Chapter 88

General Pov

As the crimson circle faded, the three of them stepped out of its light into Max’s room as the magic-stone lamps along the wall flickered on one by one.

“That was a great run!” Max declared, stretching his arms above his head until his shoulders popped. “It’s not every day you get to slay a Level 7.”

“It was,” Hogni agreed, and to Max’s surprise, the dark elf was smiling. It was small, but genuine, and his voice came out steady without a single stutter. “It was hard, but we managed to survive the beast.”

“Kikikikiki!”

Kairu bounced off Max’s shoulder and onto the floor, hopping in happy circles around Max, then Ottar, then Hogni, his core glowing bright in celebration. Ottar gave a slow nod as the slime bounced past him.

Still grinning, Max crossed the room to his desk with his back to the bed. He unbuckled the knuckledusters and set them down on the wood, flexing his stiff fingers as the last of the fight finally eased out of them. Then he turned, leaned back against the desk, and looked at the two executives who held the line for him while he was lost in his own head.

Kairu’s healing closed their wounds, but the fight was still all over them. The scored armor. The dents in Ottar’s gauntlets. The dried blood crusted along Hogni’s hairline.

His grin softened. They went through hell for me.

“Thank you for helping me, guys,” he said, and bowed to them, low and without a trace of his usual humor. “I mean it. If you two weren’t there, I wouldn’t be standing here right now.”

Hogni’s breath caught. He did not know what to do with a bow from Maximus, so he simply stood there and let it settle into him, a quiet warmth spreading through his chest. When Max straightened, his eyes found Hogni’s.

“This should mostly secure your level up, Hogni.”

Hogni nodded, a determined look settling over his face. He did not trust his voice to stay steady a second time, so he let the nod speak.

Max turned to the Warlord next. “Let me know when you’re ready, Ottar. We’ll go for your level up too.”

Ottar looked down at him and began to nod.

Halfway through, he froze.

His gaze drifted past Max’s shoulder to the bed at the far side of the room, and to the figure seated against its headboard with her hands folded in her lap.

Silver hair. Silver eyes. Fixed on him.

The blood drained from the Warlord’s face. His mind went completely blank, and his hand tightened at his side.

Max didn’t notice a thing. Still grinning, he was already counting off the next steps on his fingers.

“Alright, here’s what we do. We keep this quiet for a few days,” he began. “Nobody says a word. Then we go in separately and get our updates done, one at a time, so nobody gets suspicious. After that, we farm more stats on the deeper floors. Honestly, I think the next run needs to go even deeper. The Juggernaut was fun, but if we really want to push—”

Beside Ottar, Hogni noticed the Warlord stopped moving mid-nod. Frowning, he followed Ottar’s gaze past Max’s shoulder.

Every muscle in his body locked.

Mistress.

His Mistress was sitting right there. She was there the entire time, silent and still in the dark, and she heard every single word. Hogni’s throat went dry. He tried to catch Max’s eye, widening his own and darting his gaze toward the bed, then back to Max, then to the bed again, as urgently as he dared.

Max didn’t notice that either. He was too busy mapping out the next run.

“—and if we time it around the next big event again, the floors should be empty enough that nobody catches wind of it.”

He paused, waiting for an answer, and none came. Both executives stood rigid, staring at him with strange, fixed expressions. Max took in their silence, their stillness, the grime and blood on their armor, and drew the only conclusion that made sense to him. They were exhausted. They fought that thing for so long, and here he was, rattling off plans for the next run.

Right. They need rest. We all do.

The thought reminded his own body how tired it was, and he let out a long yawn and stretched again.

“Man, I’m beat. I’m ready to sleep like a log!” he announced, glancing between the two of them with a pointed look and waiting for them to take the hint.

Neither of them moved.

At his feet, Kairu finally stopped bouncing. He turned toward the bed, and his core glowed a little brighter.

Master, Lady is here!

The slime delivered it through the bond with a cheerful little hop, with absolutely no idea what he just did.

Max froze mid-stretch.

…Lady?

