“Well, that’s all my favours done for the day. I’m not going to say that you owe me, but…” Arduelle says, brushing her hands off as she looks over the group of us that she’s teleported. “Keep learning and growing, and try not to die. You can’t pay me back when you’re dead, and I have high hopes for you.”

“High hopes?” I ask, shifting around in the slightly cooler air of the dungeon. “You wanted me to kill someone for you, wasn’t it? High hopes suggests that I’m going places, not turning into a budget hitman.”

“Budget hitman? You’ve already cost me significant mana in transportation.” She replies. “In fact, perhaps my hopes for you are more along the lines of a pleasant fantasy, but living this long, you do see some ridiculous things every now and again. Now, good day and take care.”

She disappears in a flash of mana without sparing another word for us.

“Well, that’s that, I suppose.” I say, turning to address the arrayed army of vampiric lizard folk. Veralia, looks rather out of place standing to the side of the gathered rebels, which makes sense considering she’s here on orders, while the others are here to escape the authority that she still respects.

The rebels carry a large chunk of dark crystal, meat from the titan, and a few other fleshy parts that I’m told are generally valuable. The king was rather generous, though it was Veralia who made the specific choice on what to gift me. I’m sure the flesh should help keep these mouths fed, while I have some plans together for the dark crystal.

“What are you orders, your highness.” Veralia says with a swift and proper bow.

“No need for that right now. Rather, you should all be ready in case any beasts get the wrong idea, and take us for snacks.” I say as I return my focus to the forest around us. I’ve warned Red and the girls of my arrival and we should have a guide here shortly. Without someone to point the way, I’ll probably end up leading us right into the lake and down a whale’s throat.

A few beasts here and there peer out from their homes to get a look at us, the smell of the meat likely inviting their attention. The intimidating aura of the warriors gathered here wards them off rather effectively, though I’m sure there are stronger beasts about that aren’t so easily cowed.

“Watch your feet, we’ve been having problems with wood mages tunnelling under the ground and pulling people under.” I say, kicking at the ground, which is thankfully unmoving.

“Right.” Veralia says, somewhat taken aback. “But… you have the blessing of the dungeon? What… who are you?”

“Didn’t I already make that clear?” I ask, “Ah, you weren’t there for that. We’re going to be taking over the universe together, if you want to join us on a more permanent basis, that is.”

“I… right.” Her expression quickly turns conflicted as her respect for the dungeons and the utter ridiculousness of my statement clash.

“I’m Lakesh, leader of our little group. We accepted your offer on rather short notice, but there are things we’ll need to know before we work for you.” A noble warrior steps out from the group, meeting my eyes. I recognise him as the cautious leader of the noble rebels who were planning to leave the wall and survive outside on their own, but I rather recall him being called something else. Ksar, I think it was. Beside him stands the woman who approached me to discuss the topic over breakfast, the one who pointed him out.

Was that this morning? I think it was. Is it still jet lag when there’s no jets involved.

“Lakesh, or Ksar?” I ask, looking between him and her. He glares down at her for a moment and she looks away with chagrin.

“Lakesh.” He says quite clearly.

“Of course, of course.” I say, letting the topic lie. “To give you a quick rundown of the situation. While I’m building an empire, we’re just living in a small hole in the ground at the moment. We’re preparing to seize a city filled with monsters and our living space should improve drastically after that, though.

“If you choose to stay with me, there are a few rules you’ll have to follow, but they are simple. No leaving the dungeon, at least not up to the surface.” They stiffen at that rule, a few glaring at me. “Calm down, calm down. It’s a temporary problem that we’re looking at resolving, the problem isn’t so much about leaving, as finding a way to leave. The surface of the planet is out of bounds, so we need to find a reliable means of teleportation.”

They seem to relax a little after that explanation. It’s clear that they don’t want to trade one dungeon prison for another.

“Next, no killing, assaulting, or stealing from other citizens of my little empire. Or any of the neighbouring communities for that matter. Respect each other’s rights to live and all that good stuff. If you cause problems, or are the victim of anything like this, I’ll come sort it out.

“As for responsibilities, I just need you to do what you can.” I say. “If you can make armour, great we need you; if you can fix plumbing, we need you; if you can make pots and pans, we need you. Of course, if you’re willing to fight, I won’t turn down the help.”

“I thought you brought us here to use us as warriors?” Lakesh says, leering down at me curiously.

