I entered the mansion and went straight for the beastkin’s room. Lightly opening the door to her room, she made a weak reaction by glancing at us, her mouth agape like she was trying to force words out from her dry throat.

“Aa…”

“Don’t speak. Drink first.”

There was a cup of water situated on the food tray filled with food that was partly eaten. She eyed the cup of water before snatching and drinking it whole in one gulp and soon letting out a pleasant long sigh.

“Are you… the one who saved Fuku?” she inquired while still holding the cup.

I took a seat nearby and confirmed, “That is correct.” Hm? Fuku who?

As I was riddled with a lot of things in the past, and she was in a critical situation, I didn’t have the chance to check her status, but now I did.

Name: Fuku Aureum

Emotion: Confusion, grateful

Species: Fox beastkin (beastman)

Sex: Female

Age: 11 years old

Height: 143 cm

Occupation: Member of the golden fox tribe (Aureum clan)

Vocation: [Magical Sight]

Stats:

STR: F (12) AGI: F+ (18) VIT: F (10) MAG: F (8) SPR: F (11)

Accumulation Points: 9 [F+]

So that was her name… Quite a strange one, to be honest. Still, it appeared that beastkin looked older than their real age suggested… I’d thought that she was at least thirteen.

“Thank you… so much…” She stroked her right furry ear, her eyes wet. “Fuku thought that she would have died at the time.”

“Fuku is your name?” I mean, of course I know, but…

“Mm,” she answered with a nod.

“I see. I’m Vincent.” Then I pointed at Lorelei. “And this girl in the black-purplish dress is Lorelei — a Dungeon Core.”

“Hey, who are you calling ‘this girl’?” While crossing her arms, Lorelei introduced herself in an elegant albeit monotone manner, “Indeed, my name is Lorelei. I believe I have yet to introduce myself, though I deem such interaction unnecessary before.”

“Vin… cent? Lorel-ei? A Dungeon Core?” she mumbled in confusion over the foreign terms.

I didn’t bother to explain to her at the moment and said, “I want to ask you something. Do you mind?”

“Nuh-uh.” She shook her head rapidly, giving her confirmation.

“What really happened to you?”

It was clear as day that she was captured as a slave, but… what happened between that and escaping to this dungeon?

In a moment of silence, with downcast eyes, she began retelling her experience in a soft, weak tone. She told us that she came from the Carnage Wasteland — a forsaken land where not even a trace of greeneries could be found — and was a member of the golden fox tribe. Her life there was full of hardship but sufficient and peaceful.

Then, everything changed when those slavers attacked her village. While her village made a courageous resistance, it was all in vain… and she even got her sole family member — her mother — killed. To make matters worse, all her remaining clansmen were captured and turned into slavery.

“Fuku had once dreamed of going to the green forest, but… not like this…” Tears began flowing down from the edges of her eyes, but she held herself from crying by clutching the blanket tightly.

I was speechless. To lighten the void of the gloomy room, I prodded Lorelei my elbow, to which she shrugged in response. Oh well, guess time for me to step up.

“It’s gonna be okay. You’re safe now.” I gave her a head pat just like how I usually did to Lorelei. At first, I thought that doing something like this was improper, but I couldn’t think of anything else.

She locked her gaze into mine and pleaded, “Please… please save my clan…!” Her hands clenched the sleeves of my coat tightly, almost tearing them if not for their strong material.

“Your clan?” I asked.

“Uh-huh! After we were turned into slaves, we were brought here… but, but we were attacked.” Her voice trembled but soon regained its vigor.

“So? Who attacked you and your clan?” Who would attack a group of slavers? Don’t tell me…

“Fuku doesn’t know. But with the help of Fuku’s clansmen, she managed to escape in the midst of chaos. And yet, she was chased by the remnant of the slavers into a large crack in the ground… Then, there were strange magical beings… and Fuku’s memory was cut off here.”

“I see.” Um, why is she addressing herself in the third person?

“I might know who actually attacked the slavers,” Lorelei suddenly chimed in.

“Hm? Who?”

“It’s none other than the Axiom Order. One of the slavers that chased her was cursing something along the line.”

“As expected, it was them all along.” I flexed my finger as if I’d figured everything out from the beginning; I wasn’t acting in hindsight since a premonition about them had cropped up inside my mind. Yeah. No doubt.

But to think that it would really be them…

Conversely, all points were connected — since the Axiom Order was kidnapping villagers as their modus operandi, it wasn’t too far off to think that they were raiding slavers, either. One thing that made me crease my eyebrows was, what were they trying to accomplish?

I smell conspiracies here… it’s just getting fishier and fishier.

Still, thinking about their intention was too hard without understanding their whole motive and purpose. What was the most important was Fuku, who was still waiting for my answer to her pleading, not releasing the clench of her hands. She had gone through so much that it was enough to propel her into a celebrity in a TV show back in my world.

I fell into deep contemplation. The Axiom Order was no bogus organization and had hundreds of members and numerous strong figures like Rowan… Shadow himself had a C evaluation as far as I recalled, so more notable figures like him in the organization were bound to exist. To top it off, it was headed by an allegedly B-rank ex-mercenary, Zero…

Looking at our forces, in comparison, our strongest was Blizzard which was a C-rank monster. We also had no more than thirty-five self-improvised golems (including flamethrower golems and gunner golems) and a mud golem as our primary force. There were also goblins, kobolds, slimes, and the newly summoned monsters, as well as the bottom feeders of the dungeon not worth mentioning.

