Chapter 250: Prosperous Depths

The Undercity’s latest income report did not contain a mystery.

Every dungeon coin, entrance payment, business fee, and share of instance revenue had entered the core’s records as it was earned. Max could follow the money from the moment an adventurer spent it until Hizon reinvested or stored his portion.

The surprise came from the total.

None of Hizon’s businesses rivaled Sanctuary’s entire economy. Together, they had turned the Undercity from a useful collection of services into a prosperous district with enough income to support its inhabitants and finance steady expansion.

Max showed the report to Anna and Quin.

"The joint instance is only the fourth-largest source." Quin said.

"Hizon stopped depending on one attraction." Max replied.

The largest source was equipment repair. Food and lodging followed. The Ant Hill and the joint instance produced substantial income, but adventurers spent almost as much preparing for runs and recovering afterward as they spent entering them.

Max went to see how the change looked outside a report.

The route into the Undercity had once carried adventurers past rough stalls and buildings opened before anyone knew how much traffic would arrive. The same street now held fitted stone fronts, covered signs, drainage channels, and lamps maintained by the businesses that benefited from them.

Nothing matched Sanctuary’s scale or variety. The Undercity remained a district built around goblin and hobgoblin needs, dungeon traffic, and access to Hizon’s attractions. Prosperity had made it stable rather than enormous.

Hizon met Max near the market entrance. He wore the same practical armor he used when inspecting the Goblin Depths, but two clerks followed him with tablets containing appointments and supply requests.

"Your report brought you below." Hizon said.

"The report says you are doing well. I wanted to see what doing well changed." Max replied.

Hizon began with the repair houses.

Goblin metalworkers handled ordinary damage to armor and tools. Dwarven specialists rented workspaces for repairs requiring techniques the goblins had not mastered. A leather shop produced replacement straps sized for equipment used across the first four levels. None of the businesses promised magical restoration or repairs beyond the skill of the workers.

Adventurers used the shops because they could leave damaged equipment before entering the Ant Hill and collect it afterward. Hizon charged rent rather than owning every business himself.

"You could earn more by controlling the repair houses." Max said.

"For a short time." Hizon replied. "Then every mistake would become mine, every worker would wait for my orders, and no one would build a competing shop."

The answer resembled Max’s conclusion about Sanctuary. Authority could make him responsible for every service if he allowed it.

They continued toward a square built around four food stalls. Goblins ate beside adventurers, although the meals sold to each group differed. The goblin dishes used ingredients grown in the Goblin Depths. The adventurer stalls purchased supplies through Sanctuary merchants and paid for storage below.

One business sold sealed meal packs for parties entering the Ant Hill. Another bought unopened packs back at a reduced price and resold them after inspection. Hizon collected a small fee from each transaction without choosing what anyone ate.

The lodging houses had grown for a different reason. Parties wanted to remain near the instances when testing new plans. Merchants wanted rooms near their stock. Goblins from deeper settlements came to the market for several days at a time.

Hizon had purchased the first lodging house. Three privately operated houses now competed with it.

"Your original house still makes the most." Max said.

"It has the best location."

"You assigned the locations."

"Before the others decided to build." Hizon said. "They knew where my house stood."

Max found no complaint in the core records. The other operators had selected cheaper ground farther from the instance entrances and attracted customers through lower prices or larger rooms.

The market’s growth had also produced problems.

Waste removal cost more than Hizon expected. Traffic crowded the main route whenever an Ant Hill group exited at the same time as a joint-instance party. Goblin residents objected when adventurers treated every nearby building as part of an attraction.

Hizon addressed each problem through fees, signs, and assigned routes rather than asking Max to reshape the Undercity. The changes were ordinary construction. Goblins widened one street with tools and labor. Businesses funded collection carts. Guards directed visitors away from residential passages.

The carts were vehicles pulled by goblins, not creatures owned by the dungeon. Their wheels needed repair like any other equipment.

A disagreement outside a storage house showed Max another consequence of growth. A goblin porter and a human supplier stood with one of Hizon’s clerks, each holding a different copy of the same delivery agreement. The supplier had promised twelve sealed crates. The porter had accepted eleven after finding water damage on the last one. The supplier wanted payment for transporting all twelve.