I snort a short laugh, and wave back at his group.

“You’re telling me that they’re not spoiling for a fight, and a bit of an adventure? I don’t want to demand it, and I don’t need to. That said, if anyone here wants to retire and take up crafting or something, I won’t complain, so long as you help to pull your weight.”

“That seems acceptable for now.” He says, still somewhat restrained, as if withholding judgement. Unlike most people that I’ve taken on, he’s not rushing into anything, and even back at his home world he was hesitant to reach out to me. I get the feeling he might just be a good asset if I can hold onto him.

“It sounds great!” The woman at his side shouts, revealing a little energy where he shows only restraint. “So we get to keep developing, our mana is ours?”

“If you’re hunting it’ll be nice to bring something back for everyone, but we won’t be demanding that you give the blood from your veins or anything.” I say, “Actually, that’s not going to be a problem, is it? You don’t need to drink blood frequently or anything right?”

“Not really, we mostly feast on the blood of the beasts we hunt.” Olly says, stepping up. “Unless everyone has been lying to me these past months?”

No one steps up to correct him.

“You have somewhere safer than this, right?” He asks.

“Yeah, just waiting for a guide to come by.” I say, just as I recall that I still have the tag Skill active. I could potentially follow the markers for the group of people in our base… and lead us right into a giant beasts nesting area. Best to just wait for Red or someone to come by and help out, though…

“Ah, that’s right. Watch out for Red, she’s tall and has these tall horns on her head. She’s rather overzealous about fighting sometimes. You guys should get along well, but some of the weaker people have trouble dealing with her.”

“Spreading rumours behind my back, are you?” Red says, appearing when my back is turned.

“I’m only saying the nicest of things.” I say, bringing a quick smile to my lips. It’s refreshing to be back in familiar company. “You look good. How’s our local militia shaping up?”

“It’s been three days.” She replies dryly. “What do you think?”

“That they’ve each learned a new Skill or added some polish to an old one. I’m not sure that you’d accept anything less.” I reply, “I’d hope for some minor mana growth too, considering what we’re feeding them.”

“Well, I suppose your judgment isn’t too far off the mark.” She says, brushing her hair back and running it over one of her horns. “These are the new recruits that you mentioned? They seem more competent than the last group, might give our warrior something to compete against.”

She waves me on and leads me off towards the little home that we’ve made in this jungle.

“How goes our little war? Any casualties?” I ask, dreading the answer. I’m not as prepared for any of this as I’d like to be, but at the very least I’m glad to have Red around. A leader is only ever as good as their subordinates, and I’m lucky to have some talented help.

“Only for the enemy. We’ve had a few close calls, however.” She says, her voice growing grave. “Without reliable means of healing midbattle, we’re going to start losing people. If that happens, we’re going to have a morale problem on our hands.”

“I already have something lined up. I’ll get right to it.” I say, already sorting through my messages and preparing to make a deal with a promising young alchemist. While healers are more effective, they can’t be everywhere at once, potions however, can be. Though, the ideal is to have both, and I’ve not given up on that.

“Good.” She says, giving me another long look. “I hope you live up to your promises. Maybe one day you can actually become a great leader.”

“I will.” I reply. “Management aside for a moment, I’m already at my liquid stage mana form, it won’t be long until I’ve caught up to you.”

“I’ll believe it when I see you fight like a liquid stage warrior.” She replies.

“How about battle mage? I have some pretty heavy hitting magic now.”

“Are you still throwing all of your mana out in one blast?” She asks.

“What can I say, it’s an effective tactic.” I reply as we come to a familiar clearing. A few guards stand about while keeping watch in all directions from some basic fortifications. One of them opens the door for us as we arrive.

“We’re glad to see you back, ma’am.” A familiar soldier says as he salutes. I can’t help but feel a little warm and fuzzy inside at the respect, the other soldiers give their own salutes, but I feel that’s more directed towards Red than myself.

Down below the surface, I’m welcomed home by a dozen different people, each of a different species. They’re all vaguely familiar, and one of my newish Skills provides their names rather helpfully.

My newest citizens follow quietly carrying the loot I’ve brought back from my little adventure. The sights inspire a few cheers from the gathered people, but more than a few are focused on the new faces rather than the food and gemstones. I do hope that they can all be friends, I’ve been lucky not to have any incidents so far, and I’m hoping that that lucky streak keeps going.

