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The fool's paradise (dungeon novel)(complete)
Build it and they will come. 67

Build it and they will come. 67

News of a new floor quickly spread around the city's taverns and by the end of the day there was a record number of adventurer deaths in the dungeon, it would take the adventurers guild several days to distribute the information related to the dangers in the new floor. By that time dozens of adventurers either died or simply went missing.

Adventurer groups would comb through the safe appearing floor only to find nothing and upon turning around finding one or more of their members missing, never to be seen again.

Others just fell to the ground and died on the spot with no visible injuries, the adventurer guild sent people to discover the cause of death and found the victim's hearts had hardened into a solid mass causing death.

A man attempted to sell several beautifully colored frogs as pets in the markets, the ensuing aftermath led to the discovery of the hardening heart toxin the frogs excreted from their skin, this toxin was so potent that it only required skin contact to kill its victims and common antidotes have no effect on it. Research is being conducted for a potential cure or preventative measure against the toxin, but have met with no success. The current recommendation by the guilds is "if it's in a dungeon and it's bright and colorful you shouldn't touch it AND IF it's trying to touch you RUN"

The frog that caused the incident was captured by experts and now lives in a small glass case in the adventurer guild as an example and warning to any who venture on the new floor. The frog is affectionately called Sir Hugs-a-lot by the reception staff after witnessing the frog attempting to jump at people outside its enclosure like it wanted to hug them.

After the news of a new toxin spread to neighboring cities the guards found increasing numbers of "unsavory" people appearing in the city, but after it was discovered that the frogs lose their potency after they leave the dungeon most of those people soon left the city, either by choice or not at all after meeting Wolfram.

A city lord was appointed to the city with the city planner stepping down as temporary lord, The man was named Albus D'ellinoris and was secretly part of the King's faction.

Upon gaining power he immediately summoned Wolfram and his generals to set up laws for the city that he entrusted Wolfram's men to enforce. Most of these laws were the common ones in other major cities that favored the nobles and stabilized his position, however, he snuck in a few laws that seemed innocuous at first glance, but they would allow him to monetize certain commodities and give benefits to those who were loyal to him. This would allow him to build a strong base of power so his family could plant strong roots in this city for his successors to inherit and allow him to discreetly starve out the nobles faction from the city.

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One such law forbids the act of taking living animals outside the dungeon... unless you pay a fee. A new market was created within several days as large businesses and Noble retainers fought to gain a monopoly on the rare and/or dangerous pets market, but a timely gift to the new city lord allowed a large business called the parasol corporation to bypass the expensive live dungeon pet tax and beat the competition through sheer economic force.

While the nobles ground their teeth in frustration Albus met with the leader of the parasol cooperation and gave the gift back while receiving a bag of jewels in exchange. then the leader of the parasol cooperation left to report to his backers in the King's faction.

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Meanwhile, Lucifer having finished the first couple of boisterous days after the discovery of his fourth-floor stopped observing adventurers and begun work on the sixth floor again.

He thought about adding the pirhanas of the fifth floor but that just seemed unimaginative, so after thinking about it he decided to start with the boss this time instead. A brief scan through his Earth-mails showed the viable creatures that could live in this environment and some of the others that could probably be modified to live here.

Even though his mana was full at the moment he had no intention of spending all his mana on the boss so modifying an unsuitable creature to be the boss just seemed like a waste when he had to create an entire food web on this floor.

A small amount of life energy and pure mana disappeared from his control and a moment later a baby octopus appeared in front of his consciousness.

Lucifer had to admit that the only reason he chose the octopus instead of a more dangerous monster was because he always wanted to say "release the Kraken" like davy jones, while this little octopus was cute it was definitely no Kraken.

Hours later and a healthy dose or perhaps unhealthy dose of energies supplied by Lucifer, the baby octopus was now nearly a dozen meters across and that was only his main body, it's legs were more than triple that of its body in length.

Lucifer was unsure if he should add any more weapons to the creature because it seemed dangerous enough as is, so instead, he chose to give it a name and modify it later if he found it too weak.

and thus CUDDLES was born, the Kraken of the deep, nightmare for all those who braved the dark waters of the sixth floor.