Dungeon of Niflheim

“Haaaaaa, fine then you should be on the offensive.” Frost nodded and crossed his arms, sure of his decision.

“Your reasoning master?”

“Other than the best offence is a good defence, the defensive side will have enough commanders, me, Nanna and Loki whereas the offensive won’t have anyone.” This was the clearest reason he could think of.

Findlay frowned taking in his young master’s answer, making Frost feel rather nervous as he awaited judgement. After a few seconds however Findlay smiled and nodded his head.

“Good answer master, I agree, I’ll take charge of the attack leaving the defence to you so let’s discuss strategy.” With Findlay’s position settled, the two of them entered into a strategy meeting. Discussing monster placement, trap rearrangement and spending of the current DP. With the dungeon war upcoming, there was no need for him to save his current stock of 5800DP and planned to spend at least 80% of it.

At the thirty minute mark, the dungeon started to shake, alerting Frost and the many monsters dwelling within. The intruders were also quite alarmed before suddenly being wrapped in a black light and deposited outside of the Dungeon, a black barrier then blocked the entrance, puzzling the adventurers.

Dark sent a friendly message telepathically after the event, now they could set up the dungeon without interruption. With the shaking explained, Frost and Findlay went back to their discussion. After purchasing new monsters and traps his fighting force contained.

· Frost goblins G-rank: 8.....

· Frost goblin fighter F-rank: 2

· Frost goblin archer F-rank: 5

· Frost goblin rogue F-rank: 1

· Frost slimes G-rank: 15

· Artic horned rabbit G-rank: 15

· Artic fox F-rank: 8

· Snow owls F-rank: 10

· Winter boars F-rank: 18

· Spiked winter boar E-rank: 2

· Frost wolf E-rank: 24

· Frost dwarf E-rank: 25

· Frost trolls D-rank: 3

· Findlay (ice troll commander) C-rank: 1

· Ice flan E-rank: 5

· Large frost spider E-rank: 10

· Artic stag F-rank: 8

· Lagombi D-rank: 1

Frost also bought 8 artic gyrfalcons, G-rank monsters that cost 40DP a pop. Fast and agile, perfect for scouting unknown terrain, but low fighting capabilities. They lacked the wing strength and talons to compete against humanoid adventurers like the snow owls, so Frost hadn’t purchased any as of yet.

Frost spent a fair amount of DP on adding on a dozen traps for the first two sections, a mixture of the three basic traps he started with. The spiked pitfall, the frost mine and the bear traps. He also quickly conjured up a simple trap for the castle ruins and ice cavern sections. He called it bolt shooter, basing the design on the automatic ballistae’s that Maya shot him with in their training session. It wasn’t as effective, lacking the repeating action, needing to be refreshed after a single shot. However, it didn’t lack lethality, especially within narrow corridors with little manoeuvrability. The large iron bolt would fire and fly through the air faster than an arrow, easily piercing armour. The trap cost 250DP so he bought 6, placing 3 in each castle ruins section. Unfortunately, he ran low on DP, and couldn’t purchase anymore.

“How’s the state of replacing the goblin’s weapons with spears and shields as well as the bunker establishments?” Frost asked Findlay, who was still sitting across from him, in thought. Ever since he first summoned frost dwarves and saw the smithing capability they had, he asked them to make better weapons for his goblins and create defensible outposts throughout the dungeon. Other than this heavily fortified glade that they used as their base of operations many other areas in the winter forest had received a defensive makeover.

“It’s going very well master, most of the goblins summoned have been able to arm themselves with spears and or replace their daggers with better ones. Allowing them to combat more differing opponents, I’ve even taught them a few of the techniques you explained.” Findlay responded with a confident tone, the goblins were great soldiers, taking to orders very well. Frost purchased many books from Sebastian’s store, some of which were about weapons and how to use them as well as some military books. Findlay and Frost had arranged for the goblins and occasionally other monsters to roam around the Dungeon and act in groups, usually around 5 members. It made them far more difficult to deal with and with the additions of spears the goblins were able to take on a rudimentary formation, further increasing their survivability and lethality.

