“Explaining? What do you mean?” Maria asked in wonder.
“Why are the boss monsters from the Instance Dungeon, the Imperial Palace, your subordinates?!” Gerald asked, practically demanding for an answer with his tone of voice.
“Eh? Are you talking about Morte, Calen, and Velinda?”
“Who else would I be talking about?!”
“Oh…”
Maria looked back at her three undead subordinates and thought about why Gerald would be so interested in them. She then remembered what her brother said earlier, ‘Instance Dungeon’.
“OH!”
She finally realized what her brother was talking about. It was the Instance Dungeon that she had created on a whim because it looked interesting. She hadn’t been personally look after it too often lately and had delegated the role of Dungeon Master to Lilah who was doing a diligent job of managing it, so she had nearly forgotten about it.
Lilah continuously changed and updated the dungeon every week, so the Imperial Palace Instance Dungeon was currently known to be the hardest dungeon inside the game–and also the most interesting and most rewarding.
The traps, monsters, passageways, and loot boxes changed on a weekly basis so week-old information about the dungeon would become obsolete. Normally, players would be pretty annoyed with such a dungeon, but it was precisely because of this ever-changing feature that brought the players back to it every single time. The rewards the instance dungeon gave were also incredibly alluring and the best part, it also changed on a weekly basis. On one week the rewards would be geared towards Knight-class players then the next week it would be for a different class.
The Imperial Palace Set that could be crafted from the materials that were dropped by the bosses inside of the Imperial Palace Instance Dungeon was currently one of the best craftable and easily obtainable equipment sets for the entire player base–this included those who were pioneers and those who were just casuals. Since the set was one of the best, the crafting resources needed to create the set were a bit hard to get, though not impossible. If it was impossible to get, the dungeon wouldn’t be so popular and if it wasn’t popular, then Maria wouldn’t be getting any profit from it.
Thankfully, Lilah was an incredibly smart familiar whose been helping Maria with all of her work and had been by her side since the beginning of the game. Lilah's AI had developed quite amazingly to the point where it was able to analyze the trends of the other instance dungeons and put all of the good–and a bit of the bad–features from them, all into her master’s instance dungeon.
The Instance Dungeon had its different levels of difficulties, but if a player wanted to obtain the entire Imperial Palace set, they needed to challenge the dungeon’s Hell-level difficulty and obtain the extremely rare material drops from the boss monsters that were on it. Gerald and his guild had parties to run the Instance Dungeon every day so they were extremely familiar with the 3 powerful Undead bosses that were currently kneeling to Maria in the middle of the courtyard.
Undead King Morte, Shadow Stalker Calen, and Frost Lich Velinda, those were the names of Maria’s subordinates when they were the boss monsters inside of her instance dungeon. They naturally were a downgraded version of their true selves inside of the instance dungeons for players to defeat because if they went in there with their true powers, the current players wouldn’t be able to defeat them in only parties of 6. They’d need a full raid party to attack them since they were on the levels of high-rank Field bosses.
Maria turned to Gerald who was eager for answers and replied, “It’s a long story, so let me tell you about it in the Great Hall! It’s perfect since it’s something that'll be part of big brother’s duties as a Duke.”
“Hm?”
“Just follow me.”
Maria led Gerald, Mikael, and the others to the Great Hall. Once they settled in and made themselves comfortable, Maria began explaining to them about the dungeon she was managing and why the powerful boss monsters they knew in the dungeon were serving her.
“So…the Imperial Palace Instance Dungeon is actually yours and your familiar, Lilah, is managing it for the time being?”
“...I guess that makes sense. It’s the only explanation as to why those 3 boss monsters are present inside of her palace. Also, the palace does resemble the dungeon.”
“More like the dungeon was actually modeled after the palace. This is the Great Hall where we’re supposed to face the final boss monster and the courtyard we were at earlier would be where–if our run was unlucky–we’d randomly meet one of the 3 boss monsters right from the get-go!”
“Ugh… I had the misfortune of running into the Stalker in the courtyard once. We couldn’t have a proper fight with him because he kept on running around and dodging all of our attacks thanks to how big the area was…we ended up wiping because of that.”
Gerald’s guildmates began expressing their woes about how difficult the dungeon was in front of Maria who smiled happily when she heard that her dungeon was actually pretty popular and despite how hard it was, people kept on running it every single day because of how lucrative the rewards were.
‘As I thought, it was the perfect idea to leave things to Lilah! I’m a genius!’
Seeing the pleased look on her face, Gerald flicked her forehead using a skill that changed his normal attack into a ranged attack and immediately snapped Maria out of her pleasant train of thought.
“Ow! What was that for?!” She complained.
“Don’t have such a pleased look on your face. Your dungeon is so expensive! I guess you’re pretty stacked in the game, aren’t you lil sis?”
“Hmph! Of course I am! How much do you think I earn and spend every single day just managing my Empire? The Dire spans the entire continent and we’ve increased our lands over to the next continent along with a few of the nearby sea territories!”
“That’s impressive,” Mikael said before he turned to his brother and scolded him. After scolding Gerald, he turned his attention back to his sister and asked, “I guess that means our jobs are going to be all the more burdensome, hm?”
