The night followed in this way covering each and every city in Joryoku, the elven nation.

As the last locations to visit, they climbed all the floors of Dia’s dungeon and gave presents to all the children in the dungeon from the elven children to the lost boys.

When they finally arrived back at their island, they stopped and looked at the clock in the sky smiling.

Dong! Dong! Dong!

Loud gong like rings reached only their ears as the clock slowly faded and their accelerated time finally ended. The time on the clock was 1:00 am.

“I’d say that went well,” Nick said.

“We should watch things from now on and build off of it. Next year we will have to deal with noble children as well, so it will be much more of a hassle.” Kris said.

“Ho ho ho! It will be better next year, we will have much more time to prepare many things for the New Year’s,” Nick laughed.

Kris smiled and stretched his back, “Let's go inside and have some hot milk and cookies, all the fighting has worn me out,” he said tired.

They happily went into their homes where the elves greeted them with bright smiles and their slowly improving cookies.

Milk from the sky iron horn sheep was prepared for them which had a strangely magical restoring ability for them. Combined with the rice cookies, they quickly regained their vigor.

“Seems we will have to figure out how to get food during our yearly round,” Kris said.

“Can’t we come back?” he asked.

“Probably won’t be easy to get back and forth from the dungeon to the outside just to eat,” Kris said.

“Let us leave it with the queen then,” Nick said.

“That isn’t what I mean, haven’t you noticed how skinny you got?” Kris said.

Nick finally looked down and saw his belly had shrunk by half. “Wha!” he exclaimed.

“So you didn’t see, our bodies sped up compared to everyone and we probably burn a lot of energy. Maybe we would need to eat every few ‘minutes’ constantly. We will have to get the queen to have the children leave something or take food along,” Kris said.

He drank the milk and felt contentment feeling it go down. He didn’t notice his skinny figure slightly thicken.

“We will figure something out, let’s get some well deserved rest,” Nick said.

Kris nodded and took another rice cookie and cup of milk before going to his bed after hanging his large coat and removing the large black boots.

Nick took an entire tray of cookies and gallon of milk to finish in his room then went to bed after cleaning it up.

Soon the elves all slowly fell into bed leaving only animals and the winds to make movements during the night.

Slowly, the morning came as the invisible glitter of black and golden sand slowly vanished under the morning sun.

All throughout Joryoku, the two types of dream sand occupied the specific child depending which Christmas figure did the job.

As the children visited by Nick woke up, they exclaimed happily as they saw the presents and opened them to the find toys while some found fruits.

The poor child whose parents tried to become merchants woke up from a slight nightmare and found the present and fruits with the letter.

She called her father quickly and showed him.

The letter was to him and said, “Don’t let your sins pass to your child. Children are innocent and you must protect them. Use these fruits and give this child a proper future. She is a very smart child, don’t waste her boundless talent on being a petty thief.” The letter was direct and to the point, but it hit him immensely. His depressed expression was filled with awe.

“Sweetie… who was the one who gave you these?” he asked with a tired voice.

“It… it was a grandpa, he called himself Kris Kringle the Krampus and he spanked me for being naughty for stealing but then taught me something,” she said then smiled brightly as she waved her hands and a little bit of wind gathered in her hand which slowly became cold and formed small snowflakes. “He said if I learn magic, I can make snow fall and even make a magical scene, so Daddy doesn’t have to worry anymore,” she said.

The man began to cry and hugged her. “Daddy is sorry for how he acted.”

The two cried in each other’s arms as the man's wife woke up and read the letter before letting out a small smile.

In another place, a boy woke up shouting and screaming in fear and pain. Phantom pain filled his arms and legs yet nothing appeared. Not just him, but the four other children living with him all shouted and cried as well. Only much later they got up and met up. They were all traumatized and trembling, they rubbed their arms and legs having clear memories of the endless nightmare they felt.

“W-what happened?” the leader boy asked, but the others just shook their heads.

“W-we should… we should go see a priest,” one girl said half crying.

Such scenes were coming in many households of orphan children who were cruel and evil. Krampus had punished them in a way that made their seeds of evil that were budding to wither drastically.

These fearful and confused children slowly went to the closest churches which were receiving children talking of the same plight making the priests worry.

Other than them, children with worried parents also came because they feared it was some kind of curse.

