Kabru (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
peoplepleaser) wrote2025-12-06 06:05 pm
peoplepleaser) wrote2025-12-06 06:05 pm
all the canon history that the wiki doesn't cover
Fourth Floor Arc
Kabru and his party are found by corpse retrievers (men whose job is to find the dead bodies of adventurers in the dungeon and revive them for a fee). The corpse retrievers pretend to have revived them to earn a higher fee, although they've only healed them from paralysis caused by the treasure insects. Kuro, a kobold in Kabru's party, sniffs out that there was another party that stopped by, and they assume their treasure was stolen and decide to try and go after the culprits despite being unfamiliar with the fourth floor.
Kabru's party is ambushed by fishmen and wiped out. Laios' party encounters their bodies again, drags them to shore so their bodies aren't lost when their water-walk spell wears off, and gathers up the food supplies that had escaped one of their packs to eat.
Fifth Floor Arc
Kabru and his party are revived by the Tansus, a researching gnome couple. Kabru is warned that they didn't have enough of their own blood left to be revived, so it had to be augmented with goat blood, and that they should head back into town. A former member of Laios' party, a dwarf woman named Namari, is traveling with the Tansus. Kuro smells that it was the same group as before, but as they don't have any food and could be in serious danger if they need to be revived again, Kabru decides they need to head back.
Shortly after making this decision and heading out, a fog rolls over the water, and Kabru is once again surrounded by fishmen. He quickly determines from the way they react and their movements as they fight that they are not actually fishmen-- they are his own party members under an illusion spell. He quickly identifies and peacefully takes out his own party members, then takes out their attackers and rushes for the caster. The spell is dropped, and the corpse retrievers from the previous floor are revealed and "surrender". Kabru assesses that they were followed by them in order to get more money, but lost out on their fee when the Tansus revived them instead and resorted to the illusion magic to get them to kill each other. Kabru threatens to report them to the Island Lord, and the leader of the corpse retrievers offers to make him a deal. They will testify that two of their companions were killed by fishmen to allow Kabru's party to collect on the fee for retrieving them, and take 30% of the cut.
Kabru pretends to agree, but then single-handedly wipes out the entire corpse retriever group, stating that if people with such corrupt motives keep working in the dungeon, all the decent people will abandon the Island, which is why he must deliver such a harsh judgement. If the population of adventurers drops too much, the monster population will not be kept in check and will overflow and kill everyone in town, just as what happened in Utaya. He and his party dump their bodies into the water, intending them to not be found and revived. They take the corpse retrievers' rations, though Kabru insists they dump their money into the water as well to avoid becoming thieves.
Over their meal, they talk about the group that "stole" their treasure and food, and from the racial component of the group (a tallman, an elf, a dwarf, and a half-foot), Rin's assertion that the person who put the warding spell on them was a magic school student, as well as seeing Namari earlier, Kabru accurately deduces their identities as a fraction of the Touden party (plus a new dwarf) making a desperate charge into the dungeon to rescue one of the Touden siblings. He does this despite never directly speaking to either of the Touden siblings.
Kabru reveals he's been looking at the Toudens for a while, as their party has been doing very well and he wanted to find out why and assess whether they would be a good fit for conquering the dungeon. As they're not very interested or observant of people, he doesn't think they would make good rulers.
Kabru's party again sets out to return to the surface, and are attacked by bladefish that are escaping from a gigantic sea serpant. Kabru freezes up in fear but is saved by Toshiro's party (Toshiro being a former member of Laios' party). To confirm his suspicions, Kabru asks if Toshiro is looking for a woman (referencing Laios' missing sister), and offers his assistance in helping to find her. Rather than continue to the surface, his party is dragged deeper into the dungeon because Kabru really wants to meet Laios.
Kabru and Toshiro's group meets up with Laios' group. Rin asks Kabru what they're going to do about the thieves and Kabru tells her they will do nothing. He just wanted to meet them, and they didn't appear uneasy when they saw them, so he thinks they were probably wrong about the treasure in some way.
When Laios offers to tell Toshiro how they defeated the dragon and what happened to Falin while Toshiro's party makes a meal for everyone, Kabru offers to assist him in carrying the exhausted Toshiro over to a quiet spot so that he can listen in to what Laios tells him. Laios mentions they've been eating monsters to survive, and Kabru feigns interest in this though he is actually disgusted at the idea. Kabru agrees to step away from the conversation when asked, but rushes back in with some members of Toshiro's party when a fight breaks out between Toshiro and Laios over how Falin was resurrected. This was done using monster flesh and black magic. Kabru defuses the fight by pointing out to Toshiro that he would have done the same in Laios' position.
Any further argument is derailed by a harpy attack, and then the reveal of Chimera Falin, who is being controlled by the Lord of the dungeon and ruthlessly attacking the group. Laios hesitates and Toshiro orders his group to "restrain" her without hurting her, while Kabru is purely pragmatic; it's not Falin anymore, it's a monster. Chimera Falin brutally tears through the group, killing and severely injuring several members of Kabru and Toshiro's parties.
When Laios hesitates because Falin calls out his name as a distraction, Kabru strikes, having climbed up onto her back. He slits the throat of her human half, stabbing her in the heart, lungs and kidneys. She throws him on the ground, and Laios attempts to get him to safety but Kabru is snatched again by Falin and crushed to death. While his attack did not kill her, it did cause her to leave the battle, allowing everyone to regroup and revive those who had fallen.
