When the ship that Maria was on finally arrived back on Dreyra, she immediately used [Paimon’s Magic Tome] and teleported herself back to Transylvania before summoning Raiju and Alexa to her side.
As per usual, her subordinates greeted her when she arrived in the middle of her palace courtyard and Maria immediately called for a meeting with her Empire’s high council, which consisted only of those who were her close subordinates. It was not the usual type of meetings that were normally held whenever she returned to the palace where she would gather all of her Empire’s officials, because this time, the information she was going to share was rather sensitive, so only those closest to her needed to know about it. As for the regular meeting, Maria decided that she would hold it next time.
Once everyone was gathered, Maria wanted to start the meeting off with the piece of information she obtained from Raiju, but Elizabeth had something urgent that she needed to report and it was impeccable timing that Maria returned to the palace because she was planning on going to Vanargand to report it to her directly. The information was quite important, so before Maria started, she allowed Elizabeth to give her report first.
“Your Majesty, this has something to do with the Underworld Entrances that you tasked me to find…” Elizabeth said as she opened the meeting this time.
“Alright, what do you have to report to me?”
“Well, we’ve found another entrance, but its location is a little…complicated.”
Maria had tasked Elizabeth with finding the entrance to the Underworld on Vanhal because she believed that there was a proper entrance to the place if they looked hard enough. The entrance to the Underworld underneath Heltania City was something she and her people had artificially made so it wasn’t a ‘proper’ entrance. The Underworld was connected to Vanhal’s Main Story Quest, so the entrance was bound to be somewhere on the planet.
Previously, she thought that they had found the true entrance on the island in between Dreyra and Vanargand, but Maria didn’t think that there was more than one entrance, so she was rather surprised that Elizabeth had found another one, though it really did make sense that there was likely to be multiple entrances and not just the one they had found before.
Maria praised Elizabeth for doing her job extremely well. She didn’t think about looking that far ahead and assumed that there was more than one entrance to the Underworld. It was a complete oversight on her part, so Elizabeth’s foresight deserved quite a lot of praise.
“Good job, Elizabeth, you’ve done our nation a great service!” Maria exclaimed before asking with great interest. “Where is this new entrance?”
There was a complicated look on Elizabeth’s face as she answered, “It’s right underneath the palace...”
“Excuse me?”
“If you’re willing, Your Majesty, please suspend the meeting so that I may show it to you because it is urgent,” Elizabeth implored.
Maria nodded at her suggestion and quickly said, “Ash, I’m suspending–hold on…Ash isn’t here…”
When she looked around, Maria finally noticed that her closest subordinate wasn’t even present at the meeting. She frowned in displeasure at this, but Elizabeth immediately stepped up and bowed, “Please forgive my husband’s absence, Your Majesty. He’s currently at the entrance as we speak trying to reinforce the barrier that we hastily created. The monster's assaults have been relentless and he's been down there ever since the entrance appeared.”
“Take me to him,” Maria said with a look of understanding before turning to the rest of her subordinates, “I'm suspending the meeting. Remain on standby until I return.”
“Yes, Your Majesty!”
Maria quickly followed Elizabeth to the palace dungeons and when they arrived there, she noticed that there was a hole in the ground that was situated quite poorly in the middle of the dungeon floor. She looked around at the poor state the dungeon had been turned into and started frowning. The dungeon previously held some of her nation’s prisoners, but it was now completely empty. She inspected the cells with a brief glance before asking, “What happened to all the prisoners?”
“We evacuated most of them to a different prison, Your Majesty,” Elizabeth answered.
Maria's frown deepened when she heard Elizabeth’s answer and reiterated, “Most of them?”
“When the entrance first appeared, the floor had collapsed and numerous monsters came bursting out. The guards did their best, but the monsters were too powerful, so there were some casualties, mostly among the prisoners though.”
After hearing Elizabeth’s explanation, Maria nodded and thought that it couldn’t be helped. The prisoners had been shackled with [Magic Chains] so they had their powers and abilities sealed. They wouldn’t have been able to put up a proper fight even if they wanted to and with the monsters showing up so suddenly, it was inevitable that some of them would’ve died while struggling to fight back against them.
