Most people in the other villages refused to join Nero. At the eanling and satyr village, the goodwill generated by Nero's rescue of the twins made some of them join in the shelter, but it was one bomb that made the entire village decide to join.

"Count Honeywitch defected to the enemy. As far as we understand right now, Honeywitch was annexed by Coriander." Nero said as he revealed Honeywitch's betrayal.

Behind Nero, Huron, Byron, and Rhynne gave his claim credibility. They were local celebrities and almost everyone knew something about them.

"How can we believe you?" The village chief asked.

"Here," He showed the medal Mayleefa gave him. "Captain Mayleefa of the buffalo-kin gave me this medal. It can only be given freely, and the Kingdom will know the truth of my claims. Heck, is there any truth-teller in the village?"

"Prince Tyre--" Some villager patriot tried to argue but Nero shot him down. Verbally.

"His Highness fell in the battlefield betrayed by wretched Valanaegornif. Stabbed on the back, the victim of a fifth-tier assassination Skill. I was there, I witnessed it. The war is over, but there is no winner. A fact stands, Honeywitch is no longer part of Bast. Stay here if you want, we of Hom are departing. You have half an hour to come with us or stay behind. You can go and take over our village as well. We are not coming back. Coriander won't be as kind to our kin as Bast is."

They helped more people evacuate. Most refused to put their belongings in the dimensional pouches, fearing they would be robbed. Several opportunists rushed to claim the properties in Hom. Nero didn't care what they did. He just wanted to go away as fast as possible, but he couldn't find in his heart the callousness to leave his neighbors to their luck without giving a chance to go with them. He promised to himself to quit this habit of working through the night. Nero was tired but he couldn't rest yet.

The networking and seeing acquaintances that were going with them helped convince more people of leaving. Before dawn broke, Nero was running toward the capital with everyone in the shelter. He was going really fast, avoiding roads and settlements. He ran as if the knights from Coriander were hot on his heels. He hoped they weren't. All Nero wanted was to put that episode behind him.

He ran all day. As he crested a hill near the end of the day, he saw the walls of the capital near the horizon. Tired, he opened a portal and entered the shelter. Out of habit, he connected to the stone arch next to the house-tree.

Altia was in front of the portal. Angry. Glaring at him. Nero smiled. Waved. She didn't budge.

"Hello? My love? Altia? I'm back?"

She didn't answer. Nero had no idea why she was that angry.

"I won't ask why you were in a Dungeon during an overflow," Altia spoke slowly. "I won't ask why you picked up every single random person you came across. I won't ask if you enjoyed yourself at the prince's brothel. I won't ask why you didn't write a single letter. Or why you were stripping nereids naked in a dungeon. I just want to see the paintings."

Nero took a few seconds to digest and try to understand why she was angry.

"Paintings...."

"Paintings!"

"Paintings?"

"Yes!"

"I didn't..." He stopped. Yes, he did. He painted Crystal to prove to Moira he knew the princess. "Those I painted in the Dungeon."

"Did you paint me?" Altia asked.

Nero hesitated. There was no good answer.

"You didn't." She started to cry. "You don't care about your wife! You promised me! You abandoned me!"

Nero tried to hug Altia and she backed away. He then scanned the crowd around the house-tree. There were too many people. Like, a thousand people too many. He found Moira next to Crystal and in front of Daisy. He glowered and she looked the other way, looking as guilty as the kid that broke the cookie jar.

"Kefira," Nero opened a portal to Rodther's shelter where he left the lioness. The big cat walked lazily through the portal. She rubbed her head on Nero's leg. "Oi, Moira. You get over here if you don't want to become cat food," Nero threatened.

With a growl, Kefira stalked toward the nereid sergeant.

"Kefira? Where did you get that cat, Nero?" Altia asked. "She is so cute!" Altia cooed.

"I'm coming, I'm coming!" Moira quickly decided that she didn't want to tackle that lion. Which was a good thing, because Kefira was too busy purring as Altia scratched the lioness' ears.

"What did you tell people, woman?" Nero asked.

Moira smiled. "I might have exaggerated things a bit. But I didn't lie."