Kabru is revived by his party member Holm and witnesses another fight between Toshiro and Laios over what to do with Marcille, whose resurrection method seems to be why Falin is in her current state. Everyone is located, revived, and healed.
While discussing Kabru's attack on Falin and how much information it gave Laios on how her monsterous body works, Kabru's contemplations on what Laios might do if he does conquer the dungeon are interrupted by Laios offering to make him some food. Given Kabru's seeming interest in monster food, Laios makes him a rolled harpy omelette. The idea of actually eating monster food is enough for Kabru to have a flashback of what happened in Utaya, and he has an intrusive thought about killing Laios so that he doesn't have to eat it, but he does so anyway. Kabru's and Toshiro's parties return to the surface through a teleportation scroll that Toshiro's party had.
Sixth Floor Arc
Back on the surface, Kabru agrees to corroborate Toshiro's testimony to the Island Lord about Chimera Falin, leaving out any mention of Laios' group. A huge ship is spotted coming to the Island, and Kabru immediately identifies it as a Canary ship. The Canaries are an elite elven task force for conquering dungeons-- Kabru knows that if they take over the dungeon, he will never be able to achieve his goal. Although the Island is run by a tallman, they have switched to coercive tactics to try and get him to hand over control. Kabru and Toshiro rush to the Island Lord's manor to try and warn him and handle the situation, but a group of elves have already beaten them there.
Kabru bursts into the meeting anyway, with his report for the Island Lord about Chimera Falin. It only seems to make the situation worse, however, allowing them to put more pressure on the Lord to hand over control of the dungeon, which is starting to grow more dangerous. Kabru leverages his background, both the tragedy of Utaya as well as his adoption by the former Canary Vice-Captain Milsiril, as a means to get them to listen to him long enough to try and convince them to allow him to handle evacuating the dungeon's upper levels so they can seal the dungeon. Mithrun, the Captain of the Canaries, agrees to his plan for now but tells him he suspects he is plotting something and that he will accompany him.
First Floor Interlude Arc
Kabru returns to the first floor of the dungeon, which is booming with activity due to treasure once again being found on earlier floors-- this again echoes what happened in Utaya shortly before the dungeon broke open. Kabru, Mithrun and Cithis (a Canary) go to meet Kabru's contact, the dwarf who controls the underbelly and all crime on the Island. Because he has greater influence than the Island Lord and cannot easily be dispatched, Kabru has instead cultivated a relationship with him and intends to use it to ask him to empty out the dungeon.
While the underlord of the Island is welcoming to Kabru, when he begs the man to assist them in evacuating the dungeon, it becomes clear that greed stoked by the dungeon has overtaken him. His men capture and threaten the three of them. Mithrun uses his teleportation magic to escape and deal with the group. The remaining Canary team has been stoking greed and desire in the dungeon by frivolously spending money on the first floor on Mithrun's orders; this both speeds up the growth of the dungeon and hopefully gets people to evacuate to save their own lives.
A panicked crowd rushes for the exit as monsters start to gather, including giant walking mushrooms emitting spores that daze whoever inhales them. While the elves and Kabru are kept safe behind a barrier, Kabru identifies someone who has not breathed in the spores just by looking at him and pulls him into the barrier. When it becomes clear that the Dungeon Lord is nearby to control the giant mushrooms, Mithrun asks Kabru to find him in the crowd, and he does, spotting Thistle.
Chimera Falin breaks through to rescue Thistle, but the mana is too thin on the first floor for her to fight very effectively. Kabru very seriously considers whether the best option to save the Island is to let the elves handle things, even if it means the people involved with Falin will be taken by the elves, and they'll never learn the truth about what happened. He nearly accepts it as a necessary cost for avoiding another Utaya, but instead tackles Mithrun before he can deliver a killing blow to Falin and demanding answers on everything the elves are keeping secret about dungeons. This allows Thistle to escape by making the floor crumble under them. Placing his hopes of the dungeon being conquered by a member of the short-lived races in Laios' hands, Kabru refuses to let go of Mithrun and they both fall through the crumbling floor, with him expecting that they both will die.
Dwarf City Ruins Arc
Kabru wakes up in a pile of rubble in the dungeon. Expecting a fight, he is surprised when Mithrun acts like nothing happened between them. He attempts to assess Mithrun and what he's thinking and wants from him. An encounter with a shapeshifter (a monster that creates illusory duplicates of a person based on the memories and impressions of the people around them) reveals that Mithrun does not care about him at all and has no ulterior motives towards him. This tells him there's no point in being on edge and paranoid about what Mithrun will do.
They find Mithrun's contact fairy (basically a living magical communication device), which was partially eaten by the shapeshifter but is able to put them in contact with Mithrun's party long enough for them to plan out how to find Mithrun, and estimate it will take about a week to do so. Cithis "asks" him to look after Mithrun's needs for that time and make sure he eats three meals a day, and threatens that if anything happens to him, they'll "entertain" themselves with Kabru's companions.
