The dinner conversation was mostly light and relaxing, a welcome break from Rosslyn’s near interrogation by her father in the chapel.

The spiders gave the King an eager update on their progress with Mana, and Rosslyn’s father showed his usual genteel manners despite the worries that Rosslyn knew boiled beneath the surface.

The spiders ate their raw poultry, sickeningly slurped after being liquefied, while Rosslyn and her father had their usual multicourse meal.

Just as she had been at her last supper, Rosslyn was hungrier than usual, having remained asleep for over a week while she recovered, during which time, she had been told, her body had sustained itself on gruel, carefully drip fed down her throat.

Unlike the previous supper, this one found the table almost empty. Adon was gone, and the youngsters and Carolien were taking in a live theater performance in the city. Rosslyn’s stepmother felt that the children were now old enough to begin acquiring culture.

With the absence of possible judging eyes, Rosslyn allowed herself to actually eat the amount of food her body craved after a week of unconsciousness.

And perhaps it was also her siblings and Carolien’s absence that allowed the conversation to flow freely back and forth, without concern for what would entertain the young ones.

It started off focused around the spiders, of course.

But Rosslyn’s father, his mind overburdened with serious and pressing problems, changed the subject from how the spiders were settling into palace life—they loved the palace, thanks!—to something that he had clearly been worrying about.

“That dungeon is growing more active,” the King said, looking at Rosslyn suddenly as if she was the only person in the room. “We will have to do something about it…”

How do you know that a dungeon is more active than it was before, Your Majesty? asked Samson. Do people go in and explore, or…?

“Signs of the different stages of activity include mild earthquakes when they first emerge, livestock and poultry going missing in the night, and eventually monster sightings in broad daylight,” the King replied.

“In this case, fortunately, a young noble discovered and reported it,” Rosslyn added.

“I will have to put out a request for adventurers,” her father said with an obvious expression of distaste. “We cannot afford to spare soldiers, of course.”

Why not? What’s going on with the military, if you don’t mind the question? asked Samson, bright with curiosity.

Make sure you finish your food, son, sent Goldie, giving Samson a look that made Rosslyn wonder if she was worried that her oldest child was annoying the nice royals.

“We are happy to discuss these matters with you, Samson,” Rosslyn said, smiling. “It is rare that we have the opportunity to interact with someone freshly reborn from another world and get new perspectives on a problem. We usually do not have many soldiers to spare when dungeons become active, because dungeon activity often coincides with movements by the Demon Empire. When that happens, our military is invariably called into action to prepare for attack from without. They do not have the leeway to embark on a journey to face the threat within.”

That sounds like incredible bad luck, Goldie sent doubtfully.

Yeah, how does that work? asked Samson.

Rosslyn’s father put down a pheasant drumstick as he began to explain.

“Fundamentally, we have no idea how it truly works,” the King said, “but the prevailing theory has been that the Emperor has some power to manipulate the monsters, perhaps a form of magic that we never discovered. If he had a card like that to play, it would be an incredible distraction leading up to an attack.”

“That is often how events seem to play out,” Rosslyn added. “In historical chronicles of battles, the Kingdom or whatever country the Empire is attacking are often weakened leading up to the battle by monster attacks.”

Although not in my vision of the past, she recalled. At least not that I was shown. I suppose that is a bit strange…

Gosh, Samson transmitted. The Demon Empire already sounded formidable from what little I’ve heard.

“Yes,” the King agreed. “They already were. Even without that advantage, Claustria would be hard-pressed to defend against them with our army alone. We have to rely on allies. Otherwise, defense becomes unsustainable in the long run. The Empire’s population is more than twenty times the size of ours. We do not have an accurate number. Information on the Empire is shrouded in secrecy and lies. Some outlandish estimates place it at fifty times our size, although it is hard to believe that people could reproduce in such numbers under the heel of their tyranny.”

So that’s why you can’t spare soldiers, Samson sent.

“Honestly, I think the precariousness of our situation is the main reason we tolerate adventurers making Claustria home at all,” Rosslyn replied.

What is wrong with adventurers? Goldie asked, looking up from a bit of meat.

“I might ask what is right with adventurers,” the King replied, with a bitter humor in his tone. “Ask any ruler, and they would tell you that these dregs of society are the worst citizens in a country besides career criminals. Give me a good, honest peasant farmer any day. Even if he does not like his lord, the worst he might do is lead a local uprising. Then we hang the farmer and make a new lord, who hopefully learns a lesson from his predecessor’s experience.”

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

“Adventurers are typically composed of the very small share of the population who have knowledge of Mana—and, rarely, even some magical affinities—without being nobility loyal to a specific place,” Rosslyn explained. “Some of them are the descendants of displaced nobles, or unacknowledged bastards, and some might have—” She looked at her father—“er, won the genetic lottery.”

Apparently they have ancestors who were intimate with mystic beasts, she thought. Though I never would have guessed the explanation could be something like that until recently…

“Regardless of how they achieved it, adventurers have power without accountability,” Rosslyn continued. “They are armed and possess some level of magical power, without a connection to the social hierarchy of the country—without necessarily having any loyalty to the country. Such people cannot be trusted.”

