The Hero Became a Succubus, and the Only Way to Level is to… What?!

Kanae couldn't believe how expansive Necro Lord Tomb #3 turned out to be. The corridors they wandered through must span many kilometers, maybe even more. Thored led the way, navigating through the criss-crossing underbelly of his own tomb. They had passed by many doors, some of which were an entire dungeon behind it. Unfortunately, the Necro Lord was telling the truth about his lack of 'on-field experience'. He had almost no clue where most things were.

Through one door, Necro Lord Thored thought it would lead them to Arenade, Kara, and Seven. Instead, a giant magma wyrm was waiting for them on the other side. Suffice to say, he promptly slammed the door shut on it.

In another, water flooded out from the door because Thored had forgotten he terraformed that area into an underwater dungeon biome. It took all their might to push the door closed before they drowned.

"We're lost, aren't we?" Kanae asked, still dripping wet from earlier.

"No, we're not!" Thored snapped back before returning his attention to the frayed map in his hands. "Your busty high elf companion entered the desert biome. It should be farther down this corridor."

Except there were countless doors. Each of them was a dungeon? This place was leagues bigger than the past two Necro Lord Tombs that Kanae had ventured into before.

Thored eventually stopped in front of another door. His gaze alternated from the map to the top of the doorframe repeatedly, where a signpost denoted a dungeon number. This one was '54'. He grabbed the knob and shot Kanae a look. She nodded to give him the go ahead, and they steeled themselves for whatever might be on the other side. After taking a deep breath, Thored turned the knob and pushed the door open.

The two expected another monster to jump out at them. Or if not a monster, then some environmental hazard that Thored had forgotten about behind this dungeon. Instead, a dry heat began to wick the moisture off their soaked clothes and hair. A desert!

Sand dunes stretched across the landscape as far as their eyes could see. Above, a glowing silver moon shined down on them. Hundreds of thousands of stars dotted the curtain of night despite being deep underground.

"See? I knew where I was going." Thored puffed out his chest.

"It only took like thirty wrong doors, almost drowning, and you nearly losing your hand before we found it." Kanae rolled her eyes.

"Success is a path paved in failures, alright? I'll not have you mock me! I am a genius. An artificer. I am Necro Lord Thored!" he exclaimed into the desert.

Kanae ignored his ego-stroking spiel and flew up. The desert was a lot larger than it appeared. She spotted a tall obelisk jutting out of an oasis in the distance. If Arenade was still here, that comfort-seeking elf must be lounging in the water.

"There's an oasis ahead!" Kanae informed Thored on her way back down, but the beastman looked distracted. "Hello? Earth to Necro Lord!"

"Your three companions aren't the only ones here. Look." Thored pointed ahead to another sand dune.

Kanae followed his finger and also noticed the numerous tracks on the ground. They were barely visible. Another hour, and the sands would have made it seemed like no one had passed through here before.

Panicked that the Ortesian group had caught up to Arenade, Kanae unfurled her wings and flew for the oasis. Thored didn't have a chance to get a word in before she was long gone, torpedoing through the desert. She came to an abrupt stop at the pool of water in search of anyone.

Green vegetation surrounded the oasis. Only a handful of trees, grown together in a cluster, towered over the water from the opposite side. The sandstone obelisk was maybe fifteen feet tall. Animal symbols marked the length of the segmented monument. One was the face of a jackal and another of a serpentine creature was lit up. The rest weren't glowing.

"You're too fast on wings… Please, don't take off like that. We need to stick together! Did you… find them?" Thored panted as he caught up.

"No, but—" Kanae flew around the other side of the obelisk and gasped.

Arenade was unconscious, sitting with her back to the stone. She was also holding Kara, the Rookie beastman adventurer woman, tightly to her chest.

"Arenade!" Kanae descended to drag them both out of the water.

They were passed out and unresponsive. Their vitals were perfectly fine.

"Good gods! Her breasts are larger in person!" Thored exclaimed.

"I know, right? I get to bury my face in— wait! Now isn't the time to admire her tits!" Kanae fished out a healing potion and fed it to the high elf.

Arenade's eyelids fluttered, then snapped wide open.

"Where are those bastards?!" Arenade sprung upright in a fury, slamming her and Kanae's foreheads together.

Both of them reeled back and rolled on the sand in agony. A big bump bulged on each of their foreheads.