With no supplies, Kabru is forced to cook the small walking mushroom that had been caught on his leg from the earlier fight. Kabru nods off while Mithrun explains how he used his teleportation magic to keep them from dying in the fall, and is woken up from a nightmare by Mithrun slapping him in the face. They find the packs Laios' party lost in their original fight with the dragon, and Mithrun collapses. Kabru finds somewhere safe and warm, with a fountain of clean water, and when he remarks on the convenience of it, Mithrun tells him it was the dungeon responding to his wishes, and to be careful not to wish often.
Kabru assesses that Mithrun is suffering from mana exhaustion, and when he asks Mithrun to explain why he needs to be looked after so intensely, Mithrun explains that he used to be the Lord of a Dungeon. Very long, convoluted story short, Mithrun (and all Dungeon Lords) was tricked by a demon who fulfills the wishes of humans in order to devour their desires. Nearly all of Mithrun's desires were devoured, save for his desire to get revenge on the demon, and so he is unable to feel when he is hungry, tired, or has used too much of his mana. When he states he is unable to get to sleep without a potion or spell, Kabru insists they try just making him relaxed and comfortable, and as he rubs Mithrun's feet to help loosen his stiff muscles, the elf nods off.
Kabru arranges Mithrun's overly complicated backstory into a simpler version he can explain to Laios, and inadvertantly reveals to Mithrun that he is doing so, who accurately guesses that it's because he's the one closest to capturing the dungeon. When Kabru tells him about Laios, Mithrun says he should be killed before capturing it, as someone who loves monsters cannot be allowed to gain the powers of a Dungeon Lord. He explains all the knowledge about demons and dungeons that was kept secret, as he has no desire to maintain that secrecy. Utaya was a near-apocalyptic event, with the demon almost breaking free to the surface. If it manages to break free, it won't just be everyone on the Island that dies, but the entire world will be in peril.
Kabru continues to tend to Mithrun's needs, and Mithrun keeps them safe from any monsters they encounter while they wait for the Canaries to meet up with them. In his attempt to make something tasty for Mithrun to eat, Kabru tries to recreate a lamb stew from his childhood with a barometz. Mithrun saves them from a hippogriff, and during that encounter, they step into a ring of changeling mushrooms, which causes Kabru to wake up in an elven body and Mithrun a tallman one. The day after they wash off the spores and return to their normal bodies, one of the Cananry's familiars catches up with them with a portal scroll.
They try to bring Mithrun back through the portal, but Kabru gets clued in to Laios being nearby and Mithrun agrees to go with him to speak with Laios.
Lunatic Magician's House Arc
The Canaries, with Kabru as a captive, are trying to find Laios to stop him from becoming the new Dungeon Lord. Kabru continues to look after Mithrun's needs, partially because the Canaries continue to shove the responsibility onto him.
New Dungeon Lord Arc
The Canaries find Laios' party at Thistle's home and send Kabru in to speak to him first. In the brief moment that Kabru is not under observation via Familiar, he warns Laios about the Canaries, and to be very careful about what he says to them.
While Laios' party and the Canaries discuss Chimera Falin (who was drugged and then smothered by Laios' group as part of their plan to return her to her human form) and the Dungeon Lord, Mithrun goes missing; Laios' group serves a meal to attempt to distract the Canaries, and Kabru plays into it, willingly eating more monster food.
When Cithis pushes to interrogate Laios, Kabru is placed under a silence spell from her to keep him from interfering. Rather than Laios becoming the new Dungeon Lord as feared, it is his half-elf companion Marcille who agrees to the demon's deal; the demon leaves with Marcille, who does not want to hurt anyone and tries to take down Mithrun and the Canaries non-lethally. The silence spell wears off once the fight breaks out, and his magical binds are released when Mithrun passes out from mana exhaustion. When they leave Thistle's home, the dungeon has rearranged so that all the floors are merged into one large space.
Laios wants to rush off to find Marcille, but Kabru gets increasingly desperate for him to stay, worried that if he joins his friend, he will end up on the side of the demon and will have to be killed. Lycion, one of the Canaries, cuts to the chase and points out that Kabru is scared they'll join her, and that he's been lying about wanting to eat monsters. He claims Kabru has been trying to butter up and use Laios all this time.
Kabru again desperately tries to explain himself and tell Laios why the dungeon's power is dangerous, stumbling over his words and eventually blurting out that he wants to be friends with Laios. Laios does not believe him and even laughs at him, saying that there are easier ways to become friends with someone than following them into the dungeon and eating things you hate. Kabru punches him in the jaw and explains that he tried to talk to Laios normally, but he just wasn't interested, and that he wants to be Laios' friend so he can understand why anyone could like monsters so much. He wants Laios to be interested in humans too. He does not want to have to kill him, even if it's for the good of all humanity.
Laios still has to go try and help his friend, but he promises Kabru he'll bring her back, and they'll have a non-monster meal together on the surface. Kabru accepts this.
Kabru is bound by the Canaries again, this time in rope. The dungeon breaks open, which does not bode well for Laios' progress in stopping Marcille. Mithrun is pissed at him for siding with Laios. The Canaries fight against Marcille and her army of monsters while Kabru frees himself from his ties with a knife hidden in his boot. He joins up with Toshiro, Namari, and the orcs, who are coming to try and help Laios. Laios' group, escaped from where Marcille had held them captive to try and both protect them and stop them from interfering with her plans as Dungeon Lord, save Lycion, the only Canary who hadn't been wiped out by Marcille and her monsters.
