(Zhenya Pov)

The town of... Now that I think about it, the A.A never got around to naming it due to Bargas’ shenanigans.

Good to be back to this nameless town I call my own. Is that deep? No clue.

In any case, our return was silent. Striding into town, same as always, with no one taking note of us. As Virgil said, dungeon life was still in full swing.

Dropping us off in front of the alley, we waved Rudi goodbye and got to walking. All the while Su’s eyes inquisitively dashed to and fro, taking in the new sights.

The place has improved leaps and bounds since we left. Many businesses have finally been broken in. Possessing that lived-in atmosphere now. And most of the tents in the living quarters have been built up into buildings, as bare-bones they are.

But none of that mattered. No matter how much things change, home is still home! Snug between several buildings, where many alleyways intersected. Everything was exactly how we left it, minus some tarps in case of rain. “Strange, who could have done this?”

My question was answered as one of Antonia’s friends bounded down one of the alleyways, a bag of drinks in hand. “Ah, Freddie. You’re finally back.” If I recall, this girl’s name is Fride. Her distinct round easy-going eyes set her apart from the others in Antonia’s group.

“Antonia has us rotating shifts to keep an eye out. Least a hooligan vandalizes the place. As knight aspirants, it is the least we could do.” She spoke lackadaisically, realizing my confusion.

“Only the most heinous villains would dare mess with a person’s craft.” Finishing it off like some prayer, the two armored girls nodded at each other.

“So, I take it, Antonia and you guys are still on for the construction job?” Apparently uttering the most heretical thing in the world, this garnered me two stares of disbelief.

“Zhenya, you wound us! No proper knight of the Dutchy would ever abandon a project!” Fride passionately backed Fredrica up in approval.

“Like construction? Is this just a you guys thing or what?” Seriously, I thought this whole ‘passionate about thine craft’ thing was something exclusive to Freddie. But now they’re claiming it’s widespread.

“Uh, yeah. You didn’t know? For knights of the Dutchy, learning a craft is almost required by tradition. If you don’t, you are pretty much a laughing stock. Even the most spoiled nobles pick up a craft. Craftsmen are the heart of the Dutchy! The more skilled you are, the more respect you garner.”

Freddie, you’re preaching to the deaf here. Well, one of three. Nick and Su were absolutely enamored with this crash course in Dutchy culture. I mean it’s cool and all, but they didn’t have to deal with Freddie’s passions for the last three or so months.

Wait a minute. Her passion is the whole reason we even left to begin with! Stupid forge...

Unpacking our stuff, we decided to take it easy today. Meaning no dungeon stuff. After what we went through, I think it’s warranted.

And the first step to R and R is comfort.

Since those Climber’s Guild guys at Felschonheit laughed us out. Pity on them... We still had our haul from floor +1, in addition to the things we were planning on taking home anyways.

Starting off with the cloud fluff, we bought leathers and cloth to fashion ourselves bedding.

Never again shall we sully our sleep with inferior cotton or hay. *Ahem* On to less pressing matters, the wood we gathered. While we could only carry out bits and sticks, they were of far higher quality than anything on the market.

They’ll do well in reinforcing the door and window frames, along with the other things from our trip. Spending the day revising our blueprints, Fride ran off returning with Antonia and company. And things only got livelier from there.

With Antonia and Freddie geeking out about the new never before seen materials like true craftswoman. The former elated at the surprise after returning from their trip into the dungeon, while the latter was just happy to have someone to bounce ideas off of.

I’m no stranger to carpentry or the like, but I can only keep up with these fanatics for so long before getting lost.

My loneliness at getting sidelined aside, I noticed the stares Su was receiving. Being the newcomer, along with her unusual looks.

“Oh. This is Su. We met her in Felschonheit. Stuff happened, and we ended up adopting her.” Super believable while leaving out the messy stuff. Damn! And a follow-up nod from Nick. Nobody can pierce this absolute veil of deception.

“Su... Pale skin? Purple hair? Isn’t this the woman who caused the Flowering Night event?” Or not.

“Tonia, Remember that important request I told you about? The reason why I’ve been away?” The military-blond nods. “It was to help out Su, and well... We ended up tangled in something big and-”

“You can’t say because it is classified, correct?” Bingo, Antonia got it in one.

With a stare that could kill, she thought about it for a couple of seconds before waving her friends to ease up.

After that, it was business as usual, stories, games, food, friends. Su tried her best but quickly got overwhelmed with questions.

Sidling up to Nick, who was nibbling on a chicken skewer. We’ve been through a lot lately, so I was thinking of dropping the big question.

