Chương 85: Reborn as the Dragon — Chapter 85 - Lure

There were plenty of players as weak as Player A and Player B, getting pinned down by level-three spiders said it all. But the Madness Suicide Squad also had some genuinely terrifying people in its ranks. Mori Yama Yaren, for one. That's right. He'd joined up too. Burning hatred for monsters. Will to destroy everything. The whole package. When the fires went up, a spider had ambushed him and latched onto his face, same as anyone else. But Mori Yama Yaren was a man who had survived the eat-shit special training.

A face-hugger spider was nothing. The spider tried to spray poison straight into his mouth. He bit through its abdomen and burst it like a bag of fluid. After that, every spider that came got the same treatment. He'd lost count of how many he'd bitten to death. Didn't matter. The trees on his side were burning, and the fire was tearing outward with the wind.

"Hahaha, ugh — come on! Aren't there so many of you? Keep going! Keep hugging my face!" Mori Yama Yaren was drenched in blue-green spider blood. Mangled spider corpses were scattered all around him. A length of colorful spider entrails dangled from the corner of his mouth. SLURP. He smiled the sinister kind of smile and dragged his tongue across his lips, sucking the entrails in. He looked completely unhinged. He looked like a god of war.

"Yaren-kun, report your situation!" A message from Yamaguchi Mura Chicken blinked in the team channel.

"Young master, ugh... I have successfully ignited the forest. Once the fire rises, it will be our moment of revenge!"

"Yoshi! Very good, yours! Lead the other players to fall back. Your lives are precious!"

"Hai!" Mori Yama Yaren closed the channel. His cold eyes swept the area. He let out a short snort and went looking for other players. Sakura Island players had lit fires in other spots too. The separate blazes burned, expanded, connected, and finally merged into a single roaring inferno. In the distance, Silvermoon Forest churned with black smoke. Flames leapt and rolled like a devil baring its teeth. Yamaguchi Mura Chicken watched the sight with a satisfied smile.

He could almost hear the creatures inside screaming. Two hours later, the fire died. Just like that, it died. If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it. No monsters came out of the forest. Nothing moved. Yamaguchi Mura Chicken stood blank.

"Young master, what do we do?" Mori Yama Yaren was equally baffled. By rights, that fire should have kept burning. The stretch of forest directly in front of them was charred down to nothing, but farther out, a vast expanse of trees stood completely untouched.

"There are streams in the forest," Yamaguchi Mura Chicken said after a moment, a glint of certainty in his eyes. He drew on the full breadth of his knowledge and delivered his verdict.

"The streams must have blocked the fire's spread." As expected of the young master! So wise! Mori Yama Yaren felt something warm clench in his chest. He gazed at his young master with eyes that had gone slightly misty, emotion threatening to spill over.

"However," Yamaguchi Mura Chicken continued, "even so, these monsters must have taken damage from the fire."

"Their strength is surely diminished. This is precisely the moment to strike!" In truth, he wasn't entirely sure about any of it. But he'd already come this far. The arrow was nocked. You don't pull it back. Not if you want to hold any authority over the players who'd followed you out here.

"Gentlemen!" A confident smile spread across Yamaguchi Mura Chicken's face. He raised one hand and swept it forward.

"Follow me into Silvermoon Forest! Today, we rescue the young lady — and she will personally thank every single one of us!"

"ROAR—" The Sakura Island players bellowed and charged in behind him, deep into the trees. Their figures disappeared into the forest. Then the ground shuddered. Then a patch of earth cracked open, and a hole the size of a washbasin yawned at the surface. A kobold eased half its head out. Its eyes swept slowly across the clearing. It checked left. It checked right. Satisfied there was no danger, it pulled back down. A moment later, a whole group of kobolds crawled up from the tunnel. They were carrying tools.

They fanned out and got to work, laying traps across the ground in quick, efficient silence. The Black Dragon Boss had told them this was the final step of the pocket formation. Sealing the bag. The kobolds moved fast and worked in perfect coordination. In almost no time, the players' only retreat path was covered wall to wall with traps of every variety. The encirclement was complete. Every player was now inside.

Once they'd finished, the kobolds filed back into the tunnel and made their way home to the lair through the underground passage. On the way back, they collapsed the tunnel behind them, section by section. The Black Dragon Boss had called this part "attention to detail." Meanwhile, deep inside Silvermoon Forest, Yamaguchi Mura Chicken and his players made a discovery that sent a ripple of excitement through the group. Spider corpses. Dozens of them, including the larger, stronger variants. All charred.

Most barely recognizable. What did that tell them? It told them the fire had worked. The monsters of Silvermoon Forest had genuinely taken damage. The attack had been effective.

"Yamaguchi-san, over there!" A player's shout cut through the noise. Yamaguchi Mura Chicken turned and looked. A group of [Strong] Fire Rabbits was blundering through the still-smoldering underbrush, crashing through the half-dead bushes in blind panic. Their normally soft pink fur was streaked with ash and soot. They looked ragged, lost, completely undone. Then they spotted the players, and ran faster.

"Yoshi! Yoshi!" Yamaguchi Mura Chicken's confidence surged. His instincts had been right all along. He watched the rabbits scrambling and shouted to his players:"Follow the biggest cluster! They're running straight for the dragon's lair!" He wasn't wrong. The Fire Rabbits were, in fact, heading straight for the dragon's lair. It didn't matter which group the players chased, or how many times the rabbits split off and doubled back. Every path looped around to the same place.

Yamaguchi Mura Chicken could have pointed at any one of them and the outcome would have been identical. The players were too busy chasing rabbits to notice that the burned trees were thinning out. By the time anyone registered what had happened, they were standing in dense, untouched forest. The terrain changed around them. Rock walls rose on all sides, curving into a U-shaped canyon. Lush green pressed in from every direction.

And there, at the deepest point of the U, cradled by trees, backed against stone, sat a nest-shaped structure covering the area of two basketball courts side by side. Five thick, otherworldly bamboo shoots jutted from the rock walls surrounding it. Plants from another world came in all varieties. These players had seen sunflowers the size of car doors. Big bamboo shoots didn't raise an eyebrow. What held their attention was the nest. One Appraise after another flew toward it.

Golden letters bloomed in their vision, edged in red: [Black Dragon Nest] ➤ Next: The Pursuit of the Sakura Players