Laios asks how to get Marcille away from the demon and stop the monsters from breaking to the surface, and Lycion explains the only way is to kill Marcille. Since this is unacceptable to him, Laios asks how to defeat the demon instead. The "demon" is a sort of embodiment of magic, and it can't be killed anymore than you could kill the wind. While Laios agonizes over what to do, the demon attempts to persuade Laios to become the Dungeon Lord himself, saying that it only wants to make all humans happy and fulfill their desires. Its ultimate goal is to swallow the world so that it can grant all human wishes for eternity, to give all people perfect, eternal happiness. Kabru calls the demon a conman and tells Laios that next he'll give him a tempting solution to the problem at him, with his sister and friends' lives as hostages. While he assures Laios that he's very confident Laios will make the right choice and choose humanity, he is actually very nervous that Laios will be unable to make the choice to kill his friend.
Still, he leaves that choice to Laios and runs off to keep the elves and the orcs from fighting, directing them to work together against the monsters instead. His own party arrives again, and with the full force of the Canaries finally arriving to fight alongside the adventurers in the dungeon, it seems as though they will turn the tide on the monsters for a moment. But stronger monsters start to appear, frightening some fighters off and making Kabru freeze up again.
Dragons appear, and one threatens to breathe fire on Kabru, but stops, lining up and bowing to Laios along with the rest of the monsters.
Winged Lion Arc
Laios and his friends go to confront Marcille to try and convince her to forsake the dungeon's power, and they succeed. They ask if there is a way to just stop being the Lord of the dungeon, and told that although that can be done by leaving the dungeon, it's no longer that simple, as monsters have already started to flood the surface, and ill effects are being seen in dungeons around the world. The only way they can return safely to the surface is if they defeat the demon, which Laios has a plan to do now that he knows more about it.
Laios promises to kill the demon, if everyone will allow him to treat them to a meal (the main ingredient for the meal will be Falin's dragon half, in order to save her). Mithrun agrees to this deal on behalf of the Canaries.
Laios' plan falls through immediately, as the demon convinces him to consume its flesh and become a monster himself, allowing the demon to take over Laios' body in return. In taking over his body, the demon becomes the Lord of the Dungeon and thus capable of granting its own wishes. Laios becomes his ultimate fantasy monster, which is a mash-up of every other kind of monster he likes most and has a bunch of ridiculous powers... including one he recently added to the page he designed it on-- the power to eat desires. But before that becomes apparent, it really truly looks like the world is going to end. Laios' monster form continues to destroy the ceiling of the dungeon, and the demon makes its way to the surface. Kabru collapses on the ground, lamenting that he did not kill Laios when he had the chance to prevent all this and believing it is his fault that the world is ending, and that he should die for it. Mithrun slaps him to snap him out of his mental health spiral.
When the demon makes it to the surface, it gathers up everyone in the world into itself, aside from Laios' party members. Kabru, along with everyone else in the world, is brought to a blissful heaven-like state where they have no needs or fears. While this happens, Monster-Laios confronts the demon inhabiting his body, and eats the demon's desires, including its desire to eat desires. Losing all interest in humanity, it releases everyone and disappears, cursing Laios to never be able to gain that which he desires most.
In the aftermath of the battle, Kabru and the others find Laios returned to his regular human body and greet him with angry relief and worry. The feast to save Falin begins, and Kabru is true to his word in not only helping, but also roping others into doing the same.
Seeking the help of Mithrun's teleportation magic to separate Falin's human and dragon halves and cut up the latter into cookable portions, Kabru and Laios find him completely unresponsive-- his drive to defeat the demon was the only thing keeping him going. Laios is ready to give up on him, but Kabru doesn't; he talks to Mithrun, telling him that he wants him to find a new purpose for his life beyond revenge, and that new desires crop up throughout someone's life, that he will find new things to want. He encourages him to eat, rest, and help out here before looking for new desires. This works, and Mithrun is able to get up and help as he promised.
Kabru sticks around to keep an eye on Mithrun's mana levels for him and when he tries to get him to stop before he collapses, Mithrun is crying. He admits that he realized that his remaining desire wasn't for revenge, it was for the demon to finish devouring him. Senshi (the chef of Laios' party) happens to be nearby and, hearing Mithrun to himself as 'leftover scraps' assumes they are talking about vegetables and delivers a surprisingly encouraging talk about how you can plant new growth from vegetable scraps, and the different ways they can still be used.
Kabru becomes one of the people pressuring Laios to take on the role of King, capitalizing on the tale of how Laios saved the world (disregarding that he kinda put it in danger to begin with) and defeated the demon to gain a political foot-hold for the re-emerging Kingdom of Melini. At some point, the corpse retrievers were found and revived, as they are in the crowd when Laios gives his first speech as king before the dragon feast begins.
The "small island" the dungeon was on, it turns out, was just the tallest peak of a large swathe of land that was sunk when Thistle created the dungeon, and now that the dungeon is gone, the land rises up once more, leaving a very large amount of territory for Laios to rule over. Falin is successfully revived, with only a little bit of the dragon soul still in her.
