“Come on Kiva, time to go home.”
“I don’t wanna!” Kiva crawled to Willow and hid behind the rotund bear. They wrapped their short chubby arms around each other.
“Okay, good bye then I’ll be going back first.” Ebony turned around and left.
There was no pause in his steps but he obviously walked slowly.
Kiva blanked out for a moment before running after him and clinging onto his leg like Willow. “Don’t leabe mee!” She teared up easily and messed up her speech. He hoisted her up and patted Willow goodbye and left the Lasils.
“You can play at home.” He tried to comfort her but he wasn’t an expert at it.
The quiet village was peaceful again. The strong Frost Elf that was the previous village chief was called Vent Ly, the strongest hunter of the Frost Elf even within their second village with the exception of their Matriarch. Even then, he was strong enough to stand against her despite the fact that the Matriarch was a bonafide Emperor ranked individual unlike the Emperor of the Empire who only had the title. Grandpa Lasil was very open about sharing information. Their Matriarch wasn’t a dedicated fighter so it was not wrong to call Vent their strongest hunter.
The next morning, news was that the Trolls retreated from Fifth and Fourth Tide. Long-range communication in the region should be up again in a few weeks when the essence settles. Ebony made a trip back with Xin when they let the barrier down. He wanted to come alone but she wanted to meet Mallory and he didn’t ask why. He met with Hector and Lucas who were both chirpy. None of them were up for a duel.
“So you’re going to hole up for training, huh. We were called away and have to go by noon so you made it just in time.” Hector lamented. They didn’t even get the time to catch up with each other.
“Called back home?”
“Probably not, I haven’t been briefed since I just returned from Tova but I don’t see the Commanders and Generals I’m familiar with that aren’t in charge of First and Third Tide. We’re probably just manpower.” Hector was still half naked.
“How about you, you’re the Emperor’s disciple right?” Ebony turned to the lizardman who was pretty much a stranger to him.
“I’ll be tagging along.” The lizardman was busy cleaning his armour and didn’t add on much.
“What will Fifth Tide’s defences be like in the meantime?”
“Those Frost Elves will be around and the soldiers will still be stationed until the Trolls are repelled.”
He nodded at that. “So is the Old Hag dead?”
“No. They squished themselves into a ball and had the Slingarm Tribe toss them towards First Tide. They used their own people’s lives and stole their vitality to survive.” Needless to say, the amount of Vitality needed to keep them alive must have taken more than a few low-level Trolls to survive against so many strong fighters.
“Don’t worry. My teacher’s there. Truewater chased after them too.” Lucas did the finishing touches to his armour and put it back on.
According to what Korta reported, they didn’t have anything to worry about anymore. The Frost Elves and General Truewater bought Koawe time during the entire battle. Hector and Lucas weren't privy to what kind of curse was cast and were yelled at to get moving before they could converse further.
Christy, Korta and the other Frost Elf who could not be named came over and told him they were going back so that someone else could take over the hunt. Obviously, they were swapping places with Vent. They hopped onto an injured Arti with a knocked-out Koawe and returned without the patient.
Ebony went to look for Ning Xin but she was talking to Mallory in privacy mode as no sound was transmitted through the air. She noticed him and looked away in apparent panic, her eyes darted back and forth. “We’re having women talk, it’s going to take a while. You’ll thank me in future.” Mallory informed cryptically.
He nodded to them and walked away, giving them more time to talk in private.
On his directionless walk, he passed by a soldier he recognised, [Triumphant Spear Lvl 288]. In the past, Ebony Identified the soldier as a [Spearmaster Lvl166]. The soldier was the one who stopped him when he passed by Fifth Tide’s training camp and made his way to Solid Mist Jungle where he met Teacher Kappa.
‘Interesting, I didn’t feel much when soldiers died but it feels good to see a face I recognise survive even though I don’t know him personally.’ Ebony nodded to the soldier when he bowed towards him. The soldier was lending a shoulder to a middle-aged man who seemed familiar too, must be the Master Warrior who stood guard together with the spearmaster.
He wondered what they were going to do about the corrosion cloud above since it was still falling but no one seemed worried about its impending fall. It was a race against time to stop whoever cast it before it reached the city.