Still, as they wondered what was going on, messages from the capital arrived. Servants from the royal palace arrived in each place which informed the priests of what was happening as well as what the queen was doing and wished to do.

The faces of the priests turned dark and when they returned they scolded the countless children for their misdeeds which caused their own punishment. The children did not understand, but when the priest said that this was punishment from a force authorized by the gods to punish children, they all became pale.

The parents desperately asked what was going on.

The head priest along with the envoy of the palace came out to explain, “What you children are feeling is called the new year punishment. From this year forth, a spirit of punishment was born and authorized by the gods themselves. You are feeling his punishment for the wrong doings,” he said.

“Your excellency! These are children! Why would the gods make such a creature?!” one of the adults exclaimed.

“It is not just punishment, both reward and punishment run hand in hand. The children who are good and obedient are rewarded by this spirit, those who are bad, and even worse, criminal will be punished. The worse they act during the year, the worse their punishment and the longer they feel their ghost pains in return,” the head priest said.

The reason he knew this was partly because Nick and Kris explained their New Year’s event and the effects on each type.

“Sir, please there has to be a way to stop this!” one mother said angrily.

“It is not in my place to stop something permitted by the gods. That said…” he looked at the many poor and skinny children as well as those who look away while their arms twitched, “... the sir envoy here from the royal palace in our fair capital has stated that with the coming and growth of the cloud dungeon, new jobs have begun to appear. They are willing to hire and educate any young orphans who wish for a new home and living conditions. I am also told that should you children properly tell which bad behaviors you have done for your punishment and are willing properly ask forgiveness for them, the pain you feel shall fade much quicker,” he said and looked at the nuns and priests who were on the side.

All the children became wide eyed and gulped, the many homeless children here were those living alone in small groups. Some have killed to survive, but the five who suffered greatly were a group of actual killers like thieves and bandits.

Those with a heavy and guilty conscious felt a weight on their mind that seemed to want to force them down making them unable to flee.

“These young priests and nuns are here to listen, we will not punish you but if you do not speak and seek forgiveness, the efforts of the queen will be in vain,” the head priest said and looked at the parents, “And you all, this is a good chance to educate your children. See this as a way to improve the standards of our fair nation and reduce the number of poor children joining the bands of thieves due to bad choices,” he said.

The faces of the human and elven parents turned red with shame at having their children openly called undisciplined, but just nodded because they would indeed not be in this situation if it were not the case.

The children with parents were interrogated at home which actually caused the parents to find a letter near the beds of the children containing a tongue lashing towards the parents for their poor rearing and what could help their children.

With anger built up, they had their children spill what they did.

At the same time, children who were visited by Nick were happily playing with the toys until they saw a letter and went to have their parents read it. They said mostly the same thing.

“Your children are very nice children, make sure to protect these young and innocent little ones. They are the future that will command the world in the years to come.

Sincerely, Mr. Claus”

None of them knew who this ‘Claus’ was but seeing the bright smiles of the children made them like this unknown man.

The parents joined their children in their joyfulness.

These two polar opposite types of actions that happened led to two kinds of feelings.

One group had dreamt of a demon like old man who tortured and punished them for their wrong doings causing an instinctive fear of the old man while the other had warm bright dreams and got presents from a mysterious grandpa. One should know that mysteriousness can be both good and bad and can make one be in either awe or fear.

Both effects happened and it caused an invisible force to float up.

In the sixth floor of the cloud dungeon, the two men were sleeping when a faint bluish mist gathered and began to enter them, waking them.

“What?!” Nick exclaimed as he felt this faint energy and saw it gather. He then walked outside and saw the large cloud flowing to him while behind him Kris walked out, also attracting the mist.

“What is this?” an awake elf asked in awe.

“It’s belief,” Nick said as he held his hand and waving it making the mist float around.

“Belief?” the elf asked confused.

“Yes sir!” Misty suddenly popped up, looking up at Nick and Kris. “You both did quite a good job yesterday,” she said.

“Miss Misty, what is belief?” an elf asked.

“Do you know what faith is?” she asked.

The elves tilted their heads confused.

“Faith is the energy of faith that all living creatures release when they pray and believe in the gods,” Misty said.

“So belief is faith?!” the elf asked excited.