“If the dungeon is too dangerous, they will flee from it,” her father said. “If the Kingdom goes to war, they are likely to disappear rather than stay and be drafted to defend their country. In more peaceful times, when there is less work for people of their unusual talents, some of them go into the professional military, but just as often, they turn to brigandry.” He picked up his drumstick again, then lowered it, shook his head, and looked prepared to go on ranting, but Samson spoke up first.

It sounds like they’re mercenaries, he transmitted. That is, in my previous world, there were people who wrote about the loyalties of mercenaries. The opinion of scholars from the period in that world that, um, seemed to correspond to this one was that mercenaries’ loyalties are not to be counted on.

Rosslyn was struck for far from the first time by the strange quality of Samson’ speech. How he would sometimes speak with the tonality of a young adult and at other times revert to the speaking style and vocabulary of an older person. He, of course, always had the knowledge base of an adult, too.

It was slightly creepy, not because she thought he had any form of bad intentions—he was Adon’s brother, after all—but simply because there was a dissonance to it. As if Samson was stuck in the middle, deciding between being two different people—or deciding not to decide. Just being two different people.

Adon had never demonstrated that sort of strange inner conflict since Rosslyn knew him, though she supposed that was because he was still exactly the same person he had been in his previous life.

“That is exactly the comparison that our scholars used to make!” the King exclaimed, pounding the table with his fist. “Just the one. I have not heard that specific analogy used outside of books, but I have always thought it was a perfect description. They are glorified mercenaries. ‘Adventurers,’ indeed!”

I wonder what it would be like to explore a dungeon, Samson sent, his voice slightly dreamy.

Rosslyn found Samson’s interruption fortunate, as it would hopefully prevent her father from going on a rant. She shared the King’s feelings about adventurers, but not his intensity about them. They were not, as a general rule, as steadfast as soldiers, but there were some good adventurers. As a result of the few occasions that her military unit had collaborated with professional adventurers, she felt she had been sufficiently exposed to the spectrum of their differences to make her own judgments.

The adventurers of Claustria were like a small microcosm of society, with their differing backgrounds, characters, and motivations. They came from all socioeconomic backgrounds and all parts of the Kingdom, though their center of activity was Wayn.

The problem, in her view, was that they felt their separateness, their rootlessness, as an essential part of their identity. They could not be trained into loyalty to a state, or even a region or a religion. They were wild cards. And for the right price, they might fight, like mercenaries, for or against the Kingdom. They were just as likely to welcome the outbreak of war as to flee it.

I suppose Samson and Adon are not so different after all, Rosslyn thought, jumping back to the conversation and considering what Samson had said more carefully. “I wonder what it would be like to explore a dungeon.”

This was essentially the butterfly’s attitude toward adventure, too. Adon was always eager to rush toward the next danger, the next opportunity for growth. Despite his apparent social anxiety, he seemed to be almost fearless against physical threats. Rosslyn could not be sure if Samson was the same way, but based on the dinner conversation, she found it strange to think that the brothers had not quite gotten along in Adon’s previous life—or, more accurately, that Adon had felt that he had lived in his younger brother’s shadow.

Samson just wants to do what his brother is already doing, she thought.

“You just may get your chance to explore one,” Rosslyn said after a moment of silence. “Depending on how quickly your magic progresses, and how events unfold in the next several weeks.”

Goldie stopped eating, Rosslyn noticed. The spider turned her unblinking, glossy eyes on Rosslyn. It was not intimidating, but only because Rosslyn was not afraid of spiders. The Princess wished that spiders had readable facial expressions. She had the bad, though impossible to substantiate, feeling that Goldie was giving her a disapproving look.

That sounds awfully dangerous, Goldie sent after a moment. Samson was only born a few days ago, you know…

“I agree,” said the King. “It sounds quite dangerous. I would not willingly see any of my children wander into a dungeon unnecessarily—at least not without a well prepared escort of soldiers. The soldiers who we cannot spare right now.” He gave Rosslyn a look that was much easier to read than Goldie’s.

It said, I hope you were not offering to escort that little spider into a dungeon yourself, Rosslyn. I almost lost you in the Empire, and you have spent less than two full days recovering from that episode.

I am an adult, father, Rosslyn thought. If I was capable enough to be sent to infiltrate Stalenton and strong enough to face down assassins in the Deformed Forest, I think I can handle delving into a dungeon. Especially if the choice is between that and suffering monster attacks behind our lines during the Empire’s invasion.

The adventurers would undoubtedly handle it, but it rubbed her the wrong way to think that after all that she had done in her young life, her father apparently did not believe that she could safely take care of something like this herself.

The conversation moved on to plans for the next several days. Rosslyn was most interested in training her body so as to be as prepared as possible for the outbreak of war, whenever it might come. She knew she needed more experience of fighting with one eye missing. The spiders were intent on continuing their magic training.

The King said that the Duke’s heirs would arrive soon, and he began going over the protocols that applied to a foreign prince’s visit—theoretically for the spiders’ benefit, though Rosslyn thought he was trying to give her a subtle refresher, too.

Her mind was only partially in the room, though. As much as she was interested in the visit by the two young men who were theoretically meant to be new suitors for her, Rosslyn could not help but wonder, as Samson had, about the possibility of visiting a dungeon.

Of course, she would not need to consider that possibility if the adventurers succeeded in clearing it out. But what if they failed?