Rowan and His Contingent’s Perspective

“Sir, we have been walking for almost two days straight…” a man, wearing a dark brown hood and with a thin build, mumbled.

There were more than two dozen people in this group. Each of them also carried a big bag of supplies and weapons in their hands, well except for the five people on the back carrying wooden magic staffs.

“Hm? You ain’t thinkin’ of desertin’, no?” Rowan, a bearded guy with an ax and shield on his back, questioned. His one hand reached for his neck and the other to the man’s shoulder.

“N-No, no! I have no such thoughts.” The person raised his hands to dispel Rowan’s bad mood.

“Good!” Rowan, satisfied by the answer, hit the back of that man. “Gahaha! Just keep going with the pace. We’ll reach the place before sundown.”

“Yes, yes!”

The rest uttered the same response, not daring to slow down; in their eyes were fear and respect.

All of them were newbies with potential that had been recruited by Rowan as most of them possessed Vocations. Promised with bountiful rewards and a higher position in the Order, none would be able to reject such an offer. Moreover, the five at the back were “elementalists” — mages who specialized in Elemental Magic. Rowan had full confidence in conquering even a small town with this form up.

Amidst the rustling of abundant greenery in the thick forest, a voice sounded in Rowan’s ear.

“Sir, the dungeon’s entrance is clear; no enemies or people are in sight nearby. We can proceed ahead.”

Rowan smirked, brandished his ax, chopped the thick thicket blocking his way, and then sauntered ahead. Not that far away, he could see the ravine that he had visited when he chased the unlucky brat at the time.

“So, this is the place, huh. Same as three days ago, I see.” Rowan clenched his ax, unable to wait to rush in and take the glory for himself. But he was no fool, one of the reasons he could rise this high was because he had always been cautious.

There was a clearing once outside the treeline with only a small amount of grass sparsely spread about the ravine mouth. A perfect place to set up a camp, was it?

“We’ll stay here! Set up the camp some distance from that ravine!” Rowan knew that setting up too close to a dungeon might spark unforeseen risk, so he acted cautiously by setting up the camp some distance away.

When the camp was set up, Rowan gathered all the men before him. He had yet to tell them that they were facing a dungeon, and this was a perfect chance to do so. In fact, besides him and Erick, the ranger, the rest hadn’t known better about their real objective.

“Brothers, traversing the Great Elion Forest these past two days has been rather harsh; in that, I commend you.” Rowan bowed his head a little to the people before him — his henchmen.

“S-Sir… You need not have to do this…” the thin hooded man from earlier implored, followed by the rest speaking similar lines.

Smirking inside, Rowan glanced left to right. “However, our real purpose for coming here. This sir has yet to tell you: We are about to conquer a dungeon or do a dungeon liberation.”

As though a bomb had just exploded, they were stunned stupid — some even couldn’t help but open their mouth wide. The notion of conquering a dungeon was far from their wildest dreams.

“Dungeon? S-Sir… are we really facing a dungeon?”

“B-But…! With our meager strength, is that even possible? And won’t we breach the Adventurer’s Guild’s rule?”

“Yeah. Ain’t liberating a dungeon, a liberator’s job?”

Generally speaking, unknown dungeons not administered under the Adventurer’s Guild as protected dungeons weren’t bound to this rule. In reality, people that liberated dungeons, also known as liberators, were heroes of mankind.

“I know your worries. But we, members of the Axiom Order, are not bound by any rules.” Rowan spread his arms wide. “The dungeon we’re about to conquer is just a new dungeon. Whether it’s women, riches, or glory, you will attain them by following me in taking the Dungeon Core.”

““Sir! We will follow Sir Rowan!””

Each and every one of them responded in unison and got excited upon hearing the news. They knew what kind of fortune a dungeon could bring; no one here would squander this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

“Good. We will rendezvous tomorrow morning,” Rowan ordered, to which his henchmen agreed without objection.

“Keke. Such a good actor, ain’t you?” Erick whistled, leaning upon a tree.

Standing at the edge of the ravine mouth, Rowan snorted. “The newbies still aren’t clear about our Order’s real objective, nor do they know who’s backing us. In this world, we’re just a puppet. To at least stand at the top, I don’t care what I need to do to achieve it.”

“Hmph. Sacrificing others for one’s benefit, as expected of you, Sir Rowan.”

“You’re in this as well. We’re practically in the same boat.”

Hearing that, he didn’t answer…

Vincent’s Perspective

“Vincent, those insects are here.”

“Hm, faster than expected, but it’s fine. Guess it’s showtime.” While sitting on a bench and opening the Dungeon Menu, I sneered in anticipation, almost unable to hold the itching brought by the raging flame inside me. Even so, insects, huh? That’s scaary…

Sitting opposite me, she asked, “What should we do? Kill? Kill them?!”

“Whoa…! Why all of a sudden?” An intense bloodlust emanated from Lorelei despite the bareness of her facial showcase… Did she consider living beings no better than nutrients? “Hold your horses there; we have come prepared for this.”

One day had passed since I began expanding the dungeon. And after polling together our ideas, now the dungeon had an additional room after the cave that led to a long, narrow hallway and many small rooms inside. Of course, the expansion hadn’t been without large CP burning and had torn a hole in our reserve; my heart ached just thinking about it.

For example, in converting all the newly dug-up rooms, we had expended thousands of CP. The long hallway alone, which was at least seventy meters long, and was intentionally made to be 5 degrees uphill, cost about 630 CP. And this was when the width and height of the hallway were the barest minimal to make it stable, which was three meters on both sides.

Altogether, that one room before the hallway plus a dozen or so small rooms and alcoves that I made for traps along the hallways cost us an additional 1560 CP. Counting every miscellaneous material, weapon, and trap purchased through the menu, all that remained was a pitiful 233 CP. What a money-burning endeavor this was.

