Merlin and Ahri exited the dungeon under the watchful gazes of the soldiers and university mages, Wolfram, and his generals greeted Merlin before asking of the situation in the dungeon, Merlin frowned and told them "everyone in the dungeon is dead" then briskly walked past everyone's questioning expressions without looking back or answering anyone's doubts.

Ahri noticed her master's bad mood and once they got back to their living quarters she tried to cheer him up "don't feel so bad about it, we managed to secure the cooperation of a sentient dungeon, no one else has ever been able to accomplish this, magic resea--"

"I know" Merlin interrupted then he continued "things are more complex than you realize, there are undercurrents at work here that could sweep away entire Kingdoms into the forgotten river of time."

Ahri rebutted "you're just angry that someone got the better of you"

Merlin...

"see, anyway it will be fine, we have no reason to betray the dungeon so it will have no reason to take my life, it seems kind of nice anyway"

"kind of nice, nice in what way exactly it forcefully bound you to its will which is illegal in this kingdom if you had forgotten" Merlin exasperatedly responded.

Ahri lightly said "I'm here aren't I"

Merlin...

Noticing her masters silence she continued "If the dungeon wanted to it could have kept me there permanently, that would be the most beneficial move for it to make because it does not know whether you would be able to unbind me from its will, then its only option would be to slowly have its demands eroded by bad negotiation conditions or attempt mutual annihilation. Instead, it let me leave so I could say goodbye to all my friends and family"

Merlin responded "I think you are putting intentions you wish were true into the mind of the dungeon, besides you don't have any friends or family"

"It doesn't know that" Ahri laughingly responded, causing Merlin to sigh, he knew that the smile she shows is just a facade to make him feel better, she can barely talk to anyone other than himself and suddenly living away from him must be terribly frightening for the girl, he patted her on the head then excused himself from the room.

Once he was alone he felt around his robe and pulled out a small pouch, then he put his hand in all the way to the elbow and pulled out a small dull gray gem, it did not look expensive at all and if someone looked through his belongings they would likely ignore this gem because of how it looked in comparison to some of the other things he kept in this pouch.

He chanted a small spell from memory and soon another voice filled the room "you called, I was in the middle of doling out punishment on the idiotic noble children" causing Merlin to chuckle.

Merlin replied into the stone "give the order to have the arcane university moved to the new dungeon that just opened up"

The person on the other end of the conversation paused for a moment then asked "can I know the reason I am ordering such a thing"

"sadly I cannot tell you" Merlin replied

"the nobles will complain about their safety--"

"tell them the further I am away from them the safer they will be", prompting a chuckle from the other end of the conversation.

The man said "I will trust you old friend but, it will take time before the move takes place, the university will push back and so will the nobles, I can imagine the merchants would not appreciate missing the university either"

Merlin replied "don't worry about the university's end I will take care of that and you can tell the merchants to come to the new city once it's built, I'm sure they would love the prospect of getting their hands into a prosperous city before it's even built... as for the nobles... I think it's time for you to bash some heads"

The speaker on the other end paused for a long time before simply replying "that good" than cutting the spell off. Merlin put away the gem and prepared for travel.

Merlin and Ahri boarded the Wyvern and started to fly back to the university, the other mages that came with him earlier would come back on their own after they made sure everyone inside the dungeon was truly dead.

As they were flying Merlin suddenly felt a massive mana source causing him to look around, he noticed Ahri's confused expression staring at him and he realized his student could not feel it, he asked: "You cannot feel that mana source nearby?" Ahri shook her head so he directed her "use your vision to spot its location".

Ahri's eyes glowed a ghastly bluish green glow that would send shivers down the livings spines and looked down from the wyvern, she immediately spotted what they were looking for and pointed to a direction slightly off the road below them.

Merlin drove the Wyvern into a landing just a couple dozen meters away from the person they found standing in a grove of trees with their large curved sword already unsheathed. Merlin studied the person and confirmed their massive amount of mana, the fact that Ahri could not feel anything despite her acute senses would mean that the mana is sealed in some way.

He observed the person carefully, they had beautiful white plated armor covering most of their body except their head which was covered by a hood instead which Merlin found strange, he could not see into the hood at all despite using several types of vision, the only thing he could confirm is that they were female from the body shape.

Ahri mumbled, "she seems familiar, like a sister" while frowning. Merlin was momentarily shocked then looked closer at her armor and turned speechless, he found all the armor had glyphs engraved on it most of which he could not recognize straight away or at all, this means that the entire set of armor is an enchanted set and the fact he could not recognise some of the glyphs meant that it was of high quality too.

He suddenly realized who this was from Ahri's comment then said "tell the dungeon that Merlin will come to dance again soon then had the Wyvern lift off and fly away again.

Ahri asked "why did we leave with getting a name, someone so powerful would likely be very well known and how would they tell the dungeon something if we are the only ones who can talk to it and doesn't this count as betraying the dungeon?" as she continued her voice became more worried by the word before Merlin interrupted her

Merlin replied "No it doesn't count as betraying the dungeon, I simply said to say to the dungeon, I did not say that it was sentient did I" causing Ahri to frown at the semantics her master was using to try and bend the rules already, he continued "besides that person already knew about the dungeon, you said she seemed like a sister to you right" after she nodded he resumed "that is because you are both bound to the dungeon so you are a kind of sister and you will naturally feel the familiar pull of someone bound to the same being, did you notice that she only pointed her blade at me and not you and the fact you did not prepare a spell in advance, this is because you both naturally don't feel threatened by each other because you come from the same side.

This was one of the more useful sides to binding people souls that nobles were fond of, anyway, that was the first clues, the others were her armor, a full set of plate armor that has high-level enchantments would cost more than most middle-level nobles are worth, so only the highest-ranking nobles would have such a set and they would only use it in the event that their entire family or Kindom was threatened, so it's obvious that she is a servant of the dungeon ha", he finished his speech and started to hum to himself.

Ahri calmed down after his explanation but still spoke: "so you didn't break the deal just after leaving the dungeon, I don't know why you are so happy about it?"

Merlin replied "ask yourself why she is here just outside the dungeon when there was a major attack just a week ago, from her direction she could have made it back to the dungeon if she wanted to easily"

"I don't know," said Ahri

"the dungeon sent her away when the attack happened, though some secret passage I would imagine because we did not see anyone leave, so this means the dungeon actually cares for its followers, it could have sent her to attack the intruders and die but instead it sent her away"

Ahri was not convinced "all of your reasoning makes sense but they are all rather flimsy, there could be a million different reasons you found this person here"

Merlin continued "the dungeon could use the soul binding to call her back at any time and did not so, just leave me to my delusions thank you, I would like to think you are going to be well cared for after I'm not around to take care of you" causing Ahri to sigh

Merlin continued "I've decided that you will be staying in the dungeon from now on" while he thought to himself "it's probably better for you to hide inside the dungeon while everything blows over" before handing her a small dull gem and saying "if the dungeon ever bullies you all you need to do is inject mana into that gem and I'll be there to destroy it ok" with a smile covering his wrinkled face.

Ahri took the small gem and hid it deep into her robes while she attempted to figure out what her master was thinking, she thought "perhaps master thinks by having me there inside the dungeon it would be an act of "good faith" towards the dungeon, leading to better relations, or maybe master is secretly an idiot... after all I did see that dancing"