His arms were still hanging in the air when he looked at Hogni. The dark elf looked like he just saw a ghost. He looked at Ottar. The Warlord of Orario, the man who tanked a Mid Level 7, was deathly pale.

Oh shit. I’m fucking screwed.

-◈ -

On the bed, Freya never took her eyes off them from the moment the circle faded.

She caught every word and every glance, every flicker of expression that crossed their faces, and what they already shared gave her plenty to work with. A Level 7, slain. Updates to be hidden from her for days. Deeper floors. The next big event, chosen because the city’s eyes would be elsewhere. And standing beside her captain, where she never expected him, was Hogni, smiling as if he just came home from a festival.

So she let them talk. Every word they spoke was one more thing she would not have to drag out of them later.

The moment Max began to turn toward the bed, Freya rose.

“Those are very good plans,” she said, her tone perfectly calm. “What else did you plan, Maximus?”

Max knew better than to open his mouth. Instead, he summoned every ounce of sincerity he had and let it show in his eyes as she crossed the room toward him. She did not hurry. Each step was slow and deliberate, and she held his gaze the entire way.

She’s way too calm. Calm is bad. Calm is so much worse than yelling.

“Do you know how long I have been waiting?”

None of them answered. They only looked at her, and when the silence dragged on long enough, she answered it herself. Her voice stayed calm, but as she spoke, her silver eyes began to bleed into lavender.

“Two hours. For two hours, I waited, wondering where my exceptional experimental squad vanished. None of you answered any of my calls, so I thought perhaps you were all drunk somewhere, wasting away after your successful dungeon experiment.”

Her gaze slid past Max and settled on the dark elf.

“And you, Hogni. What are you doing with these experts?”

Hogni’s mouth opened, but nothing came out. The steady voice from moments ago was gone, and the only thing left in his head was the certainty that he never saw his Mistress’s eyes that color before.

For Ottar, that was the last straw. He dropped to one knee and bowed his head.

“My Goddess, your servant humbly requests your mercy.”

He did not look up. He knew exactly what he did. Before Maximus talked him around, he told the boy he would not trade her happiness for a faster level up, and then he stood by him in the Dungeon anyway. There was no defense he could offer her.

Hogni followed him down a heartbeat later, dropping to his knees so fast that his scarf slipped loose.

That left Max standing alone.

It was not that he didn’t want to kneel. He knew exactly how screwed he was. But he also knew Freya, and he knew what kneeling now would look like to her.

If I kneel now, it looks like I only bow when there are consequences. Like I stand tall when it’s convenient and fold the moment it isn’t. So he kept his feet planted. I know what I did was extreme, and I’m ready for the consequences.

Worse still, the closer she came, the more clearly he could feel her emotions raging. Beneath the anger, she was surely happy to see him in one piece. He could sense that much. But the storm underneath it was far stronger than a few unanswered calls should cause.

The Falna must have done something to her, he thought, as she came to a stop in front of him. She felt it. Whatever happened to me down there, she felt it.

So Max did the best thing he could think of.

“Lady Freya,” he began, and she tilted her head up to meet his eyes. “What happened in the Dungeon was my plan, and I’m the only one responsible for it. I sincerely request that you don’t involve my friends. They only joined me out of their loyalty to you and their concern for me.”

Silence engulfed the room at his words.

To Ottar and Hogni, still kneeling, it was crippling. Neither of them dared lift their heads. It felt like being held under between two vast oceans pressing in from either side, with no surface to reach, and it went on, and on, until their goddess’s voice finally pulled them out.

“How noble of you,” Freya said, so flatly that none of them could tell what lay beneath it, and touched Max’s cheek.

Max kept his face calm. Beneath it, his mind was running in terrified circles, trying to guess what she would do next and already scrambling for ways to make this up to her. A gift? Cliche. An outing. I could totally plan a trip to Altena or just take her out in the night to watch over the worl—

Her thumb moved against his cheek, and then, as if the physical contact broke something in her, her hands began to move. They ran over his shoulders, down his arms, across his chest and his sides, patting every inch of him over the armor, searching for wounds, for anything the Dungeon might have taken from him.