“In terms of CP, we have no CP…” I mused to myself, sarcastically.

That said, it turned out that the cost of making a room was equal to its cubic volume, and if it weren't dugout, it would cost double as much. Changing their layout would cost more depending on the type, but they didn’t differ much.

While one could change the type to volcanic with a flowing lava river with no bridge to cross, I was thinking about the future. Currently, no inhabitants in the dungeon could persist in this kind of environment except for the golems. So, nope… Besides, the former Core Room was now repurposed for “another” thing, and its type had been changed.

Displayed on the screen inside the Dungeon Map, through a bird’s-eye view right above the ravine, located fifty meters away was a group of people that, at first glance, looked like a bunch of bandits. It appeared that they decided to build a camp there.

“They aren’t too far away from the ravine mouth… Can you make a place where they are staying a part of the dungeon? I cannot say no to free CP after all.” There might be a price in doing this, but a free stream of CP without needing me to lift a finger couldn’t make me happier.

“Why, of course. And since it’s not a room, it shouldn’t be too expensive…” Lorelei flicked her fingers. “Done.”

That quick? The way that she made unclaimed land part of her dungeon had left me bewildered. This time, I could see from the menu that she made a straight line from the ravine mouth to their camp before expanding to cover the place. And the cost was just a measly 207 CP… and that was mostly because she tried to make the link stable.

“Ah… I’m broke beyond compare now…” With only less than 30 CP remaining, I wanted to cry but managed to pull myself together and could only sigh in despondent.

At any rate, now all of them were considered invaders. Plus, we now earned a whopping 971 CP per day in total as a silver lining. From the Intruders catalog in the Dungeon Menu, I discovered that most of them had an evaluation of around E with their leader, Rowan, standing at D+ evaluation. Yet that didn’t mean that all of them were so, there were two to three below E, just a bit stronger than me… Dang! I’m weak as heck!

In comparison, since I’d known that it was possible to classify monsters inside the Monster Creation category based on their AP (Accumulation Points), or more accurately, evaluation, now I knew their “normal” CP value. As an illustration, F-rank monsters had a price tag of 1 to 60 CP, E-rank 60 to 300 CP, D-rank above 300 CP, and the list went on. In this case, I could summon one fairly strong D-rank monster each day as long as I kept them here. But of course, there were some exceptions to this.

However, I’d yet to determine what algorithm was used to calculate these price tags. Even I didn’t know what the logic was behind the CP accumulation from invaders. Later, I should reverse-engineer everything that made this all up.

Nevertheless, the information given through this was rather incomplete, like simple stats alone wouldn’t be enough to gauge someone’s overall strength. Due to this, I used [Developer Interface] to check them individually. Know thyself and the enemy, may I win a hundred battles easily.

Hm… The majority of these people possess Vocations… None of which look that particularly strong… Are those mages…? Whoa. Among the group were five people with wooden staffs in their hands with varying-colored gemstones on top. They also had high MAG stats compared to the others. No mistake.

Name: Rowan

Sex: Male

Age: 38 years old

Height: 193 cm

Occupation: Middle echelon member of the Axiom Order

Vocation: [Great Strength]

Stats:

STR: C (72) AGI: E (35) VIT: C- (61) MAG: F+ (17) SPR: E+ (39)

Accumulation Points: 64 [D+]

I noticed that Rowan was standing at the ravine’s edge. I wondered whether pushing him down into the ravine would work— Nah, with his superhuman strength, I don’t think even the clay golem would do much.

“Eh. He seems to be talking with someone… Oh. There’s that damn ranger! His name… Erick?” I murmured while listening to their talk and checking the ranger’s status screen.

Name: Erick

Sex: Male

Age: 31 years old

Height: 177 cm

Occupation: Ranger, the ears of the Axiom Order

Vocation: [Ranger Sense]

Stats:

STR: E (26) AGI: C- (62) VIT: E- (21) MAG: F+ (19) SPR: E (33)

Accumulation Points: 33 [E+]

From their conversation, I found out that they were members of this so-called “Order,” or “Axiom Order” as was written on their status screens. Furthermore, the people brought here were just recently unaware that they were going to invade our dungeon.

Good, very good. I didn’t care about their reason for doing so, but as long as I wiped them out, then not a single soul would know about our dungeon’s existence. After all, I wanted to maintain this low-key status quo until the dungeon was strong enough, and I had enough information.

“Hey, Vincent, how about we strike them at night — at their most careless?” Lorelei unexpectedly suggested.

A night ambush, eh? I held my chin; that was a tempting offer. Especially if we employed a hit-and-run tactic, we could minimize casualties on our side. So, what she said made a lot of sense in a normal situation, just that…

Although bringing the fight to the enemy’s place was better, I didn’t want to remove our defensive advantage. As one once said, “To take down a heavily guarded fortress, one needed at least three times the force.” Though this wasn’t a fortress, that was beside the point.

“That’s a good tactic. But even if we succeed in taking ‘em down… there will be too many casualties on our end. Also, they may pull back and retreat to their hideout. What do you think will happen then?”

As if realizing something, Lorelei’s eyes flickered. “The news of me will spread about… And more of those insects will target me?”

“Indeed. That’s why it is best to be thorough to prevent any future issues.” Well, not “her” specifically… Lorelei likes to make a lot of puns. Still, whatever happened, I got to annihilate them in one fell swoop.

I noticed that Lorelei was staring at my face with an unusual expression. “What? Are there flowers on my face?”

She inclined her head to the side in doubt, her amethyst eyes pierced straight to my soul. “Can you even kill humans?”