“No, it's much weaker. Faith can only be gathered by demi-gods and gods. Belief is an energy special spirits grow from. Only very few spirits can induce the effect to gather this. Nick is the Spirit of Wonder while Kris is the Spirit of Punishment. These both can form this force when they are doing their job. When someone believes in their existence it will produce belief. It's an energy 20-50 times weaker than the faith of gods but is between 5-10 times better then mana,” she said.

The eyes of the elves looked in awe at their two bosses who were touching the mist and absorbing it but the two soon reached a point where they could no longer do this.

“Why can’t we absorb more?” Nick asked.

“Belief is not faith, faith is concentrated and absorbed by a singular being but belief is not. It's spread to all beings who made an effort to achieve the effect of making belief. Only you two can absorb it, but you have to inject it into the ground to make yours and all the elves grow,” Misty explained.

The snow elves were completely shocked while the two men bent over and touched the ground which caused a very weak blew pulse that faded quickly.

“That's it?” Kris asked.

“You have to pump all this belief into the land to see a difference,” Misty said making the bloody red coat wearing old man groan as he unconsciously absorbed more belief mist before noticing and touched the ground with Nick making a bigger pulse.

Each time it pulsed caused a strange vibrancy to rise in the mana producing a tingling in the elves.

Boom!

After another pulsed, like a tsunami gathering up power, the belief energy finally landed and burst out from the ground then rolled out throughout the entire island.

It was like an amazing blizzard and every snow elf was swallowed by it causing their bodies to change.

When the pulse ended, they found every snow elf turned into a tan skinned Christmas elf, all of who were teen sized.

The two men gathered the last of the belief and pumped it causing it to burst underground then surge out of the island.

Pumping through the mystical energy channels of the dungeon, it surged all the way to Dia’s mana pond and bubbled out before it was absorbed by the two dungeon cores.

The five times stronger energy was rapidly made into very pure mana water and dropped down as if a faucet had been opened.

The mana water flowed into the sixth floor causing it to subtly shake as the sixth floor rapidly grew to maximum size while the wisps took the mana and made clouds causing the island clouds to grow to max size.

Floor 6 has reached maximum size and requires a dungeon boss to expand. Please proceed to making the boss.

Dia who was happily cuddling the large stuffed bear she got while Waid was grinning as he held a tin stick like those of the toy soldiers. When he pointed and pulled the little trigger, it would send out a small but fast light which would rebound off hard surfaces making it fun to play with, yet if it got outside of 30 meters of the source it would pop like a firework.

“Floor 6 is already at the max size,” Dia said to Jack and Mir, who had come.

“We should make a boss then?” Jack said.

“Do you have anything in mind Dia?” Mir asked while sitting near the warm fire while a pair of the fire spirits brought her warm sky iron horn sheep milk.

Dia hugged her fluffy bear and leaned her head on it, “Hmmm… I made Frosty…” she mumbled.

“Why not another snowman?” Waid said as he played around with the soldier gun.

“Snowman… ah!” she exclaimed.

“Did you think of something?” Jack asked.

“Yeah!” she smiled brightly, “It's the same creature, but there are two ways to make it. It's called the abominable snowman, one story says it's a white haired monkey man who lives in really cold places and mountains and the other is an actual big snowman. The snowman one is more magical my brother…” she became sad as she reached this before she continued, “My brother played games that had this kind,” she said.

“So you want to make it a snowman or a monkey?” Waid asked, “I think we have snow gorillas we can make that with,” he said.

Dia shook her head, “I want to make a Yeti from the gorilla, it's another name for that type of abominable snowman, but I don’t want to make it totally bad.” she pouted

They all stopped and only the sound of the crackling of the fire was heard. Suddenly Jack perked up and smiled, “What if you make this new snowman the little brother of Frosty. That way Frosty would teach him not to be totally bad while he protects the way to the next floor,” Jack suggested.

Dia giggled, “That sounds silly but fun!” she said.

They let the sun rise well into the sky before going outside. The snow was glittering like crystals on the New Year’s after the fresh snowfall from the previous night.

They went to the pond which glittered extra mystically.

Dia touched the water and Waid followed but paused and looked at her.

He started to withdraw his hand before he saw a confused look on her face.

“Is something wrong?” she asked.

“You pushed me out before…” he said.

Dia’s face blushed greatly. When making Jack she had savagely kicked him out to not touch Jack Frost which left a mark on Waid.

“I was just scared… can you help?” she asked smiling.

He took a moment but nodded.

They summoned five snowmen and three snow fairies.

