53. Neighbors (4)
53. Neighbors (4)
- 1 -
"...Hmm. I spoke with confidence, but this is a bit of a problem."
The Harpy Queen's confident proposal hit a snag right from the very first step.
She had proposed a 'Meeting of the Five Queens' at the secret conference location where the queens normally gathered via their private communication line, but two of the other queens immediately sent back their opposition.
"I'm sorry. Both of them are cowards, you see."
"No, it's fine. For someone who leads a group, carefully weighing one's own safety is also a quality of a leader."
"The new Dungeon Lord is quite understanding."
The Harpy Queen was apologizing because of her own boasting, but this was hardly something to apologize for.
Simply informing me of the other three powers' existence was already as good as granting me an immense benefit.
A benefit that transformed potential unknown enemies and their existence into assets that could perhaps be made allies.
'It's not like I don't understand their position either.'
Besides, even if I were in those queens' shoes, I wouldn't want a 'not-yet-verified enemy leader' anywhere near my secret meeting place.
To put it bluntly, what if they wrapped up the conversation with a smile, only to launch a surprise attack later?
So.
"It may be troublesome, but please pass on my proposal. Tell them that if they designate the location, I will come to meet them. Establishing contact shouldn't be a problem, right? If you already knew of my existence, then the other queens must also know the location of me and my dungeon."
"That would be the case. I understand. If I cannot even assist with this, my reputation will not survive."
Fortunately, my second proposal, delivered through the Harpy Queen, returned with a positive answer.
Not only that, but it seemed one of the other powers, which had already been positive about gathering at the conference, had even sent word to meet right away.
And that power's identity was...
"Where are they?"
"The Alraune. They are beings that inhabit the swamplands to the east of your dungeon."
Fortunately, this time it was a group whose existence I was already aware of.
There was just one problem.
"So they had a queen as well. However..."
"Is there some problem?"
"The schedule is going to be a bit difficult."
The eastern swamp where the Alraune dwelled.
That place was located on the banks of a great river, a bit further southeast than Solemio.
In other words, it was a place that took four days of walking at an ordinary human's pace from here. Even if they came out to meet me at a halfway point, we'd still have to move for at least two days.
Given that I had to depart within three days at the latest to attend the Count's party, it was going to be difficult to fit into the schedule.
"I think my meeting with the others will have to be postponed until later. I need to take care of a fixed engagement first."
"Is that so? Then it cannot be helped. While you are absent from your dungeon, I shall arrange the appointments from my end."
If I were a complete outsider like myself, the weight of such a promise would be low, but according to the Harpy Queen, she had sufficiently exchanged bonds among them.
If she showed herself taking the lead and paying attention to arranging a meeting with me, the other queens wouldn't be able to simply ignore it or easily try to antagonize me.
"It must be troublesome for you. Thank you, Queen."
"Don't mention it. If I don't do at least this much, my pride as leader of the flock, having boasted so, cannot survive."
"I'm even more grateful you put it that way."
So this was a great help.
If I could repay it with mere words of thanks, it was a help that practically amounted to me owing her a huge emotional debt.
But since she was even recognizing and erasing that debt from her side, I was all the more thankful.
"Then, I shall look forward to an even better meeting next time. Queen of the Dungeon... no, Libertas."
"As shall I. Kamaya."
And so that day, the Harpy Queen and I parted ways, exchanging goodwill.
For an unexpected encounter, it was one that ended quite pleasantly.
- 2 -
After leaving the Harpy's nest, I resumed my original task of surveying the terrain around the dungeon and achieved my own results.
First, I properly organized the points that would become tactically important locations and the distances between them.
In two ways.
"With nothing much to add or subtract, it's just as I already knew."
- Dalkak!
One was magical distance.
After stationing Skeletons in each area, I fired a magic signal at a set strength and measured how long it took for that signal to be received, confirming the efficiency of communication.
The second was physical distance.
I confirmed the ground movement distance using the steps of an apprentice Skeleton, whose pace didn't slow when tired or quicken when healthy like a human's, and the straight-line travel distance via my flight.
"With this much, I can sufficiently establish where to ambush from and how to strike those infiltrating from any direction."
At the very least, making it so that 'smooth supply lines' near my dungeon couldn't even be dreamed of. That was the immediate objective I set.
And to achieve that, there were a few more matters that needed additional improvement.
First, one matter to improve quickly.