Epilogue
Kabru works to help Laios in navigating social situations his new court, as well as training under Yaad (the former king's grandson), who is Laios' Prime Minister.
Kabru and his party are found by corpse retrievers (men whose job is to find the dead bodies of adventurers in the dungeon and revive them for a fee). The corpse retrievers pretend to have revived them to earn a higher fee, although they've only healed them from paralysis caused by the treasure insects. Kuro, a kobold in Kabru's party, sniffs out that there was another party that stopped by, and they assume their treasure was stolen and decide to try and go after the culprits despite being unfamiliar with the fourth floor.
Kabru's party is ambushed by fishmen and wiped out. Laios' party encounters their bodies again, drags them to shore so their bodies aren't lost when their water-walk spell wears off, and gathers up the food supplies that had escaped one of their packs to eat.
Fifth Floor Arc
Kabru and his party are revived by the Tansus, a researching gnome couple. Kabru is warned that they didn't have enough of their own blood left to be revived, so it had to be augmented with goat blood, and that they should head back into town. A former member of Laios' party, a dwarf woman named Namari, is traveling with the Tansus. Kuro smells that it was the same group as before, but as they don't have any food and could be in serious danger if they need to be revived again, Kabru decides they need to head back.
Shortly after making this decision and heading out, a fog rolls over the water, and Kabru is once again surrounded by fishmen. He quickly determines from the way they react and their movements as they fight that they are not actually fishmen-- they are his own party members under an illusion spell. He quickly identifies and peacefully takes out his own party members, then takes out their attackers and rushes for the caster. The spell is dropped, and the corpse retrievers from the previous floor are revealed and "surrender". Kabru assesses that they were followed by them in order to get more money, but lost out on their fee when the Tansus revived them instead and resorted to the illusion magic to get them to kill each other. Kabru threatens to report them to the Island Lord, and the leader of the corpse retrievers offers to make him a deal. They will testify that two of their companions were killed by fishmen to allow Kabru's party to collect on the fee for retrieving them, and take 30% of the cut.
Kabru pretends to agree, but then single-handedly wipes out the entire corpse retriever group, stating that if people with such corrupt motives keep working in the dungeon, all the decent people will abandon the Island, which is why he must deliver such a harsh judgement. If the population of adventurers drops too much, the monster population will not be kept in check and will overflow and kill everyone in town, just as what happened in Utaya. He and his party dump their bodies into the water, intending them to not be found and revived. They take the corpse retrievers' rations, though Kabru insists they dump their money into the water as well to avoid becoming thieves.
Over their meal, they talk about the group that "stole" their treasure and food, and from the racial component of the group (a tallman, an elf, a dwarf, and a half-foot), Rin's assertion that the person who put the warding spell on them was a magic school student, as well as seeing Namari earlier, Kabru accurately deduces their identities as a fraction of the Touden party (plus a new dwarf) making a desperate charge into the dungeon to rescue one of the Touden siblings. He does this despite never directly speaking to either of the Touden siblings.
Kabru reveals he's been looking at the Toudens for a while, as their party has been doing very well and he wanted to find out why and assess whether they would be a good fit for conquering the dungeon. As they're not very interested or observant of people, he doesn't think they would make good rulers.
Kabru's party again sets out to return to the surface, and are attacked by bladefish that are escaping from a gigantic sea serpant. Kabru freezes up in fear but is saved by Toshiro's party (Toshiro being a former member of Laios' party). To confirm his suspicions, Kabru asks if Toshiro is looking for a woman (referencing Laios' missing sister), and offers his assistance in helping to find her. Rather than continue to the surface, his party is dragged deeper into the dungeon because Kabru really wants to meet Laios.
Kabru and Toshiro's group meets up with Laios' group. Rin asks Kabru what they're going to do about the thieves and Kabru tells her they will do nothing. He just wanted to meet them, and they didn't appear uneasy when they saw them, so he thinks they were probably wrong about the treasure in some way.
When Laios offers to tell Toshiro how they defeated the dragon and what happened to Falin while Toshiro's party makes a meal for everyone, Kabru offers to assist him in carrying the exhausted Toshiro over to a quiet spot so that he can listen in to what Laios tells him. Laios mentions they've been eating monsters to survive, and Kabru feigns interest in this though he is actually disgusted at the idea. Kabru agrees to step away from the conversation when asked, but rushes back in with some members of Toshiro's party when a fight breaks out between Toshiro and Laios over how Falin was resurrected. This was done using monster flesh and black magic. Kabru defuses the fight by pointing out to Toshiro that he would have done the same in Laios' position.
Any further argument is derailed by a harpy attack, and then the reveal of Chimera Falin, who is being controlled by the Lord of the dungeon and ruthlessly attacking the group. Laios hesitates and Toshiro orders his group to "restrain" her without hurting her, while Kabru is purely pragmatic; it's not Falin anymore, it's a monster. Chimera Falin brutally tears through the group, killing and severely injuring several members of Kabru and Toshiro's parties.
When Laios hesitates because Falin calls out his name as a distraction, Kabru strikes, having climbed up onto her back. He slits the throat of her human half, stabbing her in the heart, lungs and kidneys. She throws him on the ground, and Laios attempts to get him to safety but Kabru is snatched again by Falin and crushed to death. While his attack did not kill her, it did cause her to leave the battle, allowing everyone to regroup and revive those who had fallen.