Crystal came behind Moira, with Hefalina trailing after her. The nereid private was in a state of bliss, being next to (former) royalty.

Crystal looked at the lioness and then at Nero with a raised eyebrow, "Brother, where did you find this cat? There are few cat Dungeons in Bast I know of. And none in the Honeywitch region."

"Yes, you are correct. And we should probably talk about it. In private. Extended family only."

Nero gathered what he considered "extended family". His immediate family plus the eanling twins, Rodther, the nereids, and Huron. Those were the ones he trusted. Nero opened a portal to Rodther's shelter and sent everyone through. He left the pets on combat mode protecting the house-tree. He could have seven of them in his [Monster Tamer] build now that his Charisma improved.

Once they were isolated from anyone eavesdropping, Nero told them everything. From the arrival at the castle to the delving with the prisoners to the escape plan, meeting and capturing the nereids. He finally reached the part where the prince had used mind control to make him take the knights into Coriander's camp.

"I'm not proud of what happened after that," Nero said. "But I had to play along, or that bastard could do something about it. I got this for my troubles," Nero showed the orange Class card. "Along with a set of orange and purple Skills. That's why I could run as fast as I did and almost got to sneak on you two," He nodded at Huron and Byron.

"And since you are here without a missing limb, you either escaped or the infiltration was successful," Byron pointed out.

"if he gives me trouble to detect him,' Huron said with a bit of hurt pride, "Then he infiltrated. I doubt anyone would have a build as focused as mine."

"Yes, I did. We infiltrated the camp. I later learned why it was so easy, they sent the knights better suited for a mission behind enemy lines here to kidnap Crystal."

He stared at Moira, daring her to say something.

"They are sworn to me," Crystal said. "But I doubt they would obey me. They would probably shrug my protests off as 'being under mind control' or some other excuse."

"Just what I thought. Back to the infiltration. The prince and his knights invaded through a portal. I hid while they fought. Without the group that came down here, they killed a lot of soldiers. Then the prince challenged their leader, Calder. Valanaegornif murdered count Honeywitch after Calder lost his life. That's when all went to shit."

Nero paused. What he was going to tell needed to be told carefully, or he would be branded a traitor.

"In the end, the only high-tier people left alive were the prince, Valanaegornif, and a buffalo-kin captain named Mayleefa. He was the only decent person in the whole group. As the prince entered the portal to go back to the castle, Valanaegornif betrayed him and used his Assassination Skill on the prince. Turns out he was a double agent, working for Coriander to collect a bounty on the prince's head."

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The news of the elf captain's demise caused a wave of reactions. Rodther, Fotia, and Knazer felt both relief and a dark satisfaction at the knowledge that their tormentor was gone. Rhynne tried to keep herself composed. While she never harbored romantic feelings for him, Valanaegornif was a close friend for most of her youth. Her sadness was more from how far he'd fallen rather than for his well-deserved demise.

The trio of nereids, on the other hand, couldn't care less for an elf. Their enemy, tormentor, and nemesis got what karma had in store for him. The princess's honor had been avenged! - Moira and Hefalina thought. The princess in question, however, had mixed feelings. Deep inside, she wanted to get back at him on a more personal level. Crystal wanted to drive the knife through his ribs herself although she'd never admit.

Crystal's voice was breaking from the overflowing emotions. "Is Tyre... dead?" She asked, afraid of the answer.

Altia hugged Crystal while Moira and Hefalina stayed behind her. The two nereids were visibly pleased by the surprise attack.

"Not quite dead, but not alive either. I'll get to him soon," Nero replied. "Mayleefa used some sort of last-resort Skill that locked Valanaegornif into mortal combat between the two. The elf died, but Mayleefa forfeited his life to achieve that."

Byron nodded. Nero's tale had the wrappings of an epic. While he knew the boy would never spout falsehood, he felt he was hiding something.

"And you were left alone in the middle of the enemy camp," Rhynne gasped.

"I thought the prince was dead. I didn't have time to go into the shelter and check so I fled. Once I was safe, I entered the shelter to look for the prince. I found out that some soldiers invaded it while the battle raged on and were raping the women the prince brought into the shelter to please himself."