"To think all the other monsters had fled."
It seemed that while the humans might not know, the wild magical beasts had properly recognized the fact that a properly established, active dungeon existed around here now.
Because of that, the number of ordinary magical beast packs, such as orcs and goblins, had noticeably decreased around the dungeon.
At least within the range I could confirm in a day or two, there were no magical beast packs present at all, and it looked like I would have to go out farther to find any properly.
'Though it seems Kamaya, the other queens, and a few groups confident in their strength remain somewhat.'
There might be cases like Kamaya's harpy tribe hiding in ways I couldn't perceive, but such cases were exceptions since I truly couldn't find them.
One or two ogre families remained, but if there were no other magical beasts nearby, they would have little to eat and were certain to move away soon.
"I didn't expect to have to pay attention to this much... sigh."
Naturally, just because a dungeon existed in one location didn't mean all wild magical beasts would bow their heads and come to it on their own.
Magical beasts that had already found their own way of living in the wild had no reason to seek change.
That was why they would form villages away from the dungeon.
'The problem is, as a dungeon, the existence of those wild magical beasts isn't entirely unnecessary.'
Because if this situation were left as is, the dungeon's location would naturally become known.
In a manner like, 'The wild monster packs are strangely few around here. There's no doubt a dungeon is there.'
To construct a 'natural wild environment,' the situation had now come where I had to proactively extend a hand to the monster packs.
"It would be impossible right now since I have business, but while I'm out, I'll have to subjugate a few monster packs. I'll have to take the troops as well."
Of course, the means wouldn't be very merciful.
Mostly force, occasionally killing, sometimes curses or mental manipulation, perhaps.
- Deolgeok!
- Ttak-ttak!
- Dalgeurak!
"Yes. You lot will get to play an active role."
From within the shadows, I felt the sounds and emotions of the Axes and Jesters responding to my words.
It was a reaction full of considerable aggressive sentiment, so to speak.
Warriors would be warriors, I supposed.
'She was like that too.'
Speaking of warriors, I recalled the matter of Kamaya.
After our first meeting, once the hospitality ended, she had been showing signs of wanting something from me, yet she had waited patiently.
"I wonder what Kamaya wanted from me. Do any of you know?"
- ...
The shadows instantly grew quiet.
Hmm. There was no way these kids would know, really. Before the question of whether they were smart or not, there was no way their way of thinking had developed in that direction.
Perhaps it was too mischievous a question.
However, considering that she also seemed to be a 'warrior' and that my children were warriors too, I could guess the context would be similar.
'A chance to fight.'
And on top of that, adding 'what they fight for' would do, wouldn't it? My soldiers were merely soldiers, but she was a leader.
'Thinking grandly...'
"The revival of the harpies. Or something like that."
It was still just my delusion, but I thought it was an amusing guess.
Even if it wasn't something that grand, as long as the context was similar, her desire would surely become a great opportunity for me.
That was, of course, if my guess was correct.
'On another note.'
From the matter of Kamaya, my thoughts turned back to what I had originally been considering.
It was because the place I happened to be was near the hut I had used to nurse Sonia, and I recalled the dungeon improvement plans I had been constantly thinking about here.
'When it was a game, it was tiring to have to pay attention to things I didn't need to pay attention to.'
For a dungeon to grow, it needed adventurers to devour.
Especially if it was a case like a necromancer who used summons that directly utilized human bodies, it needed them even more to secure high-quality summons.
But as things stood, making them visit the dungeon directly was a method that carried risk no matter how much the dungeon grew, as long as its location was in the middle of human territory.
My dungeon improvement plan was devised from this point.
"I still don't know if this is possible, but..."
'Come to think of it, the entrance doesn't necessarily have to be next to a mountain.'
Like this hut, installing 'traps that activate and teleport the target into the dungeon when conditions are met' in various regions where humans lived.
This was a method with pros and cons even just from what immediately came to mind.
The advantage was that controlling information about my dungeon would become easier, and the disadvantage would be not knowing how much material and time it would take to implement this method.
Because at the moment of transfer from outside to inside the dungeon, I would have to change the interior appearance of the dungeon to something familiar to humans to prevent the perception of 'the place I was just at suddenly changed.'
'Even considering such disadvantages, this advantage is an immediately necessary benefit.'