Kabru is revived by his party member Holm and witnesses another fight between Toshiro and Laios over what to do with Marcille, whose resurrection method seems to be why Falin is in her current state. Everyone is located, revived, and healed.
While discussing Kabru's attack on Falin and how much information it gave Laios on how her monsterous body works, Kabru's contemplations on what Laios might do if he does conquer the dungeon are interrupted by Laios offering to make him some food. Given Kabru's seeming interest in monster food, Laios makes him a rolled harpy omelette. The idea of actually eating monster food is enough for Kabru to have a flashback of what happened in Utaya, and he has an intrusive thought about killing Laios so that he doesn't have to eat it, but he does so anyway. Kabru's and Toshiro's parties return to the surface through a teleportation scroll that Toshiro's party had.
Sixth Floor Arc
Back on the surface, Kabru agrees to corroborate Toshiro's testimony to the Island Lord about Chimera Falin, leaving out any mention of Laios' group. A huge ship is spotted coming to the Island, and Kabru immediately identifies it as a Canary ship. The Canaries are an elite elven task force for conquering dungeons-- Kabru knows that if they take over the dungeon, he will never be able to achieve his goal. Although the Island is run by a tallman, they have switched to coercive tactics to try and get him to hand over control. Kabru and Toshiro rush to the Island Lord's manor to try and warn him and handle the situation, but a group of elves have already beaten them there.
Kabru bursts into the meeting anyway, with his report for the Island Lord about Chimera Falin. It only seems to make the situation worse, however, allowing them to put more pressure on the Lord to hand over control of the dungeon, which is starting to grow more dangerous. Kabru leverages his background, both the tragedy of Utaya as well as his adoption by the former Canary Vice-Captain Milsiril, as a means to get them to listen to him long enough to try and convince them to allow him to handle evacuating the dungeon's upper levels so they can seal the dungeon. Mithrun, the Captain of the Canaries, agrees to his plan for now but tells him he suspects he is plotting something and that he will accompany him.
First Floor Interlude Arc
Kabru returns to the first floor of the dungeon, which is booming with activity due to treasure once again being found on earlier floors-- this again echoes what happened in Utaya shortly before the dungeon broke open. Kabru, Mithrun and Cithis (a Canary) go to meet Kabru's contact, the dwarf who controls the underbelly and all crime on the Island. Because he has greater influence than the Island Lord and cannot easily be dispatched, Kabru has instead cultivated a relationship with him and intends to use it to ask him to empty out the dungeon.
While the underlord of the Island is welcoming to Kabru, when he begs the man to assist them in evacuating the dungeon, it becomes clear that greed stoked by the dungeon has overtaken him. His men capture and threaten the three of them. Mithrun uses his teleportation magic to escape and deal with the group. The remaining Canary team has been stoking greed and desire in the dungeon by frivolously spending money on the first floor on Mithrun's orders; this both speeds up the growth of the dungeon and hopefully gets people to evacuate to save their own lives.
A panicked crowd rushes for the exit as monsters start to gather, including giant walking mushrooms emitting spores that daze whoever inhales them. While the elves and Kabru are kept safe behind a barrier, Kabru identifies someone who has not breathed in the spores just by looking at him and pulls him into the barrier. When it becomes clear that the Dungeon Lord is nearby to control the giant mushrooms, Mithrun asks Kabru to find him in the crowd, and he does, spotting Thistle.
Chimera Falin breaks through to rescue Thistle, but the mana is too thin on the first floor for her to fight very effectively. Kabru very seriously considers whether the best option to save the Island is to let the elves handle things, even if it means the people involved with Falin will be taken by the elves, and they'll never learn the truth about what happened. He nearly accepts it as a necessary cost for avoiding another Utaya, but instead tackles Mithrun before he can deliver a killing blow to Falin and demanding answers on everything the elves are keeping secret about dungeons. This allows Thistle to escape by making the floor crumble under them. Placing his hopes of the dungeon being conquered by a member of the short-lived races in Laios' hands, Kabru refuses to let go of Mithrun and they both fall through the crumbling floor, with him expecting that they both will die.
Dwarf City Ruins Arc
Kabru wakes up in a pile of rubble in the dungeon. Expecting a fight, he is surprised when Mithrun acts like nothing happened between them. He attempts to assess Mithrun and what he's thinking and wants from him. An encounter with a shapeshifter (a monster that creates illusory duplicates of a person based on the memories and impressions of the people around them) reveals that Mithrun does not care about him at all and has no ulterior motives towards him. This tells him there's no point in being on edge and paranoid about what Mithrun will do.
They find Mithrun's contact fairy (basically a living magical communication device), which was partially eaten by the shapeshifter but is able to put them in contact with Mithrun's party long enough for them to plan out how to find Mithrun, and estimate it will take about a week to do so. Cithis "asks" him to look after Mithrun's needs for that time and make sure he eats three meals a day, and threatens that if anything happens to him, they'll "entertain" themselves with Kabru's companions.