Max stood still and let her. Somewhere around his ribs, he realized her hands were trembling.

Only when she found nothing did they finally stop.

Then, as if nothing happened, she lowered them and turned to the kneeling Warlord.

“Ottar. Report what happened.”

At her call, Ottar lifted his head and answered without hesitation.

“I joined Maximus in his dive, my goddess. We provoked the Dungeon deliberately, and it spawned a monstrosity. A Juggernaut.” He paused, and for a moment, remorse crossed his stoic face. Yet he did not lower his gaze, and he offered no apology. He would go again, and he would not pretend otherwise.

“Is that the Level 7?” Freya asked, without a flicker.

Ottar swallowed. “Mid Level 7.”

Freya’s eyes widened, then narrowed, and the lavender in them burned brighter.

A Mid Level 7. She knew what that meant. Not even Ottar could deal with one alone. And yet it was not the number that unsettled her. It was that cold feeling. She remembered the coldness that gripped her heart at the Denatus, the way it spread through her veins and sat in her chest while she waited. It felt too close for this. Too intimate. A Juggernaut, however strong, was a monster in the Dungeon. What she felt reached for something inside him.

Besides, Max could handle a Level 7. She knew that as surely as she knew her own name.

Then it clicked. If no Juggernaut could do this to him, then something else did.

Slowly, she looked at Max, and the question sat plainly in her eyes. Was it a mental attack?

He met her eyes, and after a moment, he gave her a slow nod.

It was all the confirmation she needed.

Ottar went on, quieter now. “We fought it for a long while, my goddess. We could not beat it.” He hesitated for a second. “When Maximus finally joined the battle, he dealt with it.”

Finally joined. Freya did not miss the word.

She did not have the full details, and neither did Ottar, she could tell. Whatever happened to Max, it happened somewhere neither of them could see, and there was only one way she would ever learn the truth.

“Lie down, Maximus,” she said. “I am updating your status.”

“My Lady,” Max said, keeping his voice low, “there’s a chance this pushes me into High-Class. If it does, it could get dangerous for everyone in this room.”

Freya shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

Her gaze was sharp and unyielding enough that Max followed her command without another word of protest. Still, he prepared for the worst. Turning to the slime, he spoke to him through the bond.

Kairu. Stay at Freya’s side. If anything goes wrong, shield her and everyone else in the room. I’ll teleport myself into the Dungeon.

At once, Kairu hopped straight to Freya’s side and planted himself there, his core glowing with fierce determination.

KAIRU WILL PROTECT LADY, MASTER!

With Kairu in place, Max began removing his armor piece by piece, setting it down beside the bed. When he was bare to the waist, he did not lie down. He sat at the very edge of the mattress instead, keeping his grimy, dungeon-stained body off her sheets as much as he could, and turned his back to her.

Freya did not care about the sheets. She looked at his back, untouched and unmarked, and at the rest of him, whole and unharmed, and for the first time since the Denatus, she let herself breathe.

Then she took out the silver needle she brought with her, knowing she would want to see for herself what happened, pricked her thumb, and let a bead of ichor fall onto his back.

On the other side of the room, the two executives still knelt, their heads bowed.

-◈ -

The Falna flared to life under her hands, its black script racing across his skin in restless lines.

Two knots of excelia burned within the storm of his soul, each so bright it hurt to look at.

Two. Two separate feats. Two chances to level up.

Freya was not surprised anymore. After the three knots she found in him last time, she expected the Falna to follow its own rules where Max was concerned. But the quality of these two was something else entirely. They outshone the last three so completely that the memory of those felt dim beside them.

As was her routine, she reached for the dimmer of the two and let it pull her in.

Heat and dust hit her first. A cavern she did not recognize, its far wall already scorched. Max stood before it with his hands raised, and rings glinted on every one of his fingers. She felt the magic surge through them all at once, and a volley of lightning tore into the stone. Then another. Then another. She counted them without meaning to. Four. Five. Six. The wall melted into ruin, and still he kept going.

