Pov Ace

I was completely confused as to what was going on, but I held Vivian as strongly as I could. She was quite strong, but fortunately, it seemed I was stronger. A few of my skills also helped sap her power with every moment.

The dungeon core in front of me was dying fast, but I still felt my connection being strong, so obviously, this wasn’t ETG. Other than that, I had no clue what was going on or even who all these people were.

“Is she finally out?” the person who had killed my minder said. I sensed Vivian and felt that she wasn’t completely out yet, but pretty close.

“Just a few moments more,” I replied. As I finished saying that, I noticed more gateways hidden in the walls open up and more people rushing in. Some were of races I had never seen before, but they all resembled animals like rats or mountain lions.

“She will complicate things quite a bit, but since we haven’t met, my name is Rafe,” said the person who had killed my minder and just reached diamond rank. He walked close to me and offered me his hand after I placed Vivian on the ground, now properly passed out. “I’m also ETG guardian.”

I took his hand and shook it, but I felt an electric shock as soon as we touched. “My name is Ace. I’m the ruler of Eternal City-State—or I guess I used to be. I should order the evacuation, should I not?”

“I know who you are. Your talent seems quite amazing, to be able to get so strong just by the territory you own—even if you don’t understand that territory fully. Unfortunately, it’s not time to reveal too many secrets to you just yet, and no, it will not be time for evacuations—hopefully for quite some time,” Rafe said, then pointed toward the body of my minder.

I focused on it to see that there were a few people around it, but one, who looked like a small humanoid rat, was placing a necklace onto the body, and it started to do something. What it was doing, I had no idea. Then I looked toward the peak-stage diamond rank. There were more people where he pierced the core, mounting some kind of device into the hole.

“You will learn about him later but be assured he’s an ally. I hope you understand that we can’t tell you much, we don’t want to tell you anything, in fact, but we must. This is a fake core, only in the sense that it’s not Father; otherwise, it’s completely real, and if it wasn’t killed, there’s a good chance it would have taken control of a large portion of the dungeon. But it was a necessary gamble even if we almost lost. We were fortunate you were quick enough to come down here.”

“She, on the other hand, is a problem, as we didn’t expect her to be allowed to join you two down here. It’s a good thing we had an extra diamond rank.” Rafe said, then gave me a nod of thanks. I really wanted to know exactly what was going on, but I had been in the dark for so long that I didn’t know if I wanted to be in the light.

Whatever device they were mounting on the fake core finally activated, growing in size and burrowing deeper into the fake core. It soon stopped expanding, leaving a large opening outside the fake core.

To my complete surprise, a lot of people started to come out of the gateways with wheelbarrows full of mana crystals. They dumped those wheelbarrows into the device’s opening, which seemed to greedily devour them.

I was a bit confused about what was happening, but then the light that was almost gone from the core ignited once again.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

“The device will keep the core from fading even if it’s already dead, which will give a signal to that chain device that it’s still fully controlling the dungeon. The control necklace will go where it was meant to, and everyone there will be able to confirm that the control necklace is still connected to the dungeon. That should hopefully give us some extra time for Father to prepare for what’s to come.”

It seemed like a good plan but. “Don’t you think they’ll get suspicious when my minder doesn’t return alive?” Rafe started to chuckle at that.

“Yeah, I guess he’s pretty hard to notice. Look next to your minder, the empty place where no one is standing. You should be able to see.”

I did what he told me, and after a moment, I sort of saw a person’s outline and looked at Rafe questioningly.

"Yeah, it’s not his choice to do that; he’s just way too good at blending in, and right now he’s not trying to pretend to be anyone, so it’s kind of hard to see him. Anyways, they are close to being done. Just observe."

He didn’t need to tell me twice, as I noticed the necklace on the body of my minder start to glow, kind of like a diamond-rank core. Then everyone stopped for a moment as the necklace pulsed with power, and I felt my minder’s diamond core once again. The rat person then picked up the necklace very carefully, and I watched as the nearly invisible person bent down to let the necklace be put on his neck.

He screamed out in pain and fell to his knees, but I could now see him. The necklace seemed to be sinking into him, and as it did, he transformed from his hidden form into an exact replica of my minder.

The screaming stopped when the necklace disappeared from view, and when he stood up, he was no longer anyone else but my minder, down to the glowing diamond core that was exactly like it was supposed to be.

"Scary." I realized I had said that out loud and looked towards Rafe. "Are we going to do the same with Vivian?" He looked down at her and shook his head.

"That necklace is one-of-a-kind and took over ten years to make. Also, killing her would not be a good idea, as her grandfather is one of the strongest diamond ranks on the planet, and making an enemy of him would be a bad idea, especially because he’s already got an eye on this place.”

“Most likely, she will have to be our prisoner for the time being. Fortunately, she can hide her core and already has plans of staying in this dungeon for a while, so we won’t have to worry about her for a bit, but how to contain her—that will be a problem."

"I will take care of that. She will just have to stay close to me. She almost got a signal out even this close to the real core, but I managed to squash it in time," said the person who pierced the core and had those claws that, I think, looked kind of similar to dragon claws, though I didn’t want to think about that.

"We do not know how long this deception will last. We have tried to find out as much about your minder as possible, but there will always be missing links that will lead to the discovery that he is no longer who he used to be.”

“Your job, Ace, will be to continue running your nation, but now you won’t have to worry about your minder. Start getting ready to evacuate your nation into the dungeon, and don’t worry—Father has something special in store for you that you will like; I can guarantee that."

I wanted to ask questions, so many questions, but all of this had been way too nerve-wracking. So I just nodded my head and started to walk towards the gateway back to my mansion. My minder, who wasn’t actually himself anymore, started to follow me as well.

I didn’t get far before I was stopped by the rat-looking person. “Here, take this; it should help hide you better when you get even stronger, as yours was broken.” I took the necklace to see that it looked like the one that helped hide my strength, but this one felt even stronger. He then shooed me away, and I continued my walk towards the gateway.

It was so hard not to turn around to look at what was going on. So hard not to ask any questions, but I simply kept walking. As I stepped out of the gateway and out of the dungeon, I felt myself recenter.

There was still a job to do, and if ETG said so, then I believed he had a place for my nation in his dungeon. There would be a lot to do, but I would no longer have shackles around my hands, so I should be able to do a lot more in a short period of time.

I felt the presence of my minder and looked back to see him smiling at me. “Yeah, he would never smile,” I said to the person, who I had no idea who he actually was. He still smiled, but I could see his mannerisms changing from whoever this person was into the minder I was so used to. Behind him, the gateway disappeared, leaving the room in complete darkness.

“The adventurer guild master will be the one to take the control necklace to its destination. You will have a lot more freedom, even if he is constantly busy and has barely any time to do anything else but handle the adventurer guild here. Just a warning—you don’t need to do anything with the skill crystal; Father has that covered, the person who looked like my minder said while walking away.

In just a few moments, I was alone in complete darkness. Everything had happened so fast; it was still hard for me to process exactly what had happened, but it seems like I had extra time and a more solid plan, as apparently my nation had a special place inside the dungeon.

I still need to be careful. It was also, unfortunately, a secret I needed to keep hidden from everyone. I was feeling frustrated, as I kind of wanted all of this to be over, but at the same time, the longer this took, the more time I would have to prepare everything properly.