Meat is cooking somewhere beyond sight, and I’m reminded again that I still haven’t scouted that chef from the lord’s colony. I’m not sure I can train someone up to the same level of talent, at least not in any short period of time.

Alas, my alchemist comes first.

“Slan.” I call to the snake man, who comes over with a cheerful smile.

“More people coming to join our little community?” He asks, looking back over the rebels.

“Essentially.” I reply, “Do we have room for them?”

“It might be a squeeze but there are already people doubling up their rooms.” He says.

“Having fun already, are they?” I ask, unable to contain a small, amused smile.

“I would say it’s more for safety.” He says, seeming a little more restrained than usual. “The mages haven’t attacked yet, but it’s only a matter of time at this point.”

“So double or triple rooms then.” I reply, looking back over the group gathered by the entrance. They all seem to be in good cheer, but there are vague signs that they aren’t sleeping very well, a few are even dozing in the corners of the room, feeling safer in a group.

We can’t keep on like this for too long.

Everyone here not sleeping is busy talking, and though most try to keep the atmosphere light, there’s always a few people weeping, or having a panic attack, here and there.

People don’t have much to do, except talk, train and worry about the monsters coming to eat them in the night.

Maybe if I can get some sort of game together, it could work as a good distraction from everything. Using our Chips we could potentially make something genuinely advanced and interesting.

In fact, I’ll give that gamer elf a message. It sounds like his sort of business.

Slan is quick to get along with the new citizens, and Lakesh is quickly convinced to join him over by the bar for a few drinks. The others split off and start talking, I’d expect them to be a little more awkward than this, but it’s nice to see that I’m wrong.

I doubt they’ll be starting a coup any time soon, and if anyone does I’ll erase them from existence.

“We need to change tactics.” Red says, continuing our conversation about the little war that’s started between us and the gremlins. “We’re holding them off well for the moment, but fighting against these mages in those tunnels… it’s not going to end well for us.”

“What’s your advice?” I ask. “Even if we do rush to take the city, I imagine they’ll simply fight a guerrilla war from the undergrowth until we weed them all out.”

“You wouldn’t win a battle for the city.” Tkarn says, striding over to me. She wears a thick set of armour made from the plates that had been nailed into her flesh before, and looks just as monstrous as ever before.

“You think so?” I ask. “How powerful is this little king?”

“As powerful as Red.” She says quickly, “But better prepared to fight. He also has five others more powerful than me, and an army of gremlins, countless traps filling the streets, and a few captive beasts that he can release on us if we are to attack now.”

“I think there’s some interesting things we can do with that information, but you’re right, we’re not ready for that yet.” I say, shaking my head.

“We have to change the fight to advantage us.” Red says, “Or at least to disadvantage us both equally. Flooding the tunnels would work. Burning them out would do well, too. I’m not sure we have anyone specialised enough for either task, however.”

“What about poisonous gas?” I ask, thinking of all the tactics that made the Geneva convention a reality.

“You have a means to make something like that?” She asks.

“I am about to visit an alchemist, if anyone can make magic mustard gas…” I say, shaking the idea out of my head for the moment. “If you come up with any ideas you think we should explore, message me and I’ll look into them. There’s a chance my idea won’t be feasible for one reason or another.”

“You make for a rather rare sort of leader.” Red says, with a light laugh. “You actually listen to your subordinates.”

“Hey, how else can I keep you from killing me and taking over?” I reply, turning back towards the door as Eshya, Vii, Nel, and Adler are arriving pushing through the crowd to get to me. “Is there anything else you need to bring up?”

“Nothing I can’t send in a message.” She says, shaking her head. “Go on and enjoy yourself.”

“Thank you,” I say, taking in the sweet sight of a few familiar faces.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Skills & Stats

~Mana Form:

Current mana density: 1912 units

~Mana distribution:

Catagory Current Max. Defence 0% 35% Offense 0% 57% Mana Sense 0% 73% Recovery 30% 30% Gluttony 0% 26% Misc. 0% 42% Efficiency 30% 100%

~Favourited Skills:

-Chip Shredder

-Multi-mind

-Tag

-Mana surge movement

-Reactive defence

-Fire burst punch

-Annihilation magic

-Charged casting (Annihilation)

-Mana form flow fixer

-Branching magic