On the seventh, the Dungeon screamed.

Freya felt the wail shudder through his memory, a grieving sound that set her teeth on edge. The floor cracked open, and a pale shape erupted from the rubble and leapt straight for him, claws raised.

Max raised his hand, and the shape was thrown back across the cavern as if struck by a giant's fist. There was no light. No flame. Nothing she could see at all.

Gravity, she realized, watching the monster crash into the far wall. So he developed more spells with that magic. The spell was invisible, and it was devastating.

Then the memory blipped.

One moment, Max stood facing the rising monster. The next, he was lunging toward it, and everything about him was different. A new clarity filled him, sharp and bright, and beneath, power poured through his body in a way she never felt from him before. It flooded every corner of the memory until she could barely hold on.

This must be it. Ottar's words came back to her. When Maximus finally joined the battle. This was the gap they spoke of.

Her heart throbbed hard, as if in agreement.

She moved through the rest of the knot quickly. The Juggernaut thrown from wall to wall by his fists and his gravity. Kairu's scythe carving through it again and again. And at the end, a coffin of black and violet sealing it away. Freya watched it all with growing awe, but it was not what she was looking for, and she did not linger.

She let the dimmer knot go and reached for the brighter one.

This one was different from the moment she entered it. Where the first knot was sharp and clear, this one was hazy, as though she were looking through fogged glass. She could barely make out anything at first, and she did not rush. She waited, and slowly, shapes began to settle around her.

Clouds. They stretched beneath her in every direction, golden and thick, and she hung above them with nothing to stand on. The air had a weight to it, pressing against her from every side, and it was quiet. Not the silence of an empty room. The silence of a stalking predator.

His mind, she realized. I am inside his mind.

She worked on others souls every day, yet she never reached this deep into anyone’s

Far below, past the clouds, she could sense something vast. Water, stretching out endlessly. She reached toward it, but the clouds held her where she was, and no matter how she tried, they did not part. So she stayed where she was and watched.

Then the water began to shake.

It started as ripples, so faint she almost missed them. The ripples grew into waves. The waves climbed higher, then higher still, until the entire sea below heaved as if a sun detonated beneath its surface. Light burst up from the depths, blinding even through the clouds, and a tide rose and swallowed everything in its path.

Freya could only watch.

It took a long time for the tide to recede. When it finally did, the fog around her thinned enough for her to see. Her heart leapt, as she leaned forward, straining to see.

On the clouds below her stood two figures.

One was Max, wrapped in a force so dense it smeared everything around it. Power rolled off him in waves, and she could feel it even from where she hung, the same power that flooded the dimmer knot, only here it was raw and new.

The other was fighting him.

For one moment, the haze cleared completely, and she saw it.

Freya’s breath caught.

It was a mountain of flesh. Its bruise-violet hide glistened, pocked and swollen all over, as if its skin were boiling from within. Where a face should have been, a maw split it open from crown to chest, lined with rows of needle fangs, and from the dark of its throat, a fleshy tongue curled out and writhed in the air. Clusters of black eyes sat buried in its flesh, every one of them fixed on Max. Tentacles thrashed out from its body in every direction, and dark blood sprayed from the wounds across its head, dripping from its bulk in streams.

Freya could not move.

A thick cord ran from the monster's body as if feeding it. She followed it with her eyes, expecting it to end somewhere behind the creature. It did not. It ran up and away from the fight, and past her.

Past her.

Slowly, Freya turned.

Behind her, deep in the darkness, something loomed. A vast shadow, its shape too faint to make out, tentacles of its own stirring at its edges. The cord ran straight into it.

Even through the memory, she could feel the primordial hunger, ancient and bottomless pour off it. And beneath the hunger, a desire for Max, so fixed and so singular that it made her skin crawl.

Her heart skipped a beat.

She did not need anyone to tell her what she was looking at.

The Dungeon.

