Dungeon Overlord: My First SSS Gacha Summon Was a Yandere

Back at the dungeon, setting aside its management and everything of that nature, matters we shall return to soon enough, something unexpected had been unfolding over these past few days, something every bit as serious as the taking of Evangel.

The girls, namely Laïa, Naïa, Mei, Kaguya and Freya, had just come out of the bath, already in fresh clothes, each in a different silk nightdress for a change.

Those baths had become something of an institution over the past few days, and that had less to do with hygiene than with the fact that Laïa had declared one morning that washing alone was sad, which had been enough to drag everyone else into it without anyone finding a decent argument against it.

Freya was already looking forward to bringing back more fabrics and all sorts of things from Evangel to improve the dungeon and make it considerably more livable for everyone. Rugs, more cushions, perhaps even actual mirrors, because fixing her hair in the reflection of a juice pitcher was starting to reach its limits.

Which just goes to show I was right not to simply raze the city~

But let’s get back to the conversation that would set everything in motion.

The room had been entirely rearranged for evenings like this one, with wide silk-covered couches arranged in a half-circle, cushions piled up here and there by Laïa over the days, and dimmed lanterns leaving the place in a low, warm light.

The floor was strewn with towels nobody had picked up, a basin of lukewarm water still sat in one corner, and the air carried that mix of steam and soap that clung to the walls long after everyone had left.

Kaguya was sprawled across all of it in the most relaxed position imaginable, one leg tucked under her and the other hanging over the armrest, her cup of milk held carelessly by the stem between two fingers, her tail thumping lazily against the fabric of the couch at regular intervals. Naïa sat beside her, infinitely more dignified, back straight and her own cup resting on her palm. As for Laïa, she was lying on her stomach, feet swinging slowly above her, her gaze visibly somewhere else entirely.

Freya, meanwhile, held the hair dryer in one hand while the other ran gently through Mei’s hair, the giant sitting cross-legged just in front of the couch.

It had to be said that the famous Gacha drop had made considerably more of an impression than expected. Naïa already couldn’t do without it, and even if she would never admit it out loud, Freya could see it perfectly well, the young woman absolutely adored this magical object she nonetheless couldn’t activate herself. Laïa, for her part, had immediately wanted to point it at every single thing lying around the room, and Kaguya had spent a long while making certain it wasn’t a weapon, before seeming faintly disappointed to learn that it wasn’t.

Freya took her time, separating the strands one by one, working up to the roots before slowly coming back down to the ends, and the giant, who had gone stiff as a plank for the first few minutes, had eventually relaxed completely, to the point of half closing her eyes.

"You have such beautiful hair, Mei~"

"Th-thank you, madam."

"And relax a little, I’m not going to hurt you."

"Y-yes... sorry..."

"You don’t need to apologize either."

"Sor—"

Mei stopped dead as she realized what she’d been about to do, and Freya felt her tense for a second before her breathing settled again, which made her smile without saying anything about it.

Of course, she hadn’t lost her way of speaking overnight, but she had been speaking up more and more on her own lately, and Freya had been making far more time for her as well as for the others, exactly like the moment they were sharing right now.

"Turn your head a little, I haven’t finished at the back."

Mei obeyed without argument, and Freya lifted the strands underneath with her fingertips, letting the warm air reach the nape of her neck, which drew a thoroughly involuntary sigh out of the giant that she regretted immediately.

"Aaah, you see, you’re starting to enjoy it~"

"I-I didn’t say anything!"

"You didn’t need to say it."

Once she was finished, she set the hair dryer down on the low table, picked up her own cup of milk, crossed her legs with the most aristocratic bearing she could manage, and took a sip while laughing to herself.

"These girls’ evenings are rather lovely lately~"

"I quite agree, madam~!" Naïa replied, taking a sip of her own.

"Honestly, Naïa, we’re among girls, you can call me Freya, haha."

Naïa set her cup down on the table, straightened by another centimeter, and answered with the utmost seriousness.

"But we are always among girls, madam."

"All the more reason!"

"That does not strike me as a valid argument."

"That’s because you don’t want it to be one."

Naïa picked her cup back up, brought it to her lips without drinking any of it, then set it down again, which for her constituted the closest thing to conceding defeat that she was willing to grant anyone. Then, not wanting to pursue a discussion for which she had absolutely nothing further to offer, she decided to change the subject entirely.

"Ah, speaking of which, how did the hunt go today?"

Laïa said nothing, and her legs stopped swinging all at once.

Hm. Odd.

The silence lasted long enough that even Kaguya looked up from her cup, without in the least understanding why she was doing so.

It was Mei who spoke up then.

"Everything w-was..."

She seemed to hesitate, her eyes drifting toward Laïa for a moment before she made up her mind to continue.

"...just like usual!"

Naïa picked up her cup, took exactly one sip, then set it down.

"Hmm... I see... odd..."

Freya, understanding perfectly well where all of this was heading, decided to dive straight in.

"I find it odd too. Don’t you, Kaguya?"

Laïa seemed startled by all this and turned toward the dragon, who took a perfectly serious moment to consider it, finger against her lip and eyes on the ceiling, before declaring:

"If big sister says it’s odd, then it’s odd!"

Yay~~ We can always count on you, Kaguya~~!

Naïa then picked up her cup, set it right back down without touching it, and turned toward Freya with the expression she always wore when she knew exactly what she was doing.

"But madam?"

"Yes?"

"What would you think if your friend asked you to lie for her own good, at your expense and against what you yourself felt?"

