Chapter 107: A Perfectly Normal Tea Party (By Dungeon Standards)

While Evangel slowly recovered from what would come to be called the night of blood, in the dungeon, and more precisely around the luxurious table in the equally luxurious chamber, a meeting was being held about the dungeon’s future.

Eleven cups sat along the length of the table, one for each participant, desirable or otherwise.

"And that’s how it all went."

Freya had just finished her explanation for everyone present, covering everything that had happened, and above all the conclusion of Evangel’s takeover and the undesirable element, which was currently drowning in her cup.

Nobody spoke straight away.

Kaguya had sprawled across Kumoko’s cushion, her cup balanced on her stomach, and the spider didn’t look as though she’d been consulted on the matter. Naïa sat upright in her chair, both hands around her cup.

Laïa, beside her, had stacked up so much frozen mango in front of her that all you could see was the top of her head behind the mountain.

Every so often a hand came out, took a piece, and vanished again.

It was the person to Freya’s right who spoke up, one leg crossed over the other, his four wings folded behind him so as not to take up too much room.

He finished his mouthful, set the cup back on its saucer, and folded his hands on the table like a politician.

"Absolutely divine, this tea~~! Anyway. You know, from what I’ve seen and understood of how your dungeon works, I really don’t think this is such a bad thing."

His eight eyes spread themselves across the table while he spoke, each going its own way, some on the participants, two on the ceiling.

Naïa carried on.

"I agree. It will accelerate the dungeon exponentially."

Freya could only nod.

She let the moment stretch, the way she always did, letting the silence settle over everyone before she continued.

"Exactly."

She turned her head toward the fly drowning in her cup and watched it for a moment.

"We were lucky Belzebuth isn’t entirely against us, and that he’s doing this purely for entertainment. Thanks to that, he didn’t reveal the fact that I took Evangel from the shadows."

Aria, standing behind Freya, stepped forward to refill her mistress’s cup.

She poured slowly, from the right side, without letting a single drop fall on the silk tablecloth, and allowed herself a contribution to the discussion while the stream ran.

"If I may, madam. Beyond the mana, it is our entire footing in the human world that stands to benefit. A permanent influx of adventurers means permanent demand for equipment, consumables and lodging, and it is Evangel that will absorb it. Our production will find a fixed outlet rather than a market to be won, and our margins there will be whatever we decide they should be, since we hold both ends of the chain."

She finished pouring and straightened the teapot.

"We will be the producer, the distributor, and the reason the customers come at all."

Freya understood what she was getting at.

Because the pattern was this. The adventurers and everyone else who came to try the dungeon would resupply in Evangel, the city she owned in truth from the shadows. So on top of feeding the dungeon its mana, they would feed Evangel’s economy as well and make it richer.

And the dungeon, as it developed, would in turn produce the goods Evangel sold. The Mycfox potions, their enchanted weapons, and everything that came after. Which would make her Mycfox better at their craft over time, which would make the goods better, which would draw in more adventurers.

Who would then come and die in her dungeon.

And so on, forming a perfectly closed loop for Freya and her territory, where every death made her richer in mana, and every purchase made her richer outright.

"Ohhh~~ It really does sound like business is about to get very, very good~~!"

She turned her cup a quarter turn on its saucer.

"But let’s stay careful. Not everything is rosy."

The participants nodded, while Freya’s replica took a sip of her tea.

She set the cup down and continued.

"Belzebuth can decide, out of boredom, to release the information about Evangel whenever he likes. We have a sword hanging over our heads."

Kaguya pushed herself up on the cushion, spilling a little tea on Kumoko, who said nothing.

"And if that happens, what do we do?"

Freya had originally meant to go straight for the hard method.

Driven by her greed, by her skill, and by what she’d felt in the moment after Kyu’s death and the destruction of the village, she had come very close to razing everything. Then she had come back to her senses.