Thanks to the Cerebrum Skulls I had drawn out to their maximum potential still working hard, adventurers were being splendidly 'disappeared' in various places, but this alone couldn't control the rumors forever.
Even now, some people had heard the rumors but weren't actually visiting the dungeon, so I was investing manpower into that aspect.
Because there were limits to concealing the very existence of the Cerebrum Skulls actively disappearing others.
However, a 'place where people enter and vanish' wouldn't need additional investment to control its danger as long as I spent a little money and massaged the rumors.
'After all, if the rumors about that place get too severe, I could just turn off the trap for a while.'
The difficulty of adjusting the level of adventurers flying into the dungeon didn't even qualify as a disadvantage.
Because it was the same even now.
I could control the entry risk by setting a restriction like 'do not activate against adventurer parties above a certain level,' but this wasn't a fundamental solution either.
It would also be a problem if only adventurers below a certain level kept entering the dungeon.
'Rather, this might be a time to welcome the danger.'
A dungeon could grow even larger the stronger the adventurers who visited.
Thinking about it that way, perhaps it was better not to control that danger right now.
In the first place, the number of adventurers at the elite level or higher currently in the inland regions was very small, so in this situation, elite adventurers would take much better-paying requests rather than bother taking on something like an investigation of a 'place where people are disappearing'...
"The more I think about it, the more it appeals to me."
"What does?"
"It's nothing. More importantly, are the preparations complete? Everyone."
Just as I was thinking I should ask Scarlet to provide an estimate for the dungeon renovation, the time I returned to the dungeon was when the preparations for the second outing toward Copherin were complete.
The purpose of this outing was to release Alexis Julka into society, give her time to build achievements, and find clues about the dungeon core thief.
And to that end, it was to attend a party.
'A fantasy world noble family's party, huh.'
As I repeated those words to myself, I felt my heart unexpectedly beat a little louder.
'I'm looking forward to it.'
Curiosity about high society culture hard to encounter on Earth. The anticipation of being able to see proper nobles of a fantasy world.
Both were pumping my heart.
'It feels like a somewhat childish emotion, but...'
I decided to just let that emotion be as I felt it.
Because I didn't think of it as particularly bad.
- 3 -
"What do you think?"
"And what do you think, Mother?"
After Libertas left the Harpy's nest.
As Kamaya sat alone, gulping down the fruit wine Libertas had left as a gift, she suddenly opened her mouth to ask. From the bedroom side, her daughter Serha, who had been lying down, sat up and asked back.
As if it were a conversation already scheduled, naturally.
"I... think she is fully capable of aiming for the 'Demon King.'"
"I think so too."
When Kamaya, who seemed to ponder for a moment, offered her opinion, Serha nodded without hesitation as well.
"Is that so?"
"Yes. Because it is truly rare for a young Dungeon Lord to display such cold calmness and prudence. If we are the first to help her while her power has not yet flourished, she will never forget this assistance."
In the eyes of the girl speaking at length, a shrewd clarity she had not shown Libertas the other day stood out.
It was a quality of a strategist that anyone could recognize.
"Since the opinions of the Queen and the heir match, all that remains is to give our all."
"So we are no longer going to live as wild monsters."
"It has been a long life of obscurity. And this is a venture worth attempting."
After downing the fruit wine heartily, Kamaya put the bottle down and spoke, a flame flickering in her eyes.
A drawn-out, long seclusion was something that absolutely did not suit a harpy who soared through the skies on wings. It would probably be the same for most intelligent species.
'Fifty years since I was born and gained this thing called intelligence... I've endured for a long time.'
She didn't desire something grandiose. She simply wanted an environment where she didn't have to live in hiding.
Freedom, or perhaps fame.
Kamaya possessed a nature that could not live without seizing one of the two, yet she had been unable to find an environment to set that will upright until now.
But now, she had discovered the seed to create that environment in a small-bodied Dungeon Lord.
"Then we must resolve the first task splendidly."
"Will you be the one to go?"
"Because if you, Mother, move personally, your dignity as Queen will not be preserved?"
"Or is it that you just prefer making the political situation yourself?"
At her mother's question, which was regaining its motivation, the daughter also grinned and stuck out her tongue cheekily.
"Of course. How enjoyable it is for everything to move according to my design."
"Be careful not to become arrogant."
"Yes!"
An appearance that looked very delicate on the outside. But in those large eyes, the same flame as her mother's flickered.
The flame of ambition that could not be hidden.