“Your uncles? Aren’t they the rest of the Dukes? Wait, they’re all your family?!” I wondered.
“Well yes. We all share the same bloodline; they usually don’t allow non royalty to become Dukes or Duchesses after all. But some are uncles and others step siblings and so on… It’s a mix of everything. My grandfather has a main wife but several concubines, some of them died earlier, and others have survived. He had over ten kids, so he could distribute his reign across his vast Kingdom by setting up fiefdoms for each of them.” Julia answered.
“Huh, I see. Are all kingdoms this way?” I wondered.
“The majority, although some others, such as the Holy Empire, work differently, as the territory is controlled by the church of the God of Light, even Head Priests can become majors of large towns, which they need to take care of.” Said Julia.
“Wow, I guess stuff can be different everywhere, huh?” I sighed. “A-Anyways, Julia, what about the research for the boy I asked you for? Remember?”
“Oh! Right, yes, I also got news for that this morning!” Julia said, slamming the table.
Julia seemed happy to have brought such good news, as she was nodding while smiling pridefully.
“Sadly, things are not looking good though, apparently that kid ended running away from our nation due to some complications. Apparently some noble-hired mercenaries have been looking for him, so he and his uncle, alongside a mysterious man that has been seen accompanying them escaped to the boundaries of the Kingdom. They were last seen moving through the road that leads to the Confederation of Merchants of Goldsand, or the Nation of Goldsand for short.” Said Julia.
“It is a large nation that encompasses a big piece of the continent, formed in ancient times by an enormous conglomeration of merchants. The Nation used to have another name but after many years it was renamed as Goldsand, which is the name of their Merchant Guild as well. This enormous nation is made of several small cities scattered across a vast territory, with many trade routes and several port cities which are their pride. It was a good choice they moved there, as it would make things easier for them if they want to hide. Our Kingdom can’t easily just let their soldiers enter there and people can register there quite easily by paying a fee.” Julia said. “If you ever plan to pursue this longer, you might have to go search for him in this nation…”
“I see… It sounds interesting. But I guess I am quite glad they were able to escape…”
“Hmm…” Julia suddenly looked at me while squinting her eyes. “What… relationship do you truly have with this child, and the Dark Witch?”
“I would like to keep this as a secret for now… If possible.” I said.
“Hm… Mary, you’re quite an interesting yet mysterious girl. You’re very strong and have connections with the Fuentes Belles Family… I don’t really want to call you suspicious because you’ve done so much for us but… I am just very intrigued. I guess I cannot really pursue this, I don’t want to make you feel uncomfortable.” She said with a smile, quickly brushing off her curiosity. We have done so much for her that perhaps she couldn’t bring herself to interrogate us.
“I am grateful for your help in such a matter, Julia, and also for being so nice and friendly with us even after thinking of me as suspicious…” I sighed.
“A-Ah! S-Sorry if I said that, I-I didn’t really mean it!” Julia desperately tried to take away my sad face.
I felt slightly sad I couldn’t tell her more of the truth, but I couldn’t really trust her, even after all of this. It was better to keep her out of my true identity and my problems. I would simply be too risky to tell her as well.
“Well! For now, we shall continue helping ya in anything you need for a week before we go back home.”
After five hours of rising more lesser Undead to help bring back the city to how it was before, and also to clean the streets, we quickly decided to move back to the Inn.
…Of course not, we moved directly to the Dungeon, where I wanted to check out some things. It was already night, so I had imagined nobody would be there, but we found a camp filled with guards and soldiers protecting the entrance of the dungeon, which was quite annoying.
However, by placing everyone inside my Shadows, I simply sneaked around through [Shadow Transportation] and reached the interior of the dungeon quickly after. And just as I had imagined, it was completely empty, no monsters, no nothing.
“Whew, this place is surely empty… Let’s go to the last floor for now…”
I flew down to the last floor, finding nothing here as well. It felt as if the dungeon had been completely emptied and cleansed. We had taken most of the monster corpses and loot, and perhaps the soldiers cleansed the rest, so now everything was almost clean of how empty it was.
System, how can I access the Dungeon’s Capabilities?
[By merely willing it. Now that you’re inside the Dungeon, control over the Dungeon should be swifter and even easier.]
Oh I see! So what can I do here? How does this works? Can you give me a quick roundabout?
[Very well. The Dungeon works simplistically. Its core simply absorbs and stores Mana from the environment and its interior]
[Yes, the way the Dungeon lures people inside to kill them through traps and monsters is so the dead bodies of people are absorbed slowly into Mana.]
[As a Dungeon Master, you’re able to supply the Dungeon with a small part of your own Mana. The Dungeon has a maximum capacity of Mana Storage of 1000000 as of now, but the stronger it grows, the more Mana it can store inside of its Core. How about you try giving it a bit of Mana?]
Alright, let’s give it a shot!
A second after I thought about giving Mana to my Dungeon, an enormous river of my Mana flew outside of my soul, reaching the Dungeon’s Core.