And suddenly, the pieces fell into place one after another. She remembered the day Max first walked out of the Dungeon while she waited at the fountain plaza, and the resonance with the Dungeon that his Falna showed her from his very first update. A Devil walking into the Dungeon. She always suspected something passed between the two of them back then. Now she knew the Dungeon never let go. Tonight, it reached all the way inside him, into his mind, into this very place, and the monster fighting Max was its hand.

And the coldness that seized her heart in the middle of the Denatus, the cold that sat in her chest while she waited in his room, was this.

You, she thought, staring into the dark. All night, that cold was you.

Shaken, she looked down again, past the clouds, at the water still rocking in the wake of the tide.

That is his sea of consciousness, she realized. Where his soul resides.

Freya’s hands tightened. She could not imagine what that felt like for him, to have something that vast and that hungry forcing its way into the deepest part of him.

And yet, there he stood, whole, and fighting back.

Joy rushed through her so suddenly that her chest ached. Outside the memory, without her noticing, her hand slid up from his back to rest against his cheek, her thumb brushing slowly along his skin.

She continued to watch the fight. She watched Max drive the monster back, power rolling off him in wave after wave, and as she watched, everything that happened in the Dungeon finally made sense. The gap in his memory. Ottar’s finally joined. The unanswered calls. None of it was carelessness. Max did not choose to leave his companions fighting alone. He was dragged into this place and forced to fight for his soul.

None of this was his fault. For two hours, she sat in his room sharpening her anger for this moment, and now, watching him, she could not find a trace of that anger.

But that doesn’t mean I will let him slip away that easily. She decided.

Below her, the fight reached its end. Gravity closed around the monster from every side, and its body began to fold in on itself, tentacles crushing against its own bulk, its eyes sealing shut one by one. The cord tore free and snapped back into the darkness behind her, and the monster was crushed to nothing.

The abomination was gone, and Freya finally understood why the gnawing in her chest stopped while she sat in his room.

Her shoulders sagged with relief, and she began to withdraw from the knot.

“Master!”

The voice stopped her. She never heard that voice before. It was small and bright and frantic, ringing across the clouds.

She looked down. A slime half the size of Babel was bouncing across the wreckage toward Max, as nimble as his compact form, and Max, standing in the middle of all that ruin, laughed.

Freya found herself smiling in return.

Kairu can finally speak.

With that, the Falna pulled her out, and Freya found herself back in Max’s room, sitting behind him with her hand still on his cheek. Across the room, the two executives knelt exactly where she left them. For a moment, she only breathed, until the clouds and that hungry shadow faded from her mind.

Then, before she could lose her nerve, she turned to the part she kept putting off. His stats.

They settled beneath her sight one by one. Three of them climbed so far that they left the other two behind. A week ago, numbers like these would have delighted her. Now she knew what they cost him. The Dungeon’s hunger. Its attempt to take him. His sea heaving under that tide. Every point on his sheet was paid for down there, and the longer she looked at the numbers, the more they terrified her.

The surprises did not stop there. Beneath his stats, two more entries waited, two additions that were not there before, and her hand trembled against his cheek.

She centered herself at once. Max could not see her face from where he sat, but she knew he could feel her far more than she liked, and at her side, the slime was watching her with his entire body. Neither of them would get so much as a hint of what she saw.

So she did not translate a single number. She left his status unprocessed, and sealed the Falna. As she is yet to decide his punishment.

Drawing her hand back from his cheek, she turned to the slime. “Kairu. Come.”

On the edge of the bed, Max frowned.

Something was wrong. He braced himself for the surge that always followed an update, the rush of new strength settling into his body, but the surge never came. Freya did not ask him which Developmental Abilities he wanted either. She did not ask him anything at all.

Uh-oh.

Cautiously, he looked back over his shoulder, only to find Freya looking right at him, one eyebrow raised. Max turned back around at once.

Nope. Not asking. Absolutely not asking.

Ignorant of his master’s predicament, Kairu hopped in front of Freya and flattened himself out on the bed, ready and eager. Freya pricked her thumb again and pressed a bead of ichor to his back, and the slime’s Falna flared to life under her hands.

This time, the slime surprised her.