So she had decided to control Evangel and change it piece by piece. To make it a utopia. To make its people happy enough that greed would disappear from it on its own, breaking down the classes and restructuring the whole city, then the whole society, bit by bit.

Perhaps it was a pipe dream. But she wanted to try that method first.

It was in any case far more complicated, given her strength, than simply flattening it all and starting from zero.

So if someone or something came along and disrupted her plans and all the effort she had put in beyond what was necessary, she wouldn’t lose any more sleep over it than that.

"We forget the gentle method and go straight to the hard one. Conquer the world by force and kill everyone who stands against us without a second thought."

The atmosphere changed at once.

Rage and a suffocating killing intent poured out of both of Freya’s bodies at the same time, and the pressure came down over the entire table until the porcelain began to rattle against the wood.

"Until we find that damned insect and torture him until he begs for his own death."

Aria set down the teapot.

She came around the chair without a sound, leaned over her mistress’s shoulder, and put back into place a strand of hair that had fallen across her face.

Her fingers lingered against her temple far longer than the gesture required.

"Your tea is going to go cold, madam."

Her hand slid down along Freya’s jaw, brushed her chin, and the cup came gently back between her own fingers.

The pressure dropped from the whole table at once.

Freya blinked, came back to herself, and raised the cup to her lips.

A smile appeared on both her faces at the same time, understanding perfectly well why Aria had just done that.

Thank you, my love!

She then picked the conversation back up where she’d left it.

"On top of that, let’s not be too presumptuous about the ones who’ll come to attack the dungeon. There could be people on Aria’s level, or Kaguya’s, we really don’t know. And beyond that, we can’t use anything from outside the dungeon to defend it. Or at least, I’d rather we didn’t."

"Why?" Laïa asked.

"We could narrow the gap in strength and make the whole thing less entertaining for Belzebuth. On top of possibly losing a great deal of mana, since the dungeon can only absorb it from bodies killed by my summons or its own."

Laïa nodded, understanding, and went straight back behind her mountain.

"That’s it for the points to watch. Any questions?"

A hand went up behind the mangoes.

"Mmh!"

Then she realised her mouth was still full, closed it, chewed twice more and swallowed.

"Yes! I didn’t understand how you got Aldric to become a real hero."

It was clear in my explanation, wasn’t it?

Freya cast about for a simplified image to get it across to her as best she could, turned two or three things over, and finally landed on one.

"To keep it simple, Laïa. It’s as though the god of truth planted a seed in Aldric’s body, and through his bravery, through his actions, and through the recognition of a great many people, he made it bloom. And that allowed him to become a true hero."

"But what’s the point of that?"

Ooh, very good question, actually!

And at that thought, both Freyas turned toward Aria at once, in the same motion, which was fairly unsettling for everyone else to watch.

Aria stepped forward and set the teapot down on the sideboard behind her.

Then she brought her hands together in front of her apron, back perfectly straight, and tilted her head slightly before answering.

"Simply to perpetuate the people’s faith in those gods. Heroes are like banners for their deity, apostles. In exchange for a portion of the strength she entrusts to the hero, a portion of her law, they spread her name through the world, and through their miracles and their good deeds they deepen the faith in their god among the common folk."

Well, that explains that.

Heroes were simply walking advertisements for beings who wanted to keep their status and their title of god.

Much less heroic all of a sudden, isn’t it?

"Right! Now that I’ve explained everything and we’ve answered all the questions, I’m going to hand out the assignments. We have a great deal on our plate now!"

The participants nodded.

"First of all! Laïa and Kaguya, under Naïa’s supervision, you’ll be moving every species from the forest cradling the dungeon into Nymeria."

She paused to look at Naïa.

"Find the equivalent of their natural habitats in Nymeria and do the best you can for them, please."

Then she turned to Kaguya.

"You, make sure you listen properly and protect the girls. Also find somewhere safe from Nymeria’s monsters, sort it out properly between you. I’m counting on you."

