- Dungeon Crawling! -

 Akari leads Taro by the hand through the halls. They were running towards the intruders. The oni opts to do a flyby explanation during their dispatch.

“These back halls are not usually seen from the ‘outside’.” she exposits

Taro notices the notches and ports along the walls. These had to be viewports into the dungeon itself. A way for its inhabitants to stalk the would-be victims of their maw. Akari continues.

“Worry not, Shion placed magic in these halls specifically so that intruders can’t see into, or hear through the walls. To them, it looks like a regular wall.”

“Ohhh, how nifty!” Taro exclaims, amazed by the inner workings of dungeon surveillance. 

“Hehe!” Akari giggles proudly. “That’s our master for you!”

Taro became endeared by how Akari, from mentioning Shion, was beaming. They are undoubtedly close.

“Ah. They’re here.” she stops,

The pair slows down. Akari leans towards a port and motions Taro to follow suit. They both look through the window.

There Taro saw his first adventurers from this new world. It was a two person party.

A woman stands in the middle of the room in a ridiculous pose, legs splayed while leaning on her staff. She dons mage’s robes, however it appears to be two sizes too small for her, the skirt hiked up so high they were closer to spats. She possesses bright glittering blonde hair to her shoulders. And her make-shift boots were fashioned into platform high heels.

Nails were also polished and elongated, no doubt intended for battle prowess.

“Iyyaa!!!~ Dae-vid!! A monster!!” the woman shrieks at a slime across the room facing a different direction from her entirely.

“HUH?!” A burly man reciprocates. He appears to have more hair gel than brains sitting atop his shoulders. David, or more affectionately pronounced Dae-vid, wears a large leather breastplate, equipped with various pouches and dark pants with thick boots. A large sword hangs from his back which he brandishes as he gets in between the near three meter gap between the walking landmine and the small teal terror.

“Don’t worry baby! I’ll protect… YOU!!!!”

“(That line did not deserve a dramatic pause!)” Taro thinks to himself angrily.

The slime tilts its head towards the flamboyant pair. Its attention was unavoidably drawn to the loudest things in the room.

“Ohh!! DAY-VEE! You’re sooo strong!!” the woman exclaims!

“*Hahh… *Hahhh I can tell! This one is is going to be TOUGH! STAY BACK!” David grips his sword with both hands.

“(WHY ARE YOU ALREADY OUT OF BREATH?!)” Taro bangs his head against the wall.

“Eh?! T-Taro?!” Akari says worried.

With great heft, David lunges towards the hapless slime and takes a great swing at him.

*Fueh!

The slime makes a cute death sound from the burly man’s attack. The force of which splits the poor creature in twine.

“Huuu!! Daaiii veed!! You protected me!” the shrill woman cheers.

“Baby… Look into my eyes…” the man holds the woman by her hip.

“Y-Yes… Deevee…” she coyly squirms.

“(HOW HAVE YOU SAID DAVID IN FOUR DIFFERENT WAY AND ALL OF THEM WRONG!!)”

“I’ll never abandon you…” David leans in.

“W-Wow…” Akari said next to Taro entranced, somehow redder than she usually is.

“... Akari, head up to the next room.” a voice from behind ordered,

It was Shion's.

“Y-Yes Shion!” Akari promptly acknowledges, she rips her sight from the love birds. Akari shuffled her way past Taro but stopped before leaving.

“Taro!”

“Ah! Yeah?...”

“I’m up! So watch and learn ok?!” she beams proudly.

“O-Okay…”

Akari grabs a loose stalagmite and lifts it over her shoulder as she leaves.

Taro starts to get up, but Shion came over and rests her chin on Taro’s head. Her arms draped over his shoulders.

“I want you to watch this, Taro.” Shion orders calmly, “See what I see.”

The view to the next room was visible from their port. Taro sees Akari take up position in the center of the room.

She took a firm sumo stance and braces herself. The duo arrives shortly after.

They took stock of Akari. The mage wordlessly fires a fireball at the oni.

“(Huh? What happened to her bubbly attitude just now?!)”

“Whoa!” Akari exclaims as she narrowly dodges the fireball. When she landed, she stole a peek at the port hole where Taro would be. She grins and gave a wry wink for the viewing audience.

“Take this! My ultimate attack!” Akari exclaims!

She lifts the large stalagmite well above her head! Before slamming the enormous thing down at the couple! The tank deftly avoided the attack. While the woman fell off balance from her ridiculous heels.

“Wow! She’s the real deal!” Taro says in amazement, 

Shion’s expression remains stern throughout.

The burly man revs up for a follow up attack! Akari appears ready however, she moves to block but-

“Huh?” She says suddenly.

Akari couldn’t lift the stalagmite. “Huh? Huh?!”

The makeshift club was stuck fast into the ground.

“Gyahhh!” She yelps as David make the decisive slash.

Akari laid flat on the floor splayed out like a swatted fly following the attack. The couple then glibly walks into the next room. A disappointed sigh was made by Shion as they left.

In the next room no monsters were present. Only an obvious wooden trap door in the middle of the room.

“Be careful babe!” The man shouts, “That’s a trap… DOOR!”

“Ouhh! You’re soo smart! Daveyy!!” Coos the woman.

They walk by the trap door without issue. Taro looks at Shion with a puzzled look. Shion could only close her eyes defeatedly.

