Betting all of the resources of the deep dwarves may seem like a dumb decision, but I had thought about it considerably. The basic reality was that the treasure wasn’t mine to take. It belonged to the deep dwarves, and just because he handed it to me didn’t mean he intended it for me. I was starting to think he had intended the entire package for Sapphire. She was supposed to Soul Merge with it, both unlocking the treasure and her memories of her father and mother. If he realized I had just fed it to my dungeon to crack it like an egg, he’d probably be angry.

That said, the deep dwarves had a lot of uses, and the only place they had to go was Chalm. At this point, I had already accepted various animalkin slaves, the osterians, and the foxkin. Adding the deep dwarves to my growing territory would only be a plus for us. Whether I owned the resources or the deep dwarves owned the resources, the benefit would be to my territory, which could export expertly crafted goods no one else could manage.

However, the deep dwarves were a stubborn lot who would likely see those resources as theirs. If I just took them and held onto them, that was bound to breed discontent. They would come to resent me and see me as a thief. They might even consider me an enemy. That’s the second reason I had initiated this challenge. They had a great deal of faith in their blacksmithing, and this particular guy, Gabbro, specifically.

In short, this was just a way to pass on the resources without anyone being unhappy. That’s not to say I didn’t wish to win this competition. If Gabbro won, I could pace the resources onto them peacefully, and we’d need to pay more for their services in the future. If we won, they’d still see their princess winning, and would at least feel like there was a fair reason that that the king gave the resources to me. After that, I’d negotiate a good deal with them to get them to work with the resources for me, and I’d have some kind of relationship with Gabbro too. Thus, there was no losing.

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However, since there were no forges up to Gabbro’s standards, they were being constructed now. It would be two days before the competition could begin. That left only three days left for the blacksmiths to work. I hoped there would be enough time. Since they couldn’t work until the forges were made anyway, it wasn’t like this was lost time. I had gotten the deep dwarves to make the forges, so already I had succeeded with my goals.

That’s why I had decided to focus on other tasks that needed to be done before Twilight attacked. I had gathered Terra, Sapphire, and Alyssia up and headed out. We were walking through a dark corridor, very reminiscent of the ones I had started in when I reached the deep.

“Master, where are we?” Sapphire asked.

“We’re on the edge of my dungeon, where the territory infringes on the territory of another deep boss,” I explained.

“Are we going to kill it, Master?” Terra asked.

“No, we need to capture the boss and make it one of the dungeon bosses. The only chance we have of mounting a proper defense with Twilight comes is to unite all of the strength in the deep against her. When it was just me and Alysia, I wasn’t confident in fighting their bosses. However, with you guys here, I feel like this won’t be a problem.”

“H-hey! I’m not a fighter!” Sapphire cried out. “I’m just a blacksmith.”

“Yet, it’s most important that you do the fighting.”

“What? Why?”

“Because the competition with your uncle will be tomorrow night. That means you and I need to level up in our blacksmith jobs as much as possible to give us the best chance of outshining him!”

“Geh! You’re still seriously going through with that? Just give up already, uncle won’t lose!”

“I’ve ended up in a lot of situations where my failure seemed assured, and I managed to pull through… most of the time.”