Crystal covered her mouth. The other females all tensed up at the thought. It was like seeing a guy get smashed on the family jewels if you were a guy.

"And he didn't like to share," Nero said looking at Altia. "The prince defeated the soldiers with extreme prejudice and then started to kill all the women. He was possessed, thinking they'd betrayed him. I fled and went into a Dungeon. The same Dungeon where I recruited Rodther and Moira. I needed time, and with the Attributes I had, that was the safest place for me. I was confident I could defeat anyone that can enter a rank-III Dungeon. I intended to lay low for a few days and use the pyramid device to skip days in the Dungeon."

Hearing Nero's woes quenched Altia's anger. She listened to Crystal venting her woes a lot when the two were alone and she had a grasp of the prince's personality. When she heard Rodther bragging of the tent filled with prostitutes, she imagined at first an orgy with the knights inviting the young and innocent Nero into their fleshy revelry. But the prince kept the whole flock to himself. It still didn't explain why he was receiving so many wounds. So far by what he said, Nero was unscathed.

"But something went terribly wrong," Altia pointed out. "What happened?"

"I connected the shelter to the Dungeon. The prince started to use a device to keep him from dying from Essence starvation. It saturated the Dungeon and the shelter with Essence, and the Dungeon started to prepare for an overflow. The problem was what happened to the shelter. It became alive."

"Alive? The shelter can become alive?" Crystal asked in disbelief.

The former princess shuddered at the thought. Aside from the scholars from the Lyceum and the millennia-old pixie - let Amaryllis never suspect she knew - Crystal was the person who knew the most about the nature of Nero's shelters. They were, indeed proto-Dungeons, birthed from his own lifeforce. They lacked purpose or the means to sustain themselves, just like a severed leg couldn't remain alive without the rest of the body.

"If they are saturated with millions of points of Essence? Yes." Nero nodded without understanding his sisters' frightened visage. "It is a side effect of the Skill I'm using to create more than one shelter."

"And is there a danger of being devoured by such an intelligent dimension?" Rodther asked. "Asking for a friend."

The former prisoner felt cold sweat forming. How many days did he spend on one of those? Was it luck that kept him from a fate worse than death?

"No. And the shelter that came alive was friendly to me. He judged the prince."

Rhynne and Crystal had no idea which was worse. That a proto-Dungeon came alive and passed judgment on someone, or that it was done to royalty, or that the words left Nero's mouth with such nonchalance. Wasn't he aware of the consequences?

"Judged the prince," Rhynne repeated. "What was exactly the result of this judgment?"

"The prince was bound to the shelter that evolved into a Dungeon. He became the Dungeon's boss. That's where Kefira comes from."

If Bast had a sacred animal, it would be the lion. A Dungeon with lions as its monster and the prince himself as the boss would cause a collective breakdown on the higher echelons. The Royal family wouldn't stay idle and the nobility of the already fragmented country would find fuel for open rebellion. Censure on the prince was censure on the Royal family. Weren't they supposed to be spotless bastions of virtue and valor?

"And what's the part you aren't telling?" Byron asked with a raised eyebrow. He was good at spotting Nero's bullshit.

"The Dungeon made me its Keeper. I'm basically the former prince's jailor now."

Rhynne's smile was like stone. She loved her son, but she wanted nothing more than put him on his lap, pull down his trousers, and learn Byron's technique for measuring a target's Vigor by hitting it. Was her child so naive? The answer was obvious. She glanced at her sides. The eanlings proved their worth and trust during their daily delves with Crystal and Altia. The scaled ietermahue had true devotion for Nero, and she knew how fast male bonds could be forged in the heat of combat. Two strangers that fought back-to-back against the hordes in the morning through the afternoon would've become blood brothers by the evening.

Women, not so fast. Rhynne couldn't trust the two nereids. They spent the whole day laying praise and adulation at Crystal's feet. But where did their loyalty lie? With the princess or the kingdom? Because the former did not exist without the latter. She would rather mold the two into serving the person. But the person was far detached from the myth, as it was with all such pairings.