With no supplies, Kabru is forced to cook the small walking mushroom that had been caught on his leg from the earlier fight. Kabru nods off while Mithrun explains how he used his teleportation magic to keep them from dying in the fall, and is woken up from a nightmare by Mithrun slapping him in the face. They find the packs Laios' party lost in their original fight with the dragon, and Mithrun collapses. Kabru finds somewhere safe and warm, with a fountain of clean water, and when he remarks on the convenience of it, Mithrun tells him it was the dungeon responding to his wishes, and to be careful not to wish often.
Kabru assesses that Mithrun is suffering from mana exhaustion, and when he asks Mithrun to explain why he needs to be looked after so intensely, Mithrun explains that he used to be the Lord of a Dungeon. Very long, convoluted story short, Mithrun (and all Dungeon Lords) was tricked by a demon who fulfills the wishes of humans in order to devour their desires. Nearly all of Mithrun's desires were devoured, save for his desire to get revenge on the demon, and so he is unable to feel when he is hungry, tired, or has used too much of his mana. When he states he is unable to get to sleep without a potion or spell, Kabru insists they try just making him relaxed and comfortable, and as he rubs Mithrun's feet to help loosen his stiff muscles, the elf nods off.
Kabru arranges Mithrun's overly complicated backstory into a simpler version he can explain to Laios, and inadvertantly reveals to Mithrun that he is doing so, who accurately guesses that it's because he's the one closest to capturing the dungeon. When Kabru tells him about Laios, Mithrun says he should be killed before capturing it, as someone who loves monsters cannot be allowed to gain the powers of a Dungeon Lord. He explains all the knowledge about demons and dungeons that was kept secret, as he has no desire to maintain that secrecy. Utaya was a near-apocalyptic event, with the demon almost breaking free to the surface. If it manages to break free, it won't just be everyone on the Island that dies, but the entire world will be in peril.
Kabru continues to tend to Mithrun's needs, and Mithrun keeps them safe from any monsters they encounter while they wait for the Canaries to meet up with them. In his attempt to make something tasty for Mithrun to eat, Kabru tries to recreate a lamb stew from his childhood with a barometz. Mithrun saves them from a hippogriff, and during that encounter, they step into a ring of changeling mushrooms, which causes Kabru to wake up in an elven body and Mithrun a tallman one. The day after they wash off the spores and return to their normal bodies, one of the Cananry's familiars catches up with them with a portal scroll.
They try to bring Mithrun back through the portal, but Kabru gets clued in to Laios being nearby and Mithrun agrees to go with him to speak with Laios.
Lunatic Magician's House Arc
The Canaries, with Kabru as a captive, are trying to find Laios to stop him from becoming the new Dungeon Lord. Kabru continues to look after Mithrun's needs, partially because the Canaries continue to shove the responsibility onto him.
New Dungeon Lord Arc
The Canaries find Laios' party at Thistle's home and send Kabru in to speak to him first. In the brief moment that Kabru is not under observation via Familiar, he warns Laios about the Canaries, and to be very careful about what he says to them.
While Laios' party and the Canaries discuss Chimera Falin (who was drugged and then smothered by Laios' group as part of their plan to return her to her human form) and the Dungeon Lord, Mithrun goes missing; Laios' group serves a meal to attempt to distract the Canaries, and Kabru plays into it, willingly eating more monster food.
When Cithis pushes to interrogate Laios, Kabru is placed under a silence spell from her to keep him from interfering. Rather than Laios becoming the new Dungeon Lord as feared, it is his half-elf companion Marcille who agrees to the demon's deal; the demon leaves with Marcille, who does not want to hurt anyone and tries to take down Mithrun and the Canaries non-lethally. The silence spell wears off once the fight breaks out, and his magical binds are released when Mithrun passes out from mana exhaustion. When they leave Thistle's home, the dungeon has rearranged so that all the floors are merged into one large space.
Laios wants to rush off to find Marcille, but Kabru gets increasingly desperate for him to stay, worried that if he joins his friend, he will end up on the side of the demon and will have to be killed. Lycion, one of the Canaries, cuts to the chase and points out that Kabru is scared they'll join her, and that he's been lying about wanting to eat monsters. He claims Kabru has been trying to butter up and use Laios all this time.
Kabru again desperately tries to explain himself and tell Laios why the dungeon's power is dangerous, stumbling over his words and eventually blurting out that he wants to be friends with Laios. Laios does not believe him and even laughs at him, saying that there are easier ways to become friends with someone than following them into the dungeon and eating things you hate. Kabru punches him in the jaw and explains that he tried to talk to Laios normally, but he just wasn't interested, and that he wants to be Laios' friend so he can understand why anyone could like monsters so much. He wants Laios to be interested in humans too. He does not want to have to kill him, even if it's for the good of all humanity.
Laios still has to go try and help his friend, but he promises Kabru he'll bring her back, and they'll have a non-monster meal together on the surface. Kabru accepts this.
Kabru is bound by the Canaries again, this time in rope. The dungeon breaks open, which does not bode well for Laios' progress in stopping Marcille. Mithrun is pissed at him for siding with Laios. The Canaries fight against Marcille and her army of monsters while Kabru frees himself from his ties with a knife hidden in his boot. He joins up with Toshiro, Namari, and the orcs, who are coming to try and help Laios. Laios' group, escaped from where Marcille had held them captive to try and both protect them and stop them from interfering with her plans as Dungeon Lord, save Lycion, the only Canary who hadn't been wiped out by Marcille and her monsters.