"Ow… For how hollow your head is… that really hurt…" Kanae groaned.

"Ugh. You got some nerve disappearing on us like that, buster! Where in the three hells have you been all this time?" Arenade asked, healing away her own lump.

"I was with Necro Lord Thored." She gestured behind the priest.

When Arenade turned her head, she and Thored exchanged glances. The beastman bowed.

"That's the Necro Lord?" Arenade squinted at him.

"Yeah, why?" Kanae nodded.

"Greetings and salutations, high elf! I am—"

"SACRED EXORCISM!" She beamed him down with a massive blast of divine energy from her Halo of Holy Radiance.

Taken by surprise with no chance to react, the beam slammed into and engulfed Thored whole. He howled painfully into the night. The blood drained from Kanae's face.

"ARENADE, WAIT! HE'S NOT AN ENEMY! THORED IS AN ALLY!" Kanae grabbed hold of her from behind in an attempt to redirect the spell elsewhere.

As soon as the beam subsided, Thored was a smoking mess on the ground.

"Necro Lord Thored… at your service…" Thored croaked breathlessly to finish his introduction. "Thank goodness… I'm not undead… but that stung… a lot."

"Oh, my god. You almost killed him! What was that for?" Kanae yelled at her wife.

"Listen, the last two Necro Lords weren't exactly the paragons of hospitality! I wasn't going to take any chances. More importantly, Seven! Where is he?" She found Kara lying on the ground instead and cradled her, then slowly administered healing magic.

Kanae wanted to tell Arenade not to heal the feline woman, having recalled the fight falling out between Renya and Theena. Instead, she explained everything that had happened so far. In return, Arenade recounted what they had been going through.

After being split up, Arenade, Kara, and Seven pressed on, hoping to reunite with the others farther inside the tomb. They apparently did hear a fight on the upper floors of the garrison ruins, and Kanae explained that it was due to their meddling by dropping a hellduke troll on the Ortesians. The trio decided not to intervene in whatever was going on, then pressed on into the desert in search of the relic.

They agreed to stop and rest at the oasis until the Ortesian group came across them. A fight broke out. Arenade and two Rookies adventurers alone were no match against a disciplined military group. For whatever reasons though, the Ortesians only took Seven captive after defeating Arenade and Kara, leaving them for dead in the oasis.

What was Seven any good to them? He was just a Rookie adventurer.

"Was Seven helping the Ortesians?" Kanae asked.

"What? No. He was fighting about as hard as we were when those empire bastards showed up!" Arenade explained.

"Nnh… Where am… Seven!" Kara came to consciousness with a start.

It took Kanae and Arenade reassuring the terrified adventurer before she calmed down. They, Thored included after he recovered enough to join, gathered up to confront Kara over Theena's betrayal.

"Theena did that?" Kara gasped in genuine surprise. "I… I really didn't know. Nothing about her stuck out to me as suspicious. Theena has always taken care of us, like splitting her rations with us… taking the entire night shift whenever we were out in the dark. Sometimes, I think she could become a Seasoned if Seven and I weren't holding her back… if she just joined another group instead.

"It's a long shot, but do you maybe know who Theena's handler is?" Kanae asked.

"No… I'm sorry…" She cast her gaze to the sandy ground.

"What about Seven? Think he might be in cahoots with Theena?" Arenade pressed the girl.

Kara shook her head and frowned.

"One thing is for sure," Thored began, "Those Ortesians should be headed towards the pyramid. That is where the dungeon boss is located, and behind it is the way to the next dungeon. From there, it isn't far from the final section of the tomb where… that thing makes its lair…"

"Then we know where we need to go. Before that though, is that supposed to mean anything?" Arenade thumbed over her shoulder to the obelisk.

"Hmm. I feel like I should… but I don't remember," he grumbled.

The Halo of Holy Radiance charged up with energy.

"What do you mean you don't remember?!" Arenade yelled.

"Please, don't! That's a very potent and agonizing spell you have there!" Thored flinched, putting his staff between them as if it would do anything.

Kanae corralled them onwards to the pyramid.

On the way there, Kara continued throwing uneasy looks at Thored.

"Uhm, Kanae?" Kara whispered quietly. "Who is that beastman? Is he one of your adventurer friends?"

"Oh, that's… Y-Yeah… Thored is my friend," Kanae affirmed, realizing that it would be a bad idea to reveal he was this tomb's Necro Lord.