Maria began laughing nervously before saying, “Well, it’s not like I’m going to force you guys to work 24/7 or anything. You can just do your work whenever you want. If you can, though, bring some of the people from Father’s company to the game. We can have them help out with my work here!”
“Mary, it’s not good to poach workers from other places, especially if that place is our family’s own company…”
“W-Well, I already got David to be on board with it…”
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“...You’re just giving poor Dave more work to do…and it’s not as if he can refuse what you request of him. He’s our family’s butler after all, though lately, he’s become more or less your personal caretaker,” Gerald said with a shrug.
“Ehehehe… Anyway, he’s been playing the game recently and he should be close to achieving the requirements to move to Gaia! Big brother, can you send some people to help him clear the quests so he can come here quickly?”
“...Fine. I’m in the same boat as Dave anyway, I just can’t refuse your request.”
Maria pouted and replied, “It’s not like I haven’t rewarded you for helping me out once in a while.”
“True, the rewards you give me are extremely precious.”
The siblings continued talking with each other while the rest of the people in the hall either listened in or just talked amongst themselves, albeit not too loudly so that they wouldn't interrupt them. The food Maria requested from the kitchen was finished an hour later and the banquet inside of the Great Hall started a few moments after that.
Maria invited the rest of her close subordinates to attend the banquet and after eating a bit, Ash began explaining to his Empress's two brothers the duties that they needed to fulfill as Dukes of the Dire in more detail than what Maria had explained to them before.
Ash also gave the two of them the contracts that they needed to sign before they were officially appointed as Dukes of the Dire. Along with the not-too-troublesome duties they received, they also received rather luxurious rewards. Both Gerald and Mikael were given a manor and a large piece of land within the capital’s first district as their place of residence along with a small company of soldiers that they could command. They also received 100,000 Gold and 100,000 Blood Coins as liquid assets and they were able to pick a place within the Empire that would become their own personal domain.
“What the hell, along with the title you’re even giving us a dukedom? Isn't’ this a little too much?” Gerald exclaimed in surprise.
“What do you mean? If you become a duke, of course you’re gonna have your own dukedom, right? Besides, it’s never too much if I’m giving something away to my own family,” Maria replied with a smug look on her face.
“...How generous.”
“You can’t refuse it! I already planned on giving you two all of this the moment you arrived on Vanhal. The continent is way too big, I can’t manage everything by myself.”
“Don’t you have a lot of people on your side?”
“Most of my trustworthy subordinates all have a piece of land for themselves though they hardly ever manage it since they’re more focused on serving me by my side. I need people who can properly manage the land and act like proper governors!”
Mikael had been busy looking through the rest of the rewards Maria was going to give him through the contract and after reading that there wasn’t anything bad or wrong with the contract, he immediately signed it.
“I have no reason to refuse. You’re giving us so much stuff so I bet that the work that we’ll be doing will be just as heavy as the rewards you're giving, right?”
Maria nodded at her eldest brother’s words and replied, “More or less, but it won’t be anything too burdensome since you both have things you want to do outside of just helping me.”
“You said it. I have a guild to manage, remember?”
“I know, but since you have land now, you can just turn that place into your Guild’s headquarters on Vanhal!”
“Yeah, I was already thinking about turning the land you gave me into my guild’s base of operations. Thanks, lil sis. This is practically a godsend for us.”
Gerald’s guildmates began nodding their heads in agreement and a few of them began crowing.
“You better do your job well, Guildmaster. We don’t want our land being taken away because you were slacking!”
“Yeah, what he said! Don’t slack!”
Gerald turned to them and began hurling back a few words at them in return.
Maria smiled happily as she took the contracts that her two brothers signed and handed them to Ash who received them carefully. With the addition of Maria’s brothers who became dukes, the Dire now had 4 Duke households as the Blood faction did before–House Bathory, House Garm, House Citadel, and House Heltania.
The previous Duke households of the Blood faction had been completely wiped out during the Dire’s great war of conquest. The Duke family heads were guarding the palace as boss monsters so Maria had to defeat them. They didn’t surrender so Maria killed them all except for Ash’s son who had been one of the earlier boss monsters she fought while conquering the palace. Since the others were killed, their households were naturally forced to scatter.
The remnants either submitted to Maria afterwards or were purged from existence due to their disobedience and unwillingness to conform. The Duke positions became vacant for a while because the duke households that had survived and submitted to Maria’s rule had been demoted to lower ranks so they couldn’t keep their title. As of this moment, however, the high-ranking peerage slots had been filled and this made Maria happy because she received a notification that her nation acquired a buff and an upgrade due to that.
*DING*
The Dire has fulfilled a hidden criteria! For the next month, all production related jobs will have a 50% increase in efficiency, speed, and productivity!
The Dire has fulfilled a hidden criteria! For the next month, the training of soldiers, the creation of war weapons, and… will have a 50% increase in…
The Dire...
The Dire...
Maria smiled when she saw the notifications and dismissed them after skimming through them. She then looked at everyone in the hall and began thinking about her nation’s next move. With her brothers helping out, Maria reckoned that they could stabilize the player situation pretty soon and after that, she could continue her conquest of the Vanargand continent.
‘Soon, I’ll have the whole planet under my rule…’