Laios asks how to get Marcille away from the demon and stop the monsters from breaking to the surface, and Lycion explains the only way is to kill Marcille. Since this is unacceptable to him, Laios asks how to defeat the demon instead. The "demon" is a sort of embodiment of magic, and it can't be killed anymore than you could kill the wind. While Laios agonizes over what to do, the demon attempts to persuade Laios to become the Dungeon Lord himself, saying that it only wants to make all humans happy and fulfill their desires. Its ultimate goal is to swallow the world so that it can grant all human wishes for eternity, to give all people perfect, eternal happiness. Kabru calls the demon a conman and tells Laios that next he'll give him a tempting solution to the problem at him, with his sister and friends' lives as hostages. While he assures Laios that he's very confident Laios will make the right choice and choose humanity, he is actually very nervous that Laios will be unable to make the choice to kill his friend.
Still, he leaves that choice to Laios and runs off to keep the elves and the orcs from fighting, directing them to work together against the monsters instead. His own party arrives again, and with the full force of the Canaries finally arriving to fight alongside the adventurers in the dungeon, it seems as though they will turn the tide on the monsters for a moment. But stronger monsters start to appear, frightening some fighters off and making Kabru freeze up again.
Dragons appear, and one threatens to breathe fire on Kabru, but stops, lining up and bowing to Laios along with the rest of the monsters.
Winged Lion Arc
Laios and his friends go to confront Marcille to try and convince her to forsake the dungeon's power, and they succeed. They ask if there is a way to just stop being the Lord of the dungeon, and told that although that can be done by leaving the dungeon, it's no longer that simple, as monsters have already started to flood the surface, and ill effects are being seen in dungeons around the world. The only way they can return safely to the surface is if they defeat the demon, which Laios has a plan to do now that he knows more about it.
Laios promises to kill the demon, if everyone will allow him to treat them to a meal (the main ingredient for the meal will be Falin's dragon half, in order to save her). Mithrun agrees to this deal on behalf of the Canaries.
Laios' plan falls through immediately, as the demon convinces him to consume its flesh and become a monster himself, allowing the demon to take over Laios' body in return. In taking over his body, the demon becomes the Lord of the Dungeon and thus capable of granting its own wishes. Laios becomes his ultimate fantasy monster, which is a mash-up of every other kind of monster he likes most and has a bunch of ridiculous powers... including one he recently added to the page he designed it on-- the power to eat desires. But before that becomes apparent, it really truly looks like the world is going to end. Laios' monster form continues to destroy the ceiling of the dungeon, and the demon makes its way to the surface. Kabru collapses on the ground, lamenting that he did not kill Laios when he had the chance to prevent all this and believing it is his fault that the world is ending, and that he should die for it. Mithrun slaps him to snap him out of his mental health spiral.
When the demon makes it to the surface, it gathers up everyone in the world into itself, aside from Laios' party members. Kabru, along with everyone else in the world, is brought to a blissful heaven-like state where they have no needs or fears. While this happens, Monster-Laios confronts the demon inhabiting his body, and eats the demon's desires, including its desire to eat desires. Losing all interest in humanity, it releases everyone and disappears, cursing Laios to never be able to gain that which he desires most.
In the aftermath of the battle, Kabru and the others find Laios returned to his regular human body and greet him with angry relief and worry. The feast to save Falin begins, and Kabru is true to his word in not only helping, but also roping others into doing the same.
Seeking the help of Mithrun's teleportation magic to separate Falin's human and dragon halves and cut up the latter into cookable portions, Kabru and Laios find him completely unresponsive-- his drive to defeat the demon was the only thing keeping him going. Laios is ready to give up on him, but Kabru doesn't; he talks to Mithrun, telling him that he wants him to find a new purpose for his life beyond revenge, and that new desires crop up throughout someone's life, that he will find new things to want. He encourages him to eat, rest, and help out here before looking for new desires. This works, and Mithrun is able to get up and help as he promised.
Kabru sticks around to keep an eye on Mithrun's mana levels for him and when he tries to get him to stop before he collapses, Mithrun is crying. He admits that he realized that his remaining desire wasn't for revenge, it was for the demon to finish devouring him. Senshi (the chef of Laios' party) happens to be nearby and, hearing Mithrun to himself as 'leftover scraps' assumes they are talking about vegetables and delivers a surprisingly encouraging talk about how you can plant new growth from vegetable scraps, and the different ways they can still be used.
Kabru becomes one of the people pressuring Laios to take on the role of King, capitalizing on the tale of how Laios saved the world (disregarding that he kinda put it in danger to begin with) and defeated the demon to gain a political foot-hold for the re-emerging Kingdom of Melini. At some point, the corpse retrievers were found and revived, as they are in the crowd when Laios gives his first speech as king before the dragon feast begins.
The "small island" the dungeon was on, it turns out, was just the tallest peak of a large swathe of land that was sunk when Thistle created the dungeon, and now that the dungeon is gone, the land rises up once more, leaving a very large amount of territory for Laios to rule over. Falin is successfully revived, with only a little bit of the dragon soul still in her.
Epilogue
Kabru works to help Laios in navigating social situations his new court, as well as training under Yaad (the former king's grandson), who is Laios' Prime Minister.