Ahri finally caught up with Lucifer and Selenia just as they were exiting the dungeon. They passed hundreds of corpses with jagged scars covering their bodies, it looked like Merlin cooked the soldiers guarding the entrance on his way into the dungeon.

Once Lucifer stepped outside the dungeon he saw the damage caused by the invasion. Smoke billowed from unchecked fires, doors to homes were smashed to pieces and personal belongings were strewn across the streets. In the square outside the adventurers guild, there was a pile of valuable goods, anything in the city that shined more than poop was collected by the army and was in the middle of being prepared for transport.

After looking around for anyone else Lucifer said "it seems the enemies made off with all the nobles valuables"

Ahri curiously replied "but its right ther--..." as the pile of loot slowly sunk into the ground.

"I didn't know you could do that, I don't think the people would be soon keen to move here if they knew that too," Selenia remarked.

Lucifer chuckled "do what", then softly said "this place is a "fool's paradise" what did you expect"

Ahri was about to ask why he wanted such things he could easily create himself. He simply replied, "I will think of something".

Using the time that the city was empty Lucifer went sightseeing. The area above the entrance was filling with mansions and it was obvious that most of the "budget" went into these areas, the roads and sidewalks were paved with a single smooth stone slab which was undoubtedly created using magic. Lamp posts and gardens lined the streets along with the occasional small huts which were probably some sort of guard posts.

Meanwhile, the lower merchant section of the city only had stone slabs for roads and a few gardens, while the working district was similar minus the occasional garden and far wider roads, probably to accommodate the extra traffic that moving raw materials around required.

There were exceptions, however, the road that leads directly to the dungeon is paved with a single stone slab all the way until the slums. Several large buildings scattered around the city towered over their surrounding buildings in complete disregard for city planning.

Lucifer walked to the slums and ran his fingers along inside of the stone canal walls. The water was just above a faint line in the stonework, below the line felt smoother to the touch and Lucifer could tell this is where the water level normally was.

Since the city was almost empty there was noone upstream using the water so the water level was higher than normal, although only an inch or so higher, but this concerned Lucifer greatly. If the water level was already this low when the city was only ten to fifteen percent full, then once the population increases the amount of water that reaches the slums could be significantly lowered, whats worse is that generally poorer areas have higher population densities, so if you triple the population in the upper portion of the city you would have to account for nearly ten times the number in the poorer areas.

The current water supply might be able to cope with such a demand, however, that is only if the water isn't polluted by the people higher up which was unlikely, Lucifer found it even less likely that his estimations of the population density that this city could reach would be correct.

After making a mental note to divert more of the river Lucier continued inspecting the city.

Most of the buildings were made of a stone that looked to be quarried from the mountain and molded with earth magic. He could recognize the stone used because he has spent so much time with it, but he couldn't tell where the stone came from, there weren't any large holes in the ground like he would expect from such large volumes of stone.

Ahri noticed him looking around and answered his question, "most of the city's limits used to be covered in boulders and other rock formations, the earth mages break and reshape those surface rocks for the dual purpose of flattening the land and gaining building materials".

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Lucifer spent several more hours sightseeing and even took a peek inside peoples homes to see how they lived, he noticed a few things he could improve through his dungeon.

First and foremost was the city walls, they were too short and easy to get over considering the last battle. Lucifer would have to think of a way to inconspicuously give the city builders some of his enhanced dungeon stone, This would make the walls extremely tough and give Lucifer somewhere to get rid of the stone he digs up.

The next thing he wanted to improve was the food, he checked peoples houses and found either poor quality food, it looked like most of the population were living almost exclusively on bread and rice, or at least something that resembled those foods.

Lucifer didn't know much about nutrition, but he knew a wider verity of foods were far better for one's health. he had already created a massive hole that he was about to collapse before everything became so chaotic, his original intention was to fill it with water and collapse the cave, this would create an above ground lake that he could fill with fish for the city.

however, he didn't intend to allow the dungeons passive mana to grow the fish because although he couldn't use the chaotic mana humans used his dungeons creatures could, and he had enough experience creating functioning ecosystems so that would have to do for the moment, if worst came to worst he could always make a few modifications later if the lake went too out of balance, hopefully, the people in the city didn't overuse the resource and require him to interfere.

This did sound like a lot of effort for someone else's benefit, but the healthier the population the more life energy Lucifer could gain in the long-run.

The last thing Lucifer wanted to change was the city's aesthetic, everything was the same dark grey stone and the only exceptions were in the slums where people lived in whatever they could put together. At first, the single color palette didn't bother him, but the longer he looked at it the worse it looked to him, who would see this city and want to live here. Almost every building looked the same, the earth mages probably did this to save mana on details but a million boxes does not a city make.

Before heading back he made a final mental note to create some sort of creature that drops paint, probably some sort of monster that spits colored fluid at its attacker to blind it. Adventurers would cut out the poison/paint sacks out and soon the city finds some color.

The only problem would be choosing a color scheme for his city, he could make certain colors rarer to control which colors are used where. Perhaps he should make blue common and gold rarer and hope he ends up with an ultramarine city.

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As the group was returning to the dungeon they saw a group entering the dungeon ahead of them. Lucifer said "that's odd, if they are returning to the city after the battle why are they going straight into the dungeon"

Ahri replied "they are probably spies who are here to find out the result of the battle"

Lucifer thought for a moment then casually remarked, "they might see something in there that they shouldn't, I haven't finished cleaning up the dungeon yet so I guess they have to die".

Suddenly Selenia exclaimed "wait!" before Lucifer sent some horror to wipe out the group, she refocused the mana in her eyes to see farther and said, "I recognize that group, they helped me when I was escaping so don't kill them please"

Lucifer raised an eyebrow at her prompting her to continue, "they, well the woman at the front of the group jumped in when I was surrounded by the Dutchys men an--"

Lucifer interrupted "So... did you need the help to kill them"

Selenia instantly replied "of course not, I could have killed them easily" which is how Lucifer expected her to answer considering her personality, but Salenia surprised him when she quietly added, "I was actually going the wrong way and wouldn't have found the dungeon if she didn't take me to the city"...

Lucifer couldn't lie, he found Selenia cute for a moment when she was embarrassed like that. He coughed to clear his throat and asked "so you want me to spare the lives of possible spies because they helped you when you didn't need help"

Selenia argued "she put herself in danger to help a complete stranger, I don't think you should kill such a person because they might be something"

Lucifer shrugged and noncommittedly said "I'll see what I can do"

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Once inside the dungeon Lucifer used his dungeon sense to observe the party of four. They moved through the dungeon efficiently, avoiding any of the surviving monsters with practiced ease. This only made them more suspicious when they stopped at the door and surveyed the damage, they quietly spoke to each other and Selenia could immediately sense the change to Lucifer.

Lucifer said "they are definitely spies, and well-informed ones at that, it only took them twenty minutes to figure out what I am"

Selenia dejectedly asked "do you have to kill her"

Lucifer replied "of course" with a grin. Selenia didn't find his expression reassuring at all.