“Hey, Nick. You wanna team up with us?” A four-man team, we’d hit the third floor in no time!

“Nope, sorry.” Instantly denied. “You two, well three now, are absolute magnets for trouble. It’s not good for my heart and sides I like being sane. So cut me some slack.” Fair enough.

And to add salt to the wound. We found out that during our absence, Antonia’s group made it to the third floor. There goes our first explorer bonus.

------------------------------------

In the early morning, Freddie, Su, and I headed for the A.A to turn in our request. While Nick, who decided to sleep over, bounced back to his place once he woke up.

“As rowdy as ever, morning or night, rain or shine.” Freddie remarked as the three of us waited in line. Reporting our success to the receptionist who first handled our request. Her look of indifferent understanding melted into one of disbelief as we expounded our journey.

“Well, I’ll be. You two actually did it.” She had trouble keeping her voice steady even further pushed when we hit her with the one-two punch. Pulling out Diana’s signed slip, confirming that we completed the request, and introducing her to Su.

Noticing our conversation perking ears, she ushered us into the back offices.

There we got talking. She was thorough, obviously prodding us for information about the Flowering Night incident, but we(mostly Freddie) kept a cool head. Speak slowly, think and compose a sentence before speaking. Those two rules got us by without spilling the beans.

Maybe, we were good to speak about it. But going into this, we didn’t want to bring more attention to Su than we had too. Let the past stay in the past. She has only started to heal, having the A.A poking their noses in can be... Well, it can only end badly.

One last letter from the Felschonheit branch confirming everything was true, settled all doubts.

We only received the first part of the request’s payment, but hey, it’s still a sizable amount.

Now all that’s left is to finish the base.

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(Curator Pov)

“Alice, I’m home!~”...Strange? She usually comes running up or at least responds when I call. She’s not in the core room either. Then...

Phasing through the floors, I note the adventurers skulking around the third floor. Great, now I have to get working on a fourth! Luckily, I have some leeway seeing as they haven’t ventured into the castle.

Finding Alice, she was stealthily observing Bad’s fight with a party of three.

Despite being in his werewolf form, the bipedal hunter wasn’t bouncing off the walls as he usually did. Opting for a more tank and spank approach of his own style.

Steaming red in consumption mode, the hungering wolf defended against the sparse prodding blows assaulting him.

Lasting for a tense moment before Bad exploded into a haze of steam, burning and blinding the trio. What came after was a flurry of swipes, eviscerating the fumbling group, ending the battle. Just gruesome. And now the shape-shifter has an on command steam screen.

I have half a mind to make a secluded arctic base to set him loose on.

In any case, with the battle done and corpses removed, placed in an easier to retrieve location, the room reverted back to its original state. Which, revealed the tiny nook Alice hid in as the furniture lined back up.

“Alice, I’m back!” I give her a big pat on the head. To which she uncharacteristically leaned into “Welcome, home.”

“So tell me, how did my favorite avatar do while I was away?” Man, not even a reaction. Now that’s the Alice I know. There’s no hiding the jubilance in my tone. I’m floored!

It has been a month, and man, if she’s not a sight for sore eyes.

Alice’s rundown warmed my heart. She put her all into trying to better the dungeon, not alone either. Everyone did, even those flighty fae. Honestly, it is a miracle how she gets them to listen.

But yeah, warms my heart all the same.

They’ve grown while I was away. The bosses were experimenting with different abilities, testing the limits of what they could do. The usual suspects were working in differing formations, with surprising ease, like a well-oiled machine.

Alice wasn’t kidding about putting everyone through their paces. Even herself, as she explained. Working on imitating how I ran things, even to the point, she was clearing out a fourth floor.

Now that earned her a hug, that I was going to give anyways. But hot damn! No more of that tedious digging! Although, if Alice is trying to imitate me, I need to step up my game.

But there was a caveat to this, that the young Alice had yet to tell me. And that was the ghosts have seemingly settled two forward base camps in the dark caverns of the excavated floor.

And considering the history, Rose filled me in on. I would hazard these guys are the ghosts of Dutchy and Kingdom soldiers. That being the only war in recent memory.

If anything, I can’t do much even knowing this. But it’s a step in the right direction in putting them to rest once and for all. Also, yeah... the ghosts that have forcibly deigned my dungeon their battleground.

Kinda forgot about them, if I’m going to be honest. But yeah, they’re mildly concerning.

Well, I haven’t been idle. I’ve changed too, learned things. I can adapt. I can change.

Maybe, I don’t need to work against these guys. Maybe, I can find a way to work with them.

“Alice, send a message out. There’s going to be some changes coming.”