She expected growth. After Max’s memory, she knew Kairu fought beside him the entire time. But the excelia swelling beneath her hands was far more than she expected, more than enough for a level up, and curious, she dove into the slime’s memories.

His side of events was different from Max’s. There were runs of his own, the slime bouncing alone from floor to floor, copies of himself splitting away again and again, and a moment where he spread across Max’s body and hardened into armor, taking the blows meant for his master.

Then Max appeared in the slime’s memory, and Freya’s hands went still.

He stood frozen in the middle of the cavern, his face stuck mid-sentence and his eyes open and blank, without a trace of life in them. If she did not know better, she would have taken him for a sculpture.

Never again, she thought. I never want to see you like that again.

Through Kairu’s senses, she felt the slime’s panic. He pressed against his master and called to him through the bond, over and over. He poured his magic into him and tried every way he knew to wake him, but the door on the other side of the bond stayed shut. So Kairu stopped trying to wake him and started guarding him instead, and every time the Dungeon’s monster came for Max, the slime met the monster head on.

And he did not stop at Max. He split off duplicates and sent them across the cavern to Ottar and Hogni, where they spread over the executives’ armor and took blows for them too. When her warriors began to falter, the clones glowed a vivid blue, and Freya watched their wounds close under that glow. Later, when the fight turned against them, an even deeper blue poured out of the clones and into her executives, and they rose with a strength she never saw from either of them.

The last thing the Falna showed her was Kairu going to meet Max in his mind. Freya stopped there. She already knew what followed.

As she withdrew, she found herself marveling at the little slime flattened beneath her hands. Wherever he was needed, Kairu was there. He was armor for his master, a shield and a healer for her executives, and the source of the blue light that carried them through their final stand. And once Max woke, the slime joined him in batting a Level 7 around like a game. She never saw a single member of hers be so many things in one battle.

Then she turned to his numbers, and they were higher than she ever imagined for him. A smile tugged at her lips. After everything she just watched him do, he earned every point.

-◈ -

Status:

Kairu

Freya Familia

Demon Slime – Familiar

Level: 5*

[Notice: Level Up available.]

Stats:

Strength: I0 - EX4213

Endurance: I0 - EX4967

Dexterity: I0 - EX4451

Agility: I0 - EX4134

Magic: I0 - EX4917

Innate Traits:

• Storage

• Size Manipulation

• Assimilation

• Rapid Regeneration

• Amorphous Body

Magic:

Ars Magna (Medium)

Skills:

Magic Resistance

Familiar Bond II

Aqua Vitae II

Developmental Abilities:

Devourer - F

Mystery - F

Protection - F

Duplication - H

-◈ -

Her gaze moved down the sheet to his skills. Familiar Bond and Aqua Vitae both grew to their second stage, and she understood why at once. The two of them fought side by side through everything, in the cavern and in his mind, and a bond like theirs could only deepen after a night like this one. That was why Kairu could finally speak to him.

His Developmental Abilities surprised her further. Protection grew, which she expected, but Mystery and Devourer grew right alongside Protection, and she could not say why. She searched his excelia for a reason and found nothing clear, but she welcomed the change all the same.

“Kairu,” she said. “You have four new Developmental Abilities to choose from.”

She slid the sheet across the bed so he could see his options for himself.

-◈ -

Developmental Abilities:

Mage – Allows the user to access a magic circle which improves their magic's power, widens its effect range, and makes Mind usage efficient.

Strong Defense – Boosts the user's endurance proportionally depending on the damage taken, mitigating kinetic impact.

Corrupted – Negates the effect of mental corruption on the host.

Spirit Healing – Automatic mind regeneration. Begins regenerating mind at a small rate after magic use.

-◈ -

Kairu leaned over the parchment, wobbled in place, and then turned toward his master.

Master, which one does Master think is best?

A smirk tugged at Max’s lips where Freya could not see. Heh. Secret slime telepathy. That’s going to come in handy.

What do you think, buddy?

Mage sounds useless, like always, Kairu answered promptly. Spirit Healing sounds boring. But Strong Defense sounds cool!

