Elizabeth lets out a sigh for the umpteenth time. Sitting upon her throne of mithril, she brushes back her long black hair, her emerald green eyes dull with boredom. Mindlessly, she calls up her interface, using the System command. The familiar text appears, reading:

Lady Elizabeth, what is it you command?

“[Live Map]. [Seventh Floor].”

Instantly, a faded yellow parchment materializes before her, giving her a birds eye view of the seventh floor of her dungeon. She scans it quickly, searching for the marker indicating “Adventurer Party”. She is unable to find it, however, and only the marker of her mob is present, a gray humanoid icon with a blocky outline, indicating the SS-class monster known as a Stone Giant.

“Did they really not even make it this far?” she wonders aloud, no longer even able to muster the energy to be disappointed. She uses System again, checking the sixth and finally the fifth floors, and it is on the map of the latter that she spots a small crossbones icon, indicating the death of the adventurers.

“[Logs].”

A wall of text scrolls before her eyes, and she skims through it before finding the line of interest:

Party of Three A-class adventurers were slain by Several Trolls.

Elizabeth feels her eyebrow twitch, and she swipes her hand through the air, wiping the logs away in annoyance. “Idiots,” she groans, “Did they not even prepare properly before entering a Legendary-class dungeon?” It’s bad enough that the pool of adventurers willing to challenge her is small to begin with, but then when she actually does get visitors, they turn out to be arrogant idiots more willing to brag about their courage than their skill.

Gods, I’m so bored and tired of this shit. Seriously, what’s even the point of maintaining Stone Giants and Hydras, if parties can’t even make it past the Trolls???

Internally, she blames the Geneva Accords, which propagated the ability for adventurers to respawn at the nearest town upon death in a dungeon. While this had the effect of increasing visitation and challenges to dungeons overall, bringing it to mass market insofar as any old grandma with a kitchen knife could go challenge a dungeon on a given Saturday afternoon, it also dramatically decreased the quality of dungeon challengers. After all, why prepare when there’s so little risk?

Elizabeth shakes her head, deciding not to dwell on the matter further. After all, it is something decided long ago by those beyond herself. She lets out another sigh, then calls up her Stats screen, her eyes scrolling down until she reaches this part:

Current Exp

47,800 / 65,000

Adventurers Killed (Current Tier)

1,075

Dungeon Clearance Rate (Current Tier)

50 / 1125 (4.40%)

Regarding the first two, she has become desensitized, as they now only appear as numbers on a screen. Long has she forgotten the excitement and joy of watching those values slowly tick up, back when she first became a dungeon centuries ago. Instead, her eyes narrow upon the last line, the clearance rate. As a Legendary-class dungeon, she is supposed to maintain a 4.5% - 5.5% clearance rate. The idiots that decided to croak in her dungeon happened to lower it just enough that she now falls below that critical threshold.

Elizabeth curses silently to herself. Now she’d have to remodel the dungeon to tune down the difficulty and bring the number back up. After all, the last thing she wanted to deal with right now was Augustine on her ass about not meeting quotas or whatever.

“Is everything alright, Milady?” a voice asks, interrupting her thoughts.

Elizabeth looks up, finding that it is her loyal servant. At present, he is in the form of a White Wolf, with snow-colored fur and deep amber eyes. “Douglas,” she greets with a shrug, “Nothing but more of the same.”

“The adventurers dying to the trolls?”

“You know about that?”

“I went upstairs to take a peek.”

Elizabeth leans deep into her throne, and the wolf approaches, settling comfortably at her side. She begins to mindlessly stroke its silky smooth fur before saying, “[System]. [Crafting]. [Create]. [Gold Coin]. [Quantity 1].” A prompt appears:

Create 1 Gold Coin. This action will consume 50,000 AP. Proceed?

“[Yes].”

Elizabeth holds out her hand, and a moment later, a gold coin, weighing about 5 grams, materializes in her palm. She begins to play catch, tossing it high into the air before snatching it back with two fingers.

“Don’t use all your AP, Milady,” Douglas reminds, “You still need to create the armor sets for Luddoff before next Monday.”

“Right, right,” Elizabeth replies, “You always worry so much, Douglas.”

“You always do things to make me worry, Milady,” the wolf counters.

“I don’t-” Elizabeth begins, but a sudden notification pops up, distracting her. She selects it and finds that it is a message from the Dungeons Association, addressed to every member. Her eyes open a little wider in surprise, for it is unusual for the Dungeons Association to send out a general notification. She reads the contents.

“What is it, Milady?”

“Apparently, a new dungeon has emerged.”

“That’s surprising, no? When was the last time that has happened?”

“Nearly a century ago, I think. Trevor, was it?”

“Thomas.”

“Ah, right, Thomas. You’re right. The one with the limp.”

“So, what’s the deal with this new dungeon?”

“Says here his name is Franklin. He’s located… just south of Addenbur.”

“Isn’t that Rothgar’s territory?”

Elizabeth doesn’t answer, and Douglas watches as his master stands, suddenly looking rather chirpy. A feeling of foreboding runs through his canine body. “Milady? Are you going somewhere?”

“Just a quick peek, Douglas. After all, it’s not every decade that we get a new dungeon appearing.”

“What about the Luddoff orders?”

“I’ll have Michael take over for me. He owes me anyways,” Elizabeth replies. By this time, she is already off her throne, but when she looks back, she finds Douglas still standing there, unmoving. “You coming?”

“Milady, remember when I was saying how you always do things to make me worry-?”

“What’s that?”

“Nothing… Coming, Milady.”

Elizabeth waits for her wolf servant to catch up. Then she looks to an open space in the room containing her dungeon core.

“[Gate].”

Instantly, a blackish purple warp of space, shaped like a vertical oval, appears in the air before them, and a second later, the two are through, the portal blinking out of existence in their wake.