter tale of a team suffering heavy losses with members falling one by one, leaving only me to struggle on. It was just a friendly game of Ludo among friends, full of love, hate, and backstabbing.
And those so-called heroic performances earlier were merely the result of their pieces getting sent home by mine one after another.
There were plenty of similar games like this—such as Army Chess, Xiangqi, Jungle, and various card games. You could buy them from shops run by natives, though they’d been modified quite a bit to fit Epoch’s setting.
For instance, this Ludo had replaced the original airplane pieces with various flying objects: airships, giant dragons, vampires, griffins. The specialized terms were also swapped with in-game nomenclature.
I’d originally bought it out of boredom, but unexpectedly, it proved quite popular with Kai, Satahia, and the others. So we adopted a rotation rule: everyone except the winner goes to fight monsters, while the other three join the game.
Like now, Bemira, Bilis, and Him were handling the undead in the passage while occasionally casting glances that said “I want to play too” or “Isn’t it time to switch yet?”
Though popular, that didn’t mean Kai and the others, who had just learned the rules, were any match for me—or rather, all the rotten luck I’d had since entering the Mihri Ruins had transferred to the game.
So after a dozen or so rounds, the board was now littered with my signature pink demon pieces, scattered here and there with Daisy’s white pegasi and Satahia’s red griffins.
Daisy rolled a four and moved her pegasus forward, chasing after one of my demons.
Satahia cast a puzzled glance from the side. “If you’d moved that piece earlier, you could’ve taken the teleport and flown ahead.”
“No way—I have to protect Her Highness’s delicate rear at all costs.”
Don’t say things that could be misunderstood, idiot.
I rolled my eyes and seriously examined the board, vaguely feeling something was off. “Hmm, is there a problem here…?”
“Yeah, it’s felt a bit strange since earlier,” Satahia nodded in agreement.
Daisy stared for a long while before finally spotting the anomaly. “Speaking of which, Captain hasn’t gotten a single piece out yet.”
If it were just getting sent home right after starting, that’d be one thing—but this seemed like they’d never even left the start.
Kai, who had been silent since earlier, rolled a one. Her hand trembled for a moment while holding the piece, then she set it down. Though she wore a smile, it looked extremely stiff.
“I really want to play nicely with Her Highness too, but why won’t my pieces ever take off? It’s so weird, don’t you think…?”
You’re just that unlucky.
Everyone thought as much.
Seeing the atmosphere turning a bit eerie, I quickly grabbed her four golden flying dragon pieces, shaved them down a bit in size, and placed them back. “They were too fat to fly before—now that they’ve slimmed down, it should work.”
Kai: “…”
Everyone: “…”
Then, after another dozen rounds, the slimmed-down dragons still hadn’t flown out of the dragon nest, vividly proving that even if a shut-in loses weight, they’re still a shut-in.
After winning several games in a row, I checked the time and realized nearly two hours had passed, yet the number of monsters in the passage showed no sign of decreasing.
I’d pulled out the Ludo to pass the time, thinking the undead aggro outside would eventually fade, allowing us to clear out—but the current situation suggested otherwise.
“No good—we can’t keep playing. Something’s off.”
I tidied up the pieces and stood, heading over to Kai’s side to look at the undead tirelessly pushing into the passage.
The ground was already piled with numerous bones, testifying to the fierce battles that had occurred here. Without Kai and the others’ purifications, the bones might respawn slower than they accumulated.
Though I’d brought six sets of giant’s immortality potions—even including Kai, Satahia, and the others—we could stay in the Mihri Ruins for about two days.
But if this continued, the Trial of the Radiant Chapter quest might not get completed. After all, I wasn’t sure about the difficulty of the follow-up tasks; wasting so much time on the first one was clearly inefficient.
“We have to deal with the monsters outside.”
I instructed Kai and the others, who had packed up the props. “Take turns using your strongest damage skills to clear the undead in the passage. Kai, just push forward—advance as far as you can.”
Though the passage could only fit two people at most, limiting output to two at a time, this method would undoubtedly boost efficiency.
Bilis chanted a powerful area divine spell, while Satahia directly prepared the strongest area damage skill for a level 20 fire mage: Meteor Shower.
The two bursts of damage instantly cleared the undead ahead. After using a divine spell to purify the obstructive bones on the ground, Kai raised her great shield and launched a fearless charge, surprisingly reaching about one-third of the passage in one go.
With the others taking turns to output at full power, they quickly pushed further ahead—though the deeper they went, the slower Kai’s progress became.
Finally reaching the corridor, Bemira and Daisy—who had switched to positions behind Kai per my instructions—immediately rushed out from behind her, raising their shields to withstand the pressure from both sides.
However, after holding for a while, the three holy knights started struggling to cope.
After all, under the suppression of demonic power, their strength had been weakened to level 20 elites. Not to mention, there were simply too many monsters in the central arena: close-range gladiators, patrol soldiers, and undead beasts aside, spells and arrows flew from afar.
Even with Him casting auxiliary divine spells at full strength, Kai and the others healing each other, plus various buffs, they seemed overwhelmed under such a surging quantity.
“No good—the attacks are too many. Fall back—retreat to the passage first.”
In the end, I had the team pull back into the passage, where the attack pressure dropped significantly—after all, they only had to face attacks from straight ahead.
But this way, it was no different from guarding the secret room earlier. Was there really no other way to counter those undead assaults…?
Looking at the spells and attacks flying ahead, I frowned.
But suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I seemed to glimpse something—and a flash of inspiration struck my mind.