Hizon did not settle the amount himself.

The clerk compared the copies, checked the receiving mark, and applied a rule written into every market delivery contract. Transport fees covered cargo that reached the inspection point. Purchase fees covered only accepted goods. The supplier received the first payment and lost the second.

"You could have decided the same thing in a sentence." Max said after they moved on.

"Then they would bring me the next crate." Hizon replied.

The clerks mattered for more than convenience. Hizon had trained people to use authority without borrowing all of his authority. Their decisions could be appealed, but ordinary disputes no longer stopped whatever else he was doing.

One clerk was a goblin who had once tracked supplies for a raiding band. The other had begun as a Sanctuary registration worker. Hizon had hired both because they noticed different kinds of dishonesty.

"The goblin checks whether the goods exist." Hizon said. "The human checks whether the agreement means what everyone claims."

"Which one checks your agreements?"

"Both."

They passed a training yard behind the repair houses. Apprentices practiced fitting armor plates to wooden frames while an experienced smith inspected their work. Hizon subsidized the training on the condition that graduates worked in the Undercity for a fixed period or repaid part of the cost.

Max reviewed the terms through the core. The period was reasonable, repayment stopped once the agreed service ended, and no apprentice could be prevented from leaving.

"You are paying to train workers who may eventually open shops against yours." Max said.

"I need skilled workers more than I need every repair fee." Hizon replied.

The answer explained the Undercity’s prosperity better than the total in the report. Hizon had stopped treating every coin earned by someone else as a coin denied to him.

Max and Hizon stopped outside the Ant Hill.

Groups entered separate copies of the instance without waiting for another party to finish. A board displayed recommended preparation and the party-specific cooldown for groups that had recently completed it. The cooldown did not prevent anyone else from entering a fresh copy.

The Ant Hill remained Hizon’s most visible attraction, but the district no longer collapsed financially when its traffic slowed.

"How much of the current reserve is already committed?" Max asked.

Hizon opened the figures. A portion belonged to maintenance. Another financed replacement creatures and future instance changes. A third supported expansion of the market street. The remaining reserve could respond to damage or an unexpected loss without halting every project.

"You kept more available than Nethren did." Max said.

"Nethren was rebuilding from nothing. I already had businesses capable of earning tomorrow."

They entered the administrative chamber above the instance routes. The control displays showed traffic, payments, repairs, and complaints. Hizon did not need to watch each adventurer. Clerks handled ordinary decisions, and only matters affecting dungeon authority reached him.

Max understood why the income had grown. Hizon had not discovered one perfect business. He had built a place where other people could earn money, spend it, and create reasons to return.

The Undercity paid Max’s required share automatically. Hizon’s records matched the core because both came from the same system. Their meeting concerned growth, not suspicion.

Hizon opened a separate report.

"Prosperity increased the cost of failure."

The Undercity now contained homes, inventory, and livelihoods that had not existed when Hizon first accepted control. An attack or badly designed expansion could damage more than an instance entrance.

"Are your defenses keeping pace?" Max asked.

"The Goblin Depths can protect the routes. The market itself depends on Sanctuary’s prohibition against violence."

No one could draw a weapon or attack another person in the district’s public areas. Defense against visitors remained unnecessary until Sanctuary entered defense mode or an outside force bypassed its normal rules.

Hizon had evacuation routes for that possibility. Goblin residents could withdraw into defended sections while adventurers were directed toward Sanctuary or the level entrances.

Max approved the separation. Turning every prosperous street into a fortress would make the Undercity harder to live in without stopping a serious invasion.

Hizon closed the report and produced Nethren’s cavern plan.

"The joint instance has earned enough for him to begin. He wants you to see the Crowncap Guard before the permanent cavern develops around it."

Nethren did not require Max to design the level. His territory and eternal soul still existed under Max’s wider dungeon authority, making an inspection reasonable before construction became difficult to change.

Max agreed to return the following day.

On the way back to Sanctuary, he passed repair shops still working, lodging houses changing rooms for new guests, and goblin merchants negotiating supply prices without waiting for Hizon.