"That's fascinating," Huron said. "Many speculated on how Dungeons come into being. To have a first-hand account is amazing."

"What rank?" Byron asked.

"Rank ten. The Dungeon started at orange-grade."

The two veterans renewed their measures of the youngster. When he defeated the Goblin, they chalked it up to determination and luck. When he returned from the capital with tales of conquest and the unraveling of a conspiracy - with a princess in tow nonetheless - they attributed that to the help from his mentors. But as the saying goes, once is happenstance, twice is a coincidence, thrice is a pattern.

"Orange!" Altia gasped, covering her mouth with her hands.

"You delved an orange-ten Dungeon and survived," Byron pointed the obvious.

The burly man's first wish was to clock the kid's head to see if some sense sticks in his head. That was a lie if he ever heard one. Orange Dungeons could be interpreted as the rank of the Dungeon being sixty percent higher. A party would have trouble surviving, a solo delver would be toast.

Nero sighed. "I get some perks inside that Dungeon for being the Keeper. The biggest one is that my Attributes double. And before you ask, that adds up to over two thousand, father."

Byron did some math in his head. Two thousand Attribute points fell into the realm of the third-tier if only raw Attributes were considered. Some crazy Adventurers reached twice as much by only using Attribute redirection Skills, like those that added Agility to Reason for rogue-mage builds, or Charisma to Strength for some with chivalrous proclivities. Nero had no higher tier Skills and even in the first-tier he was limited to those Skills without a level requirement. After some thought, he settled on his versatility. Nero was not limited to a single Skill build. He could adapt on the fly to the situation, and that might be his true strength.

"Where is the portal to that Dungeon, Nero?" Rhynne asked.

It pained him to see his mother that worried. All the women of his life, actually. Crystal was crying. Altia was angry because she now knew where the pain from the [Heart Bond] came from.

"Nowhere. I still have to place it. I want to talk to godmother before I do." - And shove the trouble on the fairy's lap. "I did farm the Dungeon until it dropped to gray-grade, so that's safe for a while. The second perk from being the [Dungeon Keeper] - that's another black Class by the way - is that I can teleport into the Dungeon with a cooldown of a hundred days. I don't know if I can take anyone with me. I don't think so. I also wrote a report for the Guild on the Dungeon."

Nero suddenly found his limbs in the hands of the women. Crystal and Altia grasped his left hand and elbow while Rhynne had his right wrist in a death grip. The three of them stared at him as if he'd said the most stupid thing ever.

"You shouldn't reveal that to anyone," Altia said. "That's too big, Nero. If it becomes common knowledge you can imprison people and make them Dungeon bosses..."

"Are you crazy? If the leonals find out you did that to the prince, your head, no! Everyone in these shelters of yours is dead!" Crystal besought.

"You keep that a secret even from Mary, did you hear me, lad?" Rhynne chastised. "I'll take an oath from everyone here, even myself and you that we won't discuss this ever again. There - is - no - Dungeon. Understood?"

Nero understood. People with power would force him to use it against his own enemies, and while he didn't think he could do that with anyone, they would still force him to try and probably punish him when it failed even if he had no blame. There was also the fact he did imprison the prince instead of just letting himself be killed by him as a good peasant should.

"Yeah. I guess I'll keep that as my personal Dungeon."

Altia tapped her foot. "The overflow. How did it happen?"

"When I finished with the Dungeon, I used [Egress] to leave. It took me to where I was when I entered, which was the Dire Warg Forest of Rot. Remember the millions of Essence that infused the shelter? Well, some of it seeped and was consumed by the Dungeon, causing it to overflow. Thousands of monsters. I could only kill three thousand of them, the rest escaped."

Rodther and Knazer did a spit-take. "Three thousand!" The two said at the same time.

"I trapped most of them to kill later, so there's that. After the overflow ended, I left the Dungeon and traveled back home. I saved a few farmers from the monsters, reached other farms too late, and then stumbled into the invading party of knights from Coriander. They were camped a few dozen miles from the village. I rushed to evacuate everyone, and you know the rest."