There wasn’t much to do so he raced out of the city to meet Na. Getting to the dungeon didn’t take longer than 15 minutes. Frigid Refraction was good enough to get past the guards as he Flickered into the dungeon portal. After entering, he noticed a small town inside. He took a walk to observe the goods being sold within the dungeon but it was mostly equipment, rations and potions such as cold resistance potions for the top floors.
He was walking when a scent attacked his nose as if ramming a truck up his nostrils. The scent was overwhelming and he had to know what the awful scent was. With his senses, he scanned the area in the direction it came from to find the building the scent wafted from.
He did not expect to see so many scantily clad women inviting men into the tall building. He truly didn’t expect a brothel to be built within a dungeon. He stayed away since his mana senses already invaded their privacy. There were plenty of open windows and although there seemed to be noise control in place, there wasn’t any magic repelling to block his perception.
‘I can’t believe there’s three of these buildings. Is prostitution such a dominant job?’ The dungeon town population was approximately thirty thousand and the number excluded the freelancers and dungeon divers throughout the dungeon. He had not personally ventured to streets with brothels in any town or city he visited so he was unaware of how populous classes such as [Charmer], [Bed Warmer] and [Sexual Artist] were. He started to wonder what he would have Identified if his skill hadn’t evolved to Appraise.
Ebony started to push his mana into the ground as he left the town in a random direction. When he was far enough to see a monster, he followed the guide to a hidden area without people. It took some time since there were quite a lot of people. All of the monsters on the first floor already hit level 100, about half of them had evolved. The first floor expanded noticeably.
He was swallowed underground and Na spawned a double to greet him. “No need to transport me up, I’m just passing by.”
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“Save’s me the energy. My main body’s hibernating now.”
“Oh, so the final floor’s guardian is a clone?”
“I call him Na Na.”
“Where do you learn humour?”
“There are a lot of people in me. I even learnt how to play card games.”
“...Okay. How does hibernation help?”
“I funnelled enough essence that it fell asleep.”
“Oh? Even a dungeon body needs to evolve?” Ebony guessed but it felt out of place since other dungeon creatures don’t need evolutionary time. They were just spawned at those levels.
“I don’t know. I just fell over but my consciousness is still around as you can tell.”
“Can your clone handle the job?”
“He loses 7 out of 10 times. I made the final floor chest desirable like you advised and traffic increased so the reward I made for them comes back around.”
“Yes, I noticed the first floor has become habitable. Maybe too habitable.”
“The settlement doesn’t help much since all of them wear that bracelet but I’m still getting more essence from them than those that get killed accidentally. The death rate is much lower than before. As advised, my creatures are getting much stronger so their death rate is low. I mass-produce weaker versions to keep people entertained and motivated to come back.”
Ebony didn’t say anything about the death rate. Freelancers come in on their own accord. Technically, it was possible to drain a dungeon dry by over-killing its creatures or even destroying any structures so he had no comments on Ordina’s killings.
“Anyway, I was actually here to invite you outside but I guess that’s off the table since you have your hands full.”
“Pity, but I wasn’t ready to go outside anyway. The portal in my Guardian’s floor doesn’t work for me and my creatures. The entrance is guarded well enough that I would have to destroy the entire town to walk out.”
“There’s no need for that, you have a human form and can talk. You can just waltz out.”
“I’ve tried, they have a device to tell apart a dungeon creature from a normal human.”
“Does your humanoid form still look like a glowing golem?”
“I covered myself in metal armour but some guards saw right through the disguise. Oh well, it’s not like I want to waste resources going out knowing my creatures will die out.”
“Fair enough. I can help you leave if you want to in future. We’ll be going into training too so It might be some time before I come back.”
“Sure, I might be more confident in my survival after my hibernation.”
“By the way, I wanted to ask if you know this roar. Ah, I’m not attacking you so sorry if this hurts. Or you can say no.”
“Hit me with it.”
Ebony cast the Pseudo-Imitation Roar as weak as he could. The double blinked in confusion.
“Was that supposed to be an attack?”
“Supposedly, it is an attack to the soul, mind and a physical stun. It's an essence-based attack so I expected you to shake it off but I had to warn you since I’m not sure if you have a soul. So? Have you heard this roar? I have a feeling I heard the roar here.”