Max watched his familiar weigh his options, glowing with new strength, and felt the lack of his own all the more. He glanced down at his bare arms. Nothing. No surge, no rush, not a single point he could feel. He let out a small sigh through the bond.

Looks like Freya’s going to hold back my update.

Kairu went still. Is it true, Master? Then the slime puffed up, his core flaring bright with indignation. THEN KAIRU WILL ASK LADY TO UPDATE MASTER’S FIRST!

He gathered himself to spring at Freya, clearly ready to give her a piece of his mind, and Max’s hand shot out and caught him mid-launch.

I think it’s justified, Kairu, Max told him, patting the top of his head until the slime slowly deflated beneath his palm. I kind of earned this one. So leave it be. Now, pick the one you think is best for you.

Hmmm. Kairu wobbled thoughtfully, turning the options over. Kairu doesn’t need defense, because Kairu is very strong. Kairu doesn’t need Spirit Healing either. Kairu eats lots of stones, so Kairu never runs out of magic. And Kairu doesn’t like this Corrupted. It tastes weird. He bounced once. So Kairu will pick Mage! Then Kairu’s magic will be as strong as Master’s!

He bounced again, so excited his whole body rippled.

Max bit back a laugh. Not even a minute ago, Mage was useless. Now, the moment it meant matching his master, Mage was the best choice on the sheet. The irony, he thought fondly, and nodded along. Go ahead, buddy.

Freya watched all of it from behind them. She could not hear a single word, but she did not need to. The slime turned to his master before answering her, and that told her exactly who was making the decision.

So she reached over his shoulder and pinched Max’s cheek.

“Ouch!” He twisted around to find Freya lowering her hand, her expression stern.

“Stop intruding on his decision,” she warned.

Max stared at her, perplexed. How? There’s no way she heard any of that. Still, one look at her face told him that arguing would only earn him another pinch, so he kept quiet and rubbed his cheek.

Beside him, Kairu bounced forward and tapped a pseudopod against Mage.

Freya processed the update without a word. When she finished, she held up the new sheet for Kairu to see. Level 6, and a new line at the bottom: Mage – I. The slime glowed so brightly that the whole room lit up around him.

MASTER! KAIRU IS LEVEL 6!

Then, rather than handing him the sheet, Freya kept the parchment and sealed his Falna.

With Kairu done, Max rose from the edge of the bed without being asked and stepped aside, expecting Ottar to be called in next.

Instead, Freya set Kairu’s parchment aside and turned to the far side of the room, where her two executives still knelt.

“Ottar. Hogni. Be at ease.” When both of them lifted their heads, she went on, her voice no warmer than before. “Go and wait for me in my chamber. I will update your statuses there.”

Ottar and Hogni rose without a word. On his way past the desk, Hogni’s gaze flicked to Max for a heartbeat, and Max answered with the faintest nod.

Then the dark elf slipped out, Ottar followed, and the Warlord closed the door behind them.

--> Devil in a Dungeon <--

AN:

A set up chapter for the next one, mainly with Freya finding the reasons for the coldness she felt and seeing Max's mindscape. We also see Kairu's status sheet and he got lots of progress.

I know this chapter doesn't have the juicy part you were expecting, but the chapter was split in two as the mood for the 2 of them is different. So the next part will be updated tomorrow.

In the meantime, what do you think Freya would punish him with? Or would she simply not bother as she had enough of him??

The next chapter will be the discussion between Max and Freya, then we move to the Cultural Milestone... ;)

With this chapter, we entered Arc 7: War of the Fallen.

Do share how you felt the chapter was. Was it good or did you feel it was a bit forced? Please share your feedback/suggestions on how to improve the story in a comment/review.

If you'd like to read 13 chapters ahead(around 55k words), support my work, check character images for free, read a free chapter(Ch 51.5), or commission a story idea, visit my p.a.t.r.e.o.n.c.o.m/b3smash

Please note that the chapters are early access only, they will be eventually released here as well.

Next update will be on Saturday.

Ben, Out.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything.