Fenrir

I walk through the city streets, ignoring the looks sent my way by all of the outsiders as I head towards the City Hall. The sun – something I could never see before I had an avatar – is high in the sky marking it as around noon, meanwhile the people are all busy running around handling their own businesses.

Over the last few days, I’ve spent some time looking over the city and watching how they do things. And in all honesty, I don’t like their way of life. It’s just too complicated. Much easier to go about doing whatever I want with my dungeon as long as I don’t make it too difficult.

These people on the other hand are all going about bartering coins for other coins, metals for coins, and manual labor for coins. Just a lot of coins in general.

I can’t understand why these people are so obsessed with the currency. But then again, I don’t exactly use it myself.

Actually, I kind of give it out for free. If a reward for not dying can be considered free.

Overall, I don’t like the outsiders much. Particularly now that I understand them better.

They also do a lot of things too inefficiently. Like building stuff by hand instead of by mana.

As I understand it though, they don’t have much choice in that. Because not everyone has the ability to use magic.

Which is something else I’ve learned over the last few days.

I’d kind of just assumed everyone could learn magic if they tried, but that’s apparently not the case. They have different affinities for magic, and they have to have a set minimum level affinity to be able to actually use it. Magic skills not included.

Because the System kind of just cheats at things.

I almost pause as I feel a gaze on me. One that is for some reason greedy when I look over to find a man with pitch black wings and eyes staring at me. But only seconds later, the man vanishes after lightly nodding his head.

Hmm. Odd.

Don’t think I’ve seen something like that before, and he left before I could identify him.

I’ll have to ask Dawn about it later.

I continue walking until I reach the City Hall, finding everyone in it clearing to the sides of the building as I squeeze my way through the double doors that make up its entrance.

“Right this way, Esteemed Fenrir,” a woman who I don’t recognize standing at the center of the room the people here call a lobby declares while motioning towards a staircase closer to the end of the room. So I nod my head slightly and begin walking through the completely silent lobby towards the stairs.

I really don’t like going above ground like this. The stares are annoying.

We walk up the stairs, each one of them creaking with my footsteps as I briefly wish I didn’t have to go through this annoying posturing they have me doing strictly so they don’t have their city lord looking inferior to me. But then again, I’m not the one repairing their stairs when they’re destroyed-

A step cracks inwards at that thought, but I just ignore it and continue climbing the stairs.

Yeah, I’m not the one repairing that every time it happens. Which isn’t very often.

It’s only the second time he’s asked for me formally like this after all.

The ground of the second floor hallway is fine though. Apparently they just haven’t reinforced the stairs yet but have reinforced the rest of the building’s floors. Something about a budget, whatever that is. And that it’s generally not a problem since they normally don’t have large creatures like me walking around.

We continue walking through the hall until we arrive at a wide set of double doors. One large enough to fit me.

The woman knocks on the doors before opening them and motioning for me to go inside as she says, “Esteemed Fenrir, right this way.”

So I walk through the doors to find myself in some sort of large room with a fountain in the center, Leon at the back, the annoying Princess beside him, and another man who’s cultivation is that of an Emperor next to her. And in addition to them, there’s also a Dwarf, an Orc how is at the Lord Tier, and a Human at the King Tier.

A rather broad set of people.

“Esteemed Dungeon Core Fenrir, we welcome you to this conference,” the Hybrid says as he steps forward with his arms open wide while looking up at me after I step closer to the group. Although just the proximity to the powerful cultivators is making me more than a little nervous.

Not as nervous as it would make me if they were in my dungeon near my core though.

Ignoring that the Princess has, in fact, been near my core before quite a few times. A Princess who is currently waving at me, the woman having become a lot friendlier to me over time to the point of being too friendly.

“Why am I here?” I ask rather bluntly, making Leon wince a little. Meanwhile the Princess just smirks and the other people here don’t look very surprised either, likely used to talking with Dungeon Cores that aren’t me by now considering their age. After all, they have to have met at least one before. And I don’t particularly care about politics.

Leon puts on a tense smile as he says, “We would like to discuss with you a business proposition.”

“Business?” I ask before narrowing my eyes slightly. “Why would I care about business with outsiders?”

He winces again, and this time the Princess steps up to help him out as she says, “Oh, you’ll want to do this. Let’s just say that it includes a nice void energy orb profit for you.”

I blink at that, my face going blank.

Then I nod my head and answer, “I’m listening.”