They held the chosen snowman and closed their eyes.

Like all monster creations, the dark space appeared and the monsters merged before the snowman inflated into a huge ice bellowing snow golem.

“This is too mean and dumb!” Dia complained.

The creature was eight meters tall, even taller than Jack the giant, but very quickly it dropped down to four meters and all that extra mass went into its intelligence.

“Hey, it would be cool if he had an ice skeleton and snow body which would be like two forms,” Waid said excited and the form changed. Snow fell and ice formed a strong ice skeleton with four fingered hands and feet with three toes. The body was skinny and the monster core was in the heart.

Snow gathered and covered most of the skeleton from head to feet and all the fingers in thick snow which made the sharp ice spikes much less dangerous until they are exposed.

“Wow that looks good.” Waid said. The bulky gorilla like snowman who was four meters tall and not totally smart but not caveman stupid, was visible to them.

They talked about any features left to clean up before finishing.

The snowmen and fairies merged and began to gather a lot of snow. Like a whirlwind, snow melted forming the skeleton and was soon covered by more snow forming the compacted snowman.

A new monster has been made, please name it.

“It’s the Abominable Snowman.” Dia said.

Abominable Snowman

The result of the work of two young dungeons. This creature is a magical snow and ice golem. It is more intelligent than most low-middle tier golems, but it is still simple minded. It is most powerful in cold snowy regions. It is not aggressive by nature, but it is very powerful.

Dia nodded and called Frosty who soon materialized from the snow and the magic hat flying over.

“Frosty, this is your little brother, you should take good care of him and teach him to be a good boy while he protects the path up,” Dia said.

“Okay!” the friendly snowman saluted, “So what do we do now?” Dia asked.

“The day after your Christmas, what do you normally do before?” Mir asked.

“We always had a party and exchange gifts between friends and family! There is always yummy tasty food and drinks and lots and lots of fun!” Dia said.

“Alright, let’s call some of your favorite monsters, we will have a New Year’s party with you then,” Mir said.

“Really!” Dia’s eyes shined.

“Yep,” she smiled.

Dia shouted happily, but Waid didn’t get what the event really meant since it was just one more year.

Dia ended up calling all her named monsters, the bell flower empress, lightning priestess spirit and a few others.

They gathered in the sixth floor after the seventh floor formed and they began to cook some domestic monsters while Lyra, the spirit harp, played beautiful music which raised the merriment of the event. They each went and brought presents for Dia and some for each other. Peter and Hook had a hard time near each other, especially after the war, but Dia liked them both unlike how she thought when she made Hook as a boss.

They had fun the entire day.

***

In the palace, Felicia’s face was dark as she listened to her scribe talk of the report.

“We have completed the investigation and counting your highness. A total of 683 women, 437 girls and 120 boys were rescued. The boys were found being used as mining slaves by all the bandits while women…” he did not say as it was not needed. “Of the women and children, a total of 1,240, all the boys were human while the women and girls were split with 1/5th being elven people and the rest were humans or half elves,” the scribe said.

“What of family or relatives?” Felicia asked.

“We have have investigated the whole night and morning. We have already found half of their families or living relatives,” he said but a worried expression was on his face.

“Speak!” Felicia exclaimed seeing his expression.

“Yes… we have already identified a number of adult women and children who are without work after their trade caravan or village was destroyed. They also have no family or friends who can help them build their lives once more,” he said.

“To these people, we shall take them into the palace as servants. We will be low on manpower soon as grandmother goes to build the dungeon nation in the cloud dungeon. She will require many hired hands which the women and children can help fill. I also wish to hire and educate, those who are orphans can be added into the palace workforce. Those who have family will get compensation and aid from the royal family to help rebuild their lives,” she said.

“I understand my queen,” he says and writes out the decree to which she checks and stamps her approval.

“Implement these changes at once. Orphans of the streets who accept the offer of the palace after admitting their sins shall also be taken into the apprenticeship of the royal craftsmen and any willing craftsmen. Those who have no particular talents can go to learn how to do farm work. This also must be done effective immediately to ensure we have a workforce to sustain the cloud nation!” she said.

“Yes my queen!” the scribe said and made another decree which was approved.

From there, monumental changes began to shift within the elven nation of Joryuko which began to focus on the prosperity of its people over the prosperity of its nobles. All of this was one monumental New Year’s gift that Dia had unknowingly given to these people.