"Good mission!"

Kaguya burst out laughing and threw her cup against the wall of the room.

The porcelain exploded. Tea ran down the tapestry and started dripping onto the floor.

Nobody moved.

Laïa’s mouth hung open, a piece of mango halfway there. Naïa turned her head very slowly toward the wall. Kumoko flattened herself out underneath her.

Freya lost her words entirely, both bodies frozen in the same expression.

Why.

Just... why would you do that?

It was Naïa who brought her back with words of her own.

"It will be done, madam."

"...Good."

Freya knew full well this would cause them stress, and that some species might even die out from being relocated.

But it was better this way than the chaos they’d be facing if they stayed here. And on top of that, it had the advantage of cutting off any possible resupply around the dungeon, since adventurers and anyone else coming here would no longer be able to feed themselves on site.

So it was better for her too, doing it this way.

"Mei and Pen-chan, you two train. You’ll be a large part of our strength, after all!"

Mei nodded vigorously, cheeks red, both hands flat on the table, unused lately to being the centre of so much attention.

Pen-chan took off and did a full circuit above the table before landing again, thoroughly pleased with his assignment as well.

Right. Next.

Her eyes fell on a Mycfox who had stayed silent since the start, at the end of the table.

He hadn’t grown a single inch, but everything about him had sharpened. His fur had darkened to an inky grey, almost liquid in the dimness. His legs had lengthened, slim and supple, ending in needle-like claws. His luminescent cap had flattened and swept back, its glow dimmed to a faint halo.

And his eyes were red now, two fixed points that didn’t blink.

This was Roku, who had evolved from Mycfox Stalker into Mycfox Devoted Stalker, rank C.

Yes, he had skipped two ranks in evolving, which had surprised Freya. But that wasn’t the strangest part. The strangest part was that evolution branch itself, and ever since she’d been wondering whether the dungeon’s summons weren’t starting to turn out as bizarre as her own.

She filed the question away for later, as she always did, and gave him his orders.

"You’ll be handling an even more intensive training regimen for the Mycfox, and managing them, please!"

Because yes, all her Mycfox had evolved to the next tier, but Roku was still the only one among them to have reached a second evolution. So with what was coming, she’d rather they all got up to his level, at the very least.

He answered with a military kyu and vanished on the spot.

She then turned her head toward Kumoko.

"For you, simply increase reproduction, if you would. Love, sex, mass breeding~~! I want a proper army, please!"

"Ewwww..." came from behind Laïa’s mountain.

The party in question, however, was anything but disgusted.

"Skrriiii~~"

The spider started dancing on the spot, front legs raised, spinning around in the middle of the room.

Kaguya, still sitting on her back, fell apart laughing and grabbed fistfuls of hair to keep from sliding off.

Freya watched them for a while, and then, seeing the spider so delighted by the idea, and having just said all that out loud, her gaze drifted over to Aria without her really deciding it.

She held the look a little too long for it to be an accident, and the message came through without the slightest ambiguity. You heard what we just said, yes?

Aria moved nothing but her eyes. They went down to the teapot once, came back up, and that meant very precisely I heard perfectly well, madam, and I am currently pouring the tea.

So Freya set her cup down a little more slowly than necessary, the smile climbing at the corner of her lips, her chin lifting by almost nothing. Then the moment we’re done with all this, you and I are taking some time for ourselves~~

To which Aria responded by pressing her legs together, briefly, to ride out the pull that had just gone through her lower stomach.

Nobody else in the room noticed.

But Freya knew before she’d even finished smiling that it wouldn’t be any time soon, because there was far too much to do before then.

"You, Aria, make our little prisoners talk~! I want to know everything!"

She nodded, bowed, and disappeared.

And so they all left for their respective tasks, leaving only four people in the luxurious room.

Freya.

Her replica.

The four-winged demon across from them, the one who had nearly destroyed Evangel.

And the drowned fly.