“No, I’ve never heard such a roar. Do you know what creature it's from, or is it just some made-up sound?”
“I have no idea.”
“Someone’s tackling the guardian room gotta focus, bye!”
Ebony was spit out of the ground in a hurry. With no additional leads as to what or whose roar his new skill was from, he headed back thinking the woman's talk was over. A little curious as to what Mallory meant by thanking her in future.
Secretly exiting the dungeon, he could tell that there were at least 2 people that noticed his illegal trespassing. Not that either party bothered calling him out.
He had been away for at least 3 hours so he was surprised that the ladies were still chatting and that the Crown Princess didn’t rush off with Hector. It seemed like they had a different schedule. He tilted his head, slightly surprised that older ladies were also present. They were the chefs that Xin cooked with and they smiled widely at him for no apparent reason.
“You’re here, I’ll pass her back to you. I’ve got to go, see you.” Mallory ended their conversation when he arrived. They didn’t keep their talk private anymore so they might have just been waiting for him to return.
“Mmm, see you.” He waved her goodbye and towards her secret guards as well.
Seeing how the masked lady was confused, tired and didn’t meet his eyes he brought out the trailer and slowly drove them back to Arcta. She hid within her room so conversation was out of the picture.
When he got back to Arcta, he was stunned that a quarter of the village couldn’t be seen.
“You’re finally here, we’re closing the village for five years. Once the illusion is complete tomorrow no one will enter or exit.” Christy, the Frost Elven lady in a white one-piece dress without shoes dropped the sudden news on him. He was relieved that it was just an ongoing spell at work and nothing happened to the village.
“We won’t be staying but can we enter for now?” He questioned.
“Sure, but you’ll have to leave by tonight or you’ll be stuck with us. Wait, is the space mage in the village someone you know?” Christy was as spotless as before, with no injuries or blood on her.
“She’s her cousin.” Ebony pointed to his left.
“I see, then there’s no rush. I won’t reveal how to get back in but a Xeng space mage huh, she should be able to leave as she pleases without disrupting the spell.”
“Great, thanks for informing us.”
“Hurry along, you’re blocking the spell formation with your mana signature.”
They entered Arcta on foot after storing the trailer. He was going to stay for some time if there was no rush to leave. Partly to rest and relax.
Orren and his party were leaving the Thoya’s house on his way in. They were here to get their robes repaired and customise their orders. They didn’t stay long, saying that they had to gather at the Lasil house. They were going to have a village meeting and Halvis was going along as the family representative.
‘They have an old lady tailor who’s Roya’s teacher, can they not afford a King-classed tailor service? But they give each other stuff in the village.’ He didn’t ponder on the topic for long.
“You’re back, great. I was afraid they would lock the village down before you’re back.” Roya smiled in relief.
“We won’t be staying for the entire duration of the lockdown but we’ll stay till our equipment’s done.”
“Haha, seems like we have to work on them slowly so that you’ll stay longer.” Roya joked and looked back to holler that’s it's fine to come down.
“Longer!” Kiva ran down the stairs and jumped onto Ning Xin’s thighs. Her jumping power was weak and the swordswoman had long legs.
“Where’s sister Jing?” Ebony asked.
“She went to look for the elder craftsmen.”
“I see, how’s your exchange with her?”
“Great, but she's a bit intimidating. I can’t catch up with everything she’s saying. Some of which seem incomprehensible to me.” Roya commented before whispering. “Could the two of you help me babysit till Hal comes back?”
The Frost Elf must have forgotten he was younger than Clovis and Ning Xin was around the same age but Clovis and Kiva were both babies in their eyes. In fact, Clovis isn’t even a fifth of the age to be considered an adult. Even though she said that Ebony simply spent time reading with Clovis and the masked lady was the only one babysitting. He was reading the monster book series by Torox that he got for Clovis but hadn’t really spent the time to read it properly himself.
He dragged Clovis out for another sparring session two hours before dinner.
Ning Xin requested a spar so he went to get someone to block off a small area for them. Unexpectedly, she seemed to be in the zone and beat him up a little. She appeared cheered up after the battle and that was a relief. It had been days since he slept so he decided to sleep tonight but only after he confirmed that Kong Jing could really bring them out of the village after it had been closed off. Unaware that someone else didn’t have a wink of sleep that night.