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“It was a freak accident that no one saw coming. I won’t punish any of the guards,” Maria declared. "Make sure to reward those who were able to react quickly to minimize the casualties and, for those that fell in battle, make sure to compensate their families."
“On behalf of the guards, I thank you for your grace and benevolence, Your Majesty,” Elizabeth said with a bow. “Shall we head down now?”
“Yes.”
The hole had appeared only yesterday, but the dwarves in her Empire had already built a proper stairwell that reached down to the Underworld’s floor. They couldn’t build an elevator like they did with Heltania City due to the urgency.
Ash needed to send troops and supplies down to the Underworld as fast as possible and set up a perimeter around the area to keep the Underworld monsters from invading the palace. Maria had noticed it while they made their way to the dungeons, but some of the palace areas near the dungeons had been ruined. It was undoubtedly the work of the monsters that had escaped, but who would’ve thought that there was an Underworld Entrance just beneath her Imperial Palace?
Maria thought that there was only one entrance to the Underworld and evidently enough, she was wrong. The damage to the palace was already being repaired, so she no longer thought about it and focused her attention on the matter at hand.
“This entrance appeared only a day ago, right? Does anyone else know about this?”
“No one else besides those who were around at the time. None of the monsters managed to get outside of the palace walls, so we’ve been able to keep the Underworld Entrance a complete secret from everyone else,” Elizabeth replied. “Some of the palace servants asked about the commotion since there were a few guards that were injured and Ash had to make a move, so we made up an excuse that we were experimenting with monsters and a few of them had been let loose by mistake.”
“Good thinking. We don’t need the masses to know that there’s something dangerous right beneath the palace,” Maria said as she opened up her nation’s status window and saw that the population of her city had spiked for some reason. “Have more and more players begun arriving in Transylvania?”
“In the time that Your Majesty has gone to Vanargand, the first, second, and third batches of players have finally arrived at Transylvania. They’re all still mostly confined to District Victoria, while a select few have made it to District Baobahn.”
Elizabeth’s reply immediately answered the question she had about her city’s population. Maria wasn’t too surprised that the players had finally arrived at her nation’s capital city, considering that a good amount of time had passed since they first appeared.
“...It’s safe to assume that none of the commotion in the palace is known to those outside of District Dracul, yes?”
Elizabeth nodded and replied, “Yes, Your Majesty. As I’ve said before, only those within the palace know about the commotion.”
“Okay, that’s good. Knowing the players, if any of them find out, they’d immediately try investigating what happened, even if it meant dying to one of our guards.”
“No one can sneak inside the district even if they tried. District Dracul is strictly forbidden to anyone outside of those that you’ve approved, Your Majesty.”
“Yes, and those people who I’ve approved are the ones I’m worried about. Though they are my friends and brothers’ people, they have mouths, and mouths will spread rumors and information…” Maria replied to Elizabeth. “Make sure that no one ever finds out about the commotion…”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
When they arrived in the Underworld, Maria felt the familiar air and began looking around. The area around her was bustling with activity as her nation’s craftsmen were building an outpost around the stairwell and her palace guards were fighting against the Underworld monsters not too far away. Seeing them struggle a little bit, Maria frowned before raising her hand and saying, “Come.”
A large portal appeared behind her as her Undead Army emerged from it and she immediately ordered them to assist her subordinates fighting in the distance. Ash immediately felt the sudden flux of energy and quickly turned around. He was relieved to see that his master had finally arrived with Elizabeth and quickly went to greet her after leaving behind a blood clone in his place. He knelt in front of Maria and quickly greeted her, “Your Majesty, you’re finally here.”
“Give me a report. How are things doing down here?”
“Please follow me, Your Majesty.”
Before Maria followed after Ash, she turned to Velinda and said, “Bring your Undead and help the palace mages reinforce the barrier. I want one erected just like the one at the Necrovile outpost.”
“Yes, Master.”