The final room only contained a pedestal where a small chest sat atop it. The clueless couple saunters over to claim their riches. With the hilt of the brute’s sword he bumps the chest open. A small pile of gold coins and a necklace filled the contents of the container.

“Tch…” The brute clicks his tongue, “What a cheap dungeon eh?”

“So true… Well at least we finished it fast enough that we can get some drinks after this fufu...” giggles the woman.

The brute tries to pull the box from the stand but it remains stuck.

“What the-? It’s stuck!”

Taro looks up to see Shion’s pained expression. She didn’t want to part with her treasures so pathetically.

After a good tug, the box relents and the couple left to continue their date. Shion lets out one last long sigh.

…

Shion and Taro left the unseen halls and walked the floors of the dungeon. Shion took the time to resurrect each of its slain inhabitants. They appeared mostly unharmed, if only initially disoriented from the shock of un-life.

“Buwahh!!” Exclaims Akari as she woke from death. She quickly re-composes herself upon seeing Taro.

“Ahem…” Akari says as cool as she could muster, “So… H-How was that?”

“(How was what?)”

“We lost, again.” Shion says wistfully.

“Ah…” The oni replies sadly.

Taro is taken aback by the sheer incompetence of the dungeon. It's really not made well at all.

“It’s a wonder how you manage to defeat any intruders at all. Ah-” Taro accidentally makes his inner thoughts known despite his desire to do otherwise.

“W-Well…” Shion starts,

“It couldn’t be helped! ”Akari interrupts, ”My weapon got stuck!”

“Because you wanted to show off with that big weapon! Here’s an idea! You ever think about… Letting go of the thing when it got stuck?!” Taro interrupts her interruption.

“Ah-,” Akari makes a face like she ate something sour,

“Now, now... ” Shion tries to comfort the watery eyed oni,

“And you!” Taro points at the lord, “What was that trap door?”

“E-Eh?...” She stammers,

“Who’d get tricked by that?! A suspicious wooden floor panel in the middle of a room? Even Bonnie and Clyde figured it out immediately!"

“B-Bunnie?...Cly?” Akari tilts her head,

“Sorry! Human reference!” He retorts.

Shion bites her lower lip in a pained expression…

“You’re right.” She wore a serious face, “We don’t have the means to defend ourselves. No adventurers have perished in these halls for 5 years.”

The frankness of her voice takes Taro offguard.

“We don’t have enough resources to make more traps or troops, in turn we cannot gather resources but instead lose more every time an adventurer invades… But then what can we do? This is our home.”

He spots a slime at Shion’s feet. He has a bit of a nick from being split in two, the little guy still shaking a bit.

Taro starts to feel bad about his outburst.

Looking at the slime though he was reminded of the hardy couple. How the woman would make all these bow legged poses to get the Dae-Vee to pay attention to her. Her heels.

“... I have an idea.” Taro proclaims.

...

The boy gathers Shion and Akari into the room where the slime was slain.

“This is the room.” He decides. “We set up this room for traps.”

“Huh?” Akari asks, confused.

“But like I said! We don’t -” Shion starts to protest

“-have the materials I got it,” Taro interrupts, ”But what do you think is the cheapest form of a trap?”

The girls thought about it for a bit, but taro was too impatient to wait.

“A hole.”

“!” They both light up.

“I noticed that this room is square, and more importantly symmetrical. We set up a checker board pattern. Like tic tac toe. Directly in front of the entrance will be a hole. Followed by the right most column, middle row, so on and so forth. We plant stalagmites at the bottom of each hole." He continues,

“I noticed those adventurers , while albeit strong, were clumsy. They were more busy looking good for each other than watching their step.”

"Couldn't they just jump to the center most platform?” Shion inquires.

“Heheh... That’s the ticket” Taro says with a mischievous grin. ”You have the one trap door, correct?”

“Ah!” Akari’s metaphorical lightbulb lights up!

“Exactly! We make the dimensions exactly as large as that trap door on the center platform!” Taro excitedly explains, ”Those thinking they can make a straight hop across simply will find that the platform itself to be a trap door!”

“Ouhh!” Both girls clap in unison.

“I call it; False hope - unrealized! Gehehehe!”

“Well your naming sense could use some work, but that’s really clever! Hahaha!” Akari wraps an arm around Taro again. “As expected from my junior! Hahaha!”

“(I don’t recall learning about this from you?!)”

“...” Shion simply smiles silently at Taro. “...ank you…”

“Huh? Did you say something?” Taro asks,

“N-Nothing! I am weary from reviving everyone. I need to rest. There are some shovels by the unseen walls from past adventurers,”

Shion walks away to rest.

“(How ungrateful! At least I have her blessing though.)”Taro thinks to himself.

At once Akari and Taro get to work on this new plan. Well, for Taro it’s a bit of an overstatement. Akari did most of the work with her oni strength.

Though by the end of the day, it was done.

“Haah… finally it’s over!” Akari falling over in fatigue.

“Yeah… man I’m beat…” Taro concurs,

After a brief rest, Taro looks over his work. “(A marvel of engineering )” he thinks to himself.

“Ah I better go see Shion and tell her it’s done.” Taro declares,

“Yeah, that’s a good idea,” Akari says still lying down, “Ah be careful there Taro, the rock there is a bit loose-”

*Crack!*

Before he knew it Taro was falling down the stalagmite filled hole. Akari screams after him