Several mountain-sized sand dunes later, and they reached the pyramid. It was the only one of its kind in the vast desert. This one reminded Kanae of the pyramids she remembered back on Earth, in a country called Egypt. Enormous sandstone blocks stacked on top of each other and became narrower towards the top. The entire building appeared completely sealed off, with the exception of an opening at the very base which led into its depths.

Kanae and Arenade took point. Thored came up right behind them, and Kara shored up the rear. As they approached the pyramid, something underneath their feet shifted. Sand cascaded down the dune. Everything around them started rumbling.

"Ah! I remember what the obelisk meant. That's a monster spawner!" Thored exclaimed.

"A monster what?" Kanae asked.

"A monster spawner. It automatically spawns monsters when their numbers have thinned out in the dungeon. Have you any idea how exhausting it is to spawn them manually? Across hundreds of dungeons?" He let out an exasperated groan.

"The obelisk had two monster symbols glowing. Something like a jackal, and a snake or worm. Should we be concerned?" Kara turned to them worriedly.

A gargantuan worm erupted from the ground, cresting through the sky. Its massive jaws, lined with countless rows of teeth, were snapped wide open and poised to chomp down on them.

"The answer is yes!" Arenade picked up Kara, granted herself wings with Holy Armament, and bolted away.

Kanae joined them in flying away, leaving Thored behind.

"Wait! I can't fly! What about—" Thored didn't finish his sentence on account of being eaten.

The sandworm tunneled underground again. They were able to trace where it was going by the sand it displaced, pushed up slightly in its path.

"Do we have to save him? Tell me we don't have to save him!" Arenade cried.

"Of course, we need to save him!" Kanae replied, eyes focused on the worm's path.

A bulb lit up. It hadn't been that long. Kanae still had the Dungeon Core Manipulation skill. She brushed a hand over her sigil to bring up the character screen. Would these options even work outside of the observation deck and away from the control panels?

Only one way to find out. Kanae needed Thored's help in obtaining the relic, and he was the best way through this tomb. She also wanted a taste of that cock of his again.

Kanae descended just enough to be within range of being caught by the sandworm when it jumps. She had her finger ready on the Remove option. The monster veered towards her, then blasted off from the surface. Its abyssal maw reminded her of that time she was eaten by a stone borer. Just as the worm was about to swallow her whole, she tapped Remove.

It vanished from sight.

"Holy crap. That actually worked?!" Kanae's relief only lasted for a moment.

"AAAAAHHHHHH!" Thored, carried by the momentum from the worm launching into the air, was on a crash course with her.

"Oh, shit." She was too late to dodge, and the Necro Lord smashed into her and knocked the lights out of both of them.

They came to consciousness beside each other on the surface. Arenade had a hand over each of their bodies, providing healing magic.

"Don't know what you did, but the sandworm is gone. We should hurry inside the pyramid before another shows up!" Arenade urged.

"Uuugh… My head is killing me. Ever since we've been acquainted, it's just one painful experience after another. Don't tell me this is normal for your merry band…" Thored sighed.

"Uhm. My adventures with Seven and Theena are usually painless," Kara added, gawking at them strangely.

Kanae and Arenade looked at each other and sweated bullets. They decided against giving any input on their own escapades. Once they were back on their feet, the four turned their attention to the stairs leading down into the pyramid.

At the bottom, a long hallway lit up by torches extended out of sight. Statues of beastmen humanoids stood on pedestals against the wall. They wielded sickles and daggers in each hand, arms crossed over their chest. Something about them looked familiar.

"Does anyone remember what the other monster on the obelisk was?" Kanae asked.

"Jackals, right?" Arenade answered promptly. "Those are canine-like monsters."

"Yeah, but… don't they look a bit like these statues?" She walked right up to one, only for the eyes to open.

Kanae panicked and staggered back into Arenade's arms. The many statues began to move, and as they did, the layer of stone, dust, and sand shook off to reveal fine obsidian fur underneath. The living humanoid jackals that snarled stepped off their pedestals and snarled.

"Allow me!" Thored was about to delete them with Dungeon Core Manipulation until Kanae stopped him.

"No, let me." Kanae exerted a Mass Charm on the bipedal jackal monsters, and their aggressive postures softened into a more obedient stance. "Now we outnumber the Ortesians."