While the despairing difference between our strengths couldn’t be clearer, it wasn’t like I couldn’t bridge the gap between us through careful planning and strategy. Coincidentally, it just so happened that I had several ideas and a certain someone that could help in this matter. But to compile a concrete plan, I got to gather as much data as possible as data trai—

Anyway. After assessing the whole matter altogether, I thought it was worth a shot. The key that enticed me was the kidnapped villagers and slaves… If I could convince them into making a settlement near the dungeon, in the long term, it might even pay off in spades. Besides, this could very well be the climax for us to settle things.

Once the way to success was clear, I glanced at Fuku with resolve and stated, “Very well. But you have to promise me one thing,” while enunciating each syllable.

“Really? Anything you want… Fuku and her clan will certainly fulfill it!” Her eyes regained their bright colors, full of determination.

“Everything. I want everything!”

“What?” Fuku’s facial expression oscillated in bewilderment, her body twitched as if trying desperately to understand what I said with her little head.

Better to tell her upfront about my desire to have her clan join me, or else there was no point in doing all this. Furthermore, I wanted her to become an agent to help me control her clan covertly from the inside… Well, at least these were the primary reasons.

“F-Fuku can’t guarantee anything… but she promises she will try her best to fulfill it!” she adamantly said.

“Mm. Alright, that’s enough for now.”

She was but a little girl, getting her promise was better than nothing.

After that, I told her to eat and rest more so that she could be in tip-top condition. Wait, wouldn’t she be oversleeping by now?

Putting the thought of her in the back of my mind, I headed for the room where Rowan and the other two were kept. I wrung them dry of all the information they knew about the Axiom Order down to the smallest detail. It was shocking— No, even that would fail to describe my discovery. To think that it all boiled down to a more underlying and inexplicable element at play here...

“Hmm. Luckily, other than Shadow, there is only one other high-rank member among them,” I mused as I paced back and forth inside the Artificial Realm.

Speaking of, Xenonia was a fortress city famous for its abundant mines, ores, and skilled blacksmiths. Knowing this, the Axiom Order seemed to have nestled within the largest abandoned mine of the Obsivel Mountain Range — making their base secure from all sorts of attack while being hidden from plain sight.

Naturally, they had other smaller bases that worked as relay points at the foot of the mountain leading to the top that was used for various purposes. However, not even Rowan was well aware of the plan of kidnapping people and raiding villages since before he left, it had yet to happen. Truly, having the necessary intelligence was vital, so sending out phantoms as reconnaissance would be ideal.

That said, I’d need a ton of preparation to have a certainty to win, lest it became nothing short of suicidal aggression.

“Vincent, are you sure about what you promised?” Lorelei questioned, striding toward me.

“You know, there is a popular saying in my world: ‘Every action has its own consequence.’ I might regret it one day if I turn a blind eye now.”

“Hmph.” She remarked, “Trying to act cool with all that nonsense. Tone it down, will you?”

“Ngh… But I’m not lying.” I tried to reason with her about all the benefits that could be gained through all this.

Lorelei was oddly convinced and said, “Okay, you make a fair persuasion there, so let’s leave it at that. And? How are you going to exterminate them?”

“That’s what I’m currently planning. First of all, having good communication would be a key role in this whole operation.” I don’t think “exterminate” is the right word here, but whatever.

At any rate, the dungeon only had a function to call someone but not to be the receiving end, but that was the point where my idea came to mind. Since dungeons could communicate with their inhabitants, there should be some kind of signal, theoretically speaking.

The idea was, what if I could connect my smartphone with the Dungeon Menu? Wouldn’t that be awesome? After all, I had everything I needed to accomplish that.

With that in mind, I experimented with [Programming] and [Developer Interface]. And after about half an hour of tinkering and tweaking, I managed to connect my phone with the menu. A fairly simple procedure to be honest because all I needed was to set a condition to give the phone the capability to receive the dungeon’s wavelength. Lastly, through the Properties function, I connected the two, much like linking devices via Bluetooth. Convenient and easy.

Standing outside the dungeon far, far away amidst the endless tall greeneries were myself and Blizzard.

“Sorry for troubling you again not long after coming back.” I stroked Blizzard’s fur.

“Woof!”

Not tarrying any longer, I took my phone out of my pocket and made a call. What a melancholy feeling. If only I could call somebody from my world and inform them that I was safe and sound…

As soon as the phone was connected, I let out the usual starting line of communicating, “Hello, Lorelei? Testing one, two, three. Do you copy?”

(“Loud and clear. No problem, yes.”)

“Good, good. That’s great…” My words were subconsciously full of sentiment, but I refrained from expressing them openly.

(“Is something wrong? You asked me to reply like that, does that make you so happy?”)

“Nah, that’s not it.” I cleared my throat. “Ah, Lorelei, I’ll be going back to the city to prepare something. Please manage the dungeon in my stead in the meantime.”

(“Well, ‘kay.”)

I was going to fight tooth and nail this time around; I’d be facing an adversary stronger than anything I had faced in the past. Ultimately, it was better to be overprepared than underprepared.