After my explanation finished, Julia understood better how Dungeons worked. A greedy smile, which I’ve only rarely seen in her emerged on her lips, as her eyes flashed with bright pink light. Was she having an idea?
“So Dungeons can absorb Mana from the environment but at a really slow pace… How much daily?” She wondered.
“Around five thousand daily, give or take.” I said.
“That’s way too little…” Julia sighed. “I suppose you’ll really need to pour your Mana into it for this to really work. Which means you’ll be constantly using thousands of Mana from your abnormally vast reserves for a Human… It will be an arduous work, the price of monster meat might increase now that we’ll know that it is actually being created with your Mana, which might even ensue taxes that adventurers will have to pay to enter your dungeon and hunt monsters.”
“Wait, taxes?” I wondered.
“Yeah, now that the Dungeon is private property and not of the entire nation, it would be ideal if you asked for taxes, a small entrance fee perhaps. It might also be wise to give you a Noble Title.” Said Julia.
“Noble?! Me?!” I asked in shock.
“Yeah, you’re more than qualified. With the drops you got from the dungeon and your strength… You should definitely become an honorary noble. With my status as a Duchess, I am capable of asking the King for a Noble Title for you, I am sure he’ll agree when I tell him you’re the hero that saved the fiefdom from the Vampires… I don’t know if it will be possible for the rest of your party though, especially due to the stigma against the Majin. I am really sorry.” Julia said.
“Ah, don’t worry. I don’t really care about a Noble Title.” Said Lucifer.
“Me neither!” Partner said.
“I actually hate nobles, becoming one would be detestable…” Sighed Emeraldine.
“Guh…! You guys are really not into this, huh?! Well, I am! I want to be a Noble Lady, so I’ll accept your offer, Julia.” I said while crossing my arms.
“Excellent! If you become a Noble, we could construct a manor for you in here, yes? The Noble district is quite vast so there’s a lot of land. With your Title and the money you got, it should be possible to buy a plot of land easily.” Julia said. “I can’t believe Mary will join the noblesse! I will have to teach you a lot about a noble lady’s etiquette and maybe help you hire a few maids and butlers…”
“E-Eh?! Wait a second, I didn’t thought this through enough for all of that…!” I said.
“Don’t worry, you can still live in your village, but you’ll have a second home in this fiefdom.” Julia reassured me.
“Ah… Well… Okay.” I sighed.
I never imagined that one day I would become the savior of the fiefdom where I was once beheaded and also a Noble lady at that… This is really quite the plot twist.
“Mary becoming a Noble will be a hard work to pull out, my lady.” Said Hector. “She’s very rowdy, like a country girl.”
“Indeed, it might be an impossible task.” Said Faerie.
“Uuuh… Poor Mary.” Faire said.
“Y-You really have little faith in me, huh?!” I asked in shock. “I’ll become a prestigious noble lady in no time… But for now, let’s continue talking about the dungeon.”
“Right, right, that was the topic at hand.” Julia said, sipping some tea and then calming herself down. “Now that we know you’re the dungeon master, you should become a noble asap so you can exert taxes, the dungeon will become a private organization and you could even build an entire company around it. Due to the never-seen production of items and monsters, you could become the wealthiest woman in the entire Kingdom.” Julia reassured me.
“I… I don’t want to be that rich to be honest… Being rich also makes you famous, which will bring a lot of people’s eyes. I want to remain lowkey. Do you have to tell the King about this?” I sighed.
“Sadly, if we want more justifications for your Noble Title, yes. Don’t worry, this should be confidential amongst the family of royalty only. Those that dare to leak the information will be promptly taken care of by our Dark Knights, an organization of Assassins we employ, it is composed of several families that protect the Kingdom and the fiefdoms. Of course, it is notorious enough that the fiefdoms farther away from the capital are not even protected. We didn’t received any help from them.” Sighed Julia.
“So there’s such an organization…” I sighed.
It might be harder than I thought to pull out my assassination attempt against the dukes behind my family’s death now that I know about these guys… But it’s not as if I am going to give up on it.
“Anyways, you don’t have to worry too much-“
“But aren’t there various Vampires infiltrating the royal family already?” I asked. “I mean, wasn’t your uncle involved with them?”
“Yes… He was. I presume there might be other corrupt dukes out there… But this should be between me and the King and the Queen. Both of them are very secretive, trust me.” Said Julia. “We’ll try to get you a noble status so it is not so easy to target you, and then we’ll slowly begin to normalize your authority as a dungeon master. But for now, I suppose we’ll keep the dungeon open and pretend things are normal, I will pay you for maintaining it with monsters. But nothing above F Rank please, I don’t want people to die recklessly.” She sighed.
“Okay, got it. Though monsters obey my every command, so I could simply ask them to get killed and give EXP to anybody… Easily.” I sighed.
“I assumed it was such a case… And just knowing you can simply control them and distribute EXP, food, and materials so easily is what really puts me on edge, managing all of this will really be a challenge. It would be better to pretend monsters cannot be controlled for now, simply make them dumber or something, so they don’t accidentally kill people so easily.”
And , my business as a Dungeon Master have begun.