Mei immediately shrank in on herself, caught between two fires she had done absolutely nothing to light, while Laïa pushed herself up on her elbows and shot her sister a withering glare.

Freya slowly turned her cup of milk, took an unhurried sip under everyone’s gaze, then leaned forward and lowered her voice almost to a whisper.

"I think that friend shouldn’t take advantage of the other’s kindness, and that she would be a very, very, very poor friend for doing so."

Laïa opened her mouth, closed it, opened it again, visibly hunted for something to say, found absolutely nothing, and ended up looking at Mei, who was staring resolutely into the bottom of her cup.

"FINE!"

She shot to her feet, cup in hand, and downed it in one go like a whisky meant to carry her through whatever came next, before slamming it back onto the table with far too much force.

Naïa set hers down right beside it, with precisely the opposite intent.

"You win! I’ll tell you everything!"

Kaguya was on her feet within the second with a thoroughly enthusiastic "Yay~!", without the faintest idea what any of this was about.

I’m finding it harder and harder to keep up with that one...

But Laïa paid it no mind, fully determined to get it all out in one breath.

"When we were in the forest, I took the chance to do some training! And then a young iron bear appeared, and... and I challenged it for my training!"

Freya turned her head toward Mei as if to check, and the giant nodded in response.

"And we ended in... a draw! There! Are you happy now?"

Naïa had only just picked her cup back up. She set it down.

"Hmm... Madam, it rather sounds like—"

"FINE, ALL RIGHT! I lost! Yes, I lost! And so what? It was an iron bear, after all! That’s normal, isn’t it?"

The others looked at her in silence while she announced this as though it were the single greatest tragedy in the history of this world.

"Tell me it’s normal!"

"It’s perfectly normal," Naïa replied in a tone that carried no conviction whatsoever, reaching for her cup.

"You’re only saying that to make me feel better!"

She set it down without having lifted it at all.

"Obviously I’m saying it to make you feel better."

"NAÏAAA!"

She went over to comfort her anyway, taking her by the shoulders with that blend of exasperation and tenderness that defined her, while Kaguya, absolutely convinced she was helping, knelt down in front of them doing a very serious impression of a bear, both hands raised and fingers curled, producing a growl that resembled nothing anyone had ever heard.

"GRAAAOU!"

"That’s not the sound it made at all!"

"Really?"

"Not at all!"

"Then how did it go?"

And Laïa, entirely forgetting she was supposed to be on the verge of tears, started doing her own bear impression to correct the dragon, which set off a heated debate between the two of them over the precise sound made by a juvenile iron bear.

Naïa, left alone in the middle of the couch, contemplated the scene for a moment, then finally retrieved her cup and managed, for the first time that evening, to drink an entire mouthful.

Mei, for her part, was watching all of it while holding hers in both hands, a wide smile on her face, and had even started humming softly along with the rhythm of the other two’s growling.

I’m so happy to see her like this.

Freya leaned toward her then, taking care to make her presence known before sitting down beside her and murmuring in her ear.

"The bear, did you kill it?"

"Uh... no. I didn’t think it was worth it... it wasn’t after Laïa’s life... it only seemed to be playing."

"It was playing?"

"Yes... it kept nudging her with its head, mostly. And when she fell, it stopped and looked at her for a while before heading back into the trees."

So just a young bear that wanted to play?

"Good, good, good. You did exactly the right thing."

Mei looked up at her with a smile, visibly relieved to have made the right call.

Freya then got to her feet all at once and clapped her hands.

CLAP—

Everyone stopped dead, including the two bear impersonators in the middle of the room.

Naïa, who had just brought her cup to her lips, set it down.

"Girls! I’ve had an idea! From this moment on, Operation Revenge begins! Operation Create the Dragon Warrior!"

"That’s me! That’s me! That’s me!" Kaguya announced, bouncing on all fours around Freya.

Damn it...

"Good mission, Kaguya!" Freya replied, giving her a thumbs up.

She had learned a long time ago how to manage the dragon, and it consisted more or less of answering at random.

"Yay~!" the other said, bouncing harder still.

"Now, second mission! Hmmm... The Dungeon Warrior!"

Laïa, finally understanding where Freya was going with this, lifted her head with shining eyes.

"We’re going to train Laïa until she’s strong enough to take her revenge!"

A silence, then Laïa sprang to her feet, knocking over two cushions in the process.

"REALLY?!"

"Really."

"Y-you’ll handle my training yourself?"

"Myself, yes!"

"Wooow!"

"But be warned, it’ll be far harder than you think!"

"GOOD MISSION!" Kaguya repeated, now standing on the couch.

"Get down from there," Naïa sighed, setting down her cup without turning around.

"But I’m taking part!"

"You can take part by getting down."

"Aaah..."

She got down, dragging her feet just enough to make it abundantly clear to everyone that it was against her will, while Laïa was already spinning around listing out loud everything she was going to learn to do, most of which was entirely impossible.

Naïa contemplated her full cup, contemplated it a moment longer, then gave up for good and left it on the table.

Mei, meanwhile, leaned discreetly toward Freya with a worried look.

"Madam... are you really sure about this?"

Freya took one last sip of milk before setting her cup down, a smile on her lips.

"No. But look at her."

Mei looked.

And Laïa, in the middle of the room, was very seriously explaining to a dragon demigoddess how she intended to go about defeating a bear.

Freya leaned toward Mei then and whispered in her ear.

"Besides, don’t worry, on top of everything else, I’ve seen plenty of films about this sort of thing!"

And that was how the dungeon’s overarching mission began, namely training Laïa.