The Lustful Villain: Every Milfs and Gilfs are Mine!-Chapter 141. Everyone Sees a Dungeon. I See a Controlled Environment for My Plan

Chapter 141: 141. Everyone Sees a Dungeon. I See a Controlled Environment for My Plan

The Thornmaze was an hour and forty minutes outside the city on horseback, which became two hours on foot for the members of the group who were covering the terrain at a pace that kept the non-mounted members from falling behind.

Rex walked beside Talyra, who spent most of the journey oscillating between talking about dungeon formation strategy and watching Diana, who was in Theo’s forward scout position about thirty meters ahead.

Talyra said, "She’s really good at what she does."

She observed Diana maneuvering through the terrain with the enthusiasm of someone who had been privy to a masterclass. "She’s picking her footing based on what the trail ahead is likely to look like, not just what it is right now."

Rex said, "You know a lot about archery technique," because it was easy for her to talk and keep him up-to-date.

Talyra said, "I know everything there is to know about archery technique," and she was right.

"It’s the only thing I’ve cared about since I was a child, and it’s my passion to become the greatest archer to rival Diana herself!"

"I got into everything else because archery demanded it, but archery is the thing." She paused. "Is that a weird thing to say...?"

"You’re probably going to think that I’m a weirdo who’s obsessed with archery."

"Nope." Rex said, "No at all."

"Well... most people think it’s strange." She said, "Like I should have other things to do other than talk about archery."

Rex said, "You have a deep interest in archery, which you know a lot about and excel at."

"That’s not strange, more like rare."

"And there’s no end if you keep listening to what other people say—just be who you really are." Rex said that with an intention to at least raise her desire level.

For a moment, Talyra was quiet and then giggled. "That’s a nicer way to say it than what I usually hear all the time..."

Rex didn’t say anything because he had learned a long time ago that the best way to follow up on saying something true about someone was to be quiet, which let them hear it again in their own head.

[TALYRA SKYDANCER: DESIRE LEVEL — 0/100 → 10/100]

"Heh... it’s starting now," he thought and kept going. ’The plan to steal and kill that asshole’s girls begins from this first step..."

Aisella stood opposite him. She was quieter than Talyra, which was normal for her, but she was paying attention in the way that he had come to expect from her in operational settings.

She was already doing diagnostic tests on the people around her without telling them. She was checking their posture, breathing, and other small signs of anxiety or fatigue that most people wouldn’t notice.

"I notice that you’re judging everyone," Rex said to her in a voice that only she could hear.

She looked at him. "I’m always judging everyone... it’s for their safety and my nature as an elf that’s sensitive to it."

"Is there anything that worries you right now?"

She gave it some thought. "Judging by their eyes, especially those eyebags... two people in Theo’s formation aren’t getting enough sleep."

"One person in the secondary Academy group has an old shoulder strain that hasn’t fully healed yet."

Rex asked. "How about me?"

Aisella takes a good long look at Rex while judging his whole body. "Well... you’re fine, and your body is..." She stopped all of a sudden.

"Is what?" Rex asked.

"Unusually stable," Aisella said, and there was something in her voice that made it sound like a healer who had just seen a reading that didn’t match any of the ones she had observed before.

"Your baseline vital signs are almost perfectly even... I’ve done passives on many people, and I’ve never seen anyone register that cleanly."

Rex’s face stayed blank. "Maybe I just sleep well."

Aisella looked at him like someone who had accepted an answer that wasn’t complete and decided that pushing it was not the right thing to do yet.

"Yeah, it could be."

[AISELLA MOONBLOOM: DESIRE LEVEL — 0/100 → 12/100]

"That’s interesting," Rex thought. "She probably noticed the change of my body because of the regeneration baseline."

"It’s probably not what she was expecting, but it didn’t scare her either... perfect."

At the bottom of a rocky slope, there was a wide, jagged opening in the hillside that looked less like a building and more like the earth had just stopped at a certain point and left a hole.

The stone around it had been used and damaged for years, so it was smooth in some places. The temperature dropped noticeably within five meters of the mouth.

Elizabeth looked over the group one last time against the formation list and then nodded.

"Standard entry protocol," she said. "Lead formation goes first. Five-second intervals. No crowding the entrance."

Theo went first, and Diana was two steps behind him on the right. The rest of his formation fell into place with the ease of people who had done this before.

Apollo’s group went second. Rex watched Kaelira take her place on Apollo’s left flank with the same unwavering focus she always brought to her job. Then they went through the door, and the dungeon swallowed them.

Rex’s group was the third to go.

The moment they crossed the threshold, the world changed.

The Thornmaze was exactly what it sounded like. The first level opened up right after the entrance into a big, low-ceilinged room that wasn’t quite a cave or a tunnel.

It was more like the ground had buckled in a lot of different directions, leaving behind a complicated network of passages and open chambers. The bioluminescent fungi growing in groups of blue and pale green on the walls served as the light sources.

They gave off just enough light to help people find their way without letting them see very far ahead.

’Holy shit... now that I can feel the nuance of a real fantasy world here.’

And after a small exploration, the monsters came in four minutes.

Rex had been quietly mapping the side passages since they arrived, and the newcomers looked like they already knew the group. There were goblins and wolves together, which was strange for natural monster populations but showed organized behavior that Elizabeth had pointed out in her briefing.

The combat that followed was not chaotic.

Rex immediately noticed this difference because most people anticipated and experienced chaos during dungeon combat. But this group wasn’t like most people.

Theo’s formation at the front took in the first wave with the same level of coordination and efficiency as experienced fighters working in their usual roles. Diana’s arrows were hitting runners on the sides before they could get to the main formation.

Each shot was placed exactly how Talyra had been describing for most of the journey, not where the targets were but where they were going to be.

Apollo’s group was the hammer. Kaelira went in first, and seeing her in actual combat was a different experience from seeing her in a classroom.

The Inferno Berserker class lived up to its name; she burned, and what she burned didn’t recover, and she moved through the press of bodies with the straightforward violence of someone who had been trained to go straight through problems rather than around them.

’I fucking knew it... she’s one strong target that I need to get rid of completely.’

’Trying to seduce her won’t do any good either...’

Her expression in combat was completely different from her classroom affect. There was no guardedness, no controlled jealousy management, just focus and heat and the bright, unambiguous satisfaction of a fighter who loved the thing they were built for.

Rex was registering all of these emotions while simultaneously keeping his own group functional.