Adventurers when they came across such a group would be full of arrogance, looking down on the goblins playing soldier. However usually they’d pay a high price for their arrogance. Five goblins working in concert were much harder to deal with and the adventurers would commonly be forced into retreat when their battle drew the ire of other monsters. Sometimes the goblin squad would be able to deal some lethal damage or even kill one of their opponents. No longer were they simply G-rank trash, especially when under the direct command of either Frost or Findlay, in which their prowess increased even more.

This was why even though Gobuske had the form a low rank goblin, he would never underestimate him. He understood the lethality of goblins while under his command. Though they still couldn’t compare to the power of his E-rank frost dwarves or frost wolves, they held much greater numbers. That was just under his control, Gobuske’s goblins should be far more diverse and numerous, to be honest if he didn’t have Findlay on his side, he wouldn’t look highly on the outcome given the current level of his dungeon.

Through Maya as well as a few of the monster books he purchased he discovered an interesting fact. Though A-rank and S-rank monsters were considered calamities that could crush empires with their overbearing strength, they very rarely interfered with the sapient races, choosing to remain in their own domains. Goblins however did not and overall, according to the book were a far more deadly threat. There was a reason why there’s a constant killing quest for them in all adventurer guilds.

When goblins are low in numbers and all still G-rank or perhaps a few F-ranks they’re nothing to worry about however regular goblins- those not born in a dungeon or monster lair- breed at an incredible rate and reach adulthood in a matter months. If not kept in check, they can become a relentless starving horde that can decimate territories. Once a tribe becomes greater than 1000 members high rank goblins start to be born, ones adept in leadership making them a dangerous threat to other nearby monster tribes or sapient towns. After 10,000 the goblins become akin to a simple army, a territory level threat and after 100,000 they become a country level threat. Once they reach over 100,000 there’s a chance of a goblin lord or even a goblin king being born, the highest ranking goblin in existence, once that happens it’s designated as a calamity grade threat wherein if they haven’t already acted, the nearby countries, empires, and even other monster tribes attack with a vengeance before the goblin king can truly take control. The goblin king himself is only a B-rank level monster but will always be surrounded by thousands upon thousands of goblins each receiving high level buffs from the king.

In one of the history books there was a case where a goblin king came into existence very early on, without the nearby kingdoms realising. After a couple years of him becoming fully grown, his horde surpassed one million and it descended upon the continent, destroying, and pillaging countless territories, and capturing tens of thousands of women to become breeders for the next generation. This happened centuries ago on the eastern continent and thankfully thanks to the combined efforts of the more powerful empires and a certain monster the goblin king and his horde were eradicated but the damage had already been done. That period was known as the green tide and changed how the world, the east in particular looked at goblins. Thus, the permanent kill quest came about, to always keep their numbers low.

Of course, Frost didn’t believe that Gobuske was at that level- not yet anyway- but he understood the threat he could pose in the future even if he was a goblin.

“In regards to the bunkers the dwarves were primarily focused on supplying the new weapons, so they’ve only managed to fully outfit the second section. Over twenty fortified glades now exist throughout the winter forest, though not to the size and extent of this place, they will serve as prime defence outposts, allowing the monsters to retreat to safety and or fight a prolonged battle.” Findlay then showed Frost on the dungeon map where each of the outposts were positioned. “Unfortunately, we don’t have much in the terms of ranged attacks otherwise they’d become far more than just defensive outposts.” Findlay frowned; he had many ideas in regards to using ranged firepower. If the outposts had a group of ranged attackers whether that be archers or magic users the outposts would become akin to watchtowers that could prevent groups from reaching the next section, very useful for a war such as this, wherein large numbers would be attacking.

At the moment they only had 10 monsters that could use ranged attacks (not including Findlay) the ice flans with their magic and the frost goblin archers, not enough to outfit all the outposts.